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.

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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.

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This episode is sponsored by The UPA Legacy Project

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Andy Beall (interviewed April 2008) I thought was just out of high school, when I first met him, but he’s in his 30s, married with two children.  Apparently I’m not alone in my initial reaction.  But, once he starts talking you realize he has a wealth of experience.  I met Beall after a UPA program that I presented at Pixar, arranged by Mark Walsh, who will be put up here in another week or so.  In every interview there always seems to be one item that knocks me off my feet, and with Beall, it’s the fact that he may have set a Guinness World record for beginning animation at the earliest age … 3 years old.  I think you’ll find the story as delightful as I did.

Beall also tells the story of how he began in hand-drawn animation and slowly made the transition to computer animation.   Although many animators have made this transition, few express it as clearly as Beall, as well as pointing out what he likes best in each medium.  This was another interview that went long, so I’m thinking that some day we should put up the full interviews.  But, for now, until our UPA documentary is finished, it gives us a chance to remove the UPA references.

Beall was Fix Animation Lead on Ratatouille and Wall*E, and has worked at Pixar since The Incredibles.  He worked on a number of hand-drawn features, such as Space Jam, but the turning point while he was working on The Iron Giant with Brad Bird.  Not only did he get a chance to work on a film that utilized some computer animation, and become quite intrigued with it, but also he thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with Bird.  So, even though he had no experience in 3D animation, when the call came to come up to Pixar for the Incredibles, he jumped at the chance.  The third compelling reason is he wanted to bring his family up the bay area.  But, the transition to 3D, as you will hear, was not an easy one at first.

Beall ends our interview with his new venture, writing and illustrating children’s books.  He’s begun his first, and we wanted to put one of his book illustrations up here, but he feels they aren’t quite ready, but hopefully, by the time we get the Gallery up and running, and the Flip Board updated, Beall will have a couple of illustrations to add to it.  But, for now he’s very happy with his work on Wall*E, so that’s what you see on the right.

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This episode is sponsored by The UPA Legacy Project

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Derek Lamb (interviewed September 2005) was the head of the National Film Board of Canada during a creative surge from the mid-70s to mid-80s.  If you listened to our interview with Kaj Pindal, you already know a bit about Lamb.  However, most of you, I’m sure, if you don’t know Derek Lamb, certainly know the National Film Board of Canada, in my opinion, the longest, most consistent, run of top flight animation using almost every technique imaginable, and usually for the first time.  But this interview with Derek Lamb was conducted several years before the one with Pindal.  It happened at the lovely home of his longtime friend, Dal LaMagna, in Poulsbo, Washington State.  We did the interview on the back veranda, looking out over the Puget Sound.  Every now and then you’ll hear our tea cups clinking, and Dal asks an excellent question toward the end of the interview.  It was difficult to cut out as much UPA references, as we usually like to do, since Lamb intertwined UPA into much of what he talked about.  But, there is still plenty of meaty stuff in here, and he has some wonderful observation about animation in general, and NFB people in particualr, plus a rather surprising comment on the future of commuter animation.

Derek Lamb was born in England, and began his career in London, but he is most remembered for his guiding influence during his yeas as the Executive Producer of the National Film Board of Canada’s English Animation Studio.  He’s a multi-award wining filmmaker and producer, producing the Oscar-winner “Special Delivery”, directed by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay, plus, he produced and scripted Eugene Fedorenko’s “Every Child”. In 1983, Derek and former wife, animator Janet Perlman, formed an independent production company. Lamb and Fedorenko collaborated on the first animation sequences for an IMAX film, “Skyward”, first presented at Expo ‘85 in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.  With Fedorenko and Perlman, Lamb created the animated title sequence for the PBS series Mystery!, based on the art of Edward Gorey. 

Other great Derek Lamb films include, The Great Toy Robbery, a frame of which is seen on the right, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, talked about by both Lamb and Pindal, and History of Communications, a typical dry subject, supplied by the Canadian government, which Lamb and his NFB crew, turn into a delightful and creative animation masterpiece.  I hope you find Derek Lamb as gracious and insightful as I did, a true giant in the industry.

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This episode is sponsored by The UPA Legacy Project