I must say though, in one sense it’s refreshing to see somebody like Hayao Miyazaki who cares so much about his art that he’s willing to put it above his family’s happiness. Great works of animation like SPIRITED AWAY and PRINCESS MONONOKE certainly aren’t made without sacrifice. Perhaps animation would be better in the States if more people were willing to make those type of sacrifices for their films.

UPDATE: Just in case it wasn’t clear that the entire post above was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek, let me say that I was not seriously suggesting that the quality of American animation directly correlates to how little time one spends with their family. I feel silly even writing that, but judging from the number of emails I’ve received, a lot of people didn’t quite get that (due to my own poor communication skills).

No Comments »   posted in Old Brew

Tweet Share on Tumblr

Amid Amidi

The NY TIMES published a piece today about the glut of poorly performing animated CG films. That’s hardly news to anybody working the industry. The article has your typical pass-the-buck quotes from execs, like this one from Nickelodeon’s Julia Pistor: “I think audiences are saying, ‘I’ve seen a lot of computer animation and it’s not so special anymore.” Of course, Julia. Audiences must surely be tired of the computer animation technique itself, not by the poor decision-making of animation execs who have continuously greenlit poorly conceived, derivative, stupid films over the course of this CG animation goldrush. On another note, the most interesting “news” revealed in the piece is that DreamWorks and Aardman have had a falling out and FLUSHED AWAY will be their last film together. To my knowledge, that’s the first time this news has made print.

Note: Use BugMeNot if NY TIMES registration is required.

(Thank, Mark Gilson)

No Comments »   posted in Old Brew

Tweet Share on Tumblr

Amid Amidi

Machinima is a CG animation technique that uses real-time, 3D gaming engines for its imagery source as opposed to traditional CG software like Maya. The technique has been around for a while, though for the most part, Machinima has remained on the fringes of animation and pop culture. That may be changing however with the release of a recent film that could be classified as the first breakout Machinima hit. The film is MALE RESTROOM ETIQUETTE directed by Overman, and it uses the SIMS 2 game engine for its graphics. The 10-minute film starts off as a mock-instructional film but winds up documenting the world’s toilet apocalypse.

The film has been blowing up online since its release on September 14 with hundreds of blogs linking to it. It was featured on YouTube’s front page last weekend – the first for a Machinima film? – and has received over 1 million views on YouTube in the past three days, and over 1.5 million views total. If anything, this film should go a long way towards proving that Machinima is a technique capable of resonating with mainstream audiences as long as the storytelling and filmmaking are on a par with other forms of animated filmmaking. We’ll keep on top of further developments about this film.

UPDATE: Alessandro Cima, director of the Machinima film DRACULA’S GUEST, points out this WIRED article from last January that highlights a couple of progressive Machinima films, including his own. He also writes:

I think with a software tool completely focused on Machinima filmmaking and separated out from any sort of a game environment, Machinima will indeed be a powerful medium. For now, it’s still a bit too difficult to make games flexible enough to tell real stories. I had to pull my footage out of the ‘Movies’ game and render my own soundtrack in order to get around the game’s limitations. But very soon some enterprising company will give us a complete, powerful Machinima-making application.

Watch MALE RESTROOM ETIQUETTE BELOW:

No Comments »   posted in Old Brew

Tweet Share on Tumblr

Amid Amidi

The LA TIMES published a piece today by Josh Friedman with this mind-bogglingly ignorant sentence about animation:

[OPEN SEASON], based on the humor of cartoonist Steve Moore, introduces a technique dubbed “squash and stretch” that allows the cartoon characters to change shape during action sequences.

I hear the animators working on HAPPY FEET have also come up with an exciting new technique. They call it a “walk cycle.” What will they think of next?

UPDATE #1: Paul Naas writes the following:

I saw the item out of this morning’s L.A. Times about squash and stretch, and dropped a quick email to the author, Josh Friedman. To my surprise, he responded quickly, saying:

“Sorry about that. I’m working up a correction for Tuesday’s paper.”

Quite a difference from the response a few months back from Mick LaSalle and his ridiculous comments about facial animation. I’m looking forward to seeing if the correction actually appears.

UPDATE #2: Story artist Jenny Lerew comments about the LA TIMES piece on her blog Blackwing Diaries.

UPDATE #3: The LA TIMES indeed ran a correction in Tuesday’s paper. It reads:

An article in Monday’s Business section reporting the weekend box-office results incorrectly described as new the “squash and stretch” technique used in the film “Open Season.” The method, which enables the cartoon characters to change shape during action sequences, has been used before.

No Comments »   posted in Old Brew

Tweet Share on Tumblr

Amid Amidi

Sony Pictures Animation’s first CG feature OPEN SEASON opened in the #1 slot last weekend albeit with a weak $23 million (estimated) from 3,833 theaters. Box Office Mojo points out that this opening only seems good when compared to the weak box office of other recent CG films like EVERYONE’S HERO and THE ANT BULLY. It also notes that DreamWorks’s SHARK TALE opened on this same weekend in 2004 with $47.6 million. After this year’s glut of derivative, concept-deprived, gutless CG animated films, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing many more of those $40+million openings, save for the occasional quality pic. Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment prez Yair Landau attempted to put a positive spin on the OPEN SEASON debut: “This is our first time out and we don’t have a track record or an existing brand that parents can look to. So we’re very pleased to open Open Season comparable to the level of The Polar Express or Monster House that had the [Robert] Zemeckis and [Steven] Spielberg names attached to them.”

It’s hard to imagine that there’s many Sony execs who are actually pleased with this opening. The amount of money they spent on OPEN SEASON clearly indicated that Sony thought it was capable of playing ball with CG’s big boys (Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky) and instead they’ve turned out a big budget film that will end up grossing in the neighborhood of a mid-range feature like JIMMY NEUTRON or BARNYARD. I’d be particularly worried if I were Sony since their next CG feature is yet another ‘talking animal’ pic – SURF’S UP – and judging by the film’s recently released TRAILER, not a particularly good one at that. It’s a real shame that a studio filled with as much talent as Sony doesn’t have the vision to allow its artists to work with quality ideas. They’ll be paying for it at the box office, as evidenced this past weekend.

No Comments »   posted in Old Brew, Sony Pictures Animation

Tweet Share on Tumblr