Arnold Leibovit | |
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Born | |
Occupation(s) | Film director, producer, screenwriter |
Arnold Leibovit (born June 18, 1950) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter of feature films and musical productions.
An acting member of the Producers Guild of America, he has produced, directed, and written several feature films. As part of his career, he has devoted over 40 years to the work of George Pal. Included is the production of the George Pal biopic The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal , [1] [2] for which he received a CINE Golden Eagle Award in the Arts category in 1986 [3] and The George Pal Memorial Award (also known as the Saturn Award) from The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films in 1987. In addition, he produced other works focusing on Pal including The Puppetoon Movie . [4]
In 2002 he served as the executive producer for The Time Machine . [5] Leibovit had earlier obtained the rights to the H.G. Wells book and the 1960 MGM motion picture through the George Pal estate. This film was produced under the direction of Wells' great-grandson Simon Wells. [6]
Arnold Leibovit was born and raised in south Florida, a child of Hungarian ancestry. George Pal was also Hungarian and had fled from Germany to Holland and then to the United States as Hitler was beginning his reign in Europe. Leibovit became interested in Pal and his movies and, as he embarked on his career in filmmaking, Pal rose to the top of his interests. In 1985, he produced the first and only filmed documentary of the life of George Pal. [7]
Arthur Clokey was an American animator, director, producer, screenwriter and voice actor, he was pioneer in the popularization of stop-motion clay animation, best known as the creator of the character Gumby and the original voice of Gumby's sidekick, Pokey. Clokey's career began in 1953 with a film experiment called Gumbasia, which was influenced by his professor, Slavko Vorkapich, at the University of Southern California. Clokey and his wife Ruth subsequently came up with the clay character Gumby and his horse Pokey, who first appeared in the Howdy Doody Show and later got their own series The Adventures of Gumby, from which they became a familiar presence on American television. The characters enjoyed a renewal of interest in the 1980s when American actor and comedian Eddie Murphy parodied Gumby in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
Chesley Knight Bonestell Jr. was an American painter, designer, and illustrator. His paintings inspired the American space program, and they have been influential in science fiction art and illustration. A pioneering creator of astronomical art, along with the French astronomer-artist Lucien Rudaux, Bonestell has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Space art".
George Pal was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after emigrating from Europe.
William Gale Vinton was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work alongside several Emmy Awards and Clio Awards for his studio's work.
Destination Moon is a 1950 American Technicolor science fiction film, independently produced by George Pal and directed by Irving Pichel, that stars John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, and Dick Wesson. The film was distributed in the United States and the United Kingdom by Eagle-Lion Classics.
William Julian Tuttle was an American make-up artist.
James Danforth is an American stop-motion animator, known for model-animation, matte painting, and for his work on When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970), a theme-sequel to Ray Harryhausen's One Million Years B.C. (1967). He later went on to work with Ray Harryhausen on the film Clash of the Titans (1981) to mainly do the animation of the winged horse Pegasus.
The Time Machine is a 1960 American period post-apocalyptic science fiction film based on the 1895 novella of the same name by H. G. Wells. It was produced and directed by George Pal, and stars Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, and Alan Young. The story is set in Victorian England and follows an inventor who constructs a machine that enables him to travel into the distant future. Once there, he discovers that mankind's descendants have divided into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.
Brian Yuzna is an American producer, director, and writer. He is best known for his work in the science fiction and horror film genres. Yuzna began his career as a producer for several films by director Stuart Gordon, such as Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986), before making his directorial debut with the satirical body horror film Society (1989).
The Time Machine is a 2002 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film loosely adapted by John Logan from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells and the screenplay of the 1960 film of the same name by David Duncan. Arnold Leibovit served as executive producer and Simon Wells, the great-grandson of the original author, served as director. The film stars Guy Pearce, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, and Jeremy Irons, and includes a cameo by Alan Young, who also appeared in the 1960 film adaptation. The film is set in New York City instead of London, and contains new story elements not present in the original novel or the 1960 film adaptation, including a romantic subplot, a new scenario about how civilization was destroyed, and several new characters such as an artificially intelligent hologram and a Morlock leader.
Puppetoons is a series of animated puppet films made in Europe (1930s) and in the United States (1940s) by George Pal. They were made using replacement animation: using a series of different hand-carved wooden puppets for each frame in which the puppet moves or changes expression, rather than moving a single puppet, as is the case with most stop motion puppet animation. They were particularly made from 1932-1948, in both Europe and the US.
Albert Nozaki was a Japanese American art director who worked on various films for Paramount Pictures. He is perhaps best known for his memorable design of the Martian war machines from the 1953 film The War of the Worlds and for his Academy Award-nominated art direction on the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille epic, The Ten Commandments. He retired in 1969 due to retinitis pigmentosa, which ultimately cost him his sight. Starting out at Paramount as a draftsman in the Paramount set-design department in 1934, he retired in 1969 as the studio's supervising art director for feature films.
"Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" is a popular song, introduced by Art Jarrett in the 1933 film Sitting Pretty.
Tom Thumb is a 1958 British musical fantasy film produced and directed by George Pal, and released by MGM. The film, based on the fairy tale "Thumbling" by the Brothers Grimm, is about a tiny youth who manages to outwit two thieves determined to make a fortune from him.
The Puppetoon Movie is a 1987 animated film written, produced, and directed by Arnold Leibovit. It is based on the Puppetoons characters created by George Pal in the 1930s and 1940s which feature the eponymous Puppetoon animation, and features Gumby, Pokey and Arnie the Dinosaur, who host the framing story. Its framing story stars the voices of Dick Beals, Art Clokey, Paul Frees and Dallas McKennon as the main characters.
Gene Warren Sr. was born in Denver, Colorado, and won an Academy Award for the special effects on George Pal's The Time Machine in 1960. He also contributed to such projects as The Way of Peace (1947), Land of the Lost (1974), Man from Atlantis, and The Crow: City of Angels.
Jasper and the Haunted House is a 1942 American animated short film in the Madcap Model series by George Pal. It is an early entry that features the popular yet controversial Paramount Puppetoons characters Jasper and his friend/nemesis Professor Scarecrow and Blackbird.
The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal is a 1985 American documentary film about Academy Award-winning producer/director George Pal. It was written, directed, and produced by Arnold Leibovit.
The George Pal Memorial Award is presented each year, by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, in conjunction with their annual Saturn Award ceremony. The award is given to those who have shown exemplary work in the respective film genres. It is named in honor of George Pal, a Hungarian-born American animator and film producer, principally associated with the science fiction genre.
Josh Greenbaum is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has won an MTV Movie Award, CINE Golden Eagle and Emmy Award. He directed the feature documentary The Short Game, winner of the SXSW Audience Award, which was acquired by Netflix to launch their Originals film division. He also directed Becoming Bond, a documentary about George Lazenby, which won SXSW's Audience Award in the Visions category, as well as the critically acclaimed Too Funny to Fail, a documentary about The Dana Carvey Show. He is also the creator, director and executive producer of Behind the Mask, which earned Hulu its first ever Emmy nomination. He made his narrative feature debut with Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.