Twice Upon a Time

On Saturday night at 2:15 A.M. Eastern Time (really early Sunday morning), Turner Classic Movies will run a genuine rarity.  Twice Upon a Time (1983) is an animated feature that uses backlit translucent cut-outs in stop motion produced by George Lucas and directed by John Korty and Charles Swenson.  The film has never been on DVD and rarely runs on television.

The film features voice work by Lorenzo Music and Paul Frees.  There are many names in the crew recognizable from other work, such as David Fincher (who did special effects), Henry Selick, Kaj Pindal, and John Van Vliet.

TCM's blog Movie Morlocks discusses the career of John Korty and the circumstances surrounding the making of the film.   Ward Jenkins collects a bunch of YouTube clips and interviews Harley Jessup, the art director of the film.

The 1980s were an odd decade for animation.  Disney was rebuilding, Don Bluth was attempting to overtake them and Bakshi was in his rotoscope period.  The decade also saw lots of independent animated features that were interesting but failed to have much box office success.  It wasn't until the later '80s, when Disney got back on track and Spielberg got involved with animation that a new normal was established.  Prior to that, films like Twice Upon a Time, Heavy Metal, Grendel Grendel Grendel, The Plague Dogs, Rock and Rule, The Adventures of Mark Twain and When the Wind Blows were looking to take animation in new directions, but due to inexperience and audience prejudices, they failed.

While these films had small, but professional budgets, this kind of film is made today on a shoestring by independents like Bill Plympton, Nina Paley and Signe Baumane.  If those types of films are interesting to you, take a look at Twice Upon a Time.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

Mami Sunada's documentary on the creation of The Wind Rises, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, is a fascinating film for a wide variety of reasons.

The main one is Hayao Miyazaki himself, a gruff, prickly personality who has a love/hate relationship with making animated films.  He has devoted his life to something that he has large doubts about.  He says, "Today, all of humanity's dreams are cursed somehow.  Beautiful yet cursed dreams.  I'm not even talking about wanting to be rich or famous.  Screw that.  That's just hopeless.  What I mean is, how do we know movies are even worthwhile?  If you really think about it, is this not just some grand hobby?  Maybe there was a time when you could make films that mattered, but now?  Most of our world is rubbish.  It's difficult."

I would love to know if Miyazaki thought this way when he was younger or if there has been a darkening of his view over time.  There are artists who create to escape from themselves; to imagine a world better than the one they live in.  Miyazaki may be someone who has created pleasant fantasies to counterbalance his tendency to pessimism. The film reveals that Miyazaki's original intention was to have Jiro, the main character of The Wind Rises, die at the end, but he changed his mind.  Miyazaki affirms life, even as he questions its result.

The inside of Studio Ghibli is a lovely workspace, with large windows providing natural light and a rooftop garden that Miyazaki visits often.  It was interesting to compare the technical process to what's common in North America.  No animation disks are used, just floating pegs on tables with built in light boxes.  The Japanese all use the pegs at the top, in contrast to the North American preference for bottom pegs.  The backgrounds are still painted on paper and shot on an animation camera, though the animation drawings are brought into the computer for colouring and compositing with the backgrounds.  I was aware that voices are post-synched to picture, but the voice of Jiro was not even cast until much animation had been done. In North America, characters and animation are built on top of voices.

I knew nothing of producer Toshio Suzuki before seeing this film, but I have nothing but admiration for him now.  He is the producer that every director wants and needs.  He is level-headed and patient.  He is an ambassador for the studio with merchandisers, distributors and the press.  He works very hard, but never seems tired or on edge.  He is the calm in the middle of any storm.  While Miyazaki seems intimidating at times, Suzuki is never less than friendly.  Of the two, I suspect that spending time with Suzuki would be a lot more pleasant.

