July 2012

Twitter Responds To Finding Nemo 2

Animation, Pixar /

Twitter is a fun service to use and also to read (@Charles_Kenny is where you’ll find me). This is especially so when news breaks and everyone responds. Witness yesterday when Twitter users responded to the (sadly unsurprising) news that Andrew Stanton has started work on a sequel to Finding Nemo.

First there was my take:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Charles_Kenny/status/225292245933371392″]

Then there was the A.V. Club:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/TheAVClub/status/225300097573990401″]

Some positive ones:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/bigscreentoons/status/225315447246041088″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/jamiekarrot/status/225338260140994561″]

A negative one (but far from the only specimen):

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Nora_LUMIERE/status/225308803413979137″]

The man himself jumps into the fray:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/andrewstanton/status/225380771039420416″]

And lastly, some friends with opinions/thoughts/truths

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/jslipchi/status/225300781736280064″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/BoxnRoundhead/status/225374669207904257″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/davidoreilly/status/225393350050725888″]

And my personal favourite of them all:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/EmmyCic/status/225343569710415872″]

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Adventure Time Wallets: FOR THE FANS!

Animation /

Via: Animated Review

Adventure Time continues to set the bar when it comes to connecting with fans of the show (although Futurama is apparently catching up) and the latest is this rather cool project: Adventure Time wallets!

Yes, coming via Animated Review, is the series of wallets created by Poketo featuring a series of various designs including one by Pen Ward himself! Here’s my favourite:

Via: Animated Review

There’s a number of things that are cool about this kind of merchandise:

  1. They’re cheap! $20 isn’t going to break the bank for most people
  2. Their relatively customised. With 7 different designs to choose from, there’s good chance most people won’t have the same one.
  3. They’ve got the approval from the show’s creator (always a good thing)
  4. They go beyond the simple design of the show itself (and the stuff most marketing departments are comfortable with) and give fans something new.
  5. Fans can feel good about supporting a small company and awesome creative team!

The only downside? Showing off your awesome new wallet to everyone will only prove how much/little money you actually have.

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Kickass Women in Cartoons: A List That’s A Bit Light

Animation /

Hollywood.com has a list of “Kickass Women In Cartoons” and as awesome as the list is, there’s something wrong that I just can’t put my finger on. Ah yes, now I remember, it’s the descriptions!

You can head over to the post itself for the full fifteen, but here’s a sampling:

Wonder Women
It may be a man’s world, especially in the male-heavy world of superheros, but Wonder Woman boasts some serious skills. She can fly, fight like an Amazonian, and endure wearing Gaea’s waist miniaturizing girdle (even if her figure defies physics).
She-Ra
If her subtitle “Princess of Power” wasn’t enough of an indication, let us consider that She-Ra is He-Man’s identical twin sister. And she can lift things like rocks and buildings and commune with animals. I still want to be She-Ra when I grow up.
Princess Fiona (Shrek)
Yes, this tale is all about accepting inner beauty, but we have to admit, before she went full ogre, Princess Fiona was a babe. Plus, she had that whole Matrix-inspired freeze-in-mid-air-and-kick-all-the-bad-guys-in-the-face thing down pat. Bona fide kick ass lady.
Kim Possible
She could rock cargo pants. Her sidekicks were a nerd and a naked mole rat. She could get her homework done AND save the world before cheer practice. Yep. She earns a spot on this list.
As you can see, the selection of characters is commendable, but the reasoning is a bit lacking. Besides the reliance on the looks, there’s much more to each of them besides what they did. Yes, Kim Possible could save the world and get her homework done, but if your read more into it, she was also extremely clever, tactical, witty and a really nice person to boot.
If we’re going to rate female characters on how kick-ass they are, we should perhaps focus more on how they bested their male counterparts through smarts and sheer force of character.

