The “Mighty B” on Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon has released its official 2007/08 list of shows. A new 2D animated cartoon offering will be the “Mighty B” created (concept-wise) and voiced by Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live. From Starpulse:
“Mighty B,” picked up for 20 episodes, stars Amy Poehler as the voice of Bessie Higgenbottom, the world’s most ambitious and lovably unhinged 10-year-old “Honeybee” scout. As a member of the Honeybees, Bessie wears her uniform every single day, leads her troop with a zeal General Patton would have admired and has earned more Bee Badges than any Honeybee in history. But a bunch of badges still elude her, and Bessie’s not stopping until she has every last one.
The cartoonists collaborating on the concept for “Mighty B” are Cynthia True and Erik Wiese. From Zap2it:
Poehler co-created the cartoon with “The Fairly OddParents” staff writer Cynthia True and the Emmy- and Annie-nominated storyboard artist and writer Erik Wiese.
[tags]2D animation, nickelodeon, mighty b, Amy Poehler, Cynthia True, Erik Wiese[/tags]
Bristol Animation 2006 and Joanna Quinn’s Dog
Our love affair with Joanna Quinn is almost unseemly. We can’t get enough of her drawing. There’s an interesting article in Animation World Magazine on a forum at Bristol where Quinn and her partner, Mills, discuss their work at Beryl Productions. From the Animation World article:
Quinn and Mills were surprisingly frank about their different strengths and weaknesses, and their points of disagreement (Mills, we learned, was particularly disappointed by the “dumpy mongrel” dog who plays a big part in Family Ties).
Dimples hasn’t seen Dreams and Desires – Family Ties and can’t comment on the acting of the “dumpy mongrel”. However, judging from the drawing of the dog shown above, we love him. We’re animal lovers at Dimples and one of us has a dog with that precise exhuberant expression of joy. Joanna Quinn has expertly captured “dog soul” in this drawing.
Read our earlier post on Daniel and Tom’s animation win (T.O.M.) at Bristol 2006 for a comment from Daniel saying that they’re going to be at Sundance along with Joanna Quinn.
[tags]2D animation, Bristol 2006, Joanna Quinn, Beryl Productions[/tags]
Platform International Animation Festival June 2007 Portland Oregon
Just what the world needs; another animation festival. Actually, there’s always room for more and this one promises to be a good one. Sadly, the US of A doesn’t have the greatest animation festivals. In our opinion, the UK and Canada have the best. We’d like to see more and better festivals here. Portland, OR is planning an interesting new festival set to debut in June, 2007. From the organizers’ press release:
Looking to fill the need for a major animation event in the U.S., the PLATFORM International Animation Festival will be a literal platform for artists, innovation, debate and discussion as well as set the stage to explore new developments in animation. The Festival program will feature premieres and retrospectives, exclusive screenings, guest speakers, exhibitions, workshops with leading artists, parties and networking opportunities with industry insiders. The Festival is being solely sponsored by Cartoon Network.
“This is an important period for animation because the rapid growth of technology changes the possibilities of our craft every day,†said Kotlarz, producer of animation projects and former director of animation festivals in Cambridge, Bristol and Cardiff in the UK. “We want animators to be able to find new answers and new opportunities with the best in the industry. Whether the animated submissions are created for theaters, cell phones or for the sides of buildings, if it is brilliant and innovative, we want to show it.â€
PLATFORM represents a brand new breed of festival. Along with being an international competition with cash prizes, the Festival will break boundaries into other art forms including comics, illustration, character and toy design, motion graphics, gallery art and live action cinema.
“In all the talk about this new platform and that new platform, no one is really talking about what makes good content for these areas, or how to grow a generation of creators for these platforms. That’s why Cartoon Network is proud to be the sole sponsor of this important new international festival and competition. PLATFORM will serve as a special place where emerging artists and talents can learn, grow, be inspired and showcase their work,” said Michael Ouweleen, Cartoon Network’s Senior VP, Programming & Development.
That sounds pretty good to Dimples if they can pull it off. Visit the Platform website for more information and for a look at some absolutely great flash animation.
[tags]2D animation, Platform Animation Festival, Cartoon Network[/tags]
Grab Your Popcorn – Disney Cartoons Are Coming Back to the Movies
The best animation has always been cartoon animation. By cartoon animation, Dimples means animated short subjects. Feature length theatrical animation is good but the medium shines in the short subject. The good news in cartoons is that Disney is returning to the short cartoon format. From the International Herald Tribune:
After a hiatus of nearly 50 years, Walt Disney Studios is getting back into the business of producing short cartoons, starting with a Goofy vehicle next year. The studio has released a few shorts in recent years, but they were more artistic exercises than commercial endeavors. The new cartoons, by contrast, spring from an effort by a new leadership team at Pixar Animation Studios, now a Disney unit, to put the company back at the forefront of animation, with a form that it pioneered.
2D animation is definitely making a come-back at Disney under John Lasseter. The new cartoon shorts will be produced by animation vetran Chuck Williams. Why would Disney do this? Because 2D animation is the heart of the art. From the International Herald Tribune:
“They allow you to develop new talent,” Williams said in an interview at the Disney studios. “Shorts are your farm team, where the new directors and art directors are going to come from. Instead of taking a chance on an $80 million feature with a first-time director, art director or head of story, you can spend a fraction of that on a short and see what they can do.”
Sharpen your pencils. Develop character driven stories. 2D animation is still the best.
[tags]2D animation, Disney, cartoons, Goofy, cartoon shorts, John Lasetter, Chuck Williams[/tags]
Bristol International Short Film Festival 2006 – Daniel Gray and Tom Brown
The 12th Bristol International Short Film Festival was held in Bristol, UK last week. Bristol is always an interesting festival for animation fans. This year was no exception. Many of this year’s films will be available for viewing on BBC-3 after Dec. 8th. One of the films winning an award this year is an intriguing student animation from Daniel Gray and Tom Brown called “T.O.M.”. The short animated film won the Cartoon D’Or Nomination. It’s not entirely clear what that award is but winning this award puts Daniel and Tom’s film made at the University of Wales in the running for further more prestigious European awards. From their web page:
News from Bristol’s Encounter Festival is that we didn’t win our category. We did how ever win the British nomination to the Cartoon D’or, which was a complete suprise because we didn’t even know we were in that section. So we come away with something pretty cool.
“T.O.M.” looks more than pretty cool to us here at Dimples’ central command center. They’ve created a myspace page for their film and you can view the trailer there.
[tags]2D animation, Bristol Film Festival, Cartoon D’or, Daniel Gray, Tom Brown, T.O.M.[/tags]
Beryl and Joanna Quinn at Swansea Animation Days 2006
Joanna Quinn and her studio partner Les Mills are winning awards all over the place for their latest animated adventure, “Dreams and Desires: Family Ties”, starring Quinn’s Beryl character.
BERYL is an unlikely hero. Middle-aged, not beautiful, overweight and an underdog…
The award-winning new film Dreams and Desires – Family Ties follows Beryl as she explores more about her life and it is seemingly a welcome return to the character who became popular after outings in Girls’ Night Out and Body Beautiful.
In the past four months, Dreams and Desires has won 14 major awards and it looks like there are more to come. It’s hard to beat that.
Here’s a picture of Quinn with Bill Plympton.
Quinn is best known in the States for her Charmin commercials but, as you can see, that’s only the tip of the iceberg with this extremely talented animator. You can own a little bit of Joanna Quinn’s art. The Adventures of the Charmin Bear
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