Going to the Movies

I've entered THE OTHER EDEN in eight film festivals. In this case, eight is enough. Only one of them was free of an admission charge, and I want to see if it does well in any of them before venturing into others. The festivals are evenly spaced throughout the year.

Some of the names of the other festivals are pretty entertaining. They might conceivably be more entertaining than some of their entries; imagine a resume that included festivals like

DARRYL'S HARD LIQUOR AND PORN FESTIVAL

THE EVIL CITY FILM FESTIVAL

HELL'S HALF MILE FILM FESTIVAL

SHOW OFF YOUR SHORTS FILM FESTIVAL

and last but certainly not least,
SMOGDANCE FILM FEST (in sunny Pasadena, no less.)

MFA

Graduation went well. We were ushered into a rather hot parking lot on Friday to hear Bill Clinton give the commencement address. It was such a pleasure to hear a (former) President using words of three syllables, speaking in coherent sentences, and pronouncing ‘genome’ and ‘geneticist’ without stumbling.

I sat next to a professor who sniffed loudly and muttered sotto voce like Popeye for most of the speech. He may have been a Republican but he was also very rude. Fortunately he wasn’t loud enough to make much of a difference. I found him comic rather than otherwise. Why did he show up at all if he did not like the speaker?

The other honoree was a Mr. Sasakawa who runs leprosy clinics around the world and has helped save 15 million lives. This gentleman did not speak English but had a commanding presence on the stage.

I literally wore two hats during the ceremony. Faculty robes were reserved for me, but since I was graduating I stood in line with the Design students rather than with the Film and Animation faculty. More than one person came over to ask why I was in the wrong line; I explained the situation and received their applause (along with that of most of the students) when I finally did ‘the walk’ as the second grad student in the department.
The actual sheepskin will arrive in a few weeks but I am told that it is official. It must be official; I am wearing a school ring…

YOUR FEETS TOO BIG (Legal edition)

Heigh ho there,

So I lied...here's a second post for today.

All of you who would like to get a legal copy of YOUR FEETS TOO BIG can do so by getting this record on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Centennial-Collection-Fats-Waller/dp/B0001VOHGG/ref=sr_1_19/103-6864687-5767045?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1180086459&sr=1-19

My film is on the DVD insert. Color timing is bad but it's complete.
And no, I don't get royalties. The tradeoff was: the film was put on the disc without MY having to pay them, since RCA released the compilation.

That is why I will never again work with a track that I do not have full rights to.

YouTube and MyTube

I have mixed feelings about YouTube. On the one hand I value it as a teaching aid--there is amazing nature footage that is either completely out of print or never released in this country. On the other hand they post a lot of material that is copyrighted, usually without notifying the owner. I've just had this happen to one of my own films.
I'm fond of honoring copyrights since I'm the one who, in this case, made a film and paid a very high price for music rights that did not include new media or home video rights. Someone else posted YOUR FEETS TOO BIG on YouTube, but I'm the one who will be contacted by RCA Records for copyright violation if it stays up.
So I did what I had to to and asked YouTube to immediately take the film down.
I then contacted CartoonBrew and told them that the problem was with the soundtrack; I don't care if the animation is posted online as long as I am credited with making the film, but any online posts cannot include the track.
My new film THE OTHER EDEN has a track with rights that are free and clear, but since I am entering it in several festivals that state that it should not appear online until after the festival judging is completed, it will not be available for viewing except on DVDS for now. Certain people have received prints and they will be asked to forbear from sharing it for the time being.
I do not enjoy using bootleg 0nline prints for teaching and would rather buy nice clean copies on DVD, but until some distributors see fit to release material that is now only available in other countries, I'll still view YouTube for the duration. But you will not catch me posting anything except comments.

THE OTHER EDEN

Here are some stills from my new film, THE OTHER EDEN. All artwork for this film was created and modified in Photoshop and After Effects 7. (all right, I lied. One drawing was scanned in, but it is not in any of the stills here.)

