On Monday I’ll be just back from Ottawa and hung over from a week of watching great animation. To get me back into the swing of things I’ll be hosting Cartoon Dump, my monthly live comedy and cartoons showcase, in Hollywood. We will have guest comedian Andy Kindler and its our annual Halloween party. There’s nothing spookier than Mighty Mr. Titan… except maybe Moodsy, the Clinically Depressed Owl, Compost Brite, and Dumpster Diver Dan.

Wanna know more about Cartoon Dump? Frank Conniff (Moodsy), Erica Doering (Compost) and I recently recorded an hour-long podcast for Epic Magazine’s This American Wife that explains what its all about.

Join us Monday (10/25) at 8 PM, for an evening of hilarious comedy, demented songs, and really, really crappy cartoons. It’s again at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. (two blocks west of Vermont). Map here, see you there!

I wrote about Kirsten Lepore’s short Bottle last month, and enjoyed it so much, that I asked her to answer a few questions about her work. The interview, conducted via email is below. For more about her work, visit KirstenLepore.com.

CARTOON BREW: The idea of a relationship between two natural elements seems so obvious in retrospect, but I’ve never seen it before. Where did the spark for the idea come from?

KIRSTEN LEPORE: I had the initial spark about two winters ago while I was home in New Jersey.  I think I was just looking at all the snow in the backyard and thinking how cool it would be to animate a snowman.  I’d never seen it done, and it was definitely something I knew I had to try at some point — it was just a matter of having the time and coming up with the right story.

CARTOON BREW: Did you really animate all that snow? Last year, my hands froze just trying to build a still snowman. I can’t imagine doing animation with snow, and it not looking something like THIS.

KIRSTEN LEPORE: Yep! It was all real snow, moved frame by frame.  Every time I got out there to shoot, I had to rebuild the character (which was about 3 feet tall).  It was also pretty physically grueling pushing around massive snowballs (that probably weighed more than me), running back and forth between the camera and the character every frame, and dealing with wet gloves, boots, and pants.  There were too many obstacles to even name!  My brain hurts just thinking about it.

CARTOON BREW: Were you building and moving these characters by yourself or did you have help? Did you build rigs underneath? Were you able to review your animation as you were shooting? In other words, how’d you do it?

KIRSTEN LEPORE: It probably would have been much easier with a crew, but I’m stubborn so I did the whole thing by myself.  I also would have felt really guilty making someone else stand out in the snow for 8 hours a day.  In terms of the technique, there were no rigs needed for the snow as most things stuck together pretty well (or would freeze together if it was cold enough).  I wanted so badly for the beach character to be pure sand, but after countless tests, I couldn’t get him tall enough without crumbling, so I had to build a trompe l’oeil foam puppet covered with a mixture of sand and vegetable shortening. 

The puppet also wasn’t constructed very well so I ended up needing a ton of small rigs to hold up the arms and some of the objects.  I wouldn’t dare bring my beloved compy on the beach, so I had no frame grabbing software either.  I could only see an approximate review of what I shot by using the turning wheel on the back of the 7D to “flip” through the frames.  I even tried to skip this when I could (simply to avoid touching the camera) because my hands were usually either soaking wet or totally greasy with sand and Crisco.  Yum.  I just posted a micro making-of that shows other parts of the process as well:

 
CARTOON BREW: After this, do you prefer to animate outside where all of nature is your set or the controlled environment of a studio?

KIRSTEN LEPORE: I definitely prefer a controlled studio, but it was nice not having to build any sets for the piece.  It’ll probably be a few years before I can consider shooting outdoors again; I’d need time to forget how nightmarish the process was.

CARTOON BREW: You graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art a few years ago, and then decided to pursue a graduate degree in Experimental Animation at CalArts, which is where you made Bottle. Why did you decide to continue school instead of jumping straight into the industry?

After I graduated from MICA I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue a graduate degree, so I actually did freelance in animation for two years before coming to CalArts. I needed some time after undergrad to prove to myself that I could make a living doing animation. That “real life” experience was invaluable upon enrolling at CalArts as I already felt much more prepared and confident than if I had enrolled while I was fresh out of MICA. My decision to go to grad school was mainly fueled by the desire to make my own films again, the prospect of connecting with other animators, and to have the option of eventually teaching at a collegiate level. Also, I knew it would force me to move out to California, which is where I felt I needed to be.
 
CARTOON BREW: What are you working on right now and where do you hope you end up after graduating again?

KIRSTEN LEPORE: Right now I’m doing a few freelance projects and developing my thesis, which I’ll be working on for the next two years.  After graduation it’d be great to continue freelancing and directing.

CARTOON BREW: What are some of the things that are currently inspiring you, both within and outside of animation?

KIRSTEN LEPORE: There’s so much!  I just got back from the Vimeo Awards where I had the opportunity to meet so many creators that I respect and admire, which was totally amazing and inspiring.  So many of the films and speakers got me pumped and eager to get back into the studio to produce new work.  Outside of animation, I’ve taken up drumming again which I’m pretty excited about.  I’m also usually in the kitchen cooking up some weird concoction.  I’m proud to report I recently got over my fear of preparing eggplant, and (unrelated to the eggplant) may have mastered the art of the Vietnamese summer roll.

