Over on the ASIFA Hollywood Archive page Ralph wrote an opinion piece with more to come. Ralph has a lifetime of experience with both fully animated cartoon films and laboriously rotoscoped live-action films. The real problem facing todays animators is coming up with something fresh to animate instead of rehashing the past, no matter what tools they choose, he indicates.
2 comments August 14th, 2007
A peek at some development art from Hey Good Lookin’ featuring the distinctive and strong character designs that the movie is full of:
2 comments July 5th, 2007
Before production on Heavy Traffic began, Ralph began writing poems — lots and lots of poems. They helped him convey the mood of the pictures he was about to direct. It’s highly personal work that he’s never really shared before, but we’ll be publishing select poems in the book for the first time ever.
For Coonskin, Ralph’s third and possibly finest film, he turned one of those poems into a fast, rhythmic tune as sung by none other than Scatman Crothers. Ralph wrote it, Scatman performs it — and man, is it a match made in filmmaking history.
As an interesting bit of trivia, when Coonskin was shown at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles during Ralph’s 3-day career tribute in 2005, Scatman’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was positioned in the middle of the sidewalk, right outside the theater’s entrance. Coincidence? Maybe. But that event is also where Chris and I formed a friendship that ultimately culminated in the very book you’ll be reading in 2008.
Some may see “Ahm a Niggerman” as controversial, but we see it as nothing but a great song. Enjoy!
2 comments June 28th, 2007
ASIFA Hollywood has posted another great Terrytoons piece, this time a rare movie from the late thirties of the animators at work in the studio and horsin’ around. Ralph’s old director and mentor Connie Rasinski is above on the right.
Add comment June 28th, 2007
Chris has scans of Bakshi cels that are going in various places in the book. Some of the cels are dirty, damaged, or simply need to be digitally “cut out” from the background with excellence and precision. Some digital restoration is in order. If you have some “spare time” (as if there was such a thing) and would like to volunteer your photoshop skills on a file or two, get in contact with Chrishere.
Add comment June 7th, 2007
Ralph taught at the School of Visual Arts for a few years around 2000 and 2001. One of his former students Morgan sent us this drawing that Ralph sketched one day in class. Thanks Morgan!
1 comment May 29th, 2007
In an upgrade to the blog, our page navigation has disappeared. Until we have the time to investigate further, the only other page of interest on the site is the contact page anyway. It still exists, so here is a link directly to it:
Contact Page. Write with any questions or comments to Jon and Chris directly.
Above is a detail shot of one of Ralph’s constructions.
Add comment May 29th, 2007
Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings budget provided a rare opportunity for the studio to indulge in things that other studios took for granted such as extensive pre-production development and having hundreds of artists working together to complete the picture. This was the only way to realize the grand vision of Tolkien’s books. Many beautiful backgrounds were painted and drawn for this feature. Here are two exciting pan backgrounds from Barry Jackson.
1 comment May 25th, 2007
Book production is cruising along. A second research trip is in the near future. Artifacts and art are being unearthed. Check out this shot of Ralph on the live-action set of Hey Good Lookin’ with the band the New York Dolls. It was a scene in the Stompers club house. Hey Good Lookin’ has a long and strange production story that spanned several other features that Ralph made simultaneously. It will all be in the book. More soon!
2 comments May 18th, 2007
Here’s some posts about Ralph from Spumco bigshots Jim Smith and Eddie Fitzgerald:
Jim’s art from a dirty road movie Ralph was toying with while he was at Spumco for a few weeks.
Eddie’s great write up on Ralph, one of his heros.
1 comment May 17th, 2007
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