Commentary 30 Mar 2013 04:35 am
Brewing Sqwiglies
- Richard O’Connor turned his animation studio, Ace and Son into an art gallery this past Thursday night to celebrate the art of Fred Mogubgub. Fred was something of a wildly eccentric genius who rode the animation studios from the forties through the eighties. He was know publicly in animation for Enter Hamlet a short that used the voice of Maurice Evans performing the “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy from Hamlet, while funny drawings pass in front of the camera.
Fred was an artist, and Richard owns many of his works of art. A large number of oil paintings, watercolors and animation pieces. I’d seen Enter Hamlet in 1965 as a young animation enthusiast, and I knew Fred’s work from The Big Blue Marble which was wildly popular in NY.
The event was a wonderful party where I met up with George Griffin, Liesje Kraai, Lee Corey, Larry Ruppel, and Elliot Cowan among others. Richard went to the trouble of searching out for wine from Lebanon which he felt was appropriate in Fred’s Lebanese honor. As my astute wife, Heidi Stallings, pointed out, it was very much like the old days when people actually socialized with each other. I miss the mingling, too, and it was nice to get out to something other than for a holiday event. And how much better than to toast an extraordinary artist like Fred Mogubgub.
Unfortunately, I didn’t properly mark down the titles of the paintings. I’ll try to fill those in later in the day. Here are the pictures:
1Spirit #4
2
A cel setup from a BeechNut Gum ad.
3
Who Cares?
4
Untitled
5
Jockey Club
6
George and Frédéric Depart to Spain
7
Untitled [possibly unfinished as it's unsigned and undated]
8
“Goodnight, Harry Houdini”
9
“Vaclav Nijinsky”
10
At The Ritz
11
Olga at Antibbes
12
Spirit #1
13
Spirit #2
14
Spirit #3
2 Miyazakis on Poppy Hill
- This week I saw The Croods (and reviewed it here) and From Up on Poppy Hill. I really wanted Poppy Hill to be a small masterpiece, but it wasn’t. It was just a trek. I wanted Goro Miyazaki to have a glimmer of the old man in him; it’ll be hard to let go of Hayao Miyazaki when he retires or decides to end his enormous career. This film was supposedly written by Hayao in collaboration with the son, Goro. I didn’t feel the spirituality of Goro in this movie; That’s what I love about Hayao’s films; there’s a spirituality. All those films (at least since Totoro) are about so much more than what’s on the surface. What’s on the surface is usually good, too. And lately the animation has been getting better. If there’s any spirituality in Goro, it didn’t make it to the big screen, and the animation was first class TV work. No magic there, either.
It’s the second film directed by Goro Miyazaki. Tales from Earthsea should have jump-started a new career. The film was just dull. I assume the artists at Studio Ghibli want things to go on, as well. Poppy Hill had some of the elements of a Ghibli production; it just lacked the magic. First rate styling, fine character design (they all do look a bit like, at times), and a human story.
Although the story had too little in it. It was quite subtle and for a sophomore director to pull it off was too much to ask. The animation rarely had a spark. The characters always did what they were asked to do, but they didn’t really have much of a lifetime within them. The director needed a LOT of experience within him to pull it off, needed a lot of animation experience to be able to pull stronger performances out of his animators and needed a stronger connection to the story to make us care about those characters. Zer0 for three.
Don’t get me wrong; I’d take this over The Croods any day, but I’d prefer to have something good rather than either of these movies.
Crood Surfacing
I saw this interview with “surfacer” Animator T.J. Nabors on line and I thought I’d share it with you. She sought work as a textile designer and taught herself computer art and animation from an Amiga on up. Several design jobs later, from millinery to Laika commercial division, and, before you know it, she is a supervising surface animator for Dreamworks. Her specialty on this film was the creature pictured above.
I was attracted to the article about a “surfacer” because that was one aspect of the film that really caught my attention. It does from time to time in these cg films. There was one elf (I don’t know Hobbit or something) in the Hobbit that had lots of hair. But the surface of his skin was, to me, stunning. I looked forward to shots of this guy so that I could look into his cheeks. It was 
extraordinary work, in my opinion, and I’m pretty sure it had to have been done with computer enhancing. You can’t get that with latex. In The Croods I was wholly taken by the surface of the girl’s skin. She was most definitely a thick skinned character, slightly darker than other characters. It remained consistent for the entire 90 minute journey of the film. I hated the expressions on her face, most of the time as the penchant for “cute” is too strong for most Dreamworks animators, however the skin of that girl was something to behold. She truly felt like a “cave woman”, and I found that impressive. The same was true of the father, Nicholas Cage’s character. The voice reading kept turning me off, but the character built into the animation wa most impressive. With him, though, it wasn’t the “skin” that I paid attention to, it was the subtle motions that kept him 20% Neanderthal to his 80% human. He was most definitely something else.
This is aside attraction I find with these cgi features. The “animation” means something else again in these films. It’s part of the reason I have to think of that medium more as digital puppetry than as animation, in the same sense that a 2D person (me, for example) would think of it. I don’t think I’m putting anything down; I’m just trying to get past the roots to look more closely at the follicle, itself.
Anyway, never mind my hang up. Enjoy the interview. I’d like to see a lot more like these rather than the generic animation artist interview. As much of a puff piece as this is, I’ve been able to learn something from it.
