It's not for a while yet, but why not plop this event right into your calendar now so you don't forget. Nina will be there to speak about the film and her experiences in the production and distribution, which are verrrrry interesting.
SITA SINGS THE BLUES
Screening of the film and a conversation with filmmaker Nina Paley.
Time/Date: April 4, 2011, 6pm Location: SMG Auditorium; 595 Commonwealth Ave., first floor auditorium, Boston, MA, 02215 MAP
Boston University's Program for Scripture and the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Distinguished Teaching Professorship welcome filmaker Nina Paley to Boston University. On April 4 we will present a showing of the groundbreaking animated film Sita Sings the Blues, followed by a conversation with the filmmaker.
Sita Sings the Blues was written, directed, produced and animated by American artist Paley, and weaves an autobiographical story with events from the Hindu scriptural text the Ramayana. The feature length film uses music, shadow puppets and novel animation techniques to re-imagine the artist's experience through the lens of the god Rama's wife, Sita.
This is a RE-BLOG of a post on Brian Carpenter's site. Brian is the brilliant composer/arranger/musician that has crafted the musical score for Lorelei Pepi's film (in production) "Happy & Gay."
Friday December 17, 2010 Ghost Train Orchestra Barbes 376 9th Avenue Brooklyn NY 10:00pm (2 sets)
Friday January 21, 2011 Ghost Train Orchestra Barbes 376 9th Avenue Brooklyn NY 10:00pm (2 sets)
Post by Brian Carpenter on November 19, 2010 9:34 AM
I've recently been preparing arrangements for a short set of early American cartoon music the Ghost Train Orchestra will perform on Friday December 17th and Friday January 21st at Barbes in Brooklyn. Raymond Scott and Carl Stalling are two of the composers most often associated with cartoon music, although there were many others -- Scott Bradley and Sammy Timberg, to name two other notables. Irwin Chusid, the man perhaps most responsible for bringing Raymond Scott to the public eye over the last two decades, sent me some of the original charts for sextet. Scott did not compose his music for cartoons but his music was often quoted by Carl Stalling in his scores to Looney Tunes cartoons of the '40s and '50s. I've been fascinated with Carl Stalling's work ever since the days of watching Looney Tunes on Saturday mornings as a kid, maybe without knowing it at an early age. My score for Lorelei Pepi's film Happy and Gay was inspired by Stalling's work for animator Ub Iwerks. For the 12/17 performance, I've added guitarist Danny Blume (who is a huge fan of Carl Stalling's work in particular) and bassist Joe Fitzgerald, to join the regular cast of GTO. Hope you'll come see us perform this unique music.
The Film-Animation area of the SMFA will be hosting the evening screening of the Punto y Raya Festival, this Tuesday Nov. 30 at 7pm. The evening is also a chance for the local New England Animators, a collective of professional locals to meet local college students that are also interested in animation.
Co-Curator Noël Palazzo will be hosting the event screening, which has been traveling internationally, away from their home in Barcelona, Spain. The Iota Center, a public arts organization dedicated to abstract cinema and visual music, located in Culver City, CA is the other side of the collaboration, and is headed by animation filmmaker/artist, Larry Cuba.
The screening is a collection of the "Best of 2009" abstract animation films.
It's women ... It's animation ... It's Womanimation!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Red River Theaters
Concord, NH
What is Womanimation? As the name implies, it's a festival showcasing animated films, both short and feature-length, created by women from the US and Europe.
The festival takes place in conjunction with the second international SWAN Day (Support Women Artists Now), an event designed to highlight the contributions of women artists, as March is Women’s History Month.
Some films explore women’s issues such as menopause and spousal abuse; others deal with broader themes such as environmental degradation and career burnout.
Satire, drama, documentary, experimental - in styles from traditional 2-d to stop-motion to computer animation - the festival features something for every taste.
February 4, 7:30-9pm Metcalf Auditorium at the Chase Center, RISD 20 N. Main St. Providence, RI Free and Open to the Public
Influential multimedia theater troupe The Wooster Group visits Brown/RISD as part of The Brown Multimedia and Electronic Music Experiments (MEME) department’s Visiting Artist Series, “Taking Stock: The Challenges and Opportunities of Interactive Technology in Performance and Installation.”
