If you couldn’t make it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills this year for their record number of animation exhibits and programs, the Academy has just posted a review and gallery online, as well as a video podcast with highlights narrated by Academy president Sid Ganis. Academy animation programs this year included Drawing on the Future: Mentorship in Animation with James Baxter, Andreas Deja, Pete Docter and Eric Goldberg; ...

Mike Clark runs a website devoted to the history of Tampa’s Channel 13 (WTVT, a former CBS affiliate, now a Fox station). The site has dozens of interesting articles about the history and local personalities of “Big 13″. However one of his pieces, slightly off his given topic, should be of interest to most Cartoon Brew readers. Clark devotes an illustrated article, running several pages, to John Graham (NBC’s director of design) and the story ...

Why draw when you can filter? Release your inner Richard Linklater with the Video Cartoonizer. “Upload a personal home movie, hit a few buttons, shout action and let our Video Cartoonizer do all the work. Who knew full motion animation could be this easy?” You be the judge. (Thanks, R.T. Inoue)

I’ve been in Ottawa since Wednesday and it’s been wall-to-wall screenings, presentations and panels (not to mention parties, meetings and lots of walking). Today Eric Goldberg is giving a lecture, there’s one last competition screening, and tonight is the award ceremonies. One of the major highlights of this five day event was the John Canemaker interview with Richard Williams last night. Two hours was not enough. Williams and Canemaker could have gone on for four ...

Amid and I are still in Ottawa immersed in animation. One film we haven’t seen is Igor, which opened all over the U.S. and Canada this weekend. Did you see it? How was it?

Brew reader “George” has just informed me of the publication of a Presto! Little Golden Book. With art by Teddy Newton, George says “it’s obviously fantastic!” If it’s as good as all previous Pixar Little Golden Books, I’m sold. It’s available on amazon here.

Animator Mike Kazaleh found this incredible Pink-Panther-meets-Bugs -Bunny sketch by Friz Freleng (click on thumbnail below to see full image). Says Mike: As usual, I went looking for something in my house, and I found something else. It’s a Friz sketch from 1974. Please bear in mind that I scanned this picture from an ancient thermal fax, and the image had all but disappeared. It took a bit of work in Photoshop to make the ...

div class=post-body p许多资讯类的网站都有信息量庞大的导航。网站的全站导航就占据了第一屏的1/4。而各个栏目又需要 大量的导航。按照逻辑关系给这些导航排序。全站的导航理应出现在最前面，接下来是各个栏目的导航。可不经过处理直接这样安排的话，当用户点击到各个栏目页 的时候，第一屏1/2的位置都被导航占据了：首先是全站导航，然后是栏目导航（见下图）/p pimg class=lightbox src=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072118532553.jpg alt= //p p当 网站的导航信息量到达一定程度时，将所有的内容都罗列出来显然是不妥当。这时我们通常会减少导航的信息量，常见的做法是当用户进入到栏目页时，我们将全站 导航做ldquo;薄rdquo;。这里的ldquo;薄rdquo;有两个层面的意思，第一个层面指信息量的ldquo;薄rdquo;：只提供最主要或者最重要的导航项，而不是所有的导航。第二个是视觉上的ldquo;薄 rdquo;：缩写导航的名称（当然保证用户仍然明白缩写后的名称点击后是打开哪个页面）减少视觉上的修饰，精简导航的形式。必要时我们还会将栏目页的导航也做ldquo;薄 rdquo;，减少导航的项目和视觉修饰(见下图)。/p pimg class=lightbox src=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072119060733.jpg alt= //p /div

