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Cohen’s Cartoon Corner: September Edition by Karl Cohen
Poster for the '18th Annual Animation Show of Shows'. photo: R.Diamond
The 18th Annual Animation Show of Shows
I am starting with mentioning there are two chances to see the “18th Annual Animation Show of Shows”, Tuesday, September 19th and Friday, Sept. 22.
The first is at Canada College in Redwood City, the main theatre, 7 PM AND free (although they would appreciate a $5 donation for their animation scholarship fund), and the second is at 7:30 PM at San Francisco City College’s Diego Rivera Theatre, again free, public invited.
Both schools are presenting Ron Diamond’s 18th Animation Show of Shows, an excellent program that premiered last fall theatrically at the Vogue Theater in S.F., at other theatres around the Bay Area and in cities across the U.S. The 17 films in the program include the four films, “Corpus”, “Blue”, “Manoman” and “All Their Shades” that were cut from some of the screenings at the Vogue (because they contain mature themes).
The program consists of “Stems” by Ainslie Hendersen (Scotland); “Shift” by Cecilia Puglesi & Yijun Liu (U.S.); “Pearl” by Patrick Osborne (U.S.); “Crin-Crin” by Iris Alexandre (Belgium); “Mirror” by Chris Ware, John Kuramoto and Ira Glass (U.S.); “Last Summer in the Garden” by Bekky O’Neil (Canada); “Waiting for the New Year” by Vladimir Leschiov (Latvia); “Piper” by Alan Barillaro (Pixar, U.S.); “Bøygen” by Kristian Pedersen (Norway); “Afternoon Class” by Seoro Oh (Korea); “About a Mothe by Dina Velikovskaya (Russia); “Exploozy by Joshua Gunn, Trevor Piecham and John McGowan (U.S.); “Inner Workings by Leo Matsuda (U.S.); “Corpus by Marc Héricher (France); “Blue” by Daniela Sherer (Israel); “Manoman” by Simon Cartwright (England); and “All Their Shades by Chloé Alliez (Belgium).
Scene from 'The Girl Without Hands'. photo: S. Laudenbach
The Girl Without Hands
“The Girl Without Hands”, which opens at the Roxie, September 14th, “is a stunning piece of art and it is so unusual in the realm of animation that it is an absolute must see,” notes animator Leonard Cohen (“Plato”, 2011).
“It is an animated feature by my former teacher and good friend Sebastien Laudenbach. He drew it by hand and directed it by himself. The film has met tremendous success in festivals all over the world and I know you will love it as well.” The NY Times calls it, “a dazzlingly imaginative movie about survival.”
The film, based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, is difficult to describe. It is an uncompromised vision by one person who tells a story with absolute mastery of draftsmanship and command of the animation art form. “Words are a poor substitute for its hypnotic sway,” the article adds, continue reading it here Read an excellent review about it herehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/movies/the-girl-without-hands-review.html?_r=0
Leonard Cohen, The Animator
Discover some of the work that Leonard Cohen has created since making “Plato”. Leonard has had a successful career working in Paris while enjoying visits to Berkeley to be with his wife who was in graduate school there. “Plato” won the Best Student Film Prize at Annecy in 2011 and went on to win other major festival prizes in Europe and Asia. See some of his work made since then including segments for 3 seasons of a French TV series, see his site or vimeo.
Scene from 'The Girl Without Hands'. photo: S. Laudenbach
Pixar’s New Coco
Pixar’s next feature “Coco” will have its world premiere in Morelia, Mexico at the Morelia International Film Festival on Oct. 20, a few days before the annual Day of the Dead festivities. It opens in the US on November 22.
Discover the Stop-Motion work of Brett Foxwell
When I was told Bret Foxwell has two works, “Fabricated” and “Woodswimmer”, in the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival I Googled his name. What I found were impressive works made using different techniques and materials.
Brett now lives in the Elmwood district of Berkeley and has worked at Tippett Studios building armatures including ones for “Star Wars 7”. He has shot some of his personal work after hours in Marin County in the old machine shop at the former ILM studios. His earlier work was created in Portland and Chicago, see site, http://www.bfophoto.com
Upcoming ASIFA-SF Special Events
ASIFA-SF has several treats planned for its members in September. Our members are invited to two free screenings of Ron Diamond’s 18th Annual Animation Show of Shows. And in October he says he will be back with a preview of the 19th Annual Animation Show of Shows. We also have a special treat coming up on or about October 1: new films from the National Film Board of Canada, with an animator or two present to talk about his or her work.
Our DVD of highlights from our ASIFA-SF Spring Animation Celebration will be shown at local colleges. So if you missed the event in June you will have another chance to see it. We have added three excellent British works that arrived too late for the June event.
