By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

ANIMATION VETERAN ERIC GOLDBERG JOINS USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS’ JOHN C. HENCH DIVISION OF ANIMATION AND DIGITAL ARTS

 LOS ANGELES, CA JUNE 16, 2015 Veteran animator Eric Goldberg joins USC School of Cinematic Arts’ John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts. Goldberg will teach classes on the fundamentals of character animation beginning in the fall of 2015, it was announced by Tom Sito, Chair of SCA’s John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts.

Eric Goldberg is widely known within the international animation community as one of the leading character animators working today. In his forty-year career he has given life to some of cinema’s most beloved animated characters, including Robin Williams’ unforgettable Genie in “Aladdin,” Phil in “Hercules,” and Louis in the Oscar-nominated Best Animated Feature “The Princess and the Frog.”

States Sito: “We are thrilled that Eric is coming aboard. His incredible talent, and vast knowledge of character animation gleaned from years working with such masters as Chuck Jones, Richard Williams, Ken Harris, Tissa David and Art Babbitt, will be an invaluable resource to our program.”

Goldberg is joining an already formidable SCA Animation faculty that includes Peter Chung (“Aeon Flux”), Eric Hanson (“The Fifth Element”) and Sito himself (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Roger Rabbit”).

Eric Goldberg is a veteran director, designer and animator who has worked extensively in New York, London and Hollywood creating feature films, commercials, title sequences and television specials.

Goldberg is best known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios. His first Disney assignment in 1990 was Supervising Animator of the wise cracking Robin Williams-voiced Geniein “Aladdin.” Subsequently, he co-directed the successful “Pocahontas,” and animated the feisty Danny DeVito-voiced satyr Phil in “Hercules.” Following that he directed two critically acclaimed sequences in “Fantasia 2000,” “Carnival of the Animals” and “Rhapsody in Blue.” The latter was a labor of love inspired by both George Gershwin and the legendary theatrical caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who served as artistic consultant on the film.

In 2003, Goldberg served as animation director on Warner Bros.’ live-action/animation feature “Looney Tunes: Back in Action,” directed by Joe Dante. For the film, he handled the legendary characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam and the entire Warners stable, as well as providing the voices for Speedy Gonzales, Tweety, and Marvin the Martian.

Most recently Goldberg has been animating at his alma mater, Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he served as Supervising Animator for Louis (the trumpet-playing alligator) in Academy Award Best Animated feature nominee “The Princess and the Frog.” In addition, he supervised both the character of Rabbit, and the “Backson Song” sequence in “Winnie the Pooh.” He also was the Supervisor of hand-drawn animation in the 2013 Oscar-nominated short film, “Get a Horse.”

Currently, Goldberg is creating exploratory animation for the upcoming Walt Disney Animations Studio feature, “Moana.”

In February 2011, Eric was awarded the prestigious Winsor McCay award from ASIFA-Hollywood for lifetime achievement in animation.

 

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon