Animondays Interview: CORDELL BARKER

I want to switch gears for a bit and use some posts to publish some interviews I conducted with some of today's top talents working in North American animation. Today's interview, with twice Oscar-nominated Cordell Barker, dates from 2009 for use in my book Directing Animation. I first met Cordell in Annecy 2001, and then a few times after that in Ottawa. As a longtime admirer of his work dating back to his infectious NFBC film "The Cat Came Back" (1988), I was thrilled to have the opportunity to ask Cordell some questions about his work and process. While I used a lot of his answers in my book, I'm pleased to be able to share the unused portions of the interview on this post. I repeated one section (used in the book) where Cordell talks about his influences, just because it was fun to include links to the films he referenced. Hope you enjoy!

Biography:
Cordell Barker was born in Winnipeg in 1956. He began his career in 1974 working for Sesame Street and collaborating on a number of commercials. In 1982, he joined the NFB where he made his first film, The Cat Came Back (1988). The short was a huge audience favourite and garnered 16 awards in addition to picking up an Oscar® nomination. He subsequently returned to advertising, directing commercials for major companies (Bell Canada, Nike, Coca Cola, etc.) before returning to filmmaking with Strange Invaders (2001). It turned out to be another sensational hit, winning 16 awards and receiving an Oscar® nomination. Runaway (2009), (pictured below) his third film and third collaboration with the NFB, is likewise an absurd comedy filled with latent social satire. As a filmmaker who focuses on pacing, action and narrative, Cordell Barker enjoys this particular form of expression because it enables him to make the most of his incisive sense of humour.


1- Who are your indie animation hereos and what has their work taught you?
An obvious animation hero of mine is Richard Condie (The Big Snit). His films really make the most of distilling character animation down to its simplest form. It wasn’t about the animation, it was about the timing and poses of simple cycles and strong poses. It doesn’t hurt that his ideas were also extremely funny. And that he lives in the same city as me. Another would have to be Paul Driessen (An Old Box). There was something extremely poetic in the animation and timing of his characters that were like beautifully balletic lumps of lard.

2-In your indie films, in what areas have you sought out collaboration with other creative people and why?
The only real collaboration I’ve sought out is in the audio. I’m not a musician so I have to find someone who can bring that component into the mix. This is always a difficult process as music is so abstract. You can discuss it all you want, but it’s such a flowing ephemeral thing that it can be hard to pin down. The second you hear the note played it is gone. Not like working with a graphic artist where you can sit and stare at the drawing and discuss it in concrete terms. With a musician you can discuss endlessly and never be sure that you’re talking about the same thing. Also, I have a very strong sense of what I want musically, but since I’m not a musician, I can’t adequately describe it or play it in any way. This is obviously very unfair on the musician. Now that’s for the musician. As for the sound designer, that’s a whole different story. Working with the sound designer is a much more concrete process where I have a complete involvement. I really love fully immersing myself in this part. I think I might be a bit of a control freak.

3-Is there a secret to good communication with your collaborators?
I’m not sure there’s any secret to collaboration. The one thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t work to settle on something so that everyone can get along and stay friendly. It doesn’t serve the film. Often in the past, on a commercial job, to be the nice guy I would say “sure that works”, even though I didn’t feel it was 100% right. And then invariably it would bite me in the ass later. A client would notice that it didn’t work quite right and I would cringe because I let it go, knowing it was wrong. So, I’ve learned that to be a director, you have to be willing to be the bad guy. You have to keep asking for changes even when you now it’s wearing down the other guy – because you’re the one that has to live with your film the rest of your life. Everyone else is ultimately just a hired contributor that doesn’t have the same depth of investment of time and commitment as you.

4-Do indie animation directors get stereotyped as comedy or action or etc?
And, if so, does that have a negative impact on one's industry career? And, what can be done about it? I think any stereo-typing that goes on in indie filmmaking is completely self imposed. By definition and indie filmmaker is creating his own project that he/she can guide along to their hearts content. If I wanted to make a serious film, I could just decide to do it and that would be it. Trouble is, I’m trapped by my own sensibilities.

5-What part of directing animation gives you the most satisfaction?
The greatest satisfaction in the animation process for me is the timing of the animation, after the agony of completing the drawings. Also, the editing is fun. Timing the shots and cutting frames here and there can really bring the film alive. And maybe the most satisfying of all is working with the sound designer. It’s amazing how much the sound can make or break a film, and the pleasant part of the sound design is how rapidly it all goes together. The animation can take years and the sound can be a matter of a couple of weeks.