I wanted a pastel and pencil look but also wanted to finish the film in ten weeks, since it was required for an independent study. The result turned out well enough for me to enter it in a couple three film festivals. I don't expect it to win anything, but it would be nice to see it screened.

The film was based on a nightmare I had last December about the disappearing wildlife on planet Earth. Sadly, the nightmare is become reality.

The original title was THE LAST but since my dad hated the title I decided to go to Shakespeare since over 1,500 other authors have done so for titles over the last four centuries. So a misquote from RICHARD II serves as an ironic title to this two minute animated film.

I Sell Out in L.A.

PREPARE TO BOARD! sold out at the Van Eaton Gallery signing. And yes, there were more than two people there buying books...more like two hundred!
35 copies of my book sold well before the end of the event and I was therefore able to do a little socializing, or would have been able to if I wasn't horribly jetlagged and looking rather zombielike. Several people asked me if I was okay, which means I wasn't.
But it was fun. And I got some fine books, shipped 'em home and found them here waiting for me along with the cat. Thanks, Post Office, for preventing me from carrying them!
I and my friend Dean Yeagle were also invited to visit the Film Roman and Walt Disney Feature Animation studios, where we saw fun things that cannot be talked about here. I won't discuss pots and pans this time, but will only state that it was a whirlwind trip...and included meeting a client who is about to produce his first series. I got back late yesterday night and am adjusting to the time, but the Kitty Alarm Clock had me up right when I wanted to be, this morning. Poor Gizmo was 'starved for attention' even though she was petted by the neighbours...so she'll get some extra pats and cuddles to thank her for being a good girl. And since she is also the cover girl on PREPARE TO BOARD, she probably should be getting royalties (this translates to: a new fuzzy mouse.)

More later...still pooped...but PTB is below 10,000 on the Amazon.com list, which I guess means that it is doing well. More importantly, people seem to like it.
The proof will come with the students who are taking the character design class and using it; the assignments, I note, have been working out better and have a shorter learning curve than in previous classes.

A Book Review

PREPARE TO BOARD! was just favorably reviewed on the Animation World Network's website. You can read the review here:

Busy, Busy, Busy

I had the sort of weekend that I thought I'd said goodbye to when I left New York City. (it's usually a lot quieter here on weekends.) Mike Genz visited from Edinboro University, we saw the ANIMATION SHOW at the Little Theatre, and I got a large quantity of work done on my new film.
What, you did not know I was making a new film? Well, every 25 years I drop whatever I am doing and make one. And the number was up so I had to do it.
Actually, I did make some other short films since YOUR FEETS' TOO BIG but they are no longer viewable on modern media since they were made for CD-I projects at Phillips Sidewalk Studio in the early nineties. Too bad. HELP ME RHONDA was rather good; it only survives now as a pencil test on my reel.
Now the new one had to be made for a class, so I figured that a horrible nightmare that I had last December would do nicely because I could not think of anything else that I could do that interested me as much. The title fluctuated a bit but after some discussions with my father, who thought the original title noisome, I decided I'd go to Shakespeare (whom I'm also studying) and get an idea from him since so many other folks have.
So the film is now called THE OTHER EDEN.
And there is not a single piece of paper in it. All artwork was drawn and modified on the computer.
This is not to say that it looks like it was done there; I dislike the 'computery' look of most Flash animation and wanted a more organic feel. AE7 (after effects to you non geeks out there) gave me some remarkable effects that, when combined, actually resemble colored pencil renderings and pastel sketches. At times I'm using up to seven modifications of the original artwork, and the result is sort of pleasing. I say sort of since I do not yet know if the entire idea is off kilter or not. For one thing it is not funny. It was not meant to be. After all it was based on a nightmare. This nightmare was remarkably precise; I actually saw the shots and cuts that I use in the film. But some things were added after I woke up.
So anyway THE OTHER EDEN will wrap in a few weeks. It's fun being able to turn out 14 feet a day, I can tell you. But it is not character animation and was not meant to be.

