AnimationResources.org – Serving the Online Animation Community

Animation Resources is hosting monthly events on its Discord server. Join us the last Sunday of every month to participate in discussions and network with fellow artists from all over the world. The doors open at 4:30 pm (PDT) and the program begins at 5:30 pm.

THIS MONTH’S PROGRAM

Our schedule of monthly programs under the banner Discord Discussions continues Sunday April 24th!

Craig Bartlett is the creator and producer of the TV shows “Hey Arnold!”, “Dinosaur Train”, and “Ready Jet Go!” Throughout his 40 year tenure in the animation industry, Craig has worked in nearly every style from stop-motion to hand-drawn to CG. He’s successfully adapted to many technological changes in the industry and his career shows no signs of stopping. Join Animation Resources Board Member Davey Jarrell on Sunday, April 24th on Discord as he interviews Craig about his artistic influences and his secrets to career longevity. Doors open at 4:30 PDT and the program starts at 5:30 PDT!

CRAIG BARTLETT INTERVIEW

At The Animation Resources Discord Server
SUNDAY APRIL 24th, 2024 5:30 pm (PDT)
HOSTED BY DAVEY JARELL WITH CRAIG BARTLETT

Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Davey Jarell is a member of the Board of Directors of Animation Resources. He is a professional storyboard artist for television and acts as our Director of Programs.

Craig Bartlett has been making animated TV shows for 40 years, including Hey Arnold, Dinosaur Train and Ready, Jet Go.

ABOUT DISCORD

Discord is a free chat app that supports video, voice chat and text chat. Discord servers are divided into channels, which all have their own subject or theme of discussion. Members are assigned roles which helps everyone keep track of who’s who. The Animation Resources Discord channel is a virtual meeting place for our supporters. You can meet other Animation Resources members, talk with the people behind the scenes at our organization, and attend lectures and screenings— all without leaving your home. It’s free and open to everyone in the creative community. If you’d like more info on how Discord works, see this article: What is Discord?

Here’s how to install the Discord app and login to the Animation Resources Discord Server:

---

1. INSTALL DISCORD
• iPhone or Android: Download the app from the App Store or Google Play Store and install.
• Desktop: You can access Discord for your Mac or PC from discordapp.com. You can choose to download and install the free Discord app, or enter our channel directly using your web browser. https://discord.gg/cuvNvsMNQP

2. CREATE AN ACCOUNT
• Just follow the prompts to create your own login account.

3. JOIN THE ANIMATION RESOURCES CHANNEL
• Click the plus sign to the right of the app and select "JOIN A SERVER".
• Enter this invite code: vES5YsV

4. YOU’RE THERE!
• Take a moment to look around, read the rules and introduce yourself.

---

The Animation Resources Discord Server is open to the public right now. Pop in and look around, and make a point to visit on Sunday!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…

---

JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

---

Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.

by

STEPHEN WORTH
President
sworth@animationresources.org

This is the time of year when Animation Resources elects officers. We also report on the accomplishments of the past year and outline our plans for the next. I’ll keep this brief, but I hope you take the time to read this message. There are some important things you should know as a member or supporter of Animation Resources.

The election of officers for 2022 was held in March, and our slate of officers this year remains the same as last year: Stephen Worth, president; Paul Anderson, vice-president; JoJo Baptista, secretary/treasurer. Board members include David Hofmann, Davey Jarrell, David Eisman, Taber Dunipace and Mike Amato.

CLICK to learn about
the people behind Animation Resources.

Our treasurer reports that Animation Resources has been financially stable throughout 2021. We are covering all of our expenses, and we have been able to establish a savings account with enough money to allow us to deal with emergencies. We have no grants or corporate sponsorship. All of our funding comes from our membership dues. Membership has been slowly growing, but not at a rate that allows us to do all the things we would like to do. Attracting new members is a major focus for the coming year.

Social media continues to be an important method to reach potential members, as well as providing a bridge to interact with our current members. Stephen Worth spearheads our outreach on Facebook, David Eisman is establishing a presence for us on Pinterest, and David Hofmann covers Instagram with the help of volunteer Nicholas Pozega. Davey Jarrell has been building a community for us on Discord as well.

Davey Jarrell digitizes Chuck Jones’ bar sheets.

