MAY 2001

Table of Contents VOL. 6 NO. 2

NINE AND A HALF QUESTIONS...
4 With David Stephen Cohen
Will Ryan asks writer David Stephen Cohen 9 1/2 pointed questions regarding opera, Courage
the Cowardly Dog and how many degrees of separation there are between he and Kevin
Bacon.
RECRUITING AND JOBS

6 Choose Your Software Wisely

Which 3D packages will get you work and which ones will leave you feeling unwanted? You
better choose carefully and John Edgar Park is here to help you out with the decision.
ompares with the production of a movie — and so do their audiences. Jacquie Kubin explains.

10 Time To Get Some Training

MAY 2001

So, you've chosen your software program. What now? Well, there are a few different ways to
approach training as John Edgar Park explains.

11 Producing Animation: Getting In The Door

This month's Producing Animation excerpt by Catherine Winder and Zahra Dowlatabadi dis-
cusses animation's three main job categories and a little about how to get started in each.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES

13 On Co-Directing Shrek:Victoria Jenson

DreamWorks' next CG animated feature is soon to hit theaters nationwide. Chris Koseluk sits
down with Victoria Jenson and discusses working with superstar comedians and the latest in
technology.

16 Shrek: Something Old, Something New

DreamWorks’ super successful film Shrek is being hailed as a departure from the typical fairy
tale, however, Maureen Furniss investigates just how racy this re-telling is.

20 Walking to Toontown, Part 2

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman finishes the tale of his trek from animation newbie to published
author.

23 The Animation Pimp: Annecy, Audiences, Art and Sandwiches

This month, The Animation Pimp both critiques and applauds the heckling audiences of
Annecy.
FOCUS ON... AUSTRALIA

25 The Australian Effects and Animation Festival 2001

Stephen Lynch visited Sydney's AEAF 2001 and found it to be a treasure trove of star talent pre-
senting some of the most exciting effects coming to a screen near us soon.
28 The Magic Pudding: Making A Feature In Oz
Stephen Lynch interviews Robbert Smit, one of Australia's most experienced directors, on
Energee Entertainment's latest feature and the trials and rewards of making a film in Oz.
31 Special Effects from Down Under: A Growing Proposition
While you might not realize it, you've probably already seen some of Australia's top effects
houses in action. Stephen Lynch explains.

© Animation World Network 2001. All rights reserved. No part of the periodical may be reproduced without the consent of Animation World Network.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 2

MAY 2001
Table of Contents VOL. 6 NO. 1
STUDENT CORNER
34 Having What It Takes: A Recruiting Survey
What are the most important elements to have on your resume? Hear some responses and
insights from the folks that do the hiring about what's crucial to be a strong contender in this
tough market. Joan Kim reports.

37 The Career Coach: Resumes That Work

In today's competitive animation job market, make sure your marketing materials are current so
you can stay competitive too. Here are some tips on how to craft a resume that will help you
get the job you want.
INTERNET COMPANY PROFILE

39 Come Together: Online and On-Air Converge on CartoonNetwork.com

MAY 2001

When it comes to convergence CartoonNetwork.com is pushing the envelope and reaping the
rewards. Brett Rogers reveals the Website's winning philosophy and hopes of becoming extinct
in the near future!
EVENTS

45 MIPTV Was A Hit!

John Morris reports on MIPTV 2001. What trends did he see from the market floor? Read on...

47 Cartoons on the Bay: A Different Type of Festival

Heather Kenyon discusses Cartoons on the Bay, the world's only television animation festival, a
uniquely Italian event set in the midst of some of the earth's most beautiful scenery.

50 MILIA 2001: An Alphanim Digital Perspective

Julie Fox visited MILIA 2001 and reports on the shifting sands of the Internet animation economy.
REVIEWS

53 New from Japan: Anime Film Reviews

Fred Patten reviews the latest anime releases including: The Big O, Urusei Yatsura, Iria: Zeiram
the Animation, Key, the Metal Idol and Ruin Explorers: Quest for the Ultimate Power!

© Animation World Network 2001. All rights reserved. No part of the periodical may be reproduced without the consent of Animation World Network.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 3

Nine And A Half Questions...
With David Stephen Cohen
Interview by Will Ryan

F
or many years, Will Ryan
has engaged in short con-
versations during which
he poses precisely 9.5 questions.
Whether he does this as a trib-
ute to Federico Fellini, as a
meta-textual interactive haiku-
like challenge, or as a wry com-
mentary on these Sesame
Street/‘Whatever’ times remains
a matter of conjecture. We only
know that we live in these times,
and that his pithy interviews
make ideal filleurs de l’espace.

***

David Stephen Cohen (not

David Stephen Cohen.
to be confused with David S.
Cohen, David X. Cohen, David David Stephen Cohen: Yes, a great Werner Klemperer did attend
Kohan, or 43 other similarly-mon- libretto. a concert performance of the
ickered members of the Writer’s work in progress. You may recall
Guild of America) is the award- WR: What’s it about? that you were sitting in front of
winning head writer of the DSC: Adam’s wife. Before Eve. him that evening.
Cartoon Network’s Courage The Lilith.
Cowardly Dog. Mr. Cohen has WR: Ah, yes, that’s right. Didn’t he
many other credits, some of which WR: Is it a comedy? huddle with you in a corner after-
follow this bite-sized — but oh-so- wards?
nutritious — interview. DSC: No. Not a joke within miles.
We caught up with the DSC: Mm-hm.
busy Mr. Cohen on his recent visit WR: Did Colonel Klink have any-
to Los Angeles, where, among thing to do with this? WR: What exactly did he say?
other things, he was conferring
with artist Everett Peck regarding a DSC: I bet you ask everyone these DSC: His word to me was “Bravo.”
proposed animated television questions.
series. WR: What do you think he meant
WR: Not really. This is the first in a by that?
*** series. But I’ll consider the sugges-
tion. DSC: I’m not sure, but I think it
Will Ryan: So, have you written was, “It ain’t no Rigoletto, but it’ll
any operas lately? DSC: As a matter of fact, the late, do in a pinch.”
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 4
WR: Does Courage the Cowardly Kevin Bacon. Emmy-nominated David Stephen
Dog perform a cameo in this Cohen won the Writer’s Guild
opera? WR: Oh, that’s right . . . Kevin Award for his work on The
Bacon did his voice. Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss,
DSC: Well, you know what they for which he was executive pro-
say: Inside of every fat lady, there’s DSC: Precisely. ducer. He is also a composer
a scared, pink dog trying to get and lyricist. The opera Lilith, for
out. WR: Well, does that mean that which he wrote his first libretto,
you’re — ? opens November 11, 2001 at
WR: That sounds like a quote from Manhattan’s Lincoln Center.
one of next season’s scripts. DSC: Yup. One degree.
Emmy-nominated Will Ryan was
DSC: It is now! WR: Ooh. also nominated for the Writer’s
Guild Award for his work on The
WR: Say, you also co-wrote the Note: Readers may contact any Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss,
animated feature Balto for Animation World Magazine but David Stephen Cohen won it
Universal. What is it with you and contributor by sending an e-mail instead. And they still talk to each
dogs? to editor@awn.com. other — albeit in bite-sized, but
oh-so-nutritious, banter. Mr.
DSC: Pardon me, but in our ver- Ryan’s libretto for West Of
sion, Balto was half WOLF. He Catalina: A Horse Opera remains
was, however, 100% bacon. unproduced.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 5

 Choose Your
Software Wisely
by John Edgar Park
trols, customizable interfaces and
the ability to interact with other
software, such as RenderMan or
in-house tools. These are general
guidelines, of course, not hard-
and-fast rules. Many games now
include pre-rendered cinematics –
creating them requires tools similar
to those used for broadcast and
film animation. Some film effects
shots have been done with more
mid-level packages than you
might expect.

The Right Tool For the Job

Games: 3D Studio Max
reigns supreme. With nearly every
Maya, used to create this scene, leads the pact for character animation tools, but some development house using it, the
say the latest version of 3D Studio Max will close the gap. © Alias|Wavefront.
game artist needs to know Max.

A
s a 3D animator, you are is important to choose your killer Two other strong applications in
probably an expert in one app wisely. Which 3D packages this field are Maya and Softimage,
software package. You live will get you work, and which ones but even with Microsoft Xbox mid-
or die by not only your artistic will leave you feeling unwanted? dleware commitments to Maya,
skills, but also your in-depth For the purposes of this arti- listings on Gamasutra.com’s job
knowledge of your chosen anima- cle, let’s subdivide the 3D anima- board reveal close to 90% Max
tion package. Your ability to create tion market into three categories: penetration into the game art mar-
great animation is only realized games, broadcast and film. Each ket.
once you can control your tools of these industries has its own Broadcast: There are some
effortlessly. Sometimes, however, it special requirements and tends to commercial studios who stick with
is this very same specialization that favor certain 3D software. 3D for Mac tools, so Electric Image and
determines the companies or games requires strong polygonal LightWave are strong here; with
clients for which you can work. modeling and texturing tools, as the release of Maya on the new
There are often postings on job well as an open SDK for hooking Macintosh OS X we’ll see how
boards that read: “LightWave assets into the game code. long this holds true. On the
Character Animator Wanted” or Animation packages for broadcast Windows side, LightWave, Max,
“Maya Effects Artist Needed.” Most rely on versatile effects, ease of use Maya and Softimage come up
animators cannot afford the time and beautiful, quick renderers. most frequently, but this is still fair-
or the money to become fluent in Finally, film animation software ly open territory, as there are so
more than one 3D program, so it must have great animation con- many boutiques doing broadcast
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 6
 work, and the right artist can
sometimes choose their toolset.
Gene Nazarov, 3D anima-
tor at commercial house ATTIK,
says, “Maya is what we use. I start-
ed with 3D Studio Max, but soon
realized how much more potential
Maya has. The capabilities are
broader and easier to digest, the
animation is better and more reli-
able. No wonder all the movie stu-
dios are turning toward this appli-
cation.”
Film: While more films
than ever are using LightWave
and Max for effects and animation
While Oddworld, a top game producer, uses 3D Studio Max for real-time game play, shots, there are really two main
Maya is used for their games’ cinematics. © Oddworld.
packages in this market: Maya and
Softimage. Does that mean that
you need to run out and learn
Maya or Softimage if you want to
work in film? The answer is yes
and no.
Stuart Lowder, animation
manager at Industrial Light &
Magic, puts less emphasis on soft-
ware knowledge and more on an
applicant’s animation skills. “I don’t
think it matters, which software
you learn, as long as you get into
a package and show the ability to
animate. It’s not the specific soft-
ware — you can really demon-
strate animation talent with pup-
pets. What we would be looking
for is the skill set of an animator,
more than software knowledge.
“If you want to be an
effects animator, Maya is what we
use; on the character animation
side it’s Softimage. Once we’ve
hired someone, [we provide] all
the technical training they’ll need.
This runs about eight weeks, and
assumes that the animation skills
are there, so we don’t have any
support for teaching people how
to animate. That said, the more
technical skills you have the better
From Big Red gum campaigns to screensavers for Wired,The ATTIK relies on Maya. off you’re going to be. I compare
Courtesy of The ATTIK. technical skills in 3D animation to
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 7
 post-production and 20% in
design, Web, architectural and sci-
ence applications. His prognosis
for Max’s future is good: “The num-
ber of seats of Max being sold to
the commercial sector is increasing
at a rate higher than all of the
competition’s combined, so while
there’s no doubt that Maya has
swept the film industry – ousting
Softimage – boutiques have
switched over to Max.”

Keep An Eye On The Market

So, which one is right for
A goldfish rampage was created by Spontaneous Combustion for Pepperidge Farms you? There are no neat answers to
by using 3D Studio MAX, After Effects, PhotoShop and inferno*. Courtesy of this question. Michael Wharton,
Spontaneous Combustion. animator at Quiet Man NYC,
having great drawing skills for tra- LightWave, Houdini, Electric explains: “A student needs to be
ditional animators.” Image, Cinema 4D, etc. concerned with marketability; that
And in most cases, a large Spontaneous Combustion is to say, can a company you hope
production will involve the use of is a digital studio specializing in to work for afford to bring in a per-
many different 3D packages. design, visual effects and anima- son who doesn’t know their par-
Michael David Smith of Softimage tion for advertising, broadcast and ticular software and train them?
says, “Large companies use every- film with clients such as AT&T, Or, do they need someone they
one’s software; if you look at the Audi, Estee Lauder and ESPN. Sam can immediately drop into produc-
demo reel for any 3D program, DeWitt, head of CGI, says, “Maya is tion? At Quiet Man we are heavily
they all share many of the same probably the most widespread in invested in Softimage, so for our
shots. It’s the smaller companies the post industry at the moment, own selfish reasons, we’d love to
who choose just one package but Softimage seems to be finally see this product take off and blow
because of a tighter budget.” gaining back some lost ground. In everything else away. However at
terms of learning 3D, 3D Studio this point in time, Maya is still the
The Numbers Max could be conceived of as the 3D stronghold, so much so that
Most of the employers’ list- easiest, and with such a wide and some clients have even used it
ings on the job board at diverse user base the resources for iin c o n v e r s a t i o n a s a l m o s t
CreativePlanet.com link a specific it are amazing. Max does seem to the…brand name of all 3D pack-
3D package to a job opening. be slowly gaining ground in both ages. As absurd as I think that may
Here are the percentages from the film and television work, and its be, it seems to be the perception.”
April listings: tight integration with other dis- It would be terrific if every
creet products makes it a good bet studio could run a training pro-
Maya: 45% for the future.” gram to bring in the best anima-
Max: 21% In reality, all of these high- tors, regardless of software knowl-
Any: 17% end packages can be used for edge. Unfortunately most smaller
LightWave: 6% projects in any of the three indus- shops don’t have that luxury.
Softimage: 6% try sectors. Phil Miller, senior direc- Constraints of time and money
Other: 5% tor of Software Products at dis- force them to hire animators who
creet, says that of the approxi- can jump right into the production
The 17% that responded mately 150,000 seats of 3D Studio pipeline. The bottom line is, for the
“Any” usually require knowledge Max worldwide he estimates that majority of the positions out there,
of at least one high-end 3D app, 50% of those are used in the you will only get the job if your
such as Maya, Max, Softimage, game industry, 30% in film and have the skills and you know the
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 8
right software. The numbers sug-
gest that it’s not a bad time to be
an adept Maya animator.
However, Max, Softimage and
LightWave are good bets, too –
but don’t forget, first and fore-
most, to hone those animation
skills!

John Edgar Park is a 3D anima-

tor, instructor and writer based in
Los Angeles. He received his B.A.
in Drama from the University of
Virginia.

Note: Readers may contact any

Animation World Magazine
contributor by sending an e-mail
to editor@awn.com. Softimage is Quiet Man’s tool of choice and was used in this Conseco Insurance ad
where a monkey talks. Courtesy of Quiet Man.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 9

 o, you’ve chosen your soft-

S ware program. What now?

Well, there are a few differ-
ent ways to approach training.
Time To Get
Some animators appreciate
the hands-on approach of sitting
in a classroom, in front of a work-
Some Training
station, learning from an expert. If
you live near a big city, you may
have a lot of choices. There are pri-
vate training schools, programs
by John Edgar Park
taught at public schools and com-
munity colleges, and training pro-
grams certified by the manufactur-
ers such as discreet, Alias and
Softimage. Schools provide high-
end workstations, the latest soft-
ware, and instructors to answer
questions and demonstrate the
software firsthand.
For the adventurous, you
can run out, buy the software and
stock up on books to supplement
training. Usually a beginner-to-
intermediate level is covered in the
training manuals. Beyond that,
there are many third party books
that teach more advanced topics.
Project based books, like the New
Riders Press 3D Studio Max Effects
Magic series for example, are
good at teaching a range of tech-
niques that are used for specific
results in a short time. You’ll find
Courtesy of ArtToday.
recipes for lava, exploding planets
and winter storms. Character an advantage over somewhat dry Maya Transition Guide: From
modeling, skeleton rigging and book learning. Trinity3D.com is a Softimage-to-Maya, available from
animation techniques are topics of good source for tapes on Maya, Alias|Wavefront’s Website.
great depth that can be coached LightWave and Max. Students
by reading and following along as should check the Journey
experts in the field describe their Education Website (www.jour- John Edgar Park is a 3D anima-
secrets. Of course, there is no sub- neyed.com) for collections of tor, instructor and writer based in
stitute for simply logging hours on these tapes at discounted prices. Los Angeles. He received his B.A.
the application, be it with the Of special interest to the in Drama from the University of
direction of an instructor or the animator who has decided to Virginia.
guidance of a manual. switch from Max to Maya, is
In the space between Trinity3D’s Max to Maya QuickStart
schools and books lies videotape- set. This video, book and CD-ROM Note: Readers may contact any
based training. There are excellent set shows the Max animator Animation World Magazine
tapes for most 3D packages, where to find similar functions in contributor by sending an e-mail
which can give the visual learner Maya. A similar product is the to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 10

 Producing Animation:
Getting In The Door
by Catherine Winder and Zahra Dowlatabadi
What kind of skills are required already have a portfolio, it is ments for an entry-level cleanup
to get into the field of anima- important for them to update it artist or a cleanup inbetweener you
tion? continuously. Keep copies of art- may expect to see from a studio.
People often ask how to work from previous projects you n Clean up drawings and
receive training in three main job have worked on. Recent sketch- original roughs
categories: 1) an artist, 2) a mem- books should also be included. If n Flippable inbetweened scenes
ber of the production staff, or 3) a you have many years of accumu- n Life drawing sketches
voice over actor. lated artwork, it is always wise to n Artwork from personal or
get help from fellow artists to school projects
select your strongest work. You n Videotape of animation exercises
should also research the show you When you have all your art-
are applying for and make sure work prepared, set up a time to
that your portfolio includes artwork drop off your portfolio. Most stu-
that is suitable for the project. dios have weekly or monthly
In hiring, every studio has reviews and will then return your
its own specific requirements portfolio to you. Some artists pre-
based on the status of their proj- fer to make copies of their work
ects in production and pre-produc- and leave the copies at the studio
tion. Initially, the best thing to do is so that their work is available for
to contact the studio’s recruiting or multiple recruiting departments.
Human Resources office and You may be asked to take a test.
All images courtesy of ArtToday. request information on their port- This procedure is very common in
folio requirements. Follow the most studios. A standardized test is
Artists guidelines closely. Depending on often a fair gauge of judging an
The most important tool your skill set (for example, whether artist’s aptitude for the project.
artists can have is a portfolio (or a you are an animator or a painter),
sampling of their best work). It is the requirements for your portfolio Production Staff
an artist’s calling card. If you do pieces will vary. The following is an There are several ways to
not have a portfolio, you must example of the portfolio require- get into production. While a port-
prepare some initial artwork to folio is an artist’s calling card, a
start building one. A good way to resume or curriculum vitae (CV)
begin accumulating samples of should be used when applying for
your work is by taking classes like a production staff position. Make
those offered at animation col- sure you have a strong resume
leges or the animation union. that emphasizes your abilities to
Some studios have training pro- organize, work with people, com-
grams that generally last three municate and juggle many things
months, but they are rare and dif- at once. It is important that your
ficult to get in to. resume is easy to read and can be
For those artists who understood at a glance. It should

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 11

 is important that you assemble a looking for fresh talent.
tape that demonstrates your voice For more information on
range and talent. You should then auditions and casting, or for
research voice agencies and send detailed information on previous
them a tape. Be sure that the tape experience needed for different
quality is professional. job categories, see Chapters 8,
When a voice over actor is “Pre-Production,” and Chapter 9
hired, the agent negotiates the “ P ro d u c t i o n ” re s p e c t i v e l y i n
deal and helps the actor with all of Producing Animation.
the contractual paperwork. The
agent is then paid a percentage of
the actor’s negotiated fee. The Catherine Winder has worked as
average voice over session takes both an executive producer in tel-
approximately 4 hours, depending evision and feature animation.
on the role. Pay rates vary based Her background in development,
on the type of voice over work as well as production with stu-
being done, and whether the dios from around the world has
not be more than two pages long. project is union or non-union (that given her a rare global expertise
If you have listed individuals on is, Screen Actors Guild [SAG] or in the field of animation. In her
your resume as references, it is not). For union work, it is best to present position as vice president
wise to speak with them in contact SAG directly to get the production for Fox Feature
advance to prepare them for a updated minimum rates. For non- Animation, she is overseeing pro-
possible call. By doing so, you give union work, the amount paid is duction of the studio’s 2D tradi-
your contacts a chance to review whatever you or your agent can tional and 3D CGI animated
your work experience, and then, negotiate. movies. She has co-written
hopefully, they will be able to give Producing Animation with Zahra
you a glowing referral when the Dowlatabadi.
time comes.
If you have little or no pro- Zahra Dowlatabadi, an award-
duction administration in your winning producer, started her
background, you should look to animation career in 1986. Since
get on a project as an intern, pro- then, Dowlatabadi has worked in
duction assistant or producer’s almost every major studio in Los
assistant. If you attend a commu- Angeles along with many interna-
nity college, you may be able to tionally acclaimed animation stu-
design a class in which you can dios and talent. Dowlatabadi is
get school credit in exchange for the founder of an organization
doing a studio internship. entitled Animation Team, which
Computer skills are also an impor- assists studios with production
tant asset. Having a working staffing needs ranging from quali-
knowledge of software programs fied line producers to experi-
such as FileMaker Pro, Excel and enced production assistants. She
Photoshop can give you the win- also has co-written a book enti-
ning edge by setting you apart tled Producing Animation with
from other candidates applying for Whether you have an Catherine Winder for Focal Press.
the same position. agent or not, it is a good idea to
take a voice over acting class, as it
Voice Over Actor will help you hone your skills and Note: Readers may contact any
Most voice over actors have make potential contacts. Many Animation World Magazine
agents who send them to audi- voice over coaches are profession- contributor by sending an e-mail
tions. If you don’t have an agent, it al voice over directors who are to editor@awn.com.
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 12
On Co-Directing Shrek: Victoria Jenson
by Chris Koseluk

E
xpect to see some familiar
faces in the new animated
feature Shrek. Pinocchio
puts in a brief appearance, as do
the Seven Dwarfs, the Big Bad
Wolf and the Three Blind Mice.
Robin Hood and his Merry Men
even pop up for a show-stopping
musical number. But don’t let this
proliferation of fairy tale favorites
fool you. This computer-generated
c o m e d y f r o m D r e a m Wo r k s
Pictures is unlike anything that’s
come before it.
With a lime-green complex-
ion, surly disposition and ogre-
ugly features, Shrek is as far from The unlikely face of a hero, Shrek. All images courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.
your typical fairy tale hero as you quest to make his kingdom per- arts fight sequences and a certain
can get. The circumstances pro- fect, outlaws all mythical creatures. unnamed amusement park front-
pelling him on his journey to Facing certain imprisonment, hun- ed by a character with mouse
romance and adventure are just as dreds of characters — everyone ears. And if all of this sounds a lit-
unlikely. from the Three Little Pigs to Snow tle odd for a big screen cartoon
Because of his monstrous White — take refuge in Shrek’s feature, that’s exactly what the
appearance, Shrek is an outcast, humble abode, throwing the filmmakers intended.
resigned to a lonely life in a deso- ogre’s home life into complete “We had some fun twisting
late swamp. That is until neighbor- chaos. fairy tales and turning them on
ing town ruler Lord Farquaad, in a To regain his peace and their ear,” says Victoria Jenson,
quiet, Shrek makes an agreement who shared directing duties with
with Farquaad — he’ll slay a fire- Andrew Adamson. “The tone of
breathing dragon and rescue a our comedy is a bit irreverent and
beautiful princess for Farquaad playful. We were able to play with
and, in return, the Lord will let certain expectations that you have
Shrek have his swamp all to him- about the characters.”
self. To his dismay, as Shrek sets This includes a particularly
out on his quest, he’s accompa- favorite scene of Jenson’s in which
nied by a wise-ass donkey who Farquaad, desperate to know
won’t stop talking, and, despite all where the fairy tale creatures are
of the ogre’s efforts, insists on hiding, interrogates the
befriending Shrek to help save the Gingerbread Man. “It’s familiar in
day. that it looks like a traditional tor-
Despite unspeakable tortures, the
Along the way, Shrek sati- ture sequence,” she said. “But it’s a
Gingerbread Man does not crack under rizes everything from pro wrestling cookie! He’s on a baking pan! You
Lord Farquaad’s interrogation. and The Dating Game to martial just have to see it.”

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 13

Working with Megastars ly listened to what he was saying. by-side.” During the early stages of
Generating laughs was pri- Many of Myers’ offhanded com- story development, the duo was
ority one for the creative team ments became key to finding virtually inseparable as the action
behind Shrek, so it’s no surprise Shrek’s character. “They certainly unfolded. As Shrek began to take
that some of today’s biggest comic helped the character evolve. shape and specific segments were
talents bring the characters to life. Because we were constantly work- agreed upon, the directors split
Mike Myers voices the title charac- ing the sequences, some of his the film in half — each working on
ter while Eddie Murphy plays his earliest ad-libs helped us find a a specific number of scenes.
verbose donkey sidekick. Cameron direction for a particular “That way we could focus
Diaz, as the beautiful Princess sequence,” explains Jenson. “Even our attentions on all of the tiny
Fiona, and John Lithgow, as the after we layered some sequences, details of each sequence; from
pompous Farquaad, round out he’d say, ‘You know what would story to production design
the principals. be a great line right here?’ and through the editorial process
With this group in the we’d go back and put it in.” where you are constantly with the
recording booth, laughter filled animators,” continues Jenson,
the sessions. Jenson reveals that who added that each director was
Myers in particular couldn’t resist also in charge of his or her partic-
an opportunity to clown. “He was ular scenes when the actors were
just cracking us up all the time. in the recording studios.
He’s got an amazingly intelligent The partnership also meant
sense of comedy and what makes a constant dialogue between the
something entertaining,” she says. two. Neither went very far in the
“When he’d explain a point, he’d process without input from the
go into character as Michael Caine other. “I’d work on a sequence
or Christopher Walken, imitating No matter how hard Shrek tries, with a story artist for a week or so,
how they would deliver a line. I Eddie Murphy’s smart-ass donkey then after it got to a certain stage
just won’t shut up!
know he was trying to make a we’d present it to Andrew and our
point, but we were just laughing Murphy, on the other producer,” says Jenson. This also
so hard.” hand, took a much more serious held true during the animation
approach to his character. As the process where the directors
sassy, self-effacing sidekick, he gets reviewed all of the dailies together.
most of the film’s funniest punch- “Even though there’d be a lead
lines. The comedian therefore
focused the lion’s share of his ener-
gy on his performance. “He almost
had blinkers on until he got
behind the microphone and then
— boom — he was the character,”
says Jenson. “He would grill us on
something if he didn’t understand
it. But once he got the concept,
he would completely own it.
Sometimes he’d end up with
something we didn’t expect, but it
was always funnier than we’d
expected.”
Mike Myers brought a new depth to
the title role. On Co-Directing
Jenson describes her part-
While the directors were nership with Adamson as being Co-directors Andrew Adamson
laughing at Myers, they also close- “kind of separate and kind of side- and Vicky Jenson.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 14

 This is the first CG cast to include humans as protagonists, and therefore, created a host of new challenges for PDI/DreamWorks.
director on a particular shot, we still limited when it came to ani- Farquaad, and his subjects, was to
would discuss it,” she continues. mating certain items in the com- concentrate on the subtleties of
“We would discuss it with the puter. At a ‘work-in-progress’ sneak the human form. “We built translu-
other animators as well — what preview last March, DreamWorks’ cent layers of skin so they wouldn’t
was working and what we could co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg stat- look like plastic,” Jenson says. “You
make better.” ed that there are three ‘Holy Grails’ really see that in Fiona in her close-
Jenson does admit she had of computer animation — hair, liq- ups. Light could actually pass
a particular preference to which uid and fire. Shrek brilliantly tackles through to create a luminosity. We
scenes ended up in her charge. “I each. But this is only a small part of painted freckles or warm tones a
tended to gravitate to some of the the lavish storybook world the couple of layers down and light
more goofy sequences,” she says. movie brings to life. would pass through the skin to
“My background is 3D. I worked “This is the first time you them. It just looked a lot more
with Ralph Bakshi and John really see humans appear in prin- believable.”
Kricfalusi. So I look at comedy just cipal roles in a CG film,” adds
by itself. If it’s entertaining — let’s Jenson. “Nobody really knows Chris Koseluk has written for
keep it. Let’s never lose a laugh.” what an ogre’s supposed to look many entertainment publications
like or how a donkey talks, but such as The Hollywood Reporter
Pushing the Technology everybody knows how humans and is a Los Angeles-based free-
Jenson and Adamson’s move and speak. These characters lance journalist.
main goal was to make Shrek as needed more believability. We
funny as possible. But the duo, ended up building models with Note: Readers may contact any
along with a team of roughly 275, anatomy and muscles that the ani- Animation World Magazine
also set a mandate to push the art mators pulled to make an arm contributor by sending an e-mail
of computer animation to new move or to shape a mouth.” to editor@awn.com.
heights. As amazing as such CG The animators discovered
predecessors as Toy Story, Antz the best way to heighten the real-
and A Bug’s Life were, they were ism of the princess, and Lord
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 15
 Shrek:
hen I saw Shrek at a

W promotional release in
Southern California,
the day before it opened national-
ly, I found myself laughing out
loud several times and pleasantly
surprised by both the writing and
the visuals. I loved it! Obviously, I Something Old, Something New
am not alone in feeling this way,
as the film’s success has been
immense. Newspapers have been
filled with statistics showing its first
by Maureen Furniss
weekend box office take to be
over US$42 million (including two
days of pre-release in New York
and Los Angeles, as well as Friday
t h ro u g h S u n d a y re c e i p t s ) .
Statistically, it is the biggest open-
ing for any animated film except
Toy Story, which brought in $57.3
m i l l i o n o v e r t h e f o u r- d a y
Thanksgiving weekend in 1999.
Shrek also beat out Gladiator
(2000), the most successful film to
date for its production company,
DreamWorks/PDI. Helping it in this
respect was the fact that Shrek
opened extremely wide, appear-
ing in 3,653 theaters, the second-
largest spread of any film (only
Mission: Impossible 2 opened
wider). Another reflecting of its
critical acclaim is the fact that it is
the first animated feature to
appear at the Cannes Film Festival
in France in over thirty years.

Gotta Have A Draw

More than a live-action film,
animated features allow and even
require a complex marketing strat-
egy. Drawing huge crowds in to
see, in this case, an animated ogre Shrek isn’t your normal fairy tale and Princess Fiona isn’t your usual damsel in distress.
All images courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.
is the first and perhaps most
important step in creating a fea- it is more the construction of the which are impressive. Advances in
ture that has ‘legs,’ as they say, film that propels it into a popular showing fire, plants and hair are
and can spin its own web of self- culture phenomenon. Word of among the most noted accom-
perpetuating publicity and popu- mouth, as well as critical reviews, plishments of the computer-gener-
larity. After that initial draw, that in this case tend to be based on ated animation.
first weekend in which the film the writing of the story and the A cast of great performers,
either makes headlines or falls flat, technological advances, both of including Mike Myers and Eddie

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 16

Murphy, add a lot to the film and run together in an embrace and Hollywood point of view, that
no doubt have helped draw audi- love conquers all. won’t do at all. Even the Shrek
ences of a wide demographic. The character of Steig’s tale is too ugly.
script is based on a children’s book Let me just put it this way: it’s
by William Steig; however, the impossible to imagine either of
adaptation is quite liberal. Steig’s them as plush toys, beanies, or
version of Shrek is a relatively short even collectible figures.
picture book tale, which begins The obvious solution is to
when Shrek is kicked out of his complicate the plot and modify
family home. Soon after he goes the character designs. By inserting
on his way, he is told that his for- Lord Farquuad dreams of his
the background story of fairy tale
tune is to marry a princess. Shrek is Princess Fiona. characters invading Shrek’s territo-
surprised, but enthusiastic, and ry, the writers have given them-
takes off looking for a series of Honing the Story selves an almost limitless opportu-
clues that will take him to her. Like In film adaptations of nov- nity to create humorous scenarios,
his filmic counterpart, this Shrek els, it is typical to cut out charac- which they’ve fully exploited. My
revels in the fact that he frightens ters in order to streamline the story personal favorite is the spunky gin-
people with his looks. In fact, and to include just the most gerbread man who yells, “You’re a
when he walks into a hall of mir- important (sometimes, different monster,” and, “Bite me,” as he
rors at one point, he even scares characters are compiled into one). refuses to give information to the
himself, which makes him quite The action is almost always simpli- evil Lord Farquuad. Weaving
proud. Along the way to the fied to create a single narrative Princess Fiona into this fairy tale
princess’s castle, Shrek has to deal plot that centers around action scenario works extremely well, as it
with a dragon and a donkey, who and conflict, with a final resolution solves another plot problem: the
helps him make the final leg of his that is clear-cut and satisfying. In u-g-l-y factor. Make her into a
trip. Once at the castle, he has to the case of Shrek, the original chil- beautiful princess who is under a
battle a guard in armor in order to dren’s story has too little action to spell and only becomes ‘ugly’ (in a
get access to his bride-to-be. sustain a feature-length film. It also cute sort of way) at night, when
When he finally gets to her, he is has too little conflict, as the obsta- we hardly see her. In fact, she has
thrilled to see that she is — not cles in Shrek’s way are dealt with to hide her ugliness from the other
svelte and lovely — but stunningly rather quickly and easily. Perhaps characters, so there is narrative
ugly. When the two see each most significantly, though, the motivation for not showing her
other, they instantly know that ‘prize’ at the end is in fact a really ogre manifestation. There are
they are fated for each other. They ugly woman — and from a practical reasons why Princess
Fiona must be beautiful most of
the time: why else would Prince
Farquuad want to marry her? He
is vain and the bottom line is that
he wants to marry a princess, so
he can rule the land. Nonetheless,
he ‘naturally’ is taken by her beau-
ty and she becomes his choice.
What about Farquuad? He
is the only main character that
does not appear in the original
story. Farquuad works fantastically
as an evil character who provides
all the conflict for Shrek that is lack-
ing from Steig’s story. First, he
moves the characters into Shrek’s
Reveling in a nice mud bath, Shrek enjoys his solitary life at film’s beginning. swamp. Then he makes a deal to
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 17
move them out if Shrek gets the
princess. Finally, he provides con-
flict when Shrek falls in love with
Fiona. Clearly, he is of central
importance to the development of
the adaptation’s plot.

Fiona the Fearless?

