Joseph Gilland: Elemental Magic Man

Those of you out there have been blessed in the past with all sorts of character animation goodness, the latest greatest offering being Eric Goldberg's excellent 'Character Animation Crash Course!'. Effects animation, however, seems to get only a passing nod in books...although books from Richard Williams and the estate of Osamu Tezuka do a great job covering the basics. I think it's because so few people have made a name for theysselves as FX animators...they remain the great unsung of animated film. Michel Gagne comes immediately to mind, and through an e-mail to him asking his opinion on this dearth of FX tutelage comes word of a new book.

'Elemental Magic', the new book by industry vet and Gagne homey Joseph Gilland is a book a long time in coming. Joseph who, you say? Yeah, I said that too, which is exactly the problem when it comes to FX animation. Joseph has the distinction of being FX supervisor on one of my fave Disney flicks of the last 10 years, Lilo and Stitch, as well as Mulan, Brother Bear, and Tarzan...the dude knows his shit, obviously, and the book is getting kudos all over. He did a signing up at Ottawa '09, which I'm kicking myself for missing, but a copy can be yours by hitting up the Amazon.ca. Do it now, it's 37% off as of this posting, freakin' bargoon! And yes, don't y'all worry, we will be getting a copy for the TAIS library. Special thanks again to Michel Gagne for the heads up...he's written the forward to the book. Nuff said, go get you one.

Hey, Bats!

O.k., one commentary on the whole Disney-Marvel thang...ain't this cool? Nicked from the Deviant Art page of one Andrew Dickman...go comment on his stuff so's he don't get angry at me! Good on ya, Andrew. More to come.

Uhhh...

I could comment on the recent "Pete Elmslie: Art Critic" thang, or Disney buyin' Marvel, or stuffs, but hey, it's the cusp of the Labor Day weekend, so, here's some inspired insanity from Japan, of course. Courtesy of our ever-luvin' homies at Cartoon Brew. Have a good one, and expect more and better posts in the fall. Cheers!

Recyclamation, Disney styles

Someone done gone and compiled all the re-uses from 'Robin Hood', which, becuz of a teeny budget, sourced characters and animation sequences from 'Jungle Book', 'Aristocats' and 'Snow White'. Either this is a 'hah, gotcha!' moment, or a rare glimpse at how to creatively re-use old footage as source for a budget title. Me, I'm kinda in the middle...'Robin' had it's moments, but generally was a big pile 'o lackluster, and this montage just goes to prove the point. Don't be too hard on the folks back then, though...this was the first animated flick produced after ol' Walt shuffled off the mortal coil. Courtesy of web culture site Dark Roasted Blend.

Ben and Me

The merry, merry douchebags over there at Cracked have posted "The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class", covering some noteable whoppers culled from the annals of time. Among them, the famous Ben Franklin kite experiment. From the blog:

"It's certainly true that Franklin at least proposed a kite experiment. Less certain, however, is whether or not he ever actually got around to performing it, and some sources suggest he did not. What is certain is that the experiment had nothing to do with lightning. If someone flew a kite into a storm, and it was struck by lightning, there's a good chance that person would be utterly destroyed. In fact, everyone in the vicinity would at the least suffer from hairless-scalp syndrome.

Many people today who believe the amended story of Franklin's kite experiment grew up immersed in the revisionist history of Walt Disney, whose classic cartoon Ben and Me portrayed Franklin not only as having flown the kite in a thunderstorm, but also having been a complete fucking jerk."

Y'know, strapping an adorable mousy to a flying God's wrath bullseye does seem to be asshole territory to me. The Disney film Ben and Me was directed by Disney legend Hamilton Luske, who also directed one of my all time faves, "Mickey and the Beanstalk". Rawk.