Character Sundays: Principal Skinner

Animation /

The Simpsons is filled to the brim with fantastic, unique characters. Many tend to stand out because of their quirks, such as Sideshow Mel with the bone in his hair or [shudder] the crazy cat lady. Either way they’re all a complex bunch that have kept people tuning in for more than two decades.

One of the more interesting characters of the bunch happens to be Principal Skinner. Yes, on the surface he is the straitlaced principal of Springfield Elementary, but underneath, he is a fantastic example of what a character should be; that is, the sum of many parts past and present.

Skinner is first and foremost an educator and as much as he exudes a certain disdain for his students (one in particular), he always attempts to help and guide them. A perfect example is in The PTA Disbands, where we see Skinner and Bart reach a mutual admiration when one is removed from the post that made him the enemy of the other. We see a softer side to Skinner that was previously hidden and we see that as a person, he really does care about Bart, even if that care is not mutually returned.

School is the center of Skinners life. He always seems to be there and despite the madhouse that it appears, he seems to get a certain solace from it. He even manages to find love in Edna Crabappel. Outside of school, he seems to struggle as an individual; still living with his mother despite being (presumably) in his 40s or even 50s.

This is the Skinner we all know on the surface, but underneath, Skinner is much, much more complex than that. His position as principal of an governmental educational institution immediately marks him out in the Simpsons universe. Show creator Matt Groening is well known for his disdain of public education methods and numerous strips of Life in Hell have alluded to his less than enjoyable ride through the lower echelons of the educational process and his opinions on the methods utilised within it.

Skinner stands for everything that Groening hates about education. He is a by-the-rules kind of guy, a stickler for discipline and more than willing to punish students who fall out of line (Bart being the obvious one). Skinner is shown in Brother from the Same Planet being more than willing to cut music and arts from the curriculum in order to meet the annual budget. This would no doubt irk someone like Groening and anyone with a similarly creative mind.

However, that is not the only side to Seymour Skinner. The fact that he is a Vietnam veteran adds an entirely different dimension to the character. More than once, it is hinted that he has had his fair share of traumatic experiences while on duty. He states numerous times that he was captured and/or shot at.

With this in mind, there are sequences where we see Skinner get betrayed by the government. He gets looked over for promotion, is constantly hounded by Superintendent Chalmers and in Dog of Death we see exactly where Skinner lies:

One eraser? Well, I’m used to my government betraying me. I was in Nam. I served for three..”

Moreso than that, Skinner represents a character who was and is ultimately betrayed by the very government he almost died for and is simultaneously reviled by the public for it. A perfect example occurs in I Love Lisa, when Skinner has a flashback to the war:

Principal Skinner: [after having a traumatic flashback of Valentine’s Day in Vietnam] Johnny. Johnny! JOHNNYYYYYYYYYYYY!

To which Bart’s response is:

Bart: Cool! I broke his brain

As much as Skinner represents Groening’s hatred for education, he also stands for his view on the government and how it mistreats its citizens. In other words, while Skinner should earn our scorn for being an educator, he absolutely has our respect when it comes to how he has been treated in the past by those that should have done better.

Seen together, we can easily see that Skinner’s past (yes, even when he was known as Armin Tamzarium) embodies him in his current role as principal as he attempts to sheppared the students onto the right path.

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The Lorax: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Animation, Anomaly Appraisal /

Last night we went to see The Lorax. Unfortunately it was the only animated film at the cinema and all I can say is that I really did have to sleep on it before writing this post.

Let’s start with the good. We all know it’s based on the book by Dr. Seuss, and that’s grand. Having never read the book, I went into the film with a bit of naivety but an open mind as to how it would pan out.

The set designs and backgrounds are the best aspect of the film. Yes, they’re unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, but they do at least lend a cartoony feel to everything; much the same as that other Dr. Seuss film, Horton Hears a Who. The colours may be a bit saccharine for some (we certainly weren’t prepared for it), but they fit in well with the environment, and the team did a fine job of contrasting the different scenes and eras.

The other standout thing for me was the score. Not the soundtrack (we’ll get to that below), but the score by John Powell, which leads a kind of joviality to the whole thing. Again, it’s nothing remarkable, but it fits the mood well.

I suppose the other good thing was that the kids seemed to like it, especially the one girl behind us who made everyone else laugh with her giggles.

Onto the bad. All I can say is throughout the entirety of the film, I couldn’t help but feel that bits and pieces were missing. By the end, I reckoned there was 20 minutes that were somehow missing and had either hit cutting room floor or were never written to being with.

