where ideas go to die
If you can ever manage to skip work and go to Disneyland on a Tuesday then do so. Particularly if it’s around Christmas and also during the park’s 50th Anniversary year. Sure, there was still a fair number of folks there but no line was longer than fifteen minutes. We rode everything we wanted to ride, had some decent food, shopped a bit and then got the hell out of there.
A good time was had by all.
You know, in a strange way, I think Aladdin is the spiritual forebear of the modern Dreamworks animated movies. At times it’s loud and obnoxious and its pop culture references seem oddly out of place. As much as I like some of Gilbert Gottfried’s comedy, he’s almost insufferable as Iago the parrot. Also Robin Williams’ morphing into modern personalities like “Ahnuld”, Nicholson and (particularly) Arsenio Hall seem amazingly ill-advised.
All of that being said though this movie still works really well. It’s amusing, it has some terrific songs, a good villain, some inspired art direction and wonderful animation by Glen Keane, Andreas Deja and Eric Goldberg. Aladdin is still very watchable despite its flaws and its influence on modern animated pictures.
Aladdin
1992
Ron Clements and John Musker –Directors
Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio –Writers
*** (out of five)
Well, it’s no Shark Tale, that’s for sure. –Most of the Dreamworks animation fare to date has really kept me at arm’s length. I hate to say it but with all of those pop culture references and all of that loud music I’ve always had a difficult time connecting with these pictures. Shark Tale I thought was by far the worst offender. It seemed to want to bludgeon you into liking it and you resented it for its attitude.
Thankfully, Madagascar is nowhere near as obnoxious. Let me first say that I really loved the animation. It was crisp and delightfully cartoony for a CG picture. For the most part the voice acting was well-done with a particular shout-out to Sacha Baron Cohen as the king of the lemurs. The penguins too are quite entertaining and the inclusion of their Christmas-themed short film is a welcome addition to the disc.
Let’s fall back on a cliche to sum up Madagascar: It’s a lot like Chinese food. Sure, it’s good but an hour later you’re hungry again. –Try as they might, these guys just can’t hit one out of the park in the same way that Pixar does consistently.
Madagascar
2005
Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath –Directors
Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath –Writers
*** (out of five)
A remarkably ill-conceived follow-up to the fantastic original. Though Son of Kong only clocks in at 70 minutes, it’s still fairly lacking in entertainment value. The film seems to have been designed from the outset for the childrens’ matinee set. Apart from a couple of sharp one-liners, the “Kong” story is continued here in a significantly dumbed-down fashion. Shortcuts were obviously taken in regards to the animation as well; it’s quite a bit more jerky than that found in King Kong. Also, our title hero is fairly obnoxious too. The good will won by Kong’s naturalistic behavior is spoiled here by his offspring’s peculiarly human shenanigans. The little tyke acts basically like a 1930s cartoon character which is fairly jarring.
A disappointment to be sure.
Son of Kong
1933
Ernest B. Shoedsack –Director
Ruth Rose –Writer
** (out of five)
King Kong is one of those films that changed movies. That’s still clear watching it now 72 years after its initial release. Like, say, Star Wars or Toy Story, “Kong” revolutionized the cinema-going experience. The pioneering effects work took audiences to places that they could not go to before. The film creates its own internally consistent universe that still transfixes even today.
But let’s not harp on the special effects; let’s talk about story. Forty minutes into King Kong the natives of Skull Island kidnap Anne Darrow to make her an offering to their giant ape god. From here on in, “Kong” takes off like a rocket and never stops. All of our modern action films owe this picture a debt. In terms of pacing and watchability, the last hour of King Kong is pure textbook. It’s clear to see that filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson watched this movie and loved it.
A huge part of the success of this story rests in the giant paws of our lead. Watching “Kong” again I was struck by how much of Kong’s movements are unnecessary. And I mean unnecessary in the best possible way. A great deal of the giant ape’s animation isn’t about moving him from point A to point B. It’s about behavior and it’s about character. When Kong beats the T-rex by ripping apart its jaws, he stops for a moment to play with the carcass. When he’s fighting the biplanes from atop the Empire State building, he pauses to wipe the blood from his chest and he’s clearly confused by its presence. None of that action is necessary in the strictest sense of the word. The beats of plot could have been communicated without it. But it’s that very “superfluous” action that has audiences watching this picture almost three quarters of a century after its initial run in theaters. Kong is a puppet but he’s a believable puppet and we have sympathy for him. When he falls to his death we can’t help but feel he got a raw deal. That’s a pretty amazing achievement for a bunch of guys working without the benefit of a single computer.