6-What methods have been the most effective in giving notes and feedback to your animators (assuming you do this)? And, what has not worked so well, and why?
Generally I just talk to them. But sometimes I’ll take their Quicktime linetest and put it into Adobe AfterEffects where I can cut up their linetest and affect the timing. I can even cut up the body of the character to alter timing of various body parts within the action of a single character. If it gets too complicated, though, it falls back to a face to face conversation, or I will sketch over their keys with a very crude drawing that captures the general shape of what I’m after. I never worry about the details. In fact, I usually have to beg my assistants to stop putting in so much detail on initial drawings.

More fun on the tracks from Cordell Barker, pictured in this still from The Cat Came Back.

7-Where did you learn your sense of timing, acting, staging, and storytelling that is so essential in directing animation?
I’m not so sure I really learned any of this stuff from an outside source. A lot of it is innate. Either you have it or you don’t. It’s a matter of being able to look at things a certain way, having a certain sensibility and having a specific sense of rhythm. You, of course, have to experiment with it all for it to float to the surface, but if you don’t have these abilities within you, I think you could fight and struggle with it forever.

8- What has watching your films play to audience taught you, that you would not have discovered otherwise?
Watching with an anonymous audience is the only real reaction you get. When I’m finishing production of a film I never get any feedback of any kind from anyone. It’s only ever complete strangers that seem to give an honest reaction. And it is immensely satisfying to hear an audience react to a specific moment in my film by laughing on cue. That’s the advantage of trying to make a funny film – if it works you actually get a quantifiable reaction – an audible laugh. That’s why making an intended funny film is such a difficult project - If you don’t get the laugh, the moment just hangs there and you feel like a failure.

9- Besides your indie films, what other goals would you like to achieve in your career in animation?
I’ve always wondered how I would fare making a feature film. A huge jump from a short film to a feature, but in many ways making a concise short is probably more difficult. You don’t have the screen time to elaborate on an idea in a short film so the need to be super concise is unrelenting.

10- What is your secret to sticking with an indie film through to completion?
This is a tough one. I’m not sure how I keep going. I think maybe it’s a bit of ego. I define myself by my previous successes so my ego drives me forward to achieve the same success, which is the gateway to the next level – whatever that might me. But that being said, when I look back on runaway, I’m not sure how I got through it because that film was the toughest slogging I’ve ever done.

A still from Strange Invaders.

Hiatus Extended

In the meantime, Happy (belated) Father's Day to all the dads out there!

Hiatus

ANIMONDAYS is on hiatus until June 20. See you soon!

The Changing Face of NY Animation

Above image from Ugly Americans, a series for Comedy Central, now in season two production at Augenblick Animation.

A few factors have contributed to a recent shift in NYC animation TV series production. Since the early 70s, the local industry has been dominated by projects for preschoolers or children. From Sesame Street to The Wonder Pets, this trend lasted nearly four decades. While there has been other animation made for different audiences in the big apple during this span of time, such as commercials, specials, industrials, etc., series work is unique in that it tends to employ the largest amount of people for the longest period of time.

The preschool/children’s series work was dominant for so long that many generations of local talent cut their teeth on that work, probably forever changing the nature of their careers as well as the direction of their artistic and filmic growth. Working on animated projects for such a young audience has its pros and cons. The benefits are honing your skills in the service of clear staging, creating readable actions, and learning how to telegraph the story point or curriculum needs scene to scene. Along the way, you try to make the animation as entertaining and engaging as possible, despite the limitations of the genre. The negatives to working on series for young audiences is the overly-simplified film language, lack of any real distinct characterizations to base interesting or diverse animated performances on, and the stifling even-pacing of the storytelling. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing about animation for young audiences that requires or necessitates these defects. These weaknesses just happen to be in most of the series work being produced today.

While dominating the local industry for so long, it seems like NYC’s days as a center of preschool/children’s animation are coming to a close. This happened because of a few factors. The first was the economic crisis of 2008 and recession that followed it, both of which created less series work, period. The second factor was the risky business model of studios organized around the visions of single creators acting as their own idea-bank, and depending on their gifts as creators and salespeople to keep workstations occupied in expensive Manhattan studios. No matter how gifted a creator is at inventing and selling shows, the very nature of the entertainment business ensures (at best) interruptions in workflow. The disruption, halt of production, or complete business failure at some of these studios devoted to preschool works helped set the stage for the next era of NY Animation.

