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So many potential "Up" puns... but I had to pick just one for this entry's title. Such is life. I finally managed to get out and see Up today, in glorious 2-D! Hey... it was an Imax theater (although not an Imax print), so at least the screen was huge. But we decided as a group that our past experiences with 3-D weren't worth the extra five bucks. Maybe it would have been, since I certainly would have paid more to see Up if I'd had to. (Although after getting lunch first, then tickets and a snack, I was out almost $30 anyway.) Up raises the bar for animated films, yet again. Pixar shows why they're years ahead of Dreamworks in terms of not only exceptional animation, but compelling storytelling as well. This is really where Up shines. Without giving too much away, the first part of the film deals very lovingly and honestly with the story behind the main character. It's heartfelt, touching, and also pulls no punches. I don't get teary-eyed at many films, much less animated ones, but I was genuinely moved by these characters. I think the backstory will resonate with a lot of people too, since we've all looked back at some point and wished things had gone differently. But more to the point - these are likable characters, right from the get-go. How many TV series waste countless episodes trying to shape characters into something already as well-defined as these are? I don't want to give the impression Up is a melancholy film by any means, because while there are some elements of that (which are necessary to establish the main character), Up is so much more. Once the present-day story gets rolling, it's a comedy, a buddy film, an adventure movie, and in the end, a story about second chances. Both in making the most of them when you have them, but also in making your own second chances in the first place. Up has a lot of great laughs in it (most notably from some of the animals), exceptional visuals, suspense, action, unparalleled animation, and a lot of heart. It's just really solid entertainment, which I think was most evidenced by the fact that we were in a theater full of little kids (don't they have pre-schools around here?), and they were held in absolute rapt attention for the whole film. Even the parts where there was character development going on, I think becuase the characters were so affable, that the kids were really involved with what was happening. Plus, there's enough slapstick humor and action to keep them busy the rest of the time. (Except for a couple of older idiots who couldn't keep their cell phones put away. Sheesh, people! Makes me want to .) Pixar's unique solution to "talking animals" is nothing short of brilliant, and the source of some of the best gags in the film. My one quibble with the film involves a sequence involving airplanes (you'll know it when you see it), which was just too out-of-step with the rest of the film to really work. The short film that preceded the movie - "Partly Cloudy" - was charming and funny, although I thought it took a few minutes to really get going. Pixar has often used its animated shorts as a testing ground for new technologies, and that was pretty evident here (cloud rendering). Still, despite kind of a weird premise, I enjoyed it a lot. There's some great, funny animation in there. And, as with Up, it has a lot of heart, too. Up is doing great business at the box office (yes... I should've said it's been "cleaning up", but I'm intentionally trying to avoid "up" puns), and I'm hoping it's a huge success. In part because good films like this really deserve success, which will hopefully breed more good films; and also because we need some of that sweet, sweet Pixar money to trickle down to the college where I work (and where a great many Pixar people - including this film's director - studied animation). I wholeheartedly recommend Up. It's... uplifting. 9.5/10

And the Summer movie-fest rolls on! So, another research trip to... okay... we skipped work again. But if anything qualifies as research to those who work in an animation program, it's Wall-E. Prior to the feature, is Pixar's latest short film: Presto. This is a wonderful throwback to the classic animated short films of Warner Brothers and MGM from the 40's and 50's. It's silly, fun animation, for the sake of silly, fun animation. (And you can buy it on iTunes for $1.99 if you want.) Wall-E itself is a delight. Again, it shows just how far ahead of everyone else Pixar is at making animated films. I wondered if I could put up with two hours of his voice (provided by sound designer Ben Burtt) but in the context of the film, I didn't mind it at all. What really makes Wall-E work as a character though, is the animation. It's heartfelt and expressive, clever and funny, and always engaging. For a robot, the emotions are surprisingly deep, honest, and believable. The movie is mesmerizing, touching, thoughtful, fun and funny. It starts off with Wall-E, all but alone, and definitely lonesome, when another robot enters his life and changes everything. From there, their relationship grows, and serves as the very heart of the film. It moves effortlessly from introspection to slapstick comedy. It offers insight and parody, always with intelligence and wit, and never pandering to its audience. There are many wonderful little moments throughout the film that are genuinely moving, and yet there is definitely a dark sense of humor running throughout the film. But beneath it all, the film has heart. And beyond all of that - it's an absolutely beautiful film, setting a new standard that's going to be hard for any other animation studio to match. (And... there are some fun sci-fi references for those with sharp eyes and ears.) Wall-E is my favorite Pixar film to date. It's so different and unexpected, that it really took me by surprise. If I had any complaints about it, is that there are a couple of slow points in the movie where I found myself thinking, "This is really an amazing-looking movie" rather than being engrossed in what the characters were doing at the moment. But those moments were few and brief. I've got to give this one... 9.5/10 I'm including a little bit of defensive commentary below. While it doesn't include any spoilers per se, I don't want to negatively color anyone's opinions of the film before they've had a chance to see it. (Click and drag over the text below to read it.)

Well, it's been over two months since my last blog entry. I was going to go for three months, but since I'll be seeing Pixar's Up sometime this week, I figured I'd be posting about that anyway, and might as well post an entry now. Mainly it's been work that's been keeping me out of the whole blogging thing. As with last year, the end of the school year at CalArts (where I work) keeps me extremely busy. This year, we had some 144 animated films turned in, running just under 7 hours. Putting the whole show together, including turning the Main Gallery into an impromptu theater and taking it all back down again, takes a lot of work. I had some great help this year though, otherwise it simply would never have gotten done. (Even then, I put in nearly 100 hours during the week of the show.) We were able to improve a couple of things this year. We rented a bigger, better sound system (four JBL Eon15 G2 speakers from Location Sound), and a much bigger screen. Last year our screen was 9' tall x 12' wide, but this year we rented a Da-Lite Fast Fold that was 15' tall x 20' wide. The screen reached above the railing on the second floor, and filled up most of one end of the Main Gallery. The rental company we used (American Hi-Definition) does set-ups for the Grammys, movie premieres and other Hollywood events. We were pretty small-potatoes comparatively, but it was still a big deal for us. The larger screen helped us get the projector further back too, keeping it out of the way. Last year, we had to place it on a scissors lift in the middle of the room, but this year we had it on the second floor, clear across the gallery (about 100 feet from the screen). This kept the floor wide-open for seats, and we had at least 300 people in there. (It was hard to get a decent photo of the entire crowd, since I couldn't get up high enough to shoot over the screen.) The show went great, and all of the students were thrilled to have the bigger screen and better sound. Next year, I'm hoping to rent a subwoofer too, to improve the sound even more. After that show was done, I had to put together our Producers' Show (about 90 minutes of faculty-selected films, shown at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Theater in Hollywood), including getting the program and posters printed for it, and various other tasks. So that made for another couple of busy weeks. Then I put together the DVDs of our shows (including inserts and covers) and got them duplicated for the various animation studios out there. Most recently, I've been working on getting our new website off the ground, including encoding about 250 films so they can be viewed online. Hopefully we can have those up within the next few weeks. Whew! The other reason for not blogging, is that there simply hasn't been much going on besides work. There's very little happening at AtariAge that I've been involved with lately. I had been working on some manuals for a couple of homebrews for the "holiday sale", but I haven't heard much about that lately, so I have no idea when those will need to be finished up. I've also been mocking up some graphics for a proposed homebrew project (as yet unannounced), but I don't know when that will actually enter the development phase. I've gone about as far as I can though, until the coding begins. I haven't seen any movies since Watchmen. I was going to go see Wolverine with a couple people from work, but just couldn't get all that worked up about "Adamantium" for some reason... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fyHKFuLyTk I may still go see Star Trek, but as of yet, I haven't felt like it. It just looks like yet another brainless action film. One thing I did do, however, was I signed up on FaceBook. I was convinced by a couple of friends that this was the best way to keep in contact with some people I had been out of touch with. However, if you go over there now, you won't find me. I deactivated my account. Why? Well, let me explain FaceBook to you, in case you've never been over there. FaceBook is basically a way for people to tell everyone they've ever known what they're currently doing. And I don't mean, "'So and so' is currently working for 7-11 and living in Poughkeepsie. Here's how to contact me." That might actually be useful. And although that's a part of what FaceBook is for, it's not the main function. The main function is for people to post generally useless tidbits about whatever they happen to be doing, at any given moment of the day, whether anyone else cares to read about it or not. And then other people come along and can post insipid responses to them, or tag that they "like" what was posted (however, you can't tag that you "dislike" it). I'll give you a hypothetical example... 'So and so' is eating dinner Six people like this Person 1 I luv dinner Person 2 what r u having Person 3 LOL! dinnner!!!!! So and so tacos Person 1 I luv tacoes Person 3 LOL! tacos!!!!! Person 4 tacos make me sad :-( Or, someone could start a political discussion... 'So and so' is worried about North Korea 1 person likes this Person 1 north korea makes me sad :-( Person 2 we should just blow them up Person 3 u r so mean Person 4 I luv MASH Person 1 blowing things up makes me sad :-( Person 2 LOL! MASH!!!!! And so on. This is pretty-much what FaceBook revolves around. Now certainly, it could be used for family members keeping in touch, posting real updates as to what they may be doing while away on vacation, or at college, or whatever. But more likely than not, you'll just end up being bombarded by all sorts of utterly useless flotsam. As I see it, there are two big problems with FaceBook: First, is the whole idea that everyone that you've ever met automatically qualifies as a "friend". I think there should be an "acquaintance" category too, so that you could filter out posts from one group of contacts, and only see those in another. Second, you can't filter posts by subject. You get all or nothing. Message boards and blogs let you look only at areas of interest to you. FaceBook gives you everything. Updates about FaceBook games, photos, endless "top five" lists, working, politicking, eating, sleeping, drinking, barfing, pets, plants, books, TV, going to the bathroom, etc. It's endless. Really - I don't care about what people are doing every single second of the day. I want the ability to choose what's of interest to me. FaceBook basically serves as digital crack to people who are obsessed with cell phones, chats, and text messaging. People who can't stand to be out of contact with everybody else for more than a few seconds at a time (and don't get me started on spelling and grammar). I can only imagine what a headache-inducing mess Twitter must be. Anyway, I gave FaceBook a shot, and simply grew tired of slogging through it all. It ended up being more irritating than useful. And yes - I could probably turn a lot of that stuff off in the preferences if I wanted to take the time to do so. But that brings up the question - if I did that, what would be the point of bothering with it in the first place?