Unfortunately, the film has very little of Ghibli's other director, Isao Takahata.  We never see any part of his Princess Kaguya in production.  We do, however, meet the young producer in charge of that film, Yoshiaki Nishimura.  Takahata is apparently famous for being unable to stick to a schedule.  Initially, Ghibli intended to release Princess Kaguya simultaneously with The Wind Rises, but Takahata was unable to make the deadline.  Nishimura is the one who had to deal with trying to get the film finished.  In the DVD supplement called Ushiko Investigates! (Ushiko being the studio cat), Nishimura says, "I believe many works in this world are unnecessary.  I think there are a lot of them like that.  At one point, I thought if I had the time to be making anime like that, I'd rather devote my energy somewhere else.  A Takahata-san movie will be a masterpiece for 10 years, 20 years.  I figured it would be a work you'd want to see again and again.  Create 100 things in 10 years or create 1 thing in 10 years."  At Ghibli, while money must play a role in shaping the films, it isn't the only standard that's applied.

The same DVD extra contains a moment so brazen, I am amazed that it was included.  John Lasseter visits the studio and on camera talks about his admiration for Miyazaki's films.  The two of them seem to have a warm, personal relationship as they talk to each other and move through the studio.  When Miyazaki is alone, Sunada asks Miyazaki, "What do you like about Lasseter-san?"  Miyazaki's response is "What do I like about him?  That's not the kind of relationship we have with each other.  I need Lasseter.  He's necessary."  The same man who can create the warmth of Totoro can be cold, calculating and inconsiderate.

If you wish to know more about Studio Ghibli and if you wish to get closer to Miyazaki, this documentary is essential.  It supplements the two volumes of Miyazaki's collected writings.  There are no documentaries about North American animation studios that are like it.  Even The Sweatbox doesn't come close, as everyone at Disney is always conscious of public relations.  No one speaks as bluntly on camera as Miyazaki.  Furthermore, if you have worked in animation, watch Toshio Suzuki show how a brilliant producer operates.

This documentary is a precious record of a great director and a great studio that have earned a lasting place in animation history and in the hearts of animation fans around the world.

Bye Bye PDI

When I started in computer animation in 1985, there were five studios that dominated the field: Robert Abel and Associates, Digital Productions, Omnibus Computer Graphics, Cranston-Csuri Productions and Pacific Data Images.  Three of those five companies didn't make it to the '90s.  I can't remember when Cranston-Csuri closed, but it was a long time ago.

PDI was the company that survived.  It was formed in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl, who was joined shortly by Glen Entis and Richard Chuang.  At that time, all software had to be home brewed.  There was no off-the-shelf software.  Every company that existed at the time had to invent (forget about re-invent) the wheel before they could do any work.

Take a look at this demo reel from 1983.  This was cutting edge stuff at the time.

PDI stayed at the forefront of the computer animation business.  It did many flying logos for broadcasters.  It moved into TV commercials, animating the Pillsbury Doughboy.  It created morphing software used in the Michael Jackson video Black or White.  It produced shorts like Gas Planet, and contributed computer character animation to the TV special The Last Halloween.

After Pixar got computer animated features off the ground and drawn animated features were suffering at the box office, Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks knew he had to get into the cgi game.  His way in was by partnering with PDI.  Initially a minority owner, DreamWorks eventually purchased the entire company.

Antz was the first film made by the studio, followed by Shrek, the film that really put DreamWorks animation on the map.  The PDI facility continued to create some of DreamWorks most successful films, such as the Shrek sequels and the Madagascar series.

Now, it's closing.  It's no secret that DreamWorks has been suffering financially of late.  The company has worked hard to diversify, buying existing characters and creating TV work.  However, it still needs to cut expenses in order to stay healthy.  Five hundred employees are expected to lose their jobs across all the DreamWorks facilities, but PDI is being closed. 

The last of the '80s companies is gone.  It held on longer and had a greater impact than its original competition.  With the closing of PDI, a chunk of living cgi history vanishes.  A lot of top talent passed through PDI through the years, and now it's just a memory.

