of Ocean Girl, and Southern Star producedKangaroo Creek Gang. In the 1990s Walt Disney
Animation Australia was founded in Sydney. By the late 1990s most studios were working
on international co-productions with Germany, France, and Canada. Productions included
John Callahan’s QUADS! (Animation Works/Nelvana),Old Tom (Yorum Gross EM-
TV/Millimages),Little Elvis and the Truckstoppers (ACTF/Viska Toons), and Yakkity Yak
(Kapow Pictures/Studio B).Newer studios like Light Knights (3D series The Shapies) and
Freerange Animation (Leunig) sprang up, while smaller companies like Square 1 and
BigKids Entertainment hoped to move beyond service work and sell their own animated
projects.
Highly regarded independent filmmakers include Bruce Petty (Leisure), Sarah Watt
(Away with the Birds), Antoinette Starkiewicz (Putting on the Ritz, High Fidelity, Pussy
Pumps Up), and Lee Whitmore (Ned Wethered). Others are Denis Tupicoff (Darra Dogs,
His Mother’s Voice), Max Bannah (Bird Brain,The Lone Sailor), and Adam Elliot (Harvie
Krumpet).
New Zealand animation began in the 1940s with the New Zealand National Film Unit
producing titles and inserts for films. Len Lye had already left New Zealand to learn ani-
mation in Australia and make his films in England. Robert Morrow arrived from Great
Britain and later founded the first New Zealand independent studio. In 1958 Fred O’Neill
made Plastimania. He continued to make films, some based on Maori legends, and he made
children’s television series. Sam Harvey created the well-known sign-off Good Night, and in
1978 Murray Freeth produced The Boy Who Bounced. In 1976 David Waters founded the
Paint Pot Film Studios, which in 1980 released Rozzo the Goldminer, the country’s first ani-
mated series. Murray Ball made the first New Zealand animated feature,Footrot Flats—The
Dog’s Tale (with actual production done in Australia) in 1986. Euan Frizzell made many
popular and award-winning films and TV episodes, including The Great White Man Eating
Shark(short film), Hairy Maclary Volumes 1 and 2 (home videos),andOscar and Friends
(TV series). Other filmmakers included Mark Winter, Murray Reece, Larry Nelson, and
Robert Stenhouse (Oscar nominated for The Frog, The Dog and the Devil).
Animation in India
Early in the twentieth century Dhundiraj Govind “Dadasaheb” Phalke made the first ani-
mated film in India,Agkadyanchi Mouj.He had probably seen Emile Cohl’s matchstick film.
The Pea Brothers, directed by Gunamoy Banerjee, was released in theaters in 1934. Then in
1935 Mohan Bhavnani produced Lafanga Longoor.Indian Cartoon Pictures produced
Superman Myth by G. K. Gokhale in 1939, and Gemini Studios produced Cinema
Kadamban, supervised by N. Thanu in 1947.
In the 1940s the state-financed Films Division started up the Cartoon Film Unit, allow-
ing continuous production of animation. Most of the films were social or educational, but a
few art films were produced here as well. G. K. Gokhale and American Clair H. Weeks are
credited with the unit’s first film,Banyan Tree. Gokhale remained at the Cartoon Film Unit
for almost twenty years but finally left to freelance and make his own films. The Cartoon
32
About the same time, the
European Market is born.