Below is the inaugural “Cool Animator of the Week!” This week, I’ll be featuring my good friend Renae Radford.

Bio
Renae Radford is a third-year MFA graduate student in the Animation and Digital Arts department at the University of Southern California. As a 2D/3D generalist she is interested in working on a variety of projects which feed her interests and creativity in animation and design. She has been awarded USC’s Student Assistantship for the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years.

Current Projects
Renae is working on finishing her final thesis film.  The film will be a 3-4 minute animated piece that will explore animated motion graphic design and 3D graphics. She has been interning on and off at DreamWorks Animation through much of 2008.

Involvement with DUCK
Renae have been honored to know many wonderful DUCK employees both through USC and Dreamworks Animation.

Personal Website/Blog
http://www.renaeradford.com/nucleus/ 

Miscellaneous Info
Renae is an avid swing dancer/ballroom dancer, boogie boarder, and beach bum. If it were possible, she would move to Hawaii and live on the beach.

Below is a pic from one of Renae’s animated films, “Poetic Breezes”
 

By popular demand, I have created a new section called Cool Person of the Week. The plan is to post a snapshot of somebody cool out there in the world of animation and give them a bit of a shout out. (I’m hoping the animators will be less well known ones and a slight bit more obscure.)

I’m hoping this will happen each Monday, but I can’t make any promises

So be sure to check back on Mondays, my friends, to read all about somebody rad!

DUCK director Richard Cullen has been nominated for a BIMA award for animating the music video to Darren Hayes’s “Who Would Have Thought.” This is wonderful news for Richard who is getting set to release the animated film This Delicate Film We’ve Made which will be released on Dec 1. It will later be released on iTunes worldwide February 2009.

BIMA is the industry association representing the interactive media and digital content sector.  It supports individuals and organisations which deliver high quality, creative and innovative, interactive media solutions. It strives to stimulate commercial growth, and acts as an industry liaison with academia and government through the provision of knowledge, encouragement and economy; BIMA is a united voice for its members and strives to develop an internationally competitive new media industry in Britain.

I caught up with Richard to congratulate him on the nomination. Here’s what he had to say about being nominated:
“It’s a massive compliment to be short-listed. I am, to use my favourite word, chuffed. Although I haven’t quite processed it yet - it feels as though it’s happened to someone else.

I certainly didn’t anticipate [being nominated]. It’s always strange for me to think of people even seeing my work, so to consider the idea that people might discuss it, or consider it worthy of this kind of attention is a bit beyond me, really.”

The Los Angeles screening of Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues was a triumphant success. Not only did the film sell out at REDCAT, but there was a line about 30 deep around the corner waiting to get in this past Monday night. The crowd loved the film! It’s a real testament to the remarkable film Nina has made. If you have not yet seen the film, please make sure to visit www.ninapaley.com where you can find a list of upcoming festivals where it will be screening.

Nina was unable to attend the screening, but she was so kind as to answer a few questions for us. Thanks Nina!

How would you describe the style of animation you have employed in the film?
2-D vector with some 2-D raster. I used several visual styles: a colorful cut-out style mixing fantasical cartoony “ancient India” motifs with Bollywood/Busby Berkley/Fleischer influences; fake shadow puppets inspired by traditional Indonesian, Malaysian, Cambodian, Thai and Indian designs; collages from pieces of printed Hindu devotional cards; fake Mughal miniature paintings (hand-painted by me using watercolor on parchment); straight-ahead free-hand animating in Flash; and hand-traced rotosope.

What prompted you to tell a story based on the Ramayana?
Oh my goodness. I moved to Trivandrum, India in 2002, following my then-husband. I read the Ramayana for the first time there, and was puzzled by what at first seemed like Sita’s extraordinarily submissive
behavior in the story. Then I went on a business trip to New York, and my husband dumped me by email. That changed my whole understanding of Sita and the Ramayana. I also heard the songs of Annette Hanshaw at that time, and everything came together.

How long did it take you to make this film?
3 years of work spread over 5 years of time.

What’s next for you after all the screenings are over? I hear you’re helping a fellow animator edit down a film. Is that correct?
Nope, but I’m available. I’m so busy trying to keep “Sita” going, it’s a full-time job except it doesn’t pay. I might write a graphic novel about my experiences with film festivals, the Movie Biz, the Law, and bed bugs. It’s been quite a year.

Where are you based?
New York, at the moment.