Animatic T.O. Returns

Animatic T.O, the Toronto lecture series featuring animation professionals, is back on Wednesday, Jan. 14 at The Rhino, 1249 Queen Street West.  Doors open at 7 and the event begins at 7:30.  Admission is $10 at the door.

This event features the work of Genevieve FT, an illustrator and designer who has worked in comics and videogames.  See you there.

Book Review: Funnybooks

If you ask anyone in North America to name a comic book company, they would probably name Marvel or DC.  Possibly they'd name Archie.  However, during the heyday of comic books, the 1940s and '50s when one comic sold over 3 million copies a month, a different company had 40% of the market, outselling all of the above.  The comic book was Walt Disney's Comics and Stories and the company was Western Printing and Lithography, distributed under the Dell imprint.

Historian and critic Michael Barrier is best known for his writings on animation such as Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age and The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney.  However, his interest in certain comics is longstanding and he previously wrote two books on this topic.  In his latest book, Funnybooks: the Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books, he has chronicled the complicated and surprising history of Western while focusing on several creators whose work has stood the test of time.  Carl Barks, Walt Kelly and John Stanley were three writer-artists whose work in comic books aimed at children transcended the target age group.

While most comic book companies of the time were located in New York City, Western had offices in New York, Poughkeepsie and Los Angeles.  While other comic book companies owned the characters they published, Western licensed the majority of its titles from other media: animation, movies and TV shows.

In the days before the internet, the dominant on-demand medium was print.  Movies, radio and television schedules were beyond the public's control.  Magazines, produced cheaply and frequently, were present at every newsstand and were there to be read at leisure.  There were general interest magazines aimed at adults and magazines specifically aimed at men, women and children.  Comic books filled the niche for children starting in the late 1930s and stayed a major part of childhood until the industry was worn down by attacks linking it to juvenile delinquency, the rise of television and the decaying economics of the newsstand.

While the vast majority of comic books were formula stuff, occasionally the stars would align allowing certain creators the opportunity to satisfy themselves while satisfying the market.  The three creators that Barrier focuses on all had that opportunity for varying reasons.  All three had experience working in animation, though only Barks and Kelly had story experience.  They were all draft exempt, making them valuable during the war years when other artists were disappearing into the military.  In Barks case, as he had worked on Donald Duck cartoons at Disney, his editors in Los Angeles figured he knew as much about portraying the character in comics as anyone.  Kelly and Stanley were lucky to be working for Oskar Lebeck in New York, one of the handful of editors in comics history who could not only recognize talent, but encouraged writers and artists to follow their muses.

Barks made Donald Duck and his supporting cast far more complex than the animated versions and brought a level of characterization that made superheroes pale by comparison.  Walt Kelly created Pogo for Animal Comics, and also illustrated fairy tales and adapted the movie characters of Our Gang.  John Stanley was handed Little Lulu, a single panel cartoon series created by Marge Henderson Buell for The Saturday Evening Post, and fleshed out Lulu and her friends into one of comics' greatest comedy series.

With his usual precision and thoroughness, Barrier has laid out the history of the company and its key creative personnel.  In addition to the aforementioned cartoonists, there is material about Gaylord Dubois, Roger Armstrong, Carl Beuttner, Dan Noonan, Moe Gollub, Jesse Marsh and Alex Toth.  Barrier writes about the many artists who crossed over from animation to comic books with varying success.  He explains the relationship between Western and Dell in detail and the careers of Barks, Kelly and Stanley are charted from their starts to their ends, with Barrier offering his insights on the nature of their best work and when and why they fell short.

While the publishing company may now be obscure, the work of these three creators continues to be reprinted.  Fantagraphics is reprinting Carl Barks' work as well as Walt Kelly's version of Our Gang and the newspaper version of Pogo.  Hermes Press is reprinting the comic book version of Pogo.  Dark Horse has reprinted John Stanley's work on Little Lulu as well as Tarzan, written by Dubois and drawn by Marsh.  Drawn and Quarterly has reprinted some of Stanley's non-Lulu work.  In addition, you can find work by most of these creators online at ComicBookPlus for free.