Group members Kate Valk (performer and founding member), Scott Shepherd (performer), Andrew Schneider (video production) and Matt Schloss (audio production) will give a public presentation/panel discussion which will include a brief overview of their work mixing experimental theater and live mixed media production, as well as a panel discussion with audience Q+A.
Sponsored by the Watson Institute for International Studies, the Creative Arts Council, the Brown Music Dept., and the Rhode Island School of Design.
AXIOM Presents:Jeffrey Jacobson:Virtual Reality Technology and The Virtual Egyptian Temple
Tuesday February 2, 20107-9pmSuggested Donation $8 general, $5 ATNE members
Above images Left: Both students see this abstract shape, a visualization of a mathematical formula. Right: The Virtual Egyptian Temple in the Earth Theater, Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh
Axiom and ATNE (Art Technology new England) are proud to welcome Jeffrey Jacobson, Ph.D. who will talk about and demonstrate,Virtual Reality (VR) as a new artistic medium. Virtual Reality first captured the public imagination fifteen years ago, allowing us to extend our social spaces from the physical into the electronic creating dynamic mixed realities. Recently, the term has expanded from the old-fashioned flight simulators and three-dimensional optical displays to computer games and shared worlds on the internet. In this discussion, we will survey the existing technologies and their uses. We will discuss the human elements, how the sensory illusions work, and how they become "real" when imbued with meaning. In the second half Dr. Jacobson will demonstrate "CaveUT," a free open-source tool for creating a low-cost panoramic window into virtual worlds you can design www.publicvr.org. The demonstration will be a guided tour of the Virtual Egyptian Temple, and interactive 3D virtual space. The temple is an idealized, stylized, exemplar of a late period temple constructed from authentic source materials, including virtual duplicates of genuine artifacts. The current temple is showing at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and is part of their K-12 educational programming. PublicVR's Interns from Boston areas colleges are currently working on a version for the web and dome theaters.
When/// Feb 2, 2010 7-9 pm
Where/// AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media - 141 Green Street located in the Green Street T Station on the Orange Line
AXIOM is located on the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway ("T") station on the Orange line, at the corner of Amory and Green Streets in Jamaica Plain, MA AXIOM Center for New and Experimental Media focuses on new and experimental media, with an interest in technology based, innovative combinations of sculpture, installation and live performance. AXIOM has had a history of success in bringing together members of the new media community as well as outreaching to the general public, along with emerging and established artists working within the realm of new media.
Encouraging and Supporting Experimentation in the Arts through Exhibition, Education, Resources and Collaboration
For more information, visit www.axiomart.org or call 617-676-5904
The 2009 Animation Show of Shows (ASOS) was hosted in the MFA Boston Remis Auditorium for a Boston appearance. Curator Ron Diamond was invited through the combined efforts of animation faculty at MassArt, AIB and the SMFA. A good crowd turned out for the screening, which was filled with 72 minutes of festival quality animation films.
The 2009 Animation Show of Shows (ASOS), curated and presented by Acme Filmworks founder Ron Diamond, began touring the United States and selected international venues from October - November. Featuring the best animated short films produced worldwide in the past year, the Show of Shows will be screened at major studios including Pixar, Blue Sky, DreamWorks and Disney, as well as at Harvard, Rhode Island School of Design, New York University, UCLA and other universities. The program will also travel to a number of ASIFA chapters across the country.
The Animation Show of Shows was created by Diamond to give greater exposure to exceptional animated shorts that normally would receive only very limited, if any, distribution. Often these works are at the cutting edge of animation, pushing creative boundaries and using the latest technologies to achieve groundbreaking results. The Animation Show of Shows provides an opportunity for animation professionals and other artists to see these films, opening a window onto the most interesting and creative work being done around the world.
As in previous years, the 2009 program features films in a variety of styles from all over the world, most of which have won awards at major festivals. Highlights include:
The Spine - The new CGI film from Oscar® winner Chris Landreth (Ryan) continues the director's explorations into the dark side of human psychology with a harrowing portrait of a co-dependent couple. At once deeply disturbing and revelatory, The Spine pushes the boundaries of both subject matter and computer-generated character design.
