For the uneducated, Bill Plympton is a staple of American independent animation (particularly in New York City) Here is a link to his wikipedia article.
He started with a recap of his own journey into animation. Growing up in Oregon, he spent a lot of time indoors to escape the rain. He spent this time drawing. His father was great at making people laugh-a quality he wanted to emulate. Bill was more reserved so he decided to make people laugh through his drawing. This led him to a career drawing sequential gags as an illustrator/cartoonist. He began seeing animation in New York and decided to make his first animated film, "Your Face." He learned a lot about filmmaking through ASIFA.* He entered "Your Face" into the ASIFA Film Festival and fondly recalls the experience as the first time actually hearing people laugh at his work. Through this animation, Plympton found a community and from then on, he was hooked.
He then showed one of his most recent shorts: a contributed "Simpsons" couch gag.
Bill was a big fan of Homer Groening (Father of Matt Groening - creator of "The Simpsons") and his industrial films.Through Homer, he met Matt and they've been friends ever since. Matt approached him to do a couch gag which goes along with the recent line of couch gags contributed by well-known animators.
Next was "Guard Dog Global Jam"
Bill Plympton began making shorts with the dog character over the past decade but soon came up with an ingenious idea. Creating a sign-up forum online, he offered animators the opportunity to re-animate one of these shorts with a different artist contributing for each scene. With shots on a first come, first serve basis, 300 attempted to snag one of the 70 shots available.
It is at this point he brought up character design. He reiterated character design's utmost importance as he drew the guard dog featured in his shorts.
He also mentioned that Ken Mora will be running a similar project with Plympton's "Your Face" (info)
Bill Plympton doesn't often do television but ended up making this short for his fans at Showtime.
He began talking about the incoming class of animators. He stressed the importance of drawing and design for young artists. He commented how tired he is of seeing portfolios full of "anime" though he did note that well done Japanese animation has been great for drawing more people to animation. He then showed the pilot of a series he is working on about a whale supermodel named Tiffany.
Continuing his train of thought, Plympton reiterated the importance of really 'knowing' your characters from every angle. He recommended drawing characters 100+ times before animating a project. Next up was a recent music video he did for Joe Cartoon before moving onto his latest feature film, "Cheatin'."
This is Plympton's first film to be partially funded by Kickstarter raising around $100k to finish the project. This was also his first film to use a digital water-color technique. He noted the importance of test screenings at all levels of production. His free-formed style allows for changes and improvements to be made at anytime which allows him to make the best films possible. As to his general aesthetic, he aims for the feel of impressionist painting.
Bill Plympton really believes animation doesn't have to be all CGI and aimed at kids. For the most part, his features are directed toward the adult crowd and hit on more series themes along with the laughter. He then went into his general rules for filmmaking:
Plympton's Dogma
1.) Make the film short (about 5 minutes)
2.) Make the film cheap
3.) Make the film funny
He comment that his rules are basically Marv Newland's rules, remarking that Newland's "Bambi Meets Godzilla" is "perfect."
He ended the panel by regaling a story. When he was 15, he wanted to work for Disney so he sent his illustrations off. They told him while his work was good, he was far too young. After releasing his first animated film, "Your Face," he was approached by Disney. They wanted to hire him for $1 million. He asked if he had an idea while working at Disney, who owns it? They said Disney would own it. He asked if he had a dream in the middle of the night, who owns that dream? They said again, Disney would own it. Plympton came to the conclusion that if you work for Disney-Disney OWNS YOU. To this, he told Disney "no." He capped it by simply saying that the ability to sit at his desk and draw whatever he wants day after day is worth a million bucks.
It was a really fun panel and I hope you've enjoyed by abridged re-cap!
*Plympton had only the highest praise for ASIFA(International Animated Film Society) as an organization and stresses its importance to independent animation. He also highly recommended the ASIFA Film Festival for filmmakers looking into entering festivals.
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