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A Crowd-Sourcing Pioneer! Founder Terry Thoren looks back at the era that shaped the birth of Animation Magazine. By Terry Thoren
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nimation Magazine was financed with a crowdsourcing formula 35 years before crowdsourcing became an accepted business practice for raising funds to produce independent projects. It was conceived to celebrate the beautiful art of animated shorts as showcased in the annual International Tournée of Animation. Today, the experience for viewing animated short films in movie theaters is dead. The irony is that Animation Magazine was incubated to celebrate the Tournée of Animation, and Animation Magazine outlasted the Tournées by 25 years. I love animation. I have worked with animation for 45 years. I produced my first animation course in 1977 as one of the courses offered in a film school I launched in Denver, Colorado, called the Visions Film Program. It is where I fell in love with the art of animation.
In the fall of 1986, we created a newsprint newsletter called Animation News and distributed it to all of the movie theaters showcasing the International Tournée of Animation. Inside the premiere edition of Animation News, we wrote this introduction: “During the past year we have reThe Man Who Planted Trees ceived more than 20,000 requests (letters) from people who have seen the 19th Tournée asking for more information on the world of animation. Animation News was created to provide a consistent source of news about the world of animation in all its varied forms. This preview issue is designed to provide a microcosm of what future issues will look like. Its future issues will be more than four pages and include book reviews, film reviews, film festival dates Ten years later, in 1987, one of the stand-out and deadlines, interviews, industry news and highlights of my career was the opportunity to in-depth information on the new home video distribute Frédéric Back’s The Man Who Planted releases. To subscribe, please send us $9.75 for Trees to 350 theaters in North America. It was the six issues. If we receive enough money we will centerpiece of the 21st International Tournée of create an Animation Magazine!” Animation. In 1987, we made this announcement in the Spring edition of Animation News: ”Due to the overwhelming response to Animation News, we Terrific Toon Tournées In 1983, I took over the job of producing the are happy to announce that the July/August issue International Tournée of Animation from Prescott will become Animation Magazine.” The staff of the Animation News and Animation Wright and Bill Littlejohn. My partners in this venMagazine 35 years ago was a who’s who of aniture were Gary Meyer and Steve Gilula, the owners of the Landmark Theatre Corporation. We would mation aficionados. In the early days, the managtest market promotion ideas for our traveling ing editor’s job featured animation purists, like showcase of the world’s best animated shorts in John Cawley, Jerry Beck, Harvey Deneroff, Sarah the Landmark Theatres in 26 cities. When we had Baisley and Rita Street, who worked closely with a marketing formula that worked, we rolled the the art directors Heather Gilligan, Nancy Forrest, Tournée out to 325 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Nick Poulos and Jim Williams. Our impressive
Terry Thoren
staff of writers included names like Beck, Cawley, Deneroff, David Ehrlich, Frank Gladstone, Jim Korkis, Mark Mayerson, Dan McLaughlin, Fred Patten, Steve Rubin, Steve Segal and Steve Siers, Charles Solomon and Don Waller. After 35 years of hard work and quality editorial, Animation Magazine has become a global icon and has stood the test of time. It is the only magazine about animation to have survived all of the changes that have affected the entertainment industry and the publishing industry. It is read in 150 countries and the website has been enjoyed by more than one billion viewers! If we had a window into the future when we laid out our first issue 35 years ago, the vision of the world today would have looked like a science fiction fantasy. My heartfelt congratulations and respect go out to Jean Thoren, Ramin Zahed, Sheri Shelton, Jan Bayouth, Mercedes Milligan and Susanne Rector and the entire global team at Animation Magazine who have managed to grow, flourish and navigate all of the mind-bending innovations that have evolved over the most tumultuous and fast-changing 35 years in the history of the world. Terry Thoren founded Animation Magazine and the World Animation Celebration and produced the International Tournée of Animation. He was the CEO of Klasky Csupo, the studio that incubated the first 65 episodes of The Simpsons and produced Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power and more. Ten years ago, he launched Wonder Media to use animated stories to prevent childhood trauma, help children and teens navigate out of trauma and model critical thinking and social emotional learning for children in schools.
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