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Despairing of Pixar
An anonymous reader writes "According to AnimWatch, Despair Inc :-( has released the short films of stop-motion animator Mark Osborne on DVD. They're available through Happy Product.com. MORE, the first stop action short film shot in IMAX format has been nominated for an Academy Award, won a Jury Prize at Sundance, appeared in a Kenna music video, and even appears in the Hotline documentation, but this looks like the first time it's ever been available on DVD. According to the filmmaker he hopes to fund future films by selling his old ones. This is the best short film I've ever seen, so all I can say is I'm glad it's finally getting a proper release. Isn't this how
Pixar and Aardman got their starts?"
Here's a Direct Download link, rightclick and choose save as, if you are using iexplore. Save linnk to disk if you are using Mozilla/Firebird.
The classic essay on "worse is better" is either misunderstood
Actually, Pixar was a spin-off from the computer graphics division at Lucasfilm. It was sold to Steve Jobs at that time in 1986. Disney wasn't involved until 1991 - well after Pixar had made a name for itself.
Official Pixar History
Ok sorry, it wasn't volume 13 but volume 7. It's been on DVD since [at least] Feb 1, 2000 according to here.
Getting funding for a short film is quite possibly more difficult than getting funding for a feature film. A full-length film at least has the possibility of being picked up and distributed to vast audiences, where as an investor's return on a short film is more likely to be nothing, since they are rarely exhibited. To convince someone to give you money so you can follow your dream or experiement is quite difficult. Stan Brakhage, the world-renowned avant-garde film maker had trouble finding funding for his short films, since he was so prolific (he made about 400 films in his lifetime). He then decided to take a different approach and began painting on the actual film, which took more time, and thus was able to make his funding last.
For some other non-Pixar fascinating short films, check out:
Duck Amuck - Chuck Jones
Eye Myth - Stan Brakhage
Rabbits - David Lynch
The Heart Of The World - Guy Maddin
The Superbowl Is Gay - Andy Milonakis (yes, I'm serious. This is one of the most purely comedic films ever made)
Pixar initially worked on commercials before their movies. Not sure if these even predated the short films becuase they were initially geared to be like an advertising firm. Notable Pixar commercials include:
/w animated and Robin Hood Listerine bottle
Tropicana Orange Juice (with bouncy/dancing oranges)
Listerine
Gummy Life Savers that danced and such
Isn't this how Pixar and Aardman got their starts?" - I don't know about Pixar, but Aardman (based right down the road from me in Bristol) was originally two teenagers who got a commission from the BBC to produce a short kids ident (called the "aard man", hence the company name). From then on, the studio funded itself through producing advertisements and music videos (Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer for example), and put the revenue it recieved into producing quality shorts - it was this money that funded Nick Park's "A Grand Day Out". "Chicken Run" is an exception to the advertisement funding rule, as it's part of a five film deal with Dreamworks.
I got this on the Utopia collection of independent shorts a few years back, and all I have to say is that it's simply one of the finest pieces of animation ever done. And watching it on in a small, low-res QT window is not the best way to check out the amazing texture brought about by it's Wide Format (aka IMAX) filming. This guy is fantastic, and I hope he gets some great funding because I can't wait to see what he does next.
Titan A.E. was done by Fox Animation at their defunct Arizona studio. They located their studio in Arizona to avoid paying animators union wages. The head of Fox Animation was Don Bluth. Titan A.E. basically bankrupted Fox Animation.
Fox recently bought Blue Sky Studios in upstate New York, the creators of the short "Bunny" and the feature "Ice Age." They are now working on "Robots" for early 1995 release.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
No torrent, but I'll put up a mirror for you.
Not sure how common knowledge this is, but one neat trivia piece about "A Bugs Life" DVD is that the widescreen and 4:3 versions of the movies are actually rerenders. Not pan and scan.
Screenshots showing the difference available here (Scoll almost to the bottom)
Link
This site also has some pretty good examples of the different aspect ratios, etc.
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
Pixar started life as a spin off of ILM, with Jobs as a major investor. He hoped to make money off of rendering technology and the shorts were mostly done as promotion. Little did he know there was more money in feature films than Renderman software.
Aardman got it's start in the 70's by two animators who loved clay. They sold a show called Morph to the BBC and that made the studio. Nick Park came a decade later. The first Wallace and Gromit was a student film he couldn't finish on his own. Aardman provided the resources for Nick to finish it and the rest is history.
That said, there are a number of OTHER animators who have made decent careers by using one film to finance the next. Bill Plympton comes to mind, as does Don Hertzfeldt.
Mark Osborne's films are similarly great, I wish him lots of luck.