While the single creator-run studio has proven a flawed business model, the studios set up to produce other creator’s works (not just their own brainchilds) are thriving. In this category are Augenblick Animation (producing Ugly Americans), Titmouse East (producing Super Jail, The Venture Bros. etc.), and Curious Pictures (producing Team Umizoomi). It's noteworthy that the surviving productions and new series work is (more often than not), geared towards the older “Adult Swim” audience. At present time, Team Umizoomi is the only large-scale preschool/children’s series being fully produced in New York. With Sesame English (a massive 3-year animated project) drawing to a close, and The Electric Company having recently wrapped, it’s hard to see signs of life in the preschool/children’s animation scene.


Adding to the trend of adult animation being made in the Big Apple is a new series I’m directing for the Adult Swim series, Tight Bros., which is produced by Clambake Animation, a Boston-based studio who’s in house crew of storyboard artists, character designers, background artists, sound designers, and editors are augmented by my New York-based team of six local animators.


Not since the hay day of MTV Animation of the 1990s have this many adult oriented projects been in production in this city, and now, with overall reduced series activity––effectively diminishing preschool/childrens’ projects, this is probably the first time that animation for an older audience has dominated local production.

I can’t say that this trend will stick. Who knows what is around the corner? Newer platforms for animation such as podcasts, apps, and broadband channels will likely have an effect, and it’s likely to grow opportunities for diverse new areas of animation. Ipad apps seem particularly suitable for youngish educational projects, but the question is, will those projects ever have the budgets or staff akin to a traditional series production?

No matter what the future holds, today NY animation is in the grip of a different kind of animation. For the first time animation graduates are cutting their teeth on Adult animated projects with the potential to spend much of their career on such productions. I think that’s cause for celebration. Super Jail is an inventively animated show, all of it hand drawn. The Venture Bros. features sophisticated and cinematic storylines and complex characters. Ugly Americans features a style that Variety writer Brian Lowry described as “vaguely resembling EC Comics of the 1950s.” Whatever your opinion on Adult Swim-style content, there’s no doubt that these projects offer a more expansive playground to the animation artist. I can't see how that could be a bad thing for the future of NY animation.

Observations on The Animation Thesis Process and Student Mission Statements

Since it’s graduation time there’s a lot of animation student thesis films in the air. Even though all the local animation schools have their own culture and methods of teaching animation, they have one thing in common, which is the promotion of the idea as the animator as a filmmaker/auteur. This is why animation art students are expected to be the writer, designer, animator, and producer of their own films. Some even supply their own voices or music, expanding on their creative juggling act even further. For the students ready to do all this, it’s a great opportunity to strut their stuff. For the rest of the students it can be an uncomfortable uphill battle, at best.

I think this is a big problem with the local animation educations. How does it make sense to take a senior who is still having problems doing basic animation and require them to take on those other roles at the same time? Besides, the experience of completing your own film from start to finish in complete solitude doesn’t really prepare one for the idea of working in collaboration with other artists, a skill students will need to master if they are to build a career in animation. I think encouraged or mandatory collaboration could be the key, where small groups of students work as production units and make a film together. While that wouldn’t be without its problems or challenges, there would be a potential gain in how students could keep each other honest and hitting deadlines. The whole process could be overseen by a thesis advisor, which would help mediate any conflicts (both personal and creative) that arise. Not only could this make the quality of the films higher, it would result in better reel/portfolio samples, and (most importantly) ensure that the students learn key lessons in communication, teamwork, and production.

As the system stands now in the local schools, besides making their own films, students are also required to hand in a short mission statement concerning their vision as filmmakers. I think these are very instructive, not only to see where the students are coming from, but also as proof of how their educations in our local institutions could be improved. Looking through all the mission statements I kept coming across the words “worlds” and “universe.” For the students using this description, their attraction to animation was that it let them create unique worlds, and, or, their own universe. On the surface I get that. Animation does give its creator Deity-like powers to invent everything in an animated film, but what level of that should be in the hands of a student that has problems drawing the most basic of movement? The freedom of a thesis film puts all that responsibility squarely on the shoulders of students, whether ready to create an entire universe or not.

I also worry about the lack of standards that may go along with the “it’s my world” outlook. There’s a great potential for uneven or unfocused work under that umbrella because it makes such a great catch all excuse and defense for weak results.

