Pinocchio Part 31

Copyright Confusion

Over at Slate.com, Tim Wu has written one of the best articles on copyright that I've ever read, showing how it's not working for even the major media conglomerates whose lobbyists influence the writing of the law.

Ed Catmull on Successful Companies

"Why do successful companies fail?" "What's more important, good people or good ideas?"

Here, courtesy of the Thinking Animation blog and Alan Cook, is a January 2007 speech by Pixar President Ed Catmull on why companies succeed and fail. It's lengthy (54 minutes) and will be more interesting to professionals than to students, mainly because professionals have all worked at companies that haven't lived up to their potential. Pixar is doing something right and Catmull is perceptive, thoughtful and articulate about what he sees as necessary for successful companies and the dangers that they face. Listen to it here.

Marjane Satrapi at the New York Film Festival

These are clips from a press conference after the screening of Perspeolis at the New York Film Festival. If you only watch one clip, make it the first where Satrapi talks about choosing animation over live action in order to increase audience identification with the characters.

Digital Distribution and Marketing

Scott Kirsner of the Cinematech blog hosted a workshop at the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco on the subject of Digital Distribution and Marketing. Below is a slide show of Kirsner's presentation, including some dollar figures.

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Hogan's Alley

The new issue of Hogan's Alley (#15) is out and as usual it has several articles that relate to animation. Noted animation historian Jim Korkis writes an extensive article about Disney's never-made feature based on Roald Dahl's Gremlins. Buck Biggers, one of the founders of Total TeleVision, the studio that produced Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo, is interviewed by Mark Arnold. Craig Shutt writes about Little Lulu and her appearances in many media, including animation for theatres and television.

Check out your local comics shop for this issue or order online here.

Pinocchio Part 30C

We've all seen chase sequences. One of the things that makes them work is recognizable geography. One party in the chase goes past an identifiable landmark and then a shot or two later, the other party passes the same landmark. It's a way for the audience to know who is in front and how much space is between the two parties.

One of the most interesting things about the whale chase is that there is almost no recognizable geography. Until the end, when Pinocchio swims towards a gap in the rocky shoreline, all we've got is water and sky. There are rocks that go by in the foreground to add depth to shots, but these rocks are fairly generic. We're not using them as landmarks to measure the relative positions of the characters.

In a situation like this, screen direction becomes the only tool to communicate location to the audience. It's one of the reasons I'm so impressed with this sequence and the credit goes to sequence director Bill Roberts and layout supervisor Al Zinnen. In the hands of lesser film makers, a chase on the open ocean could be confusing; the audience could easily lose its bearings. Roberts and Zinnen make sure that we always understand where the characters are relative to each other and they do it with screen direction.

As the sequence starts, Pinocchio and Geppetto are pushing their raft screen left, trying to get past Monstro's teeth. Monstro sneezes them out and then on his inhale, begins to pull them back towards screen right. We can easily tell by their direction whether they're getting farther or closer to Monstro.

Monstro then starts to chase them towards screen left and dives below the water. When he rises below the raft in shot 12, he's still heading towards screen left as the raft is lifted and Geppetto and Pinocchio bounce along Monstro's back. This shot always astounds me. For one thing, the use of scale contrasts the fragility of Geppetto and Pinocchio relative to Monstro's bulk. For another, this shot trumps any in John Huston's version of Moby Dick. Here is animation doing something that live action could not duplicate until the advent of cgi.

Geppetto and Pinocchio fall into the water and then there is a clear shot of Monstro turning around and swimming towards screen right. There's no ambiguity here as to where Monstro is going next. Geppetto and Pinocchio climb back on the raft and start to paddle towards screen right. When Monstro catches up with them and looms over them, they reverse direction and paddle screen left. Monstro's tail descends and smashes the raft before he continues under water off screen towards the right.

Pinocchio swims to save Geppetto and Monstro emerges from the water now heading screen left towards the pair. Pinocchio looks screen right and sees Monstro approaching. Then he looks screen left and sees the gap in the rocks at the shoreline. He starts swimming towards screen left, pulling Geppetto behind him, while Monstro pursues.

When Pinocchio has reached the rocks, we get a point of view shot where Monstro is swimming towards the camera. Monstro leaps over some rocks heading screen left. Pinocchio frantically tries to swim into the gap screen left. Monstro leaps towards the camera in shot 39, almost devouring the audience in the most dramatic shot of the sequence.

