on August 30, 2009
Nothing excites the internet masses (yours truly included) like a best of list. A new one out lists a bunch of really important animation directors and their representative works. Created by fans on the IMDB Classic Film Message Board and posted by alsolikelife on the Shooting Down Pictures Blog, these are folks who know a lot more about animation than I do, so I can’t argue with their selections. I wonder what our resident animation expert Ian thinks about it though. A bunch of these films can be found online, and several of these directors like Caroline Leaf, Bill Plympton, Aleksandr Petrov and Michael Dudok de Wit have been featured on SotW.
See the list at: Shooting Down Pictures Blog
The list is very helpful, comprehensive and has no national axe to grind. Checking out the names (and films) on one of the animation sites would undoubtedly form a backbone of knowledge for any lover of animation. Naturally there are omissions. I’m currently banging the drum for Russian director Rozalia Zelma and there are names I could add of up and coming stars. Dangerous things lists though – Koji Yamamura? And Erica Russell’s combination of dance and animation could well have been mentioned. Difficult job well handled to be honest and has given me food for thought.
Glad to hear that you sanction the list! I’ve already started checking some of this out. Omissions are of course inevitable, but I was a little disturbed by the lack of CG artists. Admittedly as a newer medium there has been less time to build up a body of work for these filmmakers, but do you have some thoughts on who is top from a CG end?
I’ve enjoyed the list too, and keep going back to it to check as I remember new favourites, I think almost all my top important directors are there with the critical omission of Robert Breer,(and maybe John Whitney, Mary Ellen Bute and Peter Foldes) but then I’m particularly glad to see animators like Walter Ruttman and Harry Smith in there. There have been some comments about Stan Brakhage, I think Brakhage is more of an experimental filmmaker. On the CG issue, I think time will tell who was important, I think at the moment Chris Landreth is the most innovative with the technology. It’s a good list!