Ed's Newsletter - March 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANIMEX!
The Animex International Festival of Animation and Computer Games at UK's Teesside University is ten years old! Time flies when you are having fun, folks. Congratulations to Chris Williams for bringing so many talented people together year after year. This is what the animation "community" is all about, and I am proud to be a part of it.

THANKS, TRAVELLER'S TALES!
Thanks also to the guys and gals at Traveller's Tales game company in beautiful downtown Knutsford, England - particularly Jeremy Pardon, who organized it all. You were wonderful hosts, and I had a terrific time working with you. Let's do it again soon.

LABAN WORKSHOP FOR BAY AREA ACTORS AND ANIMATORS
P.J. Hackney, Director of Integrated Movement Studies at the Berkeley Laban/Bartenieff Certificate Program, has announced a weekend format class starting in September. This would be a good class for anybody who wants to study human movement. Definitely recommended.

EVERY ANIMATION STUDENT NEEDS A HOUSE OF CURVES
"TIPS-FOR-STUDENTS" POSTER
My friend Andy Daffy from House of Curves showed me a poster that he and a bunch of other talented people (Thanks, Shelley Page!) created. It is a totally cool illustrated list of tips for animation students. It contains excellent advice for those in training as well as artists searching for work. Take a look and download it for free at www.thehouseofcurves.com/poster.

CONGRATULATIONS "WALL-E"
Pixar did it again, surprise, surprise. Didn't you love actor Jack Black's line when he was presenting the Best Animated Feature award? "Each year, I do one DreamWorks project, take the money to the Oscars and bet it all on Pixar." Ouch! There was an immediate reaction shot of Jeffrey Katzenberg who was sitting in the audience and, to his credit, laughing. But that zinger hit the target. I still say that "Kung Fu Panda" is the best film to come out of DreamWorks animation to date, and it was a worthy competitor for "Wall-E".

INDIA IS ON THE MOVE
"Slumdog Millionaire" has deservedly brightened the spotlight that shines on India's growing entertainment industry. Congratulations to all involved! This year, live action. Next year....Animation, perhaps?

. . . FACEBOOK AND ME
I am fortunate to receive a lot of requests to become a "friend" on Facebook, and I don't want anybody to be offended that I do not accept. The reason is that, until Facebook gets its act together, I really do not want it on my computer. Facebook is valued in the billions of dollars, receives international press attention, and has not yet turned a penny of profit. All of the profit-making schemes it has hoisted up the flagpole so far involve significant intrusion into its users privacy. I already receive enough spam, and I worry that becoming a Facebook friend will increase spam exponentially. I value my friends and welcome hearing from you. For the time being, however, it is going to have to be just you in me in a private room. No Facebook.

REGARDING HUMAN GESTURES
Nothing is more fundamental to excellent performance animation than the efficient use of gestures. I have had the pleasure of meeting on-line an expert on this subject: Spencer Kelly, Associate Professor of Psychology at Colgate University. Professor Kelly is not an animator or actor, but he sure does know a whole lot about how gestures work and how the brain produces them. Here is a link to his faculty page at Colgate; and here is an excellent an in-depth article about some of his research from the magazine Scientific American Mind.

CALLING ALL ASPIRING FEMALE GAME DESIGNERS!
There are some college scholarships available to women who want to study game design. Check it out here.

ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Mar 14, Raleigh/Durham North Carlina - Epic Games
May 5-8, Stuttgart, Germany - FMX International Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Digital Media
May 14-17, Kalamazoo, Michigan - Kalamazoo Animation Festival International
Nov 18-27, Swansea Animation Days (SAND), South Wales
Planning - India (stay tuned)
Planning - China (stay tuned)

CRAFT NOTES
"Coraline"
Director Henry Selick ("Nightmare before Christmas") and the animators at Laika Entertainment in Portland, Oregon, have made a classic for us to enjoy. They also have on their hands a slam-dunk Academy Award nomination next year. "Coraline", based on the children's novel by Neil Gaiman, is a marvelous must-see stop-motion animated feature, shot totally in 3D.

Somebody told me a long time ago that the difference between a dream and a nightmare is that a nightmare deals with mortality, life and death. I believe that is true, and I further believe that the very best children's stories have nightmare elements to them. "Coraline" fits this description just as "Pinnochio", "Snow White" do.

The basic story revolves around a ten-year old girl who is unhappy with her family's move from Michigan to rural Oregon. She's bored and misses her old friends. (Sounds a lot like "Spirited Away", doesn't it?) Her parents are authors of gardening books and are most often found pecking away at their respective computers. Coraline wanders about their new big old house and discovers a door that opens onto a boarded up brick wall. It is boarded up, that is, until she falls asleep, at which time the door opens to a parallel world that is populated by her "other" mother and "other" father who proceed to spoil her by paying lots of attention to her and feeding her the yummiest food.

Soon, however, this parallel world turns ominous, and her "other" parents attempt to keep her in their world, promising eternal love. The only requirement is that she sew big black buttons on her face where her eyes used to be. Everybody has button eyes, you see, in this other world.

I will not give you any spoilers because I truly want you to enjoy this movie without knowing how it ends. Suffice it to say that Coraline becomes a classic heroine, having to do battle with the "other" parents in order to save her real parents. There are a number of rats, dog-bats, cats and retired theatrical performers involved. And, for the movie, Henry Selick made up an entirely original character who is not in the book, a neighborhood kid named Wybie Lovat.

Speaking strictly in terms of performance, Wybie Lovat deserves special attention because of his use of the Psychological Gesture. Indeed, when "Coraline" comes out on DVD, I intend to include it in my Acting for Animators workshops as a good example of Psychological Gesture. Wybie is as physically uncomfortable with himself as a young boy can be, let's just leave it at that.

Given the complicated logistics of creating a stop motion movie, it is always amazing to me is that the artists can achieve anything at all that might be described as "performance". I have sat and watched stop motion animators at work - at play, really - and confess that I could personally take maybe an hour and a half of that kind of meticulous frame-by-frame, second-by-second work. It makes my teeth itch just thinking about it! Still, I love to watch the final product, and "Coraline" is as good as it gets.

At its peak of production, the movie reportedly required a creative team of 300. They used 52 stages, 130 sets and many hundreds of puppets. Twenty-eight different puppets were used for the title character alone! The film cost upwards of $70 million (a bargain by DreamWorks or Pixar standards) and took three and a half years to complete.

There is an incredibly beautiful scene that is a tribute to one of my favorite paintings, Van Gogh's 1889 "Starry Night". And - oh yes - be sure you stick around for the closing credits to watch those 3D dog-bats do their thing. I would like to see a short featuring those dog-bats. Hint, hint.

Walt himself would have been delighted with this movie. Laika Entertainment, risen now from the ashes of Vinton Studios, is a force to reckon with in the animation world. I hope I am leading a welcoming standing ovation.

Until next month...be safe!
"Actors are Shamans"