The next bit that lots of the mission statements had in common was the idea that the filmmakers make work for the approval of family and friends. That is a sweet, honest, and understandable sentiment, one that is representative of the starting place for just about every animation professional. Who among us didn’t start out making films or drawings for their immediate family and friends? That truly is our first audience. It’s often a place of unconditional love and support. But, a college graduate stepping out into the world has to broaden their horizons because he/she will put out next works as professionals ready for professional critique. Once a part of the industry, there is a new set of standards, ones that are much more critical and objective. I’m still trying to learn how to better take criticism from my peers and mentors and I’m 37 years old! I'm proof it can take time to truly get to the stage where you’re ready to hear a real critique of your work; so don’t put that off longer than necessary!

On a very positive note, many of the mission statements demonstrated a desire to become a link in animation's collective chain, to honor the past by trying to create worthy works for today's and future audiences. That's a powerful and primal motivation for doing art, reminding me of the bridge between eons of humanity you experience in Wernor Herzog's new documentary feature "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," (pictured above).

ASIFA-East

The Best in Show of ASIFA-East's 2011 Animation Festival, Andy Kennedy's "Accumulonimbus." How cool that the Best in Show went to an experimental film made by a young filmmaker new to entering our festival!

"Backwards," Last year's Best in Show from the ASIFA-East Animation Festival, another victory for new blood in this win by fresh talents' Aaron Hughes and Lisa Labracio.

The Rauch Bros. and the subjects of their 2009 Best in Show win from the ASIFA-East Animation Festival, the lovely film Q & A. It was the second-ever short, by these young brothers.

The ASIFA-East festival reception makes a great place for animation folk of all levels and ages to come together, inspire each other, and foster important relationships. This photo by Joe Bluhm, depicting a typical cluster of activity around Mr. Bill Plympton.

Many a time at an ASIFA-East board meeting, we board members have asked ourselves, “What value are we giving our members for their dues?” and, “What role or relevance does ASIFA-East play in an ever-changing media landscape where people can access so many films online and have a zillion other ways to connect and keep in touch with other without even leaving their homes?”

In some ways it’s easier to answer what ASIFA-East is not. It’s not a union, a guild, an employment office, nor an animation studio. It has no agenda other than to continue to serve the area’s animation artists, students, industry professionals of all stripes, and cartoon and film aficionados by helping foster a sense of community that goes beyond our ties to what particular studio or job we may or may not be working at month-to-month.

So, if ASIFA-East is none of those things above, and aims to serve the community, then how does it do that? Even though everyone makes his or her own experience with the organization, here’s what ASIFA-East officially offers:

-Free drawing classes to its members.
-An original and up-to-date online interactive magazine (The Exposure Sheet) that features articles, reviews, event reports, interviews, an international ASIFA report, editorials, and free advertising space. In addition, the website also lists almost every animation-related event in town, making it the only go-to place of its kind.
-Monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) free events open to both members and non-members. The April event was an evening with The Rauch Bros., presenting the behind-the-scenes story of their StoryCorps films. We also host retrospectives (such as our evening with Oscar-winning filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris), annual “Business for Animators” workshops (featuring Steven Zelin, The Singing CPA!), panels (represented recently by a “State of the Industry” night, a spotlight on the CGI/SFX/Motion Graphics community, a behind the scenes look at indie animated features in production, and coming in June: a focus on the new model of Virtual Studio production.) In the recent past, we’ve also presented evenings with such legends as Yuri Norstein, Richard Williams, Ray Harryhausen, and Bruno Bozzetto, as well as historical programs of rare cartoons curated by animation historians Jerry Beck, Greg Ford, Bill Lorenzo, and Howard Beckerman. Additionally, each year we program a specific international-flavored event to coincide with International Animation Day in October.
-E-mail blasts and Twitter feed to members, reminding them of upcoming events or spreading timely news and important updates.
-A “Friends of ASIFA-East” Facebook group, which helps spread information and tally expected head counts for our monthly events through invites.
-Funds permitting, we throw a kick-ass post-holiday party, such as the one we held in January at Gonzalez Y Gonzalez in downtown Manhattan. Members got in free, and guests could enjoy all they could eat and drink for the small donation of $5. This is the type of thing we’d love to be able to afford to do every year, but, as we need to be fiscally responsible, it’s not always in our means.

Besides the monthly events, drawing classes, services, and occasional parties, there are two annual events designed to make sure members and non-members have a chance to get their work screened. The first option is free, requires no submission process, and is simply a great opportunity to screen some of your animation; be it your latest reel, a pencil test you made that morning, a work-in-progress indie short, a student film, etc. We call this our “Open Screening” and it traditionally falls in September or October so we can be sure the maximum amount of students can attend and enjoy this forum. It’s a popular event with a lovely spirit, with the audience often asking the filmmaker questions about his or her work.

