Hope some of you made it to the Ollie Johnston Life Celebration, at the El Capitan on Hollywood Boulevard earlier this week.  Little did I know when I announced Mark Kirkland’s slide show, that it would be just one part of a four-hour program, which included about two dozen fascinating participants.  Leonard Maltin did a terrific job as moderator, one of many who knew and loved Ollie personally.  There’s a terrific chapter in his Movie Crazy book about the Ink & Paint process in the early Disney days, via an interview with Betty Kimball (Ward’s wife) and Marie Johnston (Ollie’s wife).  Marie was remembered often that evening, along with Ollie.

Ollie was a many facetted fellow, as evidenced by the array of experts who came out on stage.  There were those who worked with him at Disney’s, or were quietly, but thoughtfully, mentored by him, or shared his interest in backyard trains, or were part of family and close friends.  Plus, there were some wonderful film clips that were even more interesting now, with the added comments by these experts. Of course, I’m kinda new to this stuff so I was glued to every word.  But, I talked to others who knew it all before, and they were equally charmed.  The photo is of Ollie (on the left), with his longtime best friend, Frank Thomas, the last two Nine Old Men.

The second part of today’s post is not nearly as momentous, but may interest a number of you, nonetheless.  Next Tuesday, August 26^th, from 9:30 to 10:30am (PST), there’s a one-hour radio program about UPA, with former UPA animator Jack Heiter, and yours truly.  They bill me as a historian, which is quite a stretch.  I’m just a documentary filmmaker, who’s ended up here out of a series of strange events, but here’s how the radio station bills it …

         Tune in for a special hour-long Words & Pictures

         show celebrating 65 years of the anti-establishment

         UPA animation studio.  Guests include Jack Heiter,

         who helped animate Mister Magoo, Roger Ramjet,

         and the forgotten 1960 UPA classic Gay Purr-ee;

         and animation historian Tee Bosustow, whose

         father Stephen helped found UPA following the

         labor actions at Disney during World War II.

          “Words & Pictures” airs on KBOO community radio,

         90.7fm.  Not near a radio?  You can listen to the real-time

         webcast at http://www.kboo.fm/listen … or visit the

         webcast on KBOO’s home page after the show airs.

So, that’s it for now.  We’re back to interviewing animation folks for CTN, and Toon In, and have some other surprises up our sleeves, so visit us again soon, and we’ll let you know what’s next.

Siggraph 2008 was my first Siggraph, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Based at the Animation Magazine booth, I’d venture off periodically to walk the floor, meet new people, run into friends, and pick up a ton of material.  One of my favorite type booths was motion capture companies, with live dancers being made into cartoon characters.  Motion Analysis Corporation had a “stage” across from us, with a tall, willowy limbed, lady tirelessly dancing for hours on end.  There were plenty of huge pavilions; Pixar, Disney, Rhythm & Hues, Sony, Intel, Wacom, Autodesk, and more.  The most delightful exhibit for me was a wall of sketches by Disney artists, mainly caricatures of fellow artists, by people like Eric Goldberg and T.Dan Hofstedt. 

But, my favorite animation was not at Siggraph at all, but underground, on a tunnel wall of the Metro Red Line, as I went home each evening.  The first day I just goggled, the second day I unsuccessfully attempted to photograph it, and finally I captured a few shots on the third day (two at the right).  If you’re ever taking the metro into the SF Valley between Hollywood/Highland and Universal City, just after you pass half way, suddenly out of the dark, you will see these dancing circles and fonts, brightly lit up on the wall outside the metro car.  Does anyone know who animated this?

Now that the excitement has subsided, we are getting back to doing CTN interviews and DVD presentations, which have their own elements of excitement.  It looks like we have our first DVD order, and the week hasn’t even started yet.  So, we’re hoping things begin to pick up again, and we can start putting up more of our interviews over the next few weeks.  In the meantime, you can always listen to our interviews on the CTN site.  We have a half dozen interviews booked over the next couple of weeks.  So, we’re hoping that there will be a dozen or so new interviews on our two sites by early next month, and Animation Magazine may join us soon.

While I’m here, let me respond to a question that’s been coming up recently, asking what my interview style is.  The confusion, I’m sure, is because when anyone listens to several of our Episodes, it doesn’t appear that I have an interview style, and there’s a simple reason for that, because I don’t.  I believe that the interviews should reflect what the interviewee most wants to talk about, not what I want them to talk about.  I have things that interest me about each person, so I try to get those questions in, but not if it’s off track from what they are passionate about.  For some interviews I began with one question, and then the interviewee took off from there, and I hardly mutter a word from then on, which is fine with me.  They are the focus of the interview, after all.  So, hopefully, I have no interview style, but each interview is in the style of the person who’s being interviewed.

If you’ve listened to our interview with animation director, Mark Kirkland (Episode #25), he gives a wonderful description of the production flow of the weekly Simpsons television series. The photo to the right is of Mark hard at work, stopping only long enough to smile at the camera. The other thing he touches on in the interview is his long friendship with Ollie Johnston, one of Disney’s original Nine Old Men. He was the last to leave us, a few months ago, at his home in Sequim, Washington.

Mark is presenting a slide show of his many photographs of Ollie, at the historic, El Capitain theater (6838 Hollywood Blvd), at 7:00 pm, on Tuesday, August 19th. I imagine it will be quite a wonderful evening, because Mark is a great storyteller, and had a close working relationship with one of animation’s giants, not in physical stature, but in his contribution to the art of animation, and his legacy to the history of animation. And, if that’s not enough to get you down to Hollywood Boulevard that evening, there’s also the photos themselves.

Mark’s father, Douglas Kirkland, was among the very top Hollywood photographers, with a long careen during the Golden Age of Hollywood, shooting almost every top star in the business. We may not even need an “almost” in that sentence. The Motion Picture Academy had a one man show of his work a couple of months ago, in the lobby of the Wilshire Blvd. building, and so many of the famous Hollywood star photos were up there on the walls, that it was hard to imagine any great photos left to include.

So, next Tuesday evening has three things going for it, great photographs, about a legendary animator, by a terrific raconteur. See you there.

Come on down to Siggraph 2008 Tuesday the 12th, Wednesday the 13th, and/or Friday the 14th, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 South Figueroa Street, LA 90015. Siggraph will be in the West and South Hall. I’ll be at the Animation Magazine Booth #1138, promoting our DVD service for animation people and companies, and will try to stay put between noon and 3:00 each day. But, I’ve never been to a Siggraph convention, so I want to do a little exploring myself. If you have a booth, let me know, and I’ll pay a visit.

Animation Magazine is interested in doing promotional DVDs with me, for animation companies to promote their capabilities and accomplishments, and I want to be able to do them for individual animation people, as well. We’ve ordered a Microboards Pro-1016 top of the line DVD duplicator, to add to our Avid editing system, and Canon digital camera and sound package. So, we can now offer complete production and duplication of high-quality presentation DVDs, to show your work to prospective animation studios, cable and broadcast television, commercial clients, agents, and just good friends, to show them what you’ve been up to. We’re keeping the price reasonable, so most anyone can afford them.

But, even if you’re not interested in a DVD, stop by and say hello. I’d love to meet some of the visitors to our animation podcast episodes. Hopefully, after Siggraph is over, we can get back to putting more interviews up on the site. Our goal remains 100 by the end of the year. Hope to see you at Siggraph, best, Tee