Sunday, September 10, 2006
Brooks College ASIFA-Hollywood Event:
The following article was written for the Brooks College Newsletter. That is why the facts able ASIFA-Hollywood and my career as a Board Member and a teacher are stated as if the reader has never heard of ASIFA or me. I reprint it here because it details the event nicely and it saves me from writing two article today.
This is a very strange article for me to write because I stand in the middle of it like a triangle. And as hard as I try it is a little hard to write inside such a angle.
I helped start the Animation Department at Brooks College Long Beach way back in 2001 and then went on to other things. I was asked to return to Brooks to teach in 2003. I have done so ever since.
The second side of the picture is that I am a member of the executive board of ASIFA-Hollywood, the International Animated Film Society. I am very active in event planning (often getting students involved with the animation community they hope to join) animation preservation and I founded and am the coordinator of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Rescue Team, a rapid response volunteer team deducted to saving animation artifacts.
And if that isn`t enough hats to wear, I am also an Animation Journalist. I have been writing a daily Web Log (weB LOG) BLOG at www.asifa-hollywood.org/blogger.html since October 31, 2004.
The first rule of Journalism is to be impartial but I guess the fact that I can`t here is okay because I do mostly editorial were it is the norm to break the first rule and give opinion. It is still strange to be this far inside a story. Normally I let other people write about me.
I was given this assignment so here we go. ASIFA-Hollywood is 40 years old. They/we are the largest branch (over 4,000 members) of an international organization that is chartered under UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.
We/they put on the Annie Awards every year, the highest honor that the animation community bestows on outstanding accomplishments in the field of animation. This year marks the 34th year of the Annie Awards. Through my urging a number of Brooks Students have volunteered at the Annie Awards for the last couple of years.
I guess it is fitting that I am smack dab in the middle of this story. Because animation is such a small field, such a close knit family, a community. I always tell my students that if they want to join the animation work force they need to get involved with the community. Everybody knows everybody and we take care of our own.
ASIFA is all about that. Through the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives we are trying to do more than just take care of the current generation of animators, we our trying to take care of the future generations by preserving the past so students and animators will have a resource to learn and grow from.
It has been said that if you do not know your history you are condemned to relive it. That is not so in animation. If you do not know your animation history you are unable to repeat it. And there is so much that bears repeating, reworking, retooling, rediscovering.
Animation is just 100 years old this year and for that short time skills were passed from master to apprentice. The skills, the tools, the storytelling can`t be taught with books or just by watching animation. We almost lost those skills between 1950 and 1970 when almost no one entered the ranks of animation.
The big studios write their histories to meet their own needs and agendas. Training doesn`t seem to be part of that agenda in today`s market place. Their histories are the history of studios and the people who founded the studios, not the history of the animation process and by who and how it was developed.
But not all studios survive and continue and write histories. Very few do. At any one time there are hundreds of little boutique studios. But they come and go, living as long as the market allows or at best the life of the animators that started them. Some of them grow up into big players but most of them fade with time. And so does their all important knowledge.
The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives is dedicated to the histories of the individual animators that moved/move from studio to studio and project to project. We want to save not just their stories but their skills, their film and paper trail so that the knowledge is never in danger again.
Who are the people whose careers we are following. The people in the trenches that work/worked on small projects and big projects at small studios and big studios and then went on to other projects and maybe started small studios of their own that worked on small project or worked/work as subcontractors on parts of larger projects. The flesh and blood community that makes up this industry.
On Wednesday night, August 23rd Brooks College invited ASIFA-Hollywood to come to Long Beach and share some of our treasures with them and their guests, treasures that go back to 9 years after the invention of film animation.
The evening started with a screening of pristine prints of rare animated films, some of which had not been broadcast for over 20 years.
After the screening there was a panel made up of Antran Manoogian, President of ASIFA-Hollywood; Steve Worth, ASIFA Animation Archivist; Angelo di Nello, Brooks graduate and co-creator of Bradwurst (currently in production at Nickelodeon) : and Larry Loc, executive board member of ASIFA-Hollywood and animation teacher at Brooks College, California State University at Fullerton and Laguna College of Art & Design.
The event was open to the public. There was a good turn out with people from the animation community and former Brooks` students joining the current student population to enjoy this unique event. I really enjoyed seeing former students that I taught in my first time at Brooks as well as resent Brooks graduates.