The other opportunity to have your work screened at ASIFA-East comes in the form of an official competition where there is a submission fee (monies collected directly pay for the festival venue, event insurance, and, of course, the food, wine, beer, etc., for the reception). The festival generally represents the local Eastern United States animation area (mainly the tri-state area, dominated by entries from NYC simply because the city is the area's main animation hub), but we have had regular submissions from Vermont to Florida, and some additional entries from the West Coast and Canada. Our entry form is available to the public for five weeks each year (end of January through February) as a downloadable pdf, and is sent to members in hard-copy form.

When I arrived on the ASIFA-East scene in 1995, we were getting about 80 entries a year, but these days it averages between 120-140 (it was 140 this year). Back then we viewed films in two to three evenings of screenings, but now we routinely need four. Entered films are viewed by an open jury made up of members, non-members, and board members, along with some of the filmmakers featured each night. Voting is by members only, anonymous, and in public. The voter’s names don’t appear on the ballots, and at the end everything is collected and placed in a sealed envelope and given to an independent accountant who has not seen the films, and who is not a member of ASIFA-East.

The mathematical data gets tabulated and the numbers directly pick the winners. Along with the mathematical tally, another way to ensure fairness is that the festival co-chairs (Nancy Keegan Lennert and Linda Simensky) don’t have a pony in the race, don't attend the jury screenings, and are objective in reviewing the accountant’s results. None of that is to say that it’s a perfect process, but the truth is no two people would ever (or should ever) agree on something as subjective as judging a film. You can quantify a widget and measure it in an analytical process by testing its durability and so on, but animated films are art and its natural that we should disagree on our ballots and even at the festival in terms of what made it to the screen and what did not. It's a lot like how we second guess the Oscars the next morning.

Certainly there are still many areas open for improvement, such as how to ensure an even fairer and more comfortable jury process, how many awards should be given in each category, and so on. After every festival the board gets together and tallies the feedback we’ve received along with our own opinions on how it went and we brainstorm how we can do it better next year. You can count on us giving this a top to bottom examination before the year’s end (our current season ends in June), and we look forward to sharing the plan of improvements for next year’s festival with you all.

Does ASIFA-East do enough to encourage studios and individuals to enter films so that we may have a broad enough body of entries from which to judge? We will be sure to address this, as well, in our festival post-mortem discussion. When I joined the executive board in 1995, there was no ASIFA-East website by which to spread information. We could only rely on mail. Now we spread information (including the delivery of our festival entry form) by snail mail, e-mail blasts, a Facebook group, a twitter feed, and through our website.

It would be awesome to have the broadest representation possible for our open jury to vote on and we’ll take the necessary steps to improve from where we are today. But ASIFA-East can’t hold the hand of every individual or studio that’s making animation in this region and personally make sure they enter the festival. But, you can help! Word-of-mouth within the community helps. Even better, it’s always appreciated when any blogs or websites (from small to prominent ones) help spread the word of our entry period. Since each blog or site attracts its own population of followers, it's a great way to help increase the scope of our outreach.

The festival is ASIFA-East's biggest undertaking every year and just pulling it off requires a lot of helpers and volunteers. Maybe it's a sign of our festival’s legacy or longevity that it is being discussed and critiqued as one might in a review of Annecy or Ottawa, but such a comparison is in reality incorrect. Those festivals are businesses (regardless of whether or not they make a profit) with paid employees, year-round offices, and all dependent on some amount of public arts funding to augment their survival. They are international festivals, which, by their mandate, seek work from all over the world, and because of their structure and set up, they are designed to process, review, program, and award films from a pool of thousands of entries. Part of how they can pull of such an undertaking is by having private juries, made up of 5 or so people, judging all the films.

In contrast, ASIFA-East’s festival is dependent upon a much more limited set of resources. While growing the amount of films entered in the festival would be great, we only have so many nights to view entrants, for instance. So, if we suddenly had three times the amount of films to watch, that would be a hell of a challenge to process and properly review in our open jury system. Would the member jury devote even more nights than the current four to watch everything? Or would this result in smaller jury pools spread thin over many nights of viewing? Not sure. But, since we’ve already expanded the amount of entries by almost double since 1995, perhaps we can expand even more…

Besides the planned improvements you can expect to see, clearly we can do a better job explaining who we are and what we’re doing, especially in regards to the festival. For instance, we can better explain how we adjust the festival in a substantial way almost every year. This year it was the introduction of separate categories for Music Video, Experimental, and Educational, along with creating one brand for this year’s festival so that the postcard, award certificate, and signal film (all by the talented Mr. Dan Meth) would create a more consistent experience. On top of this we relabeled the outdated “sponsored” category to the more accurate description “commissioned.”

