It's always fun to check out animation from the creator's perspective. As someone who has never tried their hand at animation (I once tried to script doctor, but the author got so depressed with my critique that he abandoned the project), I'm always interested in the opinions of those who actually make this stuff for a living.
Perhaps I should rephrase that: I'm always interested in the informed opinions of those who actually make this stuff for a living. Opinions are like posterior sphincters, everyone has one but not everyone can back them up with cold, hard fact.
Mark Mayerson falls into the welcome category. A 29-year veteran of the animation biz and creator of the YTV animated show Monster by Mistake, Mayerson is posting large chunks of his Major Research Paper, Six Authors in Search of a Character: The Collaborative Nature of Performance in Animated Films.
Don't believe me? Keith Lango gave the man props on his site, calling him "a thoughtful commentator on animation . . . He doesn’t usually get too caught up in navel gazing - a common problem with animation writers."
But Mayerson is doing more than posting his academic musings for all the world to see. He's also shooting from the hip on such topics as:
- Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson improving Hergé's Tin Tin ("There's no better way to celebrate Hergé's 100th birthday than by taking the cartooning style he developed . . . which has influenced generations of cartoonists, and adding all the details that Hergé was too stupid to include.").
- Viacom suing YouTube for copyright infringement, to the tune of $1 billion ("Better to acknowledge that copying will occur and figure out a system where every time content is copied or viewed, the copyright holder makes money.").
- Troubled schedules causing problems with FX-heavy movies ("How long will it be before a film scheduled to open in thousands of theatres just doesn't show up?").
- Creatives' relationship with the large media companies ("there's no relationship between your project's value and how it is judged by media companies. Only the audience can decide. Therefore, the best approach is figuring out how to bypass the media companies and go directly to the audience.")
There are also shout-outs to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (gotta love the way he contrasts it with Spielberg and Jackson's attempts to "improve" Tin Tin), and the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit currently running in Montreal.
If I have a serious criticism of Mayerson's blog, it's that he's working on several different threads at the same time, and not posting a table of contents with links. Both Six Authors in Search of a Character and his brilliant analysis of Walt Disney's Pinocchio make for fascinating reading. However, there's no way to read each series in sequential order. That makes for some frustrating surfing, since it's obvious that Mayerson has a lot to say about animation and I want to read it.
But those with patience – and the ability to tab between postings so they can check back when Mayerson references a previous post – Mayerson on Animation is well worth reading. Check it out over here.
(A big thanks to "Bear" for the heads-up)
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