to our Third Annual Twelfth-Night Party!
Saturday, January 3, 7:30pm

It’s time once again for our holiday blowout featuring food, friends and fun. We’ll have a traditional "Pink Elephant" gift exchange, and chapter president Karl Cohen will be showing 16mm prints of classic animated films made in San Francisco.

This one hour program was recently shown by a festival in Melbourne Australia! Films include Willis O’Brien’s Prehistoric Poultry,  Vince Collins’ Malice in Wonderland, Sally Cruickshank’s Quasi at the Quackadero, Seth Olitzky’s Ballet Frenetic, Jay Ward and Alex Anderson’s Crusader Rabbit and Jeff Hale and John Magnuson’s Thank You Mask Man.

If you want Santa to redistribute the worst present you received in 2008, bring whatever it is you want to get rid of nicely wrapped. Put a tag on it so Santa will know whom to give it to (a male or female, the size if it is clothing, etc.).  You can try to swap gifts after Santa leaves the room.

Come on down and meet the gang from ASIFA-SF—we’d love to see you there.

Fun starts at 7:30pm, FREE!
Bring friends, BYOB, other snacks welcome but not required!
ODDBALL FILMS, 275 Capp St., 3rd floor, between 16th and 17th St. in S.F.

Character Sheet: Geoff Clark

Animation can be a serious business. Taking aim in the ultra-competitive Bay Area, ASIFA-SF member Geoff Clark has fixed a steely gaze on his latest goal: a new job as animator in the gaming industry.

An eight-year vet of game animation, Geoff lives in the South Bay with his wife and two little girls. He is putting the final touches on Archfiend Assault, an original game demo. "It has two creatures fighting in an arena. I’m using it to practice posing, timing, and weight for creating video game combat. It’s the kind of game project that I’d like to be working on."
 
Clark is animating it with Maya and using After Effects for compositing. “It’s taken a lot of time in the spare moments I have between working and raising two daughters. Archfiend Assault has helped me get really deep into Maya’s tools. It has been a great growing experience, especially in problem-solving.  When you are doing 100% of the work, you have to be able to get yourself out of a jam."

Not everyone looking for a new assignment shows the kind of dedication that Geoff has. "When a close friend who is an art lead looked at the project, he asked ‘You did all of that?’  He was blown away that I had something cooking at home. I thought everybody had a pet project!
 
Geoff would love to work on a really fantastic game. Even with a bunch of shipped titles, he’s still looking for that career-defining moment. "I am hoping that my next game will be the one that I can really be proud of.  I’d love to work on a great adventure title, a fighting game, or an epic RPG, or a tactical strategy game."
 
Geoff is happiest when he’s working on a creative team. "The interactions with other artists can be really electric, and it’s what I’m really missing right now.  Working alone gets old fast. I love learning different disciplines from other artists, like modelers and texture artists."

You can check out Geoff’s work in progress at his website—game directors and HR folks, please take note!

Here’s hoping 2009 is a creative and prosperous year for everybody!

It’s a little quiet here at the CableCartoon but we thought you might enjoy seeing a few of the holiday greetings that have crossed our path this season…

The cartoon above is by fellow blogger and Cartoon Art Museum stalwart Andrew Farago (aka Mr. Hyde), who makes a double holiday reference with his weekly web comic The Chronicles of William Bazillion where you can read all the installments of his current storyline "The Search for Santa’s Nazi Gold."

From the East Bay comes this amusing updated excerpt from The Twelve Days of Christmas by ASIFA-SF member Julie Bayless. You can catch this irreverent Christmas salute at her website.

Further musical merriment comes from animation veteran and ASIFA-SF friend Sally Cruikshank. Her flash-filled blog FunOnMars always promises a smile but you may want to check out her latest effort Blue Blue Blue Xmas.

We hope that you enjoy a glass of eggnog, raise a toast of bubbly, or just think warm thoughts with someone you love on this holiday season. We’ll be back after the holiday with more news, profiles and random bits of silliness in 2009.

—Cheers from your humble conductor, the California Kid.

Learn to animate, or brush up your skills

ASIFA-SF member and animation instructor Lee Marrs reminds us that Berkeley City College is accepting applications for their spring lineup of animation classes. If you’re interested in dipping your toe in the animation scene, or perhaps want a refresher in some of the new technologies, BCC is a terrific place to start. Ensconced in their award-winning new building chock full of new workstations, just steps from downtown, the Animation Strain of the popular Multimedia Arts program has something for newbies, intermediates, students and independents—all at a reasonable price. Here are some of the upcoming class offerings, but check out the website for more info.

