The husband-and-wife team of John and Faith Hubley, who brought a humanistic perspective and a distinctly modern style to postwar American animation, will be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, September 14, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Oscar-winning animator and renowned animation historian John Canemaker will host this in-depth look at these two iconoclastic artists.

The films the Hubleys made, together and independently, earned seven Academy Award nominations and two Oscars. The Hubleys took home Oscars for ‘The Hole’ (Cartoon Short Subject, 1962) and ‘Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature’ (Cartoon Short Subject, 1966) and were nominated for ‘Windy Day’ (Cartoon Short Subject, 1968), ‘Of Men and Demons’ (Cartoon Short Subject, 1969), ‘Voyage to Next’ (Animated Short Film, 1974) and ‘The Doonesbury Special’ (Animated Short Film, 1977, with Garry Trudeau). John Hubley also earned an Oscar for ‘Moonbird’ (Cartoon Short Subject, 1959), and Faith served as producer on the film.

At the time of their marriage in 1955, John Hubley had been in the industry for 20 years, first at Disney, then Columbia/Screen Gems, and later as creative director and production chief at UPA. Faith Elliott had worked in Hollywood since the early 1940s as a music and film editor and script supervisor at Columbia and Republic Pictures. After John’s careers in Hollywood were derailed by the blacklist, they decided to marry and relocated to New York and embarked on a personal and professional partnership that revolutionized independent animation and influenced a generation of filmmakers.

The Hubleys resolutely maintained their artistic freedom, taking on commercial projects in order to fund their personal films. They tackled controversial themes such as environmental pollution, race relations, war and overpopulation, as well as celebrated the joy of children at play and young people in love. Following John’s death in 1977, Faith continued making films until her death in 2001.

Canemaker will showcase four of John Hubley’s UPA shorts and a selection of TV commercials; Faith’s favorite of her solo shorts; and six shorts produced by John and Faith Hubley together, including a newly discovered fragment of animation from Façade, William Walton’s musical setting of poems by Edith Sitwell.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present the 1959 animated classic ‘Sleeping Beauty’ as the second film in its series “The Last 70mm Film Festival” on Monday, July 16 at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The film will be introduced by animator Andreas Deja (‘Winnie the Pooh’, ‘The Princess and the Frog’) and character designer Mike Giaimo (‘FernGully: The Last Rainforest’, ‘Pocahontas’).

Directed by Clyde Geronimi, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ earned an Academy Award nomination for Music – Scoring of a Musical Picture (George Bruns). It is the last fairy tale produced by Walt Disney (after his death, the studio did not return to the genre for feature-length films until 1989’s ‘The Little Mermaid’). It is also the first animated film in the Technirama widescreen process.

The 70mm short ‘Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot’ (1957) will be screened before the feature at 7 p.m.. It has the distinction of being the longest-running motion picture in American film history, still running daily in VistaVision at the twin Patriot Theatres in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

“The Last 70mm Film Festival,” a six-film series, will run Mondays through August 13, showcasing 70mm classics from different genres as well as rarely screened 70mm short subjects. The remaining screenings in the series are:

• July 23: ‘Grand Prix’ (1966)
• July 30: ‘The Sound of Music’ (1965)
• August 06: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
• August 13: ‘Spartacus’ (1960)

Series passes and tickets for “The Last 70mm Film Festival” are now sold out. A standby line will form on the day of the event, and standby numbers will be assigned starting at approximately 5:30 p.m. Any available tickets will be distributed shortly before the program begins. Ticketholders should plan to arrive at least 15 minutes before the start of the event to ensure a seat in the theater. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has received a collection of more than 800 kung fu film posters and other related materials from producer, screenwriter and former motion picture executive Stephen Chin, announced Academy COO Ric Robertson. The collection features marketing and promotional items including posters, lobby cards, photographs, toys, comic books, clothing and accessories from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. It focuses predominantly on the 1970s, which many fans and scholars mark as the golden age of the kung fu film.

“Stephen is a true fan and an extraordinary collector,” said Robertson. “His dedication to documenting this important genre will help the Academy provide film enthusiasts and historians with a broader, deeper view of world cinema.”

