Asides

A Felix Fine Art Find!

1 Comment / Animation /

It’s always fun to keep any eye out for animation-related stuff while you’re away from home and Key west, Florida is no exception. I’m down here for a wedding this weekend (not Pride week) and besides visiting the drinking hole of Ernest Hemingway and buying a new hat, there’s tons of art galleries all along Duval Street. One of which, The Pop Culture Vault, contained something I wasn’t aware existed:

Apparently it’s by Don Oriolo, son of Otto Messmer’s assistant, Joe Oriolo who creates them and he seems to be quite prolific.

Sadly they’re a wee bit above my price range but they’re nonetheless a pretty neat, unexepcted find 🙂

 

 

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The Annecy Siren Film: Matches

Animation /

The 2012 Annecy Film Festival is currently under way and the focus this year is on Irish animation. My twitter feed is currently jammed with tweets from folks either at, going to or complaining that they are not at, the festival. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see renowned animation school Gobelins tackle one of the more devastating aspects of life in Ireland over the last 40 years; that being the Troubles, in their siren film for the festival.

 

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Why I’m Sorry The Simpsons Don’t Age

3 Comments / Animation, The Simpsons /

The blog We Professional Liars has a great post on how The Simpsons and South Park deal with the progression of time within the respective universe of each show. The point is that The Simpsons remains stuck in 1990 whereas South Park ignores years and simply has the show take place ‘now’.

The post raises a good question that is often ignored in western animated TV shows; should the universe show the progression of time? Futurama is the only example that I can readily recall that actually progresses the year of the show (starting in 3000) but the characters and universe do not. Fry will always be a delivery boy, etc.

Should TV shows progress their universes? I think they should.

To explain myself: progressing shows creates an easy comparison for the viewer. We are aging and it is weird to see something that does not age. Live-action TV shows cannot avoid this and simply try to avert attention to it as much as possible; hence the kids in Saved by the Bell seemed to be in high school forever. In contrast, animated TV shows don’t have that problem. Bart and Lisa Simpson were 10 and 8 when the show debuted twenty three years ago and they still are today.

As to why I think character should age, it is simply a matter of story and content. By allowing characters to age. you can continually progress the kinds of plots that you can tackle. Think of Saved by the Bell; the themes gradually became more mature as the characters and actors aged. The doesn’t really happen in animated shows beyond the odd “crystal ball” episode.

In the case of the Simpsons, Bart and Lisa could have aged well into their teens by now, which could have allowed the show to progress plots into uncharted and more complex territory than it has had to contend with over the last 13 seasons or so. For example having Bart kicked out of school over and over again is one thing, but it’s always been the same school with the same principal. Imagine how things would have worked had it been a different school each time? Getting kicked out of secondary or high school presents a rather different set of challenges than the elementary school would.

Or how about love? Yes that old chestnut. The show has dealt with it a number of times (key examples include Bart and Laura Powers and Lisa and Nelson) but there isone episode that had a peek inside Lisa’s brain that shows her libido locked up, where it is informed that it wouldn’t get out until her teenage years. Just imagine what fun could have been had with that!

I don’t advocate the show advancing year for year just like us, but it would be nice to say that over 20+ years, the show has moved from being a relatively young family to being a relatively mature one. A nice series send-off could have been a college graduation or similar.

Would such practices have made the series better? That is uncertain, but they could have helped the series stay fresher than it currently is. If the audience is growing up and gradually losing interest, then that is a problem. OK, the Simpsons isn’t a kids show; it appeals to all ages, but that does not mean that the teenagers watching in the 90s are watching now. However kids in the 90s that saw the characters age roughly alongside them might be more inclined to retain interest.

The key point of all this is that the show’s rating would not be harmed provided it avoided descending into cliche territory and appealing only to that demographic. With the broad appeal of the golden era episodes, it’s safe to say that that would probably have not been a problem.

In addition, every show has a finite lifespan, no scripted show can go on forever. You can make them last, but eventually they will lose favour and be put out to pasture. The question is: do you ride the wave, or do you try to make a really great show all the way to the end. Most shows do the former, the latter is the road less travelled.