The Clone Wars started its run on Cartoon Network tonight. I never did go see the movie theatrical compilation this summer, since the previews just didn't merit spending $20 on a ticket and snacks to sit through it. I actually got about as far as the parking lot of the theater though, but common sense prevailed, and I went out for fish 'n' chips instead. But now that it's running on TV which I'm already paying for, and therefore doesn't cost me any additional money, I decided to check it out. And it's not bad. It's not great either. For TV animation, I've seen better, but I've seen a lot worse, too. Unlike the earlier Clone Wars mini-series which was principally hand-drawn, this is all cgi. While this makes large-scale battles much more impressive looking, the way it's handled here also manages to suck all of the life and personality out of the characters. Well, that is it would, if these characters had any personality to begin with. We are talking about the whole Episode I - III era here. But I digress. The characters all look and act like they're sculpted out of hard plastic. The facial animation on the humans is, at least so far, stiff and lifeless. Eye contact is way off at times, and sometimes I felt like I was watching SuperMarionation. Yoda, however, was an exception. The animators seemed to have fun with him and did a pretty good job with him (most notably during action sequences). This gives me a little hope the rest can improve. The stories in the two episodes tonight weren't bad. At least they weren't full of the insufferable politicking present in Episodes I - III. "Ambush" followed Yoda and three CloneTroopers through (surprise!) an ambush, and it was nice to see Yoda's character expanded upon. They were able to capture his personality well, and show us more sides to his personality and abilities. They also made an attempt to give the clones some individuality, although it didn't work very well since I quickly lost track of who was who, nor did I really care. To visually distinguish them, when their helmets are off, they give them each different haircuts. Some are bald, some have mohawks, that sort of thing. Personally, I'm hoping to see one with a huge 70's-style afro. Or muttonchops. Or even... "Rising Malevolence" was less successful, but was obviously meant to introduce us to a key plot element (a new weapon) and bring in the rest of the main cast: Mannequin, Obi-Yawn, Mace Windbag, and the villains - Chancellor Witchiepoo, , and Wheezy McRobotguy. Whatever his name is. Anyway, it follows some Jedi getting his ship blown out from underneath him, and he has to wait around with some more clones to get rescued. So we get to meet some more clones, and see some more haircuts. Anakin decides to break the rules and go looking for them, along with his Padawannabe - a 10 or 12 or 14 or 16 year-old alien girl. I have no idea. I'm guessing this character was introduced to try and appeal to the "tween" crowd. Seems to me like endangering a minor more than anything. Just what are these Jedi up to, anyway? Weirdos. While the main characters are generally pretty one-dimensional (ironic for three-dimensional animation), the writers seem to be going overboard to try and make the BattleDroids into comic relief. Remember Episode II, where C-3PO kept spouting off one-liners in the middle of the battle for absolutely no good reason? Same thing. But more of it. I could also do without the "newsreel" intros at the beginning. Is it too much to expect the TV audience to read a scroll for the backstory instead of having a narrator do it? Or is it just done to save air time? Fortunately, it's only done at the beginning of the episodes, but I find it distracting. Anyway... despite the above criticisms, overall both episodes fit in pretty well with the rest of the Star Wars universe, and made for pretty-watchable TV. Not great, but certainly not awful. Is it feature-film-worthy material? Hardly. But for TV, it's an acceptable way to kill a half-an-hour. And it's always fun watching people chopping stuff up with lightsabers. Some of the previews shown for the upcoming episodes look pretty interesting. I must admit, it's bringing out a little of the 12-year-old Star Wars geek in me. Shut brain off. Enjoy ride. Of course, nothing that happens in the series can be all that galaxy-shaking, since we already know how this whole thing ends. Who survives. Who doesn't. So the show's creators basically have to just cram as much eye candy into each episode as they can, and try to keep the audience interested enough in the plots to keep us coming back. Hopefully at some point, maybe they'll even get us to care about some of the characters, too.

The last number of years* haven't been kind to Disney. They haven't had a real hit animated film in a very long time. * That number would be 14. It's been that long since The Lion King came out. But since I hated The Lion King, I'd put the number at 16 (Aladdin). Of course, the reason for that is because they haven't had a real good animated film in a long time. The move to CG didn't help any, as Chicken Little was one of the worst films I'd ever wasted my time seeing, and Meet the Robinsons was only marginally better. However, those two films weren't made under the Pixar regime. Robinson's was released when Pixar was in charge, but it was too far along in production (and too close to its release date) to completely gut and re-work the whole film. Bolt originally started off as American Dog. Designed and directed originally by Chris Sanders, the film had a very promising look to it (Sanders is a very highly regarded designer in animation), and people were hopeful it would turn out well. However, not too long after Pixar came in, Sanders was pulled off the project, and the whole film was gutted and basically started over. The reason? Well, depending on who you ask, either it was John Lasseter's ego, or Sanders' inability to pull the film together. Rumor-mongers tend to "blame" Lasseter. People who've actually worked on the film though, say that despite Sanders' excellent designs, the film just wasn't working. Once Pixar came in and reworked it, the film reportedly became much, much better. (I have to take them at their word, since I haven't seen anything except a short snippet from Sanders' version.) I suppose a good artist does not necessarily make a good director. Something similar recently happened when animator Glen Keane "stepped down" as director from the upcoming Rapunzel. Reportedly, despite Glen's considerable talent as an animator, the film was floundering. Now, some people in the animation community are all up-in-arms about directors being replaced on films, and their visions being reworked (or discarded). Certainly, I can see that point-of-view. But consider this: how many times have you walked out of a movie theater and thought to yourself, "How one earth did that film ever get made? Why didn't anyone have the guts to stand up during its production and say, 'Hey! This movie stinks. We need to fix it!'?" This is something that Pixar does as a matter of course. They did this with Toy Story 2, for example. It wasn't working. They stopped production, changed the story, and made it work. They did this with Ratatouille as well. They are willing to take the steps necessary to make a film good. It's why Pixar hasn't had a dud yet (although I don't really think A Bug's Life was very good, but it still made money). So that brings us to Bolt, which we had a screening of on Friday at work (we have a small 125 seat theater on campus). I went in not expecting much, since I wasn't impressed with Disney's last two efforts, but I had heard some good things about Bolt - and more importantly - I hadn't heard any bad things about it. In a college full of animation geeks, if there's a bad film out there, you hear about it right away. I was very pleasantly surprised. The film was a lot of fun. Was it an industry-changing, earth-shattering masterpiece? Nope. Was it a deep, thought-provoking, brilliant story? Nope. It was just a good, solid, fun, animated film. The story was pretty straightforward, but the characters were likable and well-written, the jokes were funny (and didn't rely on farts or butts, thankfully), and the animation was exceptional. This is a definite step in the right direction (pun not intended) for Disney. Now, all that said, this had "Pixar" written all over it. There were a number of elements in the film that "felt" like they'd come from Pixar films. I don't consider this a bad thing, since Disney needs all the help it can get to stand on its own feet again. Hopefully someday though, they'll find their own unique voice as an animation studio again. Speaking of voices... Miley Cyrus (who plays the little girl in the film) is really quite terrible. Any actress could have slept-walked through that dialog equally or better than she did. The sole reason she was there was for name recognition - to try and draw some of her tween "Hanna Montana" fans into the film. Fortunately, they used her for a minor character, and it didn't really impact the film. (Reportedly, she just re-dubbed the character's lines, which had been played by some other actress initially.) But they need to be careful - Disney has a history of casting actors for their names, not for their abilities. Pixar tends to be much better at casting. John Travolta on the other hand, surprised me as Bolt. He did an excellent job with the character, and only once or twice during the film was I "aware" of the voice behind the character. The scene-stealer, however, is Rhino the hamster. Voiced by story artist Mark Walton, Rhino is the ultimate fan-boy who he gets pulled along on a real-life adventure with his hero, Bolt. It would be like a Trekkie (sorry... "Trekker" ) hitching a ride cross-country with William Shatner, or a Star Wars geek going on a road trip with Mark Hamill. (Incidentally, Carrie Fisher now looks more like Jabba the Hutt than even Jabba the Hutt did.) Not only is Rhino a funny character, but the animation on him is brilliant. Most of the time he's inside his hamster ball, so they have to animate him running around inside that, controlling it to make it go where he wants. How crazy-hard must that have been? Bolt and Rhino... ready for action! The story drifted in and out of predictability, veering into cliché territory at times, but the important thing to note is, the ride was still fun. The characters were likable, the jokes were funny, and they managed to change the formula up just enough so that even though you can predict how things are going to turn out, you may not be able to predict the path they're going to take to get there. Overall I really enjoyed the film. More to the point - the animation students I was watching it with really seemed to enjoy the film too, and they're tough critics. If you're looking for an entertaining, just good-clean-fun film to go see over the holidays, I'd highly recommend Bolt. I'd rate it just above "Kung Fu Panda". (Bolt is also Certified Fresh™ at Rotten Tomatoes. Hopefully it will start picking up some business at the box office.) 8.5/10 (Incidentally, I saw it in 2-D. Maybe over the holidays I'll try and catch it in 3-D as well.)

Well, the San Diego Comic Con happened recently. One of these days, I must really go and see it. Not because I'm into comic books (I was cured of that particular disease years ago), but because of the whole spectacle of the thing. Yes... I'm talking about Cosplay again. This is what happens when Gorfs intermarry There's a rather impressive bevy of barely bedecked babes, people who've packed on ponderous poundage, comedic creative costuming, and just some stuff that you have to see to believe (although actually understanding it isn't required). Who you gonna call? I know who I'm gonna call! So here are some links for ya': Joystiq's Comic Con gallery Rotten Tomatoes' Comic Con gallery The Great White Snark's galleries: Day 1 Part 1 Day 1 Part 2 Days 2 and 3 Part 1 Days 2 and 3 Part 2 My personal favorites are Chunky Iron Man, Li'l Yoda, Boba "The Pimp" Fett, Budget Transformer, Groping Stormtrooper, The Tetris Family, and a nice Pair of Tomatoes. Enjoy!

