Underrated Animators/animation studios

Yeah, we know all the Disney 9 old men, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, the Fleischers.

But which animation studios/animators tend to slip under the radar? From any era, from any country. c Btw, here's a little piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn28cTaiaM4

edited 10th May '12 8:00:33 AM by blueflame724

Dreamworks Traditional Animation Line.

A. Film A/S. Those guys were awesome.

Doug Langdale and Tad Stones

Any small studio that is/had/has operated/operating in New York City. The industry there is different from Hollywood to the point where it's harder for an animation studio to stay afloat, and those that actually make GOOD WORK tend to be ignored by animation fans. Of course, the most current studio there with the highest reputation is Titmouse, but that's actually a branch from the one in California that they opened solely so they could blow up more- they are making 7 titles at the moment! Other studios in the past were the MTV cartoons headed by Buzz M., who died this year, Bill Plympton's studio, John Dilworth's studio, and the now-defunct Animation Collective. The Raggedy Ann And Andy movie from Richard Williams was animated entirely in Manhattan.

edited 10th May '12 4:00:38 PM by Shota

My apologies for bringing this up literally every chance I get, but:

Filmation.

I'm honestly thinking of doing a video about them, but they're a company who did a lot of pioneering in animation and had high artistic standards (to the point where they wouldn't outsource even if it was more cost-efficient to do so), who ironically (and unjustly) got a reputation for being "cheap" due to using stock footage to cut corners.

Don't apologize. Filmation is a give-in for this topic!

Sally Cruikshank

Certain shows could not exist without her pioneering work. Ahem!*

I have that film fresh in my mind (shameless self-promotion time) and I had forgotten how gorgeous some of the animation is. Little things like Annie’s character animation during the “Rag Dolly” musical number struck me as being nice little details. Incidentally, I think that had to have been the first (only?) movie where the opening credits credited each character by who animated them.

edited 11th May '12 11:59:50 AM by Bananaquit

Ukrainian Kievnaufilm, or more specifically Yevgeni Sivokon is underrated at least here. Both Laziness and The Tree and the Cat are both minimalistic yet thought provoking, the latter even pretty touching. Soyuzmultfilm also deserves more attention. The studio produced some of the best shorts I've seen, including Galina Barinova's scifi/fantasy-satire "A long time ago..." and Roman Kachanov's humanistic Cheburashka series.

For me personally watching He-Man episodes is a certain way to kill some precious childhood memories. Besides rotoscoped and endlessly recycled running and walking cycles there isn't really much animation, which is probably because the animators were only allowed to trace models, even if they were drawn incorrectly. I read at one place that Glen Keane had to basically relearn how to animate at Disney after working for Filmation.

I guess it's good if someone can still get enjoyment from Filmation series but I don't think people are hating it just for the sake of it.

Where did you hear this? That's news to me (and it makes me wonder how characters like Orko worked)

I don’t know if they were still doing it by then but it was blindingly obvious in their 70s cartoons. Just watch an episode of The Archies and an episode of The Brady Kids back to back if you don’t believe it (and not just those two, Fleetwood’s walk is based on Rudy’s from Fat Albert, for example).

And let’s not even go into all the Off-Model moments. There’s a bit in one of the songs from TBK where Jan is so off-model, she looks deformed...and this used to TERRIFY me as a child!

Moe Dantes: I exaggerated a little, but not much. I won't post the link, because I don't want this to turn into a bashing thread but this is what Will Finn said...

i gotta add one more memorable moment that's relevant to "on model" dogma:

my first week on HE-MAN, the cleanup crew were given model sheets of "Ram Man" where the designer had drawn his thumbs on the wrong side of his hands.

In his "full front" pose and side pose, the thumbs were right, but in the rear pose, they were drawn incorrectly, it was an obvious mistake.

When we pointed this out to the clean up supervisor, she went ashen and told us we had to follow it anyway, until the proper protocol had been addressed to look into the problem. Whenever he turned his back, we had to have "Ram Man's" thumbs inbetween around to the wrong side of his hand to be perfectly "on model."

I swear to God I am not making this up.

It took a couple of weeks, but we were eventually given new "corrected models" and the crew went into overtime to re-do all the incorrect clean up we had been doing in the interim.

If Kafka had ever written pure farce, even he could not have topped FILMATION.

P.S. the original FAT ALBERT characters were done by some very good artists for 2 TV specials that were not done at FILMATION. These are for some reason not available and have not been aired in nearly 30 years. When the subject was sold to TV FILMATION, bastardized the models and the results were...well, typical.

Here's another

http://youtu.be/fY9Kndy0ZMs

Anyone remember Pigeon:Impossible?

Ah, yes I have noticed how different Filmation characters have similar movements and walk-cycles.

I've never heard the Ram-Man story before, but I can believe it. Even the best have their bad days.

Possibly has something to do with music clearance. Herbie Hancock did the music to the early specials (at least that first one) and I imagine Warner Bros. is being greedy and obstructive.

edited 13th May '12 10:58:47 PM by Bananaquit

And of course, there's that film nobody ever likes to mention.

Recently Doug Walker posted a short called "Crayon Dragon" on his facebook page.

Oh my god. Van Beuren all the way. I'm surprised not many others have heard of them, to be honest.

Yeah, it's a great short!

Ken O'Brien, who animated Princess Tiger Lily in Disney's 'Peter Pan'. His animation on her is so gorgeous and fluid, and he's so underrated.

Martin Rosen, who directed Watership Down and Plague Dogs...the animation isn't exactly top-notch (it could be more fluid for my taste), but it is different, in a good way. And the mood in both movies is unique.

Hal King, who a supervising animator on Lady and the Tramp and animated the wolves in The Jungle Book. Recently, Mark Henn drew inspiration from his design of Winnie the Pooh for the 2011 movie.

I always thought that Richard Williams was quite underrated as an animator. I loved his work with The Thief and the Cobbler and I felt that it didn't get enough recognition that it deserved. Also, Henry Selick is another animator who is heavily underrated (although The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline are probably his most popular works.

As for underrated animation studios, I know I always mentioned this and my icon at the moment shows this, but Rabbit Ears Productions is vastly underrated as they created a lot of fantastic stories, but they are barely noticed. Some of my favorites included How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin and How the Camel Got His Hump, Rumpelstiltskin, and The Fool and the Flying Ship. Also, Lacewood Productions seems underrated since they created The Nutcracker Prince, which was a bit well known for having Kiefer Sutherland voice the Nutcracker at the time.

What about Zac Moncreif and C. Miles thompson.

Xilam.