Due to the COVID pandemic, we did not have many volunteers digitizing materials for our archive in 2021. We hope to make more progress on that front this year. But we didn’t let COVID hold us back. The Reference Packs have more than doubled in size this year. We’ve added a section on international animation, featuring the best of Russian and Polish animation as well as a project led by JoJo Baptista documenting and sharing early television anime from the 1960s and 70s. We have also added a section on silent film slapstick where we have featured important documentaries on Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Recently, we introduced an Annual Members Bonus Page where we host complete Reference Packs from the past nine years for our General and Student Members.

Animation Resources Discord Server

Every year, we set a goal for the year. In 2020 and 2021, our project was to establish a Discord server where we could interact with our community and host our Animated Discussions series of panel discussions and interviews in a COVID-free virtual meeting hall. Stephanie Alexander designed a brilliant home base for us on Discord, and Davey Jarrell has been heading up that project with the assistance of Taber Dunipace. They have produced many important programs, including events offering advice for studio and independent animators as well as students, an interview with animator Joe Murray, and two important seminars on the most effective ways to use reference in animation. The Animated Discussions programs will continue in 2022, hopefully in an expanded form.

Currently, our Animated Discussions programs are audio podcasts, but our goal for this year is to establish a live streaming channel on YouTube and Facebook where we can host live video events: interviews, panel discussions, screenings, and informal updates about our activities. The cost of the necessary equipment is $5,000. We were hoping to raise enough money from new memberships in our recent membership drive to cover this cost, but unfortunately, we came up short. Currently, we are halfway to our fundraising goal. In the coming week, we will have more information on a campaign to raise the remaining $2,500 and begin work on putting together our live streaming facilities.

Animation Resources is doing great things, and our volunteers are working hard to bring material to you that you won’t find anywhere else. Once someone joins and gets access to the Reference Packs, they see the value and maintain their membership year after year. We have many members who have faithfully paid their dues since our organization was established almost a decade ago. But convincing new members to join can be difficult. Animation Resources brings you treasures you should know about, but you don’t yet. It’s difficult to get across to people the need for something they don’t even know exists.

CLICK to Sponsor A Student now.

As we gain members, we will be able to expand our offerings, like we’ve done in 2021 by doubling the size of the RefPacks and producing the Animated Discussions podcasts. The best way to attract new members is for our current members to share their enthusiasm for our group with their friends and peers. Don’t keep us a secret. We ask you to let your friends and co-workers know about Animation Resources. Tell them what it means to you. Give a friend a membership as a gift, or donate to sponsor a worthy student for membership. To reach our goals for 2022, we are asking 25 of our members to donate $100 apiece. In return, we will provide you with a discount code for a complementary membership to give as a gift, or let us know you’d like to apply the donation to our Sponsor A Student program and we will award two memberships to worthy student animators. This is a way for you to help Animation Resources and help others at the same time.

Animation Resources is building the foundation of the future of animation. We need your help. Please donate $100 and help us realize our dream of a live streaming channel dedicated to the inspiration and education of animators.

If you can’t afford $100 right now, donate what you can. Every little bit helps.

Stephen Worth, president
Animation Resources
sworth@animationresources.org

by

As a special thank you to our annual General and Student members, we have created a special page where we will archive past Reference Packs. There will be at least three reruns of complete RefPacks per year.

If you are currently on a quarterly membership plan, consider upgrading to an annual membership to get access to our bonus page with even more downloads. If you still have time on you quarterly membership when you upgrade to an annual membership, email us at…

membership@animationresources.org
…and we will credit your membership with the additional time.

---

ANNUAL MEMBER BONUS ARCHIVE

Available to Student and General Members

---

PDF E-BOOK:

Die Muskete

Volume 10 Nos. 236-252 (April-July 1910)

The center of the arts at the beginning of the 20th century was Vienna, Austria, so it is natural that a great humorous arts magazine would come from that city– Die Muskete (The Rifle). The principles behind Die Muskete were initially quite different than either Jugend or Simplicissimus, its principle competitors from Berlin. Die Muskete was a humorous “men’s magazine” aimed at military officers and veterans. It still made fun of bureaucratic excesses, military inefficiency, social mores, the battle of the sexes, and religion, as well as political corruption, while remaining steadfastly loyal to the Emperor of Austria.