The posters, many of which utilize bold graphics and dynamic depictions of action, will join the more than 44,000 posters held by the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, a leading center for film research. The collection prominently features items used to market and promote the films of kung fu legend Bruce Lee. Of particular note is the collection’s coverage of Lee’s landmark ‘Enter the Dragon’ (1973). The international blockbuster is represented by the banners that were hung at the film’s world premiere and by posters from the United States, Hong Kong, England, Italy, France, Poland, Turkey, Japan, Denmark, West Germany and Australia. Also represented are many of the films made after Lee’s death that exploit the performer’s legacy by featuring imitators billed under variations on his name.

Many other iconic films and filmmakers are also featured, including the Shaw Brothers’ ‘5 Fingers of Death’ (1972), which helped the genre first gain popularity among American audiences. Other highlights include films made in the 1970s by John Woo and Jackie Chan, long before they became internationally known. A number of films featured in the collection are represented by materials from a wide range of international territories, enabling fans and researchers to compare the various ways an individual film was marketed around the world.

The collection also reveals how the kung fu phenomenon spread around the world and influenced many national cinemas. Representing the United States are posters from films featuring such martial arts icons as Chuck Norris and David Carradine, as well as films that combined kung fu with other genres. A notable example of this trend in American movies is the fusion of kung fu with blaxploitation, illustrated by posters from such films as ‘Black Belt Jones’ (1974) and ‘Berry Gordon’s The Last Dragon’ (1985). Women are also strongly represented in the collection – not only as sex symbols, but also as fierce combatants in their own right – on the posters from such Hong Kong titles as ‘Lady Kung Fu’ (1972), ‘Queen Boxer’ (1972), and ‘Deadly China Doll’ (1973).

Complementing the posters and photographs is an array of promotional items and merchandise tie-ins that includes skateboards decorated with Bruce Lee’s likeness, lunch kits, decals, action figures, puppets, 45 rpm records, how-to manuals for aspiring kung fu practitioners, t-shirts, belt buckles and men’s aftershave.

“I am honored to see the collection join the Academy’s legendary holdings,” said Chin. “As future fans and scholars peruse this material, I hope they will appreciate not only how exciting these movies are, but also how Hollywood became more inclusive because of them.”

Chin began building the collection as a teenager. Following a successful legal career, Chin entered the motion picture industry and was soon recruited as a vice president for Miramax Films. There, Chin oversaw physical production and business affairs for such titles as ‘Swingers’ and ‘Scream’. He later co-wrote and produced ‘Another Day in Paradise’ and produced ‘Play It to the Bone’. Throughout his career, Chin continued to develop his collection of kung fu film posters and other related materials. The collection would grow to become the largest of its kind in the world.

Items in the Herrick Library collections are preserved and cataloged, and may be accessed by filmmakers, historians, journalists, students and the public.

For more information about the Academy’s holdings, visit www.oscars.org.

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Computer-generated motion picture animation from “Vertigo” to “Toy Story” to the 3D spectacles of today will be explored during “The Development of the Digital Animator,” the latest installment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Marc Davis Celebration of Animation, on Monday, May 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Several pioneers of digital animation will revisit the long path from laboratory to cineplex during a panel moderated by animator and historian Tom Sito.

When “Toy Story” burst onto the scene in 1995, computer-generated imagery was, for many, a bold new technique in animation. However, its lengthy and meticulous development can be traced back to its first public exposure with the mesmerizing title sequence for “Vertigo” (1958). Of equal importance to the technical developments were the influential animators and designers who devised artistic uses for engineering advances.

Scheduled panelists include:

