WORKING WITH THE CINEMATHEQUE

It was an honor to be invited to become a member of the Cinematheque Quebecoise some time ago. I remember when it was a film screening society called the Cinematheque Canadienne and would have rare films screened at McGill University in the early 1960s. Silent films were largely on the bill as I recall and I trace my continuing love of silent cinema back to those showings.

 

In 1967 the World's Fair, Expo '67, hosted a major exhibition on animation, and rare artwork from around the world and from animation's beginnings on, were on view. Here was not only original drawings from Winsor McCary's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR but the original poster and newspaper coverage from 1914, for example. I have seen animation exhibitions since then in many venues, and even curated some myself, but nothing has ever compared to the scope and quality of this show. The volunteers at the Cinematheque did themselves proud after years of hard work.

 

Afterwards, they asked the lenders of the artwork and artifacts to donate them to the Cinematheque and many did, forming the basis of their collection and also beginning its specializing in animation. Now the Cinematheque has not only animation resources, but films, posters, publicity, publications and much more on the whole subject of international film. It has done scholarly work and published articles and works on animation over the years, as well as public themed screenings.

 

Disada has lent films from its collection to the Cinematheque for screenings. At times some films Disada has made have also been screened.  We have also lent original animation artwork for display in their building for screenings. If there was an evening of Tex Avery cartoons there for example, artwork from his films from our collection would be exhibited.

 

In 1978 Mickey Mouse had a 50^th anniversary and the Cinematheque and Disada combined resources to put on a special exhibition in the National Library. Under the direction of Louise Beaudet, who did so much for animation scholarship over the years, the animation section of the Cinematheque got new 35mm prints from Disney and we organized an exhibition of original artwork and artifacvts from our own collection. We lent some artwork for another major animation exhibition the Cinematheque curated in 1982.

 

 Everyone in animation around the world knew and respected Louise`s dedication to and, knowledge of animation. Working with her over the years both in the Cinematheque and ASIFA Canada, The International Ammated Film Association, which she started and where I was a member, a board member and a Vice President, was always a genuine pleasure.

 

I eventually donated to the Cinematheque our collection of 35mm film prints of Disney, Warners and other animation classics and printed materials. Sometimes we would discover or be brought a rare or unknown film, usually an animated one, and we would donate it to the Cinematheque. They would best preserve it, reprint it and exchange it with other such institutions around the world so it would be seen again. I remember one very rare silent era independent cartoon on Christopher Columbus done by an early woman animator. Similarly, the work of one silent animator. Herbert Dawley, was known through reputation but not for any surviving films, but we found one. A feature silent live-action film with known stars was thought to be lost, but one day we found a copy, even color-tinted.

 

Attending the annual members' meeting was always interesting, not only for the discussions on film matters, but to meet and mingle with the filmmakers of Quebec who had come together for their common interests. I remember one such annual meeting where I found myself sitting beside an actress I always admired, Marie Tifo. 

 

 

REMEMBERING WALLY GENTLEMAN

Those of us in the arts all have people whose lives and careers have inspired us to do our best and to love our professions and sometimes we are fortunate enough to have real mentors. I was indeed fortunate to have Wally Gentleman as one of my mentors.

 

Wally came to Canada from England in 1957. His special effects film work in the UK such as GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947). THE RED SHOES (1948), OLIVER TWIST (1948), ANASTASIA (1956) led  him head that discipline at the National Film Board of Canada. His seminal work there was UNIVERSE (1960) which was about the planets and so on in our solar system. So well done and realistic were his scenes that it was hard not to believe that they had sent a real cameraman to these heavenly bodies! It was nominated Best Documentary Short at the Academy Awards,

 

The film attracted the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who hired Wally to create the special effects for his future feature 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968.) Wally imagined most of the film's memorable scenes, such as the woman who walks around and upside down in the zero-gravity spaceship, secured by her grip shoes. The shots of the planets was an updated version of his work in UNIVERSE, but much trickier. In color and Cinerama, any defects in the special effects shooting would be easily seen. People looked for the so-called invisible wires holding up the planets. Wally's simple answer to that threat was to suspend the planets upside down and shoot the scene with an inverted camera. The film was a huge success, with only one sour note. The film's credits say “Special Effects by Stanley Kubrick” and it was he who collected that Academy Award at the next Oscar ceremony.

