by Robert Kohr
If you have not already heard SHREK won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. FOR THE BIRDS took the award for Best Animated Short. You would think that this would be a triumph for the industry and it is. But the Academy cannot fail to make a farce out of what would otherwise be, attributed to the animator. With Nathan Lane and Whoopie Goldberg presenting, they made it seem that the animated feature’s success rests solely on the shoulders of the actor. Even the studios over promote the actors when selling the animation.

We sit idly by and are happy to see the animated feature recognized at the Academy Awards. But the actors are not the true actors in animation. We are the actors. The actors only endure a few days of pain, but the animator slaves for years to finish the film. Then again what can we do? Disney laid off 250 employees of its Burbank office. Are we all that much better off with the new category? What is a new category with no films? Maybe the new category is this is a triumph for animation, but under it all, its all falling apart.

Nathan Lane mentioned how animations have been created for years by artists hunched over desks and now animation is now done completely on the computer. Of course we all know that this is false, but this falsification carries on the public belief that the computer does the work. Traditional animation is still alive and kicking. But the worst part is that it has seeped into public knowledge that the computer does all the work. Even in CG animation, it is still the artist behind the image, not 1’s and 0’s. The computer does not make the movie, we do.

Animation is an art and it is created by the filmmaker, the animator, and finally the actor. We need to sound off that we are important and very necessary too and to end this grave injustice against the art of animation.

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Bill Plympton has been entertaining us with is wild antics for almost 15 years. The creator, of such notable films as “The Tune” (1992), has finished his third independently funded animated film, “Mutant Aliens” (2001). So far “Mutant Aliens” has only been shown at films festivals worldwide. In its tenure it has picked up four awards:

• Grand Prix for Feature Films, annecy Animation Festival, June 2001

• Second Place, Best Theatrical Film, World Animation Celebration, August 2001

• Best Director prize at SICAF in Korean, August 2001

• Prix Special du Jury at 13eme Rue at utopiles Festival in Nates, Franc, October 2001

In addition to these awards “Mutant Aliens” was an Official Entry at the Sundance Film Festival, January 2001 and many others. “Mutant Aliens” will soon be released in New York City at Cinema Village for one week only on April 19, 2002. The address is 22 East 12th Street. If you would like to meet Bill check out these events:

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