One of those students was Angelo di Nello but it is not like I have gone a long time without seeing Angelo who has moved into the animation community and been part of it for the last 5 years.
Even thou I see Angelo all the time at animation events and screening I really appreciated having him on this panel. Angelo did 16 pitches to get his new series greenlighted. This speaks straight to my current students, most of who where in attendance. Angelo made my job easier when he told of his many mistakes on the road to getting his career launched.
Antran, Steve, and I spoke to the importance of history in making a career. There is a reason that most of the animation historians are animators. The best way to get this point across happened a few days later when Steve Worth posted scans of the complete bar sheets for a 1933 Merrie Melodies cartoon, Shuffle Off to Buffalo. These bar sheets speak to the almost lost art of timing animation to music.
Within hours of posting on the Animation Archive Blog this rarest of animation artifacts that Rudy Ising gave Master Animator and Animation Historian, Mark Kausler, the site went wild with the daily hit count tripling. Most of the traffic was traced back to the web servers of DreamWork, Pixar, Disney, Warner Bros., Film Roman and other major animation studios. (thanks to Mark for the loan of this bar chart from your private collection)
Brooks College is the first institution of higher learning to make the connection, to see the value of this resource to teachers, students, animation programs and studios. And Brooks put their money right where their mouth is with a generous contribution to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.
The evening ended with networking and a viewing of animation production art and storyboards going all the way back to the Walt Disney/Ub Iwerks 1925 cartoon Alice`s Eggplant. There was artwork from Fantasia, Bambi, Ren and Stimpy, What`s Opera Doc and many, may more. The list is too long to even mention here.
If you live in Southern California you can visit the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archivse at 2114 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91562. A lot of that priceless artwork is part of our current display of Disney artwork. You can also visit them on the web at www.animationarchive.org but only a few of the pieces from the current show are on the web. You can join ASIFA-Hollywood and get invited to all kinds of Studio Screenings and get to vote on the Annies and even sometimes get the screeners for the Annie categories mailed to you months before they are available in video stories. You can read the daily animation raving of Larry Loc at www.asifa-hollywood.org/blogger.html
¶ 4:49 PM
The following article was written for the Brooks College Newsletter. That is why the facts able ASIFA-Hollywood and my career as a Board Member and a teacher are stated as if the reader has never heard of ASIFA or me. I reprint it here because it details the event nicely and it saves me from writing two article today.
This is a very strange article for me to write because I stand in the middle of it like a triangle. And as hard as I try it is a little hard to write inside such a angle.I helped start the Animation Department at Brooks College Long Beach way back in 2001 and then went on to other things. I was asked to return to Brooks to teach in 2003. I have done so ever since.
The second side of the picture is that I am a member of the executive board of ASIFA-Hollywood, the International Animated Film Society. I am very active in event planning (often getting students involved with the animation community they hope to join) animation preservation and I founded and am the coordinator of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Rescue Team, a rapid response volunteer team deducted to saving animation artifacts.
And if that isn`t enough hats to wear, I am also an Animation Journalist. I have been writing a daily Web Log (weB LOG) BLOG at www.asifa-hollywood.org/blogger.html since October 31, 2004.
The first rule of Journalism is to be impartial but I guess the fact that I can`t here is okay because I do mostly editorial were it is the norm to break the first rule and give opinion. It is still strange to be this far inside a story. Normally I let other people write about me.
I was given this assignment so here we go. ASIFA-Hollywood is 40 years old. They/we are the largest branch (over 4,000 members) of an international organization that is chartered under UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.
We/they put on the Annie Awards every year, the highest honor that the animation community bestows on outstanding accomplishments in the field of animation. This year marks the 34th year of the Annie Awards. Through my urging a number of Brooks Students have volunteered at the Annie Awards for the last couple of years.
I guess it is fitting that I am smack dab in the middle of this story. Because animation is such a small field, such a close knit family, a community. I always tell my students that if they want to join the animation work force they need to get involved with the community. Everybody knows everybody and we take care of our own.
ASIFA is all about that. Through the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives we are trying to do more than just take care of the current generation of animators, we our trying to take care of the future generations by preserving the past so students and animators will have a resource to learn and grow from.
