HALAS, John

This posting is a stub. You can contribute to this entry by providing information through the comments link at the bottom of this post. Please organize your information following the main category headers below....

Birth/Death

Birth: April 16, 1912, Budapest Hungary
Death: Jan 21, 1995 London England

Occupation/Title

Bio Summary

Early Life/Family

Education/Training

Career Outline

During his career he had several occupations and titles. Some of these included commercial artist, director, animator, producer, and screenwriter. John and his wife, Joy Batchelor, were recognized for their production skills as a couple.
Halas recieved his education in Hungary and Paris and was an apprentice to George Pal. In 1936 he moved to England as an animator. His career was very diverse. He is credited as a director, producer, writer, artist, and art director. He was a director on many projects begining with "Music Man" in 1938 and spanning all the way to the TV series "Masters of Animation." He directed many memorable projects including "Cars of the Future," the TV series "The Lone Ranger," "Jackson 5ive," "The Addams Family," "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Popeye," and many others. As well as being a director and producer, John Halas was also a writer. He participated in such projects as Autobahn, Automania 2000, Animal Farm and others.
He was an animator on several projects some of which include "How the Motorcar Works: Part 2" (1977), "Handling Ships," "Filling the Gap," and others. He is credited as a designer on projects such as "Charley's New Town" (1947), and "Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard" (1941). He was also the art director in the 1955 film "Cinerama Holiday."

Comments On Style

Influences

Personality

Anecdotes

Miscellaneous

John Halas was also chairman of ASIFA
and active in international animation links. He helped me organise the Oxford (UK) Animation Festival in 1970 by supplying a list of the world's 70 best animators, who each were asked to nominate films for the festival. Later he produced a set of 39 animated European folk tales, from 15 countries and based on the folk art of those countries, which were shown on British TV (Granada) from 1981. Now his daughter Vivien Halas
is sought after in Hungary where he is recognised as a major artist. His most enduring contribution to animation is probably his production with Joy Halas (who scripted it) of the first British animated commercial feature film, Animal Farm (1954). After John's death it emerged that this was funded by the CIA. Before 'Animal Farm' John made two wartime instructional animated feature films for the UK government, 'Handling Ships', and 'Water for firefighting'. He made a fourth animated feature in 1966, 'Ruddigore', based on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, and contributed to a fifth in 1972, 'The three musketeers', which was produced in Belgium.

Filmography

Honors

Annie Award: Winsor McCay Award 1985


Related Links

A-HAA: Advertising: UPA's Bert and Harry Piels
A-HAA: Theory: Chuck Jones on the Art of Animation
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0354691/
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=93118
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/p/john_halas
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9038850/John-Halas-and-Joy-Batchelor

Bibliographic References

Contributors To This Listing

David Harrington
Robert Leach

To make additions or corrections to this listing, please click on COMMENTS below...

You can contribute to this listing. Click on COMMENTS below to submit information.