Posts

Showing posts from June, 2012

Gilliam's Favourites

Ever wonder what Terry Gilliam's favourite animated films are?  If so, go here .  To see some of them, go here .

Brave Story

Image
Character A has a conflict with Character B based on pride and control. Character A's will to power accidentally does something to put Character B in jeopardy, so Character A has to rescue Character B. During the rescue, the two characters reconcile their differences and learn to accept each other. That's the underlying structure of Brave . It's also the underlying structure of Toy Story . We may never know the story that Brenda Chapman intended to tell before being removed from the director's chair, but the story we have is a retread. It comes in a visually attractive package with qualities that were unachievable just a few years ago, but it feels like Pixar, having rejected Chapman, reverted to something it felt comfortable with. So while Brave isn't one of the Pixar sequels already released or yet to come, it still feels overly familiar with only the environment to set it apart. A reliance on setting, rather than story, smacks of the later drawn Disney fea

R.I.P. Andrew Sarris

Image
This has nothing to do with animation, so skip it if you like. There was a time when Hollywood movies were treated as nothing more than commercial entertainment.  (Sound familar?)  They were a product, not an art form.  In the years after World War II in France, a group of cineastes started looking hard at Hollywood films.  Perhaps, due to their cultural background or perhaps due to their lack of English skills, they saw things in Hollywood films that no one had bothered to notice.  They formed a magazine called Cahiers du Cinema and many of them, besides being critics, grew to become film makers.  Some of you will be familiar with the names Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and others of their generation.  Collectively, they were known as the Nouvelle Vague , the French New Wave. Critically, they championed what they referred to as Les Politiques des Auteurs .  They saw directors as the ones who shaped what was on screen and noticed recu

Fred Moore, Where Are You?

Image
Let's see.  There's seven of these little guys.  Could it be?  Why yes!  It's the seven dwarfs.  Well, they're public domain, so anybody can use them, right?  What's that?  This is a Disney project?   DISNEY? Welcome to 7D , a new TV series for Disney Jr.   Quick!  Which one is Doc and which one is Happy?

Goodbye Film

Image
According to Deadline Hollywood , distributors will no longer make movies on film available to theatres in North America by the end of 2013.  International theatres will be done with film by the end of 2015.  It's all going to be digital. I fully understand the economics behind this move.  Film prints are expensive to make, expensive to ship and easily damaged when projected.  They contain silver, a substance whose cost varies widely due to market forces.  Digital prints can be made faster, the drives that hold them are reusable and they shouldn't degrade over multiple showings.  They won't need splicing. Still, for anyone who has handled film, it's a sad moment.  There was something magical about being able to hold a ribbon of celluloid up to the light and see the images.  Seeing the squiggle of the optical soundtrack and knowing that the squiggle could be turned into an orchestra or an actor's voice was amazing.  Comparing the sides, one the celluloid base and the

Mickey Rooney in The Autograph Hound (1939)

Image
The above model sheet is courtesy of Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew , who wrote in the comments for The Autograph Hound , "In [animator Paul] Allen's defense, the Mickey Rooney design he was working from is one of the clunkiest and most poorly constructed Disney models of all time. I don't know what Joe Grant was thinking when he approved that one." I certainly have to agree with Amid.  The design is flat from both the front and side views. The only three quarter view on the model sheet doesn't work and is ugly to boot. As I mentioned earlier, caricature is difficult for a still, but even harder for animation where the likeness has to be able to turn.  Given this design, Paul Allen had a near impossible job.

The Autograph Hound (1939)

Image
It's been a while since I've done a mosiac.  When Hans Perk posted the animator draft for this cartoon, I knew I wanted to break it down visually. Donald Duck has never been a favorite animated character of mine.  Where there are certain of his cartoons I admire (such as Duck Pimples ), the admiration is based on things other than the character.  I know that many cartoon fans are not impressed with the Duck cartoons directed by Jack Hannah, but I actually like those the best overall, as I like Hannah's posing and timing as well as the work of animators like Al Coe. This cartoon is attractive to me because of the caricatures of Hollywood stars of the 1930s.  Caricature is difficult to do well with still illustrations.  When you start to move caricatures, the task of holding the likeness becomes even more difficult.  The success of the caricatures varies widely in this film. Paul Allen's Mickey Rooney is weak.  Looking at the animation single frame in order to pick still