• Rebecca Allen, an experimental filmmaker who has worked at the New York Institute of Technology and MIT. She collaborated on “the Catherine Wheel” with Twyla Tharp and made landmark music videos for Kraftwerk, Mark Mothersbaugh and Peter Gabriel. She currently holds a professorship in the Department of Design|Media Arts at UCLA.
• Philippe Bergeron, a CG animator and landscape designer who teamed up with Daniel Langlois and two other directors to create one of the first CG characters in the 1985 short “Tony de Peltrie.”  He has worked at Digital Productions and Whitney/Demos Productions and is president of PaintScaping, Inc.
• David Em, who began producing digital art in the 1970s and has worked as an independent artist in such research laboratories as the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Apple Computer’s Advanced Technology Group. He is the first digital artist to have his papers collected and preserved by the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art.
• Tim Johnson, a director and animator who began his career at Chicago’s Post Effects. In the 1980s, while at Pacific Data Images, he animated the first digital Pillsbury Doughboy. His directing credits include “Antz,” “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” and “Over the Hedge.”
• Jeff Kleiser, the co-founder of Digital Effects, New York’s first CG house. Kleiser later co-founded both Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company and Synthespian Studios. His credits include “Tron,” “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid,” “Stargate” and “X-Men The Last Stand.”
• Bill Kroyer, an animator and director whose credits include “Tron,” “FernGully: The Last Rainforest” and “Scooby-Doo.”  Kroyer received an Academy Award® nomination for his 1988 short film “Technological Threat.”  He is currently Director of Digital Arts at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University.
• John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Feature Animation and Pixar Animation Studios, whose credits include Pixar’s first short, the Academy Award-winning “Luxo Jr.,” and the feature films “Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2,” “Cars” and “Cars 2.”
• Tom Sito, a veteran Hollywood animator and historian whose credits include “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Shrek” and “Hop.”
• Phil Tippett, an Academy Award-winning visual effects animation director whose credits include “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Jurassic Park,” “The Spiderwick Chronicles” and several films in the “Twilight Saga.”
• Diana Walczak, the CG animator and director who co-founded Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company and Synthespian Studios. With Jeff Kleiser, she created the first female Synthespian performer, Dozo, for the 1989 music video “Don’t Touch Me.”  Her credits include the digital opera “Monsters of Grace” and the feature films “X-Men” and “Surrogates.”

Tickets for “The Development of the Digital Animator” are on sale now. Tickets are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with valid ID. They may be purchased online at Oscars.org, by mail, or in person at the Academy during regular business hours or, depending on availability, on the night of the program when the doors open at 6:30 p.m.

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has acquired more than 70,000 photographs from the Bison Archives, the private collection of renowned film historian Marc Wanamaker, Academy COO Ric Robertson announced.

The images document nearly every facet of film production between 1909 and the present day, focusing on the first half of the 20th century. Many of these images are the only known photographs of their subjects, including a group of eight behind-the-scenes color images of the filming of the opening sequence of Orson Welles’s 1958 noir classic, “Touch of Evil.”

“Marc’s dedication to preserving a historic photographic record of our industry has resulted in an extraordinary collection,” said Robertson. “We’re honored to add these images to our to our library’s holdings. His photographs, so many of which focus on behind-the-scenes studio activities, combined with the existing Herrick photographs, will provide unequalled coverage on all aspects of Hollywood filmmaking.”

Bison Archives was named in tribute to the Bison Company, an early motion picture studio (formed in 1909) that produced Westerns featuring Native American casts.

Adding to the more than 10 million photographs in the holdings of the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library, the collection features rare images from more than 100 major and independent studios, many of which ceased to exist past the 1920s, including Biograph, Edison, E & R Jungle Film Co., Essanay and Vitagraph.

“I felt very strongly that the collection should be with the Academy,” said Cecilia DeMille Presley, who helped the Academy acquire the Bison photographs on behalf of the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation.

Other highlights from the collection include vintage set and location photographs of such legendary directors as D.W. Griffith, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, as well as many of their below-the-line contemporaries, including film editor Anne Bauchens, cinematographer Billy Bitzer, art director Ben Carré and costume designer Gwen Wakeling.

Wanamaker began amassing the collection in 1971, as he was researching a book on the history of the American motion picture studios. Over the years, the collection has been used by authors, historians and filmmakers from all over the world for hundreds of books, films, lectures, exhibitions, publications and other scholarly works.

“The Herrick is one of the premier archives in the world,” said Wanamaker. “It is appropriate that much of my life’s work will have a permanent home there, including a photo album compiled by Ralph DeLacy, D.W. Griffith’s property master for “Intolerance.”

The photographs in the Herrick Library are preserved and cataloged, and made accessible to filmmakers, historians, students and the public.

For more information about Academy’s holdings, visit www.oscars.org.

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