King Kong
1933
Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack –Directors
James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose –Writers
****1/2 (out of five)
I quite like this guy’s blog. He’s a Brit who works at Dreamworks. I enjoy his humor but what strikes me the most are his positivity and his humility. Again and again he talks about how when he has a problem with his animation he will turn to one of the genuises he’s surrounded by. Nice.
I’m also adding him to the links on the right.
I’m thrilled that the original 1933 King Kong is finally on DVD. Owning it now takes me back to the time when I was ten years old; watching Saturday afternoon matinees, reading Famous Monsters of Filmland and having a poster of the big monkey himself above my bed. I of course bought the set which contains not only “Kong” but also Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young. I’ve got plenty of Big Monkey Goodness in my immediate future.
For whatever reason I chose to begin my King Kong journey with RKO Production 601: The Making of Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World, the feature-length documentary about the movie’s creation. This is quite simply one of the best film documentaries I’ve ever seen. Not only does it inform but it also deepens your appreciation for the film and its accomplishments. You get a greater understanding of the special effects, the sound design and the score and you come to see “Kong”’s true place in film history. When you throw in the fact that Peter Jackson and his crew recreate the Kong puppet to demonstrate Willis O’Brien’s effects techniques AND Pete and the boys use those techniques to give us their version of the long-lost Spider Pit sequence you get the price of admission with the doc alone.
Damn good stuff.
King Kong/RKO Production 601
***** (out of five)
I’m running the risk of sounding too New Age-y here but let’s give this a shot…
I think I may have indicated that I was a video game animator for several years. As you may know, the deadlines in this field can be pretty hairy. Coming right out of school, this may not have been the best environment to develop my skills. At least while I was doing it, animation was the last link in the Milestone chain. Milestones are deadlines that generally come once a month wherein you turn in all of your assets to the publisher. If you don’t turn in all that you promised then you run the risk of not getting paid. Being that last link can be a scary place. If anyone ahead of you gets behind, it steals time away. Oftentimes I felt like animating the characters was more an afterthought; a necessary evil in collecting that check –and not just my check, mind you but everyone’s check. –Hey, no pressure, right?
In that sort of an environment, I don’t think you have the luxury of making mistakes. By mistakes, I mean little missteps from which you theoretically learn something, correct it and move on. Many’s the time I would want to rip out a whole set of keyframes and lay in new ones. More often than not, I wouldn’t be able to do this because I just didn’t have the time. Now, believe me, I don’t mean this to come off as a bitch session and I’m not pointing any fingers. The truth is, I was at a young company and there was a quite unintentional misallocation of resources. No one realized that one animator would have trouble keeping up with the output of 2-4 modelers and texture artists every month. Eventually this oversight was corrected and help was brought in.
My point in raising the issue is that this sort of hotbed of pressure instilled in me Bad Habit #2: the tendancy to bully my way past something that is clearly not working and try and get the work finished with its defects still intact. I will give myself some credit: I don’t think this is so much a habit for me now as it is a tic. Almost invariably I will catch myself doing it and shake my head nostalgically. Whenever I see the stubborn gotta-get-paid monster raising his head I’ve just gotta shove him down again.
Being as how we’re all (hopefully) developing continually, we have to give ourselves permission to fail. You do something, you look at it and you say to yourself “What the hell was I thinking with that?!”. Then you rip it out and do it again with your new knowledge of how not to do it.
The Iron Giant is the best non-Pixar animated film of the last ten years. Brad Bird, with only two films to his credit so far, has pulled forward as the only real, um, giant working in the field besides John Lasseter. His very clear emphasis on Story, Story, Story sets him apart from anyone working today at either Disney or Dreamworks. The Iron Giant has an involving narrative, complex, believable characters and honest to God thematic content. Unlike pretty much anything Dreamworks has released so far, “Giant” is actually about something. There are themes fer crissakes. Warner Brothers, of course, botched the release of this film on its initial run back in 1999. I’d like to think that a lot of people have since discovered it on video. If you haven’t seen it, buy it or rent it right now. Run, don’t walk.
