Daily post 17 Jan 2009 09:40 am
There are things
- This video has been around for some time, but it’s new to me so forgive me if it’s old news to you. But 
here’s a music video I enjoyed – a lot. It was done at Passion Pictures by Laith Bahrani. The song, JCB, is by the band “Nizlopi” and consists of three extremely long scenes. Lots of work. to pull of something that looks so simple. He talks a bit about this video – for a hit song in England – here.
And if you don’t look at the JCB video defintiely look at the Radionhead video Bahrani did for their song “Creep“. One scene, the entire piece. Extraordinary work, in my opinion.
You can scan his site, Monkeehub, if you want more.
Cartoon Brew pointed to this post on Sherm Cohen’s site, Cartoon Site. It’s a well illustrated piece on the life work of Dan Gordon. From the Florida Fleischers to the Hollywood Hanna-Barbera, Gordon was there, and he hasn’t gotten the attention he’s deserved.
2 Dan Gordon storyboard drawings from the first Flintstones, courtesy of AnimationArtGallery.com
Thanks to Sherm Cohen for writing it and Cartoon Brew for directing me to it.
- As readers of this site know, I usually agree enthusiastically with much of Mike Barrier‘s thoughts on animation and film. We have similar opinions – usually. His recent comments on The Tale of Despereaux represents a fine example of our disagreeing. The film is not earth-shatteringly good, but it’s certainly one of the two or three best animated features I’ve seen this year. There’s nothing for it to apologize for.
I very much like the design styling. It looks as though it were hand drawn (as much as cgi puppets can be), and took its art direction cues from late Middle Ages French artwork. A lot of careful thought was also given to the lighting and the gentle movements of the characters. (No snappy and tedious pose hits in the movement here.) The voice work and music were also fine. It isn’t a great film, but, to me, it’s miles above many other animated films and blockbusters I’ve seen recently.
To say that it’s too terrifying to children is, to me, ridiculous. Snow White, The Lion King and Bambi were both made for the same audience – the family. All three of those were certainly violent and more damaging than anything presented in Despereaux. As a children’s film maker, I’m tired of hearing people talk about how upsetting these fairy tale themes are to children. Read Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” (wherein the lead girl has her legs chopped off to stop the shoes from dancing) or “The Little Match Girl” (when she dies frozen in the cold.) Read Perrault’s “Cinderella” (where the step-sisters cut off their toes and heel to fit into the glass slippers) or anything from the Grimm Brothers. It’s all more horrific than what the film makers do in these “children’s films” because the words describe images we create in our minds. We can handle what moves across the screen so quickly, but it’s hard to get those “imagined” ideas out of our heads. And why should we? They didn’t damage our parents or grandparents who actually read this material.
Regardless, Despereaux is not a bad film. I’d prefer looking at it than all of the Madagascars and ugly Shreks, and I preferred it significantly more than I did Wall-E. It’s my opinion, and others have theirs. The film has just gotten too many hits for my taste when it actually improves upon what we’ve seen in animation these past few years.
- Finally, Darrell Van Citters‘ new book discussing, analyzing and honoring Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol will be released in the Fall of ’09. It’ll be nice to see this Abe Levitow film get some well deserved attention. I think it’s one of the best adaptations of Dickens’ novella, and it includes some of Jule Styne’s finest songs. By the way, why hasn’t anyone released an album of the music and songs from this film? It’s a gem of a track.
Of course, we got to see 200 reruns of The Grinch this Christmas but no Magoo! There’s a conspiracy going on.
You can read more about the book on the Abe Levitow site.
Take a note, Amazon, I’m ready to preorder.
on 17 Jan 2009 at 11:19 am 1.Simon W-H said …
I haven’t seen Despereaux yet, But I agree with your comments about content. As a child I loved the scary bits in the classic Disney and other films aimed at a family audience. I also loved the frightening and gruesome parts of traditional fairy tales, I don’t think it is damaging…well, it didn’t damage me. Society is going nuts with this attitude of closeting children from any but the most vacuous and benign of entertainment experiences.
Conflict and terror are all part of the rich experience of the imagination; presented in the format of a motion picture or folk tale, I really don’t thik it harms young minds. On the contrary.
on 17 Jan 2009 at 1:02 pm 2.David Nethery said …
I agree with you about The Tale of Despereaux . Did Barrier end up seeing it ?
