Get ready for an interview coming your way about a brand new animation book called, "Mr. Inbetween; My Life in the Middle of the Animation Revolution" by Bill Kroyer. Here is a little promo for the interview as I finish editing it together.
If you like what you see, please leave a comment, a like, subscribe to animateducated on YouTube, go visit www.mrinbetween.org and take a look at some animation history or read about it, send this link to one of your animation friends, you know the one would draws a lot and is always working on something interesting, they would love to have this book and their birthday isn't too far away, what are you waiting for????
Kent Melton was a character sculptor and maquette builder who worked on some of the most famous animated films -- someone had to sculpt the genie from Aladdin!
Puppetmaker Maria Andreotti was lucky enough to work as Kent's assistant on her first film, Boxtrolls, and was soon fangirling about the amazing sculptures and maquettes he had created at Disney, Laika, Dreamworks and Pixar for such movies as The Incredibles, Paranorman, Prince of Egypt, Treasure Planet, Tarzan, Hercules, Mulan and more.
Kent eventually became Maria's good friend and mentor and when hewas diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Maria was inspired to make a documentary about him. She created a Kickstarter campaign and has so far raised over $100,000 (and counting) to finish the film.
Paul Driessen's work has always interested me because it was fun to watch and his stories were told with a quirky bit of humor. I contacted him through his website recently to see if he would be interested in doing an interview via Zoom from his home in France. I was so surprised that he agreed and mentioned that he had published his biography called "My Life in Catoons". We made plans to meet online in a few weeks, just enough time for me to find and get his book. The book publisher did not ship to the US, so I had to get it through Amazon. The book finally arrived and I was able to find out what his life was like before getting into animation.
Dreissen was in Holland and at an early age grew during World War ll and recalls a lot of memories during this time. He even winds up in Moscow with his family in the above photograph. And luckily, he and his entire family survives the war and eventually are included in this photo below in a happier time after moving back to Holland.
The book is very well written, I only wished that some of the photos were larger on the page and I also would have liked to seen more color stills from some of his colorful films.
I was amazed to learn that he discovered animation by getting an opportunity to work on the Beatles animated TV series and eventually followed it up by getting to animate of the Yellow Submarine feature film.
If you enjoy Driessen's or writing Biographies, you might enjoy this one to get a flavor of how life was like for this an independent animator who eventually worked on several films for the National Film Board of Canada and later, making his own personal films.
Please enjoy this recent interview with Paul Driessen.
If you enjoyed this blog or the above interview, please subscribe to the YouTube Animateducated channel or leave a comment below. I don't think anyone reads this blog, because most of the comments I get are from people who just want sell their animation services or spam ads.
So, let me know if you liked this or what your favorite Paul Driessen film is. And if you have never seen his work, hopefully this will spark your interests.
Very happy to see an independent animated feature from Latvia win an Oscar against some of the biggest animation studios in the world. It gives me hope for the other Cats out there working to make their dreams come true.
Once a very popular format getting your song or showcasing your band out to the masses, the music video. Here is a classic which still holds up today, "Take on Me" by A-Ha. I saved this article from HOW magazine back when it came out to understand how they made it. Here is a very dated article with lots of reference to ancient animation techniques used before CG animation was even around. Frame by frame using a 35mm animation stand, dealing with film and optical techniques that you can do on your phone these days.
Please enjoy this HOW article from the animation past!
Can you believe how much work it took to make this animation back in the day?If you would like an easier version to read, send me an email to animateducated@gmail.com and I'll send you a pdf file.
Well, here we are beginning 2025, another new year and I'm still working on projects from the last one.
Over the Summer of 2024, my family and I flew over to Ireland to drive around and brush up on our driving skills. We visited Dublin first and then drove out to visit Kilkenny the home of Cartoon Saloon and where I got to meet and interview Fabian Erlinghauser, one of the directors there and creator of "Dorg Van Dango".
At the time, he was busy finishing up work on "Silly Sundays" and working on a new project. Here is a quick promo to the upcoming interview I will be posting soon.
There is another upcoming interview I am currently editing with Animation Director Iain Gardner who I met while we were visiting Edinburgh, Scotland.
He had completed his animated film, "A Bear named Wojtek" which has a very similiar animation look to the films of Frédéric Back (The man who planted trees and Krak).
I visited Iain at his studio space called Animation Garden during this year's Fringe. And later, we met again when he was in LA for the Animation Summit. I am happy to report that "Wojtek" has made the shortlist for this year's upcoming Academy Awards.
Below is a short look at some of the people who visit the "Wojtek" statue in Edinburgh.
And finally, an interview I had with one of my animation heroes, Paul Driessen. He recently publish his autobiography called "My Life in Cartoons". I was amazed to find out that he worked on the first Beatles cartoons which eventually lead to an animation job on "The Yellow Submarine". This was his animation school for learning what he liked to do and eventually making his own films.
I hoping to get these all finished up before February or so. Until then...