What is your current involvement with DUCK? Any DUCK-related projects coming down the pike?
If anyone sees my work on DUCK’s reel and says “I want Paley!” I am so there. It hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve been too busy to pitch, but I’m very happy to be represented that way. Mark Medernach has been a
huge supporter of “Sita,” and you can tell from the roster of DUCK animators that he understands and supports animation as art, not just commerce.

Has your film been a finalist or winner of any awards?
“Best Feature Film” Annecy International Animation Festival 2008
“Best American Feature” Avignon Film Festival 2008
“Best Script” (!) Athens International Film Festival 2008
Honorable Mention, “Best Animated Feature” Ottawa Animation Festival
2008
Special Mention, Generation 14-Plus, Berlinale 2008

Do you have a distribution deal in place?
Not yet, but it will probably be released in France before the US.

Do you think Sita could work on a TV channel in India like Hungama, or would your interpretation of the Ramayana be considered too liberal?
The political climate in India makes “Sita” a risky proposition there, but some Indian festival directors are interested. They have to get it past their committees, which are rightfully anxious about possible controversy. The film presents the Ramayana as several stories in several traditions, while certain Hindutva nationalist parties in India insist there’s only one Ramayana - theirs - and attack any dissent. Salil Tripathi recently wrote an article about exactly this in the Far East Economic Review.

Don’t forget to check out the animated feature film Sita Sings the Blues tonight at REDCAT in downtown Los Angeles at 8:30 p.m. The film is by DUCK director Nina Paley. For more details, see the blog below from last week.

Mark your calendars now! Animator extraordinaire and DUCK director Nina Paley will be screening her first animated feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, at REDCAT in Los Angeles on Monday, October 13 at 8:30 p.m.

In her first feature-length film, comic strip artist-turned-filmmaker Nina Paley juxtaposes multiple narrative and visual styles to create a highly entertaining and affecting vision of the Ramayana — the ancient Sanskrit epic and essential fixture of the Hindu canon. Musical numbers choreographed to the 1920s-era jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw spin off an astonishing whirlwind of flying monkeys, evil monsters, gods, goddesses, warriors, sages, and winged eyeballs. The film spans continents and millennia in parallel stories of two wives being unfairly dumped, one in the American autobiographical present, the other in the mythical Indian past. Three hilarious Indonesian shadow puppets narrate both the ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the epic.

We will  be chatting with Nina sometime between now and the screening, so make sure to add us to your RSS feeds, or check back often.

Tickets are $9 at the door or $7 with a student I.D.
(REDCAT is housed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall at 2nd Ave and Grand Ave in downtown LA.)

For the official blurb on the REDCAT page, visit: http://redcat.org/season/0809/fv/paley.php
For a complete list of all cities that will be screening Sita Sings the Blues for the remainder of 2008, please visit www.ninapaley.com

Animation master Brad Bird directed the Oscar-winning films Ratatouille and The Incredibles, from industry giant Pixar Animation Studios. At the Skirball Cultural Center, hear Bird discuss his body of work and how David Lean’s celebrated classic, Doctor Zhivago, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, has influenced his art.Friday, October 3, 2008
7:30 p.m.
$10 general admission, $6 full-time students
Click here for tickets

A few months ago I interviewed one of our newer directors, Richard Cullen. He recently completed work as the editor of the DVD concert video by Darren Hayes, “The Time Machine Tour.” The DVD debuted at #1 in the UK around July 22. Kudos to Richard (and Darren) and apologies for not blogging about this sooner.

Next up for Richard is another DVD titled This Delicate FILM We’ve Made. It’s due out in December and will feature 13 music videos off Darren’s last album. The majority of the films will be animated with Richard having animated and directed the majority of those. I’m sure it will be another #1 hit in the UK with a large following worldwide as well!

Award-winning and California-based director Jamie Caliri’s latest spot for United Airlines is now up on YouTube. I’ve posted it below for everyone, so take a look. You might remember Caliri’s Superbowl commercial for DUCK in 2006 titled “Dragon.” I’m a huge fan! He’s a great guy and does terrific work. The United spot below is titled “heart” and is pretty self explanatory. As always, it’s set to the Gershwin sounds of “Rhapsody in Blue.” In the spot, a woman is traveling to present at an architectural conference. Her loved one stays behind and she leaves him with her heart. When she returns thanks to United, he gives her back her heart and it fills in the void.