Shrek has great fun with
traditional characters and story-
lines of fairy tales. It clearly takes
aim at Disney; Farquuad’s evil king-
dom is unmistakably a deserted
main street from Disneyland, com-
plete with Small-Worldesque
Shrek reworks the typical fairy tale but still relies on some old standards.
singers. The story of Fiona seems
aimed at Disney animated fea- anyway). My point is this: while his lifestyle and in fact mirrors his
tures, in which a host of lovely the film does contain a message own appearance.
princesses have been saved from that ‘beauty is on the inside’ and Here’s another scenario
horrible fates by their knights in that women of all types are beau- that might help put this in per-
shining armor. When Shrek comes tiful, it is significant that Fiona’s spective: Shrek kisses her, but
to her rescue, she waits expectant- understanding of this fact is fil- decides that things are happening
ly, taking a ‘sleeping death’ posi- tered through male approval. First too fast and he needs his ‘person-
tion, for “loves first kiss” (this sets she seeks a union with Farquuad, al space’ again, so he runs back to
her up for the first of several thinking it will solve her little ‘prob- his swamp hut. Would Fiona still
disappointments). Despite her lem’ that happens every night. She have found personal satisfaction
attempt to fit herself into a fairy realizes that she’s in love with with her permanent ‘new look?’ I
tale scenario, we see that Fiona is Shrek, but also thinks she’s been don’t think so. In contrast, Disney’s
in fact far from a ‘traditional’ hero- rebuffed by him, so she follows Mulan was a self-confident
ine. She is a skillful fighter, not through on marrying Farquuad woman even at the start of the
above eating roasted rats, and (note, significantly, that when film, understanding fully how to
known to emit uncouth noises things get rough, this incredible operate within a man’s world. At
from her body. What kind of martial artist is unable to fight off a the end of Mulan, she remains
princess is that? She looks like a small band of Farquuad’s men). In strong as an individual, while also
princess, being tall, slender and any case, she doesn’t become experiencing love. Sure, viewers
lovely, but something tells us — ‘okay with herself’ until Shrek kisses are happy when she and her man
and Shrek — that this one is differ- her and, ultimately, validates her meet again, but the story ends
ent. But how different is she? appearance as acceptable; to me, before a clear ‘union’ is formed.
I was impressed by Fiona’s it is disappointing that her charac- Ultimately, Mulan remains a strong
ability to fight like female warriors ter arc, being able to accept her- female character — outwardly
from The Matrix and Crouching self in a so-called ‘ugly’ physical beautiful throughout the story, of
Tiger, Hidden Dragon , but I manifestation, is in fact activated course — while Fiona is not so
sensed an unresolved contradic- by the kiss of a man. However, this secure in her identity and also
tion in her need to seek authenti- kiss is also significant for its affect shifts in her physical appearance.
cation from a male romantic part- on the main character of the film. As an audience, we always know
ner. I could make the argument By kissing Shrek, Fiona facilitates that she is really a tall, slender,
that a highly trained martial the completion of his character beautiful ‘storybook princess;’
artist/fighting machine probably arc; he is no longer a social intro- even after her look changes. If
has little concern for such worldly vert, but instead looks forward to nothing else we still have the voice
matters as physical appearance, the company of a companion of Cameron Diaz to remind us of
but I won’t (I’ll think it in my head who has proven compatible with her origins. In any case, even the
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 18
 The voices behind the frivolity: Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy and John Lithgow.

‘changed’ Fiona hardly pushes the Fiona. While many other ‘myths’ performed daily at Universal
boundaries of true ugliness. One are being pulled apart, this myth Studios through summer, a 3D ver-
of my friends, Greg Singer, said of masculinity is vital in Farquuad’s sion planned for IMAX theaters to
that the audience around him col- caricature. coincide with the fall release of
lectively cooed “awww” in reac- I can see how these char- Shrek on video, and plans for a
tion to her ‘cuteness’ as an ugly acters were determined by the film Shrek 2 already under way, clearly
character. industry as much as the film’s run- the road to success is not in devia-
ning time was. It is hard to imag- tion as much as repetition. Since
Some Myths Remain ine a 45-minute mini-feature or a the film contains innovative tech-
The characterization of 3-hour epic animation being nological achievements, interest-
Farquuad, who is voiced by John screened in theaters; likewise, I ing characters, great performanc-
Lithgow, is also interesting, as it can hardly see producers agreeing es and wonderful writing to
plays on conventional stereotypes to an ugly female romantic lead. delight us, at least the second-
of masculinity. He has the so-called Even in a film about the need to third-fourth-and-so-on times around
‘Napoleon complex,’ being a short see beyond the surface of a per- should be pleasurable.
man who needs to compensate son, Hollywood makes sure there
by dominating everyone around is a beautiful princess to admire. Maureen Furniss, Ph.D. is
him. In terms of masculinity, short- The fact that she is rendered so Assistant Professor and Program
ness applies in more than one con- realistically, while the other charac- Director of Film Studies at
text to a lack of virility. A short man ters are so clearly caricatures Chapman University in Orange,
cannot physically dominate a tall makes her ‘perfect’ appearance California. She is the founding
woman, so how can he keep her stand out in the film all the more. editor of Animation Journal and
in line? Farquuad compensates While the film tears at so many the author of Art in Motion:
with leg extensions, and as some fond memories of childhood tales, Animation Aesthetics (John
‘short men’ might do with a it is nice to know that some things Libbey, 1998).
padded, well, you know (Fiona never change — isn’t it?
and no doubt countless others Ultimately, the film’s ability Note: Readers may contact any
were shocked when the poser’s to question tradition is bound into Animation World Magazine
real stature was revealed). My its status as a commercial product contributor by sending an e-mail
point is that Farquuad’s shortness within the highly competitive, to editor@awn.com.
is a clear indicator of his ‘differ- ultra-risky industry of animated fea-
ence’ and overall unsuitability as a tures. With performances of a 20-
partner for the tall and lovely minute musical version of Shrek
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 19
 Walking to Toontown, Part Two
by Martin “Dr. Toon” Goodman

J
ourneys should not be aimless
lest they lead to wasted lives;
signposts are needed for guid-
ance. Unfortunately, in 1977 these
were few and widely spaced.
There were no college courses on
animation available to audit and
little coverage of the subject in the
media. A search through the uni-
versity library showed few books
concerned with animation on any
Courtesy of Jerry Beck.
level, and the ones I did find dealt
with Walt Disney. The books con- Film Comment and The Journal of saving rounds there were books,
flicted considerably: Bob Thomas’ Popular Culture. Both fanzines brought to me from the public
Walt Disney: An American Original and journals served vital purposes library, which kept my mind off
and The Disney Version by Richard during this phase of my journey: daily travails while educating me
Schickel presented disparate sides The fanzines introduced me to the at the same time: Joe Adamson’s
of Disney, the latter book being a animators and writers behind the biography of Tex Avery, Peary and
critical, revisionist look at Walt and cartoons and provided my first Peary’s The American Animated
his works. The fact that two differ- sketchy comprehension of anima- Cartoon, and greatest of all, a new
ent authors could be at such vari- tion history. The journals, despite book that hit the shelves halfway
ance was fascinating, and reading their labyrinthine arguments, initi- through my treatment, Leonard
these works represented my first ated my interest in linking anima- Maltin’s classic work, Of Mice and
real steps toward knowledgeable tion to the larger arena of culture Magic. The publication of this
fandom. The only other tome I and society. It was a promising book defined the path of my jour-
could find was the original edition start, but it was at this point that ney; at last, in one volume, I found
of Leonard Maltin’s The Disney the journey nearly ended forever. an entire history of animated car-
Films (Maltin would reappear with toons. Maltin’s book tied together
the exact book I was looking for, A Special Bond all the scraps I had been gathering
but that was still to come). I was twenty-two when and integrated them into a coher-
Some of the larger book- some cells in the depths of my ent timeline complete with places
stores and kiosks around bones celebrated 1978 by turning and personalities.
Cambridge carried magazines that rogue; it was lymphoma. During Woody Woodpecker kept
I took notice of for the first my lengthy stay in a Boston his promise. The long, cyclic battle
time...mainly because I had re s e a rc h h o s p i t a l , c a r t o o n s of health and relapse ended in
learned of them and sought them became a beacon of survival, pro- 1981 when the usual tests could
out. Some of you may remember viding me the most cheerful find no trace of disease anywhere.
Funnyworld, Mindrot (yes, it did respite I could claim from the rav- I had a second shot at life, and ani-
find its way out to Boston), and ages of chemotherapy and radia- mation was to become a vital part
another magazine that frequently tion. I came to believe that if I of this new existence. As I recov-
highlighted animation, The Velvet could hold on each day until ered and planned my return to
Light Trap. A journal search Woody Woodpecker showed up school, I began to attend my first
through the college library also at 4:30, I would not die that animated film festivals. Some of
turned up occasional articles in evening. Until Woody made his them were nostalgic retrospectives
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 20
of American shorts, others fea- ing them. In 1987 I departed some were filled with misinforma-
tured the work of independents Massachusetts to pursue my doc- tion, poor research and apoc-
and some were foreign. I was toral studies in Indiana, but did ryphal stories taken as verities.
exposed to such films as Musical not leave my passion for anima- Some “official” sites seemed little
Pig and The Fifth One from the tion behind; several in my cohort more than shills. After learning
Zagreb Studio, and it occurred to began calling me “Dr. Toon” due how to surf more efficiently, I dis-
me that there were entirely differ- to my propensity for relieving covered the best and most inform-
ent ways to present animated sto- stress with videocassettes full of ative animation Websites and
ries. I had begun to catch the spo- cartoons, and thus my nom de increased my store of knowledge
radic Disney re-releases and was plume. considerably. One of my favorite
now able to view them through a sites was Michelle Klein-Hass’
different critical filter. Having kept Animation Nerd’s Paradise (now
an interest in cultural studies, I lovingly archived on AWN). I
tried to view shorts and features as vaguely remembered Michelle’s
products of a specific society at a name from back issues of
specific period in its history; meta- AniMato!; soon her opinionated,
messages and sub-themes could outspoken style had me book-
be found in any given cartoon marking the site for regular visits.
and it made animation all the Ms. Klein-Hass turned out to be
more fascinating. Whether one the gatekeeper for the next seg-
was a proponent of the Frankfort ment of my journey.
school’s neo-Marxian, hegemonic The Illusion of Life — long thought of as I had always fantasized
the bible of animation. Now out of print,
outlook, a proto-feminist, or a psy- copies sell for hundreds of dollars.
about publishing in a journal or
choanalytic acolyte, the fact fanzine someday; getting a piece
remained the same, animated Taking the Plunge into AniMato!, I imagined, would
films were as open to subjective I was a raw newbie when I raise me at least to the level
analysis as any live-action counter- got my first Internet-ready comput- of James Agee. However, the
part. The soppiest Casper cartoon er in 1995. Surfing for the first time thought of putting my work out
had some sort of statement to at the age of forty, I discovered a there for others to read was as for-
make about common or divergent broad new frontier of animation bidding as a jaunt to Transylvania
cultural values. Websites and people. I tried to might be for Scooby Doo. It took
This stage of the journey, make up for lost time by going to considerable fortitude to answer
lasting from about 1982-86, was every animation site I could find, Michelle’s call for contributors, but
marked by an incessant search for and was shocked to discover that on January 15, 1997, I shut my
books and articles that solidified eyes and hit the “send” box. That
my knowledge on the subject as week I was welcomed aboard ANP
well as study of film theory and and given my first assignment: My
criticism. Frank Thomas and Ollie new “employer” and I would tack-
Johnson published one of the le a joint review of King of the Hill.
industry’s greatest books, Disney I still thank Michelle for her
Animation: The Illusion of Life, and patience in dealing with my fum-
this awesome work taught me bling attempts to coordinate our
more about the process of making efforts in cyberspace. She taught
cartoons than anything I had stud- me how to work online efficiently,
ied up until then. Animation histo- moderate my style, and develop
ry was now my full-time hobby the patience that is often needed
and I collected tapes by the mile. when working with people with
Combing through the dollar bins whom you can’t see or speak
Animato #40, featuring the famous
at cut-rate stores often netted me article on Flip the Frog, one of publisher
immediately. Best of all, she
gems stuck on public domain Patrick Duquette’s favorites. Courtesy of helped me to develop the confi-
compilations; I spent hours watch- Patrick Duquette. dence that came with seeing your
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 21
name on material that people at Animation World Network, and and frustrations, to be sure; a
actually wanted to read and I signed on in June of 1999. I left planned interview with Warners
respond to. behind twenty-one columns, tunester George Daugherty was
One surprising response including my most controversial: a lost in a maze of missed calls and
came in April of that year, after I defense of Bob Clampett’s Coal deadlines, and a two-year attempt
had written a “rant” for Michelle Black and de Sebben Dwarfs to persuade a local university to let
concerning the DIC “Tex Avery” (1998). I still receive e-mail about me teach a course in animation
revival; it came from Michael this piece, but the most startling history and appreciation ended in
Swanigan, editor of TOON response came from Robert failure. There is more animation
Magazine, asking permission to Clampett Jr., who asked to post it out today than I can reasonably
run the piece in his next issue. A (and a later column I had done on watch, especially in the realm of
couple of months later, I saw my his father) on the official Bob anime. Still, for a simple fan who
name in print for the first time. I Clampett Website. I was deeply holds down a day job and works
remain with TOON today as a staff honored to send the columns to outside of the industry, this jour-
writer and cherish my unusual Mr. Clampett; it was an act of grat- ney has been among the most
relationship with Michael, a gener- itude for the happy hours his tal- wonderful experiences of my life.
ous man whom I have yet to ented father had given me during The most cherished aspect
meet, speak with, or see in per- my childhood. of this journey is the people I have
son. The journey’s pace quick- met along the way. I am continu-
ened; I began to receive e-mail ally surprised at how friendly and
from fans and those with ques- forthcoming the animation com-
tions about animation, and this munity is. Producers, directors, edi-
was the most unexpected part of tors, publicity people, animators,
the journey. Some queries led too fellow journalists and the fans
informal consulting duties for themselves have given generous
organizations such as the Danish support, assistance and interest
Film Institute at Aarhus, The throughout this enjoyable journey
Southern Alleghenies Museum of “Working” for publications has allowed
even though I am not a regular
Art, and Lincoln Center for the Dr.Toon to interview many cartoon member of their circle. The fact
Performing Arts. I was little pre- greats, like Gene Deitch and Zdenka that I have published nearly fifty
Deitchova. © AWN.
pared for this, but I did my best pieces in four years has little to do
and provided the most cogent Many Rewards with my own ability; it is rather a
research and references I could In many ways, this past testimony to the kindness of those
muster. In December of 1997, one year has been the best of all. who have helped me along the
of my fantasies came true when Research for a piece on Tom path and guided me well. We are,
Patrick Duquette accepted my first Terrific led to many warm after all, on the same journey. I’m
submission to AniMato!, a humble exchanges with Gene Deitch, and the one beside you, taking notes,
history of Flip the Frog. while putting together an article making calls and typing faster
Michelle Klein-Hass gave on The Mighty Heroes I enjoyed a than Speedy Gonzales to make
me my own column, “The Doctor hilarious phone interview with deadline. Together, we’ll keep on
Is In,” in May of 1997. For the next Ralph Bakshi. Doing research with walking to Toontown.
two years Animation Nerd’s veterans like Buzz Potamkin and
Paradise was a happy home getting interviews with rising stars Martin “Dr. Toon” Goodman is a
shared with Michelle and fellow like Mo Willems have been the longtime student and fan of ani-
columnist Tom Reed, but few most recent and rewarding stops mation. He lives in Anderson,
things in life have permanence. on the journey, but these are only Indiana.
Michelle made the decision to experiences: the true reward
close ANP in the summer of 1999 comes when they are translated Note: Readers may contact any
but as always, she took good care into columns and articles for the Animation World Magazine
of me; it was she who referred me enjoyment of the animation com- contributor by sending an e-mail
to Dan Sarto and Heather Kenyon munity. There have been regrets to editor@awn.com.
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 22
 Monthly provocative,drunken, idiotic ramblings from the North… Fred?” What I loathe more than
anything is that this mindset forces
me to defend what is often an elit-

Annecy, ist group. When I became festival

director I was eager to fight the
apparent snob mentality of associ-
ations like ASIFA. For me, as long
Audiences, Art as a work stimulated me mentally,
that was all I needed. I don’t need
to say this is ART and this is SHIT.
and Sandwiches But lately, I’ve found myself suc-
cumbing to the very elitism I
loathe.
Illustration by Andreas Hykade.
Courtesy of Chris Robinson. by Chris Robinson But hey, I may not agree
with their taste, but I absolutely