(And I wonder if there was a debate as to how close to bring Monstro to the camera. After the criticism that Snow White was too scary for young children, did they cut this shot before Monstro's mouth enveloped the camera? My modern sensibility wishes that they'd let Monstro get closer before cutting.)

Monstro then smashes into the rocks going screen left and beyond the rocks, the tide moving screen left washes up Geppetto and then follows by washing up Figaro and Cleo in a terribly unbelievable coincidence. A close examination of the sequence shows that Figaro and Cleo disappear in shot 12 and are definitely not on the raft in shot 15 when Pinocchio and Geppetto climb back on. I've often wondered why there wasn't a shot of Geppetto putting them into the trunk on the raft and have the trunk wash up onto shore. It's not a perfect solution, but better than the one that was chosen.

Forgetting about Figaro and Cleo, there is never a moment where the audience is confused about the relative locations of the characters. That allows the audience to concentrate on the danger and as a result the suspense never lets up. The storytelling here is exquisitely clear in a difficult setting for a chase.

"Weenie Villains"

Will Finn made a comment about weenie villains that got me thinking about the interplay between Disney villains and the threat of death.

Except for Snow White, the early Disney features didn't have single villains. Pinocchio has Stromboli, Honest John, the Coachman and Monstro. Dumbo has the elephants, the circus patrons, the clowns and the ringmaster. Bambi has the hunters, their dogs, their fire, but also winter and male rivals. I think that this kind of villainy is in line with the complexity of the Depression. There was general frustration that there was nobody to blame or hold accountable for the economic collapse. It was a multifaceted problem, and so audiences of the time were able to deal with the idea that obstacles and threats come from many sources.

Once World War II arrived, you've got individuals who are singled out as the root causes of the problem: Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. In the post-war world, Stalin, Kruschev and Mao take their places. Once Disney got back to full length animated features with Cinderella, only three of the films through the retirement of the nine old men had multiple sources of conflict and not single villains.

Alice in Wonderland is more of a road movie than one where the Queen of Hearts is the source of conflict. Lady and the Tramp is very situational, with Lady having to deal with the repercussions of a new baby in the family. If there's a villain in the film, it's the rat, but the rat doesn't drive the film the way that Cinderella's stepmother or Captain Hook drive theirs. The other film that is somewhat situational is The Sword in the Stone, where the medieval society prevents Wart from realizing his potential and only a miracle can free him from serfdom. There is Madam Mim, but like the rat in Lady and the Tramp, she hardly motivates the majority of Wart's troubles.

Cinderella, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Robin Hood and The Rescuers are all driven by villains. However, here is where the "weenie" part comes in. Prior to Peter Pan, no Disney villains in features had bumbling sidekicks. (Honest John has Gideon in Pinocchio, but Honest John himself is not the threat; it's where he takes Pinocchio that's the problem.) Comic sidekicks for villains are also present in Dalmatians, Robin Hood and The Rescuers. In some films, like Pan, Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Robin Hood and The Rescuers, the villains are treated comically themselves.

This is why death doesn't seem as threatening in the later Disney features. It may be present, but there's so much comedy surrounding the villains or the climaxes (Baloo is tossing off one-liners while Shere Khan is attacking), that the films are winking at the audience, reassuring them not to get too worried.

There is no winking in early Disney features. The conflicts and obstacles facing the characters are not funny, which is why the threat of death is taken seriously.

Pinocchio Part 30B

One of the things I find fascinating about the early Disney features is how much the characters are threatened by death. Snow White goes into a coma and if not for the dwarfs emotional inability to say goodbye to her would be buried alive. Pinocchio dies and has to be resurrected by the Blue Fairy. Dumbo falls from a dangerous height as he grapples with losing the magic feather. Fantasia's "Night on Bald Mountain" has the dead rising from their graves. Bambi's mother dies and Bambi has to survive hunters, dogs and a forest fire, any of which are capable of killing him.

While the Disney shorts play with death, whether it's The Skeleton Dance or The Goddess of Spring, nothing in the shorts comes close to the threats that the early feature characters regularly encounter. Considering that Disney films were always considered family films, why is death such a major part of them?

