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The post First Look at Cartoon Network’s 2D ‘Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs’ Series [Clip] appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Tartakovsky says he got an idea for a third "Hotel Transylvania" film that "made it irresistible to return" and direct again.

The post Genndy Tartakovsky Isn’t Done With ‘Hotel Transylvania,’ Will Direct Third Film in Franchise appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The directors of "The Lego Movie" were honored for their achievements in the field of animation.

by Dianne de Las Casas

I am the founder of Picture Book Month and it starts tomorrow, November 1. The website, PictureBookMonth.com, features essays from thought leaders in the children’s literature community. Each day in November, a new essay is posted. This year’s Picture Book Month Champions are: Chris Barton, Aaron Becker, Kelly Bingham , Sophie Blackall, Arree Chung, Anna Dewdney, Johnette Downing, Ame Dyckman, Jill Esbaum, Carolyn Flores, Lupe Ruiz-Flores, Robin Preiss Glasser, Deborah Heiligman, Marla Frazee, Stefan Jolet, Kathleen Krull, Rene Colato Lainez, Loreen Leedy, Betsy Lewin, Ted Lewin, Brian Lies, Kelly J. Light, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Alexis O’Neill, Sandra Markle, Ann Whitford Paul, Aaron Reynolds, Judy Schachner, Linda Joy Singleton, and David Schwartz. Please join the celebration!

As you prepare for PiBoIdMo, think about the titles of your picture books. In a recent interview for California Kids! magazine, Patricia Newman asked me, “How do you come up with titles for your books?” This started me thinking in depth about picture book titles. What’s in a title? How important is a title to a book? Can a book be centered around its title?

As it turns out, titles are vital to a book’s success. Author Scott Westerfield says, “Titles name a book, and names are important. A good name can make or break you.”

Brandi Reissenweber of Gotham Writers “Ask the Writer” column says, “A title is a story’s first impression. People make a first impression with appearance, wardrobe, and body language. Stories do it with a title.”

Eric Ode says, “Dan, the Taxi Man began as nothing more than a title. And one of the books I have coming out next year began as a title.”

PiBoIdMo founder and picture book author Tara Lazar says, “Most of my books begin as titles. It’s just the way my mind works. I want a BAM! concept, something that really hits you, and I find that people get HIT best with a succinct, powerful title.”

Corey Rosen Schwartz says, “I have written several books around titles! Like Tara [Lazar], most of my books begin that way. Goldi Rocks and the Three Bears, for example, was just a title on my PiBoIdMo 2009 list.”

Character-Based Titles

Many picture books have character-driven titles. The character of the book IS the title. Do you have a book character that is so compelling that the character’s name should be the book’s title? Here are some examples:

• Olivia by Ian Falconer
• Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
• Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown
• Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
• Biscuit by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
• Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor

Clever, Punny Titles

I am a big fan of clever, punny titles. In fact, several of my books have punny titles. Here are some examples that are just too clever for words… almost.

• Crankenstein by Samantha Berger
• The Monstore by Tara Lazar
• Little Red Hot by Eric Kimmel
• Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann
• Epossumondas by Colleen Salley

Verbose Titles

I am generally a fan of the “less is more” title for a book but sometimes, a garrulous title is EXACTLY what the book calls for. Can you imagine these books with a short title?

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
• How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen
• There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Simms Taback (a folktale retelling)
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore by William Joyce

Plot-Based Titles

Some titles beckon you to open the book. These titles are based around the book’s plot. Yes, as short as a picture book is, it can still have a plot. In fact, these picture book plots were so inspiring that they were turned into Hollywood blockbuster movies!

• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• A Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc
• The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
• We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story by Hudson Talbott
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Single-Word Titles

A picture book title can also be short and succinct, even one-word. These acclaimed picture books prove that a word is worth a thousand pictures.

• Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
• Blackout by John Rocco
• Ninja! by Arree Chung
• Carnivores by Aaron Reynolds
• Hug by Jez Alborough

Aaron Zenz says, “Hiccupotamus started with the title. I really wouldn’t have had any desire to write a book about a bunch of jungle animals chasing around a disruptive hippo if not for the title. In my mind, the pun ‘Hiccupotamus’ is the most important thing about that particular book.”

As you create and engage your imagination this month, think about your picture book’s title. In what way can an engaging title enhance your picture book? How can you use the title to attract readers? Perhaps you can be the Author with the Terrific, Tremendous, Oh-So-Grand, Very Remarkable Title.

As you celebrate PiBoIdMo and Picture Book Month, read LOTS of picture books. Comment below and share with us your favorite picture book titles and why you think they are so splendiferous. Here’s to Picture Books! Read * Share * Celebrate!

Dianne de Las Casas is an award-winning author, storyteller, and founder of Picture Book Month. Her performances, dubbed “revved-up storytelling” are full of energetic audience participation. The author of 24 books, Dianne is the International Reading Association LEADER 2014 Poet Laureate, and the 2014 recipient of the Ann Martin Book Mark award. Her children’s titles include The Cajun Cornbread Boy, There’s a Dragon in the Library, The Little “Read” Hen, The House That Santa Built, and Cinderellaphant. Visit her website at diannedelascasas.com. Visit Picture Book Month at PictureBookMonth.com. Twitter & Instagram: @AuthorDianneDLC Picture Book Month Twitter: @PictureBkMonth Facebook: fanofdianne and PictureBookMonth. Dianne is the proud mom of 14-year-old culinary celebrity, Kid Chef Eliana.

Halifax, Canada-based media company DHX Media has signed a deal with Sony Pictures Animation to adapt "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" into a "traditionally-animated" TV series.

Justin K. Thompson works in animation as a production designer and visual development artist with credits on both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs features, The Powerpuff Girls movie and Cartoon Network’s Korgoth of Barbaria pilot, among others.

Justin does plein air painting as a personal activity and feeds that artistic experience and insight back into his professional work. The two below are painted in gouache. He admits to all the plein air purists that on the first painting, he touched it up in his home studio. The second painting is a detail of a slightly larger piece:

See more of Justin’s drawings and paintings on his Tumblr and blog.

#75 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett (1978)
26 points

A childhood favorite.  My mother used to come and read this book to my classes when I was young.  I remember dreaming of food falling from the sky, though never so much it destroyed the town.  Whimsical storytelling and fantastic drawings. – Sharon Thackston

Aside from The Giant Jam Sandwich there’s really only one other iconic gigantic food book that comes immediately to mind.  I rediscovered this book in my old age, and was delighted to find that it really does stand up to scrutiny.  Sadly, I found that it is not the best readaloud for large groups, but in spite of that it’s a fine tale of the best and worst aspects of sky-related foodstuffs.

The publisher description of the plot reads, “The tiny town of Chewandswallow was very much like any other tiny town except for its weather which came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it never rained rain and it never snowed snow and it never blew just wind. It rained things like soup and juice. It snowed things like mashed potatoes. And sometimes the wind blew in storms of hamburgers. Life for the townspeople was delicious until the weather took a turn for the worse. The food got larger and larger and so did the portions. Chewandswallow was plagues by damaging floods and storms of huge food. The town was a mess and the people feared for their lives. Something had to be done, and in a hurry.”

Think it’s all fun and games?  Think again.  Bottom Shelf Books revealed what is undoubtedly the strangest picture in the book.  One that I’m pretty sure most of us have missed for years.  Mind you, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for it.

Of course Cloudy was not without its sequel.  I don’t know many people who would claim to know Pickles to Pittsburgh particularly well.  Except possibly the Pittsburgh librarians out there.  So let’s hear it, Pittsburghians.  Do you know this book?  Do you read it regularly?  Cause as far as I can determine it is the ONLY picture book out there with the word “Pittsburgh” loud and proud on its cover (please prove me wrong, somebody).

