Fantastic Animation Festival
Fantastic Animation Festival is a package film of animation segments, set mostly to music and released to theaters in 1977. It was one of the earliest of the sort of collections typified by Computer Animation Festival and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation (the co-founders of the latter, formerly known as Festival of Animation, send out flyers of ''Fantastic Animation Festival''). Summary Included in its original form of 16 segments were the first national appearance of Will Vinton's Claymation (''Closed Mondays'' and ''Mountain Music''), ''Bambi Meets Godzilla'', Cat Stevens' animated promo for his song '' Moonshadow'' that was shown at his early concerts, and a previously seen Max Fleischer Superman cartoon from the 1940s (''The Mechanical Monsters''). The original running time was 107 minutes, which was later edited down to 90 minutes, and then edited for television, to 80 minutes. Segments (The following are in running order.) *"Welcome to the world of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Frees
Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during the Golden Age of Animation and for providing the voice of Boris Badenov in ''The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show''. Voice actor Mel Blanc said Frees was known as "The Man of a Thousand Voices", though the appellation was bestowed on Blanc himself. Early life Solomon Hersh Frees was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, on June 22, 1920. He grew up in the Albany Park neighborhood and attended Von Steuben Junior High School. He had an unusually wide four-octave voice range that enabled him to voice a scale from the thundering ''basso profundo'' of the unseen "Ghost Host" in the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California and at Walt Disney World in Florida to the voice of the farmer who educates the Little Green Sprout (voic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spike Milligan
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was an Irish actor, comedian, writer, musician, poet, and playwright. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Raj, British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones, Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer, and a principal cast member of the British radio comedy programme ''The Goon Show'', performing a range of roles including the characters Eccles (character), Eccles and Minnie Bannister. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of the Goons. He took his success with ''The Goon Show'' into television with ''Q... (TV series), Q5'', a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of ''Monty Python's Flying Circu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Swarthe
Robert Swarthe (born September 6, 1942) is a special effects artist who started out directing short films. He has two Academy Award nominations. Academy Award nominations *48th Academy Awards – Nominated in the category of Best Animated short, ''Kick Me'', lost to ''Great''. *52nd Academy Awards – Nominated in the category of Best Visual Effects, '' Star Trek: The Motion Picture'', nomination shared with John Dykstra, Grant McCune, David K. Stewart, Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich. Lost to ''Alien''. Preservation The Academy Film Archive preserved ''Kick Me'' and ''The Unicycle Race'' by Swarthe. Filmography As director * ''Uncle Walt ''(1964) *''The Unicycle Race'' (1966) *K-9000: A Space Oddity' (1968) with Robert Mitchell *''Kick Me'' (1975) As special effects artist *''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' (1977) *'' Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979) *''One from the Heart'' (1982) *'' The Outsiders'' (1983) In addition he appeared in a making of ''Close ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kick Me (film)
''Kick Me'' is a 1975 animated short film made by Robert Swarthe. Summary The film is about a pair of red legs and its misadventures on celluloid film involving a giant baseball and spiders. Production The animation was produced by drawing pictures directly onto frames of film stock, instead of by inking/painting and photographing cels as in traditional animation techniques of the era. Reception and legacy It was nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and was featured on Fantastic Animation Festival. It was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010. Preserved Projects References External links * {{IMDb title, 0073237[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Abel And Associates
Robert Abel and Associates (RA&A) was an American pioneering production company specializing in television commercials made with computer graphics. Robert Abel's company, RA&A was especially known for their art direction and won many Clio Awards. Abel and his team created some of the most advanced and impressive computer-animated works of their time, including full ray-traced renders and fluid character animation at a time when such things were largely unknown. A variety of high-profile television advertisements, graphics sequences for motion pictures (including ''The Andromeda Strain'' and ''Tron''), and work on laserdisc video games such as ''Cube Quest'', put Abel and his team on the map in the early 1980s. The company was also originally commissioned to create the visual effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but were subsequently taken off the project for mishandling funds. Many people who worked at RA&A went on to other ground-breaking projects, including the foundin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ken Nordine
Ken Nordine (April 13, 1920 – February 16, 2019) was an American voice-over and recording artist, best known for his series of word jazz albums. His deep, resonant voice has also been featured in many commercial advertisements and movie trailers. One critic wrote that "you may not know Ken Nordine by name or face, but you'll almost certainly recognize his voice." Life and career The son of Theresia (Danielson) and Nore S. Nordine, a contractor, Ken Nordine was born in Cherokee, Iowa. His parents were Swedish. The family later moved to Chicago, where he attended Lane Technical College Prep High School and the University of Chicago. During the 1940s, he was heard on ''The World's Great Novels'' and other radio programs broadcast from Chicago. One of which, Honore de Balzac's short story "Une passion dans le désert", was recorded for the 1955 album ''Passion in the Desert''. In 1955, he provided the voiceover on Billy Vaughn's version of " Shifting Whispering Sands", which pea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jeans
Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and patented by Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss on May 20, 1873. Prior to the patent, the term "blue jeans" had been long in use for various garments (including trousers, overalls, and coats), constructed from blue-colored denim. "Jean" also references a (historic) type of sturdy cloth commonly made with a cotton warp and wool weft (also known as "Virginia cloth"). Jean cloth can be entirely cotton as well, similar to denim. Originally designed for miners, modern jeans were popularized as casual wear by Marlon Brando and James Dean in their 1950s films, particularly ''The Wild One'' and ''Rebel Without a Cause'', leading to the fabric becoming a symbol of rebellion among teenagers, especially members of the greaser subculture. From the 1960s onwar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Levi Strauss
Levi Strauss (; born Löb Strauß ; February 26, 1829 – September 26, 1902) was a German-born American businessman who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm of Levi Strauss & Co. (Levi's) began in 1853 in San Francisco, California. Early life Levi Strauss was born in an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Buttenheim on February 26, 1829, in the Franconia region of the Kingdom of Bavaria in the German Confederation. He was the son of Hirsch Strauss and his second wife Rebecca Strauss (née Haas). In 1847, aged 18, Strauss travelled with his mother and two sisters to the United States to join his brothers Jonas and Louis, who had begun a wholesale dry goods business in New York City called J. Strauss Brother & Co., at 108 Liberty Street in Manhattan. After arriving in New York, Strauss worked as an itinerant peddler of goods from his brother's store: kettles, blankets and sewing goods. Business career Levi's sister Fanny and her husband David Stern moved to S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of its films. In its prime, Fleischer Studios was a premier producer of animated cartoons for theaters, with Walt Disney Productions being its chief competitor in the 1930s. Today, the company is again family owned and oversees the licensing and merchandising for its characters. Fleischer Studios characters included Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman. Unlike other studios, whose characters were anthropomorphic animals, the Fleischers' most successful characters were humans (with the exception of Bimbo, a black-and-white cartoon dog). The cartoons of the Fleischer Studio were very different from those of Disney, both in concept and in execution. As a result, they were rough rather than refined and consciously ar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Mechanical Monsters
''The Mechanical Monsters'' (1941) is the second of seventeen animation, animated Technicolor short films based upon the DC Comics character Superman. Produced by Fleischer Studios, the story features Superman battling a mad scientist and his army of robots. It was originally released by Paramount Pictures on November 28, 1941. Plot A robot flies into a scientist's secret lair and unloads a pile of cash into a vault. The robot is controlled completely from the scientist's command center, and many robots similar to it are lined up along the walls of the lair. The front page of the ''Daily Planet'' reports the robot's robbery right alongside an announcement for the display of 50 million dollars of the world's rarest gems at the local museum. Later, as Lois Lane and Clark Kent are covering the museum's exhibit for the ''Planet'', a robot lands in the street outside. The police pelt it with machine gun fire as it marches towards the museum, but the bullets bounce harmlessly off. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jordan Belson
Jordan Belson (June 6, 1926 – September 6, 2011) was an American artist and abstract cinematic filmmaker who created nonobjective, often spiritually oriented, abstract films spanning six decades. Biography Belson was born in Chicago, Illinois. Belson studied painting at the University of California, Berkeley. He saw the "Art in Cinema" screenings at the San Francisco Museum of Art beginning in 1946. The films screened at this series inspired Harry Smith, Belson and others to produce abstract films. Belson's first abstract film was ''Transmutation'' (1947), now lost. A few of his films were screened in later screenings of the "Art in Cinema" series. Following these early films, Belson made a few films with his scroll paintings. He was the recipient of a grant from the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which later became the Guggenheim (Oskar Fischinger recommended him to the MoNOP curator Hilla von Rebay). Much of Belson's work is meant to evoke a mystical or meditative expe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bob Gardiner (animator)
James Robbins "Bob" Gardiner (March 19, 1951 – April 21, 2005) was a multi-talented artist, painter, cartoonist, animator, holographer, musician, storyteller, and comedy writer. He invented the stop-motion 3-D clay animation technique which his collaborator Will Vinton would later market as Claymation, although Bob preferred the term ''Sculptimation'' for his frame-by-frame method of sculpting plasticine clay characters and sets. He and Vinton shared the 1974 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for ''Closed Mondays''. The film was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012. Gardiner took his own life on April 21, 2005, while living at the Everhart Hotel in downtown Grass Valley. Filmography * ''Closed Mondays'' (1974), writer, art direction, and sculptimation * ''Mountain Music'' (1975), art direction and sculptimation (uncredited) Graphic art Accolades Gardiner and Vinton won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1975 for ''Closed Mondays'' (1974). See also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |