I've been fortunate enough to be able to attend the Ottawa International Animation Festival 4 years running. The festival bills itself as the largest in North America and the second largest in the world and for the most part I can see why. Anime, for instance, barlely makes any waves. The festival seems to pride itself on original international independent work. It's a really great festival for the most part with the only caveat I have being the lack of new feature stuff. They tried to rectify that this year with the first ever feature competition but unfortunately there's nothing new there - Waking Life, Powerpuff Girls for example. The festival tends to focus on shorts but this is where it really shines. Every year there's always several shorts that blow me away. But I digress...
One of the retrospectives this year was on John Krisfaluci. After the screening it was announced that John K himself was in attendence (no surprise, he is a local boy after all) and that he was going to take QA from the audience. After an extremely funny selection of John K. classics like Log (It's better than bad. It's good!), Boo Boo runs wild (Yogi and Boo Boo in some decidely adult situations) and of course some Ren & Stimpy, the man walked to stage to answer a few questions and to talk about animation in general.
He started off by saying how animation schools suck and if you wanted to become an animator you should "learn how to draw". My favourite part of the QA was hearing John K talk about his encounters with animation legends. He would even re-enact conversations he had with people like Ralph Bakshi and Bob Clampett, mimicking their voices. I find it really intersting when two different generations meet and discuss their craft. John mentioned that he was going to try and time his future cartoons according to orginally scored music, a technique perfected by those WB guys in the 50's like Clampett and Chuck Jones but has become a lost art.
John K also said something really interesting about an upcoming Ren & Stimpy feature film. I had heard about this possibility before but I didn't know anything about it. He said they're still coming up with the story but that the idea was to make it a film noir. The crowd went nuts.
The John K. Retorspective is playing again on Saturday if anyone wants to see it. Not sure if there'll be a QA after that one or not though.
Later,
Yossarian
I want more! I want info on the upcoming REN & STIMPY revival on TNN! I want to know about THE RIPPING FRIENDS! I need more Spumco! NOW!!
"Moriarty" out.