Flash 2-D Animation
2D animation using a vector-based imaging and animation program : Survey of traditional animation techniques; importing graphics; creating and manipulating symbols; using keyframes; designing motion paths; using Motion Tweens and Shape Tweens to animate symbols; and publishing the animations to various formats.
Wednesdays 6-8:50 pm, Begins 1/14/09

Animation Practices I
Project-based study of animation: Developing movement based on the principles of animation; designing characters; timing based on lip-synching; rotoscoping; coordinating sound to animated shorts and exploring the themes of American animation history.
Fridays 1-3:50 pm, Begins 1/16/09

Storytelling in Animation
Animated project design using storytelling elements, improvisation and brainstorming: Developing effective characters, story arcs, primary and secondary action, pacing, and layout.
Saturdays-11:50 am, S & 1-4:20 pm, Begins Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009
 

Cartoon Art Museum Event - Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 7-9pm
(Free and open to the public) 

Cartoon Art Museum Exhibition: September 20, 2008 – February 8, 2009

The Cartoon Art Museum proudly presents original works of art from The Totoro Forest Project Charity Auction, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition featuring paintings, illustrations and sculptures from nearly 200 critically acclaimed animators, fine artists, cartoonists and illustrators. All of the artwork featured in the exhibition was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s iconic animated feature film My Neighbor Tororo.

The artwork was auctioned at a fund raising event at Pixar Animation Studios on September 6, 2008, and raised over $200,000 for the Totoro no Furusato National Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of Japan’s Sayama Forest. The first installment of the Totoro Forest Project exhibition runs through January 18, 2009. The second installment runs from Saturday, December 6, 2008 through February 8, 2009, and visitors will be able to see the entire selection of artwork from December 6, 2008 through January 18, 2009.

The opening reception for the Totoro Forest Project will be held on Tuesday, December 16, 2008, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. This reception is free and open to the public. Special guests include the Totoro Forest Project executive committee: Pixar Animation Studios artists Dice Tsutsumi, Enrico Casarosa and Ronnie Del Carmen, plus Yukino Pang of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. Several artists whose work is included in the exhibition, including many artists from Pixar Animation Studios, will also be in attendance. Copies of the limited edition Totoro Forest Project auction catalog will be on sale the night of the event. Supplies will be limited to one purchase per customer, and are expected to sell out quickly. Green tea for the reception will be provided courtesy of Samovar Tea Lounge.

About The Totoro no Furusato National Fund: Sayama Forest is one of the most remarkable urban forests in Japan, located just outside of Tokyo. This forest is said to be the inspiration for legendary animated film My Neighbor Totoro. With Japan’s rapid urban development in the 1970s and 1980s, the forest has been diminished to a small fraction of its former self. In 1990, Miyazaki helped set up a national trust, Totoro no Furusato National Fund, to preserve the park and promote awareness of environmental issues. The Foundation has successfully raised more than 3 million dollars and has over 1500 members. The fund’s primary purpose is to purchase forest land from the city, and its members have been involved with various nature preservation volunteer activities. While successful on many levels, the foundation’s efforts continue to face many challenges and obstacles, including rising land values and real estate development.

For more information on this cause and how you can help, please visit http://www.totoroforestproject.org/

CAM-ASIFA presentation was a treasure trove of fun

Ace animator Eric Goldberg gave a live presentation based on his new book Character Animation Crash Course to a rapt audience of 50 students, fans, and pros at the Cartoon Art Museum on Saturday Dec. 6. Not only did he share a few secrets of his trade, he told some great stories about animators of legend like Art Babbitt (replete with spot-on vocal impressions), and showed clips of his work prior to working at Disney in the 1990s. Rare insights and even more rare footage made for a memorable afternoon:

As early as the 1960s Eric was creating flip books for fun, and the examples he showed demonstrated both his flair for character animation and a wicked love of hurt gags.

Back in the 1970s, Eric won the prestigious Kodak Young Filmmakers award for one of his early efforts. Two of his fellow winners over the years included Carl Willat (of Carl’s Fine Films) and The Simpsons producer David Silverman.

A few years later he travelled to Richard Williams’ studio in NYC to join the production team of Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure with up-and-coming stars like Michael Sporn and Tom Sito and assist Tissa David herself. He recalled Williams patience as the young animator juggled the 8mm projector, reels and flipbooks necessary to show his samples.

That experience led Eric to London, to work with Williams on commercials at his Soho studio for awhile, before Goldberg and two partners spun off into their own business Pizazz Pictures. A self-proclaimed "style chameleon," Goldberg showed a range of work evoking DC comics, Tom and Jerry cartoons, and ’80s pop art, among others—and they were pretty amusing, too.

Goldberg and Williams teamed up again on the curious Ziggy’s Gift Christmas special land continue to work on commercials until the industry in the States heated up again after The Little Mermaid and Who Frames Roger Rabbit. After a long courtship, Eric joined the Mouse Factory.

The 1990s were bookended by two Al Hirshfeld-inspired projects, The Genie in Aladdin and the "Rhapsody in Blue" sequence in Fantasia 2000. There was a lot of great work in Pocahontos and Hercules in between, and much groundwork laid for the Crash Course manuscript (but like Preston Blair before him, Eric would redraw many copyrighted characters for the purposes of his book.)