 

He formed SPEAC (Special Photographic Effects and Allied Crafts) in Montreal and also became involved with industry affairs with various film organizations and guilds. We met when he was President of the Society of Film Makers and I was a board member. He fought government bureaucracy to secure a good cultural climate for Canadian filmmakers and was instrumental in getting positive legislation. I was happy to learn and work under him on these goals and battles and learned much. After a few years he reached the term limits of the position and I became President of the SFM. We worked well together. Wally wrote many technical articles for film publications and had time for everyone who loved film as did he.

 

Wally was an excellent cameraman as well as special effects person and was a major member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. He shot various live-action projects for Disada Productions. One had a little special effects in it, which was fun to do. Over the years we became good friends and I learned a great deal from him about film and the art of film in which he was much experienced and well-versed. Early on, we would go to see a film together and afterwards in a nearby restaurant he'd ask what I thought of it. I'd say something simple like “I liked it” or “It was good” and then he'd go into enormous detail about the film, what worked, what didn't and why it was so. His analysis was always deep and detailed and I felt pretty inept. Over the years, learning from him how to think about film, I was finally able to at least keep up and possibly make our talks a little interesting for him. He taught me how to think about film in all its aspects. He was also a great enthusiast for animation, so we had a bond there as well. Now, many years later I frankly find myself in his position when I talk with new young film enthusiasts. I find myself thinking of him when I reach for some supposedly insightful thought about film when talking to the next generation.

 

Wally, Peter Benison and I took the Society of Film Makers and turned it into the Canadian Academy of Motion Picture and Television Arts and Sciences. Wally was a bridge-builder. One year the Canadian film industry was cut in two with Quebec film makers on one side and English Canadian film makers on the other. Neither was talking to the others, and the annual Canadian Film Awards was coming up with neither side wanting to attend as a result. Wally and I did some shuttle diplomacy, travelling back and forth between Montreal and Toronto talking to both sides until we finally got them each to agree to attend the televised awards and a series of talks in future.

 

One day we got in a challenging film to do: a live-action and animation film for the military . It would have a good number of scenes combining the two onscreen at the same time. In those days this meant a lot of matte work or aerial image work, which were very expensive, much more than the budget we were to have. I called Wally and he invented a new kind of aerial image machine that could serve. To make things more complicated, the characters were to move within a MOVING live-action scene at times. Up to then, in combination live-action and animation scenes, like in some Disney feature films the camera would be “locked down”. But we wanted to try animating the characters in moving perspective with the real footage. No point in doing things the easy way! We found it amusing when years later WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was acclaimed the first time this had been done. Wally's invention did the job very well, and we completed the film within our budget. Wally secured a patent on his invention, and sold the unit to Universal, where it was put to use on the television series BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA, he told us later. I should point out that with Wally you also got to work with his dedicated and loyal crew. You could say the prime person was his wife Margaret, a creative dynamo in her own right. Theirs was the best showbusiness marriage I have ever known on both personal and professional grounds.

 

Wally remained excited by film, and I could see the young man in the older man though his enthusiasm. When a new feature would open and it was loaded with special effects, we'd close the studio early Friday afternoons and everyone would go to see it, then hear his analysis afterwards. New films like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND fit the bill. I was too busy to go with the gang to see this new STAR WARS thing when it opened, but all I heard was raves on Monday morning from everyone, especially from Wally.

 

Wally went to Europe to do some feature films and his letters were creative and funny. Later he became a director at Film Effects of Hollywood, the longtime effects company of the legendary Linwood Dunn (King Kong, Citizen Kane etc.) In 1982 Wally made history by using video and electronics to shoot Francis Ford Coppola's pioneering film ONE FROM THE HEART.

 

Though Wally died in 2001, I still sometimes find myself seeing something on film and absent-mindedly thinking I've got to tell him about it. He was a great mentor and friend and is no doubt missed by all who knew him. Never was anyone as aptly named as Wally Gentleman.

 

 

 

 

 

THE IRANIAN CAPER

THE IRANIAN CAPER

 

The release of the new film ARGO brings back memories of the so-called Iranian Caper. When militants stormed the US embassy in Theran and took hostage diplomats and workers, six managed to escape to the home of the Canadian ambassador. A cover story evolved and the six pretended to be Canadians and eventually were able to leave Iran as such. The film tells the story, though it downplays the risk Canadians took in befriending the Americans, and how the Canadian Prime Minister, Joe Clark, worked with the American administration to devise the ruse.