div class=post-body pstrong1.符合用户的浏览习惯/strong/p p版块之间的排序应当符合用户的习惯。用户浏览网页通常是从上到下，从左到右，所以排布各个版块的时候应该根据用户的视线流走向将网站最重要的和最想让用户看到部分放在视觉流的上游，简单的来说就是最重要的最先被看见。/p p如果网站提供社区服务和搜索服务的话，用户登录和搜索通常也应该在第一屏出现。如果网站并不是以资讯为主，而是以功能性为主，比如提供邮件服务或者B2C性质的网站，那ldquo;帮助页面rdquo;的入口也应该被安排在靠近页面的顶部。/p strong2.版块的排布在视觉上尽量符合纵向分割/strongbr / p在板块排布的时候在视觉上尽量在符合纵向分割，能在纵向上对齐。避免在纵向上出现犬牙交错的布局，见下图。当然，横向和纵向都能对齐那就更好了。但对于大部分门户网站来说比较难。/p pimg class=lightbox src=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072137287334.gif alt= //p pstrong3.以用户的角度出发，将版块划分成几个独立并且连续的区域。/strong/p p从用户的角度出发，将版块按用户需求划分成几个区域。每类版块都占据一块独立并且连续的区域。不同分类的版块的信息不能混合分布在同一个区域。这样做，可以方便用户了解整个网站的主要内容和结构；减少用户在浏览网站时的干扰信息。/p p以门户类网站为例，可以将整个页面划分成以下板块：头部，导航，搜索，分类新闻区，工具区，互动与社区，辅助信息区，商业信息区（或者说是广告区），页脚。这几个部分。在这个方面腾讯首页做得还是蛮好的。见下图。/p ]br / pa href=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072138540622.jpgimg class=lightbox style=width: 494px; src=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072138540622.jpg alt= //a/p p页 面分为三栏。左栏分两个区域：一个是腾讯的产品区域，另一个分类新闻区域。中栏也分两个区域：一个区域包括了推荐内容、专题内容和博客，另一个是分类娱乐 和休闲资讯区域。右栏可以看做广告和辅助信息区域。这样的做的好处是用户很容易就掌握腾讯网首页的结构，寻找他们自己感兴趣的信息而，将可能干扰他们的信 息噪音减到最少。关心各种新闻的用户，在左栏里就可以找到他们自己感兴趣的信息。关心休闲和娱乐的用户可以在中栏找到他们想要的。这样用户就不用在整个页 面中寻找自己需要的信息，而且也最大程度减少广告或者其它干扰信息对用户的影响。而与之对比的网易在右栏这块区域的版块排布就不那么清晰了，广告和内容交 替出现，给网友的浏览带来一定的障碍/p pstrong4.在同一区域里内容相关的版块相邻，或者按照用户习惯来排序。/strong/p p在同一区域（同类版块）中不同内容的版块也需要排序。这里遵循的原则是内容相关的版块相邻。或者符合用户习惯的来安排版块间的先后顺序。还是用QQ首页作为例子。QQ首页中许多内容都是通过标签切换的，但相邻标签的内容大部分都是相关或者符合用户浏览习惯的。如下图。/p pimg class=lightbox src=http://www.novastudio.cn/blog/upload/2008/9/200809072139215355.gif alt= //p pstrong5.根据用户的需求来组织版块，避免版块划分粒度太粗或者太细。/strong/p p在组织版块时，应该从用户的需求出发，来分类各个版块。而不是因为分类而分类。这样做通常会将版块划分的太粗或者太细。这里就这两种情况各举一个例子。/p pstrong版块的粒度划分得太粗/strong/p p视 觉中国可以按照ldquo;资讯rdquo;ldquo;竞赛rdquo;ldquo;展览rdquo;对它的信息进行划分。这样的划分对于用户来说粒度就太粗了。访问视觉中国的网站有平面设计师，网页设计师，工业设 计师等等。仅仅将信息分类成ldquo;资讯rdquo;ldquo;竞赛rdquo;ldquo;展览rdquo;显然让用户承担了更多的信息压力。这时用户可能会抱怨：ldquo;我想看动画设计方面的信息，为什么有这么多 平面设计的信息？rdquo;所以按照不同的设计门类来划分信息类别，比如：rdquo;平面设计rdquo;,ldquo;动画设计rdquo;等等，更加方便用户查找信息。/p pstrong版块的粒度划分得太细/strong/p p在 做太平洋汽车网的一个频道ldquo;国际新车rdquo;的页面改版时。我发现原来的页面就出现了因为分类而分类的的问题。在对发布新车的消息的划分中，有三类：第一类ldquo;新 车巨献rdquo;内容是官方已经正式推出新车的消息；第二类是ldquo;新车谍报rdquo;内容是官方未正式推出该新车，但民间已经有这些车的一些信息（这些信息通常是被证实）； 第三类是ldquo;新车预测rdquo;内容为一些车型的预测和传闻（这些信息未被证实）。首先这样的分类太过细致和复杂，用户对于理解这三块发布新车资讯内容的区别会有困 难（当然，这里三个板块的标题都不太好理解，也是重要的原因）。其次这样的信息组织结构并不符合用户对这类信息的需求。其实用户只想知道自己感兴趣的车的 信息。而信息本身的可信度完全可以由用户自己来判断。所以这里只需要将新车发布信息分为ldquo;已经正式发布车型的消息rdquo;和ldquo;未发布车型的消息rdquo;就可以了。这个 频道的另一个问题是对信息属性的划分太细。页面第二屏的ldquo;国外新车rdquo;版块是用图片与文字链的形式介绍最新的国外新车的资讯。而在页面最底端ldquo;新车图辑rdquo;版 块是以图片的形式来展示新车。我觉得这里有些重复了。可以将两个板块和并在一起，让用户自己去判断是选址文字信息还是图片信息。/p /div

