Beowulf Trailer
First of all can you believe Zemeckis?? I need not say much more other than go and check out the Beowulf trailer, it's something to behold!
Hires Trailer (for higher res go to Dave's Trailer Page)
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who - Trailer
Here's the trailer for Blue Sky's next film. It's amazing how they inject a "bland Americana" feeling into Doctor Seuss.
Hires Trailer (for higher res go to Dave's Trailer Page)
Open Season Rant - Too Many Cooks
I'm sick of this idea of "let's make a movie with 5 producers 3 directors and 20 writers" rubbish. I went out and bought the art of Open Season the other day. I haven't seen the film but some of the artwork and design in the book is simply stunning. Everyone who's seen the movie seems to agree it's pretty plain which brings me to the rant. So I'm reading the pages of the book but between the lines it reads like corporate propaganda. Here's a snippet
"To achieve that vision, Landau recruited producing partners Penney Finkelman Cox and Sandra Rabbins, who started their career in live action and became two of the most respected leaders in animation. The two were instrumental in building DreamWorks Animation as well as producing or executive producing the company's slate of films beginning with The Prince of Egypt and culminating in the Academy-Award winning Shrek."
So it goes on to say how the cartoonist Moore pitched the treatment to the execs, they bought it then...
"In our first version, we had Elliot and Boog bonded together like brothers and the conflict arises whe Elliot gets the call of the wild and wants to leave town."One of the most original Storytellers? Yet she hasn't made a film?
Many of the Animals that Elliot and Boog encounter on their journey back to Timberline were created by the artists who subsequently worked on the movie but were not part of the original treatment created by Moore and Carls. Still, the producers are more than thrilled by the changes that were made and with the way that the story evolved. "We set up the bones of the story and then Sony pulled in all the directing, producing, and animation geniuses and they made all the magic happen," says Moore.
Once Sony Pictures Animation committed to Open Season for their first feature, the treatment drafted by Moore and Carls was sent to Jill Culton, who is considered one of the most original storytellers of her generation in the world of animated features.
After honing her craft for more than eight years at Pixar animation Studios, working on blockbusters such as Monsters Inc, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and A Bugs lifeCulton was ready to make her directorial debut.
She was soon joined by Anthony Stacchi, who came on as co-director of the film. Like Culton, Stacchi has an impressive resume. A story artist on Dreamworks' Antz, he also worked on ILM's 3D animated versions of Curious George and Frankenstien.So now there's 2 directors
A year later, Roger Allers joined the team of directors. Allers made his directorial debut with Academy Award winning blockbuster The Lion King and has to his credit in various capacities such seminal animated films as Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin, among many others.An impressive resume but now the directors total 3. Then another Producer (they like talking up the producers in this book) Michelle Murdocca goes on to say this...
"In animation, we start with a script, but the storyboard artists work hand in hand with the screenwriters and story writers to develop the script to develop the movie. Everyone takes partial responsibility to make sure we're telling the story we need to tell. It's sort of like a big pot, and we all contribute to it."Or... too many cooks spoil the broth? From what I've read Dreamworks follow a very similar process to Sony. And if it wasn't for Shrek, Dreamworks would be finished too. Does this seem like a mad way of making movies? What ever happened to strong leadership? What's with this making animated movies by committee?? At least Pixar had the balls to give Jan Pinkava a backseat to Brad Bird when Ratatouille was floundering. I know his is common process in Hollywood, to have 20 writers on a script, but it's disappointing to think of the bland muck that this sort of process delivers. I want to hear a voice in a film, a point of view!
(end rant)
Microsoft anti piracy animations
Gasket Studios animates four graphic novel style anti-piracy shorts for Microsoft.
I could only watch one of these but they're worth checking out. This one's for you Alex...
https://www.microsoft.com/piracy/genuinefactfiles/default.aspx
6 comments:
I know from my 'sources' that they had next to no script when they started Open Season, and it was exactly a process of everyone in Story dept tossing stuff in and them picking the gags they liked until it runs 90 mins. From what I hear Jill Culton is a great director, but I reckon these 'producer driven' movies are doomed to the exact kind of blandness you're talking about.
Sony have hired and fired god knows how many directors on the films they've been developing in the last couple of years, and I'm sure its comes from producers who don't know what they're doing, who blame the directors for not turning the turds they're handed into gold while everyone is constantly having a say in how its done and what can be in the film and what can't.
It seems Pixar's strength is that they let their directors make their movies as they see fit (and then fire them if they don't turn out any good).
Beowulf... I read that they paid lots of attention to the eyes after Polar Express, but they certainly don't seem to have crawled out of the uncanny valley yet- in fact it feels like a really good game cinematic. Already I can't imagine myself empathizing with those talking dummies. Its a shame, cause I'm sure they've worked their asses off to get it to that level. I'm wondering when we'll get there with this stuff? I can see the value of being able to do movies like this, it will free up CG to do a much broader range of film. Good on him for pushing the envelope I say.
And Horton looks like A Bug's Life segued into 10 second club showreel turds, mapped onto Dr Seuss characters. I fucking hate that ham acting bullshit. Nuff said.
I agree with ya on Open Season DP, but as for Beowulf, c'mon give me a break they are so far from real on this movie it's just silly. Get out the Godfather and watch those closeups on Brando, now cut to a facial closeup on Beowulf, it's like a cartoon seriously, but worse because they're zombies. These guys are kidding themselves, it's such a wank, all about trying to be the first, the one who goes down to define a new genre of movie... what a waste of money and talent.
Someone is gonna get this right and you have to think that someone is gonna get it right fairly soon. Good on em I reckon cause it stops me having to animate facial performance. However even I must question the yellow patch on Angelina's ace. wtf?
That said this is not even close to getting it right.
As far as the rest goes (open season and what-not) Shrek 3 made 70 trillion-billion dollars. Kids film do not live and die on story and acting FACT, I wish they did but they don't. For mine I'll get good adult acting (not that kind silky) in adult movies (NOT THAT KIND SILKY!!) and the wacky over the top acting from animated movies.
I actually quite liked the story of Shrek 1, it was fresh and Shrek himself was appealing and lovable. The franchise then took hold, ala matrix 2 and 3. Does it really have much to do with live action or kids movies? It's more about building brands with the big movies, Pixar has created 6 new successful stories that's not bad. Cars though was a bit of a gimmick.
I'm not suggesting that Zemekis is going to create Godfather quality performances (few films do...), just that there's a potential, I hope, for convincing digital actors that can work in these kind of movies without looking bizarre. It would add another potential area of performance for film. So much else in some of these films is digital (eg Peter Jackson's last few) that it just takes it a bit further and makes it more practical for film makers, if they can crack it.
As for the franchises, I'd hazard a guess that had Ratatoille come out of anyone except Pixar it probably would have bombed. People who did see it would have been impressed with it and it would have held up for a lot of weeks, but not made anywhere near the money of the other franchises.
Its the Pixar name that's a big brand now.
Yeah I was just thinking that after I made that post, the Pixar brand is strong, which is also why Cars did so well too ha! Still my point is that unless you already have a brand behind you you still need a good or at least half decent story to start things cracking.
As for the Zemeckis debacle, I agree would be awesome to see fully animated movies, considering how much cg there is in flicks these days. But why can't they make em at least a little stylised? I'm thinking Sin City/Hellboy style with cool looking faces. Then the animated films would have a chance to kick some arse!
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