 

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Epic: A New Low In Celebrity Voice Casting

2 Comments / Animation /

It’s a topic I’ve covered in the past, and one that continually grinds my gears in more ways than one. However none more so than the recent announcement of the cast for the upcoming FOX animated film, Epic. When I saw it, my heart almost sank.

Who picks these people? That’s what I want to know. Beyonce? OK, sure, she has some sort of vocal talent, for which there had better be some good songs coming out of this film. Pitbull on the other hand; how does he fit into the mix? I once read a tweet that described him as the guy who shows up in the middle of songs and starts rapping gibberish. How about Johnny Knoxville? The guy’s a decent actor for sure, but what about his voice? Can you picture anyone else shouting “I’m Johnny Knoxville and welcome to Jackass”? I can think of at least 5 personal friends that will give him a good run for the money. Throw in Colin Farrell, the guy from the Hunger Games and Steven Tyler among others and you have a very weird cast altogether.

Is this something that studios are losing sight of? Yes, a star can help sell a film, but it won’t make the film. Think of Delgo, it was a film that had an admittedly admirable B-list celebrity voice cast, but it was a terrible film that failed. Celebrities far from made that film into a success.

So why keep doing it? If Eddie Murphy costs $10 million, that’s $10 million that can’t be spent on (a lot of) animation. In addition, you have to earn double that at the box office to turn a profit. What studio wouldn’t want to get the same or similar film for a good deal less? Add in a couple of celebrities and we’re already talking double-digit percentages of the total cost. Will Eddie Murphy bring in $10 million more in box office gross? For something like a family film like Shrek, I would hope to doubt it, but then I do tend to overestimate the intelligence of people.

Another aspect of the practice is that celebrities are a brand onto themselves. By associating them with a film, a studio is essentially betting that their brand identity will be strong enough to boost sales. That may be OK if it were a company, but if you’re betting on a single person that could prove problematic, if say for example, that person ends up in rehab but you just cast them in a family film, and so forth.

Who si to blame? Studios are to be sure, but celebrities and their agents are the catalyst and someone in the casting department is getting hoodwinked.

I’m sure Epic will be an OK film, but with a cast like that, I can’t help but wonder whether the film will actually suffer instead of benefitting.

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Three Great ‘Art of’ Books

Animation, Book /

‘Art Of’ books have become quite popular over the last number of years and it seems that they have become an established part of movie merchandise for all movies, not just the animated ones where they began.

The content of art of books tends to vary quite a bit. Some are truly fantastic windows into the creative processes behind a film, while others, such as the one for Laika’s film, Coraline, seeme to be slapped together at the last minute in an attempt to placate the movie going public.

The three I’ve chosen for this list are far from that insofar as they represent the best kind of ‘art of’ books in their own way. One is for a western film, one is for an eastern film and one is for a TV series. Together they take quite different approaches but all serve the same purpose, that is, to show how filmmakers created the worlds and characters that we all love.

Note: All the images come from the excellent and highly recommended Parka Blogs website where you can find comprehensive reviews of each books in addition to links to Amazon for purchase.

The Art Of The Incredibles

This was the first book of its kind that I came across, and it is not hard to see why it remains one of my favourites. Drawing heavily on the look of the film, The Art Of The Incredibles contains a good mixture of character, layout and background art. There are plenty of sketches and concepts which convey the many iterations of design that some of the characters went through before final design.

However, it is the landscapes and backgrounds that deserve the highest praise. All the main sets and locations are shown in detail, with plenty of information on how the look of the film was heavily inspired by the 1950s and 60s. As a special bonus, a fold-out in the middle contains the entire colour script!

The Art Of The Incredibles is bursting with art from cover to cover and ensures its place in this list with plenty that cannot be seen anywhere else.

The Art of Spirited Away

While this may appear to be a similar book, it does in fact take a very different approach. All the characters, backgrounds and layouts are there to be sure, but this book covers a Miyazaki film! Instead of the lush, flawless art of the book discussed above, The Art of Spirited Away is chock full of sketches, watercolours in addition to finished art.