Well, I hadn't originally planned to go see Kung Fu Panda, because most Dreamworks animated films are dreck. Seems to me they even have a few films named Dreck or Wreck or Shlock or some such thing. Whatever. But when positive reviews started showing up on Cartoon Brew, I thought I'd go see it anyway. The readers on Cartoon Brew tend to be pretty merciless when reviewing animated films that don't live up to their (generally over-inflated but often accurate) standards. So, as part of work-related research, I skipped out... I mean... took an extended lunch... and went to go see it today. And I have to say, it's not bad. Actually, it's pretty good. Not great. But pretty good. Very watchable, in fact. And, at times, even funny. Okay, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I'll admit I'm more than a little biased against Dreamworks, and have a hard time admitting they made a... okay... I'll say it... a good film. And actually, I'm glad they did. Moreover, I'm glad it's a success at the box office, because maybe it will encourage them to make more good films. It's certainly a better film than Meet the Robinsons or Chicken Little. Way, way better. Way, way, way better. So, what did I like about it? Well, Jack Black was funny as the title character - Po. I'm not sure how much leeway he was given when laying down the dialogue, but I would think it was quite a lot. It sure sounds like stuff he'd come up with anyway. At the very least, someone knows how to write for him very well. The main villain was fun, although his voice could have been better, but he still came across as menacing and still super-cool at the same time. There's a delightful turtle character in there which is wonderfully animated (I almost typed "acted" - which is really what animation is, at its best). Also, the rhino prison guards were very cool, as were some of the bird characters (a crane and some ducks). Good voice work and really fun, expressive animation. The animation for the action sequences was absolutely amazing, and given the different character types and complexity of the movements, that stuff must have been a nightmare to animate, yet it all came off beautiful and fluid. The film looked good, too. It wasn't particularly ground-breaking in terms of visual styling (although the prison and misty chasms were very cool), but everything was well designed and built, and felt very true to the world it takes place in. There were some character design issues with the feline character faces though - as if they weren't very well thought-out from every angle. Some angles just didn't look right, as if the faces were pasted onto the fronts of the heads. There is an opening sequence done in 2-D however that's really very cool looking (as are the end credits). I wouldn't mind seeing a whole film done in that style actually, although Dreamworks actually had to farm that animation out to a former Disney animator, since they aren't set up for any 2-D work. What didn't work? Well, most of the voice casting, except those mentioned in the previous paragraph. The problem is with "celebrity voice casting" rather than "casting the right voices for the characters". Actually, going into the film, I only knew of Jack Black's character. I wasn't aware Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and others were in there, because their voices were so bland and lifeless for these characters, they were unrecognizable. That isn't to say you should recognize a character's voice and dwell on who's behind it, but rather that the voice should be distinct, interesting, and help convey the character - rather than just sit there and read through the script, half-asleep. Dreamworks needs to cast for characters, not for name recognition. Also, the plot was extremely predictable. It's hard not to figure out exactly where the film is going pretty-much right from the start, and to stay ahead of it for the entire film. No real surprises, at least none that are important to the plot. But there were some jokes and sight gags that caught me off guard. I'll admit to laughing out loud a number of times at this film, which is pretty rare for me (although I didn't laugh nearly as much as the "dudes" who were behind us, who thought everything was funny). I'll also give mad props to Dreamworks for keeping pop-culture references out of the film and keeping butt jokes to a minimum. Very refreshing to sit through a film, and not have that stuff thrown in my face. Overall, I liked Kung Fu Panda, which surprised me. I'll probably even get the DVD to watch the fight sequences. Despite the largely bland voice acting, Jack Black really makes the film fun to watch (and as the lead character - he'd better), and although the plot is predictable, at least it's still an engaging plot with likable characters. Hopefully, Disney is paying attention. Definitely worth checking out. Especially if you like Kung Fu films. 8/10 P.S. And stay through the credits of this one, too. Not as cool as Iron Man, but still worth seeing.

Remember the movie Escape from New York? Near the end of the film, there's a scene where Kurt Russell and everyone is running through the lobby of the World Trade Center. That was actually shot where I work - at CalArts, in the Main Gallery. The only thing I'm not sure of, is if they made it messier for the movie, or cleaned it up for the movie. (That's a CalArts joke... ) Anyway, it's 3:50 AM Sunday as I'm starting this blog entry. I just got home from the Character Animation Open Show, which ran last night. Seems to me I've mentioned it before. It's all of the films the students of our department created this year, run back-to-back. A couple of things were different this year though... First, we were able to hold the show in the Main Gallery - a large, open performance/exhibition space right inside the main hallway going into the building. This is a big deal for us. Originally, we used to hold it it in the college's theater (The "Bijou"), which holds maybe 120-150 people. Charitably. But we would pack that room out to the point where the fire marshall threatened to shut us down (something about tripping over burning bodies in the event of a fire or something). So a few years ago we moved the show into the cafeteria. Much bigger, but we instantly filled that up to overflowing, and if anything, was even worse. Since it was free-form seating, there were no aisles, and no way for people to get in or out of the middle of the room, and people jammed themselves in there as tightly as they could. It's a closed-off area, so it got very uncomfortable, claustrophobic, and smelled like a locker room. Also, it was tucked off in the corner of the building, and only had a couple of entranceways, so passers-by couldn't stop and watch the show. They'd stand 10-20 deep in the doorways if they stayed at all, and most turned around and walked away. So after trying for a couple of years (long story involving Institute politics), we were able to move into the Main Gallery. Plenty of space for people to spread out, to move in or out, and best of all - for people to just stop by and watch as they walked through the main part of the building. A lot of people did just that, too. We had to keep bringing out more chairs during the first hour. If I had to guess, I'd say there were as many as 300 people there at any given time (and we "only" have 139 students in our department). The second change was how the show ran. Usually, it has just run straight through, beginning to end, with a few short 10 - 15 minute breaks. This year though, there was an issue. Since the Main Gallery has several adjacent performance spaces and other events happening, we had to split our show in half, and leave a four-hour gap in the middle of it. This was a big concern of the students all year long, and we weren't sure how it would work. It seemed awfully disruptive, and broke with a long-established tradition. We were already trying to figure out how we'd get an uninterrupted block of time next year. It's at this point, I'd like to mention that our students turned in about 7 1/2 hours worth of films this year. So with short bathroom breaks every couple of hours, you're looking at 8 hours - minimum. Have you ever tried to sit through 8 hours straight of animated short films (or any films, for that matter)? It's agonizing. No matter how good the later films are, you just want them to be over. Our show usually started at 8 PM, and ended after 4 AM. By that time most of the audience were either zombies or had gone home. It was more of an endurance test than fun. This year, we started at 2 PM, ran until about 6 PM, then started up the second half at 10 PM and ended just before 2 AM. Much to my surprise (and probably everyone else's) - the break turned out great. Everyone I talked to afterwards really liked it. And not just the break, but the fact it was four hours. This gave everyone the chance to catch a breather. Go out and have something to eat, or play dodgeball, or just hang out with friends somewhere and clear their brains out for part 2. Also surprising, was that everyone came back for part 2, and more to the point, nearly everyone stayed. They enjoyed the second half of the show, and really liked being done at "only" 2 AM. Also, being in the Main Gallery made the entire show much more enjoyable, for the reasons previously mentioned. It was no longer the endurance test, but the end-of-the-year "hey we got our films done" celebration it should be. So next year... we'll do it again. At least, we'll sure try to. Again, getting Main Gallery space isn't as easy as it should be. But we've got an established success in there now. (Later...) Well, I finally got some sleep. It's around 7 PM, Sunday evening. This is the first solid sleep I've had all week. In the last stretch, except for a quick half-hour nap here or there, I was up from about 9 AM Friday morning through about 6 AM Sunday morning, until I finally managed to get to bed. From Monday through Saturday, my best guess is that I worked 86 or 87 hours this week (20 on Monday alone). It takes that much time to gather up all of the student films (as digital QuickTime movies), get problems corrected with them (incorrect formats, and so on), put them together in Final Cut Pro, then go through the whole show and balance the audio between films so they all play at a listenable level, then output the show to BetaSP tapes, and then get the Main Gallery set up with what we need to project the show, and then take the whole thing down afterwards. And also in there, I have to make the programs for the show, make judging forms for the faculty, set up for their screening of the show in another room, and probably a bunch of other things I'm forgetting. Monday was the day films were due (at 5 PM). That deadline got extended to midnight-ish. I spent a lot of that day helping people with last-minute problems, and then just trying to keep all of the films straight as they were submitted to the server. Then I had to check all of the films to make sure they were in the right format, and send out e-mails to those who needed to fix things. The next several days were split between keeping track of the new versions of fixed films coming in, even more late films coming in, and trying to sequence the show, and doing paperwork (entering film names, student names, run times, and so on). I was able to automate some of the paperwork this year, and have some ideas that should streamline the process next year. But keeping track of all of these films and their current status takes tons of time, and it's one of the worst parts of the job. But it's absolutely necessary to make sure the show goes off without forgetting somebody's film, or using the wrong version, or some other mistake which would inevitably bring some student up to my office at the end of the show in tears. It's happened before. Not fun. Sometime around Wednesday night, or maybe it was Thursday, I began mixing the show. This is basically just audio damage control. Trying to make everything play at a reasonable level. The soundtracks for the films are all over the map in terms of volume and, to be frank, quality. In all fairness though, and for reasons I won't get into, it's not really the students' fault. For the past couple of years, there has been a big hole in the curriculum, and we weren't aware how much of a problem it was until only recently. We are working to remedy it. At any rate, this means I have to try and balance everything out, so students aren't straining to hear one film one moment, and then are deafened by the next. I also spend more time than I should making spot fixes. For example, if a student film is too quiet overall, but I can't bring up the volume of it because there's one sound (say a gunshot) that is already too loud, I'll go in and lower the sound of the offending effect, and bring up the rest of the film, so you can hear the dialog. I ended up doing a lot of that this year, and it takes time. Also, at the last minute, I ran into some issues that there was no time for the students to fix. As I was mixing the sound, I noticed several films were out of sync. Way out of sync. In fact, some had their picture ending before their sound did. It only showed up in Final Cut Pro - not in QuickTime Player. (Incidentally, we always tell the students to check their final film in Final Cut Pro, since QuickTime Player does "weird stuff™" when playing back.) So their movies were actually "okay" as QuickTime files, but there was something weird with their video track. My best guess, is that they output their films using After Effects' "Export QuickTime Movie" option, and not by going through the Render Queue. The Render Queue renders out each video frame as a unique frame, but QuickTime can also support still images of varying durations, and this is something that Final Cut Pro (being a video editing program) wouldn't like. Each frame has to be unique. So my guess is Export QuickTime doesn't make unique frames for every frame. This is something I'll have to look into. The solution was to take these films (there were probably six or eight of them) and take them through the Render Queue in After Effects, and re-render properly formatted QuickTime movies. The thing is - if you loaded one of these weird movies into Final Cut Pro, it would tell you they were fine. They'd just be way out of sync, and some of the video might even be missing. So even if students might have checked them in Final Cut, but they didn't watch them all the way through, they never would have seen it. Anyway, I caught them all and fixed them. One more thing to add to the list of "things I learned this year, to make next year go smoother". Finally, on Friday evening, I was able to output the whole show to tape. We don't run the live shows straight off a computer (yet) since tapes are easier to move around to the three locations where we had to show the films this year (the Main Gallery, the faculty judging, and a screening in the Bijou this afternoon), and Betacam tapes are a known, reliable medium. And actually, the Main Gallery and faculty screenings were running at the same time, just offset by a couple hours, so we really had to move the tapes around a lot. The catch, of course, is that I have to spend a minimum of eight hours putting the show on tape. It runs in real-time, so I get to sit there, for another eight hours, watching every... single... film... again. I have to make sure everything works. The films are in sync, the audio is acceptable, there are no glitches, and no forgotten films or other problems. After that, I set up the faculty screening, made the programs and judging forms, and probably some other things I forgot, and finally went home Saturday morning around 8 AM. I was home just long enough for about a half-hour nap, a shower and change of clothes, then back to work to start setting up the Main Gallery and getting the show started, running tapes back and forth from the two screenings, and falling asleep in front of my computer a few times in my office. During the break, a few co-workers and I went out for dinner. It was so nice to have a real meal, and not fast-food for the first time all week. Then, I had to go back, and make sure the second half started up okay. Went home and rested for a few hours (finally!) and then came back around 1:30 AM to help tear-down everything after the show ended. And that gets me back to the beginning of this blog. Every year, I absolutely dread this week. It's always like this. Admittedly, I could just slap the films together, and let them run however they turned out. Let the audio be all over the place, and the sync be off. It would take far less time. Probably less than half. But the problem is - I was a student here. I know what it's like. I remember sitting in an audience and hearing people respond to my film. In the end, that's what this is about. There's nothing in their time here as thrilling as sitting in the midst of an audience as people watch their work up on the screen. There's also nothing quite as terrifying, until they hear them respond the way they can only hope they will. The last thing a student should have to worry about is, "why is my sound so quiet" or "why is my film out of sync - I swear it was right when I checked it". My job, in essence, is to facilitate the students' abilities to make their films. And yes, I do more work than I probably have to. I'm dead tired, I ache all over, my patience has been pushed to the extreme, and I'm not paid any overtime for it. I hate this week as its happening. But... When I get to stand back, and watch the students enjoy each others' work, when I get to see how successful the move to the Main Gallery was, when I hear people laughing and applauding and cheering and having that release, that moment that their entire school year has been building up to, when I get to see students smiling and congratulating each other afterwards, when someone comes up to me and says "thank you"... ... it's worth every single minute. Just don't tell anyone... I've got a reputation as a cranky old curmudgeon to uphold. So here are some pics: The start of the show. One of our recent grads - Justin Wright - passed away this year. So we ran his student films at the start, and dedicated the show to him. A shot of part of the crowd. It was actually pretty dark in there, so these were taken with a very long exposure. The big tall thing on the left is a scissors lift, where we placed the projector. The screen is 12 feet across. Another shot of the crowd, from the main hallway running through the building. It's all open to the Main Gallery, so everyone could see what was going on. There's even a walkway up above, and people watched the show from there. A shot of the crowd during the first hour or so of the show, taken from above and behind the screen. And again, this time just a couple of films before the end of the show, around 2 AM. Aren't animators cute when they're asleep?

