dimecres, 2 de setembre del 2009

Shaun the Sheep

Richard Goleszowski, Alison Snowden, David Fine - UK - 2007

Shaun the sheep is a spin off of Close Save. This children's series was created for the Danish television, but later it was issued in 74 countries.

It is based on slaptik humor, beating and humiliating the farmer, it has recived very good reviews, the series is aimed at children between 4 and 7 years, but it has also been well received by adults.

Adam

By Aardman Studios:

dijous, 13 d’agost del 2009

Ken Ishii - Extra

Title: EXTRA

Artist: Ken Ishii

Director: Koji Morimoto




I put this video that shocked me when I was a child, around the mid 90s.
Japanese steampunk raw aesthetic.

Hiyao Miyazaki

Footage with the following scenes of Japanese animated films:

-Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
-My neighbor Totoro
-Laputa: The Castle in the Sky
-Princess Mononoke
-Spirited Away
-The Howling walking Castle

Los Reyes Magos

Spain 2003

Spanish animated film that takes the typical starting point of American films of Christmas and then leads to a story similar to The Prince of Egypt

The Triplets

Video sponsored by Danon and broadcasted by Antena 3 for begining the adult broadcast.

Interview to Francisco Antonio Peinado

Francisco Antonio Peinado, Spain 2008



El Principe de las basuras (The Prince of garbage) is the story of a child living in a parallel to the real world, your world, where everything is ruins and rubble.
Between decay and garbage it flows freely a light throught the dark and polluted sky.

In his search, he will found cruel and evil people in whom never would have thought, man, no rest until catch.



Francisco Antonio Peinado worked both in film and television, and during this period he has worked as a cartoonist animator, storyman, background drawer, artistic director and director of animation.
After many years, he decides to make the leap with "El Principe de las Basuras."



1. Hi Francisco, you are the first interviewee in our young blog. So first of all I would ask: How do you see the treatment of the media to the world of animation in our country?


The media tend to devote much space to animation in general, mainly because it gives little to speak in our country.
Increasingly more productions are performed but the number is small compared to the actual image movies , so I find logical this lack of interest from the media.
However we have internet. Fortunately, many specialized websites and blogs keep us informed.



2. This interview has come after the success of your short film "El Principe de las Basuras," and what a success! many awards, including best short 3D film at ArtFutura 2008 and the prize for best short film at Madrid's festival. Is this what you had expected?



Well, the truth is that when we finished the film we got to work with other projects, so we could not enjoy the success of this in a proper way. Once the work is created a strange sense of relief and disorientation get us, so what you should do is to find new goals and you see the performered movies as something distant. We did not expect so many prizes because we had not even pondered the matter. It's our first piece, so we're a little novice. I am very grateful for all the awards and nominations, I understand that film is difficult and risky, but many people bet on him and I can only be eternally grateful.






3. This time you became Screenwriter, Director, Producer and Drawer, Did you got any problem of identity performing so many functions?


Fortunately, the creative processes were always separated from the administrative and seeking funding, so we never had problems. It is an organizational issue, nothing more, and when you are in animation, you must be moderately organized in order to get a project forward.




4.Whence came the idea of "El Principe de las Basuras?



The idea has been for many years in my head and finally, as always, the result has nothing to do with the original idea. It is a mix of ideas and stories created at the time. I like thinking that the film is the scene of a self-interpretated idea .





5. At "El Príncipe de las Basuras", there is a struggle between life and death, nature and artificial, light and darkness and a parallel between the artistic production of 3D and 2D, between manga and the european illustration's esthetics. It was your intention to reflect the duality in the art or did you simply use the means of production that you had considered most appropriate?


The aesthetic was important, when we started making the film, after 2 minutes and a half, whe had to throw all away to the trash and start again. We tried a "Disney" stile and, some environments with skyscrapers and everything. When we saw the result, it totally was devoid of identity. It lacked character and above all, it didn't fit well with the story. Everything had to be easier, so we referenced the city where we live and let both the aesthetics and the animation going freely, even if jumps in quality, but to remove many checks outs in order not to lose freshness at the frames. Combining 2D with 3D was fun and I think that worked more or less well.

About the duality of aesthetics and ideas, oneself is always influenced by everything around and of course, influenced by what i like. In my case, I am a lover of Japanese animation and European comics, so it was inevitable that miscegenation.





