Producer Of Oscar-Winning Bunny.
By MILLIE TAKAKI
Animation studio Wild Brain has named producer Nina Rappaport to head up its expanding CG efforts. Rappaport had been freelancing at the San Francisco shop since May, working with its key creatives to cultivate a slate of CG projects which currently includes an animated short film, a TV series and an Internet series. Wild Brain is also active in commercials.
Rappaport is perhaps best known for her role as producer of Bunny, which earned the ’98 Academy Award for best animated short film. Bunny was directed by Chris Wedge via Blue Sky Studios, Harrison, New York. Rappaport’s last staff position was as executive producer of feature film and commercial production at Blue Sky. While there, she was credited with producing the animation and digital effects for feature films including Joe’s Apartment and A Simple Wish, and was an executive producer for effects on Star Trek: Insurrection. She also executive produced assorted spots. Prior to Blue Sky, Rappaport was a cel animation producer at now defunct Broadcast Arts. Previously, she served as an assistant to the director of animation at Mark Zander Productions, New York.
With Rappaport’s involvement, Wild Brain has brought together a cast of CG artists that includes: Greg Maguire (who worked on Dinosaur for Burbank-based Disney), Nancy Kato (Babe and Babe 2: Pig In The City for Rhythm & Hues, Los Angeles), Gregory Brauer (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for Industrial Light+ Magic, San Rafael, Calif.), Ethan Hurd (Toy Story 2 for Richmond, Calif.-based Pixar Animation Studios), Bernard Ceguerra (Hercules and Tarzan for Disney), Edward Davis (What Dreams May Come for Mass Illusion, the predecessor shop to what eventually became Manex Entertainment’s Alameda, Calif. complex) and Bobby Beck (Toy Story 2 and Dinosaur).
Rappaport said this group of talent will help make Wild Brain "an even more formidable contender in the CG arena." She added that she was attracted to the studio’s creativity and its diverse work.
Jeff Fino, co-founder/executive producer at Wild Brain, said that Rappaport’s experience and expertise will be pivotal in taking "our CG operation to the next level."
Wild Brain recently won the best commercial honor at the 27th annual Annie Awards (SHOOT, 11/12/99, p. 7) for "Sensitive," a humorous safe sex spot promoting condom use. The :15 was linked to World AIDS Day in ’98 and was sponsored by Levi Strauss & Company. Wild Brain’s John Hays directed the ad which was conceived by TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco. The Annie Awards, presented by the Burbank-headquartered International Animated Film Society (ASIFA-Hollywood), honor animation in various entertainment disciplines, including feature films, TV programs, spots and interactive media.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits โ all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought โ it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' โฆ (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More