If you haven't read the work of these creators, you are missing some of the best that comics has to offer.  If you have read this work, Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books will provide a historical context and a critical perspective that will enhance your understanding of how this work came to be and why it is so good.

Song of the Sea

Song of the Sea is director Tomm Moore's follow-up to his first feature, The Secret of Kells.  Once again, he delves into Irish culture for his subject, this time with the legends of Selkies, humans who are able to turn into seals. 

Song of the Sea is one of the most beautiful animated features ever made.  While the recent flood of cgi features all start with brilliant pre-production artwork seen in dozens of "The Art of" books, the films themselves homogenize that art into a faux--'50s Disney style.  Because the techniques used to create pre-production art for Song of the Sea are consistent with the techniques used to make the final images on screen, the film is able to take advantage of its foundational art in ways that cgi features either can't or won't.  Each shot of Song of the Sea is worthy of framing.

The story resembles The Tale of Princess Kaguya in many ways.  Both films are about mystical creatures living in human families and the members of those families are insensitive,  thinking they know best for everyone else.  In both films, the conflict arises from people's blindness rather than from stock villains.

The Irish mythology is a little thick.  It may be that the writers took in this mythology with mother's milk and it's second nature to them, but the film's two main stories are not tied together as clearly as they might be.  One story is that of a family where the youngest child is a Selkie.  The other is a tale of character who steals her son's emotions and those of others, turning them to stone, so as to relieve them of the emotional pain they feel.  The Selkie's song is the key to fixing this situation, but it's something of a distraction from solving the Selkie's own situation.

It is refreshing to see a film true to the filmmaker's ethnic roots, as opposed to American films like like Aladdin or Kung Fu Panda, which appropriates other people's roots.  And Moore and art director Adrien Merigeau are to be commended for the look of the film and for maintaining consistency though production occurred at studios in several countries.

Any year that has given audiences The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Song of the Sea has to be counted as a good one.  Forget all the upcoming awards that will probably overlook these two films beyond the nomination stage, assuming they are recognized at all.  These are the ones to see.  They are both deeply felt and personal to the filmmakers.  I've grown increasingly bored with North American feature animation in the areas of design and story and it's satisfying to see that the rest of the world is willing to go its own way.

Season's Greetings from Sheridan's Class of 2015

CTN vs. TCAF and Zen Pencils

I attended CTN for the first time this year, representing Sheridan College.  Because of that, I was pretty much tied to Sheridan's table in the exhibition hall.  I didn't attend any of the presentations or screenings, though I did get to walk around the exhibition hall several times.  The observations that follow all relate to that.

There were hardware and software vendors there, like Wacom and Zbrush.  There were schools of various types offering formal and informal education.  There were book dealers like Focal Press and Stuart Ng.  However, the vast majority of exhibitors were artists selling their work in the form of prints, sketchbooks and collections.

The quality of work was exceptionally high and the love of drawing was visible everywhere.  It would have been easy to spend thousands of dollars on artwork and have years of inspiration as a result.

However, it struck me that the exhibition hall was like a farmer's market where the only people buying were other farmers.  It puzzled me that the exhibiting artists were not creating work that would appeal to a wider audience than just other artists.

I regularly attend the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF).  The people exhibiting there sell comics and graphic novels.  Their audience certainly includes artists, but the majority of people who attend are the general public.  The work there is something that average people, not people in the art field, might buy for themselves or purchase as a gift.

This is the case even though the average quality of the artwork is below what I saw at CTN.

Similarly, I've just found the Zen Pencils site.  Gavin Aung Than illustrates quotes from other people about various aspects of life.  While I admire his work, once again it's fair to say that his draftsmanship is below the CTN standard.

Yet at TCAF and Zen Pencils, the artists are reaching a broader audience.  The reason is that they are creating content, not simply demonstrating craft.  There's a difference between designing a character and creating a character.  While the CTN folks are great at design, a sketchbook or print lacks the narrative structure that an audience is looking for.

The artists at CTN love drawing and are good at it.  But in only talking to other artists, they're limiting their sales.  Why aren't they creating childrens books, comics, graphic novels and greeting cards that would show off their art as effectively as their sketchbooks, but also sell to a general audience?

Zen Pencils shows that you don't even have to be able to write, just recognize writing that has a meaningful perspective on life.  It also shows that cartooning, not just realistic illustration, can deal with subject matter that's relevant to adult lives.

I don't doubt that the artists at CTN would love to see drawn animation come back.  By just selling to other artists, they're doing nothing to make that happen.  Only when a property catches with the larger audience will producers take note.  Only when the audience is surrounded by drawings that entertain and enlighten them will there be a demand for drawn animated features.

As Chuck Jones once said, "All of us must eventually do what the matador does: go out and face not only the bull but the crowd."  The talent at CTN should seek out the crowd.

Cartoon Carnival: A Documentary on Silent Era Animation

Silent animation is esoteric, even to people who love animation.  Not much of it is shown anymore and animation has evolved so much from the silent period that these films seem ancient, when they are really only a hundred years old.

Tom Stathes has devoted himself to collecting and researching the animation from this period.  He's appeared on Turner Classic Movies to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bray studio, the first animation company in the U.S.  He's now collaborating with Andrew T. Smith in a Kickstarter campaign to make a documentary about the silent animation era.

Pioneers like Winsor McCay, Max Fleischer, J.R. Bray, Paul Terry, Earl Hurd, Raoul Barre, Bill Nolan and Otto Messmer laid the groundwork for everything that came after.  Without them, there would have been no Walt Disney, and without Disney the animation we watch today would not exist.

This documentary is an opportunity for the animation world to explore its roots.  I've contributed to the campaign and I hope that the campaign reaches its goal.

Van Beuren Cartoons on TCM Dec. 7

Steve Stanchfield (right) with Robert Osborne

Due to a snafu last October 6, TCM didn't run its scheduled program of Van Beuren cartoons, with guest Steve Stanchfield of Thunderbean.

That program has been rescheduled to this Sunday, December 7 at midnight, Eastern Time.

Steve wrote about the cartoons to be shown here.

I've known Steve for several years and have nothing but admiration for him.  Besides working as an animator and animation teacher, he also puts out fabulous DVD and Blu-ray sets of vintage animation, lavishing far more care on restoration and extras than higher profile companies do.  In addition, he writes a regular Thursday column for Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research site, where he showcases historical treasures and updates Thunderbean's release plans.

I look forward to finally seeing this show on TCM.

Torill Kove's Me and My Moulton

On Dec. 2nd and 3rd, the National Film Board of Canada is making Torill Kove's latest film, Me and My Moulton, available for free.  You can watch it here.

It's a droll story about growing up with unconventional parents and how being different can lead to being uncomfortable.

In the event you see this entry after the free period expires, here is the film's trailer.

CTN

I'll be at CTN on behalf of Sheridan College's animation program.  Fellow faculty member James Caswell and I will be at the Sheridan table for the duration.  If you're going to be there, stop by and say hello.

25 Years of Ghibli Music

Joe Hisaishi is as closely associated with Studio Ghibli's musical scores as Carl Stalling was with Warner Bros. cartoon scores.  Here is a two hour concert featuring his music from Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.

If you want links to specific selections in the video, go here.

At 1:36:40, there is a brief clip of Miyazaki and John Lasseter singing together.

(link via Boing Boing)

Canadian TV is Dying. Does Animation Know it?

Over the last year, Rogers and Shaw, the two largest cable TV suppliers in Canada, have lost a total of 200,000 subscribers.  That has enormous repercussions for TV producers, including animation studios.

YTV is one of the major outlets for Canadian TV animation.  It is part of the basic cable package, which means that everyone who has cable TV in Canada automatically receives YTV.  YTV receives money for each cable TV subscriber, and it has lost the fee from 200,000 people in the last year.  In addition, it earns money from advertising and its ratings must have suffered by some amount, as some of those 200,000 people must have watched YTV.