His earlier comment was something to the effect of : “this looks like a kiddie movie and I don’t plan to see it.” I’d be curious to see if he changed his mind upon actually seeing the film.
I have to admit I was going to take a pass on seeing Despereaux too (maybe rent it later on DVD) until I saw a brief review of it by an artist I respect , Michel Gagné , who included it on his “Best Animation of ’08 ” list , saying that “The biggest surprise however, was Desperaux. I really enjoyed the story, the animation and the art direction. I loved the character designs. The eyes were particularly amazing – they made you believe the characters had souls. Desperaux scores big on Character Design, Animation and Art Direction. ”
That got me into the theater and I’m glad I saw it on a big screen. It was a beautiful looking film.
There are some production design paintings done for the film by Evengi Tomov (who was also the production designer on “The Triplets of Belleville”) :
http://www.evgenitomov.com/portfolio.html
Keith Lango also posted a positive review :
http://keithlango.blogspot.com/2009/01/despereaux-delightful.html
on 17 Jan 2009 at 6:05 pm 3.Michael said …
I saw Tale of Despereaux in dvd, and I have to say my intensity level wasn’t high. I was interrupted several times. Perhaps for that reason, I found the story confusing, and I thought it could have been told more clearly. I also have problems when a film shifts focus from one character to another. I like to feel a film has one particular interest in mind. However, despite saying all that I was captivated by much of the design, the voice work and some of the animation. That’s saying a lot for me considering I don’t like most cgi films.
on 18 Jan 2009 at 6:09 am 4.slowtiger said …
Desperaux’ trailer on the big screen here (before Madagascar 2) convinced me to watch it when it opens. OK, it’s a children’s film, and it’s another Mouse-as-Hero film (like Stuart Little, Mouse Hunt, The Witches). But just the background designs deserve a closer look. I haven’t seen anything so painterly-like yet, and I mean old paintings.
In general it is worth to pay a closer look at animation from France. There’s a much greater diversity in styles and stories than Hollywood does deliver recently.
on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:16 am 5.David Nethery said …
“I also have problems when a film shifts focus from one character to another. I like to feel a film has one particular interest in mind. ”
Yes , that is the film’s greatest weakness and what has put most people off about it . I don’t think it’s the greatest film in the world in terms of dynamic , gripping storytelling , but I was basically told be some people before I saw it that I’d hate the film and that it’s a waste of time . But when I did see it (on Michel Gagne’s recommendation) I was pleasantly surprised.
The film’s other charms made up for the episodic , wide ranging character arcs.
on 18 Jan 2009 at 10:48 am 6.Kellie Strøm said …
On scary films, my going-on five year old daughter saw Finding Nemo for the first time with a friend yesterday. While she said it was scary, she disagreed with my description of the beginning as sad. Y’see her friend had reassured her it was okay for the shark to eat Nemo’s mother, because the mother was a baddie!
on 18 Jan 2009 at 12:52 pm 7.Michael said …
Slowtiger, the animation for Despereaux, as I understand, was done by Framestore in London although production offices were in the US. I haven’t heard about French participation in the film although I have no doubt French animators worked on it – they obviously had a call out for animators from the entire world to participate.
on 19 Jan 2009 at 4:51 pm 8.Robert Schaad said …
Razzleberry Dressing, indeed!
on 19 Jan 2009 at 4:51 pm 9.billburg said …
I have a vivid memory of seeing Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol when I was about six years old. I had no prior knowledge of Magoo–he was simply Scrooge to me. It was such a riveting, emotional experiece that it felt like the film was several hours long (rather than the actual 53 minutes). For you folks who haven’t seen it, I know this sounds hard to believe, but Michael is right: it really is one of the best adaptations of the story ever made.
on 20 Jan 2009 at 10:50 am 10.Elliot Cowan said …
A bunch of us went to see this recently and after the screening several folks Splog visitors were surprised that you had been so kind to it.
For the most part, we thought it was not very good.
Some did like the design, although I did not.
Regardless of how it looked, I felt the storytelling was the films biggest problem.