The entire film seemed like it was going around in a tumble dryer with jumps here and there, back and forth and characters starting in one place and instantly ending in another. In other words, the film didn’t so much run as it was playing hopscotch.

Besides the jumbly story, there were gags to be had in every, single, shot. Now a comedy should have a joke in most scenes, with a sprinkling of gags to sweeten things up. The Lorax on the other hand, didn’t seem to think that was enough and proceeded to have a gag in, quite literally, every single shot. Be it something happening offhand to a character or a spoken blooper, the result was the same. It was OK for the first couple of minutes, but after an hour and a half, things were wearing a bit thin.

Lastly, the ugly.

Hmmm, where to start, how about with the voice talent. The big names like Danny DeVito, Zac Efron and Taylor Swift certainly promised a lot (if you believe the marketing department at Universal) but oh boy did they fail to deliver. They didn’t stumble over themselves and roll off a cliff, no, they weren’t that bad. But if you like wooden voice-acting from people who aren’t famous for their [speaking] voices, well, The Lorax is right up your street.

Taylor Swift, as good great* a singer as she is, just can’t deliver a good vocal performance. It was flat, it was unmemorable, it was a waste of a role! The rest of the cast is similar. Danny DeVito is at least seasoned enough and with a distinct voice that enabled him to carry the role, but only barely.

As for the characters they were voicing, well, they were all terribly boring. Comparing Ted and another young protagonist, Hiccup, there is no comparison. Hiccup at least has depth, he actually has some motivation to do the right thing, for the dragons’ sake. Ted just want to impress Taylor Swift, and the best he can muster is to find a tree, and even then that’s practically done for him!

We learn nothing about him. He’s an axiom of a character, in other words, he is what he is. As is everyone else. Character development is minimal, even for the Once-ler, who has apparently learned his lesson but is for some reason dependent on Ted to fix everything.

The supporting cast are pretty much your usual, American pseudo-stereotypes:

  • Mum who’s the boss – check
  • Granny whose surprisingly active but uses a cane and is voiced by Betty White – check
  • Greedy businessman who’ll stop at nothing to keep his empire – check
  • Cute girl next door who main character has a crush on – check
  • Creepy, disgruntled old-timer who’s going to have a change of heart by the film’s end – check
  • Southern yokels in a Winnebago – check

Let’s not forget the myriad of supporting characters who imbue all the usual quirky traits that are by now seemingly mandatory for any CGI film. From singing abilities to one-trick ponies, they’re all there.

As mentioned earlier, the score is decent, but the songs were even more saccharine than the sets. Lavishly animated, they were over the top to say the least. Coming at supposedly appropriate points in the film, they were nonetheless distractions that didn’t really add much. The film could have been non-musical and it would have been the same.

Lastly, the particulars of the story itself is where the film really fell down. Besides jumping all over the place in the pacing, the story itself made maddingly little sense. The Lorax himself plays a relatively minor character; being missing for almost half the film only to show up again at the very end. The Once-ler servers as the protagonist for half the film before focus shifts back to Ted. Taylor Swift’s character says all of three paragraphs and appears in just about as many scenes and O’Hare is a villain who, quite frankly, does nothing of consequence.

In the end, we go back and forth from past to present before jumping around all over Thneedsville to plant a tree before the whole town turns against the bad guy, Ted gets his kiss and The Lorax shows up to give the Once-ler a hug.

Honestly, by the end, it’s hard to figure out quite what the hell I was watching for the past hour and a half.

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Let’s Talk Tax Credits

Animation, Opinion /

OK, taxes, boring I know, but it’s a pressing matter for animators in the UK. It’s also a topic that’s come up from time to time over here in the States, as places like next door neighbour Canada create incentives to get studios to move up north.

So the reason for this latest round of noise-making is that the British government is considering a tax break for “drama productions” that cost a certain minimum per hour of screen time. The thinking goes that with such a break, more productions will begin shooting in the UK thus contributing to the economy.

Animators contend that their industry would be more effective at keeping jobs in the country and, according to the Guardian article, would keep content on a more local level.

There’s nothing wrong with this, except that the reasoning is a bit flawed.

Basically, Ireland, the UK’s neighbour, offers tax incentives for animation production. The reasoning is is simple for this one: Ireland didn’t have an animation industry, so in order to get one jump-started, the government offered companies a tax break in return for taking the risk of setting up in a relatively unknown country (animation-wise).

The UK already has an established animation industry. It doesn’t need to effectively subsidies companies’ risk in setting up production there.

So what’s the real issue here?

Well, why set up shop in the UK, when you can go next door to Ireland, write off some taxes and get you series done for less. Right?