A few years back our big innovation was to create title cards that played before each film so the audience could associate what films won what prizes, and to award one category at a time and then watch those films, making that the presentation method of the evening. The old way was to give out all the awards in one batch at the top of the festival and then screen the films sans any reminder of what they won. That system was a holdover from the early days of our festival where things were entered on film, making it very difficult or expensive to consider inserting award listings between the films. The ASIFA-East festival has always been a work-in-progress with changes small and large seeding in over the years.

On, the question, “Why do we do the festival?” We think this is an important tradition to carry on. Unlike Ottawa, Annecy, and other big animation festivals, the ASIFA-East festival is a festival put on BY the community and FOR the community. ASIFA-East is not the “other.” We, and our members, are one and the same. We may be board members of ASIFA-East donating our time and sweat to continue this event, but we are also part of the community, and because of that we too enter our films into competition and subject ourselves to the same jury process as any entrant. This is the natural occurrence of a festival that strives to reflect the community that it serves without any deliberate exclusion. The board members of ASIFA-East are representative of the same local industry of artists, craftspeople, and filmmakers, and win and lose at the festival just like anyone else. If you count our board of director’s numbers (not all of whom vote in every night of jury screenings) we are five to nine ballots out of a crowd of voters numbering 50 to 85 or more night-to-night.

Michael Sporn, longtime ASIFA-East board member had this to say on the question of the festival's purpose at his blog, explaining how the organization would be effected by disqualifying the board from being able to enter films: "If board members (all 9 of them) weren’t allowed to enter their films, there would be fewer board members since they do a lot of work for no pay, and if they weren’t allowed to enter the films in the festival there would be a reason for them not to volunteer to be on the board and do all the hard, necessary work. This is very different from the awards given out of ASIFA Hollywood. ASIFA East is a small group in New York and should be recognized as such."

Yet, as flawed as the current jury system may be (The ASIFA-East board still argues amongst ourselves about festival results from 10 years ago!), it's very gratifying that we can point to the fact that the last 3 Best in Show awards (see stills at the top of this post) were won by new-comers, most of whom are not even five years into their careers. But if that's inconclusive, how about this fact: the Best in Show winner from the 39th festival (see image below) was Arthur Metcalf's "Fantaisie in Bubblewrap," a student film!


Then there's 2003's Best in Show winner "Bathtime in Clerkenwell" made by a total outsider to the scene, Aleksey Budovskiy, who had been working as an electrician (see image below). I would suggest that this offers evidence that the system isn't ALL bad and that the member jury is open and ready to recognize great work no matter where it comes from or what name is attached to it. So, whatever improvements we'll try with the jury process, we probably shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.


This festival is first and foremost a celebration of the art of animation. There’s no admission cost to attend the festival, there’s plenty of free food and drink for everyone, and there’s no pressure to become a member. There’s no cash, college scholarships, Oscar-qualification, or new cars awarded as prizes. Winners get a paper certificate, the applause of the audience, and another screening of their film at the awards ceremony. Probably most importantly, the winners get a public nod by winning a prize awarded by their peers. Whatever the winners do with that boost is up to them. Maybe it encourages them to make more films. Maybe it helps attract new clients. Whatever the case, it’s nice to be in the show because it means an open jury process selected your film as having merit.

ASIFA-East makes ZERO profit from the show (or from anything we do, for that matter), and it’s in our bylaws that any venue that screens our festival (such as other ASIFA chapters like our friends ASIFA Atlanta and ASIFA San Francisco) must be free and open to the public. That’s very unlike most festivals, which charge the public for tickets and compile a winner’s reel to sell or rent to other venues. Hopefully this helps explain the difference between our chapter’s festival and the international festivals it has been incorrectly compared to.

In this post I tried to explain what ASIFA-East does year-to-year for its membership of about 300, while also offering many services to non members alike (some of whom choose to become members eventually to support what we’re doing). I won’t always be president, just as the current board of directors won’t always hold the positions they do right now. We’re just the current and faithful caretakers of an institution that was here before us and will be here after we’ve passed the baton to someone else. Meanwhile, each year we pick up a couple of new board members, which helps us continue to add fresh thinking to the mix.

I owe ASIFA-East a massive debt of personal gratitude. It has been for 10 years (and continues to be) an honor to serve as its president, if only to try to repay the organization that not only helped me get my first footing in the industry, but, more importantly, has given all of us the immeasurable resource of a community. It makes me happy to know I’m not the only one who has this relationship with ASIFA-East. And how lucky are we that besides ASIFA-East, we have other great groups such as Women In Children’s Media, Women in Animation, ACM SIGGRAPH, as well as newer institutions such as The Animation Block Party and Midsummer Night Toons III, and The Big Screen Project to bring us all together to celebrate each other and the art form we all hold so dear.

Two Weeks in Review

Director David B. Levy, Director Frederick Marx, and moderator Christopher Ramsey, during the Q & A at the Florida Film Festival. "Grandpa" played before Frederick Marx's (Hoop Dreams) new feature "Journey From Zanskar." Photo by Lance Turner

It was an important two weeks, so, of course, I caught a cold. The current spree began a couple of weekends ago when I jetted down to the Florida Film Festival where my “Grandpa” short competed in the doc shorts festival. This festival has a great reputation among animators who have attended over the years. Upon arrival at the Festival’s main location at the lovely Enzian Theatre, I learned almost every volunteer was already familiar with my film, so it was easy to feel welcome and at home. To top it all off, a tropical mural designed by Bill Plympton (see detail below) adorns the walls surrounding the Enzian’s outdoor “Eden” bar.

I’m a late bloomer as an independent filmmaker, so my “Grandpa” short marks the first time I’m entering and getting into film festivals other than ones themed to animation or children’s’ content. The benefit of this is a chance to comingle with a different set of people from the larger communities of narrative and documentary live action shorts and features. That wouldn’t have been a desirable thing to me ten years ago, but now I really appreciate how important it is to have diverse contacts in different areas of film, TV, and the Web. When I was recently discussing this with Mike Rauch, he agreed, adding, “When you meet these live action filmmakers, you become their connection to animation, and they think of you for any of those needs that might come up.”

At the Florida Film Festival, my short opened for a feature (which Bill Plympton tells me is the more desirable way to be programmed, as opposed to being stuck into a batch of shorts). The feature was the new documentary by Frederick Marx (one of the director’s behind “Hoop Dreams,”) called “Journey From Zanskar,” which depicted a trek of Tibetan Monks trying to lead a group of poor village children on a dangerous and spiritual journey to begin new lives training to become Buddhist Monks and Nuns. I met Frederick just before our screening and he told me he was going to stay for my short and then come back for the Q and A. His film was magnificent, and opening for it was tremendous honor. I was blown away that Frederick loved my film too. In fact, we asked each other questions about our respective films during the Q and A!

At a festival, there seems to be great people to meet around every corner. Before I even got to the festival grounds, I shared a ride to the hotel with another filmmaker, Brooklyn-based Vaishali Sinha, who was there to represent her feature documentary (made with producer and co-director Rebecca Haimowitz), “Made in India.” In fact, when I signed in at the festival, the volunteers joked that every filmmaker attending the festival was either from L.A. or Brooklyn. How about that! I wasn’t able to attend Vaishali’s screening, but Debbie (who had flown down to join me at the fest mid-way) and I were so happy when she won the award for Best feature doc at the fest, something that qualifies her and Rebecca for a possible Academy Award nomination! Her film will be screening in the Big Apple at the NY Indian Film Festival, so I have another chance to check it out soon. Another feature doc at the fest was by Lawrence Johnson, a very affable fellow from Portland Oregon, whose film “Stuff,” won a special jury prize at the Festival. He gave me a DVD screener, which I can't wait to check out.

As soon as I got back to NY, my animation team started on the Adult Swim series I’m directing for Boston’s Clambake Animation. Incidentally, I found that the Adult Swim credit had a lot of cache in the film world. Most of the filmmakers I met were aware of that “brand,” and the feeling seemed to be one of respect, knowing that Adult Swim can stand for offbeat animated projects for a cult audience. Animation producer Claire Curley (The Electric Company) once told me, “The best time to promote yourself is when you’re already under contract.” This means that when you have projects going on it’s all the more important to be making the rounds of self-promotion. This way you have the opportunity to capitalize on what you’re doing, by using your current projects to grow your next opportunities.