Mike Genz liked the look of it so that was one impartial judge. A few students have also seen it and they seem to be impressed. The Upstairs Neighbours also thought it was working. So I reckon that I will enter it in some film festivals afterward. Couldn't hurt.

Speaking of festivals the ANIMATION SHOW played at the Little. I was disappointed with some offerings but pleased with others; my favorites being Joanna Quinn's DREAMS AND DESIRES, which should have won the Oscar this year, and Bill Plympton's THE GUIDE DOG, and a very funny film from France about two idiotic Samurai armies fighting over nothing called VERSUS.
NINE was well made but lacking in story and, I felt, overrated. The others in the show did not register much with me. It was good to see many of our students and some faculty in the audience.

The weather has been sneeting (snow, sleet) and slaining (snowrain) for days now. It's just becoming tiresome, and L.A has never looked so good to me as now. Amusingly enough they are over cast and rainy, too.
Well, we'll be in a bookstore so don't need the sun much.
I'm off to L.A. tomorrow for the book signing, and so will be posting in a few days when I'm back.
Cheers til then.

ZOT!

Johnny Hart, the creator of B.C. and cocreator of THE WIZARD OF ID, died at his drawing board on April 7, 2007.

Hart was one of the funniest cartoonists in the country. He was also absolutely original. Nothing quite like B.C. had ever come down the pike before. Hart based his sardonic cavemen on his friends. It was a pleasure to recognize him as "B.C." when I finally met him at the Reuben Awards. He looked like he'd drawn himself.

The strip was always one of my favorites. "CLAMS GOT LEGS!" "Beware of the Trund", the piano that one played by blowing through a hole in the back, Thor's crazy inventions such as a stone kite, and the hilarious "Dip in Road" will always bring fond memories. And there's also that snake wearing shoes, one on its head, one on its tail.

I didn't even mind that one of his characters was named "The Fat Broad". She WAS.
A very funny Thanksgiving special was animated some years ago. Sadly, we lost the bid to animate the B.C. characters in our animation company. I'd have been delighted to do so.

Johnny Hart was a generous man who donated his time and artwork to many local projects in his hometown of Endicott, New York. He also found time for a while to publish THE FLAMING COCKROACH CLUB, a newsletter just for cartoonists featuring the Fat Broad about to whack a defenseless bug with a flaming club. Hart claimed he originally wanted to open a restaurant with that name; when he was informed that it would be a catastrophe, he made a newsletter instead. If you ever wondered why so many comics, once upon a time, used to feature the same storylines or items (such as a piggy bank) on the same day--well, that was the Club in action.

Hart put his religious convictions in some of the later B.C. strips, which led to some controversies. He was in top form at the end though.
And going at the drawing board is the way all of us would like to go.

Here is a link to a fine article about Mr. Hart at the New York TIMES.

"Do your frogs croak at night?" "No, some of them pass away right here in the sun."
Bye, Johnny. Thanks for the laughs.

Happy Easter!

Hello all ! I wish you a healthy, happy and safe Holiday weekend. All the Easter eggs are frozen today in Upstate New York, but we'll have 'em boiled instead.

Noble Boy

http://www.amazon.com/Noble-Boy-Scott-Morse/dp/0977471500/ref=sr_1_8/104-2232835-6916714?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175074776&sr=1-8

The link above goes to NOBLE BOY, a board book by animation artist Scott Morse. I posted it on the page since I couldn't fit it into the little link button here on site.
NOBLE BOY is a 'board book' about animation art director Maurice Noble.

Maurice Noble is one of the great art directors of all time, animation or live. He designed the lovely outer space 'Martian" cartoons for Chuck Jones, the hilarious parody-UPA house for Witch Hazel, and the pseudo-Seussian backgrounds of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, among other things. Noble suggested that Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS feature colored ink lines instead of standard black. He was the first art director to have the backgrounds reveal the character's mental state (in THE ARISTO-CAT, wallpaper animates and twists madly as the titular cat yells for butler Meadows. This landmark film was just released on Volume 4 of the Warner compliation discs.)