Santa: The Fascist Years - Another satirical masterwork from veteran director Bill Plympton, Santa uncovers and explores a dark chapter in St. Nick's history. Featuring Plympton's trademark frenetic energy, eccentric characters, and in-your-face humor, the film ensures that no one will ever think of Santa in quite the same way again.
Chick - Michal Socha's graphically stunning Chick is a design tour de force that casts a jaundiced eye at male-female relations, all set to an irresistible neo-Klezmer score. Featuring enough visual imagination for half a dozen films, this compulsively watchable short demonstrates Socha's complete control of his medium.
Runaway - Two-time Oscar® nominee Cordell Barker's new film about class war aboard an out-of-control train once again demonstrates the director's crisp, rhythmic style, talent for rapid-fire gag sequences and love of traditional animation. With an extraordinary score by Benoît Charest (The Triplets of Belleville), Runaway is both a pointed moral tale and a thoroughly engaging and very funny chronicle of love and death on the tracks.
In January of 2006 [Stay Gold Gallery, Williamsburg], Too Art for TV opened as New York's first large scale fine art exhibition for the artists who work in the animation industry. Drawing in an excited, elbow-to-elbow crowd of artists, illustrators, filmmakers, animators, gallery goers, and fans of the animation genre, Too Art for TV, was the beginning of what became an annual event started by animation painter Liz Artinian, Too Art for TV's mission is simple: to foster, promote, encourage, and organize the talented many whose collective efforts bring television cartoons alive.
Too Art for TV, due to its multi faceted and pop origins, is an umbrella movement inviting pop surrealism, geek-core, graffiti, low-brow, and the finer arts into its shade.
Featuring the artists who brought you; Venture Bros. (Adult Swim), Superjail! (Adult Swim), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Fox Network), Ice Age (Blue Sky Studios), A Scanner Darkly (directed by Richard Linklater), SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon), Fairly Odd Parents (Nickelodeon), Samurai Jack (Cartoon Network), Star Wars: Clone Wars (Lucasfilm Animation), Metalocolypse (Adult Swim), Powerpuff Girls (Cartoon Network), Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends (Cartoon Network), TV Funhouse (SNL/NBC), Beavis and Butthead (MTV Animation), Home Movies (Adult Swim), Daria (MTV Animation), Pale Force (Conan O'Brien/NBC), Code Name: Kids Next Door (Cartoon Network), Stanley (Disney TV), Daria (MTV Animation), Blue's Clues (Nick JR), and more.
If you don't know the films of the Quay Brothers, you don't know animation. Three decades ago, identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay developed a cult following with eerie stop-motion puppet shorts, such as 1986's Street of Crocodiles, which Terry Gilliam has called "one of the 10 best animated films of all time," and clips on MTV. Their style resembles a musty toy box and a rusty toolbox come to life. Everything on the Quays' screen moves with an uncanny, unfathomable, haunting, insect-like logic.
Through April, the Coolidge Corner Theatre has been screening a retrospective of Quay films and projects featuring, among others, an animated dream sequence they put together for Julie Taymor's 2002 movie Frida and their own live-action feature flicks Institute Benjamenta and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. The tribute will culminate with the brothers coming to town next week to receive the 2009 Coolidge Award (past winners: Meryl Streep and Zhang Yimou) on May 6, and to screen and discuss excerpts of their films the following day. "Dormitorium," a companion exhibit of their animation sets, will be at the Fourth Wall Project through May 21.
The 61-year-old brothers grew up in suburban Philadelphia, but they've long lived in London, where the Phoenix reached them by phone. "We were artists who could actually draw and paint, and we got frustrated with that medium because there's no depth to it, there's no sound, no movement, light," they told me, as one voice got confused with the other. "So we thought naturally that we wanted to discover cinema. And the best way to do that would not be live action, but to do it on the tabletop, where you could control everything, and if you failed no one would have noticed.
"Having grown up in America," they said, "we would not have gone the route of Disney and the cartoon as comedy and entertainment. We [instead] felt [animation] had its roots in fairy tales, blood, Brothers Grimm on a more savage level, psychosis, sexuality. That became territory we felt puppets had not quite charted. And that's something we wanted to do. You know, in a quiet way."
