As of February 1, I’ll be retiring from the CableCartoon as your conductor. It’s been a great ride over the past three years, and I hope you’ll join me at the ASIFA-SF website for more news, reviews and interviews of the Bay Area’s animation scene! —Joe "The California Kid" Sikoryak

Academy Award Nominee Screening
Friday, February 18, 7pm

Our pal and animation maven Ron Diamond (of Acme Filmworks) will be back in the Bay Area this month with another great touring show. Ron will be presenting the five short animated films nominated for Academy Awards:

Day & Night, directed by Teddy Newton. United States.
Let’s Pollute directed by Geefwee Boedoe. United States.
Madagascar, A Journey Diary directed by Bastien Dubois. France.
The Gruffalo directed by Jakob Schuh, Max Lang. Great Britain.
The Lost Thing directed by Andrew Ruhemann, Shaun Tan. Australia.

If you’re a member of ASIFA-SF, you can join the local pros who get to see the show. Ron always manages to coax a few of the directors along, so this is a rare opportunity for Q&A along with the screening on a big digital screen. Invitations will be sent by e-mail and space is limited. And if you wish that you were a member, you can always join right here, right now!

 

 

Indies and Pros Show Their Stuff
Friday, Jan. 28, 7:00pm

It’s time once again for ASIFA-SF’s annual open screening of animated works by professional and independent artists in the Bay Area. The public is invited to attend this FREE show at the McBean Theater at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. You never know what you’re gonna see, but rest assured you’re bound to be treated to animation that you can’t see anywhere else. Turn off the TV and come on over!

Celebrate the Season
& Enjoy A Special Screening

On Sunday, January 9, 6:15pm, come celebrate, network, eat, drink, laugh, have fun at Oddball Films in S.F. ASIFA-SF will provide the basics.  Please feel free to add to the treats, food and drinks are welcome. After we’ve mingled a bit, sit down and watch the Winners of the 41st Annual ASIFA-East Animation Competition. This NYC-based event has been going strong for 41 years and is the longest-running Animation Festival in the USA.

This night, you can be a Judge! -  $200 in audience prizes will be warded to selected filmmakers!  This is a great show with excellent shorts by , (a stop-motion artist, formerly from the Bay Area), and other artists, plus commercial work and student films. The ASIFA-East awards were presented May 9, 2010 at the Tishman Auditorium at the New School, NYC. See the December newsletter for a list of the films/filmmakers and to see how they voted in NY.

FREE to all, bring a friend. Snacks serverd from 6:15, showing starts around 8.
Oddball Films, 275 Capp, third floor (Capp runs between Mission and South Van Ness, on Capp near 18th St.)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

May you find a little something special under your tree…

 

Stay connected to friends and family near and far…

 

 Be of good cheer…

Share the holiday spirit…

And stay animated through the new year! 

 

Warner Bros. Animation Artwork in SF
Starts December 4

As if one great show dedicated to a famous animation studio wasn’t enough (you HAVE visited the Pixar retrospective at the Oakland museum more than once, right?) and the Disney Family Museum is celebrating it’s first, fantastic year, now the Cartoon Art Museum adds to our embarrassment of animation riches with Overture: Looney Tunes Behind the Scenes.

This exhibition features over 60 pieces of original artwork featuring the world-famous Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam and The Tasmanian Devil. Character designs, model sheets, advertising artwork, animation pencil art, Looney Tunes comic book art and other rarely seen illustrations provide an exclusive look behind the scenes at the creation of the cartoon shorts beloved by generations.

Featured artists include famed Looney Tunes Director and Animator Robert McKimson, his brothers Charles and Tom McKimson, and animator Sam Nicholson, who was renowned throughout the animation industry for his skill as a caricaturist.

 

And, it is appropriate to mention that CAM curator Andrew Farago has a new book in stores, The Looney Tunes Treasury, which presents a first-hand look at the Looney Tunes from an irrefutable source—the characters themselves! This irreverent history provides an offbeat look at the animation industry, the “behind-the-cels” men (and women) who gave the characters their unequivocal look, attitude, and voices, and a first-hand account of what the characters do when they’re not starring in the latest Looney Tunes cartoon. Andrew also contributed to Jerry Beck’s recent book The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes, so it’s been a Merrie Melodies trifecta for him this year!

There is no shortage of animation to choose from this weekend! Across the bay a variety of stop motion animation is screening at Stop & Go.

"Curated by San Francisco filmmaker and visual artist Sarah Klein, Stop & Go Rides Again follows a tremendously successful European and American tour of the stop-motion animation series Stop & Go. A diverse collection of stop-motion animations by Bay Area and international artists unveil their most recent experiments in animation and comment on everything from the simple beauty of a rubber ball to the history of evolution. In these films, the artists and filmmakers delve into the labor-intensive process of stop-motion animation by manipulating everyday materials by hand—such as colored paper, photographs, toys, cardboard, fabric scraps and even facial hair—to create optical experiences, cardboard creatures, shadow puppets, and a handy how-to on making homemade hooch."

There is quite a few intriguing pieces that will be shown, get a taste here.

Also if you are staying in the city this Saturday be sure to check out the Vintage Toon Night at Phoenix Books! Too many exclamation marks? Well, I don’t think I have another punctuation mark that sells my enthusiasm for cartoon outings this weekend as well. Hope to see you there@ (!)