I
’ve never been a big fan of cin- They whistle…throw beach balls love this lovely crowd and wish
ema audiences. Within those around…and it’s complimented by other festival audiences would rise
darkened, shadowed walls crazy closing ceremonies, general- from the dead and respond.
you can’t help but see and hear a ly poor film selection and, surpris- Animation festival theatres have
world that is a little bit fascistic. You ingly, a general lack of ‘taste.’ become like the popular theatre of
either laugh or cry or applaud Contrary to the notion that Brecht’s time. He once said it was a
almost entirely in unison with the the French have good taste, the world where the audience
other seated souls. Emotions are audiences in Annecy seem devoid checked their head in at the door.
suppressed so as not to disturb the of any. They want bunny rabbits, The difference here is that the
others. It’s entirely inappropriate to ducks, farts and gag films. They material being shown is usually
mock a film or laugh when others loathe anything ‘ambitious’ or high quality, provocative, chal-
cry, or boo while the rest applaud. ‘arty.’ It’s quite surprising given lenging and innovative, but what
I just hate it. You can never truly be Annecy’s roots, but reveals how far we find is a case of over-polite,
who you are. Emotions are tai- Annecy has strayed from those repressed audiences…and Christ, I
lored to the tune of your fellow days of ‘promoting the art of ani- don’t know what life is like within
audience members. It makes sense mation.’ In particular I remember commercial studio walls, but the
really and explains a lot of this in Annecy ‘99 how the audience independent crowd can be
society which carries the belief was merciless in watching Austrian extremely conservative. It’s part of
that, ‘Rules say there is nothing artist, Barbel Neubauer’s abstract this desperate attempt to project
more.’ We live in a repressed era. film, Firehouse. They whistled and animation as a bourgeois art form.
The genuine or authentic are applauded throughout her film To applaud quietly and politely
replaced by the mechanical or vir- and then she had to stand on (like a golf clap wherein three fin-
tual. We cannot even laugh (on stage after it. It was a terrible expe- gers gently tap the palm of the
our own) at television. ‘Canned’ rience and she was deeply hurt by other hand) and to cry over Father
guffaws do that for us. it. Fortunately, the jury consisted and Daughter is really about defin-
For this reason I always like of more open-minded people and ing a notion of high art. To boo,
two types of movie theatres. The Barbel received a prize in the end. heckle or applaud sarcastically is to
first is kids’ films. This is a wonder- Justice. reflect primitive, primate qualities
ful experience. All these crazy little Festivals are the last haven attributed to low brow culture (eg.
voices shouting an endless parade for stimulating animation, but sports fans).
of grunts, guffaws and basic pri- even within these walls this is And yes animation is
mary reactions unmediated and becoming a threat. Christ, in defined as entertainment and it
unconcerned with those around Ottawa, I keep hearing the same needs to be more accepted as a
them. The second is the Annecy ol’ complaints: “How can you stimulated form of expression.
Animation Festival. It’s great. They choose The Night of the Carrots However these ‘proper’ artists (you
boo. They applaud sarcastically. over great animation like Famous know who they are) merely rein-
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 23
force the very social injustice and It fills a bland materialist existence. In the end, Keaton made more
inequalities they often critique. As Funny, but the irony of my bitch- profound works.
another Frenchman said, by creat- ing is that I had to go to University Okay…rambling a bit…
ing a high and low in art, you are to learn that HIGH and LOW dis- what’s my point? 1. Annecy
merely reinforcing social or class tinctions are silly. screenings are the best because
differences. And this is often the We need to move beyond you can be an individual. 2.
problem (I’ve been guilty of it at the extremes of art vs. industry. Annecy audiences, however, can
times too). Too often we divide Yes, there are commercial crafts- be very unsophisticated. 3. The
animation into a polarization of art folk who blindly reject anything word, ART and all the other slang
vs. industry. Disney vs. McLaren, with content, but there are also associated with it (i.e. sophisticat-
etc. We frown upon those com- those so-called sophisticated ed) needs to be re-defined. 4. I do
mercial ‘twits’ who are ‘unrefined’ folks who are just as blind in not cut my sandwiches.
and lack sophistication, while we their assumptions. For example,
golf clap a Frédéric Back, Raoul Father and Daughter , The Old Hottie Animator o’ da Month
Servais or Yuri Norstein film. Yet, Man and The Sea and The Well…he’s not an animator,
this very attitude only further dis- Mighty River are considered but Dr. Toon is a hottie. This man
tances ‘artistic’ animation from the beautiful, DELICATE, sophisticat- can write. Read it. Love it. Eat it.
general audience. No one wants ed works...in general…by the This month’s Animation Pimp is
to be told WHAT is proper. The ‘experts’…but shit Father and sponsored by the Royal Canadian
high brow enthusiasts have creat- Daughter is a hollow effort. Yes, Mounted Police and Quebec
ed a colony where we are told it’s a beautifully designed film, police: “Nothing says police state
that to enter this realm you must but its story is sappy and emo- like tear gas, pepper spray and
understand proper etiquette or tional and really bares more designated protest areas.”
the ‘delicate sensibilities’ of a resemblance to let’s say Geri’s
Renoir. Yeah…well, whatever. I’m Game than more provocative Chris Robinson is a writer, festival
gonna go and clean the shit off pieces like The Hat or Flying director, programmer, junky and
my shoes and make a sand- Nansen. Hell, I’ve seen episodes has been called the John Woo of
wich…and ya know what? I’m not of The Simpsons and South Park diplomacy. His hobbies include
going to properly slice the sand- that are more mentally stimulat- horseback riding, pudpulling,
wich into four pieces. Just gonna ing and provide as scintillating a canoeing and goat thumping.
eat the whole friggin’ thing. This social critique as any Priit Parn
colony of supposed sophisticates is film. It’s like Charles Chaplin and Note: Readers may contact any
a creation of those in power. It Buster Keaton. Chaplin wanted Animation World Magazine
makes them feel better about to be a serious artist. Keaton contributor by sending an e-mail
themselves. It makes them special. wanted to make people laugh. to editor@awn.com.

Bonus HTML Features

Every on-line (HTML) issue of Animation World Magazine contains additional features not found in the download or print
Acrobat version, such as QuickTime movies, links to Animation World Network sites, extended articles and special sections.
Don’t miss the following highlights that are showcased exclusively in this month’s Animation World Magazine HTML version:

• Cartoons on the Bay: A Different Type of Festival

Go on line to see more photos from Cartoons on the Bay, the world’s only television animation festival, a uniquely
Italian event set in the midst of some of the earth’s most beautiful scenery, at:
http://mag.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=pageone&article_no=152

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 24

 The Australian Effects and
Animation Festival 2001
by Stephen Lynch
A
ustralia’s visual effects industry, and how to structure behind the scenes footage, James
community gathered at their careers,” enthused Dawes. gave an in-depth explanation of
Sydney’s Darling Harbor “For an Australian animator to get the process of creating a shot,
Convention Centre for the 6th that sort of information from ILM is from storyboard through to final
Australian Effects and Animation a once in a lifetime opportunity.” composition. While the film had
Festival (AEAF) from February 26 – Apart from such overseas an average number of nine layers
28, 2001. While their motives for talent, the festival also provided per shot, James shocked his audi-
attending may have been as diver- the chance for two Australian ani- ence when he recalled that the
sified as the festival’s sessions, all mators, who have made their largest number of layers in one
visitors left with the same out- mark overseas, to partake in a sort frame was 498. “That was a very
come: an invaluable experience of homecoming. Karen Ansel, bad day at the office.”
and insight into the digital world who has worked on such films as
at large. The Mask, The Klumps and What
Dreams May Come, pondered on
the differences between working
locally and in America. “Australia
makes you flexible, because you
really have to do everything.
You’re not slotted into one particu-
lar area, whereas in the U.S. you
might be working on one
sequence for 2 years. The plus side
of working in the States was that
Hael Kobayashi and Tim Alexander
from Industrial Light & Magic. there is a greater sharing of tech-
All photos courtesy and © AEAF. nological knowledge. In Australia,
where the competition is tougher,
“Our target audience con- people tend to hold onto their Robyn Schremmer, design director,
Digital Pictures, and Chris Nurse, CEO
sists of a broad range,” stated festi- information a little bit.” of Attik London, proved that people
val chairman and editor of Digital Also returning home was travelled to attend this event.
Media World, Bill Dawes. “From James Rogers, the composite
students to craftspeople, anima- supervisor for the upcoming film Undoubtedly a draw-card
tors, post-production professionals Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. for the festival, Final Fantasy’s
and technical experts within the Opening with clips from the full inclusion in the line-up, coupled
industry.” One of the major attrac- motion videos of the Final Fantasy with Mark Coleran’s glimpse of his
tions for these attendees was the games, James pointed out that, “If work on Tomb Raider, highlighted
festival’s line-up of guest speakers, you ever question why Square the relationship between film ani-
which included a comprehensive decided to make a movie, looking mation and video games anima-
gathering of local and internation- at those videos should give you a tion. As Bill Dawes confirmed,
a l e x p e r i e n c e . “ We g o t H a e l fairly good idea of the logical pro- “Previously that quality of anima-
K o b a y a s h i f ro m I L M t o t a k e gression.” Following on with tion was limited to the opening
Australian animators through the exclusive clips from the film, cinematics of major computer
process of how to get a gig in this including never-before-seen games. Then when you would go

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 25

to the game play, where the ani- animation. “It’s funny, because the work being performed locally and
mation has to be rendered in real- ironic thing is that it’s difficult to internationally, but also to interact
time by the graphics processor on make hair dirty,” joked James. “You first hand with those responsible
the console or PC, [it wouldn’t be may be able to see single strands, for that work, is a rare thing
as good]. Although it could not be but you hope that some of them indeed. As Bill Dawes concluded,
of the quality of the pre-rendered clump together like they do in real “When Laurence Treweek from
sequence, I think we are now people.” Sony finished his session, he men-
approaching that level with prod- tioned that he was currently
ucts like the X-Box and PS2. You recruiting for projects such as
are also seeing similar develop- Stuart Little 2 and Harry Potter. He
ments in the quality of animation was promptly swamped by half
produced for feature films. In the studio audience getting his
terms of the presentation we saw card and email address and pro-
of Final Fantasy and Shrek, we are viding him with their CVs. The fact
close to photo-real capabilities, that we can provide that sort of
making animation of even two or opportunity is unique.”
three years ago appear second
Photon VFX was well represented by
rate.”
Michael Holzl on the left, head of 3D,
and producer Soren Jensen.

Day 3 of the festival was set

aside for master classes, which
were designed to teach attendees
about specific areas of digital
effects and animation. Michael
Sarkis of Photon VFX, who con-
ducted a class on motion control, Among the award winners was
explained that: “It shows people Momentum Animation Studios,
Mike and Jane Hollands from Act III in represented here by Dylan Perry, direc-
who may specialize in one area tor/CEO, and Stephanie Gilles, animator.
Melbourne were some of the award-
winning local talent on the scene. how different technologies and
different companies are using the And the Winners Are…
As someone who has tools that are available in order to On the final night of AEAF,
worked on both film and video solve problems. There is a lot of the festival announced its winners
games, James Rogers believes the technology on display here, but in an upscale ceremony hosted at
difference between the two medi- the fundamental thing is that it is a the Sydney Convention Centre in
ums is minimal: “It’s really in the tool that allows people to be cre- Darling Harbour. Boasting a
way you approach the material. A ative and achieve results. Being record number of submissions and
game is on a small screen, a film is able to broaden your horizons and judges like ILM’s Rob Coleman and
on a big screen, so your attention find how different things on the Peter Giles, head of digital media
to detail and certain scenes is market can be linked together, or at the Australian Film, Television
slightly shifted. Whereas on a film, how you can use a tool in a way and Radio School, Australian
you might fret about a freckle on you might not have known effects companies took home a
the side of the actresses face, on a before, this will come out in these number of prizes in categories
game you are less likely to worry master classes. People through filled with U.K. and U.S. competi-
about that.” In fact, freckles and their experience can show you tion.
other blemishes are just some of how to use these tools to create n Feature Film: The Grinch (Digi-
the features that Square USA took images.” tal Domain)
pains to include in their ‘actors’ The same could be said of n Games: Starship Troopers (Act III)
faces, resulting in a photo-realism the festival as a whole. Enabling n Commercials, Animation: Gator-
that removes the ‘china-doll’ look Australia’s visual effects community ade “Raptor vs. Raptor” (ILM)
which is so common in this type of to be exposed not only to the n Commercials, VFX: TDK “Evolve”

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 26

(Digital Pictures) Journey (Animated Biomedical Stephen Lynch has written about
n M u s i c Vi d e o s : B a rd o t “I Productions) the various aspects of filmmaking
Should’ve Never Let You Go” n Short Film: For the Birds (Pixar for books and magazines
(Momentum Animation) Animation Studios) throughout Australia, England
n TV Series: Curse of the Talisman and America, as well as co-host-
(Photon VFX) ing Flicks, a weekly film review
n Titles, Idents & Stings: Hoyts “Ex- program.
perience” (GMD)
n Student: Intransit (Mike Daly) Note: Readers may contact any
n Web Animation: Westvale Road Animation World Magazine
(Momentum Animation) contributor by sending an e-mail
n Education & Training: A Neural to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 27

 The Magic Pudding:
body contour shadow. It’s when
you get up close to big characters
and big body areas that you really

Making A Feature In Oz need some additional moulding to

break down the big flat areas,
which on a cinematic screen can
be very overwhelming.

by Stephen Lynch SL: How were the CGI shots on

R
obbert Smit has been the film achieved?
hailed as Australia’s most
experienced animation RS: They were all done on the
director. Not only has he worked Inferno system. That was probably
on such television series as Scooby the most extreme hi-tech equip-
Doo, Dark Wing Duck and Two ment that we used on the film.
Stupid Dogs, but he has also
directed the feature films Footrot SL: Did they pose problems with
Flats and Blinky Bill. As such, he is regard to budget?
well-versed in the difficulties asso- Albert,The Magic Pudding, voiced by
ciated with adapting an Australian John Cleese, gets a hand from Bill RS: Yes. We virtually had to go
favourite into an animated feature Barnacle. All images courtesy and through the whole script, once we
© Energee Entertainment.
film, a challenge he has risen to had the storyboard, and allocate
once more in his role as animation digital, because the colours go areas where we could maximise
director of Energee Entertain- everywhere, so we had to work the use of the 3D. Scenes, which
ment’s production of The Magic with a clean line to contain the with traditional animation would
Pudding. Recently I spoke to colour areas of the character be very difficult to achieve,
Robbert about this adaptation of design. To compensate for the became quite achievable with the
Norman Lindsay’s classic children’s loss of that rough Lindsay line 3D format.
tale. look, we added a lot of body con-
tour shadow, drop shadow and SL: Apart from the first appear-
Stephen Lynch: Unlike some ani- highlights to the final image. ance of the pudding where he
mated features, you’ve actually drops through the clouds, what
tried to keep very close to the orig- SL: That was particularly evident in was the stand-out CGI shot for
inal design of the characters from the character of Bill Barnacle. you?
the book. What sort of problems
did that pose? RS: When characters are small RS: The one where he actually
you can get away with minimal explodes. That was probably the
Robbert Smit: That’s a tricky one, biggest. It took 3 days to process,
because I actually wanted to with each frame talking something
make it even closer to the book like 1.4 minutes. It took some
drawings. More of a pencil sketch huge crunching. But all we did
line, which in traditional anima- there was supply the artwork for
tion you would achieve with cel six puddings and then we multi-
artwork. However the require- plied that over and over again. It
ment with this production was to was completely composited in
push the boundaries and frontiers Inferno using basic artwork and
of digital application, so we had creating this massive explosion. To
to modify the line work a little bit Left to right, Bill (Hugo Weaving), Sam get that sort of quality and that
Sawnoff (Sam Neill), Bunyip Bluegum
so that it could be more digital (Geoffrey Rush) and Albert enjoy a chat,
amount of puddings would have
friendly. It’s very difficult to do a some pudding and lots of singing and been almost impossible to achieve
sketch drawing and paint it on dancing in the Outback. in any traditional sense. There
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 28
were great benefits of having that shape of the mountains, and how constant handing down of infor-
facility available. they’re different to Europe. Here mation from older animators. Here
they’re rounded mountains, not we have this stop/start problem,
SL: How difficult was it creating sharp. It’s an old continent, and where there is about six or seven
new characters that were ‘sympa- the saturation of colour into the years between productions. In
thetic’ to the look of the original Australian light is so different than that time you have huge changes.
characters? the European colour. The blues With the advent of digital anima-
and the mauves that you see in tion, there’s a big gap between the
RS: Buncle went though quite a the hills. Mauve is very much a traditional animator and the new
lot of changes. We came up with basic theme colour all the way digital animator. That gap is actu-
a human character first, which through the film. There’s always a ally creating a new breed of ani-
had some very good designs, but touch of mauve somewhere. It’s mator that hasn’t got the tradition-
it just didn’t quite gel. Then I that Blue Mountains-hazy back- al principles of animation, so
thought Possum and Wombat, the drop. The difficulty was that you’re constantly working with
innocent pudding thieves, were Lindsay did not do too much color people who have knowledge,
animal based and Buncle being work. It was always black and but of a different application.
the instigator of those two charac- white line work. So to get a sym- Therefore, it’s difficult for us to get
ters should have some kin rela- pathetic color scheme running a good group together that can
tions. So then it became clear that through the film and still make it actually perform all the different
Buncle should be an animal. I look like Lindsay was quite a chal- aspects of animation as a cohesive
think we succeeded in making a lenge. As soon as you put colour form. And to get a group trained
villain, which looks like it could be to drawing it changes the whole and working together, you need a
a Norman Lindsay character. We feel. lot of time, and we haven’t got
derived a lot of the design work that time. So you have to appoint
from Lindsay’s other works, not With the advent people to different positions of the
just the book, but also his political film and hope that they can do the
cartoons of that time. We got a lot of digital ani- job to the best of their ability. That
of inspiration for the other charac- is a difficulty in this process.
ters in the film from the other areas mation, there’s a
of work that he did. big gap between SL: Am I right in saying that digital
animators don’t have that training
the traditional in form and movement?
animator and the
new digital
animator.
SL: What are some of the chal-
Smit paid special attention to bringing
lenges in making an animated fea-
the distinctive Australian landscape to ture film in Australia?
The Magic Pudding.
Because production in Australia is not
RS: It’s an ongoing difficulty. There steady, evolving an experienced crew in
SL: The landscapes in the film are several factors. If you have an all production facets is tough.
have quite a unique look about established studio like Disney, you
them. have overlapping productions, so RS: It’s more timing. Timing is the
that animators can refine their art problem. Just discipline in the
RS: I love the countryside of and continue to get better as they application of animation. The pro-
Australia. Coming from Holland, move along, because they have a cedures of getting to an end result
I’m very aware of the moods and constant flow of work, constant without having too many re-
colour changes, the light, and the training schemes for new talent, shoots. You can’t blame the digital
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 29
person because his area is so quick do it that way to get it done. film, with the amount of work and
and easy to fix in comparison to quality that’s in it, for a fifth of the
the traditional animator, where SL: Are you concerned about the price. I’m not saying that a fifth of
everything has to be done right competition the bigger studios the price is a good thing and that
up front to get an end result. may throw at the film when it’s we should stick to that, but that’s
released? what we can manage to raise
SL: How much of the film was here and make something work. I
actually completed in Australia as It’s difficult for us think studios like Disney should
opposed to off-shore work? to get a good take note that we made this for
10-12 million dollars, where they
RS: All the pre-production was group together probably wouldn’t touch this sort
done here, as well as all the story- of project for less than 60 million
boarding, scripting, character that can actually dollars.
design, layout, key animation perform all the Stephen Lynch has written
scenes and character expressions.
about the various aspects of film-
It was very imperative that we did different aspects making for books and magazines
that. However in this particular
case we just could not get enough of animation as a throughout Australia, England
and America, as well as co-host-
mature animators to animate up cohesive form. ing Flicks, a weekly film review
to feature film quality. So we had
program.
to go overseas for the bulk of the RS: Well, I think dollar for dollar
animation work. Then all the ani- we are giving the audience a hell Note: Readers may contact any
mation gets sent back here and of a lot more than a 60 million dol- Animation World Magazine
we scan it and composite it all and lar production. I can’t see any contributor by sending an e-mail
do all the finishing art. We had to other studio producing this kind of to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 30

 Special Effects from Down Under:
A Growing Proposition
by Stephen Lynch
W
hen the digital revolu-
tion swept through
the filmmaking com-
munity, few could have foretold
that some of its leading exponents
would come from the land down
under. Small budget films had
long been the mainstay of
Australian films and the cost
involved in visual effects seemed
to place it outside the reach of
local filmmakers. Yet some effects
houses saw the opportunity that
lay ahead and geared up to take
advantage of this new technology.

