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"The Book of Life" director is moving into vr, with a project celebrating lucha libre and Mexican culture.

The post ‘Book of Life’ Director Jorge Gutierrez To Make VR Project, ‘Son of Jaguar,’ for Google Spotlight Stories appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Virtual animation studio platform Artella reveals details about its recent shot, 'Duel,' debuting exclusively on Cartoon Brew.

The post 46 Artists From 16 Countries Made ‘Duel’ Using Artella’s Online Platform [Exclusive] appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The unique Italian digital arts conference VIEW is right around the corner. Here's what you can expect.

The post An Intimate View of The VIEW Conference (Photo Gallery) appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"Why do you draw so many black characters?" A CalArts student explains how she answers this question.

The post CalArts Animation Student: “If I Don’t Draw Black Characters, Who Will?” appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

'Long Live the Royals' is Cartoon Network's second original miniseries following Patrick McHale's Emmy-winning fantasy, 'Over the Garden Wall.' No pressure!

The post Sean Szeles Spoofs Kings and Punks On New CN Miniseries ‘Long Live the Royals’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Discover the art of Jorge R. Gutierrez, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

The digital art and computer graphics community gathers in Turin, Italy for a one-of-a-kind conference. We speak with the event's director Maria Elena Gutierrez.

The feature animation and VFX worlds will converge in Turin, Italy in October.

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

Pixar will finally answer the question, What if a Mexican boy named Miguel could meet his long-dead Mexican family members?

"Book of Life" director Jorge Gutierrez has some inspiring advice for young filmmakers.

Jorge Gutierrez and Reel FX Animation Studios have teamed up again, this time to produce a "kung fu space western" film.

Not every animation director won a Golden Globe last night, but they all had a good time.

"Mexico is way more complicated than anybody thinks." Jorge Gutierrez talks like a man on a mission. For the past decade-and-a-half, he has sought to bring a more authentic portrayal of Mexico and its people to Hollywood.

Five animated features have been nominated for a Golden Globe in the best animated feature category.

A 40-minute video roundtable with six feature film directors and producers contending for an Oscar this year.

This weekend the $50 million Fox/Reel FX film "The Book of Life," opened in the United States with an estimated $17 million.

Today, Reel FX's film "The Book of Life" opens in the United States, and the story of its 39-year-old director, Jorge Gutierrez, is also one worth telling.

Chester Cheetah enters the world of the new animated feature "The Book of Life."

The latest trailer for Fox's "The Book of Life" opens up the festive-looking world of the film with new plot points like a love triangle and the introduction of new characters like the Candle Maker portrayed by Ice Cube.

Jorge Gutierrez, the director of Fox's "The Book of Life," spoke at length about the film's background and production to the website Del Toro Con. At the very least, the film promises to be the most personal and distinctive-looking major studio CG feature of 2014.

The first trailer is out today for "The Book of Life" directed by Jorge Gutierrez ("El Tigre") and produced by Reel FX.

Last week after word got out that Disney was seeking to trademark “Día de los Muertos” in preparation for its 2015 release of a Pixar animated feature inspired by the traditional Mexican holiday, several online communities were outraged. The backlash kicked into high gear when cartoonist and illustrator Lalo Alcaraz shared a poster of a Godzilla-like Mickey Mouse under the words, “It’s coming to trademark your cultura.” [image above]

Social media has always kept Disney in check, and this time is no different. Latino Rebels, an online community that has done a terrific job of tracking Disney’s depiction of Latino culture, helped handle and report on the groundswell of public outcry over the last few weeks. After several petitions and pressure, Disney announced last Tuesday that they would withdraw the trademark filing, claiming that it was no longer necessary since they had changed the title of the fim.

In an interview with Cartoon Brew, William Nericcio, a scholar specializing in the representation of Latinos in American pop culture and author of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the “Mexican” in America, said, “[Hollywood's] attitude towards culture is like a pelt hunter from the 19th century. They need the skin that people recognize and value in order to sell a project that will yield predictable profits.”

Nericcio acknowledges that Pixar and Disney face an uphill battle in producing their Day of the Dead feature, which is to be directed by Toy Story 3 helmer Lee Unkrich: ”I think it’s wonderful that Pixar is working on a Mexico, cultural-based project. But it’s a public relations nightmare. They’re not really equipped to talk about other cultures in a way that shows even the slightest sensitivity.”

