Lost Animation IV at Oddball Films April 2, 2010

Event: “Lost Animation IV” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rarely screened classics and obscurities of world animation. Most are quite scarce- despite scads of accolades and international awards. Films include: “Claymation”, legendary clay animator Will Vinton in the studio; “The Romance of Transportation”, whimsical Canadian animation from 1952 with a dynamic jazz soundtrack; “Harold and Cynthia”; consumerist culture skewered; “The Mole and The Rocket”, beautiful Czech cartoon for kids (and mid-century style-loving adults); “Closed Mondays”, brilliant claymation from Will Vinton; “Boom”, more cold war jitters from Polish animator Bretislav Pojar; “The Sword”, surprise hit from the Lost Animation Fest; “Clay, or Origin of The Species”, the Oscar-winning claymation by Eliot Noyes, Jr.; PLUS “He Was Her Man”, the banned 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon based on the old murder ballad “Frankie & Johnny”.
Date: Friday, April 2, 2010 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or info@oddballfilm.com
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Lost_Animation_4.pdf
"Lost Animation IV”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, April 2 2010, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rarely screened animated shorts- both classics and obscurities. Several of these shorts won or were nominated for international awards and all showcase inventive, wild imagination- from the simplest line drawings, to mid-century modern classics, obtuse international favorites, to claymation mania.
Show time is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: info@oddballfilm.com or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

Claymation (Color, 1978)
Filmmaker Will Vinton and his staff of animators discuss the processes of clay animation, showing the mixing of colors, creation of characters, production and editing of the guide film, music scoring and the actual clay sculpture techniques.
The winner of an Academy Award, numerous television Emmys, and international animation awards numbering in the hundreds, Vinton used Claymation, a term he trademarked, to great effect in his early career and later bringing to life iconic advertising characters the California Raisins and M&Ms.

The Romance of Transportation (Color, 1952)
Directed by Colin Low, animated by Wolf Koenig and Robert Verrall and narrated by Guy Glover “Romance…” was the National Film Board’s first attempt at a UPA style of animation for an educational film. Despite the rather dry subject, it has generous humor a beautiful mid-century style, and features a great bop/cool jazz soundtrack by Eldon Rathburn.

The film offers a humorous account of the history of transportation in Canada, looking at how Canada's vast distances and obstacles were overcome, beginning with Canada's First Nations. It also recounts the experiences of early pioneers, the construction of the Trans-Canada Railway and modern travel.

Harold and Cynthia (Color, 1971)
Explores the impact of advertising on human beings by showing an ordinary man and woman whose attempts to establish a relationship are hindered by the contrived ideals espoused in modern advertisements.

Clay or Origin of The Species (B+W, 1965)
Academy Award-nominated claymation short by Eli Noyes Jr.- a visual representation of Darwinism through clay. Noyes worked for Sesame Street in the 1970s, where he produced the beloved Mad Painter series (he also designed the MTV logo).

The Mole and The Rocket (Color, 1965)
Tells a story about a little mole who is carried by a rocket to a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Shows how the sea animals help repair the ruined rocket and go off in it with the mole. Non-verbal with a musical soundtrack by the Czech Symphony Orchestra. By Polish animator Zdenek Miler.

Closed Mondays (Color, 1974)
This breakthrough film created by Will Vinton (The California Raisins) and Bob Gardiner won an Academy Award in 1975. In an after-hours visit to an art museum, a drunken man encounters the world of modern art. As he wanders through the gallery, paintings and sculptures shift from illusion to reality, an abstract painting explodes with rhythmic movement, a Rousseau jungle releases its captive images, a Dutch scrub woman talks about her plight, and a kinetic sculpture comes briefly and breathtakingly to life. A tour-de-force of clay animation that set the standard for Claymation as an art form.

Boom (Color, 1974)
The global arms race as animated by the legendary Bretislav Pojar (Balablok). Takes a look at the history of aggression and the theory that might makes right. By extension, it carries us into the atomic and missile age, postulating various scenarios for planetary self-destruction, both planned and accidental. Without narration, using only sound effects and music, the film asks the question: is this THE END?

The Sword (Color, 1967)
This clever cutout animation was a special addition and surprise hit at the Lost Animation Fest- short and er… to the point, The Sword is allegory on the ignorance of people who enjoy their life to those who are suffering or dying at the very same instant.

PLUS- He Was Her Man, the banned 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon based on the murder ballad Frankie and Johnny. Brutal spousal abuse, infidelity and murder, set in a cheery depression-era urban icebox.

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

Upcoming Programs
Fri April 9 – Weirdsville 13
Fri April 16 – Girl Trouble/Boy Trouble Menstruation, Juvenile Delinquency & Dating Disasters
Fri April 23 – Vintage Travelogues
Fri April 30 – Time, Space and Movement

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.