 

Americans, or more specifically Ben Affleck may not appreciate the Canadians' contribution, but they certainly did at the time. Shortly after the six were flown back home, and the story became well known, people from our animation studio, Disada Productions, went to Boston for a comic-animation convention where we did radio interviews and so on. We stayed at a large Sheraton Hotel where the convention was held. On the morning we went to check out and pay our bill, the clerk took out our file, said “You're Canadians? No charge.” He said the stay was free to thank Canada for helping the Americans in this difficult time. He also gave us each a pin, combining the US and Canadian flags.

 

The rest of the Americans were ultimately released about a year later on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President. I was in Cleveland, Ohio that day and the night before on business, and like most people stayed up most of the night to watch the news events unfold live on TV. Everyone was bleary-eyed during the next day's meetings.

Disada Productions on the Shotgun Show!

Disada Productions was recently featured on the Shotgun Show, an internet-based reality show!  At the moment our interview can be found on the featured section of their website!

http://www.youtube.com/user/ShotgunWithCarlo/featured

Owner Peter Adamakos talks about his Walt Disney's Peter Pan Collection!

DISADA GOES GREEN

One of the production steps in classical animation used to be the inking and painting of acetate cels. The characters in the animation drawings would be traced from the pencil paper version to an inked version on cels, which were then painted on the reverse side and then filmed from the front atop each scene's background.

 

There was a lot of paint around, hundreds of different colors that would be bought directly or mixed by us for specific colors we wanted to see onscreen. There were also gradations of colors too- as cel levels were switched in the filming process or new cels added to a scene, compensation colors had to be mixed so that the colors of characters would remain the same throughout the scene and not get lighter or darker as cels were added or taken off. All of this amounted to a lot of paint being used, and a lot of jars of water with paint in them as the painters would rinse off their brushes and otherwise created many jars of painty water.

 

About a year after opening our studio, we contacted the main ecological groups in the city to ask for their advice on what to do with this leftover water. Only certain paints would adhere to the cels and they were not good for the environment when all the animation studios would pour that water down drains. What we came up with was a simple but effective answer. The worst thing was for the water to enter the environment as a liquid, we were told, so we set up an “evaporation room.”

 

The painters were told to use as little water as necessary and when a jar could no longer be used, not to pour the water down the drain, but to send the jar to the evaporation room where it would sit, opened, with hundreds of others until the water eventually evaporated and the paint became a solid mass in the jar. Better to have the paint as such in landfill than in liquid form in the river system, the experts said.

 

Another thing we did was to cut down on the number of jars and amount of water by better organizing our painting schedules. For example, in the BIBITE films the little green character appeared in most scenes, along with other characters who would only be in one or two. For the first half of the painting time on that film all the painters painted Bibite and only Bibite cels. His main color, green, was seen on every desk, but by doing all those green colors at the same time, rather than paint scene by scene, returning to green every so often there were fewer jars of green paint to evaporate. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

DISADA'S FIRST BOOK

Disada Productions and Peter Adamakos have been featured in a number of books on animation over the years. The very first book mentioning Disada was MY CANADA- SUCH A MECHIAH! By Mike Gutwillig. It was published in 1967 during the Centennial year and features chapters on interesting Canadians, including one on Peter when he was a 20 year old university student leading a group of over 200 film makers.

 

We have a copy that Mike sent, with his dedication “To Peter Adamakos- may you never lose that Disney inspiration to do great things with film. Loyally, Mike Gutwillig.”  

See the full gallery on Posterous

Untitled

Another Classic Disada Commercial!!

A Giant Potato connect-the-dots! Print this off and give it to your kids!!!

Winnie Witch and the Giant Potato Comic Strip!

A PLACE TO STAND

A PLACE TO STAND

 

Recently some friends gathered to see some 16mm films from our collection and I introduced them to A PLACE TO STAND, my favorite Canadian film. It was commissioned by the government of Ontario to be shown in the Ontario Pavilion at the World's Fair at Expo '67 in Montreal. Created and Directed by Christopher Chapman, the 18 minute film was a crowd favorite at the Fair. Rarely did I go to Expo '67 without seeing it and I was there every few days for months. The film went on to get a theatrical release, distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was nominated at the next Academy Awards for Best Documentary Short AND for Best Live-Action Short, the only time that happened, and won the latter.