The 2009 Coolidge Award will be presented on May 6, at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, in Brookline. For general-admission tickets, go to coolidge.org/award or call 617.734.2500.
"Dormitorium" will be on display Monday through Saturday until May 21, from 1 to 7 pm, at the Fourth Wall Project, 132 Brookline Avenue, in Boston. For more information, go to fourthwallproject.com/index.html or e-mail info@fourthwallproject.com.
The ICA Boston "NEW ENGLAND ANIMATORS" 2nd Screening
The SMFA has THREE participants in this special screening event of regional animation filmmakers: visiting faculty Lorelei Pepi and SMFA graduate Norah Solarzano are both screening their animated films. Faculty member Joel Frenzer will be the screening event host on Thursday night. Ticket prices to the event are listed below. The collection of work of all participating filmmakers is quite strong and engaging, and definitely worth the trip.
On Thursdays the admission to the ICA EXHIBITIONS is FREE! You and your friends and family can come prior to the New England Animators show (7:30pm,) and enjoy the interesting and controversial Shepard Fairey exhibition.
TICKETS $10 general admission; $8 members, students, and seniors.
NEW ENGLAND ANIMATORS Karen Aqua, 'Twist of Fate' Steven Gentile, 'My Girlfriend Sleeps Like Superman' Chip Moore and Jon Goldman, 'Swim' Gina Kamentsky, 'Lil’Basenji' Lorelei Pepi, 'Happy & Gay' Norah Solorzano, 'Blindspot' Steven Subotnick, 'Jelly Fishers' Daniel Sousa, 'Drift' Kara Nasdor-Jones, I 'Slept with Cookie Monster' Bryan Papciak, 'Steeple' Jerry and Orrin Zucker, 'Speed Date' Julie Zammarchi, 'The Passenger' Agnieszka Woznicka, 'Birdy'
ICA 100 Northern Ave Boston, MA 02210 (617) 478-3100 www.icaboston.org
RISD MUSEUM - CHACE CENTER - MICHAEL P. METCALF AUDITORIUM From the humorous to the horrifying, this zany collection of film shorts showcases the rising stars of cutting-edge puppetry. As part of our year-round programming, FirstWorks welcomes RISD alums Heather Henson and Emmy nominated puppet designer Paul Andrejco for an Artist-Up-Close screening of “Handmade Puppet Dreams, Vol. I”. Daughter of the beloved puppetry pioneer Jim Henson, Heather introduces a new generation of puppeteers through her handpicked series of independently produced film shorts, exploring unique approaches to animation through a spectrum of puppetry styles.
DATE: April 14, 2009 TIME: 7:00-9:00 pm VENUE: North 181 - entrance on Evans Way [map], Massachusetts College of Art + Design 621 Huntington Avenue Boston, Massachusetts. Follow the signs posted on the outside of the Tower Building (black glass) [Green Line "E"]
:: Joseph Farbrook + Joshua Rosenstock ::
Multi-media artist Joseph Farbrook focused on performance and narrative while studying at the University of Colorado, where he wrote electronic music, poetry, and fiction. As he became interested in a more immersive approach to narrative, he began using computers and the Internet as creative media. After graduating with a degree in creative writing, he pursued an MFA in digital art. Farbrook began creating electronic installations, interactive video, and virtual reality narratives. His latest work is in the emerging field of Machinima (machine animated cinema) where he shoots movies from within his custom-made 3D environments. More >>
Joshua Pablo Rosenstock is a multimedia artist, musician, and educator currently based in Boston. He employs an ever- expanding variety of traditional and electronic media techniques to create works incorporating moving images, sound, sculptural installation, and interactive performance. Rosenstock earned a BA in Visual Art & Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA in Art & Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In between, he worked to launch ZEUM, an art and technology museum in San Francisco, creating interactive exhibits and developing digital art curricula for students and teachers. He has presented work in venues as diverse as the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, Switzerland, the Dislocate festival in Yokohama, Japan. More >>
It's not for a while yet, but why not plop this event right into your calendar now so you don't forget. Nina will be there to speak about the film and her experiences in the production and distribution, which are verrrrry interesting.