The book compliments Miyazaki’s art style in a way that conveys the individual effort that went into the film; read: thousands of hand-drawn cels. Unlike other books, the emphasis is on the art moreso than the film or how it developed. In deferrance to other books, there is also a comprehensive looks at how the film utilised digital technology to enhance the tradtional processes; a throughly educational and enjoyable read.

Pure art from start to finish, The Art of Spirited Away represents almost the antihesis of The Art of The Incredibles.

The Art of Avatar: The Last Airbender

Lastly, we come to an ‘art of’ book made for a TV series. Something of a rarity, the book came about only because there was a theatrical, live-action film made of the series. Apparently the art in that didn’t warrant its own tome, so we have this one to read instead.

The Art of Avatar: The Last Airbender takes yet another road to artistic gratification. It methodically goes through the main characters in the series before going into each episode in detail before finally ending with the many ancilliary pieces of art that go into things like video games and promo posters.

Naturally as a series, this book can’t afford to go into nearly as much detail with each episode as you would for each scene in a film. Nonetheless, it admirably covers scenes, props and characters in each episode over the three seasons and provides as much information as possible about them. As you might expect, everything is still a bit brief, but that is only because the series could easily fill three books or more with the volume of art created for the series.

From cover to cover, The Art of Avatar is a superb companion to a great show that provides a wonderful overview of how the creators came up with a universe quite unlike anything we’ve seen on TV before or since.

And there you have it, three very different yet equally fulfilling ways to express all the wonderful art that goes into animated productions.

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Will Motion-Capture Take Over?

1 Comment / Animation /

One of the things that is easy to lose sight of is the fact that technology and techniques are constantly developing and improving. At the beginning, animation went from paper to cels to colour to multi-plane. Even the drawing aspects of the process changed, with inkers disappearing as the xerox process eliminated the need for them. With the arrival of the digital revolution, everybody who worked on paper was suddenly under threat as the computer meant an entire production could be done without felling a single tree (at least theoretically).

So how will animation technology continue to develop over the next decade or two? Here’s a theory.

The first thing to consider is that the cost of computers relative to power will continue to fall at a fairly rapid pace. Bear in mind that modern smartphones are more powerful than supercomputers were not 20-25 years ago, so in another 20 years we should be carrying around devices that are as powerful as perhaps a whole data center is today. By that extension, the processing power employed by studios or even regular desktops will, in all likelihood, allow for real-time animation on par with what Pixar puts out today.

So if real-time animation is possible within the next decade or so, who stands to gain the most from it? Traditional animation (in the real sense) depends on an animator creating the movement. Right now that is normally done at a level of detail that is well below the finished product, with layers of detail added after the movement is completed before everything is rendered. Real-time animation will at least allow an animator to see how their work will appear as it will in the final stages of design. DreamWorks is already moving in this direction but they still have a lag for rendering. That will disappear in due course.

But what about the other aspect to real-time animation? Traditional proceses will benefit, that is certain, but what if costs, budgets and public demand pushes things in the other direction, towards motion-capture?

Think about it for a second. Shows such as King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Futurama and others contain plenty of movements that are normal for any human. Mo-cap would allow studios to dramatically cut costs if they can utilise cheap actors in suits to do these movements and save the costly animation for the parts that actually require it. It’s a hybrid model of sorts as the efficiencies of both techniques are extracted. Once you throw in the real-time abilities on top of that, you’ll have the ability to churn out a TV show in dramatically less time than today.

Combined with the shift towards online viewing and web series, the opportunity to serve up animated shows (and potentially movies) in much less time and cost than they are now will be almost too tempting for studios and networks to pass up. Expect to see motion-capture becoming more and more commonplace in animated programming, and remember, they don’t have to be human either. Mo-cap is equally applicable to other anthropomorphic characters with a bit of tweaking on the part of the animation team.

Why theorise on all this? Animation remains a successful industry with more variety now than at any point in the past. Employment is good (although wages could be better) and the quality is continuing to improve at a rapid pace. The reason is simple. Technology and its associated changes don’t wait for anyone. Think of all the inkers who got the floor taken out from under them thanks to the xerox process. Animation as a skill will not go away, but the way in which it is conducted will change. Mo-cap is likely to become much more prevalent, especially once the uncanny-valleyness of it is figured out, which it will.