Remember the film?  That happened. It made money too so one naturally wonders if a Pickles sequel might already be in the works . . .

At first glance, the incendiary comments about free labor by Digital Domain CEO John Textor may appear to be an isolated issue, but many artists working in the visual effects industry see it as emblematic of the type of abuses they’ve been suffering for years. These labor violations have simply become more public thanks to a vocal online community and watchdog sites like VFX Soldier. The growing awareness is also part of the maturing of the vfx industry, which is still a relatively young art form compared to feature animation. In the past decade, most of the highest-grossing films at the global box office have been visual effects-driven, yet there has been no trickle-down benefit to the artists who have helped these media conglomerates make hundreds of millions of dollars.

A group of artists at Sony Pictures Imageworks is leading a push for change at their studio that could have big ramifications for the rest of the vfx industry in Los Angeles. Their goal is to unionize Imageworks, and they are promoting their cause publicly through the SpiUnion blog, as well as Twitter and Facebook accounts.

What makes the plight of Sony’s artists particularly urgent is that there are different standards of treatment for LA-based artists working on the same films: Sony Pictures Animation artists enjoy union benefits, whereas Sony Pictures Imageworks artists don’t. In other words, if you’re storyboarding and designing films like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania, you get treated better than if you animate on those same films in Los Angeles. This divide-and-conquer tactic that Sony uses is distinct from other Los Angeles feature animation studios like DreamWorks and Disney Feature Animation that extend union benefits to all their artists, including the animators.

To learn more about the situation, Cartoon Brew conducted an interview with the Imageworks artists who are leading the effort to unionize the studio. For obvious reasons (i.e. not being fired), they have chosen to remain anonymous.

CARTOON BREW: As an outsider, I struggle to understand the mindset of the vfx industry and why it’s so difficult to organize those within it. Can you shed some light into why the vfx field has been so reluctant to organize in LA, especially considering the working conditions, which involve ridiculously long hours. It seems that union representation like your counterparts in CG feature animation would be a benefit.

Artists of SpiUnion: Yes, you would think so right? It’s just as difficult for us to understand as well. We can’t speak to the economics of other companies, but we feel Sony is in a unique situation as opposed to other purely vfx facilties. We produce our own content (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Smurfs), we produce the 3D content our parent company depends on to sell 3D Blu-ray players and televisions, we’re partially unionized (SPA) already, we produce vfx for other studios, we have offices in multiple countries, and we’re owned by one of the major studios.

The LA vfx industry seems to based on FUD (Fear , Uncertainty, and Doubt). There is the prevailing opinion that if any artist dares to stand up and make any noise, the entire company/industry will closeup shop and leave town. Companies are not in LA out of the kindness of their hearts, they are here because there is a large talent base here. (See VFX Sol

'Eclipse' premieres (with the biggest domestic release in Hollywood history. And A.O. Scott says it's "more robustly entertaining film than either of its predecessors." See our YAB Review from Meg Reid for more. Also Twihards have descended on... Read the rest of this post

TOAST BOAT



CLASSROOM




ELEMENTARY SCHOOL







Still more to come...

©All images ©Sony Pictures Animation.

First Book is proud to announce that select meteorologists across the country from Boston to Los Angeles participated in The Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Challenge issued by Today meteorologist Al Roker.

The challenge, in celebration of today’s release of the animated movie CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, generated more than 20,000 assorted new books to First Book organizations serving children in need. NBC-affiliate meteorologists had the opportunity to deliver new books and lead a special story time with the children.

First Book would like to thank Sony Pictures Animation, Columbia Pictures, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and television stations across the country for their generosity and commitment to spreading the joy of reading.

And be sure to check out this video of highlighting books provided to kids in Phoenix as part of the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Challenge (video opens in Windows Media Player).