Teletoon is part of a cable bundle, but surely some of those 200,000 people were paying for Teletoon.  As Teletoon also sells advertising, the smaller audience has cost Teletoon income on two fronts.

The cable companies are rapidly diversifying away from TV.  Rogers and Shaw have partnered in Shomi, a Netflix-like service that makes content available on demand.  Rogers has now partnered with Vice, which will produce content for them.  The money quote that justifies the deal is that there is a “dramatic shift in Canada’s media landscape which sees young people increasingly consuming news and entertainment from their mobile and digital devices.”

Bell Media is creating its own streaming service.

What are the repercussions for Canadian animation?  It means that broadcasters such as YTV, Teletoon, and Family Channel will have less money to spend on new programming.  Either they will buy less or buy the same amount but provide less money for each.  Either way, the TV market for Canadian animation is going to get tougher.  The future is online and the cable companies know it.  The animation studios that grasp this are the ones most likely to survive.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Isao Takahata's The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a thematically rich and artistically beautiful film.  As it may be the director's final feature and the last feature to come from Studio Ghibli,  the studio exits on a high note.  This film and Miyazaki's The Wind Rises are both landmark films that challenge accepted notions of what an animated film should be.  Only time will tell if they serve as inspiration for other artists or remain outliers.

It is impossible to talk about Princess Kaguya without discussing key story points below.

A poor bamboo cutter discovers a child within a tree.  She grows unnaturally fast.  The bamboo cutter later discovers gold and fine fabrics in a similar manner and takes it to mean that heaven wishes the girl to be brought up as a princess.  His wife is obedient to his wishes, but more sensitive to the child than he is.

The child revels in living in the woods, playing with other poor children and being surrounded by nature.  However, her father and mother move her to the capital, where she may no longer act as she likes but must conform to society's expectations for a young woman of nobility.  She respects the wishes of her parents, but as she gets increasingly immersed in the society's ways, she becomes more unhappy.  She is desired by high status suitors, including the king.  She is able, by her wits and some magic to elude marriage.  She seeks to escape back to her childhood environment, but the world has moved on and she realizes that her chance for happiness is over.  She is called back to heaven against her will, regretting missed opportunities and sad at what she must leave behind.  Her father finally realizes his mistake as he loses her.

The central question of the film is what constitutes happiness.  For the bamboo cutter, it is being able to give his child what society says are advantages.  For her suitors, it is taking a special wife to add to their status.  For the princess, it is obeying her parents.  All of them are wrong.

The bamboo cutter learns that the advantages he has showered on the princess have gone against her  nature.  The suitors are unable to keep their pledges to the princess in order to win her hand.  Two face embarrassment, one the loss of wealth, one the loss of his illusions, and two have their lives endangered, all for a woman whose face they have never seen.  The princess learns that the natural world is superior to life in the capital and that acting according to her own wishes is more satisfying than obedience to her parents, especially when the result is to reduce her to a mere ornament. 

All of these characters are burdened with regrets due to poor choices and paths not taken.  When heaven comes to reclaim the princess, a clear metaphor for death, there is much pain for the characters who can no longer avoid acknowledging their mistakes.

Social class is a great divider in this film.  When the princess and her mother spend time in the mansion kitchen and garden as an escape from the rigid behaviour expected of them, the father cannot understand why.  When the princess journeys to the countryside to see the cherry blossoms, a young child, as excited by the sight as she is, bumps into her.  Instead of them being able to share their happiness, the child is snatched away by its mother, who prostrates herself in front of the princess and begs forgiveness.  Sharing joy is forbidden across class lines.  When one of the princess's childhood friends is caught stealing a chicken, he is brutally beaten, but when one of her suitors fails to pay some artisans, he escapes without punishment.