It's been awhile since I've reviewed any animated film. Mainly because it's been awhile since I've seen any animated film. However, since I'm home with the flu, I figured while snot was draining out of my head, it was as good a time as any to watch Meet The Robinsons. Mainly because nothing else is on, and a friend of mine loaned me the DVD, so it didn't cost me anything. Here's my review, in a nutshell: Seriously... if you're a filmmaker... never ever put scenes like these in your film unless you're absolutely certain the audience won't be having the exact same thoughts. To be fair, Meet The Robinsons is better than Chicken Little (but given that the main character looks like Chicken Little, it's hard to separate the two). "Meet" (or "Meat" as it was referred to at Disney), had the distinction of being the last film produced mostly by the "old" Disney, but then it was finished under Pixar's regime. The problem though was that there wasn't enough time to completely gut and re-make the whole film. They had to rush the thing through, patch up what they could, and make the best of it, since they already had a commitment to a release date they couldn't change or back out of. All other films in production had no such commitments, so everything else was basically put on hold until the films could be re-evaluated (or outright canceled) in order to bring them closer to Pixar's standards (which is why Disney bought them in the first place). There were also a lot of creative differences during the course of the film, including at one point eschewing the style of the original children's book's author, for the generic character designs that are left onscreen. The models are a good ten years behind Pixar. They look static and lifeless, and for the most part are animated with most of the same clichéd movements that dominated Chicken Little. They often lack weight, solidity, fluidity, and seem more like plastic dolls than living beings. The animation just isn't compelling. They're moving from point to point - not living or thinking. Collisions, cloth, hair, and physics are equally poor. The future city has kind of an interesting design to it, but otherwise the film doesn't have much of a strong style to it. It just looks like more of the rendered-the-exact-same-way CGI we've seen a dozen times now. The alternate future which appears near the end of the film is much more interesting looking. I would have rather seen that film. The big problem with the film though, is that I just couldn't have possibly cared less about any of the characters in it. At all. The two main kid characters have no interesting or redeeming traits, and are so bland that it's hard to relate to them. They have no real chemistry and it's hard to ever accept them as being friends. They just seem to annoy each other. Plot-wise, I'd figured out the whole story (without half-trying) 43 minutes into the film. I knew who pretty-much everyone was, what they were going to do, and how the film was going to end up. The comedy was equally predictable, with the only real humor coming from the villain. I laughed exactly once during the film (about 30 minutes in). It might have been twice, if not for the best joke in the film having been spoiled in the trailer (the bit about the dinosaur having short arms and a big head). Without an emotional investment in the characters, none of the action sequences or plot twists held any real impact. The most interesting character in the film (I kid you not) was a hat. There's no real emotion in the film until about the last five minutes, but that's only because the ending, as formulaic and obvious as it was, was well executed. I'm always a little torn writing reviews like this, since I know a lot of the people that work on these films. They aren't stupid people. They're funny, talented and smart. But for whatever reasons and circumstances, that rarely seems to get on the screen. Maybe with different people supervising things at Disney now, that might change. Bolt (formerly American Dog) will be the first of the films that was gutted by the Pixar regime and remade in their own image. We'll just have to wait and see if it makes a difference. (That is a big toilet.)

I just went and saw Disney's Pixar's Ratatouille last night. Even though Surf's Up was a good movie... Ratatouille is a great one. It's an order of magnitude better than anything else out there. (Sorry, Jeff.) Pixar has set a new standard for animated films. Not merely CG animated films, but animated films, period. The animation is absolutely incredible, and would be, regardless of the medium. Computers do not make animation this good - people do. Pixar has the best animators, and in Brad Bird, one of the best animation directors working anywhere. This film is years ahead of the nearest competitors*. As with previous Pixar films (except for A Bug's Life, which I could have done without entirely, and Cars, which always felt like a videogame to me), I immediately forgot I was watching CG. I was just watching animation. And thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. The only times I remembered I was watching CG, were the times I saw something and was suddenly startled at how effortless they make it all look, when it is as far from effortless as you can get. The origin of the word "animation" means "to instill with life". Life! These characters live. They have emotion. Thoughts. You can see what they think and feel. That they are thinking and feeling. They don't merely move and blink and tell bad jokes. Too much so-called "animation" has been reduced to simple, lifeless devices for moving a film from one plot point to another. Ratatouille is what animation should be, and is at its best. It does my heart good to see a film like this come out of an American animation studio. It makes me realize we haven't completely lost what the Disney studio had once mastered 60 years ago, then seemingly forgot. Remy (left) is discovered by Linguini. Visually, the film is a treat. To be sure, there is some brilliant design work, and amazing visuals in the film, (they obviously had a wonderful time designing the food critic's office), but they never beat the audience over the head with it as if to say, "Look what we can do!" Rather, it all serves the story. Ah yes... the story. It's absolutely delightful. For more reasons than I can easily describe, nor would I want to for fear of ruining any of it, the story is wonderful. There is great humor, and great heart in this film. And perhaps most telling - I couldn't predict where it was going. Far too many films are completely predictable. Ratatouille kept making turns that I didn't see coming, and I never really knew how things were going to turn out. In hindsight, perhaps it's easy to see the path they were following, but while I was watching the film, they had me guessing. Wondering. Worrying. I really cared about these characters, and their relationships. Their futures. This movie has a lot of laughs to be sure, but it also has some very touching and poignant moments in it. And they come across as genuine. Not phony or forced. There is a fragility to the friendships in this film. When two worlds collide as they do in this movie, that's bound to happen. What surprised me the most, was the portrayal of the rats in the film. Without giving too much away - they are rats. They act like rats, and are treated as such. There are some scenes in the films where the rats made me feel slightly queasy, or at least uneasy, the way I would if they were real rats. And yet, they're also very likable - especially Remy (the main rat character). Oddly enough, the simple act of him washing his hands makes it seem that it's somehow okay for him to be touching food. And the food. Food is treated lovingly in the film. A lot of cooking terms are thrown around, and yet, it's still approachable. I must confess to watching the Food Network a lot. But besides following a handful of recipes, I can't really cook. I can't make up recipes, or have an innate sense of how to combine flavors. But the filmmakers managed to convey a sense of what some of these foods in the film must taste like. The amount of effort they put into making it look good (or awful in some cases) is impressive enough, but they found a couple of different ways to attach emotions to food in several scenes, one of which may be my favorite scene in any animated film - ever. (Suffice it to say it involves the food critic.) It's a moment of absolute joy to see a scene like that in a film, and it's one I instantly responded to. If anything, I probably relate to that sort of thing a bit too much... I could stand to eat less of the foods that I do. If food isn't your thing, however, don't worry. The film is first and foremost about the characters. Food just happens to be their passion. Well, one of their passions. I whole-heartedly recommend this film. To anyone. If you're worried about being in a theater full of kids, go to a late showing (I went to one at 10 PM, and there were no kids in the theater at all). Go to a matinee if you're short on money. I spent $10.50 on a ticket, and $10 for popcorn and a drink. Absolutely ridiculous prices, and one of the reasons I don't go to movies anymore. But this was worth every cent, and then some. I'll likely go see it again. I'll certainly buy the DVD the day it comes out. As a bonus, the new Pixar short Lifted that precedes the film is easily one of their funniest in years. Most of their recent theatrical shorts just seem like exercises in making cloth or hair or whatever work. But this one is genuinely entertaining. Several weeks ago, we had the privilege to have it previewed for us by director Gary Rydstrom at the college where I work. It was great fun seeing it again (especially for anyone familiar with audio mixing consoles). And if nothing else... if you've got weather like we've had lately, going to see the movie will get you out of the heat for a couple of hours. (Outside temperature on top. Inside temperature below.) * Note: There are many exceptionally talented animators, artists, story people and even a few directors at other animation studios as well. However, Pixar seems to have a knack for bringing out the best in their artists, or perhaps more accurately, allowing their artists to do what they're able to do best.