The shorts are "Liv" by Sunniva Fluge Hole, "Vida" by Andrea Popovic, and "Hush" by Anna-Mariya Georgieva. All are from a package of British graduate student films from Bournemouth University. It really is an impressive program and hopefully it will be shown in different parts of the Bay Area including at a campus near you.
Looking into the future, our tentative plans include a tribute to June Foray, with some of her voice work for Jay Ward’s Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. In Nov. and Dec. our members are invited to Award Screenings, a chance to see Hollywood animated features being considered for Annie and Oscars nominations.
Coming up in 2018 will be other worthwhile events including Ron Diamond’s program of the Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts and our annual Careers in Animation panel discussion. One event I’d like to see happen is an evening of Virtual Reality Animation if we have a member who knows who to contact and can help curate it. Details at our site.
Student Academy Awards
Student Academy Award finalists have been announced and there are ten in animation. Two are students from USC, two from Ringling, two from CAL Arts and one each from the following schools: School of Visual Arts, Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Germany), China Central Academy of Fine Arts (China) and Kingston University London (UK). The Bay Area has three nominated films. Two documentaries from UC Berkeley and one is a doc from Stanford received nominations.
SF State’s Film Program Rated High
SF State’s Film Program was called one of the top film schools by the “Hollywood Reporter” recently. They even quoted a former animation student on how the program changed his life. The paper’s article on Top 25 American Film Schools 2017 said, “The Bay Area university's School of Cinema is one of its larger undergrad programs, with 1,200 enrolled students (although its highly competitive MFA program accepts only 15 graduate students a year).”
The wide-ranging curriculum includes 45 production courses, film theory classes and a new spotlight on women in film. Alumnus Jonas Rivera, the Oscar-winning producer of “Inside Out,” remembers being in an animation class at SFSU in the mid-1990s and seeing “Luxo Jr.”, Pixar's groundbreaking short introducing two animated desk lamps for the first time.
"I had prided myself at the time as a fan of hands-on animation, and I put my nose up at computer animation," he says. "But that short was shown in that class and it just melted me." He was still in school when he landed his first job, an internship at Pixar.
Hollywood Blockbusters This Summer: A Big 'Eh!'
2017 has had a good but not great summer for new features. Except for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and "Wonder Woman", this summer’s tentpoles have underperformed in the U.S. "Wonder Woman" as of August 24 has grossed $403 million in the US, $800.4 million worldwide and it had a $149 million production budget.
The 8th best comic book adaptation of all time, it may soon pass Disney and Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" as the top summer earner in N. America ("Guardians" has grossed $389 million in the U.S., $862 million worldwide and its budget was $200 million). "Wonder Woman" should end up passing "Guardians" as the top summer box office champ.
The biggest winner so far this year is “Beauty and the Beast” which was released in March. It grossed $504 million in the US, grossed $1.262 billion worldwide and the production budget was around $160 million. Right behind it comes The Fate of the Furious, released in April. It only grossed about $226 million in the US, but it took in $1.238 billion worldwide.
All these box office sums sound impressive, but they are small compared to years when Hollywood had mega-billion dollar hits.
For example in 2015 Hollywood saw "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" grossing over 2 billion, "Jurassic World" taking in over $1.671 billion, "Furious 7" taking in 1.5 billion, "Avengers: Age of Ultron" doing $1.4 billion and "Minions" taking in $1.159 billion.
So 2017 has been somewhat of a disappointment to the big studios (the season was also 8% behind the same period last year at the beginning of August according to one trade publication).
Turning to animation, only one film this summer has turned in really impressive grosses, "Despicable Me 3". It grossed $951 million worldwide (almost $251 million in the U.S.). It was made on an $80 million budget.
Earlier this year The "LEGO Batman Movie" made almost $176 million domestically, but the worldwide total was only $312 million so the film made a profit, but not an obscene amount of money.
Fox’s “The Boss Baby" has outperformed Pixar’s current release. “Baby" has grossed $498 million (budget unknown) while “Cars 3” has only brought in $309 million worldwide ($149 million domestic) as of August 24th. Pixar doesn’t say what their budgets were for production and promotion, but even if the film loses money, the corporation is sure to make a decent profit from income on merchandise.
Turning to smaller budget animated features “Smurfs Lost Village” made only $45 million in the U.S., but so far the worldwide gross is $198 million. It was made on a $60 million budget.
“Captain Underpants" has taken in $92 million so far ($73 million in the U.S., budget not announced). “The Emoji Movie” was made on a $50 million budget and it has taken in $127 million worldwide ($73 million in the U.S.) so far.
The annual package of Oscar Nominated Shorts that includes both live action and animated works took in $2,835,355. It was in distribution from Feb. 10 to March 30. The Oscar nominated feature, "The Red Turtle", made $922,000 in the US.
Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached . Posted on Sep 01, 2017 - 01:43 AM