The 7pm Richard Williams Show is SOLD OUT!

You’d best get your tickets for the 12 noon show at the Balboa Theater before it’s too late. And since we’ll be setting our clocks back an hour on Saturday night anyway, even you sleepyheads can roll out of bed in time. So go order your tickets now before Scrooge gives you a proper tongue lashing!

Due to the heavy demand for advance tickets, Richard Williams has added a 12 noon show Sunday, November 2 before the nearly sold-out 7:00pm show.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you—get those advance tickets now!

THIS EVENT IS A BENEFIT FOR ASIFA-SF, the Bay Area’s Animation Association
Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa (at 37th Ave in SF), $9.00 (seniors/kids $6.50)
Visit Brown Paper to buy advance tickets

Richard Williams in San Francisco—One Night Only!
Sunday, November 2, 7pm
 
Richard Williams has been in the animation business for over 50 years. He created the Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol, directed the animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (two more Oscars), created memorable opening titles for features (The Return of the Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, What’s New Pussycat, Casino Royale, The Charge of the Light Brigade), award winning TV commercials, and other projects including the feature Raggedy Ann and Andy.
 
As the head of an award-winning studio producing animated commercials for many years he constantly strove to improve the quality of his art. This resulted in his hiring retired Hollywood animators to teach a new generation of artists the craft at his studio. For years copies of lecture notes from these classes were passed around from animator to animator. Then in the 1990s he toured the world presenting The Richard Williams’ Masterclasses. That resulted in his best selling book The Animator’s Survival Kit (2001) that is a standard reference for any animator today. Now a 16-disc DVD boxed set of his classes taped as he presented his lectures to employees at Blue Sky Studios in NY is about to be released. It includes 412 new animated clips by Williams and other features. 
 
Richard Williams will be talking about the principles of animation and illustrating them with excerpts from his new DVD set The Animator’s Survival Kit Animated. His wife Imogen Sutton writes, "We have had terrific reactions to this program at Blue Sky Studios (all animators) and at Pordenone where there was a general film audience of historians, archivists, academics etc. Dick usually tries to demonstrate by acting things out where necessary—he doesn’t like to just stay seated. We expect the show to run about 2 hours including lots of Q and A." Everyone will get a complementary DVD about Williams’ new work. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime presentation.
 
Karl Cohen, author, SF State instructor and president of ASIFA-SF, will moderate the program. This program is a benefit for ASIFA-San Francisco, a member of the Association Internationale du Film d’Animation with almost 40 chapters around the world. We are a volunteer run group that presents monthly events (special screenings, lectures, networking parties, etc.) and publish a large informative monthly newsletter. For more information about us visit us at our main website.

Needless to say, this is a MUST-ATTEND EVENT for any student, pro or indie animator, not to mention informative and fun for anyone who’s a fan or aficionado of ‘toons. We residents of the Bay Area are very lucky indeed to have the opportunity to meet a top talent like Mr. Williams—so get your tickets now!

THIS EVENT IS A BENEFIT FOR ASIFA-SF, the Bay Area’s Animation Association
Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa (at 37th Ave in SF), $9.00 (seniors/kids $6.50)
Visit Brown Paper to buy advance tickets

Visit Richard Williams’ web site: www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com 

Character Sheet: Steve Segal

Long-time ASIFA-SF member Steve Segal was born in the last few days of the 1940’s (1949 to be precise) in Richmond, Va. He grew up on The Mickey Mouse Club, and Walt Disney’s Disneyland, but he still can’t figure out how he ended up becoming an animator. In addition to working as an independent artist and a professional stint at Pixar in the mid 1990s, he’s also an instructor and connoisseur of cartoons. In otherwords, his experience encompasses the entire demographic of ASIFA!

Like many of us Steve was weaned on the classics, especially Disney and Warner cartoons in the movie theatres ("Yes, they used to show those regularly!") and on TV, but not the made-for-TV stuff. As he recalls, “In the ’60s CBS had a series called Camera 3. It was devoted to the arts and on one program they profiled (National Film Board of Canada pioneer) Norman McLaren. His work blew me away technically and conceptually. That series was shown when there were only three TV stations in a metropolitan area, and no cable. Now even with hundreds of channels, there is nothing comparable.”