6. Some anecdotes about the production?



Well, 3 months before completing the production I got a sprained left ankle and I had to stand in front of the drawing table with the leg up! It was crazy.
Also, when I still had 18 months to finish the film, I got money from a grant that was totally necessary to shoot the film, but they forced us to deliver the work before 6 months. So we had to change the Planing and what we were going to do in 18 months was made in 6.





7. Tell us something about the soundtrack of the short.



The music was composed and performed by my great friend Marcos Busatori using synthesizer and computer. We made many tests and trials until we were happy. I wanted a dynamic music to accompany the image and also some pieces for some very dramatic moments. Marcos composed 12 or 14 complete compositions, some of which were not used in the process of final assembly. It was very hard and it was made in a record time.



8. But you work in the world of animation for 15 years, in which remarkable works have you worked?


Well I worked on many television productions such as The Triplets and some other features like "El Embrujo del Sur" or "Los Tres Reyes Magos". I also have work in the animatios of Jorge Daya's shorts, nominated for the Goya so in that way, I have set myself on shorts.






9. What works or authors of animation do you feel they have influenced you most?



My favorite authors are Hayao Miyazaki and Koji Morimoto, I admire the first one because his artistic and imaginative works, and the second one by the organic nature on his works. I love anything that smells like Europe, but Japanese animation seems from another planet, especially these two authors. Today, the French school seems to me the most interesting and the closest to what I will do in the future.




10. What can you tell us about "La Sombra del Bambú" (The shadow of Bamboo)? When will it see the light?



It will be completed by the end of the year and I hope that in January 2010 it can be seen.
With this second film I turn 180 degrees. While the former was baroque, dynamic, only with sound and music, without dialogue, dramatic and full of camera movements in 3D, this second film has nothing of that. it will have dialogue and any music or camera movements, it is a very minimalist style and it takes 15 minutes. I think the aesthetics are going to be at least strange, because we have encouraged all the parts in 3D, but the lights and shadows are drawn by hand, the mix is very laborious but it gives a very very special touch.







11. Do you have a third short film in preparation?


Yeeeeeah, it will begin in October and I'm going to do it in 2D.
It will be entitled "La Flor y la Lluvia" (The flower and the rain), and it's going to be a tragic story. The story begins when a child who is placed in a railway waiting for the next train to be overwhelmed. It will be a story that speaks about life and death from the viewpoint of a 10 year old girl who attempts suicide.




12. Do you want to say something to our blog readers who want to go into animation productions?

Working in animation is terribly hard but rewarding. Today there are a lot of information and with few resources we can tell great stories. I was late to realize this and with my 36 years I can only say that my intention is to continue this for many years.

Thank you a lot


Thank you very much for the interview and good luck with your blog.



Handmade Animation, 2009 August




EL PRINCIPE DE LAS BASURAS'S OFICIAL WEBSITE

dimarts, 11 d’agost del 2009

Ident

Aardman Studios 1989 UK

diumenge, 2 d’agost del 2009

Aardman

Aardman Animation or Aardman Studios Inc. is the most successful company of British animation, Founded at Bristol in 1976 when its creators Peter Lord and David Sproxton wanted to realize their dream of making an animated film. They started as a small studio creating Morph, a simple plasticine character for the children's TV show Vision On.



Aardman's name comes from a super-hero goblin of cel-animation created for this program.

At this same time, Lord and Sproxton worked outside Aardman for BBC making adult entertainment like the Animated Conversations series, where they made animations to represent real taped conversations, like Down & Out and Confessions of a Foyer Girl.

Later, on Channel 4 they did a series of short films, which 5 were short Conversation Pieces, few shorts on the same idea but more sophisticated than Animated Conversations.




After these works, Lord and Sproxton hired 3 more animators, including Nick Park and created the Lip Synch series.



At that time, Aardman was a hotbed of shorts, with productions such as Ident or Adam.

Nick Park, who had directed some Lip Synch shorts, was the creator of Creature comforts in 1989, with that short Aardman won its first Oscar for best animated short.



Nick Park created Wallace and Groomit, the duo staged 3 Christmas special fpr the BBC that were full success: A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), last two shorts won each an Oscar. And later, A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008).




And in 2000 they made the first feature: Chicken Run, which was a hit of box office and awards.



After such success, Dreamworks signed a contract to co-produce over 3 animated feature films , the first was Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit that won another Oscar for best animated feature film.