Are you in a position to adapt? How can you ensure that audiences won’t accept mo-cap once is becomes good enough or commonplace enough that they can’t tell the difference between it and traditional animation? I’m sure these are all questions that the Animation Guild has already thought about as they make a push into the VFX sphere, which is what studios are more likely to consider folks utilising mo-cap rather than animators, which is what they sort of are.

Anyway, just something to think about today. Have you any thoughts on such a potential future for animation? Share them in the comments below!

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When Cartoon Network Shoots Themselves in The Foot

3 Comments / Animation, Cartoon Network /

Although this was posted on r/AdventureTime today, I had to go and check it out for myself just to be sure. Here’s my actual screenshot (click to embiggen):

 

Nice isn’t it? Instead of a full episode of Adventure Time (or any other series), I’m greeted with a nice reminder that I don’t, in fact, have cable or satellite.

While I heartily laugh at the subtle suggestion that I start forking out and arm and/or leg for channels with more commercials than content, this screenshot nonetheless represents Cartoon Network shooting themselves in the foot and taking aim at Adventure Time fans too.

Why? The answer is simple. By restricting online streaming of full episodes, guess what that does? It not only inconveniences fans who want to catch up on the latest episode, it also directly prevents new fans of the series from increasing their enjoyment of the show. Surely the whole point of entertainment is to get as many eyeballs on it as you can, right?

Turner Broadcasting seems to think differently however, and would rather cut off fans both old and new from their favourite show, by extension reducing the audience and the market for any merchandise.

Now that is not to say that the show will disappear, even the post on reddit is called “This is why I torrent” alluding to the fact that the show really is that good. The downside for Turner and Cartoon Network is that any fan who moseys on over the torrents is a lost fan, one whose interest (and potentially money) is directed away from their operations.

If I were studio chief, I would have serious misgivings about seeing fans go elsewhere for the sake of ensuring that only paid-up subscribers see the legitimate stream.

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Know Your Animation Tax Incentives!

Animation, Misc. /

Coming by way of a tweet from Cathal Gaffney is an overview of production incentives from around the world put together by Entertainment Partners. Since it focuses on every credit in most major jurisdictions and sub-jurisdictions, I thought it would be easier to tease out the ones pertaining specifcally to animation and comment on those instead,

Starting off in the US, there is Connecticut, whose credit was successful in attracting Blue Sky Studios to the state from its cormer home just next door in New York. While the credit has undoubtedly helped the studio establish a home and serve as a production base for some very successful studios, it has nonetheless served to sap some of the talent from nearby New York City. Nonetheless, it has so far allowed a major studio to remain in the north-east US, for now.

Australia has both federal and territorial credits with the former requiring an “Australianess Test”, something that is common in many countries offering credits (although not all apply to all productions). At the lower level, New South Wales and Queensland offer credits as well. Australia was the first destination for overseas animation production all the way back in the day when Hanna-Barbera among others started the practice in order to save costs. Today, Australia is still quite the contender in the animation scene with Happy Feet being the latest film touted on the Australian government’s quite comprehensive animation site. (No mention of Fern Gully though).

Moving on to the credits that American’s will be most familiar with, British Columbia offers, and has offered extensive credits for quite a while, and have been successful in establishing a “Hollywood North” in the state with the likes of Pixar among others being attracted to set up satellite operations there. Otherwise, home-grown outfits like Nerd Corps take advantage of the talent pool. British Columbia/Vancouver is often cited as the local industry that could stand to lose most should the credits dry up as it is relatively close to the epicenter of Los Angeles.

In contrast both Ontario and Quebec offer credits but appear to have a larger indigenous industry that can support production. Even then it isn’t immune to business failures (sorry, can’t find a link to the exact story) but successes have included the likes of Cake Animation and Atomic Cartoons.

Interestingly enough, France also offers an animation tax credit (up to EUR 4million) that will surely have been used by the likes of Illumination Entertainment as well as Bibo Films for their production, A Monster in Paris.