After leaving Disney Eric continued to mine animation gold, including test and pre-production work for CGI versions of Where the Wild Things Are and Berkeley Breathed’s Opus, not to mention directing animation for Looney Tunes Back In Action and Disneyland 50th anniversary commercials and Three Caballeros interstitials.

Even though he still knows and loves traditional cel animation best, Eric has brought his sensibilities to the CGI realm and he shared some crazy, sneaky workarounds for the limitations of CGI when animating stretch and squash. It was a testament to the power of good-ol’ hand drawn animation and we can look forward to seeing more of it next year in Eric’s latest project with Disney, The Princess and the Frog. More gold is around the corner!

Don’t Miss Animation Genie-us Eric Goldberg at CAM!

The Cartoon Art Museum hosts Eric Goldberg, the pioneering, award-winning animator/director whose cartoon magic has graced such classics as Disney’s  Aladdin, Pocahontas, Fantasia/2000 and Hercules, on Saturday, December 6, 2008, from 1:00 to 3:00pm.  Goldberg has harnessed the essence of cinema’s most beloved form in a new book, Character Animation Crash Course!, and he will be sharing his animation secrets in a special presentation for Cartoon Art Museum patrons.  This event is free with paid admission to the museum, and members of the animators’ group ASIFA will be admitted to the museum for half-price on December 6.

Get the book, get a signature, get inspired! Saturday, December 6, 2008, 1:00 to 3:00 pm

Free with Cartoon Art Museum admission; Half-price for members of ASIFA (please bring a copy of the ASIFA newsletter as proof of membership) Genie character ©The Walt Disney Company, All Rights Reserved.

Dear ASIFA-SF members:
 
In 2010 ASIFA will celebrate it’s 50th Anniversary. This will be a great occasion for celebrating, but also a time to think about our role, our purpose and our duties in the 21st century. We are preparing a special publication on this occasion to document the glorious times, as well as our present activities.
 
ASIFA is an international animation association and when people ask me the usual question, "What do I get from ASIFA?" I answer, "Can you imagine if there was no ASIFA?"
 
ASIFA can be what you want it to be. We are looking for new ways to bring together the animators of our global community and we welcome your suggestions Structural changes were made in 2003 to make our organization more democratic and to enable each national chapter to actively participate in decision-making and the creation of our policies. Nancy Denney-Phelps is your representative on the ASIFA Board of Directors and you can contact the international board through her with your ideas and questions.
 
Becoming more democratic is a wonderful idea, but if you ask me, it has made our work more difficult and complicated, and there is no better system so far. We now have 30 national chapters, which means there are 30 national representatives on the Board of Directors. We have new chapters established every year, the latest ones are ASIFA Argentina, ASIFA Indonesia, ASIFA Greece and ASIFA Egypt.
 
When I take a look back to 1961, when Norman McLaren was the first ASIFA President, when the first International Animated Film Festival was founded at Annecy under the patronage of ASIFA, and when we had to build bridges to cross the iron curtain, I think how lucky we are to live in this modern time.  We don’t have Norman McLaren any more, but we have a numbers of high quality animation festivals which follow the rules and guidelines stated by ASIFA, from Annecy, Zagreb, Hiroshima, Ottawa, Cinanima to other good festivals in the USA, South America, Europe and Asia.
 
Why ASIFA ?
—Because it is the best and shortest way to contact our animation  colleagues from all over the world and to be a member of this huge international animation family.
—Because we share the same passion: the art of animation.
—Because we share the same global ideas: tolerance and international understanding.
 
How to make ASIFA better?
California is synonymous for the film art and the animation industry.  We invite local members of ASIFA San Francisco to join ASIFA International because we are your international association and we need your presence, your ideas and your support.
 
We have ongoing projects as well as plans for the future that include improvements to ASIFA Magazine, the exchange of film programs, a new and much better website, international children’s workshop projects, international co-operation on festival programs etc. We can do much more if you participate.
 
Join a family of renowned artists such as John Lasseter, Bill Plympton, Jan Pinkava, Michael Dudok DeWit, Peter Lord, Bob Godfrey, Koji Yamamura, Joanna Quinn, Michel Ocelot, Georges Schwizgebel, Jerzy Kucia, Marcy Page, hundreds of animators from Pixar, Disney Studio, Dreamworks Animation, Lucasfilm Animation and many others. We have almost 5,000 members on all continents!
 
ASIFA is your association and the tool for realizing your plans and fulfilling your expectations. I urge you to join us as a international member (which includes all of the benefits of being an ASIFA-SF member as well.)
 
Sincerely,
Vesna Dovnikovic, ASIFA Secretary General, borivoj.dovnikovic@zg.htnet.hr