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]
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]
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
BAF06 – Bradford Animation Festival
The best animation festival across the Atlantic is the Bradford Animation Festival in the UK presented by the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television. The festival announced their November 2006 guest list:
Confirmed guests for 2006 so far include Joanna Quinn, Dave Burgess from Dreamworks Animation, Andreas Hykade, Marc Craste, Suzie Templeton and Chris Shepherd. If that’s not enough to whet your appetite BAF06 will also be hosting a special tribute to Paul Berry, taking a retrospective look at the work of Halas and Batchelor and commercial animation comes under the spotlight with an all-star discussion panel.
The highlight of that list is, of course, Joanna Quinn. Her multi-award winning film, Dreams and Desires will be shown at the festival.
A major figure in the world of animation, Joanna’s distinctive drawing skills, characterisations and humour, mark her out as a truly unique talent. Her graduation film, Girls Night Out won three awards at the world-renowned Annecy animation festival in 1987. She received Oscar nominations two years in a row, the first for Famous Fred in 1998 and again with Wife of Bath in 1999. In 1987, Joanna formed Beryl Productions International Ltd. with producer and writer Les Mills. Based in Cardiff, her highly talented team have produced a plethora of successful commercial work for clients that include Charmin, Whiskas and United Airlines.
She’s a super animator with a truly distinctive style. They don’t get any better. You can get a taste of her animation at Beryl Productions. Watch her showreel at your own risk. She’s so brilliant you might not be able to pick up your own pencil again. Don’t miss this festival if you’re in the UK from 15 – 18 November 2006.
[tags]Bradford Animation Festival, BAF06, Joanna Quinn, 2D animation[/tags]
Ottawa International Animation Festival ’06 Sept. 20 – 24
This is the 30th anniversary year of the Ottawa International Animation Festival. It is the finest animation film festival on the North American Continent. This is a unique event in the world of animation and very worth your while. Besides, it’s in beautiful Ottawa. From the Ottawa Start:
Adding local flavour to the Festival, four Ottawa animators are included in this year’s selected films. John Mark Seck‘s Vissi d’arte, a gritty urban retelling of the tragic Puccini opera ‘Tosca,†and Chris Dainty’s Emma Graves, a quirky tale of talking tombstones,will make their world premieres in the Canadian Animation Showcase. Also selected for OIAF 06 are two talented high school animators: Michelle White’s Blinky Goes to the Movies, a light-hearted look at old movies, and Boris Maras’ Flash-animated Nedrick’s Misadventures in the Montgolfier will be competing as part of the TELETOON Canadian Student Animation Scholarship program. This program, now in its 9th year, gives young animators from across Canada an extraordinary chance to be recognized for their skills.
Other notable films include:
…Joanna Quinn’s hilarious ode to film-making, Dreams and Desires, which won the Grand Prize at both the Annecy and Zagreb festivals earlier this year; The Carnival of the Animals, a delightful musical erotic fantasy by Michaela Pavlatova; three-time OIAF Grand Prize winner Andreas Hykade (Ring of Fire) returns with The Runt; legendary New York animator George Griffin’s disturbing deadpan comedy, It Pains me to Say This; the Canadian premiere of Rabbit, Run Wrake’s magical adult fairytale; and Never Like the First Time by Swedish animator extraordinaire Jonas Odell, in which four people recount their first – and very different – sexual experiences.
There’s no where else in the world where you can view such an impressive list of animated films. If you can’t make it to beautfiful Ottawa (which is awfully damn hot this year, by the way) you can still participate in the fun via the OIAF podcasts. Mark you calendar now.
[tags]OIAF, Ottawa International Film Festival, animation[/tags]
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