In 2005, due to an electrical fault a fire was caused in the warehouse of Aardman destroying the material of old movies and awards saved, fortunately completed films ready for sale and the material of production was stored under way elsewhere, so the fire did not affect production.

However, Aardman and Dreamworks had a number of differences as producers that they could not be fixed, and in 2006 they broke the contract without producing the next 2 films. But in 2007 they signed a contract with Sony Pictures, Peter Lord was excited by the possibilities of making films that were opened.

And despite being a stop motion animation studio, they went into the CGI animation productions as Owzat, Al Dante, The Deadline, Planet Sketch and Flushed Away




Aardman is also dedicated to supporting young animators, such as the creation of The Award in the UK Aardman Award, in Teesside's Animex Festival, which prize is to offer help for the next film.

Last year, Channel 4 set up the animation website 4mations :


http://www.4mations.tv/


They also opened a channel on youtube where you can see the TV series of creature comforts, the Morph, Cracking Contraptions, and clips from the Wallace and Gromit films.


http://www.youtube.com/user/aardman?blend=1&ob=4


His latest production is Timmy Time (2009), a spin-off for pre-school public ofShawn the Sheep.



They have movies in production as Burglers The Cat (2010), Arthur Christmas (2011) and The Pirates! - In An Adventure With Scientist (2012).

Currently, in collaboration with Cosgrove Hall Films they are developing a feature film version of the British TV series Count Duckula.



Resume of the history of Aardman: Grow! Grow! and Growing! This success is mainly due to Nick Park, as it is the filmmaker who created the most emblematic works of Aardman. However there is something that never made me thank them very much, they always had made stop motion apology saying that the CGI was cold and soulless, so the surprise when I saw Flushed Away, it is everything well done, but I think they had sold the plasticine soul of their characters . I still prefer Shaun the Sheep.

dissabte, 1 d’agost del 2009

James & the Giant Peach

Henry Selick UK - USA 1996

This film is an adaptation of the 1961 musical based on the story by Roald Dahl. Produced by Tim Burton and Disney, combining real images with stop motion.

They wanted to combine the star in real image with the rest of the film in stop motion, but the budget went too far, sothey pretended doing everything in stop motion, but as they had already begun to prepare the scenes in real image, they made the beginning in real image and the fantasy scenes in stop motion.

Roald Dahl never accepted to do a film adaptation of his book, was his widow, Liccy Dahl who sold the rights.

The film was nominated for an Oscar for best original music, and received the award for best animated film at the Annecy International Animation Festival.

dimarts, 28 de juliol del 2009

Claymation!



Well, let's start by clarifying that this video is not Michael Jackson's, Michael Jackson is a dancer, is not an Stop Motion modelist or photographer . The author of this scene from the film Michael Jackson Moonwalker (as well as the head of the special effects throughout the film) is Will Vinton and, in bold .

Will Vinton is an architect and filmmaker influenced by Antoni Gaudi, who began making documentaries with political themes in the 60s, until he made Culture Shock, their first short animation.

At the 70's he met Bob Gardiner, a modelist, who founded Clay animation, an animation company in the cellar of his home, and together made a half minute short test film called Wobbly Wino. In 1973, they bought a team of 16 mm, and combined the qualities of Vinton photography and Gardiner modelist skills, in 1975 they completed their first real short: Closed Mondays, which won the Oscar for best short animation film.



Vinton and Gardiner broke rellations in 1976 during the filming of his second short: Mountain Music. Gardiner produced political advertising, while Vinton created his own studio: Will Vinton Studios, and with a new team of animators he made dozens of ads.

As a new producer and with only a handful of workers on the payroll, Vinton made a trilogy based on folk tales: Martin the Cobbler (1977), Rip Van Winkle (1978, nominated for an Oscar), and The Little Prince (1979 )










The three chapters were premiered in film together, under the title Trilogy, and on video with the title: The Little Prince and Friends. They filmed a documentary of the making off process titled: Claymation .

In 1971 they changed again to 35 mm with the short Legacy and a series of short films such as Dinosaur, The Great Incognito and The Creation, nominated for an Oscar in 1981. Also made video clips and animated A Christmas Gift for Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary and Vanz Kant Danz for the former Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Fogerty. These shorts were collected on VHS as Festival of Claymation and Son of Combo II.




Vinton no longer make animations by him and devoted himself exclusively to produce special effects, especially for TV series such as Divine Madness, Moonlight (which won an Emi) and the opening and closing titles of the series Brain Donors .