I mentioned a moment ago that The Iron Giant is the best non-Pixar animated film of the last ten years. The best film of that period is (in my opinion) Pixar’s The Incredibles, directed by– you guessed it– Brad Bird.
The Iron Giant
1999
Brad Bird –Director
Tim McCanlies –Writer
**** (out of five)
As I think I indicated, I’m trying to work out an animation methodology for myself. It’s very important to have a regular series of steps that you go through and not just start posing the characters willy-nilly. If you can work in an organized fashion, I think you’ll actually work faster. I was going to post something that laid-out my current thoughts on the matter when I just read all of my ideas encapsulated nicely in a book. This book is called Inspired 3D Character Animation and it’s by Kyle Clark (review to follow at some later date). In the chapter “Approaches to Animation”, Clark lays out the following methods: 1) The Layered Approach wherein you start from the part of the body that is motivating the action (most often the hips) and animate outward in a hierarchical fashion 2) Pose-to-pose wherein you set up poses for the entire body, refine their timings and then work out break-downs or in-betweens 3) Straight Ahead wherein you animate intuitively from the beginning of the action through ’til the end and 4) “The Combo” wherein you start with the Layered Approach and, in your second pass, refine the poses.
Clark and I share a fairly similar background it would seem. Neither of us are overburdened with traditional skills and we (or at least I) find the pose-to-pose method to be somewhat counterintuitive. Personally, I have always gravitated toward the Layered Approach because it allows me to see the motion as it unfolds (guess I’m just an instant gratification kind of a guy). I like to see/feel the various forces at work as I move the scrubber back and forth. Perhaps I’m just not well-versed enough but the pose-to-pose method puts a barrier between me and the character that inhibits my creativity. I don’t feel like I’m animating so much as posing a doll with some shallow hope that all will be will when I switch my interpolation back on. I really like the idea of working out the parts of the body one-by-one and then refining the resulting poses after the fact. I really feel that this is the best of both worlds. –As I said, I was going to break it down here on my own but I just read it and figured why bother? If you can lay your hands on Inspired 3D Character Animation read chapter 5 (and in particular pages 62-64). Clark does a better job of breaking it down than I would have anyway.
Jason Schleifer posted a great article on his approach to animation over at his own blog. The guy works for DreamWorks so, needless to say, what he has to say is worth listening too.
The fear of moving past blocking
This piece ties in nicely with the thoughts I’m having of late on my own workflow.
I’m adding Jason’s blog to the links at the right.
I was excited by the recent news of a Hellboy animated series. I’m a big fan of Mike Mignola’s comic book (and to a lesser extent Guillermo Del Toro’s feature film). The producer of the cartoon show has started a blog:
Animation is an extremely detail-oriented craft. Realistic (even highly-stylized) motion can be vexingly difficult to achieve. One of the biggest mistakes a CG animator can make is rushing to manipulate the character before he’s worked out fully what it’s going to do. Nearly as much time should be spent planning the action as executing it. In fact, the execution should go much more quickly (and be much better looking) if this planning has been done right.
This is a concept which I cannot refute but which is proving very difficult to adapt to. I worked as a video game animator for several years. The amount of output that was expected from me was staggering at times and it never occured to me that I might have time to do something as silly as plan ahead. I’m currently working on a new reel and, in addition to overhauling my working method, I’m trying to drum a simple rule into my thick head:
Plan your work, work your plan.
Some time ago, I began a demo reel and was interrupted by life (I think I related this story in a prior post). You can actually see the reel here:
The reel has actually been available for some time on the Work in Progress page and I think I gave it the appropriate mea culpas there. It’s not finished, it’s rough around the edges, blah, blah, blah.
