Yuriy Norshteyn at USC
In February of 2010, I had the pleasure of arranging a visit of the world renowned animator Yuriy Norshteyn to USC in collaboration with Elyse Kelly. Over the course of three days, Yuri lay bare his thoughts and innovations for all of the students to see. He conducted small, intimate workshops with the animation students, attended an animation department-wide seminar, conducted a guest lecture at Disney Studios, and ended in a grand finale with a retrospective of all of his work to date with a sneak peak at his progress on his newest work The Overcoat (35mm prints courtesy of Joan Borsten and Films by Jove). The retrospective was curated and guided by fellow animator and once Yuri’s student in the Soviet Union Igor Kovalyov.
The most inspirational aspect was that he claimed that he had absolutely nothing to hide; no trade secret that could not be revealed. In a seminar with graduate and undergraduate animation students, Yuri proclaimed “If you have a chance to become an artist or open a store; open a store.”
The memories of spending three days at the side of such a great artist will remain with me forever. His work and his words were humbling and inspiring. They were devoid of any commercial motives and aspire only to emote in the purest, child-like ways.
Credits
This event was funded in part by:
THE USC OFFICE FOR GLOBALIZATION • USC GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENT SENATE • USC DADA HENCH DEPARTMENT OF ANIMATION • USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS OFFICE OF THE DEAN • USC DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE • SLAVIC GRADUATE ASSOCIATION • SCA GRADUATE COUNCIL
Translation Provided by:
KSENIA BRAZHNIK • RUAH EDELSTEIN
Videotaping Services Provided by:
TROJAN VISION
Publicity Graphic Design:
EMILY HENRICKS
Special Thanks:
RON DIAMOND (Acme Filmworks) • DAWN RIVERA-ERNSTER (Disney Studios) • IGOR KOVALYOV • ALEX AGO (SCA Office of the Dean) • DANA KNOWLES • RAQUEL ANDERSEN, SHEILA SOFIAN, CHRISTINE PANUSHKA, and LISA MANN (DADA) • JINAH SIHN and DANIEL ATWATER (USC Office of Globalization) • JOAN BORSTEN (Films by Jove) • KATYA TABAKH • THOMAS SEIFRID (USC Slavic Dept)
Related Links
⇒ USC Office for Globalization – Yuri Norstein Profile
⇒ FilmJourney.org Article
⇒ USC School of Cinematic Arts Website Article (original article location has been removed)
⇒ Yuri Norstein Visit to USC on Facebook
If you would like to get to know more about Yuri Norstein or, better yet, would like to support his work, check out these books and DVD on Amazon. I have all of them and they are stunning.