In 1985 he produced the feature film The Adventures of Mark Twain, and that same year was nominated for an Oscar for best special effects for the Disney movie Return to Oz.

As a producer of animation for advertisement, Claymation was very prolific, and created characters such as M & M's or raisins from California.




Ads of California raisins were so successful that they released two specials for the CBS: Meet the Raisins and Raisins sold out, after that, they published two albums of music.








CBS produced 3 more Claymation specials: A Claymation Christmas Celebration (who won an EMI in 1988), The Claymation Comedy of Horrors (a special Halloween 1991) and A Claymation Easter.




In the 90s they produced the FOX series: The PJ's, a series that was going to be produced by Eddie Murphy. And Gary & Mike, considered a series of worship for the UPN network. For this series, Claymation forgot plasticine as work material and changed it by the foam, much more versatile and clean, creating a new technique of stop motion that Vinton named "Foamation".



In the 90s, apart from the productions of 400 animators and technicians of Vinton studios, they gave the facility to other small producers of animation in what they called "The Walkabout," where came out creations like Arnold Escapes From Church by Craig Bartlett, who won an Oscar in 1987, which led to the Cel-animation series Hey Arnold, broadcast on Nickelodeon, and the Claymation short: The Arnold Waltz (1990) and Arnold Rides a Chair (1991).




In the lates 90s, They added CGI animation effects to their creations, as can be seen in advertisements of M & M's, also began to create short films in 3D, like Fluffy, or Doug Aberle. They developed a new 3D animation program by partnering with a computer company , and rthey published the animated series for Internet: Ozzie the Elf.




In the 90s, to feature films, he had to seek investors, among which was the company Nike, whose son of the president: Phil Knight, had worked in Claymation.

In 2002 Will Vinton losed power on the company, Phil Knight became the main shareholder and Vinton, by failing to attempt a Hollywood production, was fired from the studies that he had created. In 2005 studies changed the name of Will Vinton Studios to Laika House, and got as art director of the study Henry Selick, the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and James and Giant Peach

View article on James and the Giant Peach

After this capitalist game, Vinton founded a new company: the Will Vinton's Freewill Entertainment, which works by order, as the graphic novels of Darkhorse: Jack Hightower. Is devoted to production for film, TV, and all kinds of short films, and in 2005 he completed his first animated short of its new venture, this time in computer animation mixed with real image, The Morning After

Total, one of the greatests men of Stop Motion animation,he invented foamation, he was part of the latest generation of artists from traditional special effects, was the first to perform a mixture of stop motion and foamation with digital effects, he knew all sorts of animation skills, styles, genres and media, won an Oscar in a film shot in his garage! As the only producer of Oregon who has never won an Oscar. He launched to fame and influenced dozens of artists from Stop Motion, including Henry Selick, regarded by many fools as the second best Stop Motion Animator after Tim Burton. Nominations for the Oscars, a Golden Lion, several EMIS ... and what happened to this man? robbed and minimized by capitalism as an artist.

The world of plasticine is harder than it seems.

diumenge, 26 de juliol del 2009

Jackson Animation

I think: At this point you're not going to leave this person alone?
Okay, you're right. But I wanted to point out one thing, this man as a singer could be better or worse, but there is no point of the quality of their video clips, although the best known, have no more animation than those of the special effects, he had animated videos since the beginning:



And before anything, I wish to point out that MJ is the point of start of this article, we will ignore the life of this man, whom we know already too much, and we will tell for example about Robert Balser, the director of the animated series of theJackson 5ive, for the Rankin & Bass Company.

This company ceased production in 1987 with hudge funds, and for years they kept the offices open but without making anything more than merchandising tasks, and Mr. Rankin & Bass were living among New York, Paris and Bermuda, in 1999 decided to enter the production of animated feature films, with the trilogy "The Swan Princess"



and "The King and I", a movie that was a fail due to critics that he accused of using racist stereotypes. Someone can explain me how can be racist who was collaborating with Motown producer and who launched to the fame a whole generation of Japanese animators?

Total, now, Rankin / Bass is dedicated to publishing children's stories and Christmas special for TV.

And what about Jim Blashfield? An artist who has made short films music videos for pop groups of the 80s and 90s as Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, Nu Shooz, Paul Simon, Tears for Fears and Marc Cohn. And he is also the author of this 1987 video with a mixing of stop motion and cut-out with some real image, with spectacular results:



Blashfield was already known by his interesting art films as Suspicious circumstances, a surreal 1985 short about a marriage that is invaded at home by two flying Donald Duck heads:



Recently he has worked with videos of Bill Frisell, Oregon Symphony, and Weird Al Yankovic. He won a Gold Lion at Cannes, a Grammy and numerous awards EMI.