In case you didn't know, the Wachowski brothers (of the Matrix films) are making a live-action version of Speed Racer. So... okay then. This project has kicked around Hollywood for years (once rumored to have Tom Cruise attached to it as Speed, to give you an idea of how long ago this was), and although I've been a Speed Racer fan since I was a little kid, neither of the two series' revivals were any good (although the Japanese one wasn't nearly as bad as the American one), so I've always thought that, as with most animation to live-action adaptations, they just shouldn't bother with it. And really, after the Matrix 2 and 3... well... Ick. But, they have done one thing right so far. The Mach 5. Let's face it - this is the star of the movie. Not Speed. Not Trixie. Not Spritle. Not even Chim-Chim. And they got it right. They made a few minor design tweaks to it, but it looks awesome. It pays tribute to the cartoon version, and yet still looks believable as a real car. Nice. I want to drive it. Now, whether the rest of the movie works or not... that's the big question. The cast is mostly people I don't know, except for John Goodman as Pops (hey... it can't be any worse than what he did in The Flintstones... can it?) and Susan Sarandon as Mom (who doesn't look half-bad for a woman of 87). Mercifully, Chim-Chim will be played by actual chimpanzees - not CG ones. The car stunts, on the other hand, will be mostly CG. Given the original cartoon show, really, this is the only way they could be done. I just hope they get it right. They don't have to be necessarily realistic, but they have to establish believable physics for the world the story takes place in, and then stick with it. The most important thing will be in making the cars feel heavy. That's one thing that is very difficult to do in CG. I've been watching the original series on DVD this past week. I haven't seen most of the episodes in about 20 years (when Now Comics released a bunch of them on VHS), and some since I was a kid. Surprisingly, the series holds up very well. Of course, most of the animation is terrible, the dialog corny, and some of the plots are marginal. But there's a surprising maturity in some of the subjects (no doubt stemming from its manga origins), including people getting killed during races, plots to overthrow governments, criminals carrying out murderous revenge, and so on. Pretty heavy stuff for cartoons, some of which (at least the killings) would have been banned from Saturday morning TV a few years ago. The DVDs production values are - at best - adequate. The prints are about as good as you could expect a cheaply-produced series from 40 years ago to look. The packages (which range from a tin "steering wheel" box to one where the Mach 5's headlights light up and play the theme song) are clever, but more effort should have been put into the DVDs. There are practically no bonus features. They reference the original Japanese series, but don't include the original language audio track. They mention the original Japanese theme song, and print the english translation, but you don't get to hear it. They mention the VW commercial from a few years ago, but it's not included. There are no commentaries, either. They altered the opening and end titles, for no apparent reason. It just doesn't get the same treatment that the vast majority of other anime releases get, and this is one of the best-remembered, ground-breaking series of its time. What really is surprising me though, is how cool the cars still are. The designs stem from race cars, concept cars and custom cars of the 60's. There are some generic designs in there, but this show was obviously created by people with a real love for cool cars, and they took some great pains to make memorable designs. And the sound effects are still awesome, too. Some engine sounds, like the Mach 5's "neeeyyooooowwwrrr" as it races by, or the Mammoth Car, the X3 ("Melange still races!"), Racer X's car and the Car Acrobatic team, I can still vividly recall from being a kid. So the movie has a lot to live up to. Therefore, here are the top ten things (in no particular order) the Speed Racer movie must have in it, to be a success: Drum solo fight scenes. Almost every episode had a fight scene between Speed and the bad guys, while a drum solo was playing. Dramatic music freeze-frame. Near the beginning of most episodes (usually during the flashback portion of a two-parter) they'd freeze frame on a piece of action, while dramatic music played. This is a must! "Oooooohhh!" Speed has to yell this at least once in the movie, while the Mach 5 is spinning out. Or falling into a chasm. Sound effects from the series. How can you have Speed Racer without those engine sounds, or the "chyukchyukchyukchyuk" of the jacks as the Mach 5 jumps over something? Cool cars. They got the Mach 5 right, but the other cars in the race(s) can't just be generic cars. They have to be designed. Speed can't be racing against Corvettes or something recognizable. They must be custom. A villain car. There has to be a main car for Speed to beat in the "big race". Nothing, I repeat nothing would be cooler than to have the Car Acrobatic team in the film. The saws. Yes - somewhere in the film, as ridiculous as they are, the Mach 5 must sprout its giant rotary saw blades, and mow down a forest. Or a wheat field. Or a herd of deer. Or a Cub Scout troop. Or just slam into a tree at 180 MPH, and have the things just break off, and Speed say, "What was Pops thinking?!" Stilted dialog - like the cheesy overdubbing in the original series. At least for one of the characters. Like Inspector Detector (who is, thankfully, in the film). It's a tradition. Spritle and Chim-Chim must get into the trunk of the Mach 5. And get a concussion from being bounced around. Seriously. We've been waiting for that for almost 40 years. An awesome video game tie-in. C'mon... this is the chance to finally give us the game we've always wanted. Besides, now they actually make game controllers with enough buttons to drive the Mach 5.

Well, I've been pretty busy lately, but things are finally starting to calm down now. Except for the electrical fire in the server room at work yesterday. But hey - that wasn't my fault. Anyway... the school year at the college I work at ended a few weeks ago. This time with a twist - I graduated along with everyone else! Well... not everyone. But the graduating class of 2007. Even though I haven't been a student since 1994. It's a lonnnng story, but I was supposed to graduate in '94. But the college messed up with the number of credits from my previous colleges, and I ended up not having enough total credits for my degree. Thirteen years later, the paperwork finally got cleared up, and I was able to walk across a stage that looked like a giant cake, and get handed a black plastic folder with the college's name on it, which I guess I put my degree in when it actually gets mailed to me sometime in July. But my official transcript now does say "BFA - Character Animation" and it's even dated May, 1994, too. 'Bout time. It's a relief to have that out of the way (especially since I'm still paying for it). A couple of weekends ago I got to go to the West Coast premiere of "Surf's Up", since I'm friends with the head of story for it. This was the first premiere I've been to, and it was pretty cool. Free parking, free admission, free popcorn and Coke (the kind you drink, not the other kind... I think you had to bring your own for that), and an after-movie party. It was an outdoors, mid-afternoon thing, with a tropical theme. Good food (salmon, grilled chicken, corn dogs, Happy Meals for the kids), and best of all - free swag! I picked up some stuffed penguins (the plush kind, not the taxidermy kind) for my nieces at some carnival-type game booths, and got free "Surf's Up" PSP and PS2 games for myself. (It was, after all, a Sony film - but still, free games are pretty cool and unexpected.) Plus they had a guy in a Penguin suit walking around for the kids, and a couple of really cute hula dancers (non-penguin variety) for the bigger kids. It was an interesting crowd of people. Plenty of plastic surgery and face-lifts. Some celebrities were supposedly there, but I didn't see them. Lots of limos though. (I had to drive myself. Can't have everything, I guess.) Even without the free stuff, it was a pretty good film. There are some good characters (notably the chicken), although the character designs bugged me a little bit because the eyes seemed "too human" to be on penguins, but I got used to it. The scenery though - especially the surfing scenes and some of the tropical locations - was stunning. I really didn't feel like I was watching a CG film, but rather looking at someplace lush and beautiful. They really nailed the water effects. Plot-wise, it's very "Cars"-like, but the filmmakers didn't have the time to change the film once they found out the similarities. I'm not sure I would have picked up on it had I not been told beforehand, and it doesn't really detract from the film. There are some good laughs in it, and the usual handful of jokes that just fall flat, but overall it's a good, enjoyable film. Not a bad choice for a matinee, to be sure. Certainly not a waste of time, as so many mediocre CG films have been. What surprised me, and I think this is the hallmark of any good film, is that I went into the film not having any interest in the subject (surfing), and came out of it with a genuine fascination about it. And while I don't plan to actually try hanging-ten anytime soon, I do want to give those free videogames a try. Next up, I want to go see Pixar's Ratatouille. From what I've seen so far, the animation looks amazing! But I'm probably going to have to pay for this one.

This years' showcase of student films from where I work has just been posted on our school's website. This is about 2 hours and 15 minutes (2 hours, 43 minutes Canadian) of the best films from the Character Animation program, as selected by our faculty. The entire Character Animation student show (which is not online) ran a whopping 7 hours 30 minutes this year. While there were some films that I think should've make it into the showcase that didn't, I think this is a pretty good representation of what our students are capable of. Innovative, thought-provoking, and downright funny, there's something for pretty much everyone. The downside is - I can't speak to the reliability of the server that the films are hosted on. That's not my department. So if you can't watch something, try again later. And QuickTime is required. Enjoy the show!

I've just been buried at work lately. And by lately, I mean since early August. Non-stop. Tons of (unpaid) overtime. I worked 90 hours one week. 20 hours in one day. And those weren't even in the same week. But things are starting to calm down. A little bit. I had to supervise two major construction projects, including the building of an all-new computer lab for running Maya. We were put six weeks behind schedule due to construction issues (and asbestos removal), but fortunately the guy working with me put in some insane hours and got the lab open only one week late. Thanks Scott! Awesome job! Besides that, we decided to replace all of the Macs in one of our two Mac labs. So this meant re-shuffling around all of the remaining good Macs into the other lab, getting rid of over 30 old Macs and monitors (we sold them off to students), and of course, installing all of the new ones. Plus of course, putting new software on everything. The problem was - the new Macs didn't show up until the 18th. The semester began on the 11th. But they're in and running now. On top of all that, I started teaching again this year, since we had a huge turnover in the faculty who teach in the labs where I work. I felt it was important to have some continuity in the labs from last year to this year, so I'm teaching first-year intro to Macs (using After Effects and Final Cut Pro to produce traditionally animated films). I forgot how hard teaching was, and how much time it takes to prepare for a class. But I'm starting to remember now. It takes a good eight hours (or more) to prepare for each class. It'll probably be twelve or more as I get deeper into the technical stuff. I have to do this on my own time, since I'm still responsible for all of the duties I had before. Except now, I have to do those in 4 days instead of 5. I'm hoping I can do more of the class preparation during the week though - I really miss having weekends. So, that brings us to the Atari-related stuff... I got the Four-Play manual text from Zach, and I plan to try and get that going this week. It's a short manual, so it shouldn't take long. I also have three homebrew games (Rip Off! and two unannounced projects) to create sprites for. And, I've got a pile of homebrew games coming (soon?) from AtariAge. So I want to review those. Besides all of that, Weird Al's new album "Straight Outta Lynwood" is out today, so I want to write a review of that for my blog. Oh yeah... I've also got one more video game movie review to write for my website. But those take some time to do, so I don't expect to have that before the end of the year. And there's other stuff too, leftover from my various "to-do" lists. The question then is - if I'm so buried at work, why do I want to do all of this other stuff, too? Simple. Because I enjoy it. Working on this stuff is what I do to relax. It allows me much-needed time to be creative, and not have to think about technical stuff all of the time. (Yes... technical stuff also requires creative thinking. I'm more and more convinced of that the longer I do it, and the more I'm involved with the homebrew community, and see what the programmers are able to pull off. They have astonishing creativity! But that type of creative thinking is work for me. The other kind is what I use to relax.)