But to return to the Noble book. The title refers to the nickname by which Noble's students were known: Noble Boys (and Girls.) I shall always regret not having been one of them; I only met Mr. Noble twice, but he was a fine gentleman who loved this art form dearly. He deserves a tribute. Thing is, I'm not sure about whether this one is aimed at kids or at adults. It looks like a kids' book but the content is really a short biography of Noble. I'd like to see a long biography of him. But this is a tribute to a wonderful artist from one of his students. Check it out and see--it is a bargain.

news of HAIR HIGH screenings

HAIR HIGH will be screening in New York and L.A! Here is the latest from Bill Plympton's website, Plymptoons:

The Plympton screenings at the IFC Center culminate in a special engagement
of "Hair High" on April 6-7. These are midnight shows, so there will be lots of
late-night fun! Bill will be there to present the film, along with special
surprise guests!
The following week, "Hair High" will be opening in Los
Angeles, at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theatre, 8000 Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.
Scheduled to screen from April 13-19, for more information contact the box
office at 323-848-3500. This is the L.A. premiere, so Bill will be at the
evening screenings on April 13-14. And since it's Hollywood, you never know
which cast members may make surprise appearances! Tell all your friends in L.A.
to come out and support independent animation! And yes, the film opens on Friday
the 13th!

I'm arriving in LA on the 19th, so maybe my friend Dean and I can take in a screening of HAIR HIGH in the afternoon before heading to the book signing that evening. And thankfully the ANIMATION SHOW, which includes Bill's newest short GUIDE DOG, is playing in Rochester on April 16. They're still working on bringing HAIR HIGH here.

Good animation does not have to come from the big studios!

HAIR HIGH is finally available on DVD!

I'm a Bill Plympton fan (and most of my friends are too.) Bill's the first person since Lotte Reiniger to animate feature films singlehandedly--and they have just gotten better and better over the years.
HAIR HIGH is a wonderful evocation of the 'mythological' America of the late Fifties and early Sixties. The design, animation, story, and characters are the best that Plympton's done to date.
So where can you see this movie?
Well, it's playing in New York City on April 4, but otherwise, there is no US distributor for this excellent film.
I had to buy a DVD and have it sent over from France. If you look up HAIR HIGH on amazon.com, there is a listing, and the disc won't cost that much when compared to much more highly publicized releases.
You can get a preview of the look of the film here.
Pictures speak louder than words. So go meet Cherri, Spud, and the other members of the cast, and marvel at the original and appealing design.
No, I would not run this for kids. But it's something that everyone over the age of 13 who's interested in animation should have a look at.
Here's hoping that it is either in theatres or on a Zone One NTSC disc sometime soon.

Not So Sweet 16

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post. A recently concluded survey of the animation industry found that just 16% of the 'creative' positions were held by women.

They stretched the definition to include modelers and other folk in the computer animation categories who are doing 'artistic' work but who might not actually be in charge of the decision making process. If you look to see how many women actually influence the story content of the films--the percentage would be a good deal lower. It's probably better than live action, though that is damning with faint praise.

Quick! Name a female director or studio head.
It's easier to find them when you are outside the USA, but here they may be counted on the fingers of one hand.
So 16% of the population will not be responsible for 100% of the bad decisions in filmmaking.

As it stands there have been many wonderful directors who happen to be female; Joanna Quinn's name is the first that comes to mind, but there are others, particularly in Eastern Europe, where the 'equal rights of women' appears to have been taken seriously for the duration of the old system.

