Following up on my Miyazaki post from last night, the unveiling of this year's Oscar nominations shows Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. THe other nominees are Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Interesting to note is that none of the nominated films autilize 3D computer animation. Howl's is traditional 2d cel animation, Corpse is stop-motion and Wallace & Gromit come to life via claymation. I know Aardman used some computer animation to augment their iconic cheese-loving clay characters. (In fact, the studio's next picture is entirely CGI, but made to capture the Plasticine look of their previous films.) I read that Miyazaki will allow some CGI in his films, but it cannot make up more than 10% of the total screen time. Burton used off-the-shelf digital still cameras to shoot the frames for his film. So there may have been some
digital technology employed in each of these, but none of them were created entirely on the computer.
This is interesting because a few years ago, Disney famously put all their animation eggs in the CGI basket. The result? Chicken Little. Enough said. I read at the time that Disney Animation sold all of their cel animation stands. When they got out of the 2D business, they were out for good. The Disney execs believed that what made Shrek and the Pixar films popular at the box office was the technology. That's what you get for letting paper-pushers make creative decisions.
But maybe Disney didn't get out of the 2D biz after all. When they sold those animation stands, they were snapped up by a little company in Northern California... called Pixar. Hopefully the animation stands won't be the only traditions coming home to Disney. Maybe the idea of telling good stories will return as well.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Why the Japanese Make All the Cool Stuff
Leave it to the ever restless minds of the Japanese culture, in their unending quest for perfection, to invent a better way to fold a shirt.
In all seriousness, I've been really getting into the films of Japanese animation genius Hayao Miyazaki. Turner Classic Movies has been playing his films every Thursday night this week. Savannah and I absolutely fell in love with "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" and "My Neighbor Totoro." "Castle in the Sky" is vastly superior to the Disney film inspired by it, "Atlantis."
I'm looking forward to watching a couple more Studio Ghibli films I Tivo'd, especially "Pom Poko," about a group of shape-shifting raccoons trying to save their forest home.
Especially encouraging is that the Miyazaki films were introduced by Pixar founder John Lasseter. Miyazaki-san is Lasseter's good friend and mentor. With Lasseter taking over as Chief Creative Director for all of Disney Animation following the Pixar-Disney merger, Disney is due for a renaissance of the highest magnitude. Lasseter could be the new Walt Disney.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Science Fiction... Science Reality
Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but I've been pretty busy with work stuff. As I've spent long hours in the office, my primary means of maintaining my sanity has been to put on the DVD of my new favorite movie, Serenity. There's a scene in the film where we learn that TVs and video screens not only display information, but also act as security cameras, allowing the government to keep tabs on anyone watching what's on the grid.
I've always been fascinated by the combination of screens and cameras into a single device. Now it seem that Uncle Stevie and the good folks at Apple have patented just such a device.
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