The staff consisted entirely of local artists like Fritz Schönpflug, Karl Wilke and Franz Wacik. Each one brought something different to the table. Schönpflug specialized in military caricature, gently poking fun at the men who made up a large part of Die Muskete’s subscriber base, Wilke excelled at drawing pretty girls with a nouveau flair. And Wacik specialized in a wide range of fantastic subjects- strange creatures and fairy tale settings. Working along side them were the political cartoonist Josef Danilowatz, fashion artist Heinrich Krenes, and the brilliant caricaturist Carl Josef. These artists were well matched as a team to provide a variety of images and stylistic approaches. During World War I the focus of Die Muskete shifted from being a humor magazine to being a magazine for soldiers in the trenches. The tone became more political and the focus shifted to demonizing the enemy. But the level of artistry remained at a high level until many of the original team of artists began to leave the magazine in the mid 1920s.

It’s important to remember that in the heyday of caricature journals like Die Muskete, the artists didn’t identify strictly as cartoonists. For instance Franz Wacik was a designer for the theater, he painted frescos and murals, and he illustrated children’s books. Most of the cartoonists at Die Muskete were fine artists as well as being cartoonists, and this is typical of their contemporaries at other caricature journals as well. Thanks to JoJo Baptista for sharing his collection of these rare magazines with us.

Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive

Download expires after June 2022

DVD QUALITY VIDEO:

Hollywood: Comedy- A Serious Business

(Thames TV/1980)

The animators of the golden age all expressed a debt of gratitude to the silent comedy film makers who paved the way for the cartoonists that followed their lead. At Disney, Don Graham led action analysis classes for the staff breaking down the pantomime of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. Chuck Jones once expressed regret that he was born too late to work alongside the great slapstick comedy directors. The writing techniques at almost all of the animated cartoon studios of the 30s and 40s were derived from principles developed at Mack Sennett and Hal Roach’s studios. These films may seem ancient to us today, but they are far from irrelevant.

At the time this documentary was made, silent films were long gone from public view. In fact, if they were presented at all, they utilized beat up incomplete prints projected at the wrong frame rate. For the Hollywood series, film historian Kevin Brownlow assembled the best prints, transferred them on a state of the art variable speed telecine rank, and interviewed surviving cast and crew members to create the definitive documentary series on this seminal era in the history of movies. This episode deals with the comics- Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd and explains how they created their films. Unseen since the VHS era, Animation Resources acquired a transfer of this important documentary from a rare set of laserdiscs, and now we share it with you.

Recently, blu-rays and DVDs have breathed new life into these important films. If you are unfamiliar with the movies discussed in this documentary, jot down the titles and look them up. You’ll find a lot to study and learn from silent films.

Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive

Download expires after June 2022

DVD QUALITY VIDEO:

Two Silent Felix The Cat Shorts

“Felix Dines And Pines” (1927) “Feline Follies” (1919)

Felix the Cat was the most famous cartoon character of the silent era, and his popularity remains strong to this day. Messmer related the details of Felix’s creation in 1919 to animation historian John Canemaker like this…

Sullivan’s studio was very busy, and Paramount, they were falling behind their schedule and they needed one extra to fill in. And Sullivan, being very busy, said, “If you want to do it on the side, you can do any little thing to satisfy them.” So I figured a cat would be about the simplest. Make him all black, you know—you wouldn’t need to worry about outlines. And one gag after the other, you know? Cute. And they all got laughs. So Paramount liked it so they ordered a series.

Feline Follies was the first Felix the Cat cartoon. Originally named Thomas, the cat was eventually renamed Felix on the suggestion of a Paramount executive because the name suggested the words “felis”, the Latin word for cat and “felix” meaning “lucky”. By the time Felix Dines And Pines was produced in 1927, Felix’s star was on the wane. But the cartoons remained innovative, incorporating wild surrealism and sophisticated personality animation to tell its stories.

Animation Resources Advisory Board Member, Steve Stanchfield has done considerable research on Felix the Cat’s filmography and he shares these rare transfers from 35mm original prints with us. Even though the nitrate is deteriorating, they give a clear indication of why Felix is still the World’s Most Famous Cat.

Click to access the…

Annual Member Bonus Archive

Download expires after June 2022

Haven’t Joined Yet?

Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD A Sample RefPack!

Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. If you are a creative person working in animation, cartooning or illustration, you owe it to yourself to be a member of Animation Resources.

---

MEMBERS LOGIN To Download

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content

---

Animation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.

by