Angrymation

A friend directed me to a website that featured an anonymous animator blogging about what he (I am sure it was a he) thought was wrong with the American animation industry.
The problem could be summed up in one word ~~women.
Entire columns lambasted the alleged deficiencies of 'feminists' or 'revisionists' or female producers and animators. Women--oh, excuse me, 'girls'~ as everyone knows, don't watch animation, don't create animation, and are responsible for all the bad animation ideas out there. This sentiment was enthusiastically seconded in many responses. Now, the blogosphere is open and anyone may post as they like. But this kind of stuff just makes my ass hurt. Why? Well, the majority of people complain about the situation in the field but don't do anything to change it. The problems are someone else's responsibility, or fault, never their own.
There is a humorless kind of animator who follows a Leader, or waits for him ('tis always a him) to lead him (it's always another him) and likeminded friends back to an alleged Golden Age of bliss and steady work and no girls allowed. The fact is that this Golden Age never really existed in the first place. I assure you that people complained about Walt (especially Walt,) and Chuck, and Shamus, and Friz, and Max, and all the people who ran studios or produced animated films in the Golden Age. The difference was,there WAS a lot more studio work then. There were women animators then too, though very few and far between. But they did work in the big studios, even in the Big D itself. There is, generally speaking, much more animation being done now. It's just not being done the same way or in the same places or by the same people. And in many ways that is a good thing.
Women like to do amusing cartoon characters just as the boys do. Some of us might like to do other types of acting, but we definitely don't like being called girls, or treated like second class humans at work, or denied jobs or promotions because of our sex, or blamed for faults in the industry that have nothing to do with gender. That goes for female producers, too--I've worked with some excellent ones.
We have to discriminate.
There's discrimination in our job searches--we must find studios and producers that will hire us as artists, not as women. We move to other jobs if we have to. I know men who have to move around when a job becomes tiresome, too. And believe me, it's even more interesting for the Black animators out there. We can all tell some stories. But there is an upside.
It's now possible to produce your own work and get it shown entirely outside of the studio system. So if one doesn't like one's day job, one can make a film for little cost and get it out there to a real audience. Amazing! And yet there are complaints.
There are a number of female students in my classes and while I won't generalize and say that one sex is superior to another (because it isn't), the female students often do have a very offbeat sense of humor. It's good to see that if they do incorporate traditionally 'feminine' subject matter such as children and fairies into their films, the characters are given a highly sardonic interpretation.
And these students are all very excited to be working in animation. All of the student contributors to PREPARE TO BOARD are in their first real studio jobs now and loving every minute of it.
I made damn sure that my new book contained work that was 50% produced by female artists since I am so fed up with the endless guy-centeredness of this industry. If you didn't look at the captions, you'd never know which sex did what. Some lyrical animation of a lovestruck woman was done by a male student; a female animator produced an excellent slapstick comedy with a tired man and his dog.
The whole point of animation is: no one sees you on screen, only your characters. You are not restricted by the limits of your own body, or gender, or species. That's the good news. And if your day job offends you, make something better in your own time. Then see if it will fly. The Internet and the abundant film festival circuit makes it easier to distribute an independent short now than ever before.
So put your pencil, or lightpen, where your mouth is. Don't like what's out there? Make a better movie.
But don't call me, or female artists and animators, Girl, or blame us for what's out there now.

West and Wewaxation

Tired, but excited....the tickets are ordered, and lots of friends plan to show up to the book signing next month. I'm going to design a suggestion for a flyer.
Here's the skinny:

Time: 6 PM to 10 PM on Thursday, April 19
Place:
VAN EATON galleries
13613 Ventura Blvd.Sherman Oaks, CA 91423

If any of you readers are in the L.A. area, I hope you can attend. I'll stay over the weekend, crashing on Dean Yeagle's Stickley sofa. He even promises to provide a cat to make me feel right at home.

Artists Helping Artists--Book Signing in L.A.

The multitalented Tina Price (formerly one of the top artists at Disney, now a line producer at JibJab!) organized a marvellous animation artists' cooperative last year.
The Creative Talent Network features animators, art directors, storyboard artists, and concept artists from many studios. Portfolio samples and biographies for over a hundred artists are posted on this beautiful site.
Tina also organizes book signings for Creative Talent members at the Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, California (which specializes in animation art.)
The next one is scheduled for Thursday, April 19th, and I've agreed to attend to sign PREPARE TO BOARD! The gallery will apparently also have some copies available for me to sign for out-of-towners as well if you order it through their auspices.
If any readers of this blog are in the L.A. area, I look forward to meeting you there.

