Review on Bill Plympton

Review on Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton is an independent animator that creates hand drawn animations with strange themes with exaggerated drawings. Plympton has always been fascinated by animation, even at a young age where he sent of some of his drawings to Disney, by which they replied back 'When he was fourteen, he sent Disney some of his cartoons and offered up his services as animator. They wrote back and told him that while his drawings showed promise, he was too young.' (Plymptoons.com, 2008)   Plympton's animations are quite popular and have been featured in many cinemas and won many awards, quoted by Ed Liu on toonzone.net. 'In 1983, he finally broke into the world of animation with Boomtown. Since then, his work has been nominated for multiple awards, and has been seen in animation festivals, television commercials, MTV's Liquid Television, and in cinemas, where he has the distinction of producing the first feature-length movie to be animated by a single person (The Tune).' (Liu, 2008) One of Plympton's latest films, called Idiots and Angels had been rejected many times before finally being allowed to play in cinemas. Why it was turned down was because it wasn't the sort of film the distributors wanted, but Plympton had other thoughts on why it was rejected. 'I have four reasons why they turned it down. First of all, it’s from Bill Plympton Studios, which is a small, minor, no-publicity studio. There’s no real history of great success. I’m kind of a cult animator, and they didn’t want to deal with that. Two, there’s no dialog in the film, and that kind of freaked them out. Three, it was hand-drawn animation, and they know computer animation from places like Pixar and Dreamworks makes a billion dollars, and no one wants to see hand-drawn. At least, that’s what they think. And four, it’s an adult film. It’s not family fare. I think a lot of people think of that believe in the theology of Disney, and they think I’m a travesty to the purity of family animation.' (Plympton, 2010)    

 The Tune

List of Illustrations

  

Figure 1. Richardson, Anne (2009) Bill Plympton. [Photograph] At: http://www.talltalestruetales.com/2009/04/bill-plymptonoregon-filmmaker/ (Accessed on: 28.03.11)

Figure 2. Plympton, Bill (1992) The Tune. [Screen cap] At: http://www.taringa.net/posts/tv-peliculas-series/2003996/The-Tune---Bill-Plympton.html (Accessed on: 28.03.11)

Bibliography

  

Liu, Ed (2008) Toon Zone Interviews Indie Animator Bill Plympton on "Idiots & Angels". http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/23349/toon-zone-interviews-indie-animator-bill-plympton-on-idiots-amp-angels (Accessed on: 28.03.11)

  

Plymptoons (2008) Biography. http://www.plymptoons.com/biography/bio.html (Accessed on. 28.03.11)

  

Plympton, Bill (2010) Bill Plympton. http://www.avclub.com/chicago/articles/bill-plympton,48357/ (Accessed on: 28.03.11)