Recently he has also worked in films like Bunnyheads, SuctionMaster, The Tassel Loafers, or Dream of a Witch's Sabbath and has also created multi-image spaces installations for Liminal Performance Group.

Back to animation and CGI, we have the short film Ghosts of 1997, also available as limited edition video. A short film made no more and no less than by Stan Wiston, edited to VHS. A short that was a failure, being held in an already decadent era of the singer, and he tried to keep the same criteria when performing the marketing of Thriller.









Considering that the fat old co-star of the short is actually Michael Jackson, I think it is more than clear that Stan Wiston is the best specialist in make-up special effects of the world, in this case the makeup was done by the makeup specialist of the film of Stephen King Thinner, but we can remember other Oscar winners Stan Wiston's makeups , as is the case of Jurasic Park, Alien, Predator or Terminator.



Stan Winston started working for Disney in the'70s, winning an EMI in 1972 for the production of the movie Gargoyles. He made numerous collaborations, including the WOOKIE costumes in the Star Wars Christmas Special of 1978

In 1998, teamed up with James Cameron and Scott Ross to create the special effects company Digital Domain, immediately after the success of Titanic, Stan Winston did not stop to make special effects for movies like The Ghost and the Darkness, Terminator 3D, Artificial Intelligence or Ironman.



Until the last minute reneged on Alien vs. Predator, as he considered the Alien Queen as his favorite daughter, and this film as an aberration.

Stan Winston died last year during the filming of Terminator IV Salvation , he was an artist bigger than other whom we where talking about before. Following rumors says he was preparing material for Jurasic Park IV, and he was agreed to cooperate in the forthcoming film of his friend James Cameron: Avatar.

And finally, another very interesting animation video, this time on stop motion, Speed Demon, by the Will Vinton's Claymation animation studio, actually this is not an official video but it was performed for the film Michael Jackson Moonwalker.



Vinton ya habia trabajado con Michael Jackson para Disney en los efectos especiales de la atracción de 3D Captain EO, de Disneyland.


But Vinton is a master of Stop Motion whom we will tell about.



CLAYMATION ARTICLE

dissabte, 25 de juliol del 2009

Drawn Together



Drawn Together, this animation jewel, was produced for the channel Comedy Central between 2004 and 2007 by Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, these are well known producers of TV series of acid thematics, and Drawn together was made by the Rough Draft Studios animation studios in California, and its branch in Korea. These studios are responsible of TV series like The Maxx, Star Wars Clone Wars or Futurama.




This show has a reality show format featuring 8 recognizable parodies of famous people from the animation, video games and even internet flash animations, and many extras too recognizable characters and stereotypes of reality shows. Comedy Central would be the first channel to launch an animated reality show, and that is, the characters live in a sort of Big Brother house and compete among themselves in similar tests.




Comedy Central thought: "Let's see what happens when cartoons are no longer clean and turn it into something dirty" for this reason, the pilot chapter include a lesbian flirt between Foxy Love and Princess Clara, who became a cliché of what were to become the series. A scene that shocked but paradoxically was a cliché of the reality shows, as well as other details of scabrous humor that plagued the series as scenes of homophobia, racism, black humor, sex, incest and other coarse salt jokes that make the series politically incorrect and exclusive for adult audiences. The pilot chapter had very bad critiques, which include that the chapter exceeded the limits of good taste, was racist and had rough and disgusting humor. For producers, it was all a joke. It treats several chapters to homosexuality, as well as references to bizarre sex, constant paraphilias, sado-maso, masturbation ... Same with violence, in almost every chapter one of the characters dies in the series (although they always reborn) and often we see killing and mutilation carried out by the characters.




The first 4 chapters included some false scenes of "... And on the previous week ..." as imitation of soap operas, in which it's told a false story to get situated. These scenes were not released, but were included on the DVD.

The controversy over the inclusion of taboo topics was served, and caused many critics which compared this series with South Park, both series explores the limits of good taste, but the TV-MA (warning adult content) was not exhibited by South Park until 2004, while it was exhibited by Drawn Together from its first chapter.