Yesterday at the Television Animation Conference in Ottawa, Cartoon Brew announced the launch of our new section called CB Biz. The new subsite located at www.cartoonbrew.com/biz can be accessed from our site’s top navigation bar.

As we’ve grown to become the single most heavily trafficked animation news site on-line, we wanted to fulfill one of the most common requests we receive which is to offer more coverage of industry animation news. The new CB Biz section will serve as a source for announcements and public relations messages direct from industry publicity sources. The press releases will appear unedited and free from editorial commentary. The CB Biz section doesn’t change our curated and personal approach to the Cartoon Brew home page, but it serves as an additional resource for those who desire a complete and up-to-the-minute picture of what is happening throughout the industry.

Studio publicists may submit their press releases directly to Cartoon Brew through a new e-mail address: PR [at] cartoonbrew [dot] com

If you couldn’t join us in Ottawa this week, you might consider hanging out in San Francisco in mid-November. The San Francisco Film Society will present its fifth annual San Francisco International Animation Festival (SFIAF) November 11–14 at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema. Highlights of this year’s event include Miyazaki protégé Sunao Katabuchi’s new feature Mai Mai Miracle, the North American Premiere of Jackboots In Whitehall, a screening of Brent Green’s Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then and a shorts program of The Best of Annecy. The complete schedule is posted here.

---

The 2nd Los Angeles Animation Festival will take place Friday December 3rd through Tuesday December 6th at Cinefamily’s Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Ave. in West Hollywood. This year events include an afternoon screening and interview with Pixar’s Teddy Newton (Day & Night) and two special programs from renowned writer/director/animator Will Vinton — one a program of his short films, specials and commercials and the other, a twenty-fifth anniversary screening of his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986). In addition the festival will feature screenings of several international features including Chinese independent feature Piercing 4 and the Japanese feature Redline. There will also be panels, contest screenings, parties and awards. The festival is the brainchild of animation director Miles Flanagan and animation producer John Andrews (MTV, Klasky Csupo). Details and deadlines for entry in the festival’s three unique competitions are available on the festival website. Tickets and passes will be available in November at Cinefamily.org.

---

Opposite the LA Animation Fest on December 3rd through 5th, and on Dec. 11th and Dec. 13th, the UCLA Film and Television Archive at the Hammer Museum in Westwood will hold A Celebration of French Animation. This will include several double bill screenings of contemporary animated features from France, including Chomet’s The Illusionist (2010) and The Tripletts of Belleville (2003), Rene Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1973), Micel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) and Azur and Asmur (2008) and Jacques-Remy Girerd’s Raining Cats and Dogs (2003). For more information, check the UCLA Archive website.

Those who watched the New York state gubernatorial debate a few nights ago were treated to the awesomeness of candidate Jimmy McMillan (aka Papa Smurf) of the “Rent is Too Damn High” Party. That alone has little to do with animation, but remix Jimmy’s words with Pixar’s Up, like Joe Sabia did, and you get something magnificent.

(via Boing Boing)

Last year in Ottawa I met animator Sam Chou who is working on an independent animated film, The Wrong Block. His film is an animated, action/thriller about a detective that takes on a kidnapping case, only to discover that his sordid past has come back to haunt him. His website for the film went live today and a new trailer has been posted. I really look forward to seeing this when it’s finished. Here’s a taste:

This week Cartoon Brew is traveling to the enchanted land of Canada, home of Officer Bubbles and many other magical creatures. Both Brewmasters will be attending the world-famous Ottawa International Animation Festival along with thousands of other animation folks. If you’re heading out, let us know in the comments and say hello to us.

The Hub, a network owned partly by toy company Hasbro, launched a little over a week ago with new animated series including Strawberry Shortcake’s Berry Bitty Adventures, G.I. Joe: Renegades, and My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. The network’s debut closes the curtain on what has commonly been referred to as the creator-driven era of TV animation, which lasted from approximately the early-1990s through the late-2000s. During this two-decade span, the balance of creative control in TV animation favored artists for the first time since the early-1960s, and artists exercised vast influence over the visual style, writing, and overall direction of TV shows. It was a fertile period that spawned dozens of lasting cartoon stars and series, many of which are still as popular today as when they first debuted ten or twenty years ago.

What clearer death knell for creator-driven animation than the reemergence of Margaret Loesch. After running Hanna-Barbera and Marvel Productions in the 1980s, and Fox Kids through the mid-1990s, her influenced waned in animation during the height of the creator-driven movement, but now she is back in the driver’s seat as president and CEO of the Hub.