DREAMWORLDS

I got a copy of Hans Bacher's DREAMWORLDS today.
It's in Japanese.
I don't care. This is a gorgeous and brilliant book.

Here's hoping that there is an English edition soon!

Books In Print

Today is my book's birthday. Funny, I don't FEEL any different. But there's been a change on the amazon.com page for it; it's now shipping.
I've been working so hard for this day that it is difficult to know how I feel about the whole experience. Guess I'll find out when people start reviewing it.

Now here's a book I can really get excited about. Hans Bacher's DREAMWORLDS is probably the most important animation book published since THE ILLUSION OF LIFE. I am not kidding, either. No one, and I mean NO ONE, working in animation art direction has ever written a book on how it is done! This is a first!

John Canemaker's books (THE DISNEY THAT NEVER WAS, PAPER DREAMS, THE ART AND FLAIR OF MARY BLAIR) are superb histories of Disney studio methods.
Bacher was and is one of the top art directors in the industry; he and his work are well known in the USA, Europe and Asia. He's worked for Disney but also for Dreamworks and a number of other studios, including his own; and he's equally at home on paper or on computer (the box is an important new tool for the story artist.)
Hans even designed a set of brushes for Japanese Photoshop. (You can get it on Japanese amazon.com).

Oddly enough DREAMWORLDS was originally published in Japanese only. I suggested that my own publisher might be interested in putting out an English version; after all, it's all ready to go!
and so...
as the South Africans say, "hold your thumbs".

And before I go back to what I was doing (a film, for crying out loud...talk about a busman's holiday!) I want to post a link to an interview with Joanna Quinn, a woman who is LONG overdue for an Oscar. Her work is simply brilliant.
The ANIMATION SHOW is one of the better shows of its kind (it's not out simply for 'shock value') and so, if it plays in your town, go and see it. DREAMS AND DESIRES looks like one of the high points of an excellent compilation.

Show and Tell in New York City

I visited the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City, in May, 2006, while I was attending a screening of one of my Cal Arts projects at the Museum of Modern Art.

The Museum is a very neat and well designed little space in a landmark building in SoHo. So landmark, in fact, that it was impossible to find the Museum. They were not allowed to put a 'shingle' or flag, or sign out front to advertise their presence since it would mar the Landmark quality of the building.
After some fumbling around I got to the fourth floor and met director Matt Murray.

I had edited together an informal reel of senior projects produced by my 2006 advisees and asked if Mr. Murray would like to see some of it. Since it was a slow day, he agreed. Mr. Murray was duly impressed and readily agreed to my suggestion that a program of R.I.T. character animation be featured at the Museum at some time in the future. He decided to schedule a one-day event dedicated to the Rochester animators as part of their MOCCA MONDAY lecture series--a free lecture by visiting artists. Mr. Murray decided that January 29, 2007 would be the most appropriate date since an exhibition of television animation artwork would coincide with the animation show. (It was great seeing a cel of Wilma Flintstone smoking, from that infamous 1960 commercial; even more amazing to see that it was in color.)
I called the show 'THE R.I.T. STUFF" since I thought it had a nice ring to it. It was also easy to draw up a tiger logo featuring the mouse ears (see previous entry for the design.)

Mr. Murray requested that a student speaker be scheduled for the event, and that original framed artwork be included in the exhibition. At first he was averse to including any CGI artwork at all, since the museum features drawn cartoons; I assured him that that only films with a 'cartoon' quality in their story, design, and animation would be included.

Planning began in September, 2006. I requested Senior student Rebecca Haushalter as the speaker since she was articulate, available, and drew and designed excellent caricatures of past celebrities for her CGI films. Rebecca readily agreed.
Since little of the artwork for the student films remained at the school, and it would be impractical and expensive to frame Rebecca's rough drawings, I contacted Professor Skip Battaglia and asked if he would consent to have some of his original animation drawings displayed at the museum. Skip framed four drawings from one of his 'cartoon' shorts and these fulfilled Mr. Murray's request for original artwork.