Today’s L.A. Times features a story on Waltz With Bashir, the sure-to-be-controversial animated feature from Israel, being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival tonight, and at the Ottawa Animation Festival on September 17th. Waltz With Bashir is a documentary, spoken by veterans of a 1982 invasion of South Lebannon, woven into a narrative containing shocking violence (the film is a hard “R” rating) and potent graphic images. I had the opportunity to screen the ...

Bill Melendez, the Mexican-born American character animator, film director, and film producer, best known for his animation for Warner Bros, UPA and the Peanuts specials and feature films, has passed away. In 1938, Melendez was hired by Walt Disney to work on animated short films and feature-length films such as Bambi, Fantasia and Dumbo. Three years later, he joined Leon Schlesinger’s team at Warner Bros. studios, where, as a member of the Bob Clampett and ...

The LA Times reports (with several errors) on the passing of Morris Sullivan, the man who financed the Don Bluth studio and produced An American Tail, Land Before Time, All Dogs Go To Heaven and Rock-A-Doodle.

I’m still at Cinecon watching movies. Picked up a few nice stills and lobby cards in the dealers room. Here is something I got cheap: an incredibly ugly Spanish movie poster for Beaver Valley and some Disney cartoons, with the strangest drawings of Mickey, Donald and Goofy… err, Pluto, ever seen on studio approved publicity. I both love it and hate it. And that giant realistic beaver hovering above them doesn’t help. Click on thumbnail ...

If you are wondering where I am this weekend - I’m hanging out all day and night at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, attending the annual Cinecon convention. Cinecon is essentially a non-stop schedule of screenings of classic Hollywood films - from 1914 through the mid-50s, new restorations of mostly obscure films, projected in 35mm, from 9am to midnight for four days. Highlights include several films with Shemp Howard, the final chapters of The Iron ...

I found this on You Tube. Someone took a public domain Popeye cartoon and created a anaglyph 3D version of it… or tried to. It’s not very good 3D. In fact, I screened it with my red/blue glasses and it looks awful. On second thought, it looks kinda cool without the glasses…

For a manager or supervisor to effectively verbally positively reinforce an employee, there must be a pre-existing positive relationship. A supervisor cannot approach an employee with whom they have had innumerable negative interactions and credibly say something positive about the employee’s performance; suspicion, distrust, and disassociation prevent a positive comment from having the desired effect. Many supervisors have no experience saying positive things to their employees about job performance and training classes that attempt to ...

Today’s Los Angeles Times has a terrific page-one article on the quirks of Disney’s copyright of Mickey Mouse and explains how the images of the early Mickey may be available for public domain use. It’s not a news story, but an overview of the company’s 80 years of copyright enforcement, and a profile of several folks (including former Disney archivist Gregory Brown) who have attempted to expose the holes in Disney’s copyright claims. To quote ...

(Thanks Matthew Gaastra)

Here’s a few Kodak Moments that I’ll bet Disneyland would rather soon forget. Several blogs and news agencies are posting these photos of Disney characters being arrested during a protest rally this week at the Anaheim resort. Hotel workers there are demonstrating for a new contract that would allow for health care. It would be nice if “The Happiest Place on Earth” were also “The Healthiest.” (Thanks Buzz Dixon and Scott Shaw!)

Head’s up on Don Hahn’s new book The Alchemy of Animation, which will be available on October 7th. Hahn is, of course, the producer of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, and is currently developing a stop-motion animated feature of Frankenweenie with Tim Burton. In his new book Hahn details the process Disney uses to make animated films from traditional animation, to CG to stop-motion. Says Hahn: It’s been almost seven years ...