keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

Several recent events have reminded me of the risks involved in animation. Brenda Chapman's dismissal as director of Pixar's Brave is old news, but she recently spoke out   about being fired. Henry Selick's untitled film with Disney was cancelled , forcing the layoff of over a hundred artists at the Cinderbiter studio in the San Francisco area. Finally, and this won't be as well known, the CEO of the Go Go Gorillas operation, Christopher Turner, is under investigation for fraud .  Further details here .  I've written about John Celestri in the past.  John's a friend and former co-worker who was looking for an alternate financial model for animation and connected with Christopher Turner.  The company was attempting to use a restaurant/arcade to fund animation.  That's the reverse of the typical approach where popular cartoon characters are used to brand other enterprises like theme parks.  In any case, it is doubtful that the company will be able to mo...

The Museum of the Moving Image has posted a 76 minute audio interview with Henry Selick that was recorded on November 18 and 19 of last year. You can also download an mp3 of the interview at the link.

(There are no spoilers below.) Coraline is a catalog of wonders. It has enough imagination for five feature films. Unfortunately, it only has enough story and characterization for a half hour special. While Henry Selick is a very gifted art director and director, he did himself no favours by writing the script. His understanding of story structure, scene construction and characterization is extremely weak. The plot takes forever to get started; the film relies on a parade of imaginative visual ideas to hold the audiences' attention until that point, but I found myself losing interest. Once the story does get started, the villain is poorly motivated. While the villain wants something, she has possessed it in the past and repeatedly abandoned it. There is no explanation for her previous loss of interest or why she wants it again. The film's climax, while exciting due to Selick's ability as a director, is contrived. Fantasy films are devilishly hard to do well; in an ...