Besides the one big story this week, there were plenty of others too.
In ‘Scope (2084) and Regular (2079)…
Hans Perk has begun a series of posts on Lady and the Tramp that will be worth your time reading but this introductory post also includes something else. Yup, Lady and the Tramp was in production during the 1950s, when the feature film industry was undergoing an even greater metamorphosis than it is today. Television was luring audiences away from cinemas and something had to be done to entice them back. One notion was 3-D, a gimmick that fared about as well then as it has today. Another development was the introduction of the widescreen format. Lady and the Tramp got caught in the transition that resulted in a number of changes to the film. Hans will be looking at the changes that will sure be of interest to anyone with an interest in animation history.
Art vs Marketing 2013
Artist Emily Lubanko takes a humourous look at where art and marketing intersect and why the results are often so, well, crappy. The above image is where we start but things quickly take weird and hilarious turns as various marketing folks chip in their two cents on the project:
When you work data-first instead of story/message first…some really kooky nonsense can occur. Just because the “data” says something doesn’t mean you have to automatically go with that flow.
2D O.D.’d
Steve Moore over at the FLIP blog has this excellent analysis of why traditional 2D animated films have all but disappeared from mainstream release in the US. Hint: too much of a good thing can be bad for you.
Cartoonists and animation experts weigh in: the new Merida doesn’t HAVE to look this way
The big story that seemed to be everywhere this week was the redesign of Merida into something that many felt was inappropriate. There was plenty of analysis (like this and this) and even her creator Brenda Chapman weighed in.
That said, Rebecca Hains did a great job of laying out exactly why the change was an important issue that needed to be discussed and this post of her’s (disclaimer: quotes your’s truly) points out that the issue wasn’t that Merida’s design was changed, but rather how it changed. She also includes a few (funny) visual aids for comparison purposes.
Tweets of the Week
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/DrGMLaTulippe/status/334155812664659968″]
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/fionachill/status/334290910294720513″]
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/ThePixarTimes/status/335181933984219138″]
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/VertMB/status/335740170286534657″]