Will tax incentives in the UK change this scenario?

The answer is maybe.

Tax incentives will bring the cost of production in the UK down, but that is not a guarantee that productions will move there. It also creates another problem in that it hides the real issue: costs.

Naturally with their tax incentive, Ireland can operate on a lower cost basis, but, can you continue to operate on an incentive-based structure forever?

NO!

Incentives are meant to be temporary, or rather, short term. Long term reliance on tax-breaks and incentives can defeat the purpose. For example, let’s say you introduce a tax break for animation. After a while, another country introduces a tax break that brings their costs below yours. Now what do you do? Another tax break? Suffer the consequences? Give up?

Tax incentives mask the real cost of doing business. Yes, taxes may be higher here or there, but at the end of the day, they should be factored into the cost of doing business in the first place. Exchange rates will also factor into the equation, and depending on where you go, they may have a bigger bearing on costs than taxes.

If costs are your problem, then perhaps it is wiser to try and bring them down first, no? By doing so you will increase your competitiveness and not have to worry about it running out.

Besides, if you operate as a low-cost producer, you will always have to be the low-cost producer. Ireland has shown that they can move beyond low-cost with through their superb, home-grown content. Britain has a great track record in creating content. Perhaps they need to rediscover that talent.

What do you think? IS the UK really in need of a tax credit, or should it try other things first?

 

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Illumination Goes After The Cat in the Hat

Animation /

So it comes as no surprise whatsoever to learn that Illumination Entertainment is working on a CGI version of the Cat in the Hat. They’ve done quite well with The Lorax, and Illumination’s Chris Melendandri also oversaw Horton Hears A Who while previously at FOX.

This is good news and bad news all rolled into one. Yes, Illumination has done a great job on its recent films, but is really necessary to have another go at The Cat in the Hat?

OK, in fairness, there was that terrible effort with Mike Myers from a few years ago that you knew was doomed to fail the second you saw how all the vehicles were thinly disguised Fords. If such blatant paid product placement isn’t a dead ringer for a wonky movie, I don’t know what is.

Back to the point, yes, Dr. Seuss’ films make great animated films, but are they just getting rehashed at this point? Illumination have proven themselves with not one but two really good original films that they’ve been able to crank out for much less than Pixar or even DreamWorks could ever hope to.

So is it simply a case of certainty? Of going with what you know? Or is it that they really want to make a good Cat in the Hat move.

I’m going to go with the former. If the Deadline Hollywood is anything to go by (and to be honest, I take it with a pinch of salt myself), we’ll see Dr. Seuss films from now until the end of time. I just wish more emphasis was placed on original ideas. I mean, if you’re risking $70 million on a film you might as well go original. It’s not like you’re dumping $250 million and the kid’s college fund on an unknown entity. If you can find a great idea and a good team with a great track record, you should have no problems with an original idea.

Keep Dr. Seuss alive, but don’t turn him into a horse to flog for the sake of flogging.

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The 6 Most Obscure Animation on Netflix

1 Comment / Animation /

Netflix has been a boon for fans of obscure content ever since they launched. But now, with instant streaming, what are the more obscure pieces of animation that you can watch. Here’s a list of six of them.

Cartoon Noir

Via: IMDB

Labarynth of Darkness: Jiri Barta

The Ossuary & Other Tales

The Water Babies

Via: The Classic Nickelodeon Blog

War Game

Via: Wikipedia

The Book of the Dead

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Brenda Chapman’s Irish Trip & What You Can Learn From It

Ireland /

So it’s the morning after St. Patrick’s Day. Seeing as I’m writing this on Friday night, I can only presume that I (and you) had a good time and did indeed uphold the fine traditions of my race on the day.

Anyway, Brenda Chapman recently spent some in Ireland to teach a few master classes, but she also did something else, namely take herself all the way up to the wilder parts where I’m from and spend some time in a cottage to herself.

Long story short, she found it a great help to simply focus on things. You should definitely read her post on it, but keep in mind that sometimes disconnecting from life for a while can be a good thing. There’s no doubt that the US is by far the fastest-lived nation on Earth and sometimes that can lead to a lot of unnecessary noise. No, not the traditional kind of noise, like from a road, but the other, psychological kind.

Brenda found taking a break a great help. Perhaps you should do the same 🙂

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The State of Irish Animation in 2012

1 Comment / Animation, Ireland /

First of all, a Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. Remember, Guinness is Irish; corned beef and cabbage is not.