I suspect that the Depression, the looming second world war and the instability of the Disney studio in the 1930's all contributed to the feeling that life was precarious. The audiences had been through a lot in their own lives, so they had a gut understanding of how quickly someone's well-being could be threatened or destroyed. Of course, as tough as the Disney characters had it, they were saved at the end. The ultimate happy ending is to cheat death and additionally get what you've struggled for, whether it's a prince, humanity, status, or just the ability to live out your life.

What's interesting is this focus on death didn't survive the early features. Perhaps the audience was exhausted after the war or the generation that lived through it and the depression didn't want to upset their own children in the 1950's. Perhaps because the Disney studio was on firmer footing after Cinderella and Disneyland, the threat of collapse was not as strong. In any case, while death is alluded to in films like Peter Pan or Lady and the Tramp, it's not nearly as compelling as it is in the early features. By the time Woolie Reitherman took over direction, death wasn't taken seriously. Baloo's "death" in The Jungle Book is a momentary tug at the heart en route to some baggy pants comedy.

The whale chase in Pinocchio is exciting for many reasons. It's beautifully laid out and cut. The action and effects animation are done well. Monstro is imposing in terms of his size and strength. But it is the life and death nature of the chase that gives it most of its power. Geppetto and Pinocchio are overmatched against Monstro. They are literally swimming for their lives, not hoping to best Monstro in any way, just to avoid his wrath. The threat of death, convincingly portrayed by the artists, means that we fear for the characters and that emotional connection is what makes our hearts race.

Michael Sporn Retrospective

Michael Sporn has posted the program for his retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It takes place November 9-12 and I recommend you attend if you'll be in the New York area on those dates.

The films showcase Michael's interest in New York, social problems, children's literature and show the range of his eclectic design approach. In addition, the films include excellent animation by Tissa David (The Red Shoes, The Marzipan Pig), John Dilworth (Lyle, Lyle Crocodile) and Dante Barbetta (Ira Sleeps Over).

Several works by William Steig are adapted including Abel's Island (for my money, Mike's masterpiece, pictured above), the Oscar nominated Dr. DeSoto and The Amazing Bone. If your only knowledge of Steig is Shrek, see what Steig looks like when his books are faithfully adapted for animation.

Michael will be appearing on stage for an interview conducted by John Canemaker and Joshua Siegel on November 12 at 7 p.m.

Pinocchio Part 30A

There are animation studios that are dominated by producers and animation studios that are dominated by directors. It's true today and it was true in the past as well. Disney was a studio heavily dominated by the producer, Walt Disney. His presence in story meetings and approving all the steps of the process mean that nothing got on the screen without his okay. Directors, regardless of their own points of view, were there to serve Walt Disney.

As a result, we don't really have much of a handle on many of the Disney directors. Those we can take the best measure of are those who directed shorts after the features became Walt Disney's main interest. When his interest in shorts declined, it left openings for directors like Jack Kinney and Jack Hannah to express more of themselves in their work.

However, there are some directors who never got out from under Disney's shadow. What are we to make of them? Which brings us back to the whale chase in Pinocchio and the sequence director Bill Roberts.

Not a lot has been written about Roberts. Shamus Culhane probably wrote the most in Talking Animals and Other People. When Culhane started animating at Disney, he was assigned to do corrections for Roberts, who at the time was a Pluto animator. What we learn from Culhane was that Roberts wasn't very talkative, struggled with his drawing, disdained the cuteness creeping into Disney cartoons but was sincerely interested in the work that he and Culhane were putting on the screen. Jack Kinney, in Walt Disney and Assorted Other Characters, says that Roberts went into real estate and construction after Disney and reportedly became wealthy. Those comments are like bookends on Roberts' career, but the middle part (which is the most interesting) is a blank.

No doubt that the story sketches and the layout team under Al Zinnen contributed many ideas to the whale chase, but Roberts was the director. He's got to deserve some of the credit but how much? Roberts also directed the "Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia, yet another action sequence with Woolie Reitherman animating, as well as "Mickey and the Beanstalk" in Fun and Fancy Free, another cartoon with a strong bent for adventure. Roberts sequence directed on Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros, but I have no idea which sequences he was responsible for.

While Alberto Becattini has Roberts working in the animation business as early as 1919, I have no idea when he was born or died. It appears that he left Disney in the late 1940's, but did he quit or was he caught in one of the post-war layoffs? By now, even his children (if he had any) may have passed on. So we've got a name and a few reminiscences, but no real way to judge a director who worked on some of the most important animated films in history.

