… to the New/Improved …
Toon In! … to the World of Animation!
We’ve been on a little hiatus from putting up more interviews, as some of you have complained, but we’ve nonetheless been quite busy on other site matters, interviewing more animation luminaries and responding to many of your thoughtful comments. Your praise and criticism has helped us improve things … thanks, we still have much we want to do. But, it’s gratifying that so many of you have taken the time to make on-site comments, and off-site contacts. Your thoughts are valued, and we especially enjoyed all the additional educators and students who responded to the “New Animation Course” blog.
We’ve recently begun to attract potential sponsors, and if we can bring a few of them on board, we won’t need to rely as much on outside jobs to pay for the site, and can spend more time on it, all part of the mix of tasks we’re performing to improve the site. One thing that’s driving our traffic up is the fact that we’re getting more and more glowing reviews. The latest one was posted yesterday by ASIFA-San Francisco’s blog site, Cable CarToon. If you decide not to click the link (do it, it’s great), at least you can see their clever logo, up there on the right, designed by Joe Sikoryak, Episode #38.
But, you come here to hear our roster of interviews, at least that’s what we’re hearing from you, so we’ve been sifting through something like fifty or so completed interviews, and I think we’ve come up with a nice variety for our next batch; Pete Docter, Michael Giaimo, Mel Leven, Bill Melendez, Rúben Procopio, Andrew Stanton, Nick Sung, Emru Townsend, Mark Walsh, and Steve Worth, a good cross-section of experts, which we hope to have up in a week or so. We also hope to interview another dozen or so new people in the next few weeks to add to our backed up backlog. If we have our way, we should have about 75 up altogether by the end of July. So, stay Tooned, and if you’ve yet to chime in, let us know what, or who, you want to see in Toon In! … to the World of Animation.
We’re back down from San Francisco, and taking a short hiatus from putting up more interviews. Thanks for your comments. We plan to have another couple dozen interviews up before the end of the month, if all goes well.
We’ve noticed that a large percentage of you visitors seem to be animation students, or former students, who have studied under some of the animation professionals in our podcast series …
Jules Engel, CalArts, California
Kaj Pindal, Sheridan College, Canada
Yossi Abolafia, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Israel
Sam Clayberger, Chouinards Art Institute, California
Cathy Karol, Santa Monica College, California
Karl Cohen, San Francisco State, California
Maureen Furniss, CalArts, California
And, there are more to come, including Dan McLaughlin who ran the Animation Department at UCLA for decades, and Oscar winning, John Canemaker who is still teaching at NYU.
However, the photo at the right has nothing to do with anything said, so far. It is the library at Marylhurst University, founded in 1893. The historic campus is near the West Linn, Oregon, home of Jack Heiter, a recent internet “buddy” of mine. We’ve linked up because of our UPA connections.
Jack mentioned recently that he met Dennis Nyback, a professor in the animation department at Marylhurst, who’s about to start a new course this summer called, “Social History Through Animation”. I knew that animation schools had mushroomed since my college days back in the 60’s, when I could count them on one hand. But, I had no idea they were becoming so specialized … drawing, animation, story, new technology … but, social history through animation? I wonder what’s next … The Development of Nano-Technology in Animation Inbetweens? Remember, you read it here first.
Five more Episodes were added yesterday. Michael Sporn, one of the leading animation filmmakers in New York, Derek Lamb, who headed the National Film Board of Canada in the 70s and 80s, Andy Beall, a lead fix animator at Pixar Animation, Yossi Abolafia, an Israeli animator, animation professor, and children’s book illustrator, and Frank Mouris, famed collage animator, seen on the right, in front of his eclectic home in Upstate New York, just after an interview with me. My daughter, Sylvie Bosustow, took the picture. Mouris, Lamb, and Sporn, are from our interviews for the UPA documentary.
Also, yesterday, Toon In! … to the World of Animation got yet another plug for our podcast series, this latest one from the Wanna Buy a Duck site, featuring the early comic, Joe Penner, and of course, they pitched Mark Kausler’s Episode #2, which talks about Penner, and Kausler’s Episode #8, which also plays one of Joe Penner’s historic songs.
As we write this, we’re up in San Francisco, doing a couple more interviews, but we’ll be back in Los Angeles in a few days to do more interviews down there, and meet with a few interested sponsors. So, bear with us for a week or so, and then we’ll get back to putting more Episodes up. We hope to have another couple dozen episodes up by the end of June.
Thanks for you comments. It’s very encouraging.
Yossi Abolafia (interviewed September 2007) coincidentally turns out to be a perfect transition from Andy Beall. Abolafia has been an animator for many years before turning to writing and illustrating children’s books and print cartoons (see example down below on the right). Abolafia has illustrated about 140 children’s books, and about a dozen of them he also wrote. We met Abolafia at the 2007 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where I presented four UPA programs. He came up after one of the programs, and before I knew it I was interviewing him for the podcast.
The most fascinating part of Abolafia’s story, to me, was growing up in Israel and being among only a few people animating there. Israeli television didn’t begin until 1968, and Abolafia was hired as a cartoonist and graphic designer, and that is where he began to experiment in animation for the first time. As he says he could do just about anything and people would be happy, because there was nothing to compare it with. He even animated weather reports. Abolafia was one of the founders to the animation program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, in fact that is why he was in Ottawa, to except an award on behalf of the unique animation program there.
As it turns out, Abolafia is no stranger to Ottawa, he came to the NFB and worked under Derek Lamb on a number of animation projects, including Canada Vignettes: News Canada, Friends of the Family, Ottawa 82 Logo, The Hottest Show on Earth, and What the Hell’s Going on up There? Abolafia says he learned much from his experience up there, but I’m certain he brought a lot to them as well. One of the great things about the Film Board is that they are constantly reaching out to animators around the world, learning form them and giving as well, to spreading the art of animation around the world. Another interview coming up is with a Brazilian animator, who just may have begun that trend.
Back in Israel, however, Abolafia’s passions began to shift to bringing up new animators through the animation program he’d developed and illustration children’s books. It’s fascinating to me to see how different people find their niche in life, with animation itself merely being a means to an end. Abolafia even speaks about animation influencing his illustrations, and yet how the approach to a book differs from his approach to an animated film. I think you’ll find Yossi Abolafia, thoughtful and interesting, with an exotic other-side-of-the-world view, and yet at the same time being just one more little niche in the world-wide animation family.
This episode is sponsored by The UPA Legacy Project
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