Irish animation has been on a roll the last few years as the combination of a strong talent pool. entrepreneurs willing to take a risk, continuous production demand, excellent products and a little help from the government in the form of tax incentives has made the country a very favourable one to do business in. In other words, the hard work continues to pay off.

Production now extends across the entire content landscape, from shorts through TV all the way to feature films. This growth has caused the industry to continue its expansions and growth at a time when the Irish economy as a whole has been struggling (to put it lightly).

No one studio seems to have eked out a significant lead as the larger ones have managed to succeed by going in different directions. Kilkenny-based Cartoon Saloon hit it right out of the park a few years ago with The Secret of Kells. As of 2012, development continues on their much-anticipated next feature, Song of the Sea.

Brown Bag Films has cemented their position as the studio to watch on the international stage. Besides announcing the sale of their first original series, Happy Hugglemonsters, they’ve also maintained their production series The Octonauts. Now employing over 100 people, Brown Bag have seem poised to continue their growth for the coming year.

Besides these two well-known outfits, other studios such as Jam Media, Kavaleer Productions (which recently celebrated 10 years in business), Boulder Media (currently winning accolades for their work on the Amazing World of Gumball), Telegael, Monster Animation and Caboom all continue to propel the industry to worldwide attention and admiration.

Noted newcomers this year include Giant Creative which has marked themselves out as a crowd to keep an eye on over the coming years.

Perhaps the largest sign that Ireland is making waves in the animated seas is the fact that this year’s Annecy festival will have a central focus on the country and what it can offer. Big things are expected to be announced come June.

Overall, the outlook for Irish animation is extremely positive for 2012 and beyond. Here’s hoping next year’s post will have even more good things to say.

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Yes, Animation Still Has A Stigma Once You Reach A Certain Age

Animation, Opinion /

Fred Seibert re-blogged a post by Megan, a.k.a. animationbits over on tumblr in which she goes into detail about how much she loves animation and how she’s hard at work on becoming a fully-fledged animator.

As inspirational as that post is (and you should definitely read it), what struck me was that while she drew and doodled from a very young age, something happened:

Then, like some of you, I hit an age where suddenly it wasn’t appropriate anymore. At this point I was living with my father and stepmother and suddenly im in a world where it was weird for me to create fantasy worlds and draw cartoons.

She was 18 at that point, and as she mentions, at one point, her father had something taped to the table which read the following:

THIS , this is whats keeping you from growing up – all these cartoons

Thankfully, Megan overcame all of this, but the fact remains that moreso than being a professional stigma for a lot of people; the old “all artists are starving” and “you’re not famous till you’re dead” notions continue to proliferate among society unfortunately. As Megan herself says:

Most of the time this talk comes from people who don’t KNOW of the art industry but base things on very surface conversations or stigmas like ‘starving artist’ .

The fact that this seemed to happen when she reached a certain age is exemplary of the continued stigma that grown-up animation fans continue to encounter here and there. Oh sure, it is much more acceptable now than in the past, but you could say that outside of conventions and industry circles, my Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends T-shirt is not nearly as appreciated.

The thing is though, the whole reason my passion for animation was re-ignited was because I realised that it is grown-ups who are making it and that they are people with real jobs, a real education and life-goals. Until that point I’d always thought of animated studios like Bart thought of the offices of MAD Magazine; a fun-house kind of scenario. Of course that was partly me being, like my father says, a stupid kid. A dose of the real world changed that mindset substantially.

Far from peer-pressure being the enemy of teenage animation fans, it is people who think it’s a profession for perpetual children. Nothing could be farther from the truth and here’s hoping that the stigma will someday be a footnote in history.

 

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Can “The Chase” By Philippe Gamer Be Considered ‘True’ Animation?

1 Comment / Animation /

I caught this video over on Cartoon Brew the other day and disregarding the plot and characters for a minute, can it be considered a truly animated video?

Obviously a lot of skill and talent went into creating it, but I felt suitably cheated once the video actually started. You see, the screenshot on the Vimeo emebed below suggests a certain kind of CGI animation, but once you start watching (and this isn’t a spoiler), you realise that the characters are vastly different to the rest of the environment.

Photo-realism is the rule for backgrounds, cars and roads. Even the FX shots appear to ape their live-action counterparts.

Bear in mind this isn’t a rant against this kind of filmmaking, it’s just that if a film like this appears to be so realistic, can it be considered animation, or is it simply an extended FX shot?

Animation encompasses a wide, wide range of styles and simulating reality has been the goal ever since Snow White. Of course anything that simulates motion is animated, but I’m wondering, is it time to draw a line in the sand?  Should animation that aims for photo-realism be given its own category?

What do you think?

 

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