 

The film has no narration, only music and effects but does have the song A PLACE TO STAND. Even before the Fair was over, recordings of the song were printed and sold due to demand, and even today the song endures as a sort of Ontario anthem, featured in media (”Ontari-ari-arioo”) . People know it but not the film where it was first heard and for which it was written.

 

A few years later I had the honor of being elected President of the Society of Film Makers. While there were organizations for directors, writers, cameramen, actors and so on in the film industry, this was the organization for all professionals in the film industry. Eventually Wally Gentleman, Peter Benison and I turned it into the Canadian Academy of Motion Pictures and Television. From the membership I was able to select two Vice Presidents and it was a total pleasure to pick the two people who had done the most for film as an art form, Norman McLaren and Christopher Chapman.

 

In 1992, for the 25^th anniversary of Expo '67 I organized some public events in celebration and remembrance. There was an extensive collection of the World's Fair memorabilia and artifacts and the showing of many of the unique films from Expo '67, ending with A PLACE TO STAND. At every showing that film ended with very many in the audience in tears, so I was not alone!The film has come to represent the Fair and for those who had come to the reunions this film was the height of nostalgia. It brought back great memories of the Fair as well as the feeling we had back then of what a great place Canada was in its centennial year and the confidence we had in its future, which is the unstated but shown spirit of the film. While about Ontario, it was really about the Canadian character.

 

The film is indeed 18 minutes, but has close to two hours of footage in it. It pioneered the multiple-image screen. On the immense screen at the pavilion, the screen was filled with constantly changing moving images. Sometimes the entire screen would be one large image. At other tines you could see two images, like a spit screen, or many small images, moving left to right or vice versa, moving out of the way for another image to come in, zooming in or out, starting small, zooming out, then in again, anywhere from one to a dozen or more images at any moment, all of them actual movies, not slides.

 

It sounds chaotic, but it is miraculous because it is so well conceived and directed and edited. One can go back to Eisenstein and others who discovered cause and effect in editing. He once took footage of a woman with a totally blank expression. Then he experimented: A baby crying was shown, then some of the woman. A fire scene, then the woman. A wedding scene, then cut to the woman. Test audiences reported that the woman's expression showed how sad, terrified or happy she was in each case.

 

In the same way, the positioning of the multiple scenes in A PLACE TO STAND creates a new feel, a cause and effect carryover as it were, but more than single shot editing provides. Fade in to scenes of a wintery blizzard, three different scenes across the top of the screen, and one at each  side at the bottom. The middle part of the screen at the bottom is black, no image. Once we're conditioned to the cold wintery exterior, a scene of a curling game is seen in the black ares. The people curling are warm and cozy while the storm outside rages (literally onscreen) all around them. It gives a more embracing feel than if it had been done the traditional way, showing the storm outside then cutting to a curling scene indoors. The storm and the game are happening at the same time onscreen at the same time without the need to cut from one to the other to keep showing it. You can watch the storm or the game. Most will watch the game as it is the new element onscreen, but still feel the storm.

 

As the game continues, another scene pops on, a shot of the trophy to be awarded to the winner of the game. The game scene is intensified by seeing the goal. Yet another scene is added to the mix, a closeup of the brooms in the game as the teams battle. Now the game is intensified as they go for the trophy. It is a film experience like no other.

 

Norman Jewison used the technique in filming THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway not long after, and other films have used miultiple image effectively but not as extensively. I am told the technique was used in the television series 24. You can see A PLACE TO STAND on YouTube for an approximation of it, but it does suffer from not being seen on a huge screen, where the images can be seen clearly, and with that great soundtrack turned up high.

Another post for my Ottawa School of Art Students!

This is a great website for free illustration instruction. It contains comprehensive step-by-step videos concerning everything from basic drawing to using technical software! 

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

JOHN GAUG & EARLY DISADA ANIMATION

JOHN GAUG & EARLY DISADA ANIMATION

Surfing around the internet and various animation sites, I recently
came across an appreciation of the career of John Gaug, which brought
back thoughts of Disada Productions' early days when we worked and
learned together.

In 1967 Montreal was host to the world with Expo '67, an incredible
World's Fair that had anything you were interested in it seemed. If
that was animation, there was a phenomenal exhibition of animation
artwork and artifacts going back to the earliest days to the
television era. Here were original drawings, poster and newspaper
articles on Winsor McCay's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR from 1914 and it just
got even better, including actual stop-frame puppets from the early
days and much more.