Despite the blog title, Cars isn't really a boring film. Unless you're a little kid. Say, under 5. Maybe 7. Not having kids, it's a little hard for me to judge at what point stuff becomes boring for them (and it's been a lonnng time since I was 7). But based on kids in the audience (one of whom repeatedly kept asking "is it over yet"?), I don't think bringing really little kids to this film is a good idea. I went to see Cars last week, and I have to admit, it's a much better film than I expected it to be. The teaser trailer didn't look very good, and nothing I'd seen since had much appeal either. But the movie does work - after awhile. It takes some time to get going (pun not intended), since initially, the main character (Lightning McQueen) is a self-centered jerk, and there's no audience empathy with him. We don't care why he wants to win the big race, nor if he does. It wasn't until probably halfway into the film that I got into the story, as Lightning began to care about things other than himself (although he still wasn't an interesting character). As the characters developed, the film became more enjoyable, although that's about the point where the kids started losing interest, since they couldn't really care less about character arcs. Pixar made a rare-misstep here in casting Owen Wilson as Lightning. He just isn't able to create much of a personality with his voice. (The same problem happened with Flik (Dave Foley) in A Bug's Life.) He's just kind of bland, and all of the interesting character moments belong to everyone around him. This would be fine if he were a good straight man, but he's really not. His reactions to what's happening around him seem very run-of-the-mill. Mater (a rusty tow truck), although an almost painful "country folk" stereotype, is actually the heart and soul of the film, and is not only a good comic foil, but provides some of the more heartfelt moments in the film as well. But just once, can't animators design "country folk" stereotypes without buck teeth? And I hereby throw down a challenge to all animation studios... I dare you to make just one film - just one - without a single fart joke in it. Sally - the love interest - doesn't make much use of Bonnie Hunt's comedic talents, and seems to fall for Lightning for absolutely no reason (since this begins to happen while he's still a jerk). The villain - Chick Hicks - is pretty unimportant story-wise, and has almost nothing important to do in the film until the very end. Other characters have some fun moments, although they're largely restricted to variations on the same handful of jokes, since most of them are fairly superficial stereotypes. Paul Newman provides the voice of the local curmudgeon (carmudgeon?), but he's basically just an old grouch, and not a particularly likable one. There are some genuinely funny moments in Cars, but not as many as in previous Pixar films. There is one particularly funny scene at night with Lightning and Mater, which Pixar manages to milk several more times in the film. Most of the best jokes, however, are in the end credits. At times, I felt more like I was watching a video game, than a movie. Perhaps it's just an issue of perception, but it took me a long time to get into a world where there are only cars (or more accurately - vehicles), despite the fact that everything looks like it was built for humans to occupy. The filmmakers made some very awkward concessions towards the cars, too, such as the odd telephone-device that Lightning uses to call his agent. Perhaps there wasn't a more elegant way to get around that, but it just seemed very forced. Also, there were little toys on the shelf in Lightning's trailer. Kid-sized toys. Who would play with them? Why were they made? How did they get up on the shelf? (Cars have no opposable thumbs.) Odd little things like that abound in the film, when you completely remove humans from the equation. One thing that surprised me about the film, was its predictability. Once the main situation in the film is set up, so many hints are dropped as to what's to come, that there are really no surprises left. There's a slight plot twist at the end of the big race, but it's completely inconsequential, since the end result would be the same anyway. Unlike most Pixar films, there wasn't any one moment in the film (except the night scene with Lightning and Mater), that just came out of nowhere and completely surprised me. There are some great visuals throughout the film, and numerous things that race fans will appreciate (two words: Plymouth Superbird). Cars is certainly Pixar's best-looking film to date. Some of the visuals are stunning, and the attention to detail is, at times, remarkable. Design-wise though, I'm not sure that choosing to use the cars' windshields (instead of headlights) as eyes was the best choice, as they just seem too freakishly huge at times. But I guess they did this to avoid obvious comparisons to Chevron ads. I think I would have loved this film when I was around 12 - 15. I was obsessed with cars as a kid. Hot Wheels. Model kits. Drawing pictures of cars. Cars would have probably been among my favorite films at that age. It's still a good film, but I can't say it's a great film. It's worth seeing if you like Pixar films, or animation, or NASCAR races, but it's not their best story, and most of the characters are rather forgettable. If you're thinking of bringing children along, I think there's way too much talking in it to keep little kids entertained for the film's nearly two-hour running time. For us older kids though, it's still an enjoyable enough of a ride to recommend. I'd give it 7/10.

Ahhh... the tsunami of work has finally subsided. Fortunately, I managed to hang onto some debris and survive. I don't discuss work much in my blog since, well, it's work. I don't really feel the need to discuss work much outside of work. But, I tend to do that anyway, since work pretty-much dominates my life (bad habit to get into - not recommended). So I work at CalArts as the technician for the Character Animation program. Video production equipment, a couple of Mac labs, file servers, stuff for classrooms; if it's a piece of gear, I probably have something to do with it. Kind of ironic, given that I have no formal technical training whatsoever (but hey - they're Macs). My training is in art, but I have a penchant for using technology for producing art, so I guess that's how I ended up where I am. Anyway, what's been keeping me buried over the last month is coordinating and assembling the end-of-year shows of the Character Animation students' work. Our "Open Show" features everything the students turn in. This year, we had 152 student films turned in, running over 7 1/2 hours. That's the equivalent of about 5 feature films' worth of material. Our "Producers' Show" (which wrapped on Thursday night) is a selection of about 2 hours' worth of faculty-selected pieces which get shown to the animation industry (as well as friends and family) at a 600+ seat theater in North Hollywood. It's a pretty huge event, and the culmination of a year's worth of work. I got home about 2:30 AM, which as of late, is a couple of hours earlier than usual for me. It never ceases to amaze me what some of the students come up with. Sure, there's a fair share of stuff I've seen all-too-many times, but there's always something new, and as the production technology improves, and as students become more facile with it, they produce some pretty mind-blowing work. I tend not to always appreciate it as much as others I work with, since I have to watch it more times than they do when putting the shows together, and I'm looking for technical issues, rather than just enjoying the pieces on their creative merits. But once the Producers' Show is running, and I know there aren't any technical glitches affecting it, I can finally sit back, relax, and enjoy the students' work. It can be inspiring. And I've been itching to draw again for weeks. I finally have the time again. So, back to the "To-do" list... Colony 7 title screen - Done! I managed to squeeze this in amongst the madness. Finish the new RPS illustrations - In progress. The pencil sketches are well underway. I actually cheat and use a program called Poser to stage the figures first. The trick is to make the end result not look like you used it. (Hey... I don't happen to have any live models around. Sue me.) Finish (and animate) the Medieval Mayhem dragon - Check this out - espire8 has contributed some cool dragon designs for this. So now I can use those to do the animation! That saves me a ton of work, and I think his dragon looks much better than what I would have come up with anyway. Finish the RPS manual - Soon? Work on RPS has reportedly started up again, so I need to get those new illustrations done. I've decided though that they aren't entirely necessary for the manual, but I still want to complete them. Label contests - One down. I managed to crank out a painting and a few label designs for the Rainbow Invaders contest. I finally finished them up yesterday, after getting some much-needed sleep (it's going to take me about a week to catch-up on sleep entirely). Juno First title screen Create an illustration for the AtariAge store Finish the MGD manual Revise my 2600 Bosconian mockups, based on Bob's feedback Start editing "Stella at 20" And new to the list... Label and manual for the AtariVox Label and manual for Conquest of Mars - Done. I spent last night getting a preliminary rough going for Conquest that looks like it's going to work out. So now I've got to start in on the final illustration, and start figuring out some sort of layout for the manual. But first things first. And the first thing is... pizza. You gotta have your priorities.

I finally picked up Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and I have to say, it's a wonderful film! I missed it in the theaters, but I wanted to get the DVD because I've been a fan of Nick Park's work since his Creature Comforts short. Wallace and Gromit are terrific characters, and it was great to see them in a feature-length film. And even though I don't think the Oscars usually provide any sort of real-world validity, I was glad to see this film win for best animated feature. It's a testament that good characters and storytelling are the key to good animation, and the more that can be done to get that point across, the better. I won't spoil the movie by going into too much detail, but it's a good-natured parody of horror movies, with some genuinely unexpected and fun twists to the plot. The whole film is a treat to watch, and the amount of work put into it is staggering. This is a film that was lovingly crafted, and not just shoved out the door of some studio to make a few bucks. The story and characters are engaging and funny, and there are some moments in the film which are pure joy. I don't find myself laughing out-loud at movies very often, but Wallace and Gromit managed to surprise and delight me throughout this film. For me, that's about the highest compliment I can pay any movie. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit jumps up near (or to) the top of my favorite animated features. This is a film I'll be watching again and again. The DVD offers quite a few nice extras too, with behind the scenes featurettes and commentary. Highly recommended!

Jumping back to the animation industry for a second... the rumor of the day is that Apple will buy Disney. Umm... no. Not gonna happen. Why? Apple has no reason to, or more to the point, Steve Jobs has no reason to. With the Disney buyout of Pixar (or more accurately - the Pixar takeover of Disney), Steve is already in the position he needs to be in, to get whatever he needs from Disney for Apple, and what he's after is content for the iTunes video store, or more to the point - content for the iPod (and for the likely forthcoming Apple home media center). The big plus in the way the deal is setup now, is that Steve gets all of this without all of the headaches involved in actually owning and running Disney. Disney is a huge, bloated, monster of a company, with far more going on than Apple really has any interest in running. Apple is really only after the content, and Disney is already providing that content (on an ever-increasing basis) for iTunes. Apple has nothing to gain (and everything to lose) by buying Disney. There's just too much risk involved for what they want to get out of it. For one thing, Apple owning Disney would hurt their relationships with other studios, severely limiting their access to non-Disney content. For another, if Disney stock tanks (box-office flops, poor theme park attendance, etc.), it's going to take down Apple with it. At the most, there might be some sort of partnership between the two companies, giving Apple exclusive online distribution of Disney content, and maybe some sort of Disney endorsement of Apple's products. But I wouldn't expect it to go beyond that.

Well, I wasn't exactly "right" about Disney buying Pixar, since I thought that it was an outside long shot at best: But essentially, that's what happened today. I think someone's gonna owe me a steak. (Hi Frank!) As I mentioned in my previous blog entry about this, I figured the only way Pixar would make this deal is if they took over creative control of Disney Feature Animation, and much to my surprise, Disney agreed to pretty much that.According to the press release: Now exactly what "reporting to" is going to involve will determine how well this all works out. As long as Iger and Cook can keep from meddling with how Pixar runs the creative end of things, it may end up saving Disney's bacon. This could potentially restore Disney to what it once was - the premier animation studio in the country. That's a title they've not held in some time. What particularly interests me is that John Lasseter will also be involved in Imagineering. I'd love to see what a fresh perspective could bring to Disney's theme parks. I always thought Toy Story's "Pizza Planet" should have been built at Disneyland. They need a good arcade there again. Jobs being on Disney's board (with considerable stockholder's clout, I might add) should help the deal from turning sour. Although I suspect his day-to-day involvement will be fairly minor. It's going to an interesting time at Disney. I suspect there will be some major shakeouts in the animation studio. Lots of firing, lots of projects cancelled or completely reworked. Hopefully though, lots of hiring too. Many talented people have left Disney because of the oppressive atmosphere there. With Pixar running the place, that could change dramatically. Maybe it's time to update my resumé.

