Cinema Canada (Aug 1976)

the cheshire bureaucrat by Ronald H. Blumer If filmmakers as a breed are a little wacky, people in volved in animation form a loony subgroup of their own. One minute’s screen time, 720 drawings. A normal person can hardly conceive of the work it takes to produce one short gag — a 10-minute film can be a year’s work. Don Arioli is quick to point out that he does not consider himself an animator. “J am interested in telling stories with my films. When I was animating my own films I used all sorts of shortcuts to get to the point. I have no patience with the animation; I want to make one movie a week, not one movie a year!” ———$—$—$—$ oR Ronald H. Blumer is currently an instructor in cinema at Vanier College in Montreal. Prior to this he taught at Marianopolis College and was a teaching assistant at McGill University and Boston University. Concurrent with teaching, he has also been working on a series of films on aging. Like many of those involved in animation, Arioli communicates with few words in a language of gestures and sound effects. He looks and acts like his cartoon characters. Wolf Koenig, former head of English animation at the NFB, hired Arioli 10 years ago as resident genius. From the beginning, it was obvious that his talents lay not in the process of animation, the meticulous drawing of picture after picture which brings the characters alive — Arioli is a storyboarder, one of the rare idea men. In the United States, he could be counting his millions writing one-line gags for MASH or planning out the next Alka-Seltzer ad. His job is to be funny. “The idea of sitting down and trying to be funny is pure tragedy; it can drive you crazy, but when you get it, it’s a tremendous sensation. I’m sitting in a restaurant doodling, putting various ideas and pictures to gether, and then I hit on it. When I kill myself laughing, sitting there alone, I know it must be funny.” August 1976/21