Artist

Animation history – Joel Adams interview

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Joel Adams is an artist who worked on character designs for King of the Hill. He’s worked on numerous other character design and animation projects and we talked about his work, inspirations, and the state of character design work today.

0:30 – Joel talks about his work as lead character designer for King of the Hill and other work.

He talks about how he got into the artwork business.

3:00 – Joel talks about King of the Hill and how he designed characters. He gets into the process of character design.

5:53 – Joel talks about his favorite comic characters.

7:26 – Joel talks about the rules that apply when designing characters.

9:30 – Joel talks about his other projects.

13:30 – Joel talks about what inspired various King of the Hill characters.

16:40 – Joel talks about recent changes in character design. Technology changes and style changes.

23:45 – Joel can be found on JoelAdamsart.com.

Links of interest

http://joeladamsart.com/

For more of “Science Fiction and the Fantastic Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Joel Adams

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: animation, character design, King of the Hill, Incredible Hulk, Tarzan, X-Men, Batman, Burroughs, Power Rangers, fifth element, captain america, marvel

Animation history book – “Eat, Drink, Animate” (CRC Press, 2019) – Tom Sito interview

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Tom Sito has been a film animator for decades and has worked on some of Disney’s biggest films. He teaches animation and is also a member of the Motion Picture Academy where he is also works in the short films and animation division. He’s written a cookbook that collects together various recipes from animators that Tom has known, met or simply admired.

2:02 – Tom talks about how he came about to write the animators’ recipes cookbook.

5:20 – Tom talks about how animators incorporated food in their animation.

8:19 – Tom talks about the history of computer animation.

11:30 – Tom talks about the theater experience versus seeing a movie on a small screen.

14:03 – Tom talks about what new computer animation techniques are being developed.

18:10 – Tom talks about animation cinematography.

24:37 – Tom talks about experimentation in short films.

27:13 – Tom talks about Japanese animation and other international animated films.

30:15 – Tom talks about computer animated film budgets.

46:29 – Tom talks about mixing live-action and animation. They’re referred to as hybrid films.

48:30 – Tom talks about stop-motion animation.

54:04 – Tom talks about the proliferation of short films. He also discusses how people can have success getting their short films seen for notice or awards.

1:00:10 – Tom talks about possible major changes in computer animation.

1:03:32 – Tom was a website at tomsito.com

 

Links of interest

https://www.crcpress.com/Eat-Drink-Animate-An-Animators-Cookbook/Sito/p/book/9780815399766

http://anim.usc.edu/faculty/tom-sito/

 

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Tom Sito

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: art, artist, disney, chapman, clampett, chef, chili recipe, chasons, fantasia, how to train your dragon, toy story, Ridley Scott, Bladerunner, Duellists, light, storyboard, manga, Russian animation, Chinese animation, India, samurai jack, burton, harryhausen, jurassic park, cameron, speilberg, film festivals, Simpsons

Disney animation history – “Drawing the Line” (University Press of Kentucky, 2006) – Tom Sito interview

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Tom Sito has been a film animator for decades and has worked on some of Disney’s biggest films. He’s written a book on Disney history based on interviews with Disney animators who were working there during the 1941 strike and we spoke about the book.

2:15 – Tom Sito talks about his animation career with Disney Studios. He explains how he ended up writing this book on the Disney strike of 1941.

4:00 – Tom talks about the layout of the book and how animation works.

7:03 – The book covers labor issues from the early days through modern day.

9:00 – The labor movement in animation caused changes in how animation was produced. UPA represents some of these changes.

15:14 – Tom talks about animators approached being in unions.

20:20 – Tom used 75 first person interviews and archives for the book research. He also knows the Disney family and they liked the book.

22:30 – The history involves the mob and communists. The Disney strike was one of the few without violence.

24:30 – The most dramatic day of the strike was the first day the picket line went up. The depression was still happneing for many people on that May 1941 day.

32:45 – The studios would use off-duty LA police to break up strikes. The mob coulnd’t make inroads into LA because the LA police would rough up mobsters who came into town.

38:00 – Tom talks about Don Bluth and how he left Disney and formed Don Bluth Studios in competition with Disney.

41:44 – Tom talks about Jakob Kirtzberg who left animation after a strike and went into comic books under the name Jack Kirby.

42:54 – Tom talks about the importance of the book among animators.

49:24 – Tom talks about the animation revival in the 1980s and 1990s.

50:35 – Tom talks about computer animation and its early development and rise. Flight simulators were a big part of this development.

57:30 – Tom talks about special effects used in 2001.

1:01:26 – He has a website at tomsito.com.

 

Links of interest

Tomsito.com

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Tom Sito

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: art, artist, animation, Disney, los angeles police, mobsters, mob, communists, UPA, studios, Hollywood, Snow White and the seven dwarves, Don Bluth, Don Bluth studios, marvel comics, Jack Kirby, Paramount studios, Star Trek, Genesis effect, 2001, special effects, cookbooks,