Sita Sings The Blues

For anyone who missed Nina Paley's feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, you can now watch it online! If you haven't seen it, please check it out here: WATCH SITA SINGS THE BLUES!

Or you can DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Enjoy!

Women's Portrayl in Film and TV

There's an interesting article on AWN about the portrayal of women in tv and movies. Gender In Media: Females Don’t Rule Please take the time and read it. If not, at least read the quotes below-

"Historically, there are multiple reasons why female lead characters are less abundant than males in the television, film, and animation industries. Male writers and/or creative talent were the predominant architects in the building of the animation industry; and, as many writers do, they wrote from the perspective they knew, observes Helppie...."

"'And as more female executives came to the forefront with the power to greenlight productions or oversee creative storylines, stronger female identities and less stereotypic portrayals were encouraged. The networks and children's broadcasters also pushed to have more engaging, leadership-driven, and less stereotypic, female roles in their programming.'"

After giving sad figures on the lack of women in the industry, Dr. Smith adds, "Maybe the answer is that for change to occur even more women are needed in the creative process where key decision-making occurs at the pitch and story development level...."

author- Jane Nagel

Disney/Pixar

Check this out! This is the line up for Disney/Pixar the next few years. And for the first time a woman will be helming a Pixar film! Seems all the upcomin Pixar movies will also be in digital 3D.

Variety article

Seems the director, Brenda Chapman, comes from Illinois! This is not her first directing credit, she directed The Prince of Egypt.

wiki article

Pricilla Olsen Screening

Hey everyone,
Just a reminder that next Friday is the screening with Pricilla Olsen. There will be some snacks out at 6:00 and the screening will start at 6:30. It is on the 4th floor of 1104 south wabash infront of the 402 screening room. Hope to see you all there!
-Jennifer Nelson
p.s. Amada will be posting a flyer shortly!

Twin Animators

This is an old photo of twins named Marylin and Madilyne
Woods. It was emailed to someone at work to show us. It turns out that they were animators/assistants in the 1940s at Warner Brothers. That is so cool to see other twins working in animation together, especially women in the 1940s! We’re totally fascinated by this, but we can’t find any info about them. Does anyone know about these twins?

Meeting with Producer of "How to Hook Up Your Home Theatre"

I recently emailed both director's of the new goofy short that is playing at the Chicago Children's International Film Festival. I actually got a response from the Producer, Tamara Boutcher, of the short. We get to meet and chat with her after the screening on the 20th! Here's the email she sent regarding a possibility to have an email chat with the directors of the short:

Hi kristine, Stevie forwarded your mail on to me. I am the Producer of "how to hook up your home theatre" the short that will be screening at the festival. Unfortunately, the directors will not be attending the scrreening on the 20th, but I will be there and would love to say hello to your group. Let's talk then about setting up an email "chat" with stevie and kevin. We may also be talking to some colleges in the area and I will have more up to date information about that on the 20th too. Thanks for your interest in our project. Cheers! --tamara


So WIA chicago- if you are attending the screening on that Saturday morning, please let me know so I get a count. I will post directions to the theatre here later this week, it's actually at the DAVIS theatre on the North end of the city. See you all at the screening and start thinking of questions you might want to ask!

Lets see the FIRST Disney Short to be Directed by a Woman!

OK so I got a hold of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival screening schedule for this year! It's not online YET but the library had one of the handy paper schedules.

I came across two things that should be seen, one of which is a landmark short of sorts.


Proposed Date and time of Event:

October 20th
10:30 a.m.
(that's a Saturday)
Davis Theatre
4614 N. Lincoln Ave.


The film we'd get to see is called The Three Robbers. There's a official trailer courtesy of youtube here.

Itlooks quite beautiful. Of course when they screen it here, it will be translated.
It was recently mentioned in Cartoon Brew here

Even better, they're screening the new Goofy short "How to Hook up Your Home Theatre" before it. This short was made in the old short style, and it's gotten great reviews. And oddly enough, it's the FIRST DISNEY CARTOON directed by a WOMAN!! Maybe we can find a way to get her to talk to us? An interview perhaps? Even an interview/Q&A by email?

Stevie Wermers-Skelton is her name and she directed the short with Kevin Deters
Stevie's "resume" and contact info
Here's a link to a bit about her and Kevin Deters, courtesy of Ottawa Film Fest. It's at the bottom of the page

They both will be in town doing a workshop for the Children's Film Festival on October 27th from 11 am to 1 pm. I'm not sure but maybe we can see if they can do a quick q&a and see if the animation department at columbia will let us have it there.

Cartoon Brew's article on Ottawa & the Goofy Short

And then there's this wonderful interview with Andreas Deja and Mark Henn who animated this short here

We should buy tickets in advance