"Local filmmaker and collector Danny Plotnick will be screening cool old cartoons from the 30s through the 70s on real 16mm film! Bring the whole family - will be loads of fun!"

 Stop and Go Dec. 4th, 8 pm

 Phoenix Books Vintage Toon Night Dec. 4th, 6pm

 

 

2nd Annual Animation Trade Show Wraps

The Cable CarToon took a quick detour to "beautiful downtown Burbank" (as Gary Owens used to say) to visit the Creative Talent Network’s latest trade show/convention/get together for the animation industry, the CTN Animation eXpo. This three day event attracted thousands of pros, independents, students, and fans of animation—in short, the whole gamut.

Unlike other trade shows there was an emphasis on the creative side of the business, with presentations featuring artists (like character designers Peter deSeve and Carter Goodrich; master animator Andreas Deja; and special guest Jean "Moebius" Girard) as well as businessfolk (including Heather Kenyon of Starz Animation and Angela Lepito of Dreamworks outreach). Topics in the presentation rooms included the state of pre-visualization, making a successful pitch, running a small studio, and lots of artists talking about their work.

We split our time between the two exhibitor rooms (50% larger than last year, we heard) to sample the mix of offerings. Roughly speaking, there were 40% artists and illustrators selling their products (and pitching their ideas), 25% industry-oriented tables (selling tech products, software and the like) another 25% recruitment (all the big studios were there, as well as a suite of schools offering animation and VFX degrees) and 10% dealers of books, toys and the like.

Obviously, the show is growing fast (most panels filled up early and resorted to video feeds in "overflow rooms" to accommodate attendees) but happily the show was small enough to take in with a single day’s visit (though there was plenty of great stuff to fill the weekend.) And evenings included some special screenings like Tangled in 3-D and Syvian Chomet’s The Illusionist. There was also a lot of activity in "Opportunity Alley" where the recruiters set up shop and lots of students enjoyed portfolio reviews with the pros.

But the real reason to attend next year is the chance to mingle with our tribe: we had the most fun talking to folks at the tables, in the audiences, and at the lunch counter. The eXpo is a great venue for making connections and making friends in the industry, and we’ll be back for the weekend next year.

ASIFA-SF presents!
Friday, Nov. 19, 7:30 PM

Animator Tim Hittle will present The Jay Clay Trilogy, and Misha Klein will present Fred and other shorts at the McBean Auditorium in San Francisco’s Exploratorium.

See the SF premiere of the trilogy, which includes: The Quiet Life, his Oscar nominated Canhead and The Potato Hunter. Tim’s screen credits include Nightmare Before Christmas and several Pixar features.  Misha has worked on Fred for 10-years (stop-motion, shot in 35mm) in between work on Coraline, ads and TV series. After the Q&A we will show historic stop-motion shorts and film clips by Willis O’Brien (King Kong), George Pal (The Puppetoons), Ray Harryhausen (7th Voyage of Sinbad), Will Vinton (The California Raisins).

As always, this event is free, public invited—and if you’re considering becoming a member of the Bay Area’s leading animation association (like, is there any other?) this is a great opportunity to check it out!

 

 

The San Francisco International Animation Festival
Thursday, Nov. 11 thru Sunday Nov. 14 

Here’s one more reason to celebrate the Bay Area’s preeminence in the wonderful world of animation: The SFIFF is presenting their 5th annual Animation Festival, featuring an enticing mix of the latest FX-based features, anime, family-friendly cartoons and wonderfully unclassifiable shorts from around the world, and a fabulous Opening Night party. This year’s festival includes Hayao Miyazaki protégé Sunao Katabuchi’s Mai Mai Miracle, the Decemberists-inspired Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, six wildly diverse shorts programs and a live animation and musical performance by artist duo Semiconductor.

There’s a lot of rarely-seen and offbeat material on tap at this year’s festival—here’s a quick rundown of the program:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11
7:30 pm Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized
 - Four animators interpret The Decemberists The Hazards of Love rock album.
9:00 pm Opening Night party
 - Always a grand event.
9:30 pm Jackboots on Whitehall
 - What would have transpired if the Nazis had invaded England and occupied Buckingham Palace?

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12
7:00 pm The Best of Annecy
- a selection of the best shorts from the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
9:00 pm Johnny Ray and Skye: Channel Drift
 - experimental work and narratives, fine art and commercials, content culled from the vast reaches of the Web and some 35mm gems

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13
12 noon Mai Mai Miracle
 - A story about two teenage girls that delicately captures the strange wonder that accompanies one’s transition into adulthood.
2:30 pm What You Want and What You Need
 - These shorts provide just a few examples of that perilous activity called yearning.
4:30 pm Good Night and Good Luck
 - A collection of shorts that are real and imagined journeys—inward, outward, some funny, some painful, all animated.
7:20 pm Semiconductor: Forward Looking Back
 - a retrospective and a glimpse of future projects of one of the most fascinating duos in the world of animation: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt
9:45 pm Play It by Eye
 - a program of recent animated music videos, focusing on a phenomenon so confusing we decided to keep it secret.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14
11:00 am Near and Far . . . and Animals
 - Suitable for all ages, this shorts program probes some of the consequences of being near . . . or far.
12:45 pm The Best of Annecy
 - a selection of the best shorts from the annual Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
2:30 pm Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then
 - director Brent Green rebuilt a home in his own backyard and employed it as a set for the creation of this singular live action/animation hybrid film.

For complete info, and advance ticket sales, visit the SFIFF website.