A still from "Grandpa Looked Like William Powell"

The next week I was promoting “Grandpa” at another festival, this time at Tribeca (right in my home town), where I was competing again in the doc shorts category. Just getting into festivals makes your self-promotion plans easier. Agents, distributors, and other festivals scour the listings of the Tribeca festival (and other festivals). This can lead to invitations to enter other fests (sans fees), as well as offers of representation and distribution, all of which happened to me during my two weeks at the Tribeca Festival. What any of that will amount to, I have no idea. But, it’s nice to have these new opportunities. Festivals are not the be and end all to determine what is good or worthy, but there’s no denying the boost they offer to participating filmmakers.

During the Q and A following the premiere of "Open 24 Hours" a program of 8 shorts at the Tribeca Film Festival. From left to right: Me, Joe DeRosa, Phil Botti, and Vinz Feller.

As an animator entering the Florida Film Festival, Tribeca, Atlanta Film Festival, or The Athens International Film Festival, it was neat to realize that I was a complete nobody in their eyes. I’d never even entered a film in these fests before, so when they saw some merit in “Grandpa” it was not based on how the film compared to my usual work or personal standards. The film had to make it or sink on its own.

Between Tribeca’s nightly parties, and five screenings of my film, there was ample opportunity to meet and connect with many other filmmakers, writers, actors, and producers. Tribeca programmed my film to be the only animated short (or doc) playing with a selection of 7 live action narrative shorts. The first five films were heavy dramatic pieces full of family tension and angst. One was “Storm up the Sky” by Jon Kauffman, who had previously worked as Darren Aronofsky’s assistant on “Black Swan.” Two other favorites of mine were comedic films “Loose Change” by Phil Botti (who’s day job is working at Atlantic Records), and “Cheat” by comedian Joe DeRosa. Through the latter film I got to meet several comics whom appreciated the humor in my film.

Sharon Badal, head programmer of the Tribeca shorts told me that “Grandpa” was used as a transitional film in the program to bridge from drama to comedy. Between Sharon, and Shorts Programmer Ben Thompson, we were in good hands. At one point during a Q and A helmed by Ben Thompson, an audience member asked us a very general question about distribution outlets. Ben briefly and politely answered the question before asking if there were any questions about the actual films screened. All of us filmmakers standing there very much appreciated his savvy handling of the situation.

During the awards party Debbie and I happened to meet Ryan Silbert, who had produced this year’s Oscar winning live action short “God of Love.” I really dug that short when I saw it at the short list Oscar voting, and I was thrilled when it won the Oscar because, so often, comedies don’t get the recognition they deserve. Ryan has capitalized on the Academy Award by starting a production company called Toy Closet Films, with a business partner. Similarly, Jon Kauffman is readying a feature script to ride the momentum of “Black Swan” and his Tribeca short. It was infectious being around all these amazing people for two weeks. I even managed to meet an animator or two, in Canadians Felix Dufour-Laperriere (his film was the experimental “Strips”), and Jordan Canning (“Not Over Easy,” which was part of the fest’s animation shorts program). Felix told me his current job is making an animated film at the legendary Canadian Film Board. I jokingly asked him if Paul Driessen was there, and he replied, “Yes, I say hello to him every morning!”

Smack in the middle of all this Tribeca business, I had to miss one of my screening nights to attend the launch of the book I co-authored with Bill Plympton at NY’s Society of Illustrators. At the “standing room only” event, Bill asked me to say a few words about our collaboration and, afterwards, join him at the table to co-sign the books. Actor Matthew Modine was in attendance too (he’s provided voices on two of Bill’s recent short films), and he revealed that he almost became an animator because of an obsession he had with the Fleischer Popeye’s as a kid. Among the other attendees were famous New Yorker cartoonists’ Sam Gross and Mort Gerberg.

If I'm beaming, its because I'm standing next to two of my biggest heroes in the whole world: Bill Plympton and Howard Beckerman.

This was the kind of two weeks it has been: my usual animation world opening up to include new experiences with players in the world of live action film, illustration, cartooning, and beyond. But, on Sunday Night May 1st, it became all about animation again with the ASIFA-East Animation Festival! During all this hustle I thankfully found some time to beat back my cold, but, unfortunately, before I could, I passed it along to Debbie. But, thankfully the common cold was the only damper on two weeks of fun, inspiration, and free drinks.

I never thought I’d write a book with Bill Plympton, make a short that got into Tribeca, or have a gig directing a series for Adult Swim. But, that’s what’s interesting about a career. Who knows where anything leads? One thing is certain: the steps we take today, however small and spread out, are taking us somewhere... Not knowing the exact where and when is half the fun!