Pinocchio Part 30

Ottawa Animation Festival

I was extremely tired during the Ottawa Festival, so I've decided to only talk about films that I enjoyed even in my exhausted state. It's quite possible that a second viewing would lead me to different conclusions for films I didn't like, so rather than say things I'll later regret, I'll stick to what I liked. I've also reconciled myself to the fact that my taste and that of festival organizer Chris Robinson differ. It's pointless to criticize this year's selection as it was consistent with previous years and will no doubt be consistent with coming years so long as Robinson is making the selection.

The Ottawa Festival is one of the most heavily scheduled events I know of; every time slot now has four events running concurrently. While that pretty much guarantees there will be something of interest every waking moment, it's also a guarantee that you miss things you'd like to see. For the record, I saw three of the five competition screenings, one of the two screenings of films for children, one of four UPA retrospective screenings, and two of the three features. I also attended two panels (one of which I spoke at) and a master class.

I've already praised Perspeolis and Golden Age. In the competition, another favorite film was Lapsus by Juan Pablo Zaramella of Argentina. It's a graphically simple film, black and white with no half-tones, where a nun confronts a dark space. The film is highly inventive and funny, doing a lot with little. You can watch a brief clip of the film here.
Zhiharka by Oleg Usinov of Russia is a fairy tale about a girl trying to avoid being eaten by a fox. The film had great humour and fantastic energy. I'm constantly amazed by the lack of timing in modern animation. This film was expertly timed and really carried the audience along as a result. If you can read Russian, you can find more about the film here. If there's a link to a clip, somebody please let me know.

The UPA screening I attended was the one dedicated to directors. I think that Bobe Cannon is underrated as an animator and as a director. His animation in Robin Hoodlum very stylish and got me thinking about what we've lost in animation. There's no shortage of original design work visible at the Ottawa Festival, but I don't think that there's much in the way of original motion. Certainly, there's little where the quality of movement itself is entertaining in the way that Bobe Cannon routinely animated. I'm pretty sure that he did the fox and the knight here as well as the fox drinking his first cup of tea.

Robin Hoodlum
Uploaded by thadk

Cannon's direction also used movement to entertain. I think that I already linked to Christopher Crumpet, but here it is again. Christopher's walk and his first transformation into a chicken are both fun in and of themselves. Bilgewater's stylized way of moving from pose to pose with no inbetweens is also fun to watch, as is the mother tripping and landing at the dinner table. These things don't take money to do, they just take imagination, but I don't see enough of it these days.

Persepolis

Persepolis started as a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. It's autobiographical, relating her childhood in Iran during the period when the Shah was deposed and the government that replaced it was (and remains) an Islamic theocracy. This combination of a coming-of-age story set against political turmoil is what gives the story its power. Satrapi's family is politically liberal, so their position relative to the government was always precarious.

Marjane confronted for wearing a Michael Jackson button.

Persepolis is now an animated feature made in France, co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. It's currently playing festivals (The Toronto International Film Festival and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where I saw it and where it took the award for Best Animated Feature). It is due for release in North America in December in order to qualify for the Oscars. It has already been selected as France's Oscar entry for the category Best Foreign Language Film and of course it will be eligible for a nomination for Best Animated Feature.

The film is a successful adaptation of Satrapi's book and I highly recommend that you see it. Besides being a satisfying experience in itself, it stands in stark opposition to most Hollywood animated features. It's drawn animation. It's black and white. It deals with politics and the real world. It not only has a female protagonist, but as Satrapi is the screenwriter and co-director, it has a genuinely female point of view.

Marjane with her grandmother, one of the most vivid characters in the film.

All of the above qualities are nothing special in live action. I'm sure that the audiences who view Persepolis at live action film festivals will that find it fits easily into the world of independent films and their subject matter. But in the world of animation, Persepolis blazes many new trails and it shows just how provincial animated features are.

Yes, short animated films tackle many of the same themes, but the films are difficult to find and rarely reviewed. Whether we like it or not, features are the coin of the realm when it comes to film, and it's there that audiences and critics focus their attention.

Animation tends to speak metaphorically. If it has a point to make, it places it within a fantasy context. This is one of the things that's kept animation at the children's table. Only a few animated film makers working in long format have grappled with the world as it is: Ralph Bakshi and Paul Fierlinger come to mind.

