"Lost Animation lll at Oddball Films" November 7, 2009

Event: “Lost Animation” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rarely screened classics and obscurities of world animation. Most are quite scarce- despite scads of accolades and international awards. Films include: “History of the Cinema”, great Halas/Batchelor short from Britain; “Balablok”; triangles and squares go to war; “Very Nice, Very Nice”, disturbing avant-garde attack on consumerism by Arthur Lipsett; “One To One Correspondence”, math fun with electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick!; “Little Blue and Little Yellow”, modern design tackles racism; “Christmas Cracker”, Norman McLaren and friends on Christmas; “The Satiric Eye”, rarities from the Soviet Bloc; “Claude”, a 3-minute tour-de-force and more TBA!
Date: Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.flarerecord.com/?p=382
"Lost Animation”
Screens at Oddball Films

On Saturday, November 7, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rarely screened animated shorts- both classics and obscurities. Several of these shorts won or were nominated for international awards and all showcase inventive, wild imagination- from the simplest line drawings, to mid-century modern classics, obtuse international favorites, to avant-garde treasures.
Show time is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Films Include:

“History of the Cinema” (Color, 1957)
The History of the Cinema is an undeniable classic of animation, very British in its humor and very tied in with its period. With an irrepressibly optimistic narrator and great wit it takes us from the cavemen daubing on the rock, the pinhole camera, through the early silent movie era, and eventually to the rise of television. John Halas' 1957 movie also manages to convey facts in an amusing way. Thus we learn why Hollywood was so good for film-making (sun, dependable sun) and the vital role the censor paid in movie history - essentially he snipped away all the good bits of film and left the audience with the rest - and even the fads designed to withstand the impact of the little box in the home.

“Balablok” (Color, 1974)
Bretislav Pojar's animated short explores the human phenomenon of resorting to violence over reason. The cubes live happily amongst themselves until one of them encounters a ball. War erupts and they fight until they all become the same again – this time in the form of hexagons. All is right in the world until one of them stumbles upon a triangle… Winner of the 1973 Grand Prix du Festival for Short Film at the International Film Festival in Cannes.

“Very Nice, Very Nice” (B+W, 1961)
From the brilliant avant-garde filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, this film is not animation per se, although the rapid juxtaposition of still images does create a strong sense of movement. In Very Nice, Very Nice, Lipsett disrupts the representational value of documentary image and sound, moving beyond the genre's aesthetic codes of truth and reliability. The result is a sardonic re-reading of 1950s consumerism, mass media and popular culture.

“One To One Correspondence” (Color, 1966)
Math film by Robert Charlton cleverly uses animation and live action to define the equivalence of sets. Soundtrack by electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick (Silver Apples On The Moon).

“Little Blue and Little Yellow” (Color, 1961)
Directed by David Hilberman, a former Disney animator and a founder of the company that morphed into UPA, this is an animated version of the classic modern design children’s book by Leo Leoni. Little blue and little yellow share wonderful adventures. One day, they can't find one another. When they finally meet, they are overjoyed. They hug until they become green. But where did little blue and little yellow go? Are they lost?

“Christmas Cracker” (Color, 1963)
A nine-minute compilation film animated by Norman McLaren, Jeff Hale, Gerald Potterton, and Grant Munro, the 1963 Christmas Cracker encompasses three holiday-themed animated shorts set to yuletide music by Eldon Rathburn. In the first, paper cutout figures dance to "Jingle Bells"; in the second, tin toys from a five-and-ten perform a miniature rodeo. The concluding segment features the decoration of the ultimate Christmas tree. Please note: only 46 shopping days till Christmas.

“The Satiric Eye” (Color, 1960s)
Four short animation rarities bundled into one film, all from Communist Eastern Europe and distributed after the late 1960s thaw- three from Hungary and one from East Germany: Inauguration, Success, Funeral and Either/Or.

“Claude” (Color, 1963)
Wonderful UPA-styled short by Dan McLaughlin, head of the UCLA Animation Workshop and recipient of the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in animation. Little Claude is a clever boy, but his parents are clueless…

PLUS- Always a surprise short or two!

Curator Biography
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

Upcoming Programs
Fri Nov 6 - Hollywood Underbelly- The Big Knife
Sat Nov 7 – Lost Animation III
Fri Nov 13 – Weirdsville – Oddities From The Archives
Fri Nov 20 - Mess w/Erik Davis+Gerry Fialka, Plus clips of Anton LeVey, Aleister Crowley, Led Zepplin IV+more
Sat Nov 21 - From Canada! The Best of the Super 8 Challenge
Fri Nov 27 - Forbidden, Not Forgotten – Banned & Censored Cartoons

About Oddball Films

Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

Official Website: http://www.flarerecord.com/?p=382