Tag: Animation

Some of the top artists at Pixar Animation Studios have donated artwork and memorabilia to an EBay auction that will benefit victims of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. Organized to mark the one-year anniversary of the disaster, the auction is part of an international fundraising effort by Artists Help Japan. Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, the Tokyo-born art director of “Toy Story 3,” founded Artists Help Japan in 2011 in response to the destruction in northern Honshu. Artists and musicians have donated their talents to help raise over $240,000 to date. The online auction is one of a series of events taking place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Paris, New York and London. “Artists whom I know in various cities contacted me, asking to contribute,” Tsutsumi says. “What moved me even more than the money they raised was the idea that there ...

This post has been corrected, as detailed below. With Sunday’s premiere of “Ultimate Spider-Man,” Disney XD looks to adds a new chapter to the character’s long history as an animated success. It was 1967 when ABC aired the first episode of the original “Spider-Man” series and the catchy theme song (with lyrics by  Paul Francis Webster, the three-time Oscar winner who wrote “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing”) helped propel it to the status of pop-culture classic. We caught up with Marvel pioneer Stan Lee to talk about his recurring voice role in the new show and the wall-crawling hero’s sticking power. HC: You’ve been making cameos in Marvel feature films since “X-Men” in 2000 and we’ll see you this summer in Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” —  but you’re taking it to a different level with this role in “Ultimate Spider-Man.” SL: That’s right, we’re not kidding around anymore, this ...

Unless you have a young boy at home, it’s possible that Ben 10, the shape-shifting teen superhero, has flown completely under your radar. Unlike the other costumed heroes in the Cartoon Network stable — Batman, Green Lantern, Teen Titans — Ben 10 launched without an existing fan base or brand awareness, the Jeremy Lin of the superhero set. Just seven years after the animated series first aired on Cartoon Network, “Ben 10” is now the network’s top-selling franchise, setting ratings records and selling billions of dollars’ worth of show-related merchandise. At a time when studios struggle to relaunch and reboot long-running comic book properties, Ben 10 is the first new superhero in recent memory to have this sort of breakout success. On Monday, Cartoon Network kicks off “Ben 10 Week,” culminating next Friday with the premiere of the new CGI ...

Groundbreaking animator Ralph Bakshi, who caused a sensation with the first X-rated cartoon feature — 1972’s “Fritz the Cat,” based on Robert Crumb’s comic strip — is 73 now. For the last decade, he has lived in a home on top of a mountain in New Mexico. He has a website created by his daughter, teaches animation and makes a good living selling his paintings. “I am very happy,” Bakshi said recently in a phone interview. But that wasn’t the case for a long time. “I was working seven days a week keeping an entire movie in my head,” Bakshi said. “It was just so hard. I thought I had failed. Let me be perfectly clear: When I left the business I was burned out. I was exhausted from the fights. So many of my films were cut up, chopped ...

The Grid, a world of shimmering, digital wonder, was introduced to moviegoers in 1982 film “Tron” and then taken to a new visual level in “Tron: Legacy” in 2010. Now the Grid is going to television and expanding with a wider mythology and new characters — and more of the sleek, glowing vehicles that fans love. “Tron: Uprising,” which begins this summer on Disney XD, was developed by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the same tandem that wrote “Tron: Legacy,” and they say the freedom of animation is allowing to explore the Grid without the constraints of a special effects budget. “The fun thing about animation is all the stuff we couldn’t afford in [‘Tron: Legacy’], either because they were financially or technologically prohibitive, we can now do because it’s animated,” Kitsis said. The duo, now also working on its ...

The animated adventures of the prodigal mages Edward and Alphonse Elric came to a dramatic and seemingly definitive conclusion at the end of the television series “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” in 2009. But the characters are so popular — Hiromu Arakawa’s original manga has sold more than 50 million books worldwide — that more stories were inevitable. “Fans get emotionally attached to their favorite series and characters,” said Lance Heiskell of FUNimation, which releases the animated “Fullmetal Alchemist” in America. “ ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ has been on the air since 2004 and its popularity is the highest it’s ever been.” Kazuya Murata, who directed the Fullmetal Alchemist feature “The Sacred Star of Milos” (link in Japanese), released last year and currently in limited release throughout the U.S., talked about the challenges of working with such a well-known and beloved property in an email interview. “We had ...

The new animated film “Justice League: Doom” arrives Feb. 28 on Blu-ray and DVD, but we’ll be hosting a sold-out screening on Thursday at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills. The list of cast members who will be appearing on stage is being finalized and we can tell you now that we’ll be joined by voice actors Tim Daly (Superman), Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman), Olivia d’Abo (Star Sapphire), Paul Blackthorne (Metallo) and Phil Morris (Vandal Savage). We can also tell you that there may be a few other surprise appearances. “Justice League: Doom,” the latest DC Universe animated original movie from Warner Home Video, takes its core plot from Mark Waid’s memorable “Tower of Babel” story arc (which was published back in 2000 in the pages of DC Comics), although there are considerable differences. In both the comics and film, the world’s greatest heroes ...

Musician Sean Lennon is the artistic director for the third edition of the Los Angeles Animation Festival,  which will bring “Akira,” “Fantastic Planet” and  ”Shrek” and also honor Bill Plympton during its March 7-11 run at the Regent Showcase in Hollywood. An animator himself, Lennon will introduce many of films he’s chosen and none influenced him more than 1973′s “Fantastic Planet,” a strange sci-fi epic by French experimental animators Roland Topor and René Laloux. This screening of the film will be accompanied by live musicians and actors on stage but the specifics are still under wraps. The fest is also honoring Plympton, the two-time Oscar-nominee, by screening one of his early films, “The Tune,” as well as Alexia Anastasio’s 2011 documentary “Adventures in Plymptoons.” Not familiar with Bill Plympton? Kanye West is. The festival also includes a screening of “The Iron Giant;” a revival of Matt Stone and Trey Parker”s “Team America: World ...

When nominations were announced this week for the 84th Academy Awards, the most fascinating — and startling — category was animated feature film. “The Adventures of Tintin” – which won the Golden Globe in that category – wasn’t nominated at all. Instead, Gore Verbinski’s old West adventure “Rango” made the list, as did two international entries — “Chico & Rita” and “A Cat in Paris” – that present vibrant adventures with a classic hand-drawn approach. Rounding out the category were two DreamWorks Animation releases, “Puss in Boots” and “Kung Fu Panda 2,” and don’t think for a minute that went over well at the Emeryville headquarters of Pixar. “Cars 2″ didn’t win over critics but there was still hope that it would bring home the automatic Oscar nomination that has become a Pixar tradition. No one was happier about the nominations than Guillermo del Toro, who is ...

“Justice League: Doom” will make its West Coast premiere on Feb. 16 with a Hero Complex screening at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills with a limited number of free tickets available for fans. Hero Complex lead writer Geoff Boucher will moderate a Q&A with the filmmakers and members of the cast after the screening. “Justice League: Doom,” the latest DC Universe animated original movie from Warner Home Video, takes its core plot from Mark Waid’s memorable “Tower of Babel” story arc (which was published back in 2000 in the pages of DC Comics) although there are considerable differences. In both the comics and film, the world’s greatest heroes are all placed in danger when villains get their hands on Batman’s secret files — which indexes the weaknesses of all his teammates and precise tactical plans for taking them down. The film features Nathan Fillion ...