Clyde Henry Productions is a Canadian film, stop-motion animation, puppetry and illustration firm consisting of Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. Formed in 1997, the team is responsible for the animated shorts Madame Tutli-Putli , [1] [2] winner of the Genie Award for Best Animated Short, and Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life , both co-produced with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). [3]
Clyde Henry Productions began by designing puppets and illustrating for various clients, including Vice Magazine, for whom they produce a monthly comic strip called The Untold Tales of Yuri Gagarin. In March 2000, they signed a worldwide representation agreement with Toronto's Spin Productions. [4]
Lavis and Szczerbowski's film debut was the stop-motion animated puppet film Madame Tutli-Putli produced by the National Film Board of Canada, which they both worked on from 2002 to 2007.For the first time in the history of animated film, the puppets had “real” eyes that were digitally inserted. The as "groundbreaking" (groundbreaking, innovative) praised innovation went back to painter Jason Walker, who was responsible for the visual special effects of the film. Lavis and Szczerbowski were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2008. [5]
They won the Juno Award for Recording Package of the Year in 2016 after working as art directors/designers/illustrators/photographers on the album "Lost Voices" by Esmerine. [6]
In 2016, they created two animated vignettes for the NFB satirical public service announcement series, Naked Island. [7]
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints or plasticine figures are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931–32, to the present.
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and alternative dramas. In total, the NFB has produced over 13,000 productions since its inception, which have won over 5,000 awards. The NFB reports to the Parliament of Canada through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It has bilingual production programs and branches in English and French, including multicultural-related documentaries.
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
The history of Canadian animation involves a considerable element of the realities of a country neighbouring the United States and both competitiveness and co-operation across the border.
Arthur Lipsett was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada. His short, avant-garde collage films, which he described as "neither underground nor conventional”, contain elements of narrative, documentary, experimental collage, and visual essay. His first film, Very Nice, Very Nice, was nominated for an Academy Award.
The Tampere Film Festival is a short film festival held every March, mostly at the Finnkino Plevna movie theatre, in Tampere, Finland. It is accredited by the film producers' society FIAPF, and together with the short film festivals in Oberhausen and Clermont-Ferrand, it is among the most important European short film festivals.
Jacobus Willem (Co) Hoedeman is a Dutch-Canadian filmmaker known for his mastery of stop motion animation and technical innovation in films that reveal his close observation of human and social interaction.
The 60th Cannes Film Festival ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. The President of the Jury was British director Stephen Frears. Twenty two films from twelve countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 26 May. Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, directed by Cristian Mungiu, was awarded with the Palme.
Cordell Barker is a Canadian animator, director and screenwriter based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He began animating in his late teens after taking on an apprenticeship at Kenn Perkins Animation. A two-time Academy Award nominee, Barker is an animation filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Madame Tutli-Putli is a 2007 stop motion-animated short film by Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, collectively known as Clyde Henry Productions, and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). It is available on the Cinema16: World Short Films DVD and from the NFB.
Vincent Landay is a Canadian-American film producer. He has worked with Spike Jonze on his music videos and feature films since 1993. Some of the movies he has produced include Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are, as well as the 2010 Canadian short film Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, created for the Blu-ray release of Where the Wild Things Are. He has made music videos for Kanye West, REM, Jay Z and many more artists.
Zlatko Grgić was a Croatian animator who emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s.
The Animation Show of Shows is a traveling selection of the year's best animated short films. It is curated and presented by Acme Filmworks founder Ron Diamond. The show began in 1998 with the aim of showing the most original, funny, and intelligent short animated films from all over the world by presenting them to major animation studios, in hope of inspiring their influential animators and directors. Since 2007, a number of the films have been released as DVDs.
The Hungry Squid is 2002 animated short film by John Weldon, about a young girl whose homework and personal life is being disrupted by creatures, including a giant ravenous squid. The film was animated using Weldon's personal style of do-it-yourself filmmaking, combining low-budget computer animation with puppets, photos and stop-motion animation in a technique he calls "digital recyclomation." The film's producer, Marcy Page, had coined the term "recyclomation" during production of Weldon's 1991 film, The Lump.
Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life is a 2010 Canadian live-action/animated short film directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, collectively known as Clyde Henry Productions, and features the voices of Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker and Spike Jonze. Jonze also served as producer along with Vincent Landay and Marcy Page. Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Warner Home Video.
Rebecca Foon is a Canadian cellist, vocalist, and composer from Montreal, Quebec. Foon currently records under her own name, as well as the alias Saltland, and is a member and co-founder of the Juno Award-winning modern chamber ensemble Esmerine. She has also been a member of several groups associated with the post rock, experimental, and chamber music scenes of Montreal and New York City, including Set Fire to Flames, A Silver Mt. Zion, and Colin Stetson’s Gorecki Symphony of Sorrow ensemble. Esmerine's Turkish folk-influenced album Dalmak, released in 2013, was awarded the Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2014. In 2013, she released her first Saltland album, which Exclaim.ca called "a captivating combination of genres from dream pop to chamber music to ambient and shoegaze." In 2020, Foon released Waxing Moon, her first album under her own name, which received international acclaim. Foon has also composed many soundtracks for film and museums.
The Canadian Film Centre's Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF), founded by Brenda Sherwood in 1994, was an annual film festival held over several days in Toronto, Ontario in June, at The Annex-Yorkville area venues; including the Bloor Cinema, the University of Toronto, and the Isabel Bader Theatre, among others. As well as film screenings, the festival hosted parties and the CFC's annual picnic.
Marcy Page is an animation filmmaker and educator.
Craig Small is a Canadian visual artist, director and animator known for his motion graphic work and the Biblio-Mat book vending machine. He founded Toronto-based design and production studio The Juggernaut in 2002 and is a member of the band Communism.