That inspiration led to a number of experimental films, including The Red Ball Express (all drawn on celluloid, no paper or camera involved!) and two films which were finished decades ago. “Dance of the Stumblers (pictured below) was made in 1987 on an Amiga 1000 computer; the machine had half a megabyte of memory (that’s not a typo)—and no hard drive. At the time it was a state of the art graphics machine. The program was Aegis Animator and you could animate simple shapes interactively, in real time…theoretically. As I went the scenes got more and more complex and the machine couldn’t display the motion fast enough. So I aimed a 16mm camera at the screen and shot single frames while the program displayed in slow motion.

Today, he’s applying most of his energy to animation classes at California College of the Arts and the Academy of Art University. “I try to show amazing examples and clearly explain what distinguishes great animation. I have two films I’m just developing, which is a more professional sounding way of saying I’m just thinking about them; one is a performance with a TV (not unlike the early stage shows by Winsor McKay), the other is an abstract film that keeps getting interrupted by everyday life.” When pressed for more goals, Steve keeps it simple: ”I want to survive my kids’ teenage years.”

Even with his success in various fields (including credits on Toy Story and A Bug’s Life ) Steve’s enthusiasm is unabated. In fact he can be an admiring fan like the rest of us. “I once visited Ward Kimball at his house and he showed me his toy and train collection; that is still the high point. I also shared a limo with Ray Harryhausen when we were both guests of the San Jose film festival. I think I was too in awe to ask any intelligent questions.”

He remains passionate and wants to be an advocate of good animation. “I love watching great animation and exposing people to it. I tend to favor well-animated work, like Pixar (of course) Ray Harryhausen or Richard Williams over clever stuff like Family Guy or South Park (those do make me laugh, though).”

You can see more examples of Steve’s work at his website.

The next four weeks are full of must-see animation events for readers of the Cable Cartoon. We’ll be providing full details in advance of each show, but mark your calendars for these highlights:

The Animation Show of Shows
Members-only event hosted by Ron Diamond at ILM in San Francisco
Monday, Oct. 27 at 6:30pm.

An Evening with animation legend Richard Williams
Benefit for ASIFA-SF at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco
Sunday, Nov. 2 at 7:00pm For advance tickets visit here.

East Bay Animators Meeting
Independent animators "support group" meets to show and discuss works-in-progress.
Wednesday, Nov. 5 in Hayward; E-mail editor@asifa-sf.org

The 2008 Animation Show
This year’s traveling collection of two dozen shorts from around the world (curated by Mike Judge) makes a return engagement.
Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 6-8 at the Red Vic Movie House on Haight Street in S.F.

San Francisco Animation Film Festival
Four days of insanely great and varied cartoons, including Fears of the Dark and Sita Sings the Blues.
Starts Thursday, Nov. 13; Visit the SFIFF website for details and advance tickets.

Oscar-Winning Director Gene Deitch
Cartoon wizard tells tall-but-true tales of adapting children’s books for the screen
Thursday, Nov. 20 at 8:00pm at SFSU, Fine Arts Bldg., FREE open to the public.

And, of related interest to animators and cartoonists, there’s also:

Sketch Crawl 2008
Artists all around the world over take a day to draw what they see. Join the fun!
Saturday Oct. 25th., 24th & Mission S.F. Get the full scoop here.

APE: The Alternative Press Expo
The ultimate gathering of indie comics creators, publishers and aficianados!
November 1-2, Concourse Exposition Center, S.F., Go here for more info.

San Francisco Film Society Presents Fear(s) of the Dark next Tues., October 21, at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema. Fear(s) of the Dark, the highly anticipated, beautifully scary, animated portmanteau an glorious black and white, will premiere at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 21, at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema, as an SFFS Special Screening and warm-up to the SFIFF’s animation festival in November.

Co-director Charles Burns (artwork pictured above) is expected to attend the screening and to participate in a Q+A. The film is codirected by Blutch, Charles Burns, Marle Caillou, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire. Mike Plante, writing for the Sundance Film Festival, describes the film and its portrayal of nightmarish themes and images - spiders, strange noises, hypodermic needles… - as "a loving exploration into the surreal atmosphere of your creepiest dreams. As your emotions get worked over, you won’t jump up; you will sink in."

For more information visit the SFIFF website. Or purchase tickets now.