It has been said that if you do not know your history you are condemned to relive it. That is not so in animation. If you do not know your animation history you are unable to repeat it. And there is so much that bears repeating, reworking, retooling, rediscovering.
Animation is just 100 years old this year and for that short time skills were passed from master to apprentice. The skills, the tools, the storytelling can`t be taught with books or just by watching animation. We almost lost those skills between 1950 and 1970 when almost no one entered the ranks of animation.
The big studios write their histories to meet their own needs and agendas. Training doesn`t seem to be part of that agenda in today`s market place. Their histories are the history of studios and the people who founded the studios, not the history of the animation process and by who and how it was developed.
But not all studios survive and continue and write histories. Very few do. At any one time there are hundreds of little boutique studios. But they come and go, living as long as the market allows or at best the life of the animators that started them. Some of them grow up into big players but most of them fade with time. And so does their all important knowledge.
The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives is dedicated to the histories of the individual animators that moved/move from studio to studio and project to project. We want to save not just their stories but their skills, their film and paper trail so that the knowledge is never in danger again.
Who are the people whose careers we are following. The people in the trenches that work/worked on small projects and big projects at small studios and big studios and then went on to other projects and maybe started small studios of their own that worked on small project or worked/work as subcontractors on parts of larger projects. The flesh and blood community that makes up this industry.
On Wednesday night, August 23rd Brooks College invited ASIFA-Hollywood to come to Long Beach and share some of our treasures with them and their guests, treasures that go back to 9 years after the invention of film animation.
The evening started with a screening of pristine prints of rare animated films, some of which had not been broadcast for over 20 years.
After the screening there was a panel made up of Antran Manoogian, President of ASIFA-Hollywood; Steve Worth, ASIFA Animation Archivist; Angelo di Nello, Brooks graduate and co-creator of Bradwurst (currently in production at Nickelodeon) : and Larry Loc, executive board member of ASIFA-Hollywood and animation teacher at Brooks College, California State University at Fullerton and Laguna College of Art & Design.
The event was open to the public. There was a good turn out with people from the animation community and former Brooks` students joining the current student population to enjoy this unique event. I really enjoyed seeing former students that I taught in my first time at Brooks as well as resent Brooks graduates.
One of those students was Angelo di Nello but it is not like I have gone a long time without seeing Angelo who has moved into the animation community and been part of it for the last 5 years.
Even thou I see Angelo all the time at animation events and screening I really appreciated having him on this panel. Angelo did 16 pitches to get his new series greenlighted. This speaks straight to my current students, most of who where in attendance. Angelo made my job easier when he told of his many mistakes on the road to getting his career launched.
Antran, Steve, and I spoke to the importance of history in making a career. There is a reason that most of the animation historians are animators. The best way to get this point across happened a few days later when Steve Worth posted scans of the complete bar sheets for a 1933 Merrie Melodies cartoon, Shuffle Off to Buffalo. These bar sheets speak to the almost lost art of timing animation to music.
Within hours of posting on the Animation Archive Blog this rarest of animation artifacts that Rudy Ising gave Master Animator and Animation Historian, Mark Kausler, the site went wild with the daily hit count tripling. Most of the traffic was traced back to the web servers of DreamWork, Pixar, Disney, Warner Bros., Film Roman and other major animation studios. (thanks to Mark for the loan of this bar chart from your private collection)
Brooks College is the first institution of higher learning to make the connection, to see the value of this resource to teachers, students, animation programs and studios. And Brooks put their money right where their mouth is with a generous contribution to the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.
The evening ended with networking and a viewing of animation production art and storyboards going all the way back to the Walt Disney/Ub Iwerks 1925 cartoon Alice`s Eggplant. There was artwork from Fantasia, Bambi, Ren and Stimpy, What`s Opera Doc and many, may more. The list is too long to even mention here.
If you live in Southern California you can visit the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archivse at 2114 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91562. A lot of that priceless artwork is part of our current display of Disney artwork. You can also visit them on the web at www.animationarchive.org but only a few of the pieces from the current show are on the web. You can join ASIFA-Hollywood and get invited to all kinds of Studio Screenings and get to vote on the Annies and even sometimes get the screeners for the Annie categories mailed to you months before they are available in video stories. You can read the daily animation raving of Larry Loc at www.asifa-hollywood.org/blogger.html
¶ 4:49 PM
