New Year 2024 Bucket List

It's a brand new shiny New Year and I have complied a short Bucket List of things I would like to happen in 2024. 

Animateducated, the YouTube channel, has grown a lot in 2023 than the year before. I am hoping the channel will finally pass the required 4000 watch hours to qualify for monetization. Then I can't wait until my interviews will be interupted by ads about how you can make thousands of dollars a week without doing anything!

I have several interviews ready to edit and some new ones which will require some travel and/or begging. 

Andrew Chesworth is a 2d/3d animator who recently posted his film, The Brave Locomotive to YouTube where it has gotten a lot of attention. I wll be editing his interview in the new year, here is a short promo.

I'm working on an interview with Felicity Moreland, who is has a new documentary about 2d animation called, Hand-Drawn: Documentary.

I'm working on getting an interview with John Musker about his short film, "I'm Hip". John's film has qualified for the Short List for this year's Oscars! Before the announcement, I had ask him if he would like to talk about his film and he has agreed. We are now making plans when to do the interview.

In the coming year, I hope to visit Michael McMaster and his shop to meet some of his creations.

Here's a fun video he made several years ago, featuring these two very famous robotic characters.

I am also looking into contacting artist and filmmaker, Jim McKenzie who has recently made this very fun film about his latest artwork called "Potato Face".

Hey Jim, you can contact me yourself, because I would love to find out how you made this film and what your new projects in 2024 might be. If anyone knows how I can contact him, please let me know.

This Summer, my wife and I are also planning a trip to the UK and would like to visit a few animators and animation studios to create few interviews while mine there.

But before this happens, I have to get in better shape and start my walking routine again. As animator, I sit a lot at my computer. When I worked at studio jobs, my weakness was free drinks like Pepsi or Coke. I drank it like water and I discovered by simply not doing so, I would loose weight and walking helps as well.

So this Summer, I don't want to squeeze myself into an airplane seat and be out of breath from walking up a few steps. I don't want to be the fat American tourist, so I'm starting now to get into an exercise routine and hopefully watch my weight go down.

Animating Stuff will return in 2024 where I will have a weekly live streaming episode where I will be working on or talking about something about animation. If viewers show up to listen in or participate that's always makes a better episode.

A big Thank You to the 1605 subscribers and the future subscribers! Do you have any ideas for me to pursue in the new year on Animateducated? 

Thanks for Watching and Have a Happy New Year!

 

Dino versus Leuk

A good friend of mine was diagnosed with Leukemia last year and had to stay in the hospital for treatment. Dino Crisanti teaches Stop Motion at Columbia College in Chicago and was teaching 3 animation classes during the beginning of his treatment. He had two students who helped the on campus students in class while Dino was in the hospital.

During his first treatment, Dino knew he would not be a very good patient unless he was making something. And so, he came up with a short stop motion idea to keep him busy called "Me versus Leuk. Here's an episode which I hope you will enjoy called "Dino versus Leuk".

If you would like to see more of Dino's work, visit his YouTube channel. Here are links to "Me versus Leuk" and Dino's Go Fund me page.

If you liked this post or the interview, please leave a comment below.

Happy Holidays and Thanks for Watching!

 

BOOM a student film

Meet the Directors of Boom,

Gabriel Augerai, Romain Augier, Laurie Pereira de Figueiredo, Charles Di Cicco and Yannick Jacquin met as students at Ecole des Nouvelles images of Avignon, France. On their 4th year, they came together to create a student project called BOOM.

BOOM won the 1st place Gold award for the best animated film of the 50th Student Academy Awards of 2023! Here is an interview with 4 out of the five directors about how they made the film.

If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a comment below or subscribe to Animateducated to help support the channel!

The Inventor is here

How hard is it to make an animated feature film? A short film about Leonardo DaVinci that you have expanded into a feature. You have a successful Kickstarter campaign and a cast of well known actors, Stephen Fry, Daisy Ridley, Marion Cotillard, Gauthlier Barttoue and Matt Berry to do the voices.

Now add making an animated feature film during Covid, outside the US and when you finish the film, your voice actors can't promote it due to the current Actor/Writer strike that is going on.

Below is an interview with Jim Capobianco just before the Kickstarter campaign began.

A trailer came out in August promoting the release date as August 23, which was actually pushed back to September 15th. Unfortunately, new release date trailers were not available to send out to movie theatres nationwide.

Here's a trailer which was created to show investors what the animation would look like.

Een Man from Aerial Contrivance Workshop on Vimeo.

I recently contacted Capobianco to find out what happened during the making of the film and where we can see the film and when. BTW Bluefox Entertainment has this link to let you know where the film is playing near you. https://www.bluefoxentertainment.com/films/the-inventor

Here is the latest interview with Jim Capocianco promoting "The Inventor" and hoping audience support this independent animated feature film...which premieres Friday, September 15th!

SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES:

Website: https://www.TheInventorFilm.com 

Twitter: @TheInventorfilm @BlueFox_Ent 
Facebook: @TheInventorFilm @BlueFoxEnt
Instagram: @theinventorfilm @blue_fox_entertainment
YouTube: Blue Fox Entertainment

Well here's another fine interview I hope you enjoyed and get to see the actual film on the big screen! if you enjoyed this in any way, please show your support by subscribing to the Animateducated YouTube. 

Walt Disney family museum discovery

This Summer, I got a chance to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. There were no special exhibits at the time, but I spent several hours spending my time reviewing the lifeworks of Walt Disney.

The very first photography that caught my attention was of Mary Richardson Disney, who was Walt Disney's Grandmother from Freshford, County Kilkenny, Ireland. 

As I wandered through the museum wondering if I might be related to the Disney family, I shot some video below...

If you enjoyed this blog post, please leave a comment below! 

Making of Popeye Reanimated Collab

June gloom is hitting Burbank,CA as usual, but new Animateducated episodes are on the way to brighten your day. Here is the latest interview with German artist, Dirk Erik Schulz who recently released a reanimated collaboration project called "BBQ 4 Two".

Dirk enlisted the help of about 65 animators from all over the world to reanimate an old and not so good, Popeye cartoon of the same name. Each animator was giving a short segment of the old cartoon and enough time to animate in their own style. 

Here's the original 1960 Popeye cartoon that Dirk used and improved. 

https://archive.org/details/BarbecueForTwo1960

And here's an interview with Dirk talking about the project...

Here's a side by side comparision of the original and the reanimated version.

While Dirk is looking for new gigs, he has begun on another Popeye reanimate called "Popeye and the Phantom". Here is the orginal film he will be reanimating next.

Thanks for the support and Check out more interesting interviews and animated stuff on the Animateducated YouTube channel. and Thanks for your support! . 

Syrenka the Warsaw Mermaid

 Disney's Live Action version of "The Little Mermaid" is coming to a theater or streaming service near you. Are you super excited or like me, a little disappointed. I don't mind that this Ariel is a young black actress, but seeing photos of Sebastian the Crab, Flounder the fish and Scuttle the seagull made me almost gag.

Really WDA, are these the most appealling character designs you could come up with? With your animation studio of the most talented artists in the world, these supporting characters look like an AI program spit them out. Although, I bet an AI program would come up with a lot better choices. And how many designs did it take to narrow them down to these?

Do you think maybe Disney is just pulling our fin? Is this a brilliant Marketing ploy? Maybe Disney is showing these awful character designs to hype the film and then do a bait and switch where we see more appeal supporting characters when we see the film. Oh, what a relief that would be. But I have a funny feeling this is as good as it gets.

The original Little Mermaid was so great when it came out, because Disney animation was coming back, we loved the story and the characters all worked well together. I am not going to go see this new Little Mermaid, because like Disney's Aladdin, I already saw the good original and I don't need to see a Live Action version.

Would you like to see these characters walking along at Disneyland or Disney World? 

And this brings me to a new 2D Mermaid film which you might not see until 2 years from now. Its a short 7 minute or so, animated film by Tina Nawrocki called "Syrenka the Warsaw Mermaid".

This is about Syrenka, the twin sister of the Little Mermaid, swam up to Warsaw, Poland and became a legend there. Below is my interview with Nawrocki and how she is planning to make the film.

If you would like to help Tina finish her film, please check out her Indiegogo campaign and if you send her some support, mention you heard about on Animateducated!

Thanks for the support and Check out more interesting interviews and animated stuff on the Animateducated YouTube channel. and Thanks for your support!

May the 4th be with you 2023

Back in 1977, Star Wars changed our lives forever. This film inspired a new generation of young filmmakers and artists to pursue their dreams and learn the ways of the force. Relive the magic now and celebrate the creativity from an earlier and simpler time...

So here are a few Star Wars items I own and talk about... Enjoy!

Here is another Star Wars video I made several years ago when Covid was just beginning and I was still attempting to celebrate the occasion...

Fight the evil Empire by clicking on the ads on this blog to help the Rebels gain a few bit coins to show your support of this blog.

May the Force be with you!

The Flying Sailor and the Curse of Luigi

The Oscars are happening on Sunday, March 12 and I recently interviewed Luigi Allemano, who is a music composer and sound designer on an Oscar nominated animated short film entitled "The Flying Sailor". In the interview below, Luigi talks working with directors Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, and about his curse of working on nominated films, but never winning the Oscar.

Enjoy the thought provoking film based on a true story...

We are crossing our fingers in hopes that "The Flying Sailor" wins the Oscar and helps break the "Curse of Luigi" for once and for all. If you enjoyed this post, head over to Animateducated on YouTube to subscribe or leave a comment.

Thanks for Watching and reading too.