In addition there was an animation film festival, with over a week of
rare animation films, again from the earliest days, running in the
afternoons and in the evenings, each screening devoted to a specific
subject or studio. I had died and gone to Montreal. This was in the
days before video or DVDs so animation fans would get to see films we
had only read about. I arranged to take time off work so as not to
miss any of the screenings.

I took notes on each film as it was projected and after each screening
noticed a young fellow who also seemed to attend each screening. After
a few times I went up to him and we talked about the films and
animation. I found someone who was as interested as I was in
animation. He was still in high school and was about 15 years old.

After the week of films was over, he came to my place and saw more
16mm animation films I had collected and also animation memorabilia,
Disney cels and things that I had. We decided to do a short together
and got some publicity in newspapers and radio to find others who
would join us and soon we were underway. We worked mostly on weekends
and would go to see cartoon films and features as a group as well. We
read everything there was available on animation. We were passionate
and probably dreamed about animation in our sleep. The Cinematheque in
Montreal had animation nights we would attend. It was constant
learning, studying, drawing and experimenting. I got to know his
family and his barbershop group singing parents.

A famous actor came to visit Expo '67 and I arranged to meet with him
after a press conference to sign some lobby cards from his most famous
film. He was associated with children often so he was surrounded by
them at the press conference, all smiles and laughs. As soon as the
press was gone, however, he turned mean, practically threw a little
girl off his lap and started swearing. The children were quickly
whisked away. He was reminded about signing the lobby cards and that
started a new tantrum. He had a Montreal representative, who took me
aside and suggested I leave the photos with him and he'd have them
signed by the actor before he left Montreal the next day.

A couple of days later I went to see the rep who gave me the signed
cards and expressed sincere regrets for what happened. He asked me if
I wouldn't tell people who the actor was (and I haven't) and asked if
there was anything he could do for me. I could see from his office
that he was a real estate man and said we could use an animation
studio. He said he had a couple of small rooms in his real estate
company building there that he could rent out to us- how much room did
we need? I couldn't resist replying “Enough room to swing a cat in.”
He looked amused and I explained that in his Kansas City days Disney
rented out some rooms in the back of a real estate company and gave
that same answer when he was asked that, according to biographies. He
laughed, called it a good omen, and suggested we pay $25 a month to
cover the heat, light and water.

John and I now had a small studio to work in, with storyboard panels
on the walls, animation desks we made ourselves, inking and painting
area. It got pretty crowded on weekends- I remember Ross drawing on
the floor under the larger table. He preferred drawing down there. We
did a lot of work in those two rooms and had a mascot, Irving the
cactus.

We stayed there until we decided to become a professional studio about
three years later when we moved into a three-floor studio downtown. We
worked on a short titled THE MOUSE AND THE LION. John did some
animation but mostly layout and backgrounds on our next effort, a
theatrical cartoon short Columbia Pictures distributed called INSOMNIA
OR BUST. In each jungle background John would incorporate his
initials, in the bark of a tree or vines or whatever. It drove Tom
crazy but I didn't mind. When the film was nominated Best Animation in
what are now called the Genie Awards John and I went to the ceremony
in Toronto. We didn't win, but had a good time seated at the table
with the other animation nominees talking shop. The awards were handed
out by Hollywood legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck that year. That
would have added a plus to a win.

I remember John was furious that as we left the awards the late
newspapers were out with headlines of the winners. He thought it was
fixed, but I saw no conspiracy. Besides we were in too much of a hurry
to bother about it. To save money in those early days we took the
train to Toronto and had to rush after the awards to catch the
overnight going back to Montreal. When we arrived we had to change
into our suits in the washroom of the hotel where the awards were
taking place!

The overnight train was a milk run that must have stopped at each town
and village. You'd be jolted awake every time it stopped. One
passenger snored something fierce and finally John shook him awake
yelling something like “Wake up! I can't take it any more!”

John did the backgrounds on our next picture, our first television
commercial and did a fine job once again. He did the storyboards for a
feature animation cartoon we wanted to do and designed the characters
for it. We did our own story though he wanted us to get the rights to
something called THE HOBBIT. We looked into getting the rights but
United Artists had the film rights back then and didn't want to sell
them. There were admittedly elements of it in the feature story we
wrote and designed, THE MAGIC JEWEL. He then wanted to get the rights
to THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, but it did nothing for me so
that went nowhere. He worked on a short he wrote, THE APPLE, at our
place but didn't finish it.

