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September 16, 2021

Generous Stop Motion Artifacts Donation By Leigh Rayner From His Father, Joe Rayner's, Extensive Celebrated Career!

The Animation Hall of Fame, is honored and excited to announce the donation of the great stop motion animation and visual effects Director, Producer, Studio Founder/Owner, Technician, and Inventor Joe Rayner by his son Leigh Rayner.
The donation includes from the legendary Cascade Pictures Of California, C.P.C. & Associates, Coast Effects, and Trio Effects television commercial animation and visual effects production studios 18 stop motion animation puppets, 100+ stop motion animation replacement puppet pieces, numerous miniature props, productions designs and maquettes, numerous 3/4" videotape commercial and demo reel masters, etc.
Animation Hall of Fame CEO, Chairman, and Co-founder Hal Miles created and animated a few of these pieces both when he was hired at his first Hollywood studio position at Cascade Pictures Of California and then over the following decades at C.P.C. & Associates, Coast Effects, and Trio Effects. Hal Miles; "My fondest memories of working in entertainment have and will be my work at Cascade Pictures Of California, C.P.C. & Associates, Coast Effects, and Trio Effects and especially with Joe. We actually were so much alike in that we both loved our work and always had a passion for it."
Everyone at the Animation Hall Of Fame would like to thank Leigh Rayner once again for his extremely generous donation!
The Animation Hall of Fame is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. This major donation of Art and Artifacts enhances the Animation Hall of Fame existing worldwide collection and extends its historical archives even further; helping to fulfill our goal of preservation & education on the history and continuing significance of animation throughout the world and the people who create and inspire it.  

August 30, 2021

Famed Canadian Animation Director/Animator Jacques Drouin has Passed Away!

The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the passing of Famed Canadian Director/Animator Jacques Drouin. He died on August 28, 2021 in Canada of a cervical aneurysm; he was 78.
Drouin was born in Mont-Joli, Quebec, in 1943. After studies at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal and UCLA, he began working as a TV editor in 1971. Two years later, during an internship at the NFB, he made his first professional film, using the pinscreen to create Three Exercises on Alexeieff's Pinscreen, followed by Mindscape (1976), which garnered 17 awards and earned praise from Norman McLaren and Alexeieff himself.
For the next 30-plus years with the National Film Board of Canada, he created six unique and poetic films. Drouin's works are inextricably linked to the pinscreen techniques of Alexeieff–Parker. This is a technique in the history of animated film that few have mastered and definitely none to the incredible and magical level as Jacques Drouin did.
The pinscreen, an absolutely ingenious device, consists of 240,000 pins, each inserted in its own hole through a vinyl screen held in a rigid frame. The NFB in 1972 acquired it and was for decades the world's only working pinscreen. A room at the NFB's new Montreal headquarters in the Balmoral building is named Mindscape (Le paysagiste) in honor of Drouin.
Drouin subsequently retired from the NFB to pursue independent research and filmmaking. In 2007, he restored the three main Alexeieff–Parker pinscreens for France's film archives, thus ensuring devices would be available to pass down the technique that had been passed down to him by the tool's inventor. In 2012, the only other working pinscreen in the world was acquired by French government agency Le Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, with a view to letting European artists try their hand at the extraordinary instrument. Dubbed the Épinette, the device was successively restored by Drouin and Lemieux, constituting an invaluable legacy to the world animation community.
Thank you Jacques Drouin for all of the magical and beautiful animation images you gave us!  

June 15, 2021

AHOF's Journey Into IMAGIMATION Travelling Exhibition To Open At The South Bend Museum Of Art!

We are proud to announce the latest booking of our Journey Into IMAGIMATION: Over A Hundred Years Of Animation Art From Around The World. The exhibit will officially open at the South Bend Museum Of Art in South Bend, Indiana on November 11, 2022 and run until December 31, 2022.  

May 30, 2021

Famed Hungarian Animation Director and Historian Marcell Jankovics has Passed Away!