The series, as imitation of The Simpsons, Family Guy or Father made in America, makes multiple references to popular culture, whether to other animated series, movies or comics, there are many cameos and references from the world of cinema's clichés .



Characters come from different worlds (video-games, the fairy tales, comics ...) each with its own laws of nature, and there is no explanation of why all coexist simultaneously . In addition, the series has no continuity, each chapter contradicts the previous chapter, in a chapter Foxxy Love tells she is 20 years and in another she appears living in the 70ies, Raccord mistakes are beastily multiplied, and as the Producer, Bill Freibergerit, says , if someone tries to establish a universe of fiction based on Drawn Together, he will become mad.



The animation is done in Cell Shade, imitating the style of "manual color and ink," which it use to be Comedy Central's animation stylel, but despite wanting a retro atmosphere, they wanted a style where was possible to combine many different styles of animation too. Each character imitated the style of the reference parody.



There were a total of 3 seasons, the second season was interrupted and the third one was finally banned before it was over.




The final chapter was a compilation of many parodies of television programs, which showed scenes like Big Brother, music competitions between the characters, and projections of the highlights of the program. In the chapter they talked about the cancellation of the series as if it were a joke, but the series had been officially canceled, and the third DVD pack refers to himself as "the third and final season." Following the cancellation, the series has been issued as Sketchs in the uncensored Comedy Central's brodcast Secret Stash, and on the adult channel Logo. In fact, on Secret Stash nake is the only censorship, and Drawn Together is the escepcion to this norm.

Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser left Comedy Central and Fox TV hired them for 2 years forreleasing new series, working on existing projects or continuing a fourth season of Drawn Together, however, they have any project released.




There currently is a feature of Drawn Together under production and this year will be released directly to DVD.




An impressive series as the first animation production of Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, good visual quality, with a chaotic but well thought out scripts, it explored the limits of good taste, and they didn't heard critics until they were canceled. Possibly the most ruthlessly eschatological animated series never issued. I'm sorry about it was canceled but I am not really surprised, I just hope tehy could release more projects.

Any Bonds Today?

Robert Clampet 1942 USA

Short of U.S. Army propaganda starring Bugs Bunny with Elmer Fudd and Porky, to sell war bonds.

It is one of the 5 shorts where Elmer Fudd is not even a villain. The spot was commissioned by the American government and then was branded to the public domain, released 8 days after the attack on Pearl Harvour, the scene where Bugs comes to parodying the comedian Al Jonson was always contested by racial issues, and Cartoon Network opted for eliminate it from the Brom theugs Bunny's marathon and the special Toonheads.

Litle Black Sambo

Ub Iwerks' ComiColor - USA 1935

Animated version of the controversial 1899 same name Helen Banermann's book. The book today is censored from the libraries of the USA, the film version as well, because of showing racial stereotypes.

It was the first Comicolor studio's movie, who made 26 films between 1933 and 1936 based on children's stories.

As a curiosity, the soundtrack was used as sample in the disc Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy.



The Jackson 5ive Series

Robert Balser's Jackson 5ive's series opening:

The Jackson 5ive (Five)


Robert Balser, who is him? A catalan who lived in America who directed the 23 chapters of the Jackson Five series from 1971 to 1973, made both by the studies Halas and Batchelor in London and studies Moro from Barcelona. The series were made for ABC, produced by Motown and produced by Rankin / Bass animation too, a producer who has worked mostly with Japanese stop motion, cel animation and lucrative Christmas specials, with productions like the Lord of the Rings 1980 version, The Wind in the Willows or the Thundercats.

If you want to know more animation material related to Michael Jackson,PRESS HERE

Afro Samurai

Tommy Blacha, Metalocalypse's producer, in 2007 was involved in the production of the American edition of these Japanese series Afro Samurai. An anime about a funky samurai that at the American edition voices of Samuel L. Jackson and Ron Perlman are featured and it has more blood than in a black pudding factory led by Dracula. Despite been so cool, I can not write anything good about anime, so I'm going to explain the plot: in a feudal Japanese world like Samurai Shamploo (instead of been hip hop it is a funky world), a gunman kills Afro samurai's father, a warrior to be the No 1, Afro Samurai swears revenge with the help of the Bronx's ninja: ninja-ninja, to kill anyone who dares him in the most brutal forms.