While Nericcio supports the critical eye cast by social media, he does express concerns over extreme backlash. “The downside of it is, companies like Disney could get scared off of projects that might be focused on Latin American culture, just because they got burned,” he explains. Ultimately, the appeal of a Dia de Los Muertos film is undeniable; the imagery connected to the celebration is so lush, providing a palette that would inspire any moviegoer. “It’s good business to green light a project on la cultura Mexicana. Everybody’s loving the wrestlers, the icons, the color, the exoticness,” Nericcio says. “But when you have the patent lawyers involved, they come off looking terrible.”

Nericcio, a self-admitted Pixar fan would love to see a Dia de los Muertos animated film, as would so many others. Fortunately, there’s another film on the horizon—Guillermo del Toro and Jorge Gutierrez are currently producing and directing (respectively) their own Day of the Dead-themed feature at Reel FX called The Book of Life, to be released through Fox in October of 2014, more than a year before the Disney-Pixar feature. There’s no word yet whether Mexico-born del Toro and Gutierrez will seek trademarks of their own.

“Book of Life” producer Guillermo del Toro (left) and director Jorge Gutierrez

El Tigre co-creator Jorge R. Gutierrez is moving into feature film directing.

He continues the recent trend of TV artists transitioning into feature animation, following Genndy Tartakovsky’s Hotel Transylvania and Rich Moore’s Wreck-It Ralph.

Gutierrez’s CG feature, Book of Life, will be released on October 10, 2014, by Fox Animation Studios. Unlike Tartakovsky and Moore who took over the reins of existing studio projects, Gutierrez is working from an original idea he’s been developing on and off since 2001.

The film, described in preliminary news reports as a Romeo and Juliet-style love story set against a Mexican Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) backdrop, will be produced at the Dallas animation house Reel FX.

Reel FX is best known for its Looney Tunes CGI shorts (I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, Coyote Falls) and other service work like the two Open Season sequels. They are making a push into original animated features with this film, as well as Jimmy Hayward’s Turkeys, which has also been slated for 2014.

Book of Life was optioned by Reel FX’s Brad Booker, but the film had originally been optioned in 2007 by DreamWorks. It never went beyond development at DreamWorks. Gutierrez cited creative differences between himself and the studio, but he says that Jeffrey Katzenberg was “a total gentleman” and returned all of his rights, which allowed him to take the project elsewhere.

The distributor Fox Animation Studios, which is a distinct entity from Fox’s subsidiary Blue Sky Studios, is a new contender theatrical animation and all eyes will be on them as they prepare Book of Life as one of their first major releases. Further pressure was added last year by Pixar’s announcement that Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich would develop a Day of the Dead-themed feature of his own, though no release date has been set for the Pixar film.

Gutierrez’s career in animation up to this point could be seen as one giant warm-up act for this film. Born in Mexico and a graduate of the CalArts Experimental Animation Program, he has steadfastly labored to inject a Latino flavor into American animation for the past decade.

Mexican folk and pop culture plays a central role in nearly all of his work: his CalArts thesis film Carmelo (2000) was similarly Day of the Dead-themed; El Macho (2001), an early online animated series for Sony celebrated lucha libra culture; his Nick series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (2007, co-created with his wife Sandra Equihua), was colorful Mexican pop made digestible for American audiences.

Book of Life gained mainstream cred when Guillermo del Toro, who is the most successful Mexican-born director working in Hollywood today, came on board as a producer. “As a true cinematic hero of mine, Guillermo del Toro has not disappointed,” Gutierrez says. “A true collaborator, he has taught me a ton. He has has been an incredible producer (he’s very hard on me and I am very thankful) and has really protected me and the integrity of the film.”

The script is being written by Gutierrez and veteran TV scribe Doug Langdale (who was the head writer on El Tigre). Gutierrez is designing all the characters with his wife and frequent creative collaborator, Sandra Equihua. Other key creative personnel include Simon Varela (Production Design), Paul Sullivan (Art Director), Ricardo Curtis (Head of Story), and Gustavo Santaolalla (Composer). The film will begin animation production this summer.

I’ll be rooting for Book of Life, not only because I’ve known Jorge for years, but because I know his capacity to handle this type of material. There is a need for authenticity and passion in mainstream feature animation, and at the very least, we can be assured that Jorge will bring those to the project.

Gutierrez’s arrival as as director also represents the inevitable diversification of theatrical animation directors. Women, Asians, Latinos, Blacks and almost every other group of people have been underrepresented in Hollywood animation for decades. Today, the industry has no choice but to add new voices into the mix. Hispanics attend movies more often than other segments of the American population, and Latin America is the fastest-growing movie market in the world. The time is now for a film like Book of Life.