You can see Bill Plympton’s frame by frame restoration of Winsor McCay’s 1921 seven minute long masterpiece at the 35th Portland International Film Festival.

It will screen on Feb. 18 at 12:30 PM as part of SHORT CUTS II: INTERNATIONAL TIES.

Bill Plympton’s love of animation history is all over his recent coffee table book memoir Independently Animated: Bill Plympton: The Life and Art of the King of Indie Animation.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is proud to count Plympton among its earliest and most enthusiastic supporters.

Bill Plympton took his career as an animator to 11 when he decided to go from hand drawing every frame of animated shorts to hand drawing every frame of animated features.

The Tune was the first successful theatrical feature produced, directed and animated by one person. It went to both Cannes and Sundance.

The soundtrack for The Tune was written by Maureen McElheron. Here’s her account of how she began working with Bill:

THE TUNE was the first soundtrack I composed for Bill but our first project was YOUR FACE.. Bill and I performed in a country band in NY City before he was an animator….he enjoyed my original songs so when he started to pursue animation, he called on me to compose YOUR FACE.

We slowed down my vocals for YOUR FACE in the studio so it would sound like a man was singing because Bill could not afford to hire a man! YOUR FACE went on to be nominated for an Academy Award.

For later projects, I often co wrote songs with Hank Bones…..we recorded in his studio in Brooklyn. Hank, a talented musician/ vocalist played all the instruments for our sessions as well as acting as recording engineer.

Bill Plympton’s DIY genius extended to finding others who shared it. McElheron not only wrote the soundtrack to The Tune, she also provided the voice of Didi.

I hereby claim The Tune as an Oregon film on the basis of its director, Oregon born and raised Bill Plympton.

Martha Plimpton came to Oregon to make The Goonies in 1985.

Her parents, Shelley Plimpton and Keith Carradine, never married, which is why Martha doesn’t carry the name Carradine.  Looks like she didn’t need it.

Martha’s second Oregon film is Hair High (2004), made by her look alike second cousin, Bill Plympton. ( True!)

Based purely on facial expression, I’d say its pretty clear mischievousness runs in the Plympton/Plimpton family tree.

Last year, Oregon was represented at the Oscars by Coraline and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, both films animated by artists trained by Will Vinton, at Will Vinton Studios here in Portland. This year, Bill Plympton decided to keep Oregon animation in the spotlight by making sure his internationally acclaimed, multi-award winning Idiots and Angels was eligible for an Oscar nomination.

Here’s the story in Bill’s own words.

I believed in the film enough to try for an Oscar nomination.

So, without a distribution deal in place, I decided to handle the release myself. Now this isn’t the end of the world, in fact there are some positive aspects of self-release. But let me first list the negative points:

1.     I had to lay out a lot of money for prints and trailers.

2.     I had to hire press agents.

3.     I produced posters and postcards myself.

4.     I called all my press friends begging to get any kind of interview or articles.

5.     I organized street teams of students to canvas the city.

6.     I booked myself in every art school I could think of to give me a Master Class, to make the schools aware of the screening.

However on the positive side, here are the benefits of self-distribution.

1.     The rights to the film remain in  my hands, thus I can control when it’s released how it’s released, and where it shows. And if I want to rerelease it, it’s my decision.

2.     All the money, if there is money, comes directly to me.

3.     I get to control the images and style of the release. I can talk directly to my audience.

Idiots and Angels’ run at the IFC theater in New York, which began Oct.6, now has been extended to Oct. 21.

Congratulations, Bill! For all you Academy members out there, here’s the screening times:

• Wed, Oct 13 at: 1:00 PM, 2:45 PM, 4:40 PM, 6:40 PM,8:40 PM, 10:35 PM
• Thu, Oct 14 at: 1:00 PM, 2:45 PM, 4:40 PM, 6:40 PM,8:40 PM, 10:35 PM
• Fri, Oct 15 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Sat, Oct 16 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Sun, Oct 17 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Mon, Oct 18 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Tue, Oct 19 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM
• Wed, Oct 20 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM
• Thu, Oct 21 at: 1:05 PM, 4:40 PM, 8:25 PM

The IFC Theater is at 323 Sixth Avenue, Greenwich Village, New York. Yes! You are correct. It  is located on the site of the historic Waverly Theater, just off the southwest corner of Washington Park.

Q: What is Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels about?

A: New York Magazine sez: In the animation icon’s ambitious, hilariously demented moral fantasy, a selfish businessman discovers angel wings growing out of his back and finds his crass impulses suddenly at odds with a newfound, unwelcome desire to do good.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This post brought to you by the good people at Oregon Cartoon Institute.

“Seduced by advertising, a cow is tragically led into the hands of butchers and carnivores.” That’s the synopsis for Bill Plympton’s entry in the Los Angeles Comedy Shorts FIlm Festival which won Best Comedy Animated Short.

I hereby claim The Cow Who Wanted To Be A Hamburger as an Oregon film, based on the contribution of director/writer/animator/producer Bill Plympton.

Two world class Oregon animators, looking very respectable.

I don’t think I have ever seen Bill Plympton (writer-director-producer of Idiots and Angels) in a tie before. Perhaps it is more usual for Mark Gustafson (animation director for The Fantastic Mr. Fox) to sally forth in one.

Two Oregon animation artists, Rose Bond and Bill Plympton, are special guests at this year’s Animated Exeter festival in England. This post, from the Devon and Cornwall Film website, begins with a sarcastic comment from a film lover who obviously wanted to see things stay more local.

Because no South West artist covers injustice, class and punishment, Animated Exeter has asked internationally acclaimed US artist Rose Bond to create an animated light show highlighting the themes for her piece Broadsided, which will launch the event at Exeter Castle.

Broadsided will run at the Castle for three evenings from Thursday, February 11 to Saturday, February 13.

The festival, which started in 2000, includes workshops and exhibitions, as well as a careers fair for securing jobs in the industry plus master-classes from the Spielbergs of the animated world, including Bill Plympton and Aardman Animations. And an awards ceremony will showcase emerging talent, with awards given during the festival (and after, in the case of the British Animation Awards).

(Image: Broadsided! Exeter Castle Animation by US artist Rose Bond)

Not my job to boost Portland State, but it is true that both Rose Bond and Bill Plympton got their undergraduate degrees there – Bond in drawing and painting and Plympton in graphic design.  Another Oregon filmmaker who attended Portland State at the same time as Plympton, but was inexplicably not invited to Animated Exeter 2010: producer Mike Richardson.