Breaking In
Rachael Turk, who is the
communications manager of
Animal Logic, recalls how the com- Australian effects companies are finding work on the biggest Hollywood pictures, as
Animal Logic proved with their work on The Matrix. © Warner Bros. All rights reserved.
pany first became involved in film
visual effects. “It was around 1994. ed visual effects for such films as Soren Jensen of Photon VFX, a
We started getting involved with The Thin Red Line, Babe 2 and company whose credits over the
Australian productions, doing title Holy Smoke, illustrating just how last ten years include the television
designs for films like Dating the successful they have been in capi- series The Lost World, Journey to
Enemy and Blackrock, but it wasn’t talizing on this opportunity. Last the Center of the Earth and the
until 1997 that we actually formal- year they were afforded the ulti- Emmy-nominated Moby Dick. “We
ized it by creating Animal Logic mate recognition when their work are totally reliant on return of busi-
Film.” That same year Animal Logic on The Matrix, for which they cre- ness, so we have to make our stuff
won the contract to provide the ated over a hundred shots, won extra good. We basically care for
titles for the John Woo film an Academy Award for Best Visual our product. We massage material
Face/Off. “That was when we hit Effects. “It’s amazing how strong until we are all happy with it,
the big time. That credential that film is,” ponders Rachael. “We whereas in a lot of the countries
became a calling card for our VFX still get lots of inquiries about it. At like the United States, there are so
supervisor Chris Godfrey, so when the time it was released it had an many FX companies they just spit
he went around knocking on enormous impact as far as box it out at an enormous rate.”
doors, he was allowed through. office and popular culture, so it’s
The rest of course has been up to only natural that some of that fed Many Factors
him.” directly back to Animal Logic and This difference in scale
Since their initial break- increased our business.” between Australia and America
through Animal Logic have provid- It is a theme taken up by has also led to a different model of
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 31
 that this stuff could actually save
them money. Simple things like
crowd generation to save on
extras and set extensions to save
on building enormous sets. So
now people are using visual
effects to get the look that they
couldn’t otherwise get and to save
them money.”
Peter Webb confirms this
view: “With lower budgets you
can’t afford to just stay on set for
Photon VFX took to the high seas with their work on Moby Dick. another 3 days and wait for that
© Whale/Nine Network Australia. perfect sunset, or move the whole
operation between the two coun- ers. What we have now is a 24- crew 50 miles across country just
tries. Peter Webb, who before hour workday, with half-day shifts to get that beautiful shore-line.
starting work at local FX house between Australia and America. At With visual effects you can add
Phenomena worked on such U.S. the close of our day we can send that at a much lower cost. I guess
productions as Batman Forever over our output so that when the the phrase I would use is less com-
and Coneheads, points out that, client wakes up, they’re ready to promise. Less compromise visually,
“American companies, because of do revisions and send back their which translates into less compro-
the throughput, have to specialize comments. There’s even an over- mise in the storytelling. If some
and compartmentalize people, lap of about 5 hours each morn- important story point needs to be
whereas in Australia you have to ing where we can have direct con- made we can look for ways to
be more resourceful. Rather than tact over the phone to work things achieve that.”
spending 5 or 6 weeks in devel- out.” Yet smaller budgets obvi-
opment, and then having a tex- ously do influence to what extent
ture team working for 6 months to Lower Budgets At Work visual effects are used in a film.
get a scene to look a certain way, This technical evolution has Kerri Schwarz states that, “It is a
here we just hit the ground run- also reaped benefits for the small- challenge, but at the same time I
ning and come up with the results er-budgeted Australian films. Chris think that’s what makes us innova-
much more quickly. We’re very Schwarze, who together with wife tive in our industry. It’s because we
resourceful through necessity, and Kerri founded Complete Post, have to be, with the sort of budg-
I think that filmmakers like that.” recalls that, “Initially Australian pro- ets we have to work with. It’s not a
It certainly is one of the rea- ducers were very reluctant to get case of having a lot of money to
sons for the increasing work head- involved with visual effects, but splash around. It’s trying to solve
ing Australia’s way, but there are gradually they started to realize problems and coming up with
many other contributing factors
that have converged to put
Australia in its current position.
Some are beyond the control of
the industry, such as the state of
the Australian dollar, but other fac-
tors that were once seen as an
impediment, are now viewed as
an asset.
“Technical evolution has
been part of the film globaliza-
tion,” explains Rachael Turk,
“enabling us to transcend physical Fox’s wild spin on the classic tale Romeo + Juliet included the work of Complete Post.
and geographical time zone barri- ™ and © 1996 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 32

 creatures that they used on set
with remote controls, but at cer-
tain times there were things that
they couldn’t physically do. So
we’ve created CG versions of these
creatures to carry out those tasks,
such as when they break down
into little balls.”
Another Australian visual
effects film on the horizon is
Photon VFX proves that there is more Cubbyhouse. Chris Schwarze Animal Logic helped bring Toulouse
than one way to severe a hand in When believes, “It is actually one of the Lautrec’s Paris to life in Moulin Rouge!
Good Ghouls Go Bad. © Fox Television. © 2001 Fox and its related entities.
most intensive Australian visual
ideas within the budget range effects films ever. We had to create probably heard all the reasons;
that we have.” the demon that inhabits the cub- exchange rate, flexibility, method-
byhouse, and vines that come out ology and attitude of Australian
Offering Solutions and attack people. Quite often crews. These are all important fac-
It is an opinion shared you might get a large shot count tors in attracting foreign produc-
amongst Australia’s effects houses. in a feature film and a lot of it is tions, but at the end of the day,
Soren Jensen, who has just simple work like wire removal, but major studios wouldn’t risk big
wrapped work on the U.S. tele- basically every shot in this film was budgets and their reputations on
movie When Good Ghouls Go a challenge.” anything less than marquee pro-
Bad, states that, “We pride our- duction skills.”
selves that there is always more More Big Projects To which Peter Webb adds,
than one way to achieve an effect. Apart from the smaller bud- “They just wouldn’t do it if the job
If our clients need a severed hand, geted films, Australian artistry is that we did wasn’t as good as
we can let them know that you also showcased in Baz Luhrmann’s what they could get back home.
can make a 3D hand, or you can upcoming musical Moulin Rouge! We’ve got fabulous locations here,
film a real hand and doctor it, or “It isn’t like anything you’ve seen and a talent pool that’s the equal
you can do it as a prosthetic hand before,” enthuses Rachael Turk. “It’s of the best. So it’s a win-win situa-
with wire removal. There are not a period piece, it’s not a block- tion.”
always different methods of attack- buster, and it’s not art house.
ing the same problem.” Animal Logic has created as many Stephen Lynch has written about
The growing confidence in effects on this as The Matrix had in the various aspects of filmmaking
Australian visual effects has entirety, so it is by far the largest for books and magazines
enabled some of these methods to project we have ever undertaken. throughout Australia, England
be used together to make possible The biggest part was to create and America, as well as co-host-
any complex shot required in a 19th century Paris, which was not ing Flicks, a weekly film review
script. In the upcoming film just a matter of touching up a few program.
Subterano, remote control toys ter- archive photos. It’s to actually build
rorize humans trapped in an an interpretation of Paris at that
underground car park. Peter time, which involves thousands of Note: Readers may contact any
Webb, who is the film’s VFX super- buildings at various degrees of Animation World Magazine
visor, states, “I always advocate proximity. It has been challenging, contributor by sending an e-mail
that if you can achieve an effect in- logistically and creatively, but obvi- to editor@awn.com.
camera for real, it’s always the best ously that’s what we seek. That’s
way to go. However, if the drama what we thrive on.”
calls for something that you can’t Which is as good a reason
do, then you use computer effects as any to explain the popularity of
to do that. Peter Stubbs and Australian VFX companies. In sum-
Filmtrix developed animatronic mation, Turk concludes, “You’ve
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 33
 Having What It Takes:
A Recruiting Survey
compiled by Joan Kim
hat must you have on

W
important thing to remember In selecting a potential hire,
your résumé to ensure when pulling together a reel is we first look at the artist’s ability
that you’ll get in the that one must concentrate on the exhibited in their portfolio or reel.
door for an interview? And what area in which one is interested. Secondly, we’ll look at the list of
does it really take to get the job? Animators should focus on anima- software programs on their
What are the folks behind the tion and not worry about the tex- résumé, which they’re knowledge-
desks looking for? What is most tures or lighting of their piece. able in since we’re often looking
important? With the development for a specific program, such as
of new tools and the many LightWave or After Effects. Thirdly,
changes taking place in the ani- we’ll look for their range of profes-
mation industry is there anything sional experience.
that an applicant absolutely needs Obviously, different skills
to include on their résumé to are needed for different artistic
make sure they will be considered? areas. Basically, we want to see
The dramatic shift from traditional that you are oriented toward the
Known for Oscar winning work like
to tradigital and digital production Bunny, Blue Skies is a prize to have on kind of product we create here, so
has potential job applicants puz- any resume. © Blue Sky Studios. you’ll be able to produce and con-
zled over what today’s animation tribute freely, from the heart.
employers are looking for. Here are For those just starting in Plugging into people’s instincts
some responses and insights from the field, the easiest way to “break and interest delivers the best work.
the folks that do the hiring about in” is to find schools that have rela-
what’s crucial to be a strong con- tionships and good track records Kat Fair
tender in this tough market. with placing interns/graduates in Head of Recruitment
one’s field of interest — whether Nickelodeon Animation Studio
wvvvw that be games, animation, stop-
motion, etc. One should make wvvvw
Throughout its history, Blue sure to take courses including fine
Sky Studios has maintained a sin- arts, animation, life drawing, film
gle-minded focus on creating high classes (filmmaking, storyboard- Well, it is essential to have
quality imagery, while upholding ing, video editing, special effects artistic talent and passion for the
the highest production standards. — anything around making and position that you are seeking.
Our animators work from a foun- understanding films) and acting Having an eye for detail and a
dation of classic animation princi- classes to help understand move- good sense of composition is what
ples and are adept in Maya. When ment. I look for first. Past experience, and
searching for animators, talent the ability to work in a number of
and passion are paramount over Laura A. Bellantoni mediums and styles, would run a
academic accomplishment. Human Resources Supervisor close second. Any computer skills
When reviewing reels we Blue Sky Studios are always an added bonus, but I
look at the timing, acting and pos- tend to look at it as an added spice
ing of the characters. The most wvvvw rather than the main ingredient. I

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 34

am often surprised when I receive not obligatory, but much appreci-
resumes and reels that focus more ated.
on computer skills rather than Strong drawing skills are
artistic ability. I consider somebody not necessary but a strong bonus.
with an overall understanding of If an artist excels in drawing skills,
the process and art history in gen- even the knowledge of 3D soft-
eral, as opposed to an artist well ware is not a must. However, note
versed in the latest software. The that being familiar with an exten-
ability to communicate and knowl- sive range of software is consid-
edge of art will always take you a ered an enormous added value.
long way. Ultimately it is about the The type of software an
applicants’ ability to produce beau- artist uses is irrelevant, as long as
tiful work on a consistent basis and the person is willing to use a vari-
in a timely fashion. ety of software. In addition, we
look for someone who can keep
an open mind to critics and enjoys
being part of a constructive and
These shots show the innovative type
positive thinking team. of work done at curious pictures.
© curious pictures.
Rudy Verbeeck videography.
CEO and Co-founder Also, as a rule we do not
Imagination In Motion bring an artist on staff unless we
already have had an opportunity
wvvvw to work with them on a freelance
or short term basis. We need to be
Everything You Want To Be. Two things: Talent and the sure that they fit well into our
© Acme Filmworks
ability to play nicely with others. happy little group. We look for
One last thing, a fancy In addition to having stop- problem solvers who take initia-
résumé never grabs my attention. motion and cel animation depart- tive, people who can think outside
Short, sweet and simple. Let your ments, curious pictures does 3D of the box, as well as know to
reel and experience do the talking and 2D CG animation so we’re sometimes look beyond CG to find
for you. always on the lookout for charac- solutions.
ter animators, TDs and composi- On top of all that, serious
Leonard Vasquez tors. In finding artists, résumés interest in snowboarding is a plus.
Studio Manager hardly get looked at. A good reel is
Acme Filmworks the only thing that counts. While Boo Wong
favorites do exist, we’re not a soft- Head of CG
wvvvw ware specific house. Our staffers curious pictures
are mostly multilingual in that
One of, if not, the most capacity. Hence for new hires we wvvvw
important characteristics we look will watch all reels and just look for
for in a 3D artist is the overall feel- the pure screaming talent that Regardless of our industry
ing for color and composition fully exists in the obvious — good per- treating computer technology as
expressed in their work. A candi- formance from animators, believ- an indispensable tool in aiding us
date always should be able to able comps from compositors, etc. in what we do, the fundamental
show at least a few examples We also like to find people who basics still apply when evaluating
they’ve created by and for them- bring in experience from other potential employees. These are
selves. The presented work has to areas. We have CG artists on staff drawing talent, dedication/enthu-
show the commitment and moti- who came from cel animation, siasm and the ability to work effec-
vation of the candidate, not a pro- architecture, painting and even tively with others. Mind you, we’re
jection of his ego. Perfectionism is the vaulted task of wedding a small studio specializing in 2D
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 35
animation, but we are entirely dig- animation will be together with animators.
ital in our method of converting the animators. The test will take 2- For an animator we look
our “hands on” approach to ani- 3 days and the director and direc- on the demo-reel to see the quali-
mation. I’d be attracted to a tor of animation will give a final ty of the character action. We
résumé that includes PhotoShop, statement about the skills and want to see how the animator
Premiere, CTP, etc., but I’m still experience of the animators (it’s thinks as an actor. Also important is
going to look for basic art and film like a test at art school). The final the technical standard in terms of
talent, lots of life drawing and ini- test is very important in getting a puppet movement, smoothness
tiative in completing their own clearer understanding for the time and output of animation per day.
projects. We work in several schedule that we will need to put In the end experience proves to be
design and animation styles together later on in the produc- very important, and will be visible
appropriate for any given project. tion of the show. The schedule through the work they did on the
A lot of the time we’re in the midst says something about the output CV (how many projects per year
of developing an animation per day and the length of the pro- tells a lot about that — because
approach that’s never been done duction. Young animators are usu- the animator needs to be in train-
before, so I need people that are ally slow in the beginning and ing). Also a stop-motion animator
flexible and come without precon- they get progressively faster should know some technical tools,
ceived notions of how something toward the end. Animators with like the video-line test, handling a
should be done. I think that’s why more experience are fast from the camera (35mm or digital) and
I like the craft so much. It’s the beginning but they may get tired how to handle storage of the pic-
artist/creator/visionary that mat- after awhile. Generally, young ani- tures, etc.
ters — not the technology. mators are willing to learn a lot. We only do a little bit of
The final crew will be a mixture out computer work — for that I can-
J.J. Sedelmaier of both, young and experienced not say as much! But definitely, I
President and Director would be interested in the soft-
J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, Inc. ware they have used, how long
they needed to complete a project
wvvvw and how the project was organ-
ized.
Mainly we are looking for
stop-motion animators. First of all Thomas Schneider
we usually need an up-to-date Head of Animation
demo-reel of their last work in this scopas medien AG
field of business and a CV. In addi-
tion, we talk with the animators
about what they did on the pro- Joan Kim received her B.A. in
duction that the demo-reel didn’t English Literature from UCLA and
really tell us. Sometimes we get a is currently freelancing in Los
reel and the actual work of the ani- Angeles completing writing and
mator was just a small part of the graphics related projects.
films. Besides this we also need Previously as a graphics consult-
statements from the producer or a ant she produced several compa-
reference and credits. But, in the ny reports and manuals and con-
end the best way to get a sense of tinues to pursue an education in
the animator is to speak directly computer graphics.
and have a conversation with
them. After that we create a short-
list of animators. Before we start Note: Readers may contact any
the project we invite the animators Animation World Magazine
for final test-animation. At this Mo Gang, a series by scopas medien AG. contributor by sending an e-mail
point the director and director of © scopas medien AG. to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 36

 What did you do day-to-day?
The Career Coach: Don’t forget any internships or
other unpaid work experiences if
Resumes That Work they relate to your goal/objective.
Be specific in any accom-
plishments and achievements. Use
specific numbers whenever possi-
Pamela Kleibrink Thompson ble. If you supervised a team,
how many people were on it?