Since I am embarking on some new work, I thought it might be a good idea to look over the older stuff and see what’s working and what isn’t. Some of it’s decent and some of it doesn’t do it for me. Hopefully, at some future date, I’ll think all of it’s bad because I’ve made some progress. There are twelve pieces on the reel. Let’s look at them one at a time:
1) Robot Running. I like this one. It has a feeling of weight as well as of personality. I would move this one forward into the next iteration with maybe some minor tweaking.
2) Tubby Guy Punching Ground. You know I have a vague recollection of this one being inspired by Hellboy. It seems to me that he likes to punch the ground with that big stone hand. The animation is fairly well-timed and has some heft but the motion itself is kind of esoteric so I don’t know if it makes the cut or not.
3) Pug Trotting. This one isn’t quite working for me yet. It looks a little generic and jittery. I suppose it could be smoothed out and given a bit more pizazz but the jury’s still out on whether it’s a keeper.
4) Jester Pirouette. Not bad I suppose but something about it doesn’t ring my bell. The pirouette itself isn’t bad but the guy doesn’t quite look like he’s in contact with the ground. I wouldn’t mind ditching this one in favor of something better.
5) Baby Walk. Nope. It neither feels like it has the proper weight nor does it feel like a child walking. I do like the model however. I wouldn’t mind having a whole ‘nother go at this one.
6) Gun Guy. Well, it’s not terrible but it feels too slow and I certainly wouldn’t go for 4 gunshots if I did it again. The animation quite simply wears out its welcome. It needs more speed and more pizazz.
7) Monkey Walk. It’s fun. Nothing special but I do like a good monkey animation.
8) Sword Guy. There’re parts of this one I like. The shout at the end is kinda cool. It seems to me though that if you squint you’re not quite sure what he’s doing. It doesn’t quite read right. I wouldn’t mind starting this one from scratch.
9) Kid Sneak/Run. Overall not too bad although I’m not sure about the transition from sneak to run. Also, the thing could use a little bit of acting. I wanna feel like I know why he’s sneaking and what makes him run. It has that generic quality to it.
10) Mascot Speaking. What speaks to me here is that this guy is stuck in this suit and his trunk keeps getting in the way. As a piece of animation I don’t know that it’s all that remarkable but I am interested in this poor dude and his plight.
11) Zombie Walk. Neither bad nor great. I guess it’s got a nice laid-back quality to it.
12) Ninja Flip. I dig this one. What can I say?
One generalized comment: I want to see more personality in my work overall. I don’t want to feel like these characters are just moving so much as they’re alive.
My WiP Demo Reel #1
Me –Animator.
** 3/4 (out of five)
[I don't wanna send anything out until I can give myself at least a four. --I doubt it'll ever really be a five.]
I’m just getting back to doing some animation after a long time away and it’s all coming back to me now –the joys as well as the sorrow. –Today we went a little bit heavier on the sorrow, I think. You really can get some truly great expressive stuff on the computer but there are times when I want to rip out my hair, jump through a plateglass window and go running down the street. When you’re doing 2D animation the only “tools” you have to learn are pencil and paper. The only thing standing in your way is your own ability to do the work. Though I don’t think I was ever a great draftsman it was my 2D that got me my first job in computer animation. A fellow student of mine saw some of what I was doing in two dimensions and subsequently recommended me for a job at the video game company where he had just been hired.
I’ll admit that I’ve always had trouble to some degree with 3D. I liken it at times to painting on the head of a pin whilst wearing oven mitts. Sometimes, the software is not your friend. That came back to me today as I was finalizing a “warm-up” piece I was working on. I’ve got it pretty much where I want it and now I’m going in for some of the fine detail. Specifically, I’m trying to get a hand to remain static while the arm above it flails about a bit. No matter what I do, no matter how I tweak the curves, I can’t get the hand to stay where I want it. Before I finally decided it was time to walk away I had laid in multiple, multiple keys on that hand and, while it was remaining more or less static, it also looked as though it had the slightest hint of palsy. Now if I had been simply drawing this hand my work would be done. So, my point is, a tool isn’t a tool properly speaking if you have to fight it in order to get the results that you want.
If today has tought me anything –and I think this is valuable– it is that I have a temper and that I can sometimes be my own worst enemy. –If I can just stay calm in the face of Software Snarl then I should be able to produce some decent work.
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