Week Links 10-2013 – The Animation Anomaly

Quite a few week links for you today. Enjoy!

The Problem with Processed Storytelling

Richard Brody at The New Yorker touches on the 22 Rules of Storytelling at Pixar that have been making the rounds recently. His issue is that the results of such processes result in “the cinematic equivalent of irresistibly processed food, with a ramped-up and carefully calibrated dosing of the emotional versions of salt, sugar, and fat.”

Tom Sito’s History of Computer Animation

The FLIP Animation Blog has another excellent interview up. This time it’s not only with Tom Sito, but it’s all about CGI and computer animation in its early days and how it developed. Well worth some of your time to see how the technology developed.

2D or Not 2D, The Disney Feature Animation Legacy.

Thomas Coleman over on the Skwigly blog has a post where discusses whether or not traditional 2D animation is the legacy of Walt Disney and his company. His conclusions may surprise you.

Postman Pat is a beloved figure in Jordan

Yes, my childhood hero of a postman is apparently popular enough in the middle eastern country of Jordan to warrant his own CGI feature film. The Guardian takes a tongue-in-cheek look at this curious scenario.

Careful! You’ll Hurt Disney’s Feelings!

Mark Mayerson has a brilliant post over on his blog where he points out that the censorship that Disney engages in. Basically they use their copyright as a tool to squelch any parts of books that they do not like. As Mark points out, this immediately makes any book that is approved for publication immediately falls under the cloud of being potentially tainted by the Disney legal department’s hand and being considered “damaged goods” as far as the truth is concerned.

There is a term to describe this practice and it’s called ‘copyright abuse’. Copyright provides for the holder to prevent and prohibit unauthorised use of their material for commercial gain. Using it as a tool to prevent their inclusion under otherwise ‘fair use’ terms, is far outside of the intended use of copyright and thus becomes an abuse of the system.