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Animation Advice from 1975 That’s Still True Today

Animation /

Michael Sporn (whose blog I’m sure you all read daily) recently posted an article from Making FIlms in NY in which Lew Gifford discusses his small studio and some of the history behind it while discussing some of the business behind it all. Even though it was published in 1975, this particular quote is just as relevant today as it was then:

That’s the reason there were periodic breakup of shops. You’d be sitting in your office and you’d hear, “Temp bit the dust,” out of nowhere. There wouldn’t be any sign, but they would have gone quietly overboard, using all their suppliers to death. Suddenly they couldn’t meet the tax call or something like that and everything would cave in. It encouraged bad business habits and I don’t think anybody in animation has been a big businessman anyway. We’re basically artists, but you have to be practical to survive.

It’s as true then as it is now. Plenty of people start up their own little shop only to see it shine brightly for a while before fading away. Running any business is hard work and sometimes its easy to think that simply being good will cure all ills. True, it can help, but creating a brilliant film won’t exactly pay the bills. Do your really think Walt Disney would have been as successful as he was if it wasn’t for Roy guiding him along the way?

 What about the future?

The business aspect is bound to encroach on the artistic side as the way revenue is generated changes. Sure, making an independent film for fun won’t change much, but if you want to make money from a project, knowing all about costs and revenue, even on a basic level, will help out a lot. Gifford is right insofar that artists generally like to make art, and leave the number crunching to someone else (or sitting in the pile instead). Joe Murray has a great quote that deals with it.

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Pixar Draws Loyal Viewers and Employees

Guest Post /

This is a guest post by Lauren Michaels, After studying film at UCLA, Lauren found that her second love, writing, allowed her to be both critic and harbinger of infortmation. She now freelances for a variety of entertainment publications and is a regular at her local theater.

Moviegoers adore Disney’s digital animation giant, Pixar, with nearly 11.5 million users “liking” its official fan page on Facebook. Although Pixar specializes in making children’s movies, it is the kind of company that permanently brands adults — as well as their kids — as lifelong fans.

Marketing guru Peter Fisk of The Genius Works website says that successful brands have “bigger ambitions” than selling products. “They give business purpose, shared with customers,” Fisk adds. The bottom line, Fisk says, is that Pixar makes life better by inspiring people. More than a mere animation studio, Pixar is a career-making company that helps build enrollment in the animation programs of many an art school, including the venerable California Institute of Arts where Pixar executive John Lasseter honed his creativity.

Workplace Humanity and Continuing Education
Art school students are drawn to the humanistic branding of Pixar’s products, as well as the company’s workplace culture, which nurtures creativity and teamwork. Pixar’s campus in Emeryville, California, is about as far from cubicle culture as a creative type can imagine.

Fisk notes that as Jobs restructured the company, he allowed designers to construct and decorate their individual workspaces and provided airy atriums containing cafes and a wood-fired pizza oven. An on-the-job training program called Pixar University fosters creativity through encouraging workers to become well-rounded. The program offers classes ranging from dance to astrophysics and conservation.

Pixar also gives its employees the time to “do things right” and get their work “pixel perfect,” according to Copyblogger. In short, Pixar prefers delays to doing things poorly. Other businesses could learn a lot from this philosophy and the loyalty it ensures.

New and Old Values
BusinessWeek reports that Pixar’s recent release, Brave, continues “an unbroken record of first-place openings.” Despite its emphasis on the importance of self-actualization, the movie also contains an indelible element of Pixar branding that permeates both its movies and work culture: an old-fashioned concern for interconnectedness. Classics such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo are all about the importance of family and community, and going to great lengths to love one another. In Brave, Merida discovers that by running away to find adventure, she has endangered her family and kingdom. It is up to her to be courageous and save those she loves.