What Satrapi has done with her first film is to show that animation is capable of more than Hollywood will allow. The film has shattered many tropes of conventional wisdom and proved in its festival screenings that it satisfies audiences. What she's done is to take subject matter that's commonplace in independent films and shown that animation can communicate it successfully. It's depressing that someone without a background in animation can use the medium more broadly than those who have laboured in the industry.

Perspepolis will not be the highest grossing animated film released this year. It may not win any Oscars. But Persepolis is unquestionably the most important animated film of the year in terms of its subject matter and how the subject is treated. Perspeolis suggests a way forward that animation has mostly ignored. I'm not saying that all animated films should be like this one, but what good is a medium that voluntarily avoids dealing with large portions of human experience? That's Hollywood animation in a nutshell.

Director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart, Nobody's Fool) said in a recent interview,

“I believe there are conversations filmmakers have with one another that they don’t have across the table,” said Mr. Benton. “I believe Butch Cassidy [and the Sundance Kid] is a conversation that Will Goldman was having with Bonnie and Clyde. Its a conversation that can only be done through work.”

I'm sure that Marjane Satrapi was focused on bringing her story to the screen as effectively as possible rather than challenging the animation industry. Be that as it may, she has entered the conversation. The question is, will anyone respond?

Cintiq or Not Cintiq

There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Animation Guild blog about the use of Cintiq tablets in the various stages of animation production. With the Cintiq, you draw on the computer screen so it resembles paper in that your eyes focus on your drawing hand. It's a relatively new technology and the talk is about the potential for a paperless animation studio, though some artists have reservations about its use.

Golden Age

Golden Age is a series of 10 short parodies of various aspects of animation history made by Augenblick Studios. The series was done for Comedy Central and ran at the Ottawa Festival.

We're surrounded by parody in cartoons these days, but Golden Age is more sharply written and more quickly timed than most. The level of invention is high and there's not a bad one in the bunch. You can find the rest of them here. Enjoy.

When Walt Kelly Met Chuck Jones

I'm back from Ottawa, but it's going to take a few days to pull myself together and collect my thoughts. In the meantime, here is the 1969 Pogo Special Birthday Special, written by Walt Kelly and directed by Chuck Jones. Kelly and Jones also provided several voices for this.

I know from talking to Kelly's widow Selby that Kelly was disappointed in the results of the collaboration. It was because of this TV special that Kelly and Selby started their own animated short, We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.

Unique Distribution Idea

Here's a unique way to get your movie out to the public: sell distribution rights to a newspaper and have them insert DVDs of your film into the Sunday paper. You get paid for the local distribution rights, the paper sees a circulation bump because readers get a free movie with the cost of the newspaper, and your film gets seen by lots of people and generates word of mouth.

(courtesy of Mark Evanier.)

Heading to Ottawa

I'll be arriving at the Ottawa International Animation Festival on Friday and staying through the weekend. On Saturday at 1, I'll be on a panel about animation blogging at the Arts Court - Club SAW with Michael Barrier, Jerry Beck and (I think) Ward Jenkins. If you follow any of the above bloggers, stop by and meet us in person.

Joanna Quinn in Canada

I had the pleasure of attending a screening of Joanna Quinn's work on Tuesday night, hosted by Quinn herself and Michael Fukushima of the NFB. I had only seen Quinn's first film, Girl's Night Out, and some of her commercial work for Charmin prior to this, and the screening showed me that she's much more than these films would suggest. Her other films demonstrated the high quality of Quinn's draftsmanship, her love of natural motion and her keen social awareness. Her films like The Wife of Bath show her continued interest in sexual politics and Brittania is a fantastic look at imperialism.

This is Quinn's first visit to Canada. There will be a retrospective of her work at the Ottawa International Film Festival on Saturday at 1 in the National Arts Centre Southam Hall and a master class on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. at the NAC Fourth stage. She'll be appearing in Montreal after the festival (though I don't have the specifics for the Montreal appearance).

Quinn herself is very personable, happy to admit to her mistakes while learning animation and to talk about her process and priorities as an artist. As her films are not yet on DVD, I urge you to take advantage of her Canadian appearances if you can.

The trailer below represents Quinn to commercial clients. It gives a good idea of her design and animation approach but completely shortchanges the content of her work, which is far more intelligent than this trailer suggests.