I booked the hotel and plane tickets as soon as Mr. Murray confirmed the date for the show in December. The hotel (the Herald Square on 31st street) was once the headquarters of the humorous LIFE magazine, and was partly financed by Charles Dana Gibson. What an appropriate location for a cartoon lecturer to stay in. The rates were also reasonable and the rooms neat and well furnished, although much too hot in winter. And don't under any circumstances book the 'van' at the desk, since the service (from the van driver) was way too early and way too rude. Cabs to the airport actually cost the same amount and can be easily obtained by walking a few blocks to Sixth Avenue. We found this out the hard way.

The less said about the flight in the better. Delta Airlines was going through a takeover bid and was making sure that their clients knew all about it. I will take the train to Manhattan in future, at all times. Even if it is slow, it eventually gets there, and the scenery is gorgeous.

anyway, we eventually got to Manhattan in spite of everything Delta could do, and just in time for the show.

The program opened with the 2003 Oscar-winning PERPETUAL MOTION by Kim Miner--a freshman film! and proceed through one-quarter, two-quarter, and senior projects. Two graduate films were also included. The oldest film was from 2003; the most recent from early 2007. I arranged the titles so that 'drama' alternated with comedy. The show ran for approximately one hour.
One story reel for a senior project (Tristyn Pease's INVADERS FROM INNER SPACE) was included so that the audience could see how the films were produced. This particular reel reads extremely well even in storyboard and features amusing character design and voicework.

I hired grad student Jared Su to assemble the materials into an easily navigable disc, and designed and printed a program for the event.

My publicity poster was exhibited on the Internet and forwarded to the National Cartoonists Society, ASIFA East, and several New York based cartoonists and animators including filmmaker John Canemaker and Arnold Roth of the New York chapter of NCS.
Mr. Murray advertised the event in the local free weeklies and also on the museum's MySpace page.

Turnout was excellent. Arnold and Caroline Roth brought cartoonist Robert Grossman as their guest; John Canemaker made an appearance (but could not stay for the show; I gave him a copy of the reel to view at his leisure.) There were perhaps forty people in the audience, the maximum amount that the museum could accomodate. One film reviewer from VARIETY was present.

I introduced each film with a short preface. Rebecca Haushalter spoke about her project at the end of the Two Quarter section of the program. She brought some of the original caricature drawings for IT OCCURRED ONE EVENING, her two quarter film featuring Katherine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Danny Kaye in CGI.
The audience was particularly interested in Rebecca's current caricatures of Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. This film is hilarious and features me as the voice of a ghost who makes really, really bad puns about automobile accidents. This was curiously appropriate.

2006 Graduate Jedidiah Mitchell was working at a studio near the museum. I contacted him just before we arrived in New York and asked him to attend as a special guest speaker. Jed was happy to help and ended the program splendidly with an exhibition of DANCE OF THE SEASONS, the hand-drawn 24-hour project he completed with co-director Joseph Daniels in 2006.

Feedback was extremely positive and there was a long question and answer session afterward.
The trip back was not quite as eventful though the plane was still late.

Sadly we did not get to see much of New York due to Delta's wretched service, but we did manage to see Grand Central, the Chrysler Building Lobby, and the Graybar building (the one with the stainless steel rats in front.) Rebecca had only been to New York once before in her life and had never seen these beautiful landmarks.

Anyway I was back teaching my heaviest class, History, that same afternoon and managed not t make too many mistakes due to tiredness.

Unfortunately the pictures taken of the event were very poor so there are none available here.

Do I Miss New York? Constantly. But the city has changed. I was surprised to get a copy of NEW YORK magazine and find that every article therein was a catalog of neuroses. The city did not used to be so full of insecure whingers. Maybe it's just that particular issue.