Watching names like Rob Renzetti and Lauren Faust pop up in the credits of a toy-based animated series like My Little Pony is an admission of defeat for the entire movement, a white flag-waving moment for the TV animation industry. The signs have been there for a long time, however, and the Hub is but one indicator in the precipitous decline of creator-driven content, whose demise was hurried along by Cartoon Network and its decision to relaunch with large amounts of live-action programming. The erosion of support for creator-driven animation happened gradually but surely, and today networks clearly prefer established properties over original ideas, and dislike dealing with individual artists who have a clear creative vision.

Nobody denies that the Hub’s shows will perform well and fulfill the programming needs of the network. But then again, nobody suggested that Smurfs, Snorks and Pound Puppies wouldn’t do well in the 1980s either. The reason that creators like John Kricfalusi, Matt Groening, Mike Judge, John Dilworth, Craig McCracken, Genndy Tartakovsky, Danny Antonucci, Bruce Timm, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone stepped up to the plate originally wasn’t because animation was performing poorly. It was because these artists had a vision for the art form that was more inspired, more vital and more consistently creative than those of executives like Loesch; they aspired to create BETTER cartoons instead of simply acquiescing to committee-driven mandates that underutilized their skill and talent.

The creator-driven mentality stubbornly exists among a group of hold-outs and idealists (Pen Ward’s Adventure Time, Devin Clark’s Ugly Americans, Christy Karacas’ Superjail! to name a few), but their numbers will continue to shrink in the coming years. As TV audiences become more fragmented, and advertisers shift ad dollars away from TV, networks will increasingly rely on worn but reliable formulas. They will demand only the surest bets—Looney Tunes revivals, TV series based on feature film characters (The Penguins of Madagascar is already on Nick and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness is coming soon), shows based on live-action films (Napoleon Dynamite is headed to Fox), and the toy-based ideas that comprise the largest portion of the Hub’s animation programming.

This paint-by-numbers approach to executive management guarantees consistency, but eliminates the rich rewards stemming from the breakout animation hits that defined the creator-driven era. It also explains why so many networks are still coasting on the fumes of their earlier creator-driven successes: this month, the eleven-year-old show SpongeBob Squarepants ranked as Nickelodeon’s top-rated program, thirteen-year-old South Park is still Comedy Central’s best known animation product, MTV is reviving its 1992 creation Beavis and Butt-head, and Fox would not have a Sunday evening if not for its two vintage juggernauts, The Simpsons and Family Guy, which have existed for a combined thirty years. To be totally clear too, these are not retro-fads—these shows have been successful since they first debuted, just as theatrical cartoon stars during animation’s Golden Age often enjoyed popularity over multiple generations.

Do networks and producers deserve to shoulder the blame entirely? That thought was on my mind as I read this quote recently by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails describing his approach to creativity: “I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.” From my perspective, complacency and creative stagnation amongst creators of TV animation has been at the root of the problem.

During the past decade, too many creators compromised their vision to get shows onto air, and too many creators didn’t take advantage of the opportunity once they had shows. In the early-’90s, creators held the attitude that they had been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to write their own ticket, and they were going to use the moment to make the most amazing cartoon series possible. That vision turned blurrier in recent years. Selling a show became in and of itself a symbol of accomplishment among a subsequent generation of self-satisfied artists whose shows consistently failed to entertain audiences.

There’s an upside to all of this. As one era wraps up, I believe we are entering a new (and even more exciting) period—that of the independent, multi-platform artist. The entire concept of creator-driven is redundant at a time when digital technology has made animation production accessible to all. Everybody creates equally today; for something to not be creator-driven is the anomaly. People make entire Web animated series from the comfort of their bedroom and become famous for it.

As more artists choose animation as a career, they will find themselves unattached to specific distribution formats as in the past. Fewer artists in the future will say, “I want to work in TV animation,” or “My goal is features.” These mindsets belong to a bygone time when television and theaters held a disproportionate sway over other modes of content distribution.

Today’s artist has become as fluid and fragmented as the art form itself. An artist might work on a commercial one month, a TV show another, a Web cartoon series the next. And then comes an animated series for cell phones, a music video, a theatrical short, background visuals for a live performance, and an insert for a live-action documentary. The scene I’m describing is one that is undoubtedly familiar to East Coast animators and many artists working in Europe, and it is spreading.

This new breed of animation artist will pounce at an invitation to work on a TV series should it present itself, but they will not commit themself to a specific format at the expense of their artistic integrity. While everybody loves a steady paycheck, today’s artist can afford to be adventurous because there is more animation being produced than ever before and opportunities lie around every corner.

At the end of the day, TV animation isn’t going anywhere, and future Margaret Loesches will still find plenty of willing peons to fulfill their orders for extended toy commercials. But the overall trends are becoming more clear every day. Current market conditions and general conservatism in TV animation continue to erode the quality of series animation, especially content-wise. The creator-driven movement has all but flamed out, and few hit shows or perennial cartoon stars have emerged in the last five years. Most importantly, talented young artists are deserting TV as a full-time career option, not only because there are fewer promising opportunities for creators, but because the animation ecosystem beyond television is healthier and more diverse than ever before.