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| Formerly | Burbank Films Australia (1982-1989) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Film animation studios |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Defunct | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Sydney, New South Wales , Australia |
| Website | http://www.burbankanimation.com |
Burbank Animation Studios was an Australian film animation production company, formerly named Burbank Films Australia.
The company's first animated productions in 1982 were a series of adaptations of books from Charles Dickens; these first few films characterized themselves by their grim appeal. The sketch-styled backgrounds and the simplicity of the original score, such as in Oliver Twist (1982), added to the dramatic tone of those first stories. The eight total Dickens adaptations were produced during two years.
At the same time, in 1983, the company produced a short series of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories, adapted from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the years that followed, until 1988, Burbank adapted the works of many other well-known authors and legends, [1] including Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows , Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote , J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan , Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers among many others. [2]
By 1987, the animation was entirely made in Philippines (Burbank Animation Incorporated based in Manila). [3]
In 1991, the company was resurrected under the name of Burbank Animation Studios. The new studio continued the production of "animated classics" in association with Anchor Bay Entertainment and Bridgestar Entertainment. [4] David Field as managing director and executive producer and Roz Phillips as producer.
From 1991 to 1994, Burbank Animation Studios utilized the newly formed Sydney studio's Unlimited Energee as its production facility. The shows were traditionally drawn but then digitally inked, painted, and composited to first Betamax and then Ampex cartridge recording systems, which allowed for some unusually detailed backgrounds, various digital FX, and infrequent 3D (sparingly used due to low budgets). In 1994 Burbank Animation Studios chose to switch production facilities to Colorland Studios of China.
 | This section possibly contains original research .(October 2021) |
There has been much confusion as to whether ownership of these films has fallen into the public domain. Despite the number of releases of these films, every Burbank film has a valid United States copyright and cannot be considered an orphaned work or public domain. Burbank's catalogue is an example of the type of budget copyright content regularly parallel licensed to multiple home video distributors.
When Burbank's parent company Film Funding & Management went into liquidation, the distribution rights to the "Animated Classics" were transferred to ABR Entertainment [13] and the copyright was later fully assigned to Omnivision. [14] These are now owned by Pulse Distribution and Entertainment [15] and administered by digital rights management firm NuTech Digital. [16] These titles are currently available in the US on NuTech's Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), Ltd. label. They have also been licensed to Genius Entertainment.
Budget-priced releases from Digiview Entertainment have also been sighted, but their legality is unknown.
The distribution rights to "The Dickens Collection" (A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, Nicholas Nickleby and The Pickwick Papers), "The Sherlock Holmes Collection" (A Study in Scarlet, The Baskerville Curse, The Sign of Four and The Valley of Fear), Black Tulip and The Corsican Brothers were transferred to Rikini, [17] [ better source needed ] which later became International Family Classics (IFC), who onsold the films to H.S. Holding Corporation [18] who currently own the titles. [19] [ better source needed ]Alice Through the Looking Glass is now also owned by H.S. [20] [ better source needed ] who purchased the rights from INI Entertainment Group, the distributor of Burbank Animation Studios' post-1991 films. These titles are currently distributed by Liberty International Publishing in the US, through Liberation Entertainment and Genius Entertainment.
As with the "Animated Classics", budget-priced releases from Digiview have been sighted, but again, their legality is unknown.
Payless Entertainment, an Australian distributor, began reissuing the Burbank catalogue in 2008. [21]
Production credits for the Burbank Animation Studios shows vary. Some distributors, including INI, retain the original complete credits (blue pages at end of story describing entire production crew). Other distributors have trimmed production credits so that for the producing studio, only the animation director, primary producer and administration staff remain.
Lorimar Productions, Inc., later known as Lorimar Television and Lorimar Distribution, was an American production company that was later a subsidiary of Warner Bros., active from 1969 until 1993, when it was folded into Warner Bros. Television. It was founded by Irwin Molasky, Merv Adelson, and Lee Rich. The company's name was a portmanteau of Adelson's then wife, Lori and Palomar Airport.
The Great Mouse Detective is a 1986 American animated mystery adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is based on the children's book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus and Paul Galdone, and was written and directed by John Musker, Dave Michener, Ron Clements, and Burny Mattinson in their feature directorial debuts. Featuring the voices of Vincent Price, Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Susanne Pollatschek, Candy Candido, Diana Chesney, Eve Brenner, and Alan Young, the film's plot follows Basil of Baker Street, a mouse detective who undertakes to help the young mouse Olivia find and save her father from the criminal mastermind and Basil's sworn enemy, Professor Ratigan.
MPI Media Group is an American producer, distributor and licensor of theatrical film and home entertainment. MPI's subsidiaries include MPI Pictures, MPI Home Video, Gorgon Video, and the horror film distributor Dark Sky Films. The company is located in Orland Park, Illinois, and was founded in 1976 by brothers Malik & Waleed Ali.
Empire International Pictures was an American independent small-scale theatrical distribution company. Charles Band formed Empire in 1983, prompted by his dissatisfaction with distributors' handling of films made by his previous business, Charles Band International Productions. Empire produced and distributed a number of low-budget horror and fantasy feature films, including Re-Animator, Troll, Ghoulies, Trancers, and From Beyond.
Saban Entertainment, Inc. was a worldwide-served independent US-Israeli television production company formed in 1980 by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, which was originally founded as a music production company under the name, Saban Productions. The first TV show produced by Saban is the live action/animated show Kidd Video.
Sherlock Holmes is the overall title given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by the British television company Granada Television between 1984 and 1994.
Nippon Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, with chief offices in the Ginza district of Chūō and production facilities in Tama City.
The stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The four volumes of the Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) compiled by Ronald B. De Waal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products. They include the original writings, "together with the translations of these tales into sixty-three languages, plus Braille and shorthand, the writings about the Writings or higher criticism, writings about Sherlockians and their societies, memorials and memorabilia, games, puzzles and quizzes, phonograph records, audio and video tapes, compact discs, laser discs, ballets, films, musicals, operettas, oratorios, plays, radio and television programs, parodies and pastiches, children's books, cartoons, comics, and a multitude of other items — from advertisements to wine — that have accumulated throughout the world on the two most famous characters in literature."
William Hobbs was a choreographer of stage combat.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a series of Soviet television films portraying Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional English detective, starting in 1979. They were directed by Igor Maslennikov.
Fred Wolf Films is an American animation studio founded in 1967 by Fred Wolf and Jimmy T. Murakami. It was founded as MW (Murakami-Wolf). It later became known as Murakami-Wolf-Swenson (MWS) when Charles Swenson became a full partner in 1978. From 1989 to 2000, they also operated a subsidiary, Fred Wolf Films Dublin, located in Dublin, Ireland. It adopted its current name in 2013 following a reorganization.
Inki and the Minah Bird is a 1943 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones. The short features Inki and was released on November 13, 1943.
My Favorite Fairy Tales is a Japanese educational fantasy original video animation (OVA) series of fairy tales and other classic stories produced by Studio Unicorn in 1986.
Discotek Media is an American entertainment company based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, focused on distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series.
Dot and the Kangaroo is a 1977 Australian musical live action/animated film which combines animation and live-action. It is based on the 1899 children's literature book Dot and the Kangaroo by Ethel Pedley.
Kazuhide Tomonaga is a Japanese director, animator, storyboarder, and cartoonist. he has worked at Toei Animation, Group TAC, Oh! Production, and TMS Entertainment. He is currently a director at Telecom Animation Film Company. He is a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). His style inspired another famous animator, Naotoshi Shida.
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