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Augenblick Studios will produce the surreal hand-drawn comedy starring God, the Devil, and a drunk guy.

The post Aaron Augenblick To Directed R-Rated Feature ‘The Adventures of Drunky’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Augenblick Studios will produce the surreal hand-drawn comedy starring God, the Devil, and a drunk guy.

The post Aaron Augenblick To Direct R-Rated Feature ‘The Adventures of Drunky’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

(This episode contains strong language.)

Over the last fourteen years, Aaron Augenblick has built up Augenblick Studios into one of New York City’s most respected production studios. The studio has produced animation—in Brooklyn!—for series such as Wonder Showzen (MTV2), Ugly Americans (Comedy Central), Superjail! (first season, Adult Swim), as well as the festival circuit hit Golden Age. The studio’s current major project is an animated feature based on the Ben Stiller live-action pic Zoolander.

In the latest episode of Frenzer Foreman Animation Forum, Augenblick talks about creating a studio from the ashes of bad advice, how a young studio finds work, the challenges of being a studio owner and artist at the same time, tips for building an artistic community and fostering studio pride, why he refuses to expand his studio beyond a set number of employees, and the importance of submitting animated shorts to festivals even if you’re producing commercial work.

LINKS RELATED TO THIS EPISODE
Augenblick Studios: WEBSITE and FACEBOOK PAGE
Cain’s Tavern: WEBSITE and FACEBOOK PAGE
Golden Age series
Ramblin’ Man:

I’ve attended my fair share of foreign animation festivals over the years, and have always bemoaned the lack of Los Angeles industry artists at these gatherings. In Annecy artists from throughout Europe’s animation industry show up, in Ottawa a sizable lot from the New York and Toronto industry attend, but artists from Los Angeles have been conspicuously absent at every animation festival I’ve ever attended. There might be a few stragglers, but undoubtedly they’ll be outnumbered by the LA-based development and creative execs, who pounce on any opportunity for a free “business” trip.

The apathy of LA industry artists is historical. During the legendary 1967 Montreal animation expo, which was one of the great all-time gatherings of animation talent, only one Disney animator who had worked on Dumbo and was still employed at the company, took the time to attend the screening of that film. It was, of course, the studio’s most creatively curious artist, Ward Kimball.

This all leads up to some positively encouraging news. Browsing through the schedule for the upcoming Ottawa International Animation Festival, I noticed that not only are Adventure Time and Flapjack being shown in competition screenings , the creators of both shows—Pen Ward (top photo, left) and Thurop Van Orman (r.)—will attend and participate in a discussion about their work. This interaction between Los Angeles animators and the much larger world of animation beyond the San Fernando Valley doesn’t happen nearly often enough. Considering how relatively inexpensive it is to attend one of these festivals versus the mind-expanding benefits of meeting like-minded artists and seeing innovative new animation, I’m surprised that more studios don’t encourage and finance these trips for their employees. It would certainly be a wiser investment than shipping a cartload of executives to each festival.

The appearance of Ward and Van Orman isn’t the only TV-centric event at Ottawa either. Aaron Augenblick (top photo, center) who runs Brooklyn-based Augenblick Studios (Superjail!, Wonder Showzen, Ugly Americans) will be presenting a retrospective of his work. The program isn’t exclusively TV-related, but Augenblick is best known nowadays for his studio’s consistently high quality TV output, which is no small accomplishment.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Aaron Augenblick, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Pen Ward, Thurop van Orman