I
n today’s competitive anima-
tion job market, make sure Don’t hesitate to name names,
your marketing materials are specific clients or specific projects
current so you can stay competi- you worked on.
tive too. Your marketing materials List your experience in
are your resume, cover letter, port- reverse chronological order—most
folio and demo reel. Here are recent job first (at the top) and
some tips on how to craft a work backwards.
resume that will help you get the
job you want. Education: Where you went to
As a recruiter, career coach school, area of study, degrees.
and consultant I have seen thou-
sands of resumes. Most people Awards: Don’t forget to mention
write resumes based on their past, awards or honors you have
but your resume is the ticket to Pamela Kleibrink Thompson received. Your resume is a place to
your future. Aim it at the job you would give you the most satisfac- brag about yourself. Don’t be
want, not the job you’ve had. tion. All the content in your modest.
Whether you are an artist with resume should support your
many years experience or a pro- goal/objective. Focus your resume Organizations: Are you a mem-
duction manager just starting your on the job you want. ber or an officer in an industry
career, your resume is the key to related organization?
getting the job you want. Here Skills: List them and be specific.
are some ways to make sure that it Resumes are often scanned into Other interests: Do you perform
works for you. computers now and searches are community service that is related
A resume should include: done by keywords. If you are a to the job you want? If you are an
n Contact info concept artist who does character avid video game player and you
n Goal/Objective designs as well as background want a job with a game company,
n Skills designs and color key, state it in it would be good to mention it
n Software knowledge your skills list. If you don’t, you may here.
n Work experience be passed over for a job.
n Education Things not to include on a
n Awards Software Knowledge: Again, be resume:
n Organizations specific. Don’t use the phrase “a n Art work (you can attach some,
n Other interests variety of 3D and 2D software.” if you want)
State specifically whether you n A photo
Contact Info: Be sure to include know Maya, Lightwave or n Personal information such as
your name, address, phone num- Photoshop and your level of marital status, sexual orientation,
ber with current area code, email expertise with each: expert, profi- health, religion, age, ethnic back-
address and Website address if cient, novice. ground, race or disabilities
you have one. Don’t send a Web address
Work Experience: Besides listing to anyone and expect them to find
Goal/Objective: Be as specific as the company, your job title and your resume there. If you want
possible. Describe the job that project, write what you did there. someone to have your resume,
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 37
send it to them. get an interview. Emphasize your Pamela Kleibrink Thompson is a
Review and update your accomplishments and achieve- career coach and recruiter. As a
resume every six months (more ments and make sure your contact career coach, she helps clients
often if you move or change info is easy to find and read. Make develop strategies to achieve
phone numbers or email sure the resume does its job and career goals. She is currently
providers). If you send a resume in works to get you work. recruiting computer character
response to a posting on the Web, animators for Framestore. She
make sure it includes your email Note: Readers may contact any speaks regularly on careers in ani-
address and name. Animation World Magazine mation and entertainment at col-
Resumes are marketing contributor by sending an e-mail leges and universities.
tools. Their purpose is to help you to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 38

 Come Together: Online and On-Air
Converge on CartoonNetwork.com
by Brett Rogers
our competitors expected to cre-
ate a separate entertainment com-
pany and spin it off around their
Website. We never expected to do
that. CartoonNetwork.com is a
part of Cartoon Network. Almost
every week there’s a new tie-in
between on-air and online. That’s
typical of our philosophy overall.”

It is obvious that at CartoonNetwork.com there’s plenty to do.

All images courtesy of and © CartoonNetwork.com.

“The Internet is the enemy.” different path for its online pres-
ence. By working to exploit the
“Spin off an online division strengths of both television and
and let them try to recapture some the Internet, CartoonNetwork
of the audience the Internet .com has thrived, as much of the
siphons away.” online animation and entertain-
ment industry has gone back to
That was what most televi- the drawing board. Sam Register has been with
CartoonNetwork.com since before the
sion networks were thinking as “What others have tried to site launched.
they worked furiously to capture a do is put some animation online
piece of the online pie. At the or try to have a game site… but Revitalizing the Classics
same time, start-up online enter- they can’t begin with the leverage Even with a robust brand
tainment companies sprouted up of having a brand behind them. At and ample on-air support, build-
all over the Internet, flush with the same time, they had to build ing a Website that makes full use
funding, new content and confi- the experience and build the of the network’s colossal library of
dence in their abilities to compete brand. We had the brand built, so animation is no small task. As vice
on the Web. it was all about growing the expe- president of Cartoon Network
As the dust settles on the rience and then letting people Online and creative director of
initial Internet rush, it seems that know about it through the net- CartoonNetwork.com, Sam
both philosophies fell short. work,” explains Jim Samples, gen- Register is responsible for making
Television hasn’t died and develop- eral manager of Cartoon Network sure cultural icons like Scooby-Doo
ing an identity online from the Online. look at home on the Web.
ground up is still expensive “One of the things Cartoon “We have a different job
enough to bankrupt even the Network has done better than than other entertainment Websites
most innovative Websites. anyone is to manage the site as a in that we launched with a library.
Cartoon Network chose a part of the overall brand. Some of We had to take content that was

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 39

 online on the whole needs to
grow up. I just wish everything
didn’t look like it was done in
Flash. I’m glad some of the enter-
tainment-only sites went away
because they weren’t paying any-
thing for it and it looked like it.”
“I have a higher standard.
The TV people at Cartoon
Network are animation purists. I
think that Cartoon Network does
some of the best animation on tel-
evision and I have to do the same
thing online... I couldn’t show my
face at Cartoon Network if I did
anything less.”
Boo Boo waves hello from a Web Premiere Toon.
Unfortunately, producing
new, like The Powerpuff Girls and Barney from The Flintstones. “We appealing animation online
Dexter, very old, like Bugs and end up taking a character that we means dealing with a daunting
Tom and Jerry, and everything in already have the rights to and array of technology limitations and
the middle, like The Jetsons and finding a new place for it,” high user expectations. Visitors to
The Flintstones, from four different Register says. “We went with a film CartoonNetwork.com and other
libraries and use the Internet to festival metaphor for doing anima- online entertainment sites have
pump life into these characters,” tion online. We try doing lots of grown accustomed to seeing their
Register says. different things that all look differ- favorite characters as they appear
“Web Premiere Toons,” ent from each other in nice, quick, on television. They expect the ani-
CartoonNetwork.com’s original short, little blasts. That’s something mation to have a certain look and
animation component, is one way we can do much cheaper online.” feel that in many situations is not
Register has tried to knock the dust possible.
off the network’s classic cartoon “In all our minds when we
characters. In the past, “Web watch animation or any entertain-
Premiere Toons” have focused on ment online we think that it
Cartoon Network’s newer, original should look like TV or a movie. So,
characters. This year, 40 new one of the biggest challenges is
shorts will be introduced with a trying to deprogram what people
focus on reinventing classic char- think entertainment online should
acters from the network’s library. be. It doesn’t have to be exactly
“You put a Yogi Bear car- like television,” explains Register.
toon from the Sixties next to a
Powerpuff Girls cartoon and it is Innovation Through Immersion
night and day. Those Yogi car- Integrating online content
toons are great, they’re beautiful, Dealing with classic characters can be with Cartoon Network’s on-air pro-
tricky, as savvy viewers expect television
but they fall flat on a lot of the quality. gramming is an approach that
audiences today,” says Register. pervades everything Cartoon-
A roster of studios including While one of the advan- Network.com does. When the
Wild Brain and Funny Garbage tages of producing new animated online world is paired with televi-
will animate this year’s “Web content on the Web rather than sion to behave like a single enter-
Premiere Toons,” along with John television is the relatively low cost, tainment source, both sides can
K, who has signed on to produce Register insists that the quality of win. Through “Total Immersion
six shorts of his own featuring the animation will remain high. “I Cartoon” events, the network and
Jetsons, Yogi Bear and Fred and think the quality of animation CartoonNetwork.com collaborate
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 40
 mately related with what’s going
on the air.”
That, it seems, is something
advertisers are looking for.
“As the media alternatives
become increasingly fragmented it
makes sense to create campaigns
that reach across all of those
media. That’s what we’re trying to
do here… a virtuous cycle of
entertainment experience and
advertising appropriately inter-
twined with that,” says Samples.
“[Advertisers] don’t want
banners, in most cases,” says Sam
Register. “I spend a lot of time fig-
uring out how we can do partner-
“Toonami:The Intruder” was the stunt that started, and proved, the effectiveness ships with advertisers that make
of the “Total Immersion” method. them happy and make us happy.”
to allow interaction between visi- experiment in enhanced television It is important to draw
tors to the Website and the pro- will reappear four times this year, advertisers, especially in the cur-
gramming on television. hoping to capture the same suc- rent online marketing environ-
The week of September 18, c e s s e n j o y e d b y “ To o n a m i : ment, but keeping the entertain-
2000 marked the debut of this Intruder.” Early indications show ment experience strong takes cre-
concept with “Toonami: The that “The Powerpuff Popularity ative solutions. Using online con-
Intruder.” Special episodes aired in Contest,” which aired March 19- tent to enhance television pro-
which Tom, animated host of the 15, didn’t disappoint. The Milk- gramming is largely uncharted ter-
network’s Toonami block of car- sponsored event, in which viewers ritory, but results from “Total
toons, battled to save his space- were given the opportunity to Immersion” events indicate it’s here
ship from an alien threat. vote for their favorite girl by phone to stay.
Intertwined with each episode or online, featured Powerpuff Girls
were messages urging viewers episodes on the network with
to visit Toonami.com, where advertisements driving viewers to
Nintendo-sponsored enhanced CartoonNetwork.com, where a
content, games and special con- new pillow fight Powerpuff game
tents awaited. awaited, along with special con-
The ambitious stunt, which test-related material. The three remaining “Total
risked driving viewers away from Though Bubbles won the Immersion Cartoon” events are
the television to their computers in popularity contest, the real winner “The Big Pick II,” which will allow
the middle of a popular block of was network-online integration. viewers to interact with the televi-
programming, proved successful. CartoonNetwork.com experienced sion by choosing a new Cartoon
Online traffic soared 72 percent record traffic numbers and the net- Cartoon series for the fall of 2002
from the previous week and on-air work showed triple-digit ratings from 11 new shorts; “Toonami:
ratings jumped 50 percent for increases in most demographics, Lockdown,” featuring an online
viewers ages 9-14. “It worked as visitors bounced between their multi-player game where viewers
beautifully,” recalls Jim Samples. televisions and computers. “[‘The can team up, use codes retrieved
“Nintendo was very happy with it, Total Immersion’ events] are the from the television and help save
we were very happy with it. It was most important integrated cam- Tom; and “Scooby-Doo, Where Are
the highest trafficked week of the paigns we do,” Samples says. You?,” highlighted by on-air clues
year.” “Everything that we do online is that viewers can use to unlock
T h e “ To t a l I m m e r s i o n ” built in such a way that it is inti- secret Scooby-Doo related content
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 41
 “Those are just basic play habits and CartoonNetwork.com, but
that have been around forever. Cartoon Orbit introduces a new
This is a way to allow kids to have aspect of interaction between
that sort of play online. Pokémon users. Because the experience is
is a great example of how power- menu-driven, Orbit is safe, easy to
ful that is.” use and expandable international-
Last October, CartoonNet- ly across language barriers and
work.com launched “Cartoon other technology platforms, strate-
Orbit,” a community for kids to col- gies that are still in development.
lect and trade cToons, the site’s “There are key connection
online trading cards. Orbit mem- points between online and on-air.
bers can display their cToon collec- The network has a hard time using
tions in cZones, or individual sites all the characters in its library
they create and customize. because it’s in a linear environ-
Over 650,000 users have ment. We can use the whole
joined Orbit since its launch, with library,” Register explains.
an average of 20,000 more join- The Cartoon Orbit has pro-
ing each week. Meshing nicely vided an appealing outlet for mar-
with its Web-television conver- keters, as well. The new Kellogg’s
Later this year, another special gence campaign, codes appear Powerpuff Girls Cereal contains a
campaign called “Toonami: Lockdown”
hopes to continue to push the
every Friday night on Cartoon secret code that sends kids to
convergence envelope. Network during Cartoon Cartoon EetAndErn.com, a heavily promot-
online, such as games, icons and Fridays that viewers can use to ed Kellogg’s Website where kids
sounds. Each event will serve as a retrieve a limited edition cToon earn points toward prizes, view
laboratory for new methods of let- online. “The Powerpuff Popularity additional Powerpuff Girls content
ting viewers to use their comput- Contest” also featured secret codes and retrieve limited edition
ers to take part in the action on-air. viewers redeemed online for cToons. With the simultaneous
“There are a lot of different cToons of Buttercup, Blossom and appearance of Kellogg’s and Milk
ways to do the enhancements. It’s Bubbles. as online and on-air Cartoon
an ongoing process. The ones that Tw o - w a y i n t e r a c t i o n Network sponsors, kids could the-
do well we continue using. The already exists between users oretically eat an all-Powerpuff Girls
ones that didn’t do well, we either
revise them or scrap them,”
Register says.

In Orbit
Although CartoonNetwork.
com can make wider use of
Cartoon Network’s gargantuan
library of characters than the tele-
vision network, all the games,
character pages, “Web Premiere
Toons” and other content online
can’t make use of it all. So how do
you effectively draw on all the
characters in the combined
libraries of four prolific animation
studios? Turn them into online
trading cards.
“Kids love to collect and
love to trade,” Samples observes. Cartoon Orbit has been a huge hit with kids.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 42

 fan clubs to develop what [the
content] should look like. It’s been
a lot of fun to do it this way.”
Reactor is scheduled to fea-
ture 40 episodes of Dragonball Z’s
Frieza Saga, 26 episodes of Star
Blazers, two new Dragonball Z
games and two new Toonami-spe-
cific games.

Predicting the Future

All the innovation at
CartoonNetwork.com isn’t just for
the sake of forwarding the cause
breakfast. Samples admits, howev- ty streaming video without a prob- of online animation and entertain-
er, that the meal marketing lem. As larger monitors and higher ment, of course. Growth and prof-
monopoly is just a happy coinci- connection speeds become more itability are the end goals. “We are
dence. prevalent, it’s easy to see why expected to generate sufficient
CartoonNetwork.com thinks it will revenue to more than cover the
Keeping the Big Kids Happy be at the forefront of television expenses that we’re incurring in
C a r t o o n N e t w o r k . c o m ’s and online mixed media. Fans of building out the site,” Samples
user breakdown indicates that the Dragonball Z introductory seg- points out. “It is an investment in a
about one-third of the audience is ment now absent from Toonami business, but the business is being
adults, one-third is teens and one- will be happy to find that it’s pres- managed as a part of the overall
third is under 11, demographics ent on “Toonami Reactor.” Cartoon Network business. I think
that skew a bit older than the The fan-friendly features are that is one of our key advantages.”
on-air network. According to by design, according to Samples. Page views, unique visitors
Samples, Toonami, a block of “In developing [Reactor] we’ve and sticky content are the tradi-
mostly action-adventure anime, had active, ongoing conversations tional measuring sticks for online
tends to attract the most teens and with the anime clubs at universities entertainment sites, but recent
young 20s males. In an effort to and with the bulletin boards and events in the industry have cast
appeal to that audience and doubt on this practice.
demonstrate the full potential Register observes, “Visitors
of interactive entertainment, and page views don’t seem to
CartoonNetwork.com introduced equal dollars like everyone
“Toonami Reactor” in late March thought they would. […] None of
2001. this equals dollars. It’s all great, it’s
“Reactor” is a 12-week exhi- all experimental, it’s all very cool,
bition of enhanced Toonami pro- but targeting people and audi-
gramming online consisting of ences and all that, it doesn’t mat-
streaming Dragonball Z and Star ter. We’ve all found out that none
Blazers episodes with synched of this equals dollars today. It may
commentary, games, content and equal dollars later on, so we need
trivia. The innovative split-screen to just keep plugging away and
format works well to allow viewers figuring out what seems to work
to move seamlessly between and what doesn’t and hopefully
episodes and interactive content. all entertainment Websites will
The experience is best with a become profitable someday. I’m in
broadband connection, but a 56K the same fix as everyone else.”
modem is adequate to view most The rewards of the future
features and watch medium-quali- Jim Samples. are where CartoonNetwork.com
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 43
has set its sights. While today it experience, or you take your
strives to maintain the freshest remote and flip over to the games
content of the moment, behind section, or chat with your friends
the scenes the site is looking for- using AOL Instant Messenger
ward. If all goes as planned, while on the Cartoon Network
CartoonNetwork.com will render Channel talking about your
itself obsolete. favorite Dragonball Z episodes.”
Global growth is one piece With the backing of power-
to the puzzle. Manifestations of house AOL Time Warner, that sce-
CartoonNetwork.com are already nario has become more plausible.
available in 13 sites internationally As Cartoon Network continues to
in numerous languages. As the develop its online products under
network and technology expand With such hit characters as the a unified network-wide banner, it
Powerpuff Girls driving traffic to
worldwide, the range of Cartoon CartoonNetwork.com, the online division stands as an example of how to
Network Online will grow in tan- has the opportunity to highlight cartoon use online and on-air units effec-
dem. superstars and library classics alike. tively in harmony, something that
New technology should “Down the road, between shouldn’t go unnoticed by its new
play into CartoonNetwork.com’s five and ten years, I think there is parent company.
plans as the television and online no Cartoon Network Online,”
worlds converge into a single vehi- muses Samples. “I hope we get to
cle. Development on products for a situation were you sit down on Brett Rogers is a freelance writer
the next wave of interactive ani- your couch, you flip on your flat and law student based in
mation for products like Replay screen TV that’s hanging on the Baltimore.
and Tevo has already com- wall in front of you, you flip to the Note: Readers may contact any
menced, with an eye toward Cartoon Network channel and Animation World Magazine
enhanced TV boxes and concur- you have an option of watching contributor by sending an e-mail
rent Web-television devices. the linear network, a very sit-back to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 44

 MIP TV Was A Hit!
the last 18 months there have
been many new entrants into the
field, especially in Germany (TV
Loonland, Kinowelt, RTV, EM.TV);
while new suppliers have been
added to the list of potential
by John Morris sources for buyers, notably now
that Pokemon has opened the
door to Japanese anime and simi-
lar styles of animation long disre-
garded in the West. Despite this,
many buyers told me that there
were more titles on offer but fewer
must-buys, which simply goes to
prove that volume doesn’t equate
to quality.