The Cleveland Show

Series that replaced The King of the Hill, in 2008. The Cleveland Show, the blacksploitation spin-off of Family Guy.

divendres, 17 de juliol del 2009

Blacknimation

From the beginning, the world of animation has dealt with the African American population, although at first merely with humorous characters of marked racial stereotypes, such as Buggs Bunny's Any Bonds Today, or Little Black Sambo or some Betty Boop's shorts



It was needed the phenomenon of Blacksploitaition to produce series with Afro-American characters treated with respect, because the world of animation has not been free of the Blaxplotaition phenomenon , and there were productions as Jackson5 the animated series.

Read about Jackson 5ve.

In all kinds of series, we see references to the genre of blacksploitation, like Brown boxy, the character of the Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force:




Or the character Foxxy Love from Drawn Toggether, a fusion between Christy Love and Foxy Brown:



Read about Drawn Together

And do not forget internet Drawn Together's spin-off: Judge Fudge, who also has the TV series: The Judge Fudge Adventure Power Hour.

Another spin-off would be Family Man's blacksploitation, after the same creators, Cleveland Show.


Read about Cleveland Show


Family Man also has blacksploitation's chapters as Black to the Future or Blacktually Love, starring a black version of Peter Griffin.



Even there are references to blacksploitations in anime like the episode "Mushroom Samba" from Cowboy beebop.



Or Afro-samurai series.

Read Article about Afro-Samurai

But an animated blacksplotation to whom I have a special affection is Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.



This series was produced and created by Bill Cosby, and many of his characters, including the titanic "Fat Albert," were doubled by himself. The show was on air from 1972 to 1984 and it was based on stories about his childhood gang.

The series was targeted at children of slums, a segment of the population that was forgotten by the pictures on Saturday morning, the Cosby Kids are children who live in a suburb of Philadelphia and play in a dump, where they have organized a rithm'n blues band using instruments made of trash. Each chapter contains an educational end where Bill Cosby in real image gave advice to marginalized children.

Fat Albert first appeared at Bill Cosby's special "Buck Buck," and included it in the 1967 album "Revenge" in 1969, with the veteran Hannah Barbera's animator Ken Mundie , he made the NBC's special Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert, a mixture of animation and real image that became a jazz show. To make that special, it was necessary to create a group of friends to Fat Albert and Ken Mundie was associated with a Disney artist, Amby Paliwoda, the creator of cruel Ville, who created the characters of Fat Albert and painted a group portrait which immediately was placed on TV guides' covers, giving more popularity to the broadcast. The special was very successful and it was recordered an album at Warner with the music of the broadcast called the Fat Albert Rotunda.


Fat Albert producers, after the success of the special, wanted to edit the regular TV series, but NBC refused saying it was a very educational series (???), after that Bill Cosby was associated with the production company Filmation Associates and managed to sell it to the CBS, the series were directed by Ken Brown, and the characters were redesigned by Randy Hollar with the collaboration of the ex-Disney animator Michelle McKinney.

This series, called Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, was released in September 1972 and was 12 years on air (although the emission was not entirely continuous), there is an unedited season wrote, and many Christmas specials. The series contained recordered laughs, which were eliminated in the final season.

In 1974 they get an EMI nomination.

On 1979 they made a change, adding few shorts called The Brown Hornet, based on an African American superhero, and the series were renamed as The New Fat Albert Show.



And one final change in 1984, the series were syndicated and renamed as The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and as they had fewer restrictions they could add more aggressive material to scare kids not to enter into krack gangs.They produced a chapter in which the characters are taken to a maximum security prison. Another new short that was added was "Legal Eagle", an avenger eagle accompanied by two police squirrels.



In 1984 the production was stopped stopped because Bill Cosby was on a new project, the The Bill Cosby's Show.

There is a total of 109 episodes and 4 specials. A comic-book series published by Gold Key Comics, and a movie, Fat Albert, starring Kenan Thompson.

In 2002, it was listed at the top 50 animated series for TV Guide, at the number 12 (IGN puts it at 82).

But this was not the only contribution from Bill Cosby to the world of animation, in 2000 he produced the Little Bill series for Nickelodeon Nick Jr children's channel , based on the same name children tales.



The series has not been canceled yet, but last season was in 2007.

Blacksploitaition is a genre that has not been as prolific on animation as on movies, but it has had few creations, with a hard love for funky music and the suburban aesthetics, as an early result, animation based on racial stereotypes has been banned, but then, despite the educational value of Bill Cosby's broadcasts, it has been unable to avoid their autoparodical aesthetic became parodiated everywhere.

dimarts, 14 de juliol del 2009

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