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. 

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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.”  

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Another Classic Disada Commercial!!

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