Paul Fierlinger

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Paul Fierlinger
Born
Pavel Fierlinger

March 15, 1936
NationalityCzech
American
OccupationAnimator

Paul Fierlinger (born March 15, 1936, as Pavel Fierlinger) is a creator of

animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries.[1] He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design
.

Early life

Paul Fierlinger was born on March 15, 1936, in

flipbook with a 16 mm Bolex camera. His experiences of youth and the difficulties of adapting to life in America and then returning to Czechoslovakia are documented in his biopic animated film Drawn From Memory.[3]

European career

In 1955, he graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Bechyně. After two years of military service, he freelanced in Prague, as a book illustrator and gag cartoonist for cultural periodicals under the pen name Fala. Fierlinger established himself in 1958 as Czechoslovakia's first independent producer of animated films, providing 16 mm films from his home studio in Prague for Czechoslovak Television and the 16 mm division of Kratký Film. Fierlinger was one of the first animators in all of the communist countries across the Eastern Bloc to get away with privately producing animated films, which he sold it all to many state-run film and television studios across Czechoslovakia. Thus, he created approximately 200 films, ranging from 10-second station breaks to 10-minute theatrical releases and TV children’s shorts.[4]

In 1967, Fierlinger moved from communist Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands for freedom, where he pitched for a number of station breaks for Dutch television in Hilversum. He then went to Paris, France to work for a short stint as a spot animator for Radio Television France and ended up in Munich, West Germany for half a year, having been offered the job of key animator on a feature film at Linda Films, The Conference of the Animals.[5] In West Germany, prior to his departure to the United States, he married a Czechoslovak compatriot and photographer named Helena Straková while living in Munich.

AR&T

Fierlinger formed AR&T|AR&T Associates Inc., his own animation house, in 1971. It produced animated segments for

TVPaint; Nickelodeon; and more. Since 1971, AR&T produced over 700 films, of which several hundred were television commercials. Many of these films received considerable recognition, including an Academy Award nomination for It’s So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House.[6] Other awards include some from the Ottawa International Animation Festival
for And Then I’ll Stop, a 1989 film on drug and alcohol abuse. At that time, Paul and Helena were divorced.

1990s and beyond

Fierlinger became a steady provider of many TV commercials and sales films for

Amby & Dexter: The Way of Silent; a Sesame Street series called Alice Kadeezenberry; and a twenty-minute film of children’s songs for the Children’s Book of the Month Club called Playtime.[7]

During this time, Fierlinger received a commission from

PBS’ American Playhouse to create a one-hour-long autobiography, called Drawn From Memory.[8]

In 1997, Fierlinger received a PEW Fellowship in the Arts award for the body of his work.

In the late 1990s,

Peabody Award in April, 2001.[9]

At the end of 1999, production on Still Life had to be interrupted for several months so that the Fierlingers could develop and begin the production of an animation series for

Ottawa, Ontario
, Canada.

The Fierlingers' own production of My Dog Tulip, based on the book of the same title by British author J. R. Ackerley, featured the voice talents of Christopher Plummer, the late Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini.

Paul and Sandra Fierlinger currently live and work out of their Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, home and studio.

Selected filmography

  • Rainbowland (1978) [10]
  • It's So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House (1979)
  • Drawn from Memory (1995)
  • Still Life with Animated Dogs (2000)
  • My Dog Tulip (2009)
  • Me... Jane (2014, animator, director and painter)

References

  1. ^ "Animafest Lifetime Achievement Honor Goes to Paul Fierlinger". Animation World Network.
  2. ^ Marcovitz, Hal. "Freedom Animated Montco Filmmaker". The Morning Call. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  3. ^ TCM.com
  4. ^ "TIFF '09 | Paul Fierlinger: "No independent animator has been doing this longer than I have"". September 2, 2009.
  5. ^ "Animals United (1969) - IMDb" – via www.imdb.com.
  6. ^ "Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award – 1979 |". cartoonresearch.com.
  7. ^ "PLAYTIME - A film by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger" – via www.youtube.com.
  8. ^ O'Connor, John J. (October 30, 1995). "TELEVISION REVIEW;Escape, Yearning And Return". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  9. ^ "Independent Lens: Still Life with Animated Dogs".
  10. ^ "Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award – 1978 |". cartoonresearch.com.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Fierlinger&oldid=1202000430"