Welcome back!
It’s summer here in animation land, and that means it’s blockbuster movie time. This month, we have a look into DreamWorks’ much-anticipated How to Train Your Dragon 2. Using some amazing new technology called Apollo, our pals in Glendale have really raised the bar for themselves on this one, and we’re sure you’ll enjoy our behind-the-scenes look at this flick just before it hits theaters on June 13.
We’ve also got a lot of great visual-effects movies covered in this issue. Obviously, X-Men: Days of Future Past is very high on my list of mustsee movies since I wrote the book on the original trilogy. (Check out Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen at www.sequart.org if you need a refresher on this ever-changing franchise.) We’ve also a great look at everyone’s favorite citystomping monster Godzilla from Bill Desowitz, and a peak at how they made Angelina Jolie scary for Maleficent.
The piece I am perhaps most proud of in this issue is our three-page look at the animation of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. I’ve been a fan of the original since I was a kid and as an adult got to meet Carl Sagan very briefly once. But it all paled to sitting down with Kara Vallow and her crew for a marathon discussion of how they came up with the striking animated segments for the new edition of Cosmos. If you haven’t seen it, be sure to catch an episode of the Fox series before it ends its run.
And summer is also a great time to travel, and we have plenty of international news this issue. The documentary Between Frames: The Art of Brazilian Animation is a mustsee film making festival rounds that tells a story about the familiar love of animation we all feel in an exotic land. We also take a peek at the upcoming Annecy festival, one of our favorites; look back at Cartoons on the Bay; head to Russia for a look at the burgeoning animation industry there; and then celebrate the centennial of animation in Finland. Who needs to travel? There’s more, but I think I’ll let you discover it for yourselves. As I mentioned last month, I’m still kind of new to this job and am anxious to hear from you — good or bad — what you think of this issue. We want to make our readers happy, so if there’s something you want to see covered in the magazine or on our website — or even if you just want to chat about your favorite toon — drop me a line at tom@animationmagazine.net.
Until next time.
P.S.: Summer is also internship time, and we’re looking for an editorial intern who is both interested in animation and in the journalistic process of assembling and publishing a magazine. If that’s you, send a resume and no more than three clips or writing samples to tom@animationmagazine.net.