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.
Ah, L'Amour (1995) is Don Hertzfeldt's first 16mm student animated short film, completed at the age of 18 at UC Santa Barbara. Though produced for a beginning film class and never meant to be exhibited, the short had a long life at animation festivals, launching Hertzfeldt into cult status at a young age. In 1998, the short won the Grand Prize Award for "World's Funniest Cartoon" from the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.
The Animation Show is a touring festival of animated short films that was first held in fall 2003. It was sponsored by MTV, and was created by award-winning animators Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. Due to its association with MTV, the showcase was not intended for children, as the festival was more aimed at adult audiences, with its main kid-friendly equivalent being Nickelodeon's Nicktoons Film Festival, presented by Frederator Studios.
Rejected is a 2000 animated surrealist short comedy film directed by Don Hertzfeldt that was released in 2000. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film the following year at the 73rd Academy Awards, and received 27 awards from film festivals around the world.
Billy's Balloon is a 16 mm animated short by Don Hertzfeldt. It was his fourth and final student film at UC Santa Barbara. Similar to his other cartoons, he uses a minimalist stick-figure technique.
Ishu Patel is an Indian-Canadian animation film director/producer and educator. During his twenty-five years at the National Film Board of Canada he developed animation techniques and styles to support his themes and vision. Since then he has produced animated spots for television and has been teaching internationally.
Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre is a Montreal-based filmmaker most notable for her animated documentary films.
Lily and Jim (1997) is a 16mm animated short film by Don Hertzfeldt. It is Hertzfeldt's third student film from UC Santa Barbara, for which he single-handedly animated over 10,000 drawings. In the film, an awkward blind date between a hopeless couple goes from very bad to much worse. Voice actors Robert May (Jim) and Karin Anger (Lily) improvised a number of their dialogues. The films closing credits feature instrumental piano music called "Moving Thirds" by singer-songwriter Beth Waters.
Colin Archibald Low was a Canadian animation and documentary filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was known as a pioneer, one of Canada's most important filmmakers, and was regularly referred to as "the gentleman genius". His numerous honors include five BAFTA awards, eight Cannes Film Festival awards, and six Academy Award nominations.
McLaren's Negatives is a 2006 short animated documentary directed by French Canadian filmmaker Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre. The film is a study of the Canadian animator Norman McLaren, and his personal view of film making. The short film won several awards, including the 2007 Jutra Award for best animated short film.
Patrick Smith is an American Animator animator and YouTuber. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). His formative years were spent as a storyboard artist for Walt Disney, and animation director for MTV's Daria and the Emmy-nominated Downtown. Smith spent five years in Singapore as a professor at the graduate film program for New York University Tisch School of the Arts, under artistic director/filmmaker Oliver Stone. His 2019 film "Pour 585" is one of the 5 most viewed Animated Shorts on Youtube, and Smith is one of the few YouTubers that retains a consistent film festival release schedule, his films have screened at Tribeca Film Festival, Slamdance, Ottawa, and Annecy, and hundreds of other festivals world-wide. His most recent stop motion short "Beyond Noh" is currently part of the acclaimed traveling showcase "The Animation Show of Shows." Patrick is a fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts and a curator for multiple international film and animation festivals. The beginning of his animation career has been told by himself like this:
In 1994, I was in college, and one night decided to animate something strange. I didn't know how to draw, let alone animate, so I just did something abstract. A friend of mine told me I should put an logo on it and send it to MTV. So I mailed a VHS of it to "MTV Networks" the address I got from the phone book. About two weeks later I got a call from a guy named Abbey, who said that they wanted to buy it. I remember the day he called, because it was the same day that I got my rejection letter from Cal Arts. I re-animated the same thing, a bit tighter. The spot won a BDA award and a Jury Prize at the 1995 Holland Animation Festival. After I finished the ID, MTV offered me a job on Beavis and Butthead, which was my first ever studio job, and which brought me to New York City.
Richard Roger Reeves is a Canadian animated filmmaker. He is known for his whimsical abstract animated films created using a drawn on film technique.
Candyjam is a 1988 7 minute 35mm short animated film animated collaboration by ten animators from four countries produced and directed by Joanna Priestley and Joan C. Gratz. The animation was made with clay painting, drawings, puppets and object animation.
Pro and Con is a 1993 9 minute 16mm short animated film produced, directed and animated by Joanna Priestley and Joan Gratz using drawings on paper, pixillated hands and object animation. The "Pro" section of the film was written by Barbara Carnegie and Joanna Priestley and narrated by Lt. Janice Inman. The "Con" section was written by Jeff Green and narrated by Allen Nause. The sound was designed and produced by Lance Limbocker and Chel White with music by Chel White. Pro and Con was commissioned through the Metropolitan Arts Commission's Percent for Art Program in Multnomah County, Oregon.
Thomas Cullen Daly was a Canadian film producer, film editor and film director, who was the head of Studio B at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Don Hertzfeldt is an American animator, writer, and independent filmmaker. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee who is best known for the animated films It's Such a Beautiful Day, the World of Tomorrow series, and Rejected. In 2014, his work appeared on The Simpsons. Eight of his short films have competed at the Sundance Film Festival, a festival record. He is also the only filmmaker to have won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for Short Film twice.
John Spotton C.S.C. was a Canadian filmmaker with the National Film Board of Canada.
Head over Heels is a 2012 British stop-motion animated short film written and directed by Timothy Reckart. The film was nominated for Best Animated Short Film for the 85th Academy Awards. It also won the first Annie Award for Best Student film and the Cartoon d'Or for Best European Animated Short.
It's Such a Beautiful Day is a 2012 American experimental adult animated comedy-drama film directed, written, animated, photographed, produced and narrated by Don Hertzfeldt.
Panic Attack! is a hand-drawn, hand-painted animated short by Eileen O'Meara. It was jury-selected for Aspen Shortsfest, Palm Springs ShortFest, Florida Film Festival, Anim'est and Raindance Film Festival.