New Zealand also offers a credit but seems to limit it to shorts only. I suppose there is an obligatory shoutout to Mukpuddy who seem to have a lot of fun making animation down there 🙂

Then there is Taiwan, which has yet to stretch its animation muscles to the extent that Korea and Japan have in recent decades. The credit does seem to be quite generous, so it should not be surprising if we see more content coming from the island in the coming years.

Lastly, there is Ireland, which although is not explicitly outlined as having an animation credit, has nonetheless made the technique its own over the last 15 years. Plenty of studios have reaped its benefit (most obviously Cartoon Saloon with The Secret of Kells) but they have also been active producers of their own content as well; an absolutely essential aspect to tax credits if they are to be successful.

So there you go. There are plenty of places around the world where animation is being subsidised.

 

 

 

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How Much Do You Know About Roy O. Disney?

1 Comment / Animation, Book, Disney /

Via: The LA Times

Everyone and their dog is familiar with Walt Disney. Those with a passion for animation will be intimately familiar with the man known as The Old Maestro and how he almost single-handedly made animation into something much more than a short, gag-based form of entertainment. Of course, most of those folks will also be familiar that Walt was not alone in his efforts because guiding him all the way was his older brother, Roy.

However, Roy was very much the quieter brother, silently working behind the scenes running Walt Disney Productions and managing the cash that allowed Walt to fulfill his dreams. But how much do you really know about him? To be honest, I was fairly shocked about how little I knew.

Via: Good Reads

Thanksfully, Bob Thomas (who wrote the biography on Walt) wrote a book back in the 1990s (through the Disney-owned Hyperion publishing house) that looks at everything from Roy’s perspective. Entitled ‘Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire‘, it catalouges how the Disney company was founded and grew under his guidance and steely determination.

Although it focuses primarily on the history of the company, the book does contain more details about Roy than it does Walt, with much revealed about Roy’s habits and mannerisms. It would appear that as conservative and restrained as Roy was at work, he was just as jovial and fun-loving as his brother.

Furthermore, the book goes into quite a bit of detail when it comes to the company’s finances and the pressures that Roy faced during the war years and 1950s when Walt embarked on Disneyland. Nothing gets too technical (thankfully) but the gist of the struggles the company faced over the years is evident, and the book doesn’t shy away from the abrasive relationship the two brothers could have at times.

The only weak point in the book is the infamous strike, which is dispensed within two pages and glosses over the root causes and the subtle changes that occurred thereafter. Seeing as this is an official publication, that is not entirely surprising, but you would think that at this point in time, it would be irrelevant.

Coming away from ‘Building A Company’, my appreciation for Roy is much higher than it was beforehand. He was much more than just the ‘numbers man’, he was an essential part of the company and very much the yin to Walt’s yang. Without him, it is highly unlikely that the Disney Company would even exist today as a separate operation. Indeed it’s just as likely that it wouldn’t have made it past Snow White!

I would highly recommend picking up a copy if even just for a casual read.

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When Nickelodeon Made A Netbook

Animation, Nickelodeon /

I’m in the market for a netbook at the moment and while perusing the local eBay, I stumbled across something quite peculiar, this:

Via: Dell.com

Yup, that’s a Nickelodeon-branded Dell netbook, which you could only tell if you were familiar with the green slime that the network does its best to remind you of at every opportunity.

What I thought was interesting though, besides the slime, was that it’s just an ordinary netbook!

So what did consumers get for their extra $50? They got a customized GUI and a year’s subscription to McAfee parental controls. A good deal? Hardly.

Never mind that such netbooks are now being sold as ‘rare’ and so forth. Did they sell well for Dell and Nickelodeon? It’s hard to say. Branding computers to kids has always been a risky business. Disney have been at it for years and have been known for products like this:

Via: PCMag

Yuck!

Amusingly enough, Apple managed to inadvertently appeal to kids with their iPad, and that’s when everyone realised that it all came down to software not hardware. All of which makes sense as computer games and the like have been a marketing tool for decades.

So why do studios and networks continue to push hardware? Higher profit margins perhaps? Or is it just the lure of having a perpetual impact on the consumer, one that remains no matter what software is running on the machine.

It’s a tough call, but I know that games tend to foster nostalgia whereas hardware is often relegated to the rubbish pile.

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