The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the passing of Famed Hungarian Animation Director and Historian Marcell Jankovics. He died in Budapest, Hungary; he was 79.
Over a career spanning six decades, Jankovics worked on more than 100 films as a director, character designer, and animator, winning the Palme d'Or in 1977 for his animated short, Küzdök / The Struggle, and garnering a 1976 Oscar nomination for his animated short, Sisyphus; he was also honored by ASIFA-Hollywood with the Winsor McCay Award in 1999.
Born in 1941, Jankovics was just 19 years old when he joined the animation department of Pannónia Film Studio in 1960. During the 60s, he was the figure designer of Gusztáv, one of the most iconic Hungarian cartoon stars, as well as series co-director. He also directed the first full-length production in Hungarian animation history, János vitéz / Johnny Corncob in 1973.
His second feature film, Fehérlófia / Son of the White Mare was selected among the 50 greatest animations of all time at the Animation Olympics, organized to coincide with the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984. Arguably his most famous animated films are the Academy Award-nominated 2-minute-long Sisyphus, with its streamlined design, and Küzdők / The Struggle, honored with a 1977 win at Cannes. His series work included Magyar népmesék / Hungarian Folk Tales and Mondák a magyar történelemből / Legends from Hungarian History, unique takes on centuries of Hungarian culture.
His 2002 film, Ének a csodaszarvasról / Song of the Miraculous Hind, dealing with the history of the Magyar Conquest, was one of the most watched animations in Hungarian history post 1989 regime change. As an educational / cultural history film, it tested the boundaries of the possibilities of animation, something the director did throughout his career. His most grandiose film, 2012's Az ember tragédiája / The Tragedy of Man, is adapted from the poem by Imre Madách.
His final work was the full-length animated adaptation of the epic poem Toldi (2021) by János Arany for Kecskemétfilm; it is expected to premiere this autumn.  

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April 26, 2021

And The Winners Are!

The Animation Hall of Fame is proud to announce and congratulate this year's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar winners for Best Animated Film and Best Animated Short Film. The winner for Best Animated Film was awarded to Soul, which was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers, and produced by Dana Murray. The winner for Best Animated Short Film was awarded to If Anything Happens I Love You, which was directed by Will McCormack and Michael Govier. Once again congratulations!  

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March 1, 2021

PIXAR's Soul Wins Golden Globe for Best Animated Motion Picture!

The Animation Hall of Fame is extremely happy to announce that the 78th Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature has gone to PIXAR's director Pete Docter, co-director Kemp Powers, and producer Dana Murray for Soul.  

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January 19, 2021

Disney Animator Dale Baer has Passed Away!

The Animation Hall Of Fame family is sad to acknowledge the passing of Disney veteran supervising animator, animator, and mentor Dale Baer. He died Friday in Irvine, California from complications due to ALS. He was 70.
Born in Denver, Colorado on June 15, 1950, Baer was captivated by animation (particularly the Disney films) as a young child, and had decided by the tender age of eight that he wanted to work at Walt's Studio. During a visit to see his grandparents in California, he pleaded with his grandfather to park outside the Disney Studios so that he could stare at the animation building, and wonder what magic was happening inside. As a high school student, he wrote to the Animation Department inquiring where he could learn the craft. This led him to enroll at the Chouinard Art Institute (which later merged with CalArts), after creating the perfect portfolio. He finally got a chance to sneak into the Animation building on the Disney lot while running an errand for the school.
In 1971 he found himself accepted into Disney's fledgling inaugural training program, as only the second applicant. Baer learned from six of the 'Nine Old Men' (Walt Disney's trusted group of pioneering animators) during his first five years on the job. John Lounsbery recognized his talent and served as a mentor. He got his first feature film credit (as a character animator) on Robin Hood in 1973, and went on to work on The Rescuers and Pete's Dragon. He left Disney in 1976 and worked on such animated favorites as the Peanuts television specials, commercials for Richard Williams, and The Lord of the Rings for Ralph Bakshi. Even when he was not directly working for Disney Animation, he continued to freelance and contribute to such films as Mickey's Christmas Carol, and The Great Mouse Detective, among others.
In the mid-1980s, he and his first wife, industry veteran Jane Baer, formed the Baer Animation Company, and contributed animation for such Disney titles as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, (they were responsible for the Los Angeles unit that produced 11 minutes of footage involving the character of Benny the Cab and much of the Toontown scenes) and Beauty and the Beast. Baer returned to Walt Disney Animation Studios on a fulltime basis in 1998, and lent his talents to such films as Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and The Princess and the Frog. His credits also include the 2007 Goofy short, How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, and the 2013 Oscar-nominated short, Get a Horse. From his landmark work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit to his supervising roles on The Lion King (adult Simba), The Emperor's New Groove (Yzma), The Princess and the Frog (the frog hunters), he was acclaimed and admired by his peers.
Baer retired from Disney in 2015 and worked on several freelance projects for small studios. Most recently, he worked on projects for Walt Disney Imagineering including an assignment animating Ursula and LeFou for Tokyo Disneyland (with his daughter Nicole inbetweening).
He was honored at the Annie Awards in 2001 (for Individual Achievement for Outstanding Character Animation for his work supervising Yzma) and in 2017, when he was presented with the coveted Winsor McCay Award for his distinguished career and lifetime achievements.
Baer is survived by his wife, Teddy, and their two daughters, Nicole and Clarisse. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that contributions can be made to The ALS Association at als.org.  

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