The Onion reports that Barack Obama has been outfitted with motion-capture sensors and that his entire presidency is being recorded in 3-D. While the article is obviously in jest, I wonder how far away we are from the day where all of our lives will be recorded in digital form giving us the option to virtually replay personal events from different perspectives and to create different outcomes.

(via Motionographer)

One of my favorite sources for learning about obscure foreign animated features is TwitchFilm.net. Certain films though are perhaps best left undiscovered. Case in point: the forthcoming CG effort called The Legend of Milu Deer: Princess Yoyo directed by Guo Weijiao. The film is largely a response to DreamWorks’s Kung Fu Panda. The success of a Chinese-themed story produced by an American company miffed a lot of Chinese citizens and has inspired them to make more (if not better) use of their cultural symbols and traditions.

The film is being produced by the Zhonke Weiwo Digital Technology Co. in collaboration with the Scientific Art Center of the Institute of Automation in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. According to the film’s official website, they are employing “special effects such as 3D deformation, hair, fabric, particles, groups animation, motion capture, and network rendering, which reaches the [most] advanced level in the world.” Apparently, the world they are referring to is the one of 1990.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television is planning to offer this movie as a “present” to the people of China for this year’s 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. If this is a present, I’d hate to think how they punish people in that part of the world.

The trailer:

Cory Edwards, the guy who made the moderately successful steaming pile of CGI known as Hoodwinked is still plying his wares around town and is currently tapped to write and direct Fraggle Rock: The Movie for the Jim Henson Company. He talks about his work in this interview on the Fulle Circle Productions blog.

Whatever one’s opinion of Hoodwinked, you’ve got to admit that Edwards was on the forefront of indie CG, a trend that is becoming more and more prevalent nowadays. In his own words:

“And I realize that there were other independently-funded projects being done at the same time, but yes, we were the first… the first kind of a new model and a new way of making an animated film. It was made with no studio money, overseas, then picked up by a major distributor. A few other animated films have followed this path, but not to the level of success that Hoodwinked was able to achieve. I know Veggie Tales had a movie come out earlier that year, but that was with a struck deal and brand recognition. Hoodwinked was this freak of nature that was made completely outside of the studio system and, thankfully, worked. I rarely toot my own horn, but these are facts that never get mentioned and I am really proud of what our little film did. Hoodwinked was made for under $8 Million, and has grossed over $150 Million worldwide. That easily makes it the most profitable animated film of its time.”

Beyond the business aspects of indie CG, the rest of the interview is packed with gems that both infuriate and tickle the funny bone. For example, Edwards reveals one of his reasons why he’s not directing Hoodwinked 2: “I wanted desperately to get into live action films, and was very concerned about being pigeon-holed as an animation director.” There’s also a wonderful bit about how he’s going to approach the feature-length Fraggle Rock: “I’m shooting high with this one, trying to say some big things about humanity in the way that WALL-E did, but at the same time, make a really cool adventure film.” Apparently the new formula for success in Hollywood is to just give it a little bit of that Wall-E humanity oomph.

Most amusing though is where Edwards sees himself in ten years:

“I sincerely hope that I will be able to carve out a niche in this business where I am a ‘brand name’ director. By that I mean, when an audience sees my name, they anticipate something good… and when a studio thinks of me, they are eager to make a “Cory Edwards film…I want to keep surprising people, but still keep my name synonymous with quality.”

Considering that every project his name has been attached to (Hoodwinked, Doogal) has been an artistic abomination, keeping his name synonymous with quality is a ship that sailed a long time ago. No worries though…nobody notices in Hollywood anyway. Keep up with Cory’s attempt to turn Fraggle Rock into the next WALL-E at CorysCuriosities.blogspot.com.

I’ll be first in line for this. A crazy new Japanese CGI/Live action film, opening in March from Magnet Releasing:

A visually impressive Space Invaders-themed music video directed by Reuben Sutherland of Joyrider Films for Röyksopp’s new single “Happy Up Here.” At first glance, I thought it was a mix of live and CG, but upon closer examination, it appears to be almost entirely CG. It’s a fun piece in which the visual elements and cutting perfectly match the energy of song’s beats.

This morning I appeared on the Fox Business channel to discuss the rivalry between Pixar and DreamWorks. The other guest was esteemed animation director (and fellow blogger) Michael Sporn. It was impossible to say anything revelatory or original in the brief timespan of the segment and they managed to misspell my name onscreen, but I don’t appear on TV often so I’m posting the video here for posterity. The real excitement of the morning was in the green room where I tried to eat a bagel while sitting next to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and having his security detail breathing down my neck.

Stephen Watkins, repped by Melbourne’s XYZ Studios, created “Tick,” a stylish PSA for the World Wildlife Fund. The piece, set to Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” (which has its own animated music video too), makes effective use of digital animation and CGI to create a hand-crafted feel. The agency behind the piece, Leo Burnett Sydney, gave the following brief to the filmmaker:

Sometimes it’s hard to get people to support a cause because they think, ‘I’m just one person, what can I do?’ We wanted to show individuals how their support can have a direct and positive effect on Australia’s natural environment. So we took the universal symbol for pledged support, the ticked box, and we animated it. Then that ticked box joined forces with hundreds of other animated ticks and they built habitats around some of Australia’s precious native animals so they can survive.

(Thanks, Tony Sykes)

Congrats to David O’Reilly who just won the Short Film Golden Bear at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival for his animated film Please Say Something. It’s a thrill to see animation take the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals where distinctions aren’t drawn between live-action and animation and both mediums have to compete in the same category. (Don Hertzfeldt accomplished the same feat at Sundance in 2007.) O’Reilly’s ten-minute computer-animated short, a self-described Internet turbodrama that examines the “troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant Future,” uses a unique narrative structure comprising 23 episodes of exactly 25 seconds each. Below you can watch the first five of twenty-three episodes in the series. (On a sidenote, last December I also chose Please Say Something as my pick for the year’s best online animation.)