How to use this Page

Cartoon Brew reveals an exclusive trailer for "Revengeance," the new animated feature by Bill Plympton and Jim Lujan.

The post ‘Revengeance’ Trailer: Bill Plympton’s Eighth Feature Might Be His Quirkiest Yet — Exclusive appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

New Yorkers: Start planning your animated weekend.

The post This Weekend in NYC: MoCCA, Rebecca Sugar, Bill Plympton, ‘April and the Extraordinary World’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"Pearl" will be one of the thirteen animated projects screened at Tribeca next month.

The post ‘Feast’ Director Patrick Osborne Will Debut New Short ‘Pearl’ At Tribeca appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

We spoke with Allers about awards season, women in animation, and why we still don't see enough anthology animation at the multiplex.

The post Stitching Together an Animated Leap of Faith: An Interview With ‘The Prophet’ Director Roger Allers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Mexico's largest animation industry conference will take place next month in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Cut through the clutter with our handy guide to the must-see animation events happening in San Diego this year.

Hundreds of hours' worth of animation is newly available to stream online.

GKIDS will release the film in the U.S. in August.

Indie animation heavyweight Bill Plympton is using a new distribution to get his adult animation to audiences.

GKIDS will launch the film in New York City and Los Angeles in August.

GKIDS will release the mixed-media film "The Prophet" in the U.S. this summer.

"Why should kids be the only ones who get pleasure out of animation," says the revered indie animation director Bill Plympton. "It offends me that American animation is stereotyped this way."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this afternoon the list of 10 animated shorts which will advance in the voting process for this year's Academy Awards.

Cartoon Brew looks at some of the likely contenders in the Oscar race for this year's best animated short film.

Indie American animation legend Bill Plympton, whose films have been officially unavailable on the Internet for the past decade, has reached a deal with Shorts International to make his extensive body of self-produced work available to online audiences.

The Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the world's oldest and biggest animation festival, wrapped up its 38th edition on June 14th. Here is the complete list of winners.

Tonight in New York City, two artists who need little introduction—Bill Plympton and Peter de Sève—will discuss their work and artistic process in a discussion moderated by animation director J. J. Sedelmaier.

The producer of this year's most intriguing and visually eclectic animated feature may well end up being the Mexican/Arabic actress Salma Hayek, who screened a work-in-progress version of her pet project, "The Prophet," last week in Cannes.

Today the Annecy International Animated Film Festival announced the feature film selections for their 2014 edition. Eighteen films were selected—nine in competition and nine out of competition. A total of 68 animated features were submitted this year.

Next Wednesday, the animated duo of Jeff Twiller and Randy J. Johnson will host their own animated film screening in Brooklyn. It's a legit line-up of animated shorts, with perceptive cinematic commentary supplied inbetween the films by Twiller and Johnson. Thankfully, they happen to be animation experts.

The 17th edition of the Holland Animation Film Festival concluded last Sunday in Utrecht, Netherlands. The winners of the top prizes for both feature film and narrative short hailed from South Korea.

Indie animation legend Bill Plympton has released the trailer for his sixth narrative feature, Cheatin’. Plympton, who still draws every single frame of his feature films, successfully raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter to help complete the film. Cheatin’ is expected to debut this fall on the festival circuit.

The official synopsis:

In a fateful bumper car collision, Jake and Ella meet and become the most loving couple in the long history of Romance. But when a scheming “other” woman drives a wedge of jealousy into their perfect courtship, insecurity and hatred spell out an untimely fate. With only the help of a disgraced magician and his forbidden “soul machine,” Ella takes the form of Jake’s numerous lovers, desperately fighting through malfunction and deceit as they try to reclaim their destiny.

Bill Plympton with Chris Landreth

BILL PLYMPTON is the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of seven animated features and more than thirty animated shorts. His new feature Cheatin’ will premiere this fall. Learn more about his work at Plymptoons.com.

I went to Annecy with mixed emotions this year—after all, it was a year of major changes.

The iconic Bonlieu Centre, where all the action usually takes place, was being torn down to be replaced by a larger and hopefully more beautiful structure. Some say the new theater complex will be finished next year and some say in two years—who knows, with French construction workers.

The other new kink was the fact that celebrated artistic director Serge Bromberg was leaving after fifteen wonderful years, to be replaced by Marcel Jean. So, naturally, I felt that this would be a transitional year.

My wife Sandrine and I arrived just in time to go to the opening night event, taking place in the freshly-constructed hybrid tent cinema. The opening film was the long anticipated Pixar sequel Monsters University, directed by Dan Scanlon, along with the new Pixar short Blue Umbrella. The latter six-minute short by Saschka Unseld had a very different look from all of the former Pixar shorts, a lot more realistic, and the love story involving two colored umbrellas in a rainstorm has certain similarities to last year’s Oscar winner, Paperman.

Monsters University was a bit disappointing—for me there were too many extraneous characters to get emotionally involved, and the colors, especially the backgrounds on the campus grounds, were too neon-bright, which made it hard to enjoy the beautiful design and follow the characters.

The next morning I had a panel about crowdfunding and Kickstarter. Like a similar panel I hosted at Stuttgart, it was a packed house. After years of sucking off the government teat, the Europeans are mad for a more democratic, and perhaps hassle-free, way for raising money to make films.

