Today’s mood: “AAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!”
Will we ever get all this stuff done? Why is there so much to do? Why don’t I have the reference files I need, to do what I need to do? Why am I having no luck generating a PDF document?
Month: June 2003
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On a Russian theme…
We went and saw Russian Ark last night at the Chauvel. In spite of the glowing reviews by David and Margeret from The Movie Show, in spite of the hype about the entire movie being a cinematographic masterpiece shot with a single take blah blah blah …. it was really quite dull.
Think ‘Wings of Desire’ in a museum. In this case, it’s The Hermitage, and you would be tempted to think it was the Hermitage that funded the project to promote tourism. In short, this film felt like a nostalgic tribute to old opulent imperialist Russia (Look! there goes Anastasia!) with banter between two narrators who are supposed to be ghosts; one of whom is really annoying and breathes heavily with a wheezy sound….
The French diplomat (a bedraggled-looking Sergey Dreiden, speaking Russian without any trace of a French accent while bearing a striking resemblance to the Scarecrow in “The Turkish Wizard of Oz”) amuses himself by sniffing the paintings with a fetishist fervor and annoying the various people of the different eras -Phil Hall
Eddie: The experience was on a par to watching some tedious Czech stop-motion film.
These two reviews sum it up: From Filmthreat and Popmatters
Laika (from Cosmic Baby)
While on a Russian theme…
Last week we watched Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky on DVD… a 1938 black and white Russian propaganda film with awesome epic battle scenes. Lots of scary-looking badass teutonic knights with massive antler-type helmets VS Prince Nevsky’s Russian peasant army (with bowl haircuts). Now this one’s worth checking out.
In the past week we’ve also had dinner at The Russian Coachman in Bourke St, Surry Hills. Overpriced, awful food and service. The Russian Accent is much better. (Taylor Sq, Darlinghurst). On weekends there is a performer/synthesiser organist who does (Russian-accented) covers of disco and rock songs…
There’s an article on Blogging in this weekend’s SMH Icon.
Authors using hosted systems don’t have to turn themselves into programmers, or even understand much about servers. In fact, you don’t even need a regular computer. Since everything is stored for you, it means you can go on holiday and update the blog from wherever you get access to the web.
There is a downside to all this blissful ignorance, however. You must also have faith in the company providing the service that its servers don’t suffer disaster, and lose the blog.
Which is why I am sticking with Xanga (a lesser know weblog provider). Fast server, reliable and supereasy to use unlike others. No major technical problems yet. Touchwood.
Movies watched recently:
We have been frequenting Dr What’s video every Sunday and hiring a weekly stash of videos & DVDs. Here’s what we’ve been watching this month:
Amelie: charming feelgood romance with stunning, timeless art direction. There was way too much voice over narration though…
Chasing Amy: An intelligently written film with a message about sexuality and relationships for the straight geeky male. Enjoyed it!
Swingers: Funny movie, great characters, very hip L.A. with locations like The Dresden Room (we were there!), The Derby, etc,… Has a sweet ending. It’s kinda a “guy movie” but fun.
Monsters Inc: Technically brilliant 3D animation as you would expect from Pixar. The story was typical predictable Disney fluff though, with lots of overacting. I preferred Toy Story.
Cool site – Savoy Style
Stompin at the Savoy: A bleak chick flick set during the Depression in NYC. There was some jitterbuggin’ and swingin’ at the Savoy but not enough! The characters were all kinda one dimensional and you couldn’t convince me that was Ella Fitzgerald…
Mon Oncle: Supposed to be a charming French pantomime-type film with groovy 60′s visual stylings but… it’s incredibly slow. All wide shots. Hardly any dialogue. No story. I fell asleep.
I Am Cuba: Totally awesome piece of cinematiography with a camera that really travels and brings the scenes of pre-Castro Cuba to life. There is music, dancing, poverty, injustice. This is pure propaganda but highly recommended
Twist: Documentary version of John Waters’ ‘Hairspray’ which charts the evolution of all those 60′s fad dances. Lots of cool archival footage! Wish there was more!