Actually, Life of Pi gave me new found respect for the work done by these folk. In my mind, the work in that movie is the reason why cgi was invented. There’s the art. It may hae taken a lot of features like Toy Story and Monsters Inc. to get there, but Pi is where the form was finally and properly used.
In Show
Here are a list of the U.S. films that have made it into Annecy or Anifilm competition screenings. Only two US features seem to have made it – Consuming Spirits and It’s Such a Beautiful Day. Congrats to Chris Sulliven AND Don Hertzfeldt.
in competition at ANIFILM
Consuming Spirits | Chris Sullivan | USA
It’s such a beautiful day | Don HERTZFELDT | USA
Feral | Daniel SOUSA | USA
Sidewalk | Celia BULLWINKEL | USA
And/Or | Emily HUBLEY | USA
in competition at ANNECY
Independent films:
Drunker than a Skunk | Bill PLYMPTON | USA
Feral | Daniel Sousa | USA
Fight | Steven SUBOTNICK | USA
Marcel, King of Tervuren | Tom SCHROEDER | USA
Education:
What Makes a Hero? | Kirill YERETSKY | USA
Congratulations to all those who made it. It’s a tough game these days.
(I didn’t include TV series or TV Specials, because that’s just
big business, and I’m not too interested in congratulating some company.)
A History of Computer Animation
(Is there a history already?)
Here‘s an interview with my friend Tom Sito on his new book, a history of computer animation. Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation.
It should be interesting since Tom has been a fantastic 2D animator. I’m curious as to what he has to say about the machines.
on 31 Mar 2013 at 12:13 pm 1.Nat said …
I’m eternally thankful that Up on Poppy Hill was better than Tales from Earthsea (which was an absolute train wreck), but Goro Miyazaki certainly hasn’t shown to be good as directing as his father, at least not yet. Although, to be fair, Hayao is a very hard person to measure up to.
on 31 Mar 2013 at 6:28 pm 2.Amid said …
Annecy hasn’t announced their feature competition selections yet so there may be some American features on that list.
on 31 Mar 2013 at 6:30 pm 3.Amid said …
Sorry for the double comment, but Julia Pott’s THE EVENT is also an American film in competition at Annecy. There are also 5 American student films in competition.
on 31 Mar 2013 at 8:49 pm 4.Mario NC said …
Although Miyazaki wrote Up on Poppy Hill, the movie is actually based on a original manga, so I’m guessing that even with the magic of the old man, the film is still an adaptation. I feel like the first half of the movie is smart and subtle, it’s until the second half (where a twist dominates the rest of the plot and even changes the entire meaning of the film) that everything falls apart.
In terms of the animation, my best guess is that Ghibli used a very limited budget for the film since, at the time, they were probably working in two big projects: the next film of Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.
On the other hand, I find your comment on Miyazaki’s “spirituality” quite intriguing. I get the impression that one of the reasons why the films of Miyazaki are so popular with American films critics (and hipsters, film students and so on) is that they are inherently very Japanese, but at the same time the cultural references are diluted in his particular style. They are more “universal”. Now, I’m not going to do the whole post-colonial analysis of this issue, but it is clear why Miyazaki’s film are so easy to market in the West. Contrast this to Isao Takahata, the other big director of the studio, whose movies are very difficult to market (with the sole exception of Grave of the Fireflies) because they are filled with a Japanese sensitivity directed at a Japanese audience. This is not a criticism, just an overall comment. I love their movies in equal terms, but for very different aesthetic reasons.
on 31 Mar 2013 at 10:41 pm 5.Michael said …
Unfortuately, if Miyazaki’s films were easy to market in the West he would have been successful. His films are not considered a success by any distributor that has handled his films. They barely pay back the cost of dubbing and distribution. Disney has tried to release his films (in a somewhat limited way) but have been unsuccessful. John Lassiter is an obvious support for Miyazaki who has helped get his films out in the West.
on 01 Apr 2013 at 12:27 pm 6.Charles Kenny said …
I would have to disagree in regards to the connection between the characters and the story in From Up On Poppy Hill.
My feelings were that while the story very much played second fiddle to the characters; it acted more as a catalyst to them than an engine of their actions.
I found my enjoyment of the film to be very much swayed by how the characters interacted with the story and how it served to define their emotions. The scene where Umi has a discussion with her mother is particularly strong.
All this comes with a grain of salt though; I actually like Tales From Earthsea.
on 03 Apr 2013 at 2:34 am 7.Dan said …
The problem facing Studio Ghibli is a lack of fresh new talent. Miyazaki the elder and Takahata aren’t getting any younger, and honestly, Goro doesn’t strike me as someone who is ready to take the reins of the studio.
On the bright side, there are a number of highly talented directors who have ascended the ranks in the field of Japanese animation over the past decade. Mamoru Hosoda* has made a number of endearing films (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars), and Masaaki Yuasa’s directorial works(Mind Game, Kaiba, Kemonozume, The Tatami Galaxy) are among the most expressive and experimental productions to come out of Japan in years.
*Hosoda was actually a potential candidate for successor to Miyazaki, but for whatever reason, he left the production of Howl’s Moving Castle and Studio Ghibli by extension.
on 03 Apr 2013 at 7:21 am 8.Michael said …
I couldn’t agree with you more, Dan. Goro Miyazaki, in my opinion, just wasn’t sophisticated enough a director to pull off the delicate and subtle relationship in Poppy Hill. It’ll take time and experience for him to learn. He’s definitely not ready to step into his father’s shoes, yet.