Bill Plympton with his son Lucas Plympton

Tuesday afternoon was the Competition Shorts creening #2, and my film Drunker Than a Skunk was in that group, so Sandrine and I needed to attend to present the film. The program started off promisingly enough—meaning that the films were not that good and hence the audience would love our film. All the early films in the program were abstract or avant-garde, therefore not crowd-pleasers. Then came Remi Vandenitte’s Betty’s Blues, a wonderful ode to Southern blues music that had a terrific style. Then Drunker came on and we received a very nice reaction. We felt we were looking good for Awards Night.

But, later in the program, came Chris Landreth’s unmemorably named Subconscious Password, a totally delightful and bold CG film starring Chris and the enigmatic John Dilworth. Then and there, I knew our awards chances flew out the window. Oh well, once I knew I didn’t have to worry about awards, I could just enjoy the week and relax.

My next event was a work-in-progress screening of my new feature, Cheatin’. There was a really good buzz going about this film, so tickets were hard to get and a lot of people asked me to sneak them in.

I showed some pencil tests and finished scenes, drew some of the character designs and talked about the production. The audience applauded throughout (which I loved) and then I moved to a table just outside the exit, next to a beautiful creek, and gave everyone in line a free sketch, which took about an hour.

For the past seven years, I’ve been presenting the “Annecy Plus” show, first with Pat Smith, and now with Nik and Nancy Phelps. It’s been a smashing success. This year, we were forced to relocate the popular event to the wonderful Café des Arts in Old Town. We promoted the hell out of it, and the weather was perfect so we had high hopes for a big success. Unfortunately, there was no movie screen!

Jonas Raeber, the projectionist and sound man, was able to “borrow” two large sheets from his hotel. Another problem: the door with access to the balcony, where we wanted to hang the sheets, was locked with no key. So, a drunk Indian animator volunteered to leap from an open window across to the balcony—a real Jackie Chan-type moment. I had visions of a terrible accident, and me spending three years in French courts fighting a lawsuit, but the dashing Indian succeeded, and he had free beers all night.

Nik Phelps and his band kicked off the evening with some lively music, and we began the show. Then, the next tragedy struck. Even though Virginia, the proprietor of the bar, had received permission from the city council to hold a late-night screening, there was a rave the night before and it created such a ruckus that her permit was revoked. Thus, we had to turn the sound off at 10p.m., and the problem with that was that it didn’t get dark until 9:30. As a result, the audience only heard one out of the four programs—the last three were silent. Quel dommage.

Bill Plympton with Titmouse’s Chris Prynoski

However, there was enough beer and wine for everyone, and a good time was had by all. The Annecy Plus winning film, by the way, was Super by Johan Klungel. As for the main Annecy awards show, it was a happy affair with nice weather, and Serge showed up to give out the awards with Marcel Jean. The big winner of the evening, and justifiably so, was Subconscious Password by Chris Landreth. He gave a fantastic speech, then we all went to party at the Palais, where I visited with Eric Goldberg, Bill Kroyer, Chris Prynoski of Titmouse Studios, Dominique Puthod (the president of the festival), Chel White, and Michaela Pavlatova, last year’s winner with Tram.

The best news was that everyone was talking about Cheatin’, so chances are good it will be in competition next year in Annecy. See you all there!

Dominique Puthod (Annecy Festival President), his wife Catherine, Bill and
Sandrine Plympton

Roger Allers, the co-director of Disney’s The Lion King is moving forward with his production of Kahlil Gibran’s classic 1923 poetry book The Prophet. Casting updates were reported earlier this week by Deadline Hollywood. The film, which we first reported on last year, is being produced by Salma Hayek, Clark Peterson, and Ron Senkowski, and funded by Participant Media and Doha Film Institute.

The films animated segments will be produced by Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej), who have been added to the already announced directors Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues) and Bill Plympton (Guard Dog). Also, Liam Neeson, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina and Quvenzhané Wallis have all signed as voice talent, along with Hayek.

While Allers will be in charge of the film’s central narrative and supervise the film as a whole, the above-mentioned directors will helm individual chapters within the storyline. The animated film is set to be completed in spring 2014.

Roger Allers, the co-director of Disney’s The Lion King is moving forward with his production of Kahlil Gibran’s classic 1923 poetry book The Prophet. Casting updates were reported earlier this week by Deadline Hollywood. The film, which we first reported on last year, is being produced by Salma Hayek, Clark Peterson, and Ron Senkowski, and funded by Participant Media and Doha Film Institute.

The film’s animated segments will be produced by Joan Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase), Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat), Paul and Gaetan Brizzi (Fantasia 2000), Michal Socha (Chick) and Mohammed Harib (Freej), who have been added to the already announced directors Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Nina Paley (Sita Sings The Blues) and Bill Plympton (Guard Dog). Also, Liam Neeson, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina and Quvenzhané Wallis have all signed as voice talent, along with Hayek.

While Allers will be in charge of the film’s central narrative and supervise the film as a whole, the above-mentioned directors will helm individual chapters within the storyline. The animated film is set to be completed in spring 2014.