Since childhood I watched cartoons and was moved emotionally by the imagery and the music. I saw the potential to touch people in a way that live action movies could not. Animation seemed then, and now to be the culmination of all the arts: Cinema, music, dance, painting, writing, etc.
As I was making Philo I tried to pay homage to the studios and individuals who influenced me. I am an admirer of Walt Disney of course, but also the renegades, who broke away from the emulation toward realism, that birthed the stylized look of UPA. Artists like Art Babbitt, Jim Tyer, Chuck Jones, and writer Michael Maltese, along with John and Faith Hubley, Ward Kimball, Bobe Cannon, were and still are reasons why I became an animator. Another early influence for these people as well as myself were the works of the early silent comedians like Charlie Chaplin and the great Buster Keaton.
If you are familiar with any of these, you will immediate see the influence.
Philo from Joel Brinkerhoff on Vimeo.
