asifa-sf

Thanks to the folks at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival for pointing out this site. Historian Thomas J. Stathes has some great information up on the history of the Bray Studios and some of their animation work during the silent era. He has a nice write-up on the history of the studio, and a selection of some of the shorts created by the studios.  Definitely worth a look.

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ParaNorman set

The ParaNorman show at the Cartoon Art Museum has been there for some time now, but until yesterday I didn’t know how impressive it was.  They have some full size sets as well as several of the main character puppets and along the wall is lots of production art.  Unfortunately the show ends on Sunday Feb 17, so I suggest you rush there right away.  To make it even more enticing they just added a new show of original Chuck Jones art on loan from the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity. That show which takes up a large portion of the entire gallery will be there through May 5. The museum is at 655 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

Jones’ Dog

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Cartoons Go West

UC Berkeley will be hosting it’s second annual 3 day seminar focused on silent film at the Pacific Film Archive and Berkeley Art Museum on Feb 21-23. The final day, Saturday has several panels of interest to animation fans:
“(Not) Being There: Anachronistic Dislocation in The Lost World (1925)”
“Where, and What, is the World of Animated Films?”
Keynote: Donald Crafton “Animation Goes West: The Geo-Ideological Construction of Silent Cartoon Styles”
Registration seems to be free, but they request that you pre-register

I have no idea if they will show any Felix and those cartoons were made in New York, but if any character is associated with silent animation it’s him.  And hey, he’s going to Hollywood in that cartoon.

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Coming next month to a theater near you.

Armchair Academy Award watchers have long decried the difficulty in handicapping the shorts categories, but no more! If you’d like to check out all of this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts (animated, live-action and documentary) in a movie theater, you’ll be happy to know that the selections will be released in 260 theaters across the U.S., Canada and Europe, beginning February 1st.  The announcement comes on the heels of last year’s record-breaking release, which was one of the top 50 grossing independent film releases in North America, earning over $1,700,000 nationwide. Since its debut in 2005, the Oscar-Nominated Short Films theatrical release program has grown 800%.

The animation program will be hosted by Bill Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, who won the Oscar last year for their short The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. The shorts program will feature Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog, PES’ Fresh Guacamole, Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels, David Silverman’s Maggie Simpsons in “The Longest Daycare” and John Kahrs’ Paperman.

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ASIFA-SF’s Annual Winter Screening & Party
Sunday, January 13 6pm at Oddball Films

Come celebrate, network, eat, drink and laugh. ASIFA-SF will provide the basics. Please feel free to add to the treats.   Once again this looks like a great evening of films by local artists and friends from around the globe.  Anyone is welcome to bring your animated/special effects work unannounced the night of the show on DVD or 16 mm and we will show it.

The night’s show will include:
- David Chai’s A Knock on My Door, a biographical tale about his father’s experience growing up during the Korean War and his struggles moving to America.
- Tony Claar plans to premiere Whim Cycles. 
- Gene Hamm was asked to animate one of Keith Knight’s comic strips.  He will show it plus new work by his Alchemia students
- Michael Ocelot creates charming work in France using silhouette animation.
- Peter Parr’s Summer Dream, music by Debussy. Peter founded the animation
program at Bournemouth College in England.
- Plus a selection of grand prize winners from past Zagreb Animation Festivals  including:

Jumping, Osamu Tezuka, 1984, Japan; Mt. Head, Koji Yamamura, 2002, Japan
Diary, Nedeljko Dragic, 1974, Yugoslavia; The Wrong Trousers, Nick Park, 1993, UK
Dreams and Desires, Joanna Quinn, 2006, UK…

We could go on—the party surely will—hope to see you there! Its an easy walk from the 16th street BART, so skip the parking and c’mon down—We always enjoy a really fine evening!

Oddball Films, 275 Capp St, third floor (between Mission and South Van Ness)
FREE, bring a friend, films start around 7:30

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Part of the Oakland Art Murmur
Free show this Friday, Jan. 4

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY, Studio Quercus will present The Great Primitives, three hours of some of the most influential short subjects in cinema history, all projected on 16mm film. Highlights include films from Thomas Edison, Edwin S. Porter, The Lumière Brothers, Georges Méliès, and Cecil Hepworth, early and rare animation from Émile Cohl, Raoul Barré, Earl Hurd, Max Fleischer, Walt Disney, Walter Lantz and Otto Messmer, along with other rarities and gems. Lots of fun for animation fans, film fans and  cinema snobs alike .

Curated by Gerald Santana of Berkeley Underground Films. Screening continuously from 6 to 9 pm. For more info about Oakland Art Murmur, an ongoing program to support the arts and art venues, visit their site.

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Five Animators Reveal Their Sources

The latest issue of the ASIFA-SF newsletter should be in member’s mailboxes or coffee tables by now. In it, renowned animators Tom Sito, Davd Fine, Mark Fiore, Shelia M. Sofian and Signe Baumane discuss their sources of inspiration for animation. It’s definitely worth reading—and it begs the question: What inspires you to animate? Where do you turn for ideas, energy, enthusiasm in your work? ASIFA-SF President Karl Cohen would like to hear from you—and have you bring the resulting work to our Winter get together on Sunday January 13.

Save the date—and share your thoughts!

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Raymond Scott Music Live at BAM
Friday, Dec. 7 @ 7:30pm

Remember all that great music from Warner Bros. cartoon, like “Powerhouse” and “Dinner Music For a Pack of Hungry Cannibals”? Even if you don’t know the names, you can’t forget the music, and Quartet San Francisco will perform an eclectic program featuring the high-energy, zany compositions of Raymond Scott, which were used later as cartoon music but were originally written for concert performance.

The Quartet’s lead Jeremy Cohen and fellow violinist Matthew Szemela, violist Keith Lawrence, and cellist Kelley Maulbetsch have created a signature crossover style that has earned them invitations to tour China, Korea, Japan, and Turkey. But you can hear them as part of the Berkeley Art Museum’s “L@TE” Events. (Please come early for best seating. A limited number of chairs will be available.) For tickets and more visit the BAM website.

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