A Scarcity of Quality
In the pre-school program-
ming category, there was certainly
more programming offered than
in previous markets. I see this as a
result of the benefits of longevity,
brand extension and the sub-
France’s INA booth was busy throughout the market. © MPA/MIPTV 2001. sidiary earnings that pre-school
programming generates in com-

M
y first impression of this ious media platforms, be it general
parison to other programming cat-
year’s MIPTV was that, entertainment terrestrial broad-
egories. By the same token, the
despite the buzz from the casters, or cutting edge t-com-
success of a few properties, our
withdrawal of Warner Bros., the merce and broadband networks.
own among them in this area, has
market was extremely busy. We This must be due in part to the cul-
convinced many people to invest
experienced a substantial amount tural transparency of the genre, as
in productions of their own, with-
of interest in our animation prop- well as the suitability for viewing
out necessarily understanding that
erties from all quarters, presum- animation in all sorts of conditions
it is not such an easy thing to do
ably driven by the established suc- and formats (from hand-helds to
cess of the genre across all age wide screen, from 3-minute shorts
groups, from pre-preschool to to feature length specials). One
adult. clear area of unsatisfied demand
was for animated shows targeted
More of Everything to 8-14 year-olds.
Even documentary buyers’ On another note, there
imaginations were caught by the was fierce competition among
possibilities of enhancing factual suppliers, with increased amounts
programs through the use of CGI, of animation on offer. Two reasons
largely due to the success of spring to mind for this: first,
Walking with Dinosaurs. This because there seems to be more
effect was very marked when I players in production than ever
was pitching our own Terrible before; second, buyers appear
Lizards of Oz special feature docu- more open to looking at a wider
Japanese companies like NHK got a
mentary. It was also very interest- range of suppliers many of whom boost at the market due to the recent
ing to note the strong buyer inter- are independent of the major stu- string of anime success stories.
est in animation from all of the var- dios. For example, in Europe over © MPA/MIPTV 2001.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 45

 especially when broadcasters are
not even exploiting these rights
yet. The broadband business
seemed to gain greater visibility
and momentum at this year’s mar-
ket, although with a smaller fee
structure, it is too early to deter-
mine how big it will eventually
become. On a closing note, there
were fewer dot-coms than at MIP-
COM and more sunshine!

John Morris joined HIT

Entertainment plc in December
1998 as sales director. Morris
manages the company’s interna-
tional sales division and its strate-
gy to capitalize on new revenue
opportunities within the televi-
sion, video, publishing and con-
sumer products industries for
HIT’s portfolio of signature-brand-
Booths with patios, like Paramount’s, enjoyed MIP’s fantastic weather. ed characters, which include Bob
© MPA/MIPTV 2001.
the Builder, Kipper, Angelina
Ballerina and Percy the Park
This year’s market included the Keeper. Morris began his twenty-
further distancing between year entertainment career with
Granada TV International, fol-
commercial broadcasters and public lowed by several key sales, acqui-
sition and operational manage-
broadcasters… ment positions within BBC
— at least to do well. Other Changes Worldwide. In 1993, Morris
Unfortunately, quantity has Other observations from opened the BBC Worldwide
not translated into quality, and this year’s market included the fur- office in Cologne, Germany,
there remains a lot of pre-school ther distancing between commer- where he assembled a team of
material that is derivative of lead- cial broadcasters and public top media specialists to develop
ing brands like Teletubbies and broadcasters in terms of how they cross-media business within the
Bob the Builder, but fall short in approach deals on animation. European markets and handled
their concept and execution. What Commercials were much more all media rights deals and strate-
many of these shows lack is the concerned about how programs gies for such brands as Noddy
conviction from the outset that can be used as vehicles for brand and Teletubbies.
without getting the TV show per- extension in TV and across other
fect, there will be no upside on the platforms, while pubcasters Note: Readers may contact any
other rights, which is why HIT focused on the more traditional, Animation World Magazine
always concentrates first and fore- straight TV license approach. I also contributor by sending an e-mail
most on the quality of the shows noticed a more aggressive stance to editor@awn.com.
and not on the other products. So on rights issues by many broad-
quite honestly, I did not see shows casters particularly in the interac-
that compete with our best prop- tive and broadband areas but
erties such as Bob the Builder, equally, found a strong resolve by
Angelina Ballerina or Oswald. distributors to hold onto these,
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 46
W
elcome to Positano,
the site of the world’s
only television anima-
Cartoons on the Bay:
tion festival, a uniquely Italian festi-
val set in the midst of some of the A Different Type of Festival
earth’s most dramatic scenery.
For those used to the bus-
tle of Annecy and the serious busi-
by Heather Kenyon
ness nature of MIP, Cartoons on
the Bay can take a little getting
used to. Located on the beautiful
Amalfi coast in the small, quaint
town of Positano, the pace of
Cartoons on the Bay is anything
but hurried. After grabbing your
bags at the Naples airport, pause a
moment and take a deep breath.
You are now on Positano time!
Panel discussions may be listed as
starting at 11 a.m. and they may
start at 11 or 11:30. But don’t
worry about needing to re-sched-
ule meetings or missing other
events, at Cartoons on the Bay
everything always seems to work
out. Panel discussions are held at a
lovely hotel, while screenings take
place a stone’s throw away in a
huge tent constructed right on the
beach especially for the event.
Workmen construct a village on
the sand that houses the screen- When they say Cartoons on the Bay, well they really mean it. © AWN, Inc.
ing tent, a meeting area and a few
booths. The screening schedule is Cartoons on the Bay feels like a small town
also quite relaxed, with breaks
between programs for leisurely festival even though there are faces there from
meals and the earliest program
starting at 10 a.m. the international animation scene.
Cartoons on the Bay feels
like a small town festival even evening presentations are also pre- current policy, Cartoons on the
though there are plenty of familiar dominately attended by local fam- Bay has a young, tightly-clad
faces from the international anima- ilies, packs of school kids and Italian television star conversation-
tion scene. Swarms of kids were young men and women on dates. ally clowning with guests, the
entertained by Kinder Sorpresa With programs mostly in Italian audience and Tom and Jerry cos-
and Cartoon Network Italy. (translation is always provided tumed characters alike.
Crowding into the screenings they though) and featuring Italian tele- Cartoons on the Bay is ded-
pushed back and forth, jostling vision and other popular stars, it is icated to screening television ani-
one another, leaving to get this a true immersion into Italian cul- mation. And while some features,
friend, coming back to get that ture. Whereas most festivals have short films and Internet animation
one. All the time, laughing, clutch- serious ministers of culture in gray is shown, television definitely takes
ing balloons and carrying on. The suits pontificating on their region’s center stage. It is wonderful to be
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 47
 ing. On the last night I was meet-
ing people that had been there all
week, but that I had no idea were
present at the event — people
that might have been too busy to
meet at MIP the week before.
What is wonderful about Cartoons
on the Bay is that instead of the set
15 minute meeting in a booth that
MIP sometimes dictates, Cartoons
offers such a relaxed and casual
atmosphere that while there may
not be chock-a-block international
guests, those that are present can
The festival’s Monica Tasciotti and Alfio Bastiancich listen to lifetime achievement truly be met and chatted with over
winner Phil Roman. © Cartoons on the Bay.
a lunch, dinner, coffee or desert.
Directly across from the festival’s
Directly across from the festival’s screening screening venue is a string of
venue is a string of open air restaurants, open air restaurants, a wonderful
place for accidental meetings.
a wonderful place for accidental meetings. The one point of con-
tention at this year’s festival was
able to sit and see television that is also charming and endear- the fact that an award was not
shows, which aren’t readily avail- ing. On the technical side, award given in the new Internet anima-
able at one’s home. In fact I think it winners such as Xcalibur by tion festival category. I like the fact
would be great if the festival Ellipsanime were indeed eye- that the Jury gives a reason for its
would open up a string of late opening. Xcalibur’s quality and decisions and in the case of the
night panorama type screenings style were very impressive, espe- Internet category the reason was
of some of the contenders that cially for television CG animation. very interesting indeed. While I
didn’t quite make it into the com- Festival goers were also treated to respect the Jury for taking a stand,
petition. While I realize that the a selection of screenings by Phil it was a textbook case of how the
organizers can’t have cartoons Roman, who was presented with Internet is still misunderstood as a
blasting away all night in this the Pulcinella Award for lifetime unique form of communication. I
sleepy village, being the animation achievement. feel Internet animation’s main foe
geek that I am I can’t stand the Positano, a town built liter- has been its easy comparison to
thought of missing shows that ally on the side of cliffs plunging television. The Jury stated that
might not otherwise get the into blue green waters, is wonder- they didn’t feel the content pre-
chance to be seen. The festival ful. Trellises of wisteria cover walk- sented was fully formed; the
does provide a screening “show- ways leading to the town’s cathe- shows did not present full, round
case” where tapes can be viewed, dral, beautiful hotels, restaurants characters or stories that relied on
but it is always nice to see shows and shops. This beauty also leads traditional strong beginning, mid-
on the big screen and with an to one of the festival’s problems for dle and end story structures. While
audience of fellow enthusiasts. the visiting professional…finding there are a lot of Webisodes out
Some remarkable programming people. With everyone flitting off there that feature shock gag after
was screened and awarded. for side trips to Pompeii, Amalfi shock gag, Positano’s line-up of
Winner Spud and the Vegetable and Capri, it is hard to always animated fair included such land-
Garden is a wonderful piece by know who is at the festival and mark pieces as Stainboy and
the brilliant folks at Folimage. A where to find them. I think it Romanov, both highly touted
masked protest against bio-engi- would be very helpful for the festi- shows from industry leaders
neering, the show is a wonderful, val to publish a list of attendees Shockwave and Wild Brain. Shorts
high quality, intelligent product and at which hotel they are stay- watched on a computer monitor
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 48
 from Wild Brain, Eric Oldrin from
Atom Shockwave, Rick Mischel of
Rumpus.com and Nico Piro of Rai
Net were a few of the heavy hit-
ters present. Anywhere on the
globe such a group of experts
would be considered a coup.
And that is the strength of
Cartoons on the Bay. By gathering
a select and powerful group of
professionals in a relaxed and
beautiful setting, the event allows
its visitors the opportunity to take a
deep breath and truly meet and
discuss the issues as they come to
mind or are prodded by the panels
and screenings.

Go online to view more pictures

from Cartoons on the Bay at:
http://mag.awn.com/index.php3
?ltype=pageone&article_no=152

Heather Kenyon is editor in chief

This year’s festival catalog. © Cartoons on the Bay. of Animation World Network.
After graduating magna cum
laude with a BFA from the
The panel on Internet animation that was University of Southern California’s
School of Cinema-Television,
held the final day of the festival was a regular Heather began her career in ani-
all star line up… mation at Hanna-Barbera
Cartoons, where she became
after several minutes of download is different from television — what manager of the Production
time, and within the Internet envi- it has to offer due to its unique Communications department.
ronment, are going to have a dif- platform — is the day the audi- Recently, she has contributed a
ferent structure and form than tel- ence will have a reason to reach chapter to the upcoming book,
evision programming. Internet ani- for the mouse instead of the Animation in Asia, to be pub-
mation is created with completely remote. I would be more under- lished by John Libbey &
different parameters in mind and standing if they had decided not Company, Ltd. Heather is also
with completely different tools. to award a prize due to the medi- vice president of Women In
The fact that the Jury didn’t award um not yet fully using its interac- Animation International and on
a prize goes to show how far the tive potential. the Board of Trustees of Trees
Internet still needs to come, in It is also interesting to note for Life.
terms of Internet content and peo- that the panel on Internet anima-
ple’s understanding of it. The belief tion, held the final day of the festi-
that the Web must mirror televi- val, was a regular all star line up Note: Readers may contact any
sion in form and style is a mis- featuring major players from the Animation World Magazine
nomer that hasn’t helped anyone U.S., France and Italy. Cartoons on contributor by sending an e-mail
(especially some companies pro- the Bay deserves credit for putting to editor@awn.com.
ducing Internet content). The day together such a group. Christian
Web animation figures out why it Davin from Alphanim, Jeff Fino
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 49
MILIA 2001: An Alphanim
Digital Perspective
by Julie Fox
The beginning of the end? That
was the question…

T
he end of the beginning”
was the proposition put
forward by Gerd Leonhard
of Sony Digital Pictures Entertain-
ment, one of the most heartening
speakers at MILIA’s conference,
“How will interactive content
pay?” At Alphanim Digital monetis-
ing content is our main aim these
days and our presence for the first
time with a stand at MILIA 2001
was a nod to the above and a,
“Yes, in spite of everything.” As the
sister company of Alphanim, a
very successful television anima-
tion production company, the pre- Despite the somber mood in the Internet animation market, MILIA was vibrant with
untapped possibilities and potential. All photos © MPA/MILIA 2001.
market prospecting for Alphanim
Digital brought with it more
“how’s” and “when’s” than ever
Anyone who made it to MILIA
before, especially in the wake of was primarily concerned with letting
the fates befalling very many of
our biggest and best competitors people know they’d still be there
in the gone.coms marketplace of
recent months.
next year…
Alphanim Digital today We are. “Who’s going to pay?” you unusually male oriented TV mar-
counts at its studio in Angouleme ask? Next question. ket, where, comparatively, we
in the southwest of France almost knew no-one in the corridors or in
20 Flash animators producing A Different Kind of Market the lunch line. The creative types
content essentially for the MILIA brought its reality in business suits had high price
Webcasting window — VerysmallTV checks. Veterans of the TV markets tags on their content as well. In a
— of our teens-young adults such as NATPE, MIP TV and MIP- year where anyone who made it
portal www.YAFOULE.COM. At COM, we were aliens from anoth- to MILIA was primarily concerned
the Paris headquarters, another 30 er planet on the Croisette in with letting people know they’d
something bunch of mainly 20 Cannes in the month of February. still be there next year, we felt
somethings run the editorial sec- Some preconceived ideas died lucky to have encountered the
tions of the “happenings” cultural quick deaths. MILIA = all creative cold winds of the TV market place
magazine, supervise the chat plat- types = cool compared to TV mar- for some years before arriving in
forms and organise the special kets: WRONG! MILIA 2001’s share this place at this time.
events linked to promoting the of business suits with business
community Website throughout plans was higher than ever before, There’s Still Opportunity
Paris and France. Who’s paying? resembling from a distance an We expected many TV ani-
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 50
 ing content.
What MILIA also confirmed
was the increased stirring from
public broadcasters world-wide
indicating that the era of “political-
ly correct” content is teetering
toward the end of its shelf life.
Certain programmes once created
specifically for the Net will find
their place on TV in the not so dis-
tant future. Our own experience
of this at Alphanim Digital has
been with a series called Shorts of
Steel, initially produced for
Three typical MILIA participants enjoy the event’s packed Techno Party.
Verysmalltv on yafoule.com. Now
we have a Canadian co-producer
on board to produce the television
series. This very recent event has
been the motor for us, as with
many other Net producers, to
revise our in-house production
processes and produce Web-
based properties in broadcast
quality format in order to maximise
multi-platform exploitations.
New media markets espe-
cially active at MILIA included
Germany, Spain and Italy based
portals acquiring content and dis-
cussing co-production opportuni-
ties. The over-riding feeling being
Workstations inside MILIA 2001. that, as with TV co-productions,
mation producers to be present animation production budgets by sourcing finance for Internet co-
paying their respects to the holy up to one third. Particularly inter- productions will require increased
grail of convergence. We were ested was Tigi, the newest arrival imagination, with smaller but
one of the few. But our “old in France’s Canal J family and more diverse and numerous rev-
media” TV clients sent their “new catering entirely to the very neg- enue streams than initially expect-
media” people to us. Not rich, but lected area of pre-schoolers. ed.
not empty-handed. Scandinavian, Alphanim Digital is currently dis- Opportunities not available
French and German buyers were cussing Tigi’s first commission of a in the audio-visual sector reared
looking for added value by bring- pre-school series in Flash. Some their heads during the market in
ing products and not just pro- German broadcasters seem certain territories such as Japan where it
gramming to their channels. Some to follow this road shortly as well. can take years to establish an inter-
were looking for interactive con- But right now in France national co-production for televi-
tent to parallel TV series they were we’re in an ADSL-less land right sion. Today — due to a lack of
acquiring, others were looking for now so the format has to be short! Japan-based Flash animation
“indie” animation to drive traffic to However, despite these restrictions artists — an increased interest in
their sites. All were interested by and the limitations of video international co-productions for
the possibility of multi-platform streaming and the sophistication the Internet has become apparent
Flash-based animation production of animation, we saw at MILIA that and, while we did not sign deals
capable of reducing traditional Alphanim Digital delivers outstand- there, the doorways have opened.
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 51
 distributors and content producers
came however in the weeks
which followed MILIA as, in line
with the troubled tech sectors of
world stock markets, prices came
tumbling to fit demand. Properties
offered to us at MILIA were later re-
offered at one-third of the S.M.P.
(Suggested MILIA Price).
MILIA participants are still
finding their way. But they were
there and we were there. We
hope that those who have
inspired us along the way will be
there in 2002. That we’ll even see
them in the corridors at NATPE,
MIP TV and MIPCOM.
And as they say in France
Other avenues like advanced gaming seem the next step for some — against all recommendations of
Flash animation companies. the Academie de la langue fran-
Marketplace Trends and not something to be paid for caise — “Vive le Net!!”
Whether it was syndicators “every time you turn on the
such as Line Up, rights holders faucet,” as Gerd Leonhard Julie Fox is director of the inter-
such as book publishing compa- explained. national distribution entity of
nies, Vivendi/Universal, Sony Who will pay? At MILIA con- Alphanim, one of France’s most
Pictures Digital Entertainment, or ferences it was suggested that successful animation producers.
research organisations such as advertising revenue would contin- Overseeing worldwide sales for
Forrester who hosted several of ue to make up two-thirds of all TV, video and merchandising,
the conferences, the outlook was revenue once critical mass is Julie is also responsible for distri-
that people will pay for quality reached on a site. Other business bution of on-line content originat-
content in the future. (A represen- models discussed were to be sup- ing from Alphanim’s Flash anima-
tative of Bertelesmann repeatedly ported to the extent of 10% by tion studio at sister company
pleaded for understanding of his, ads, the rest split evenly between Alphanim Digital. Prior to joining
“No comment,” reply to almost all subscribers and direct sales. Alphanim, Julie headed up inter-
questions fielded to him at the national sales and acquisitions at
conference held one day before Payment Dargaud-Marina over a period of
the Napster decision was taken in 5 years and started in the kids’
L.A.) concepts and business in another life as a
Whether quality content business models grade-school teacher!
meant tools to manipulate con-
tent, added value personalised also differed… Note: Readers may contact any
content selection or merchandis- Animation World Magazine
ing, the concept differed from one All agreed however that the contributor by sending an e-mail
sales person and buyer to the first and most important factor is to editor@awn.com.
next. that content has to be worth pay-
Payment concepts and ing for and that demand based
business models also differed — models will force business models
some seeing the way through to evolve.
aggregating micro-payments from
diverse streams of small revenues, Finding A Way
others viewing content as a utility More reality checks for both
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 52
New from Japan: in the future, with Asimovian
androids almost indistinguishable
from humans (with an R. for

