Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The weather finally turned better and the crowds got bigger. I met with Lucie Marijeau and we did organized signing of our book "Bill Plympton; portrait of a Serial Cartoonist." It's a wonderful book half in French and half in English.
We had a talk set up at the wonderful B.D. Fugue by Vincent. I sold a lot of the large Rizzdi book "Independently Animated." In fact we sold out in two days. But the French book didn't sell as well because it was priced way too high. I hope the publisher is able to bring the price down because it's a wonderful book but way too expensive.
After talking to Leslie Iwerks and hearing more Disney/Pixar gossip (which I can't divulge because I don't want to lose her as a friend) at the Disney BBQ, I raced over to the Le Code bar for the 6th annual Annecy + Festival. The bar was somewhat smaller than usual but jam-packed. We again had the Annecy + band starring Nick Phelps and the wonderful Jonas Realm as our projectionist. We used a LED sheet against a wall for our screen. The films that Nancy and I selected were big hits with the audience (they were all rejected by the Annecy select in Jury). The party went late into the night and even the gendarmes showed up to block up the noise. I am happy to announce the winning films: "Bottle" by Kirsten Lepore, "Things You Better not Mix Up" by Joost Lieuwma and "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mrs. Morris Lessmore" by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. By the way all the winners will receive valuable prizes.
The next morning I could finally relax and enjoy some leisure time. I went to see competition #3 (very good), sold the last of my DVDs at the Bonlieu with Spike, and I finally went for a swim in the delightful crystal clean Lac d'Annecy.
I then attended the closing ceremony. This being the year for American films, Serge Dressed as a cowboy and road in on a horse. I was disappointed in the feature film winners but I liked all the choices for the shorts. Get the complete list here.
It was a very rich and entertaining festival for me and as usual I look forward to attending next year. And if your film is rejected by the Annecy selection jury, remember you can always send it to Nancy or I at the prestigious Annecy + Festival.
And you should make plans to go for next year.
Au Revoir Annecy et Serge!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Annecy Animation Festival - Part 2
Since there were so many great events at Annecy I've decided to break Scribble Junkies up into different installments. Being that I've been going for so many years I was invited to a very exclusive luncheon with The Culture Minister of France, The Mayor of Annecy and the US Ambassador Charlie Rifkin (who actually has an extensive background in animation being once the head of Henson Productions.) You could tell that Charlie Rifkin was important due to being accompanied by two CIA agents in a very large black vehicle that had heavy bullet and bomb proof protection.
One of the major reasons I attended Annecy was to make some money. My current income stream has been quite meager lately so I look to these festivals as great sources of income. Hence I brought a large collection of my DVDs, books and drawings to sell.
There are two main sales locations in the festival center in Bonlieu, one is the graphic novel bookshop, The B.D. Fugue and the other is The Bibliotek that specializes in DVDs. However, I prefer to keep all the sales from my merch so I do the maverick thing and just take over a table in the middle of the boutique and sell my merch out of my suitcase.
The outrageous Spike Decker often joined me. He always dressed up in some completely custom costume. This time it was as a cowboy in a 30-gallon hat and with his booming voice he would attract would-be-buyers with such corny talk as "Come see Bill Plympton actually make drawings using only his hand! No computers!" or "Come say hello to Winsor McCay, Carla Bruni and Woody Allen!" or "Two sailors and a nun walk into a bar…" His booming voice was heard by everyone and soon we had a large buying crowd around our tables, typical sleazy American sales tactics. We also plan to work together at the San Diego Comic Con where our talks will be side by side. So watch for us.
Then on Thursday evening I held my master class to a sold out audience. It was a lot of fun and I gave everyone a drawing of the famous dog. I showed "Guard Dog Global Jam" and we had two of the international team contributors up on stage to talk about their experience on the project.
Stay tuned for part III of my Annecy experiences coming soon.
New Work from Sam Gibbons..
Posted some stuff by artist Sam Gibbons a while back.. just a quick update with new images. enjoy. his site is here.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Annecy Animation Festival - Part 1
It's simply the greatest festival on earth for many reasons: the beautiful location, great films, super food, and the best audience anywhere. I've been coming to Annecy since 1985 and I've only missed one festival; I hope to continue attending every year.
This year I arrived late because of a stupid screw-up with my passport that forced me to get an emergency passport the day after my planned departure. But fortunately I arrived in time for the premier of Alexia Anastasio's wonderful documentary about me called "Adventures in Plymptoons". It was a big crowd and they seemed to love it, and no one complained about the nude scenes of me in the mud (spoiler alert).
I was very busy at the festival – lots of events – but I was able to see one feature film "The Cat and The Rabbi". I have some complaints about the film. It was hard to "read" the character because the gestures were almost invisible against the bright backgrounds (that’s going to be a big drawback when it appears on T.V.). Also the story was more of a lecture on Jewish history. I felt like I was being talked down to. And also all the Arabian characters were stereotypically evil. I did however like the character and background design.
One of the sponsors of my appearance in Annecy was a startup festival off short called "Annecy Off". It's an outlet for young animators from around the world to get their films shown. I was the special guest so I did a master class and a lot of publicity to help promote the event. I created some art for their program and I wish them continued success with their events. Their staff Thibault, Bernont and Antoine treated me very well and I had a great time.
Later that night I attended the opening night party of MIFA (the market part of the festival). It was there that I got to catch up with a lot of old friends in the biz – Will Vinton, Pez, Mark Shapiro of Laika Studios, Spike (of Spike and Mike) and Tom Moore.
And I met some new friends – Michael Callaghan of the fantastic new Road Runner series in 3.D. and "Curious George" the feature.
And I got to meet the great Leslie Iwerks the creator of the wonderful book and documentary about her legendary grandfather Ub Iwerks. She was there to show her two newer documentaries about Pixar and ILM, both of which sadly I missed. She had some fantastic inside dirt on the big Hollywood animation studios.
Stay tuned for the next installment of Scribble Junkies and perhaps I'll divulge the hot gossip.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Animation 101: Puke. A Study..
I've never animated someone puking before. Here's a quicktime movie of this sequence.. take a look at it frame by frame, i think quicktime will let you do this with the arrow keys as long as the cursor is on the play bar. The first thing I noted was that a lot of people puke into their mouths before letting it out.. a last ditch attempt to keep stuff in I suppose. I also noticed the extreme recoil we go through, and how this must be exaggerated in a drawing if it's going to be an effective anticipation. So let's start..
the shot of orange goo that that triggered it all..
that didn't feel good.. i just want to sleep.. but there's something more.. there's business i must attend too.. it's in your mind.. you really want to just sleep but it's not that easy..
The realization that you're in trouble makes you open your eyes.. immense sadness hits you as you wonder when it's going to strike.. and it never strikes soon enough.
bang the desire to vomit hits you..
projectile vomiting twists your body into ways you never thought possible.. above I expanded his back to look like a hunchback.. i imagined the vomit building up higher into his body.
The puke is released, but only into his cheeks...
Release.. The trick with liquids is to go from fat to thin to a dribble, all the while keeping a "flow" almost like wind through a cape.
I hope you enjoyed this breakdown.. not sure when I'll ever be called upon again to animate a puke, i probably would have done it a lot differently now.. maybe adding a few fake outs, or like hiccups before the release.. but you can never think like that, you'll never get anything done. a crappy piece of finished animation is way better than an unfinished masterpiece! cheers.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Google Icon by Takashi Murakami..
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