He left the studio, though I would see him at animation events and
functions where we'd have a good talk. When I got a better copy of
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS on film he got my old copy which we
had both studied countless times including frame by frame. John went
on to do various films and projects and enjoyed working in other
cities, like New York, Ottawa and London. When he died in 1984 it was
a deep loss for animation and for those who knew him.

See the full gallery on Posterous

DISADA FIGHTS THE COLD WAR

DISADA FIGHTS THE COLD WAR

In the early 1970s we made a live-action documentary titled NIGHT
BEAT. It was the first film to go with the police on their late night
beat in the most crime-ridden parts of Montreal. For months we went
along with them on The Main and other areas every Friday night, which
they had said was the biggest crime period of the week. We had signed
papers absolving them from blame if we got harmed or killed.

There were some funny stories that came out of this production.
Usually we sat in the back seat of police cars as they did their
work, which included patrolling the downtown area. Montreal on a
Friday night was a very busy place. Sometimes at red lights ot just
parked, someone you knew would walk by, see you in the back seat of a
police car, assume you've been arrested and turn away. I'd hold up the
camera and point to it but by then they'd walked away quickly. Thank
goodness there was no social media back then or it would have been
reported I had been arrested, convicted and jailed by midnight.

One time the police we were with were going on their supper break.
They decided to go to their favorite pizza place. It was way across
town, far from their beat. I questioned if they could get there, eat
and back in time to resume their work. They laughed. They turned on
their sirens and we covered the miles in minutes. It was a wild ride,
and on film we have a scenic tour of Montreal in a couple of minutes,
though it's quite a bumpy ride.

Once the film was finished we got a letter from the Soviet embassy in
Ottawa. They wanted to purchase a copy of the film. I remembered what
happened to WEST SIDE STORY. A year or so after that film was
released, Russia bought it to show to its people. This was hailed as a
cultural warming of the cold war. What they actually did, I read in
Variety, was cut the film down, eliminating the songs and the story,
making a documentary short on the problems of gangs in the USA
terrorizing the population and showed that as propaganda to their
people. I was sure they wanted to see our film and buy it to edit into
a similar exercise about rampant crime in the West. I answered them
that this film was not available for export but our cartoons could be
part of a fine cultural exchange. Of course we never heard from them
again.

Noah's Animals Rough Work!

Here is a posing drawing for a difficult scene of animation! Here is
the planning the animator did before he began to animate the scene.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TIMING AND THE SPACING!

For all of my Ottawa School of Art students this semester here is a good video on how to find your timing and spacing for animation.

I was reviewing some Winnie and Potato story boards today! Great stuff!

Two Winnie Witch and the Giant Potato Comic strips!

Fire Prevention Week Launch 2012!

Disada Productions’ Peter Adamakos has always been active in
charitable work, starting with World of Dreams and now Fire Prevention
Canada. Peter’s new charitable interest is a 35 year-old non-profit
organization that provides education on fire safety throughout Canada.

On October 4, 2012 Disada Productions organized and hosted the
Canadian National Fire Prevention Week Launch, which occurs
simultaneously in Canada and the USA. Disada Productions has been a
major part of this annual convention for the past three years.

The event operates under the patronage of the Governor General of
Canada (the Royal Proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II was read out,
announcing Fire Prevention Week). Rick McCullough, President of Fire
Prevention Canada opened the event with the charities’ other board
members in attendance.
Fire Chiefs and Marshals attended from all parts of Canada and the
federal Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt.

Disada Productions organized a catered lunch and a special musical
event for children, a live, interactive stage show by Les Productions
Mylzami on the subject of fire safety. Over five hundred singing
students raised the roof of the Government Conference Centre in
Ottawa, the nation's capital, where the launch was held! Disada
arranged for the donation of five hundred new smoke alarms and
batteries to give to the children from Kidde and Duracell.

Talented camera-man and marketer Dean Emerick filmed and photographed the event.

Peter Adamakos wants to acknowledge and thank the individuals and
government employees that form the volunteer launch committee and
helped make it all possible and a great success: Mike Dunlop, Mark
Gillan, Celine Guerin, Eugene Marotta, Gerry McCabe, Julie Richer and
Colette Trudel and to the various sponsors of the event.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Fire Prevention Week Launch 2012!