The characters in this film don't understand where happiness lies.  Society has created divisions and rules that stifle people while claiming to exalt them.  Nature is more beautiful than anything people have created, yet people choose to leave nature behind.  People are blind to each others' needs.  Awareness comes only in retrospect, when it is too late to correct poor choices.  In short, the characters are fully human, doing what they think is best but unable to see their mistakes.

The artwork, especially for the scenes in the countryside, is exquisite.  The animation varies somewhat; early scenes with the bamboo cutter and the children seem to be the strongest overall, but Takahata's direction is capable of getting dramatic impact from minimal movement in some later scenes.  The softness of the linework and the watercolour backgrounds are refreshing after so many years of computer animation.  The hands of the artists are visible everywhere, not just in the pre-production artwork.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya, like The Wind Rises, is more dramatically sophisticated than animated films made for North America.  The willingness to embrace characters who are flawed and to acknowledge the existence of tragedy separates these films from the feelgood fantasies churned out by Hollywood.  The term "family film" really means "we won't do anything to upset your children."  By limiting itself to this genre, North American feature animation has neutered itself, spending fortunes to divert audiences from real life instead of helping to illuminate it.

I am deeply grateful for Studio Ghibli's existence.  While the level of craft in their films doesn't always conform to what North American audiences expect, the intelligence in them surpasses anything animated that Hollywood offers.  Ghibli's films, in particular The Wind Rises and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, set a standard that Hollywood will most likely ignore.  But if feature animation has a future beyond amusing parents while babysitting their children, it doesn't have to look any further than what Miyazaki and Takahata have accomplished.

New from Nina Paley

Nina Paley, the creator of the animated feature Sita Sings the Blues, has released another segment from her current production Seder Masochism.  Music is by The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra with sound effects by Greg Sextro.

Exaggerate the Essentials

Al Hirschfeld in life and caricature

I teach animation to students in the second year of a four year program.  They are just getting beyond bouncing balls and flour sacks and beginning to engage with human movement.  This year, I'm noticing that more students are shooting live action reference for their assignments.  Live action has its uses, but it's critical that an animator knows what he or she is looking at.  Live action has to be analyzed to understand how the movement communicates to an audience.

The skill of caricature is to see past unnecessary detail to the underlying shapes of a face.  It is the process of analyzing and editing.  What is essential to a likeness and what is not?

This same process is at the core of life drawing.  Someone looking at a posed model is using knowledge of anatomy, perspective, composition and design to reduce a three dimensional figure to a two dimensional representation.  What detail is necessary to communicate the gesture and what can be ignored?  An untrained artist can trace a photograph of the same pose and while it may superficially resemble the figure, the lack of underlying knowledge will be obvious.  There is no analysis or editing, there is only imitation.

Human movement communicates.  From infancy, we develop the skill to read body language and facial expressions in order to understand what is happening in another human mind.  Because we do this intuitively, we are not aware of the analysis we are doing.  We don't consciously realize that some movements and expressions communicate more than others, the same way that some facial detail defines a person's appearance more in a caricature.

Using live reference without understanding how the body uses weight, balance, momentum and time is useless.  Using live reference before knowing what movements communicate and what movements can be ignored leads to a result no better than tracing a photograph and calling it a life drawing. 

Analysis and editing are essential.  Exaggerating what's left after you have eliminated the unnecessary makes the communication more vivid for an audience.  We see people moving every day.  Acting is a heightened version of daily movement; it's a way of communicating thoughts and emotions more directly than we see in normal life.

Live action reference can suggest things to a knowledgeable animator; it can help the animator analyze how a movement communicates.  But without the underlying knowledge, an animator cannot discriminate between what helps an audience understand and what distracts from understanding.

There is a difference between imitation and communication.  Until a student understands this, live action reference is simply a faster way to imitate human movement.  If the movement is no more insightful than what we see in life, animating it is unnecessary.  What we want is movement that communicates more precisely than real life.

The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls is a visually elaborate fantasy that is built on an extremely weak foundation.  While the art direction, cinematography and animation are excellent, the story is deeply flawed and the direction isn't able to overcome the holes in the story.