Touch of Evil
Touted as an Orson Welles noir classic and you can see why. It is dark, sombre, gritty, great (bongos) soundtrack with Orson playing a corrupted detective against Charlton Heston as a Mexican. But we were disappointed. The plot was convoluted. There was way too much talking and the Orson Welles character was just not likeable. ‘The Third Man’ was much much better.Mad Max 2: A film like this makes today’s action (road-chase/heavy digital fx) flicks seem cold and soul-less by comparison. It’s raw, it’s dirty with lots of metal, leather, fur and smoke. The fashions are totally dated now but I can see why this one became a hit in its time.
Best In Show: A dog lover would love this film. Funny, quirky mockumentary with some almost-cringey moments because most of these characters are such losers. The terrier was cute but the bloodhound should have won.
Casino: It’s like ‘Goodfellas’ set in a Las Vegas that no longer exists, before it became a Disneyland. Same characters. same themes, lots of violence. The insider gambling moments and casino scenes were kinda cool especially since we were in Vegas not long ago.
The Archies: Well, we really got this out for the theme song ‘Everything’s Archie’ because it’s so bad it’s funny. Everything else was kinda dull…
Gorillaz (DVD borrowed from Evan): The character designs, art direction and animation style are slick and awesome even though the music doesn’t really grab us too much. (nor the humour)To think I almost worked on the ‘Clint Eastwood’ music video two years ago at Halo Pictures (I was animating our Lucha School pitch video instead)
Quadrophenia: We watched this last night after the Russian Ark. It’s a 1970′s film that is supposed to be set in the 60′s but unfortunately it looks and feels and sounds like the SEVENTIES! The hairstyles are all 70′s! The Who soundtrack is mostly late 60′s/70′s! (And isn’t the music of Mod Culture more diverse than this? What about ska, rocksteady and motown?) Anyhow, it was worth watching, seeing that there aren’t many mod flicks around.
Speedy Gonzalez: We love Speedy! I never noticed before how most of the “Spanish” dialogue is just a bunch of Spanish words strung together and doesn’t make sense… *BTW, Speedy makes a cameo appearance in Mucha Lucha Season 2!
Watching this week: All That Jazz, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Producers…
Cool site of the day: www.australianinfront.com.au - online community of Australian designers and illustrators. Check out the Directory.
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While we soldier-on this winter, rushing to get the whole pilot completed by the end of the month, here is a little treat for our readers…
It’s a massive 7MB file so broadband/DSL connection is highly recommended. The Cosmic Baby teaser was a work-in-progress piece of animation we put together two months ago, with scenes edited together mostly from Episode 1: Cosmic Baby Eats The Capsule.
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FWAKSTERS
Outside the Dendy cinema (L to R): Peter Hansen, Eddie, Lili, Evan Newby, Michael Dunn (with the redeye), Gavin Christensen
A brief introduction to the Fwak! team:
Peter’s the Business Affairs manager. He takes care of anything legal and financial. He works with our budgets and schedules, hassles us for receipts, keeps us all paid, and is getting married later this year. (Eddie: and keeps hassling me to illustrate his wedding invitation.
)Michael is a supertalented character animator. We always wonder why he isn’t working at Disney or Dreamworks Features because he’s a “classical animation” genius. Michael is also a musician-composer who orchestrated and arranged the theme song for Cosmic Baby.
Above (Eddie to Michael) “Just get it fucking right!”
Michael Dunn: The Thinking Man’s Animator
Evan Newby: “Just take the damn picture”
Evan is also a talented prolific animator and a great character designer with so much experience for someone so young! He has just started his own company: E For Animation (based in Wollongong) and is developing his own cartoons.
Jonathan Snow & Gavin Christensen
Gavin is a freelance Flash artist here, just completed an Animation course at the Uni Western Sydney, and is a major horror movie fan. He also has a talent for sculpting little figurines (check out The Flea), skateboarding, and driving us all crazy….