Disada Productions’ Peter Adamakos has always been active in
charitable work, starting with World of Dreams and now Fire Prevention
Canada. Peter’s new charitable interest is a 35 year-old non-profit
organization that provides education on fire safety throughout Canada.

On October 4, 2012 Disada Productions organized and hosted the
Canadian National Fire Prevention Week Launch, which occurs
simultaneously in Canada and the USA. Disada Productions has been a
major part of this annual convention for the past three years.

The event operates under the patronage of the Governor General of
Canada (the Royal Proclamation by Queen Elizabeth II was read out,
announcing Fire Prevention Week). Rick McCullough, President of Fire
Prevention Canada opened the event with the charities’ other board
members in attendance.
Fire Chiefs and Marshals attended from all parts of Canada and the
federal Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt.

Disada Productions organized a catered lunch and a special musical
event for children, a live, interactive stage show by Les Productions
Mylzami on the subject of fire safety. Over five hundred singing
students raised the roof of the Government Conference Centre in
Ottawa, the nation's capital, where the launch was held! Disada
arranged for the donation of five hundred new smoke alarms and
batteries to give to the children from Kidde and Duracell.

Talented camera-man and marketer Dean Emerick filmed and photographed the event.

Peter Adamakos wants to acknowledge and thank the individuals and
government employees that form the volunteer launch committee and
helped make it all possible and a great success: Mike Dunlop, Mark
Gillan, Celine Guerin, Eugene Marotta, Gerry McCabe, Julie Richer and
Colette Trudel and to the various sponsors of the event.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Disada Productions Sesame Street promotional poster!

Le Beaver Cover!

Our animation studio, Disada Productions has had many magazine
articles written about the company and its productions, including
cover stories. Here is a blast from the past, the cover from the
cultural magazine LE BEAVER. It had an interesting cover featuring
various cartoon characters we had created, and the weirdest characters
of all, our artists!

Happy Thanksgiving from Disada Productions!

MEETING PETER USTINOV

The World's fair in Montreal, Expo '67, was a tremendous achievement
and brought just about every famous and important person to the city
during its six-month run. Disada Productions was still an amateur film
group at the time, but we applied for a press pass for our monthly
newsletter and got two passes for the two founders. This allowed us to
attend press conferences and to go to the VIP areas where the
celebrities could retreat to relax and meet one another. I would
sometimes go just to see who was there and only struck up
conversations when people invited or initiated it.

Most celebrities fall into two main categories I find. There are those
who are full time celebrities and seem to define themselves mainly, if
not solely, by their careers and public persona and there are those
who consider themselves, and are, people first and foremost, who just
seem to have interesting or accomplished careers. What I've usually
found is that the bigger the “star” the more they are just people and
those with the most talent seem to have strong personal character as
well. While I have enjoyed talking shop with many in the film or
entertainment business, I have enjoyed talking with them on other
subjects that interested them as subjects. We talk of their hobbies,
their families, what's in the news or whatever. I have found that if
you make a connection like that they will open up and relax, leading
to a good and rewarding time.

I would sometimes bring friends to the VIP lounge when we would visit
Expo '67 (every two or three days- there was so much to see and do.)
One day I brought my mother to the lounge and as we sat there
Peter Ustinov came over and sat across from us, nodding hello. He took
one of the newspapers and started to read it. I continued talking with
my mother and she kept looking over at Peter Ustinov and started to
quietly laugh. He looked up at her and she laughed even louder. She
kept this up until he put down the paper and asked “Are you all
right?” Between laughs and giggles I heard her say “I was thinking of
you in your underwear.” He gave a funny look then said “Oh, well,
thank you very much.”
She added between more laughs “No, when you were on the roof in your
underwear.” This didn't help.
Eventually she calmed down and explained she was referring to the
funny scene in the film TOPKAPI where he was indeed on a roof in his
underwear trying to control a rope and calling out “oh oh oh” as it
got away from him. His performance in TOPKAPI had brought him his
second acting Academy Award and lots of laughs from my mom.

Disada Goes to Prison!!

Disada Productions was asked if we would be willing to donate some
time at a federal prison to teach animation to inmates. Many inmates
were interested in animation as their chosen hobby. This made sense as
animation takes a lot of time, and they had nothing but time.

