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We Asked Derek sakai the Art Director to Make Sure That No Facial

Animafest Zagreb recently announced that they would exist giving a Lifetime Achievement Award to Czech/American animator, Paul Fierlinger.

For this column, Paul and, his married woman/artistic partner, Sandra, very generously offered to put a couple of his early films online for this first time.

Rather than write from scratch, I decided to reprint slightly adapted excerpts from a 2000 article that I wrote on Fierlinger's career (afterwards published in the book Unsung Heroes of Animation).

Information technology's Then Dainty To Take a Wolf Around The House ( 1979)

The most intriguing motion picture of Fierlinger's early years is It'due south So Nice To Accept a Wolf Around The Firm. Commissioned past the Learning Corporation of America (LCA), the film was based on a volume by the aforementioned proper name.

Voice actor, Jim Thurman, ad-libbed the entire film. "Nosotros had no script," recalls Fierlinger. Thurman just looked at the pictures on every page and said something, so we pretty much made things upward every bit nosotros recorded."

While Wolf is somewhat dated, it is clearly the commencement mark of the notable Fierlinger manner. The thick black lines, the dark, warm colours, the stiff, confident vocalization of Jim Thurman are axiomatic. In content, Wolf is a tale of everyday folk; soft voices that Fierlinger amplifies throughout his career.

And so I'll Stop (1989)

While at the 1988 Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF), Fierlinger met NFB animators Derek Lamb and Kaj Pindal. Lamb was showing excerpts from his project, Goldtooth and asked Fierlinger if he was interested in existence the production house.

Pindal and Lamb after visited Fierlinger's studio to discuss the project, simply problems arose immediately.  "The trouble," admits Fierlinger, "was that I was drinking around the clock. Derek asked me a few times to wait until apex, just I was a disagreeable person." Soon after, Lamb told Fierlinger that things werent going to work out.

Losing the job was bad, just worse still Fierlinger had called off all projects to work with Lamb and Pindal. But fate, the slithering slap in the face, pounded on Fierlinger's door.  Having seen Fierlinger's work at the OIAF, Pyramid Films chosen Fierlinger and asked him if he would similar to make a film. They had a number of topics including teen suicide and drug and alcohol abuse. "I thought," says Fierlinger, "I'm an alcoholic and if anyone tin can practice this pic, I can."

United states of america Healthcare matched Pyramid's $xx,000 fee and Fierlinger was off to the races. Fierlinger had a friend who worked in a rehab clinic and provided him with 20 five hours of interview tapes.  It was these tapes that finally convinced Fierlinger to quit drinking: "Listening to those tapes," he recalls, "I knew I had to stop drinking. It's why I'm shouting at my kids and non getting along with Derek Lamb."

Using the interviews with re-hab patients, each story takes us through the habits, downfall and subsequent acknowledgment and recovery of each addict. Fierlinger gave each phonation their own drawing style. The styles range from dark, grayness sketches to Steinberg-influenced geometric drawings. Accompanying the story is a haunting, minimalist track. The power of the moving-picture show lies with the combination of Fierlinger's potent graphics, the soundtrack and the frank, unsentimental stories of these real people. At that place is non a drop of sentimentality in this film. Information technology is very much a horror story.

The motion-picture show ends with an emotional twist as nosotros are introduced to a new character named Paul. Unexpectedly, we hear Fierlinger's vocalisation discussing his own downfall and recovery.

"It's a strange affair," says Fierlinger. "I failed Derek because I was drunk and right so I get a call to piece of work on an alcohol film and not only become sober just run into someone who helped me."

Chris Robinson's picture

A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, author, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

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Source: https://www.awn.com/animationworld/keep-it-motion-classic-animation-revisited-its-so-nice-have-wolf-around-house-and

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