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Week with the masters
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Toonz Animation India will host the annual `Week With the Masters' Animation Celebrations from November 4 to 7. The programme will see animation masters from across the world flock to the city.
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TOONZ ANIMATION India will host the fourth `Week with the Masters' Animation Celebrations from November 4 to 7 at Technopark, near here.
The event will provide an opportunity for veterans in the field of animation to interact with filmmakers and animation enthusiasts from India and other countries.
Animation masters such as Paul Driessen, Joel Slayton, Jimmy T. Murakami and Wendy Tilby and Sanjit Ghosh will take part in this year's celebrations. The founder of AnimAction, Clifford Cohen, and veteran producer John Cary are also expected.
The first Toonz `Week with the Masters' was celebrated in November 1999 soon after the inauguration of the company. The invitees that year included Rob Coleman, animation director of `Star Wars 3 - The Phantom Menace', Ishu Patel, Derek Lamb, Jeff Hale and others. The second `Week With the Masters' was held a year later and those present included David Fine, Will Vinton, R. G. Blechman and Bill Plympton.
The third `Week With the Masters' in 2001 saw animation greats such as Will Ryan, Jerry Beck and Christine Panushka come to Thiruvananthapuram.
Here's a profile of this year's invitees:
Wendy Tilby -- A visiting lecturer in Animation at Harvard University, Tilby has directed `Strings' (1991) and `When the Day Breaks' (1999), which were nominated for the Academy Award for the best animated short film. `When the Day Breaks' received the Palme d'Or for the best short film at the Cannes international film festival, the Grand Prix at the International Animated Film festival at Annecy, and the Gold Hugo Award at the International Film Festival, Chicago. Tilby studied film and animation at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design at Vancouver in Canada. She began her career with a student film, `Table of Contents', which received the Grand Prix de Montreal at the Montreal World Film festival.
Paul Driessen -- A native of Holland, Paul Driessen trained in graphic design and illustration. He began his career in animation doing commercials. In 1967, he worked on the Beatles' animated film, `Yellow Submarine'. He moved to Canada in the 1970s and joined the National Film Board. His films include `Cat's Cradle' (1974), `An Old Box' (1975), `Oh What a Knight', and `The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg', which was nominated for a Genie Award. `The End of the World in Four Seasons' was the best short film at the 1995 World Film festival. Driessen's 1999 film, `3 Misses', was nominated for the Oscar for the best-animated short film. He received the lifetime achievement award from the International Association of Animated Films in 1994.
Jimmy T. Murakami -- The co-founder of Murakami Wolf Films, he has produced and directed theatrical shorts, documentary films, TV specials and commercials. He has directed films such as `Battle Beyond the Stars' (1980), a post-Star Wars intergalactic war movie. `Murakami's `When the Wind Blows' is about the disruption in the idyllic life of a retired couple in rural England caused by a nuclear war. He has also directed `Raymond Briggs' The Bear/The Animal Train', based on the popular children's book by Briggs, and the `Christmas Carol - The Movie'.
Joel Slayton -- Joel Slayton is an internationally recognised artist, writer and theoretician. He is professor of Digital Media Art at San Jose State University where he serves as director of CADRE Laboratory for New Media. CADRE is one of the oldest academic centres in the U.S. dedicated to the exploration of digital forms of art. Slayton is regarded as a pioneer in digital media and his media installations, performances and print works have been featured in exhibitions all over the globe and published in over 50 publications.
Clifford Cohen -- Clifford Cohen is the founder and president of AnimAction, which gives young people the opportunity to develop their creativity and address social issues through the medium of animation. Cohen has successfully produced and directed 1,000 `Awareness through Animation' workshops across the world, including aboriginal communities in Canada and schools in the U.S., Europe and Asia. His workshops deal with subjects such as tobacco use prevention, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and media literacy.
John Cary -- John Cary is an award-winning producer and veteran animation professional. John has produced a number of short films, commercials and animated series in a 30-year-long career. He began as an editor on the `The Addams Family' in 1973. He moved to BBC, worked on a host of programmes, founded the British Animation Training Scheme, sat on the Guild of British Animation and was a production consultant for S 4C Television for their series on Shakespeare, `The Animated Tales', `The Bible in Animation', `The Canterbury Tales' and their feature film, `The Miracle Maker'. In 1998, he brought to screen 52 new episodes of `Adventures of Captain Pugwash', which won an Indy Award, and `Katya the Nutcracker' for ITV. He is director (European marketing), Toonz.
Sanjit Ghosh -- Sanjit Ghosh founded the contemporary puppet group, Little Puppet Theatre, in 1976. `Birpurush' and `Alibaba' have been some of their productions. Sanjit created the puppet animation, `Potli Baba Ki', shown on Doordarshan a few years ago, and `Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen'. He has successfully experimented with Life and Puppet characters for `Pinocchio'. He is currently working on `Panchatantra' for the ETV Network.
Also present at the festival will be veteran animator Ram Mohan, Nina Sabnani of National School of Design, Prakash Moorthy (animation film designer), Atul Rao (story editor) and Sudhir Mathur (global head, Aptech).
Open forums will also be held during the three-day festival. These will cover a range of topics from 2-D animation to 3-D animation. `Making the Transition' will focus on the current shift from traditional cel animation to digital techniques. `Creating Indigenous Programming' will discuss ways of generating world-class animation in India. `Animation: Education and Training' will discuss a host of educational subjects such as the role of technology in nurturing creativity.
R. K. ROSHNI
Graphics: Manoj
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