There are spoilers coming, so be warned.

The town of Cheesebridge has a class system indicated by the colour of a person's hat.  While the hat is hardly a great idea, I'll let it go as it's a convenient way of visually establishing status.  The problem is that a class system only has dramatic weight when it's clear how low status affects a person's life; the lower class needs to be treated poorly by the upper class in order to motivate the film's villain.   What do we see as the difference between classes besides the colour of hats?  The privilege of tasting cheese.  I have not read the source book, Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow, but even if this idea is from the book, it is flimsy at best and too reminiscent of Wallace and Gromit.

The boxtrolls themselves are also unmotivated.  They eat bugs, so their physical survival is guaranteed from a nutrition standpoint.  But they spend the nights foraging in people's trash bins for various mechanical bits.  Why?  While their home cavern is full of mechanical doodads, they don't seem essential to the boxtrolls' existence.  If this is what they do, why not make it necessary for their way of life?

While fantasies require a leap of faith, it still helps to be as consistent as possible within the rules of the world.  Unfortunately, the film falls short here as well.  Why would the boy raised by the boxtrolls speak a human language instead of theirs when he has no contact with humans?  The boxtrolls are naked beneath their boxes.  Why is the boy wearing clothes and a too-small box?  The villain has a food allergy that causes his face to swell to grotesque proportions.  How could he not be aware of this when it happens repeatedly? 

The villain's plan to demonize the boxtrolls and then eliminate them seems enormously complicated and takes a decade to enact.  Surely, there had to be a better and faster way to raise himself into the upper class.  Why should the townspeople believe that he's destroyed all the boxtrolls just because he dumps a pile of crushed boxes in front of them?  If they do believe it, why is it necessary for the villain to kill the last boxtroll in public?  Why does the villain need the large machine he rides in for the climax?  What motivates the villain to be a cross dresser?  Or is that just a result of Laika being praised for the gay character in Paranorman?

With the exception of a girl character, the film has no other females developed to any degree.  That includes the boxtrolls, who seem to be asexual.  Does a boxstork deliver them?

The film ends and ends and ends and ends.  Instead of wrapping things up neatly, the film makers don't know when to get off the stage.  

I have seen all three of Laika's films and this is definitely a step down from Paranorman.  While this film has potentially strong themes of class, race and even genocide, it treats them so superficially that they are missed opportunities.  The film is visually inventive and, truth be told, the stop motion is so slick it might as well be cgi.  But the artists at Laika fell in love too quickly with the visual possibilities of the story without nailing the dramatic backbone.

I know that there is a bias against scripts in feature animation.  The conventional wisdom says that stories should be drawn, not written.  However, there's a lot to be said for working on an outline to structure the story, work out the plot points and clarify the motivations before any designs are done.  Drawing is sometimes a distraction; the appeal of a good design can sometimes draw attention away from holes in the story.

While all of Laika's films have been visually attractive, they have yet to have a major hit.  My limited knowledge of their income leads me to believe that if it wasn't for the Knight millions (or is that billions?), the studio would have gone bankrupt by now.  Laika has a deal for another three features so it isn't going away anytime soon, but I'm sure everyone would be happier if a future film would gross Pixar-like numbers.  Without serious attention to their stories, it's never going to happen.

In Case You Missed Any...

Here are 554 couch gags from The Simpsons.  Compiled by Nam June Paik.

(link via Boing Boing)

100 Years of Norman McLaren

2014 is the 100th anniversary of Norman McLaren's birth.  McLaren was the pioneering experimental animator at the National Film Board of Canada.  One of the many events to mark the occasion was a documentary on his work created by Amir Avni for TAAFI, the Toronto Animated Arts Festival International, which occurred last June.

TAAFI has now put the documentary online and in addition to several McLaren films, it includes interviews with National Film Board alumni who knew McLaren: Kaj Pindal, Gerald Potterton and Bob Verrall.