I seldom go to movies anymore, mainly because they're too expensive. For the price of admission and snacks, I could buy it on DVD instead. While on vacation though, I managed to get out and see The Chronicles of Narnia, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I hadn't read the book, but I've been told the movie follows it pretty faithfully. And although it may not be among my all-time-favorite movies, I'd certainly put it in the "very enjoyable diversion" category, which is a pretty good recommendation if you're looking for something to do. I can certainly see why kids would love it, because the whole premise revolves around four kids who get swept into a grand, fantasy adventure. Fortunately, I still have quite a bit of kid left in me, which is why I liked it, and also still like things such as videogames and animation. Which brings me to the point of this post. Prior to Narnia, the theater ran the obligatory trailers. I don't recall all of them, but I do remember four. First, was Curious George. This is a traditionally animated (and very good-looking) film, based on the children's books. The animation looks first-rate, although the story is what will make or break it. Basically, the man in the yellow hat goes to a jungle, finds a mischievous monkey, the monkey stows away and goes back to the city where he proceeds to cause mischief. Sort of like a mini-King Kong, or Tarzan in reverse. What will determine if it's a good film or not, will be how much personality they can bring to the characters, and if they can make such a simple plot stretch out to 90 minutes, without boring the audience. I hope they can, because I'd love to see a traditionally animated film do well at the box office. The film looks great visually, hopefully the story is as well-crafted. The next one is Pixar's Cars. This one worries me. Pixar has a history of putting out these "teaser" trailers, which often don't have any actual footage from the movie in them, so it's really hard to make a fair assessment of it. The new trailer is far better than the first one (which looked more like an ad for a racing videogame than a movie), but so far, the movie just doesn't have any appeal to me at all. And as a kid, I loved cars. Racing games are still my favorite videogame genre. So if this is going to appeal to someone, it should be me. But there's no hint of who the main character(s) might be, or what the story might be about. Did they leave that out because they want to surprise us later? Or is it because they're not happy with the direction the film is going, and haven't worked all that out yet? Right now, there's nothing about this movie, other than Pixar's name, that interests me in the least. But Pixar has managed to turn mediocre trailers into great movies before (except A Bug's Life, which - except for the circus bugs - completely fell flat for me), so hopefully they can do it again. Third was Ice Age 2. The trailer for this looks great, and is a lot of fun. The question is - can they maintain that for the entire film? I still have yet to see the first Ice Age movie, but I've heard good things about it. Maybe it's time to rent the DVD. The fourth trailer though... where to begin? Hoodwinked looks awful. Actually, it looks worse than awful, but I'm at a loss for words to really describe how bad it looks. This is the type of film that I've been dreading. The "cheap, computer-animated cash-in" movie. This is nothing more than a Shrek knock-off, but without Shrek. Another "funny" take on a classic fairy tale, this time being "Little Red Riding Hood". The characters look terrible, as if they were modeled by a 12-year-old using an old PC with antiquated 3D software (sorry 12-year-olds - that isn't meant to insult you, I'm sure you could do a much better job). The animation is horrendous, and looks like it was rendered on a PlayStation in real-time. Not a PS2, either. A PS1. This is a low-budget film, and nobody that I know in the animation business had even heard of it before it just appeared in theaters. So where it was produced and by whom is anyone's guess. I can't imagine sitting through this mess, so I'll probably never know just how bad it is, but I refuse to waste my money supporting this kind of cheap movie trash.

So the big brouhaha in the animation industry over the last couple of days is the age-old rumor of Disney planning to buy Pixar. As far as I've been able to tell, all of the articles have been based around one article which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. What's interesting to me about all of this, is how all of these other "news" services seem to be treating this as fact. The buyout is practically a done-deal by their accounts. Although at the end of most articles, most are willing to admit that "there are other possible deals" being discussed. Well, duh. A little reality check is in order here. First, are these talks really going on? Almost certainly. Disney would love to own Pixar outright. Would Steve Jobs sell Pixar? Not likely. Unless he was getting something he wanted in return - and that's not money. It's control. The rumored deal would make Jobs the single largest shareholder of Disney stock, and possibly the Chairman of Disney. But would this give him any real say in how the company would be run? Well, it'd have to, or he wouldn't take the deal. Pixar is Jobs' baby (actually it's his other baby - Apple being his first). He has great disdain for Disney and the marketing-driven schlock they crank out. He also loathes the idea of Disney-created sequels of Pixar's films. He's not about to turn Pixar (and all of the creative talent that have worked so hard to make it what it is) over to Disney, unless he retains control over it. But would he also want to have anything to do with the rest of the day-to-day operations of Disney? Disney is a huge company. In addition to feature animation, they make other feature films (under several studio names), TV series (animated and live action), then there are the TV networks, radio Disney, record labels, theme parks, merchandising, hotels, cruise ships, retail stores... and on and on and on. If you were already busy running Apple (which Jobs will hold onto until the day he dies), would you want to be involved in all of that other stuff, too? If the deal goes through as rumored, my guess is that Steve will be given free reign over Disney Feature Animation, and put Pixar people in charge of rebuilding and running it. Pixar would remain where it is, and as it is, but Disney Feature Animation would essentially become a clone of how Pixar makes films. Note that I suggested this as a possibility some months ago: There would have to be all sorts of stipulations in the contract regarding his control over the animation studio and related use of its intellectual properties, about Pixar's continued autonomy, and especially about being able to nullify the deal should Disney begin to renege on its promises. All in all, I think it's probably too much for Disney to give up, in order to get Pixar back. Disney is much more likely to work out a distribution deal with Jobs instead, that would give Pixar the lion's (or mouse's) share of profits, ownership of intellectual properties, a big slice of merchandising, and maybe some sort of stock deal, where Jobs would get to sit on Disney's board and "advise" them on making animated films. The deciding factor, I think, is going to be how desperate Disney is right now, and what their confidence level is in the films they've got in production. If they think it's hopeless, then they just might make Jobs the kind of deal he'd require to "sell" Pixar to them ("sell" meaning Disney would technically own it, but Jobs would still be in control of it). If they don't want to give up that kind of control, I think a Pixar-favorable distribution deal would be the end result. At this point, that's what I think is more likely. Becoming part of Disney would be more of a headache than Jobs would want to deal with. They're a giant, bloated corporation that he probably equates to a Sony or Microsoft. All business, no heart. Some sort of deal will be reached, and probably soon. My guess is Disney will wait to see how Chicken Little does on DVD, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a deal before then, either.