Anime Film Reviews “robot” in front of their names),

but it is a visual feast for connois-
seurs of Art Deco, double-breasted
by Fred Patten suits, and the type of swank night

A
round 1995, Japanese cable channel from October 13, clubs seen in 1930s movies, com-
animation (anime) began 1999 to January 19, 2000. It plete with a cocktail-lounge blues
pouring into North began in America on The Cartoon score. The plot of humanity redis-
America, Europe and across the Network’s Toonami bloc on April 5, covering itself after being struck
globe in video form. Most of these 2001. Fans instantly noted its with total amnesia also goes back
titles were unknown outside of resemblance to both America’s to the 1930s; the 1934 sci-fi novel
Japan and never covered by ani- recent Batman Beyond and Rebirth, by Thomas Calvert McClary.
mation journals. Whether a title is Japan’s 1992-’95 OAV series Giant The real star of The Big O is
highly popular or very obscure, a Robo. Director Katayama was the not its main hero, Roger Smith,
high-quality theatrical feature or a animation director on Giant Robo; but its setting. Paradigm City is a
cheap and unimaginative direct- and Sunrise, The Big O’s produc- glass-domed city, which for the
to-video release, they all look the tion studio, has been a subcon- past forty years has been strug-
same on a store shelf. Therefore, tractor for Warner Bros.’ Batman: gling out of the darkness of its
Animation World Magazine will The Animated Series and other inhabitants complete memory
regularly review several new Batman/Superman TV cartoons. loss. Each episode is both an indi-
releases (including re-releases not The Fleischer/Famous vidual adventure and part of a seri-
previously covered) that have Studio’s old Superman theatrical al, which gradually reveals what
merit and about which our read- cartoons might also be acknowl- really happened to the city’s inhab-
ers should know. edged. The Big O actually fits into itants. There are clues that the
Japanese cartoonists’ recent love truth is more bizarre than anyone
The Big O.Volumes 1 - 4. affair with “retro chic” or “steam- suspects. The architecture and
TV series, 1999 - 2000. Director: punk” style science-fiction, with a clothing styles are 1930s but there
K a z u y o s h i K a t a y a m a . V. 1 , 4 1930s look of giant circuit break- are both giant humanoid vehicles
episodes/100 minutes. V.2 - 4, 3 ers, slamming pistons, vacuum (the “giant robots”) and intelligent
episodes/75 minutes each. Price & tubes and noisily sparking electric androids. It is mentioned in
format: bilingual DVD $24.98. arcs. Other popular examples dur- episode 1 that nobody uses the
Distributor: Bandai Entertainment. ing the past d e c a d e h a v e city’s old subway system any more,
b e e n S t e a m Detectives, Kishin but it is not revealed until episode
The Big O, 13 TV episodes, Corps and Giant Robo itself. The 4 that people cannot go into the
appeared on Japan’s WOWOW Big O may be set a hundred years subways; they have been psycho-

The Big O. Volumes 1 - 4.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 53
logically conditioned with an Tokyo. Teachers, parents and other
unreasonable fear of going under- adults freak out, but the human
ground. and alien boys and girls get along
Roger Smith (the twin of fine. The human teens find all
Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, kinds of ways to misuse the space
complete w i t h m a n s i o n , l o y a l people’s sci-fi technology, such as
b u t l e r Norman and the Big O when wannabe-loverboy Ataru
giant mechanical man replacing Moroboshi uses a galactic photo-
the Batmobile) is a public copy machine to duplicate himself
Negotiator. In episode 1, he is so he can chase numerous girls at
hired as the go-between in a kid- the same time. Many of UY’s aliens
napping to deliver the ransom were very thinly disguised paro-
and get a rich industrialist’s daugh- dies of Japanese gods and god-
Urusei Yatsura.
ter back. There are doublecrosses desses, demons, fairy-tale heroes,
on both sides, and the rescued and her 1978-87 UY comics are historical personages and current
Dorothy turns out to be a robot internationally available in hun- popular notables; or of the friend-
good enough to pass for human. dreds of printings. (Takahashi ly but overwhelming Western cul-
She was presumably built by her moved on to create other comic- ture with its technological innova-
industrialist “father,” who had book serials which also became tions. Just as Japanese teens loved
regained part of his pre-amnesia anime mega-hits, notably Maison seeing themselves portrayed as an
memory; but Roger knows that Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2.) UY’s in-crowd who are the first to dis-
the technology level was never anime version ran as a TV series cover the cool aliens, the
high enough to build intelligent from October 14, 1981 through American fans reveled in being the
robots. With the industrialist mur- March 19, 1986 (197 episodes), first to learn and tell their friends
dered, R. Dorothy attaches herself and spun off six theatrical features about the Japanese cultural ori-
to Roger for lack of anywhere else (1983 - 1991), plus eleven direct- gins behind the jokes. (The title,
to go. Roger’s effort to learn where to-video releases (1986 - 1991). Urusei Yatsura, is a slang pun
R. Dorothy really came from leads Many of Japan’s current top anime weakly translated as Those
him to look increasingly like a directors and character designers Obnoxious Aliens; any 1980s fan
1930s private eye, with Dorothy got their start on UY. It was a would gladly spend five minutes
as his sardonic secretary. Not sur- learning experience for a brand- explaining all the levels of the
prisingly, Dorothy’s secret leads to new animation studio, Studio wordplay.) UY was one of the ear-
the greater mystery of Paradigm Pierrot, and it shows, but few pro- liest titles to be illegally subtitled as
City’s lost past. ductions ever made it more clear evolving computer technology
how much fun everyone was hav- made amateur subtitling practical,
Urusei Yatsura.TV Series, #1. ing. (The goofiest-looking charac- and one of the first to be licensed
TV series, 1981-1986. Directors: ters in any crowd scene are usual- commercially by the new
Mamoru Oshii, Kyoji Harada, ly the animators’ self-caricatures.) American anime specialty compa-
Tamiko Kojima. 4 episodes/100 In America, the mostly teenaged nies. AnimEigo has been slowly
minutes each. Price & format: sub- fans just discovering anime felt releasing UY since 1992, at four
titled; video $24.95, DVD $24.95. that the mildly raunchy campus subtitled episodes per video with
Distributor: AnimEigo. humor of UY was tailored especial- extensive notes explaining the cul-
ly for them. The comedy soap- tural background to each joke and
The importance of Urusei opera follows Japanese high- identifying the caricatures of
Yatsura to anime in general or to school students after Earth is Japanese politicians or sports stars.
the development of its fandom in invaded by friendly aliens, whose It was up to video volume 25
America, cannot be overestimat- tiger-stripe bikini’ed Princess Lum (episodes #97-#100) by 2000
ed. UY began as a comic book by enters Tomobiki High as an when the DVD market took off. UY
a neophyte cartoonist. Today exchange student and likes it so is now starting a new edition on
Rumiko Takahashi is one of the much that her alien teen friends DVD, beginning February 27,
wealthiest women in the world, decide it is “cool” to join her in 2001 and released at bimonthly
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 54
intervals. AnimEigo’s plan is to super-weapon. Gren disappears, sagas. (The U.S. Manga Corps
keep the 25 videos in print until either killed or captured by Zeiram, 1996 video releases of Iria in three
they are all also on DVD, then con- while Bob is doublecrossed by videotape volumes, two episodes
tinue in DVD format alone. their employer who wants no wit- per volume, are still available at
nesses. The mortally wounded $19.95 each dubbed or $29.95
Iria: Zeiram the Animation. Bob transfers his mind to a com- each subtitled.)
OAV series, 1994. Director: puter just before dying. Iria, carry-
Tetsurou Amino. 162 minutes. ing him as a mini-computer men- Key, the Metal Idol. V.1,
Price & format: bilingual DVD tor, sets out to destroy both Zeiram Awakening. V.2, Dreaming. V.3,
$34.99. Distributor: U.S. Manga and the ruthless Tedan Tippedai Singing.
Corps/Central Park Media. Corporation, and to rescue Gren if OAV series, 1994-1997. Director &
it is not too late. author: Hiroaki Sato. V.1, 7 half-
In the U.S., popular movies The 1991 movie was set in hour episodes, 210 minutes. V.2, 6
like Star Wars generate TV cartoon a “warp zone” arena, which, half-hour episodes, 180 minutes.
spinoffs. Ditto in Japan, though despite suspenseful direction, was V.3, 2 90-minute features, 180
the spinoffs are more likely to be clearly little more than a simplistic minutes. Price & format: bilingual
direct-to-video releases. sound stage. Animation (by Ashi DVD $29.98. Distributor: Viz Video
Zeiram was a 1991 live- Production Co.) allowed this 1994 through Pioneer Entertainment.
action sci-fi hit (by writer-director prequel to present limitless galactic
Keita Amemiya) similar to Alien, starfields, numerous exotic locales Key, an instant hit as an
showing the climax of a long-run- on the planets Myce and OAV serial (15 episodes, the last
ning hunt-to-the-death Taowajan (futuristic cityscapes are two feature-length, released
b e t w e e n Zeiram, an invulnera- imaginatively extrapolated from between December 1994 and
ble space monster, and the galac- traditional Indonesian architectural June 1997 in Japan), has been
tic bounty hunter Iria, played by styles), a limitless horde of compared with titles as disparate
Sigourney Weaver-esque Yuko Zeiramoid creatures and acrobat- as Pinocchio and Astro Boy, Peter
Moriyama. Fans wanted to know ics beyond the range of most live Pan, Edward Scissorhands and A
more about the back-story alluded actors. The character designs are Star is Born. Dr. Murao Mima, a
to during the movie: how did Iria very colorful, although the elabo- reclusive expert in robotics, is fund-
and Zeiram become such implaca- rate costumes look rather warm ed by industrial magnate Jinsaku
ble adversaries; what were some for such a tropical setting. Iria’s Ajo who is secretly developing
of their previous battles; how did transition from a talented but robotic super-soldiers. Mima tests
Iria become such a hardened naive imitation of her brother into his research by building a robot
bounty hunter; how did Iria gain a skilled professional hunter is han- granddaughter, Tokiko (Key), realis-
her computer hologram partner, dled nicely, wisely stopping short tic enough to pass as human. (Ajo
Bob? of making her the cold killer of the does not care as long as he gets
Iria: Zeiram the Animation theatrical feature. The DVD pres- the research for his own goals.)
was an Original Animation Video entation of Iria as a feature suffers The gamin-like Key has a glassy
series (six monthly half-hour releas- slightly from the original need to stare and monotone voice, but
es between June and November divide it into six neat sub-adven- she is accepted by the community
1994) that answered these ques- tures within the overall story; and as just a weird girl with delusions
tions. Iria is a teenager who hero- since this is the beginning of the of being a robot due to her grand-
worships her older brother Gren Zeiram saga (there is also a 1994 father’s work. Mima gradually
and his human boss, Bob — two live-action Zeiram 2, again written comes to love Key enough to
interstellar security guards/bounty & directed by Keita Amemiya and want to transform her into a real
hunters. They are hired to rescue a starring Yuko Moriyama), the con- girl. She is 17 when he dies. His
corporate executive held hostage clusion is naturally open-ended. dying message to her is that she
on a terrorist-hijacked cargo space- But Iria: Zeiram the Animation will also die soon when her cur-
ship. But the menace is actually an stands well on its own. It should rent artificial body breaks down.
unkillable monster being illegally fully satisfy moviegoers looking for Her only hope is to complete her
shipped for study as a potential action-packed cinematic space transformation by herself, by gain-
ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 55
 Distributor: A. D. Vision Films.

Ruin Explorers is a light-

weight comedy/adventure very
obviously inspired by Dungeons &
Dragons; an animated adaptation
(four half-hour episodes, released
6/25/95, 8/25/95, 11/25/95 and
2/25/96) of a comic-book serial by
Kunihiko Tanaka in a Japanese
gaming magazine. It demon-
strates the Original Animation
Key, the Metal Idol. V.1, Awakening. V.2, Dreaming. V.3, Singing. Video market’s ability to take
ing the love of human friends. But Sato keeps the story twisting in advantage of a pleasant story that
she will need lots of friends; at new directions, deflecting skepti- is not strong enough to be made
least 30,000! Key’s only hope of cism over improbable plot ele- into a TV cartoon series or theatri-
winning so many friends seems to ments by anticipating questions. cal feature, but does quite well in
be through becoming a hit idol “Key, how can you be a real robot? the direct-to-video market for a
singer; a new pop star. She is Robots can’t sweat! Even if it was niche audience (in this case, role-
coached by her only human true, how would getting 30,000 playing gaming fans). Also, this is a
friend, Sakura Kuriyagawa, a high fans turn you into a real girl?” The complete story, unlike some anime
school classmate whose part-time desperation of Ajo and Wakagi to “movies” that end in mid-story
job at a video store has brought control Key, and the early revela- because they are really releases of
her into contact with Shuichi tion that the genuine pop idol OAV serials that sold so poorly
Tataki, president of a fan club for Utsuse has been replaced by a they were never finished.
current idol super-star Miho robot duplicate in Ajo’s control, In the story, a stereotypical
Utsuse. Unknown to the three, lends enough plausibility to keep fantasy world has so many ruins of
Key is being protected secretly by the suspense at a high level. The past civilizations that a whole
Tomoyo Wakagi, her grandfather’s haunting mood music by Tamiya industry has grown up of “ruin
loyal assistant who knows how Terashima also helps immeasur- explorers” who plunder them for
the scientist really died, from ably, as does an excellent cast of
industrialist Ajo who seeks to cap- voice actors in the Japanese dub.
ture her, both because her body The story seems to lead toward a
may contain Mima’s last research, smooth conclusion by the end of
and because he fears her blunder- the 13th half-hour episode. Then
ing around Tokyo will call atten- Wakagi says, “We still have some
tion to the existence of robots. ways to go,” and the feature-
Key’s venture into the world of length 14th episode introduces
media stardom under the tutelage new elements that drastically
of Sakura and Shuichi introduces change the meaning of every-
them all to the sleazier side of the thing that has gone before! The
entertainment industry: talent animation by Studio Pierrot is obvi-
scouts looking for fodder for ously limited, but Sato’s direction is
porno films, the bleak hell of cattle- so skillful that you hardly notice.
call interviews, and prima-donna
directors who treat hopeful teen Ruin Explorers: Quest for the
talent as disposable raw material Ultimate Power!
for their productions. OAV series, 1995-96. Director/
This summary does not Screenplay: Takeshi Mori. 4
mention some well-integrated episodes/120 minutes. Price & for- Ruin Explorers: Quest for the
major subplots. Writer-director mat: bilingual DVD $29.98. Ultimate Power!

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 56

lost treasures. Fam and Ihrie, two serious direction. The five are undeniably amusing, not least
mid-teen girls, are getting into it forced to become reluctant allies in because of how he clashes so
earlier than most. Ihrie, human, is support of handsome Prince Lyle much with the character design of
determined to prove that they are who needs the talisman to stop the others. (Presumably this is part
just as good as the more experi- the mad enchanter Rugudorull of the joke.)
enced explorers who mock them. from destroying all life on Earth. A.D. Vision Films previously
Fam, her elf friend, is her hesitant Ruin Explorers is also an released Ruin Explorers on two
follower. Both have magic powers, example of the Japanese pen- videos of two episodes apiece in
but due to a spell earlier cast on chant for throwing references to June and September 1998, in
Ihrie, she cannot use her magic American pop culture into their both dubbed and subtitled ver-
without turning into a mouse. productions. These may indicate sions. Due to the anime market’s
Ihrie must urge Fam to use her the introduction of those images new demand for bilingual DVD
Wiccan powers, which she does into Japan. When the Kentucky releases (both English-dubbed and
so hesitantly that it is usually too lit- Fried Chicken franchise moved in Japanese with English subtitles),
tle, too late. Ihrie’s exasperation into Japan in the mid-1980s, A.D. Vision is now remaindering
with Fam finally blows up into a American anime fans wondered those two video versions. Video
spat at just the wrong time. A why there were suddenly so many releases of anime in subtitled form
search for a magic talisman pits brief sightings of Col. Sanders in alone have become virtually
them against rivals, the arrogant anime productions. This anime extinct over the past year.
Rasha (sorceress) and Migel adaptation of Ruin Explorers (ani-
(swordsman), plus a conniving mated by Animate Films studio) Fred Patten has written on anime
merchant, Galuff, who sold a map has a new character not in for fan and professional maga-
to the treasure to both teams in Tanaka’s comic book; merchant zines since the late 1970s.
the hope that they will set off all Galuff’s pet dog, Gil, who is a dead
the traps and kill each other off, ringer for H a n n a - B a r b e r a ’s Note: Readers may contact any
leaving the treasure for him. New s n i c k e r i n g Muttley. Why? Who Animation World Magazine
players enter in episode 2, and the knows? Gil contributes nothing to contributor by sending an e-mail
story veers into a new and more the plot, but his appearance is to editor@awn.com.

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE May 2001 57