Festiwal Animator 2008

Artists: Animator 2008

Plympton Bill

Born in Portland, Oregon on April 30, 1946. Animator, film director, illustrator, cartoonist. In 1968, he moved to New York City and studied at the School of Visual Arts. He served a long tenure as an illustrator and cartoonist. Between toting his portfolio and catching cheap matinees, he designed the magazines: Cineaste, Filmmakers Newsletter, and Film Society Review. His illustrations have graced the pages of The New York Times, Vogue, The Village Voice, and Vanity Fair. His cartoons appeared in such magazines as Viva, Penthouse, Rolling Stone. In 1975, in The Soho Weekly News, he began "Plympton," a political cartoon strip. By 1981, it was syndicated in over twenty papers by Universal Press.
All his life Bill Plympton has been fascinated by animation. In 1983 he was approached by Valeria Wasilewski to work on a animation film "Boomtown." Immediately after he began his own animated film, "Drawing Lesson # 2." For his next film YOUR FACE Plympton contacted an old friend Maureen McElheron. Due to budgetary considerations, she also sang. Her voice, eerily decelerated to sound more masculine combined with a fantastically contorting visage helped garner the film a 1988 Oscar nomination for best animation. His work started appearing with more and more frequency on MTV and showing in the increasingly popular touring animation festivals.
“THE TUNE” was financed entirely by the animator himself. Sections of the feature were released as short films to help generate funds for production. These include "The Wiseman" and "Push Comes to Shove," the latter of which won the 1991 Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. The completed TUNE also made the rounds of the film festivals, garnering the prestigious Houston WorldFest Gold Jury Special Award as well as a Spirit Award nomination for Best Film Score.
After personally drawing and coloring 30,000 cels for THE TUNE, Plympton moved to live-action. J. LYLE, his first live-action feature, is a wacky, surreal comedy about a sleazy lawyer who meets a magical talking dog that changes his life.
In 1998, Bill completed another animated feature, titled "I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON". Bill's animated feature, "MUTANT ALIENS", the story of a stranded astronaut returning to Earth after 20 years in space, was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It won Grand Prix in Annecy 2001. Bill's latest feature film, "HAIR HIGH", is a gothic '50s high-school comedy about a love-triangle that goes terribly bad, with two young, murdered teens returning to their prom to get revenge. Bill's short film "GUARD DOG" has been a hit at film festivals and it brought Bill his second Oscar nomination in January 2005. Since then, he has achieved much success in his creation of shorts including "THE FAN AND THE FLOWER", which was written and produced by Dan O'Shannon. Bill's latest short, "GUIDE DOG" is a sequel to "GUARD DOG", and is already making waves in the festival circuit. Bill's latest feature is "IDIOTS AND ANGELS".
(www.plymptoons.com)