…maybe. So, a friend of mine who worked on Chicken Little recently invited me to a screening of it at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood, in 3D, for members of the visual effects industry. I should point out that he left Disney a year-and-a-half ago. He’s feeling much better now. While the theater was mostly full, there were maybe six or eight kids in the theater. The rest were all adults. I think this tended to result in a more “honest” reaction to the film. If the place was packed with kids, they’d probably laugh a lot more at the movie, and if someone else around you is laughing, you tend to respond in kind, even if the movie doesn’t deserve it. This movie doesn’t deserve it. Now, I can’t honestly say I hated the movie. I didn’t. But I didn’t like it. It’s not a bad movie. It’s certainly not the train wreck I expected it to be. But it’s not a good movie. Not even close. What Chicken Little is, is trite, cliché, stereotypical, hackneyed, unoriginal, uninspired, insincere, unfunny, and technically competent. That last one was a compliment. The only one I could really think of. Chicken Little’s biggest failings are in its story and characters. This is where Disney has been failing for years, and they apparently haven’t “gotten it” yet. The title character is a typical, picked-on nerd stereotype that we’ve seen in dozens of movies and TV shows, over and over again. This would be fine - if Disney did something, anything, interesting and new with it. But they don’t. He’s picked on by the popular kids, he embarrasses himself in public, manages to lose his pants, isn’t understood by his father, and has a group of friends which are also stereotypical outcasts. First, there’s his best friend and eventual love interest, Abby Mallard (whom everyone calls Ugly Duckling). Of course, since unpopular nerds are funny, ugly kids must be funny, too. And what’s funnier than being ugly? Being fat! So another of Chicken Little’s friends (Runt of the Litter - a pig) is extremely fat. This gives Disney the opportunity to dust off every clichéd fat joke that they could find. And lastly, since Disney knows that foreigners are funny too, their other friend is Fish Out Of Water. Of course, being a fish, he either doesn’t talk much, or when he does nobody understands him. It’s painfully obvious this is meant to be the typical foreign exchange student stereotype. His mannerisms and “comedy” bits are right out of any number of teen “comedies” of the 80’s. All of the jokes involving these characters are predictable, unfunny, unoriginal and bereft of any creative effort whatsoever. Come on Disney, this is animation! Do something with it! Don’t waste time by having the characters say as many different words for “pee” as they can, or doing karaoke to Spice Girls songs. (Just when was this written, anyway? The Spice Girls just seem like a dated, desperate reference. They’re not old enough to qualify as kitsch yet.) Speaking of animation, there are some scenes that are so heavy-handed in their approach, that the filmmakers seem to be trying to beat you over the head with them. There is a scene where Chicken Little is talking to his dad in the car. And Chicken Little is sad. See how sad he is? He’s so sad, we’re going to sit here and watch him be sad for several minutes, just in case you didn’t catch on to the fact that he’s sad. And he’s going to hang his head, and look sad. This is amateurish writing, directing and animation at its worst. There is no hint of honest emotion, or any sincerity in the writing. It’s trite and almost insulting. Yes, we get the fact that he’s sad. Now get on with it. There are scenes throughout the movie that suffer from this. At times I can almost hear a nonexistent narrator saying, “And then Chicken Little looked sad”, or “And then Chicken Little looked determined!”. There’s no effort made to break away from the obvious, and make these characters unique or interesting individuals. Disney also resorts to their time-honored tradition of Chicken Little having a single parent. Apparently, Chicken Little’s mom is now in a pot-pie on a store shelf somewhere, because his dad is left alone to raise him. Of course, his dad doesn’t understand or believe in Chicken Little, and Chicken Little can’t ever hope to live up to his dad’s accomplishments as a school athlete. Are they just pulling plot synopses off of TV now for their movies? Having a single parent isn’t done for any reason other than to bring “Instant Conflict™” to the story, without them having to actually work at it. Disney isn’t good enough to write a story involving two parents. After all, if they can’t create one interesting parent, how on Earth could they ever hope to create two?The plot itself, had some promise. Chicken Little thinks the sky is falling, because a piece of it fell out of the sky and landed on his head. Of course, no one saw it, and no one believed him. The twist here, is that a piece actually did fall on his head - a piece of an alien spaceship. Their ships can cloak themselves to look like the sky (or any other surroundings). Chicken Little and his friends discover the truth, and when they try to warn the townspeople, of course nobody believes them. Now, this could have made for a fun, entertaining film. And the aliens are pretty cool looking characters. The problem is, it takes way too long to get to that point in the film, and when we get there, nothing terribly interesting happens anyway. There are a handful of funny moments, but more often than not, it’s all very predictable, and not very funny. What’s worse, is we really don’t care about any of the characters in the film, or what happens to them. Except maybe the little alien that befriends Chicken Little. Throughout the film, the writers seem to be grasping for ideas. Anything they could use to fill up time seemed like a good idea. Nothing exemplifies this more than the fact that in the middle of this movie… is a sports movie. It’s not that the characters go to a theater and watch a sports movie, but this movie becomes a sports movie. It completely shifts gears, and turns into a different film for awhile. But not just a sports movie, a Disney sports movie. So you can already see where this is heading. You should be able to recite the formula, even if you’ve never seen one of Disney’s sports movies. Baseball team has chance to win the pennant. Underdog (Chicken Little) who has never hit a baseball in his life and can barely lift the bat, is the only player who can come to bat. The team is one run behind, with one person on base, two outs, in the bottom of the ninth inning. Since Chicken Little is a known loser, everyone in the stadium groans. But he’s so short, all he has to do is stand there and not swing the bat to get a walk, then the hero (the stereotypical bratty popular kid) can come up and hit a home run. But of course, he swings at the ball twice, and misses badly. Everyone groans. The coach is screaming at him. But Chicken Little is determined (cue non-existant narrator) to hit the ball. Of course, he gets a hit, and due to the incompetence of the other team and his own dumb luck, he manages to beat the throw to home plate and win the game. Yay. Who would have ever seen that coming, right? (A big problem with the supposed tension here - since he got a hit and the person already on base scored, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d gotten thrown out at home plate or not. The game would have been tied and gone to extra innings. Next time… try football.) The sports movie is just there to make Chicken Little’s dad proud of him (cue narrator, “And Chicken Little’s dad was so proud of him!”). They did nothing interesting with it. Why not make a parody of a sports movie? Why not make it really funny? Why baseball? Why not something weird or just different? How about a Jai Alai tournament?Because it’s Disney. They have long since lost the ability to be creative. After the screening, a couple of visual effects people who worked on the film did a Question and Answer session. One of the most telling stories they had was about how the director, Mark Dindal, approached the film. They would have test screenings, and Mark would sit next to the kids and “try to see the film through the eyes of a 12-year-old”. If there was something in the film that the test audience didn’t like, even if everyone who worked on the film liked it, they’d change it. This is the absolute worst way to make a film. If you are letting other people dictate to you what’s funny, then your film will not be funny! In order for humor to work, it has to be funny to the person writing it. If you’re making a film based on what you think other people will laugh at, then you’re just second-guessing your audience. This is what Chicken Little feels like. A mishmash of recycled ideas that someone thought might be funny to someone else. It feels shallow and dishonest. “Here’s a film. Marketing says you should like it. Go laugh at it. And buy the video for your kids.” With Disney, filmmaking follows marketing. Focus groups and test audiences write the films, and that’s how the executives there want it. They don’t trust artists to make films. They have cultivated an environment of distrust, where the studio doesn’t trust the artists, and the artists aren’t allowed to trust themselves. So, if Chicken Little is such bad film, why is it making money?Well, first of all, it’s not a bad film. The Flintstones is a bad film. Almost anything by Paul Verhoeven is a bad film. Chicken Little is a bland film. It’s dull, unfunny, predictable, and pointless. But it’s generally harmless, and the visuals are probably interesting enough to keep most people from walking out of the theater. It’s an eighty-minute baby-sitter, and that’s what most people who would go to it in the first place are after. Besides, when it came out, for two weeks there was absolutely no competition at the box office for its intended demographic. Had it come out at the same time Harry Potter did, Chicken Little would have tanked. Mercilessly. Disney may not be very good at making films anymore, but they’re not completely stupid, either. Of course now, between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, Chicken Little is fading fast. Disney released Chicken Little at a key moment when they stood a chance of making decent box-office. This is extremely important to Disney. Not because this is their “first” computer animated film (it’s not - Dinosaur was), it’s because they’re in negotiations with Pixar. The better Chicken Little does, the better negotiating position Disney will be in with Pixar. The deals I’ve heard rumors of are either for a 3 picture deal or a 5 picture deal, with at least some of those being sequels. That Pixar and Disney will make a deal is almost a given. But the details of that deal - character ownership, box office percentages, home video percentages and merchandising - are going to hinge on how well Chicken Little does. If it does well, Disney will be under less pressure to make a deal with Pixar, and can get better terms. If it bombed, Disney would pretty much have to cave in to whatever Pixar wanted, because it would reinforce the idea that Disney can’t have a hit without them. Pixar has to make a deal with someone, since after Cars, they have no distributor. If they can’t make a deal with Disney, this will weaken their negotiating power with other distributors. So Pixar is almost stuck having to make a deal with them, in order to get anything even close to what they want. Besides, Pixar wants the Disney relationship to work out. Disney still has one of the best merchandising and marketing machines out there, and trying to duplicate that elsewhere would be next-to-impossible. (And Steve Jobs has a lot to gain with Apple and the iTunes video store by maintaining a relationship with Disney, too.) So Chicken Little now stands at about $127 million. If they’re lucky, they may clear $150 million by the end of the holidays. That’s three times what their last animated feature - Home on the Range - brought in domestically. So that’s definitely an improvement over their last several box-office catastrophes, but it’s still $110 million less than The Incredibles, and less than half of what Finding Nemo brought in*. Disney can’t afford to let Pixar go just yet. Even if they get the short-end of the deal, money is still money, and in the end, that’s what matters to Disney the most. I still think there will be a Pixar-Disney deal, and I think it will still be (mostly) favorable to Pixar. But Disney’s going to hold off until they’ve squeezed every last penny they can out of Chicken Little (including the DVD release). I almost forgot to review the 3D aspect of Chicken Little. The movie was shown in 3D (digitally projected) and the technology worked well enough. The projector flickered the left and right images six times per frame, so it was fast enough not to be bothersome. The 3D glasses used polarized lenses (not red and blue), and were large enough to fit comfortably over my own glasses. The problem was, the film wasn’t designed to be shown in 3D. The idea to make it 3D was made mere weeks before the film’s release, and the production was basically complete by that point. The film wasn’t rendered in true 3D, but was re-composited in 3D from pre-rendered 2D elements and some 3D geometry. The result was that objects had a solid enough look to them, but there wasn’t a great sense of depth to the environments. It was like the whole film was taking place inside of a box. So the 3D effects were negligible, for the most part. The filmmakers went back and re-did a number of shots to show off the 3D a little bit better, but those stuck out from the rest of the film and were jarring when they appeared. The filmmakers stated they plan to pursue this technology (or as the rest of us call it, a “gimmick”) in future films, and incorporate it from the outset, instead of just tacking it on at the last minute. Maybe they should try incorporating a story next time, too. * Source: Box Office Mojo

...that's made for you and me? Well, it's sure not Michael Eisner anymore. Eisner has severed all ties with Disney as of today, stepping down from the board of directors. And all I can say is, "it's about time". In recent years under Eisner, Disney Feature Animation has been an oppressive, depressive environment akin to a terminal patient ward at a hospital. People who had been loyal to Disney for years just couldn't bring themselves to re-sign their contracts, because of the appalling mismanagement (if not outright mistreatment) of the artists there, and subsequently the degeneration of the films and the studio as a whole. Those who remain at Disney almost universally speak of a feeling of dread that hangs over the studio. It's the talk of the industry. Everyone, at every studio, knows the situation there, and laments the degree to which it's deteriorated. Disney used to be the touchstone for the animation industry. Even when the rest of the industry was in the dumps, Disney could be counted on as a "safe" place. But then the bottom fell out. Films began to underperform (and outright fail) at the box office. The Florida studio was shut down. More than half of the Burbank studio was laid off, and those that remained faced huge pay cuts. Contract terms were shortened. Long-time employees were let go. Traditional animation was abandoned in favor of CGI, and animators who wanted to stay had to re-train in the new medium. I've known many people who've worked at Disney over the years, and in the last several years Disney has been bleeding talent. Pixar, Sony, Dreamworks and others have been the fortunate recipients of many talented people who couldn't take it anymore, and have headed for greener pastures. Now, I should point out that there still are many very talented people at Disney. Many of them have hung on, hoping that the situation would change. Now, hopefully, it can. This is Disney's opportunity to fix things. To put the artists back in charge of the art. To get the suits and MBAs out of the creative loop, where they've had no business being in the first place. There was no good reason for Disney to fail. The talent was there. The creativity was there. The leadership was the problem. The art of became secondary to "the business". Disney used to be an animation studio of artists, by artists. This is precisely why Pixar works. Artists make the decisions. They shape the films. They aren't told what to do by executives with marketing research data. They don't have to make a film to fit a target demographic. They just make good stories with great characters. Marketing takes care of itself after the fact. That's how animation should be, and when it's done that way, it works. Hopefully, Bob Iger, the new CEO of Disney, has figured this out. Rumor has it, that Iger has been in talks with Steve Jobs, Pixar's CEO, about renewing their contract. If Iger is the right CEO for Disney, look for that announcement to be made soon. There are several reasons for this: Disney stands to make a lot of money from Pixar films, even it it's only distribution rights and a percentage of home video and merchandising. Steve Jobs hates Michael Eisner, and would almost sign a deal with Disney now just to spite him. Disney needs Pixar films, since their own animated features have been performing abysmally at the box office. Disney needs marketable characters. Name one character from "Treasure Planet" or "Home on the Range". Now name one from "The Incredibles". Pixar could sign with anyone else, but haven't. They've been waiting for Eisner to leave, because the Disney marketing machine is still the best one out there. While Pixar could start over with another distributor, it makes the most sense to hold out for a better deal with Disney. There has been tremendous pressure from Disney shareholders to renew the Pixar deal. If Iger doesn't do it, he won't be CEO very long (and you can bet his contract incentives won't happen). If they do reach an agreement, I expect it to go something like this: Ownership and/or control existing of Pixar-created films and characters are turned over to Pixar. Future revenues from existing Pixar films belong (or mostly belong) to Pixar. Disney retains theatrical and video distribution rights, along with some merchandising and licensing (theme parks and related products). Work on Disney sequels to Pixar films ceases production (or are taken over by Pixar, if there's anything salvageable). Currently Toy Story 3 is in pre-production. If a deal is signed, I don't believe the film as it currently exists will see the light of day. It's rumored to have had some major production problems, including finding anyone willing to direct it (although I think someone may be on board for that now). And here's a long shot (although I think it's Disney's best option): Disney Feature Animation is taken over and run by Pixar, to make films for Disney as "Pixar Animation Studios, Burbank". Pixar's current studio would continue operating as-is. The Burbank studio would be funded by Disney, located at Disney, making films exclusively for Disney, but Pixar would be running the productions and making the decisions. This ties in with Pixar's desire to expand and make more films, and Disney's move to CGI-only animation. If Disney and Pixar re-sign a deal, there's no reason not to combine the studios. Whether this happens or not is, again, a long shot. But I think Steve Jobs would go for it in an instant (what better way to satiate his ego and hatred of Eisner at the same time?), and Disney would instantly regain respectability in the animation industry and Hollywood, by having the top animation studio in the country supervising their creative efforts. Now, this isn't to say Pixar isn't without problems - most of which involve a lack of competitive salaries. But a lot of that has to do with the obscene cost of living where Pixar's current studio is located (Emeryville), and a lack of major competition in that area. A Burbank-based Pixar would have to pay more competitive wages to keep people from going to Sony or Dreamworks, but that's what Disney's end of the partnership would be responsible for. (Truth be told, if Pixar opened up a studio in Burbank, they'd probably have to beat people away with a stick. It could even cut into the potential talent pool for their Emeryville studio, since the cost of living is so comparatively great up there. But I think that would be a minor issue in the long run.) At the very least though, I believe we'll see a new Disney/Pixar distribution deal within days. Weeks at the outside. Even if Iger decides not to re-sign with Pixar, hopefully he will at least learn from them. Or from Disney's own past. It's all there, right in front of him. Waiting. Hopefully, he'll see the light. (As an interesting aside, when I was spell-checking this blog entry, the suggestion for correcting "Eisner" was "Ensnare".)