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The A.V. Club Takes The Ice Age Voice Cast to Task

Animation /

Via: NY Daily News

The A.V. Club, as the serious, cultural  arm of The Onion is sometimes quite trite in their reviews of films. The latest Ice Age film is no exception, but what is noteworthy is the grilling the voice cast receives. Naturally they are all celebrities with no real voice-acting experience:

On paper, Continental Drift boasts a jaw-dropping voice cast, including but not limited to Jennifer Lopez, Patrick Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Nicki Minaj, Drake, and Alan Tudyk. But in practice, the overstuffed ensemble leaves the cast no room to distinguish themselves, and directors Steve Martino and Michael Thurmeier don’t seem interested in coaxing performances that might render their money stars less identifiable. With the help of some low-end boosting, Dinklage musters a decent amount of kid-appropriate menace—although he never does explain his gift for finding chunks of ice shaped like pirate ships—but Romano and Leary mainly sound bored, droning through their lines as if they’re simultaneously texting the contractors building the additions on their houses funded by their fat sequel paychecks.

Ouch! There is no punches being pulled there. Now we all know that celebrities being hired simply for being them is always a bad idea for a film (DreamWorks’ upcoming Smeckday features the voice talents of all people, Rihanna) but I can’t help but wonder whether we are in a bit of a bubble with this one.

As more and more large studio films use celebrity voice acting, there is bound to come a point where there will simply not be enough celebrities to go around. Second-rate talent will likely come in, and for most of the public, only the very best animation can make up for a poor voice.

Will we hit a point where star names can’t sell an animated property? Yes, we will. How far away that is though, will depend on how long the quality holds up in films like Ice Age. Professional voice actors  live and die by their vocal performances so while they may not have the name power that celebrities have, they are more than capable of matching them in abilities.

And as a bonus, here’s the best line from the article, right at the very end:

But the only person who earned their keep on Ice Age: Continental Drift is the MPAA flunky who shoehorned in the line, “Silly rabbit—piracy doesn’t pay!”

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Dramatic British Animation Lagging Behind the Americans?!

Animation /

Coming via The Belfast Telegraph, British animation legend Nick Park (of Wallace and Gromit fame) has this to say about his country’s animation output as of late:

The director of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, the only British film to claim the Best Animated feature Oscar, told the Radio Times that filmmakers might need to up the “schmaltz” factor to earn better results. “We need to tell our own stories, rooted in our own culture, but do it with the equivalent emotion of Hollywood,” he said.

“Billy Elliot did it, and The Full Monty, but I don’t think we have it yet in animation.

He has a point. Recent theatrical successes have been mostly comedic and although they are British, only Wallace and Gromit could be said to truly represent British culture; Pirates was more international in scope.

Something along the lines of The Secret of Kells is what British animation needs. Something relatively dramatic but with a very strong relationship to the culture which it is based on. Something comparable to a 21st century Animal Farm if you will.

Where is Richard Williams when you need him?

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8 Great Animation-Related Subreddits

Animation /

You’ve probably heard of Reddit, you know, that pretty cool website that aggregates stuff people find on the internet? Yes, that one! One of the best parts about it is that there are threads or subreddits devoted to specific topics. Animation is no exception with more than a few ranging from the general to the quite specifc. Check out these 8 below and don’t forget to follow me to see what I’m reading.

PS. Yes, there are tons of subreddits devoted to individual shows like The Simpsons, King of the Hill,  Adventure Time and [of course] My Little Pony but I’m excluding those on the basis that I could list far more of those than this post could handle. Do visit them though and check out the links to other shows’ subreddits in their sidebars.

/r/animation – Your catch-all subreddit dedication to animation. Full of trailers, stills, tutorials, articles, you name it.

/r/anime – 51,000+ readers makes for a pretty big community

/r/computergraphics – Just like /r/animation, but for CGI and VFX!

/r/disney – Kinda obvious this one. Plenty of choice for everyone, from the films, the characters to the resorts.

/r/freeanimation – You know the Tube Open Movie project? It’s not the only example. A great subreddit in need of a bit of love at the moment.

/r/studioghibli – Lots of Studio Ghibli-related stuff here (as you would expect)

/r/stop_motion – The place for all things stop-motion. Plenty of shorts to enjoy too!

/r/thelastairbender – An exception to the above rule because its more than just a subreddit filled with screencaps and fan art. There’s lots of discussion about the characters and the universe that keeps things interesting. Also benefits from having two shows to talk about.

Do you know any more? Please add them in the comments!

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