We were picked up and driven to the prison which was outside the
metropolitan Montreal area. It was a maximum security prison and it
seemed like every few feet bars closed behind us before others opened
in front of us. We met the interested prisoners and talked about
animation, giving them pointers, and looking at drawings they had done
on their own.

Over the next while, we returned to look at their progress and teach
them further. As we got to know them one inmate intrigued us. He was a
very large man, loaded with tattoos, quite rough looking, and his
drawings were the most delicate of all- butterflies and the like. He
seemed to be a nice fellow and one day one of our animators asked him
why he was in prison. As he kept drawing he nonchalantly answered “Oh,
I killed my wife.” Every so often we would leave the shared artistic
atmosphere and be confronted by reality again.

Some time later we heard that there was a riot going on inside that
prison. A woman, a nurse I believe, was killed and we got
notification that the animation classes and visits would no longer be
held. We were disappointed but understood the policy.

Meeting Carlos Ramirez, Voice Actor in Three Caballeros

Carlos Ramirez sang the song MEXICO in the Walt Disney animated
feature THE THREE CABALLEROS (1945). He was a famous singer in his
home country and appeared in Hollywood musicals such as TWO GIRLS AND
A SAILOR, BATHING BEAUTY, NIGHT AND DAY and EASY TO WED.

In the 1960s and 1970s he was a star performer in night clubs around
North America, and his travels brought him to Montreal, where he was
always popular. He frequented a restaurant in Montreal where I was
working part time while in high school and we would sometimes talk,
mainly about his work in THE THREE CABALLEROS. He had fond memories of
the experience and had found Walt Disney to be both a nice man and
fine talent. To me, he himself fit that description.

Animate Your Business With Disada Productions!!!!

Since 1983 Disada Productions an Animation Studio has helped Industry
leaders tell their stories. Whether you are trying to educate,
entertain or engage, Animation stands the test of time and speaks to
all demographics in their own language.

MEETING STAN LEE

MEETING STAN LEE

In the late 1980s Peter Adamakos was invited to be the animation guest
of honor at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair. An exhibition of his artwork was
on display, and he gave talks on animation and premiered the
theatrical short BIBITE at the convention. There were other guests
including actors, writers and the comic guest of honor, Stan Lee.

The invited guests had a number of opportunities to get to meet each
other as they appeared together on panels and other activities. We
often had lunch together and it was a great three day event, if
hectic, and the main room alone had 40,000 square feet of fans and
fandom.

Stan Lee was an engaging and friendly man and of course we talked of
animation and comics during the convention. He liked one of our
proposed projects and we began talks of bringing it to Marvel
Animation. We continued discussing it in the months that followed,
then one day he advised that he was going to sell the animation
company and would not be involved. It was disappointing as working
with him it would have been something special.

Another great Disada Productions commercial!

Hockey Jumbotron Animation

There was to be a new, huge display board at the Montreal Forum (what
became a Jumbotron), where the NHL hockey team, Les Canadiens, played.
It would make announcements, have scores and other items we are used
to seeing today. They wanted some animation, funny silent little bits
that could be put onscreen as a kind of comment on the plays. If
someone was not going after the puck aggressively, for example, there
would be an animated chicken playing on the ice. If someone got a
penalty for holding, a cartoon octopus would be seen grabbing a hockey
player.

The animation would not be filmed for its final use, it would be shown
on the large screen which would be covered in light bulbs, in effect,
though not as crude as that. The actual drawings would be in effect
digitized into a computer. On the screen, some “light bulbs” would be
turned on, others turned off, and at a distance, sitting in the
stands, you would see the drawing in this translated form. The screen
would go from one drawing to the next, lighting some areas, leaving
dark others, and at the proper rate of speed the effect would be
animation.

We had to design a new type of exposure sheet for ourselves and for
the technician who would, instead of filming our drawings, translate
them onto the computer, then program the sequence on the scoreboard to
achieve animation. The timing was different from regular film
animation, being eight drawings per second of screen time. We had to
design our animation and our concepts to fit these constraints, and
make sure that the lines on the animation were thick and dark. The
final drawings were cleaned up with magic markers rather than pencil.

The news and sports reports on the new scoreboard and the animation
were all positive. We went on to do some commercials in this system
for the scoreboard later as well. You can judge the results for
yourself by clicking on the link below. It will take you to some of
the hockey scenes we did. This footage is from studio pencil tests of
the original rough animation before cleanup and digitization