Commentary &Daily post 14 Sep 2007 07:15 am
More Bits
– Wade Sampson has another probing article that should be read about The Sweatbox, the documentary directed by Trudie Styler, Sting‘s wife, about the development of The Emperor’s New Groove. The documentary has been closeted since completion; Disney will not give permission to show any of their film or artwork. They see it as an attack on the empire, and would like to keep the film under wraps. Sampson tells the history of this documentary and gives a thorough review of what’s in it. (His column may be as close as we come to previewing it.)
Steve Hulett also offers some nice comments about the film on the TAG Blog. He and I don’t quite agree on the completed film, The Emperor’s New Groove. I very much did not like that film.
There are a number of pieces on the internet that give a good indication of the turmoil that followed this film. If you haven’t read Dave Pruiksma‘s letter of resignation from Disney animation, I encourage you to.
When I met Trudie Styler in 1994, at a film festival in Indianapolis, she had just screened the documentary she’d produced with the fine director, Michael Apted. Moving the Mountain was a film about the demonstrations and confrontations between students and police in Peking, 1989, for more democracy in the People’s Republic of China. Kingdom of the Sun and The Emperor’s New Groove weren’t even on the horizon at that time.
On the opening day of Tarzan‘s showing at the Guild theater in Manhattan, I took my small studio to the first screening. As we exited, Sting was outside buying a ticket for the second show. Somehow we caught eyes, almost as though he’d known me; an odd moment, I continued on. It’s obvious, look back on it, he was about to get entangled with the Disney machine and was checking out the work Phil Collins had done for Tarzan.
Too bad Sting’s collaboration didn’t turn out as well. I suspect it wasn’t his fault.
Ever busy animator, Patrick Smith, has an art gallery opening and showing coming up this next Tuesday. About the work, Patrick had this statement:
Using the figure as a building block, intertwining with other figures, is a powerful method of constructing a broader configuration. The concept of people supporting others to achieve something larger than themselves can have a sublime result, and it’s something that I enjoy illustrating. It sounds a bit like he’s describing the animation studio process. Not a bad model to emulate in his art.
Patrick Smith – Configurations
CVZ Contemporary Gallery
446 Broadway(below grand) 5th floor, NYC.
Once again, I have to point out the excellent work Mark Mayerson is doing on analyzing Pinocchio. This has been a monstrous feat to accomplish, and Mark continues earnestly, now approaching the final climax. Coupled with the beautiful BG reconstructions on Hans Bacher‘s site, we can reappreciate the brilliant work done at Disney’s studio back then.
I bow to both Mark and Hans for the work and attention they’re giving this treasure of a film.
Can someone tell me how in hell we went from . . .
_____________________this . . . __________________ . . . to this ?
_
on 14 Sep 2007 at 12:55 pm 1.Tom Minton said …
I made it to the Beverly Center and caught “The Sweatbox” during the one week it was playing in 2002. The picture is absolutely worth seeing and maybe now that the people running Disney aren’t the same troubled authority figures lurking in Trudy Styler’s documentary, it could see the light of day, at least as a DVD supplement, down the road. It would be of particular interest to animation students, providing a riveting glimpse of one path they may or may not choose to take as creative people in a very corporate culture.
on 14 Sep 2007 at 1:44 pm 2.Jason McDonald said …
My eyes are bleeding from seeing those #$%@! CG characters. Why!? Why are they doing this?! GAK!
on 14 Sep 2007 at 4:46 pm 3.fishmorgjp said …
Maybe evil spirits or aliens possess the physical forms of entertainment executives, and force them to make stuff like Loonatics Unleashed, or CG Chipmunks? (It was bad enough when the Chipmunks were “re-imagined” soft and cute in the 80s.) Evil spirits or aliens, they just aren’t happy unless they’re wiping their butts on established characters.
on 14 Sep 2007 at 6:04 pm 4.Tags said …
It’s like the bizarro-world Jerry, George and Kramer characters that almost charmed Elaine on that one Seinfeld episode, until she figured out it was just not going to work.
on 15 Sep 2007 at 6:18 am 5.Stephen said …
Money!
on 15 Sep 2007 at 11:21 pm 6.Eddie Fitzgerald said …
Wow! Those two Chipmunk pictures side by side summarize my whole argument against 3D animation. Why are we doing this to ourselves?
on 16 Sep 2007 at 12:55 pm 7.Scott said …
Simon looks evil, doesn’t he?
on 17 Sep 2007 at 2:14 pm 8.Lionel said …
Hi Michael,
I would like to know what you thought of TENG, and why you did not like it. I absolutely do not work in the animation business (can’t even draw, unfortunately), but I think I have a good knowledge of american animation. True, TENG is no Pinocchio and no Bambi, and I intensely dislike garbage features filled with pop culture references such as Shrek, but to my utterly non professionnal eyes, TENG seemed a very funny, unpretentious, well animated and artistically pleasing movie (if far from a masterpiece, but not every film has to be). So I’d be very interested in reading your (opposing) opinion.
And, by the way, your site is absolutely GREAT!