Jonathan is also a freelance Flash artist here, while currently studying a 3D animation course at Computer Graphics College. Another very young person with tons of enthusiasm and dedication. Also a great anime-style illustrator.
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*updated
Photos from ML voice recording session with Los Lobos!
Season 2, Episode 9: “Hungry Like Los Lobos”
with Joel (left) and Ken (right)
with Jorge and Sandra
Our design of them! © WB Animation
(Note: this isn’t the final version that is used in the show)
*updated
The Sweatbox!
We all went and saw The Sweatbox tonight at Dendy Opera Quays (Sydney Film Festival) – Michael, Evan, Peter, Gavin, Eddie and myself.
I wish I could say GO AND SEE THIS FILM but ours was the final festival screening ever… Disney has decided to put the film in the vault so it will never ever be distributed. According to the co-director John Paul Davidson (who made an appearance at the screening), Disney thought the film made them look “indecisive” and “wasteful with their millions of dollars”…
What an awesome documentary. The best part was seeing the line tests from “Kingdom of The Sun”. The animation of the Eartha Kitt character was absolutely stunning. Eartha Kitt herself, singing in the recording session, was a treat to watch. To think we will never see these moments ever again. Someone needs to release a bootleg DVD or put this movie on the internet.
During the Q&A session with John Paul Davidson, an audience member commented on the closing quote from Sting - praising the Disney creative-”by committee”-process. That it was frustrating to hear Sting say something like this after he’d been knocking Disney all throughout the film..
(Great Sting quote: “They take all these different wonderful cultures, mix them up and spit out a hamburger” )
Interestingly enough, Mr Davidson admitted that the end statement in the film was a CHEAT. The pro-Disney comment by Sting was actually made years earlier… BEFORE “Kingdom of the Sun” had mutated into “Emperors New Groove”…
Discussion thread at Animation Nation
From one of the posts:
…the real story of Disney Feature Development has yet to be told. I think this film is a good start — it’s certainly more revealing than most “making of” documentaries. But there are so many missing beats here, you’ve got to wonder what was left on the cutting room floor. Ending as it does with Sting’s grudging admission that the process “works,” despite his earlier, fully-justified misgivings, seemed like a kind of sop to Disney (“Please don’t block distribution of our film!”)
It didn’t hit me ’til this morning, but I found “The Sweatbox” an extremely depressing experience — not so much for what it did show as for what it didn’t. As bad as this film seems to indicate that the process can be — believe me, being there was ten times worse. To stare into Peter Schneider’s weasly little eyes again, to feel the icy malice of his mean little mind, picking and tearing away at your work like a vulture on a still-breathing carcass, the sheer delight manifest on his face when he’s certain that he’s right because he’s the guy on top and your’e not — even with the distance that watching a movie gives, it brings a shudder to your very soul. - Bruce
Eddie: These are my sentiments exactly – I can only imagine the horror stories left on the cutting room floor. I also feel the film makers were really dishonest in taking Sting’s last quote (‘the process works…’) totally out of context to placate Disney. VERY shabby!
The guy I felt most for was the animator (Andreas Deja) who did the MASTERFUL animation of Eartha Kitt’s vocal performance, for the original ‘Kingdom Of The Sun’. Clearly, this guy put his soul into his work, and chanelled Eartha herself in his work. To be replaced and have his work never see the light of day, is one of the cruel, cruel aspects of our industry. It really makes any lost opportunities we’ve had seem very petty by comparison…I will never whinge about ‘Superior Pets’ ever again!
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LINKS:
Seventies Design - reference
Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools
Meet this web celebrity: The “Star Wars Kid” (Watch the video first)
¡Mucha Lucha! article (in Spanish) spotted at this site.
Today Los Lobos showed up for the Mucha Lucha voice recording session. The word on the street – This is going to be a funny episode. Also, some lucky people got photos taken and autographs. Wish we were there!
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A Slideshow Generator for Xanga sites! - by EasterEgg. This is supercool. I can’t wait to try it out. Memo to self: get some photos together…
Skippy the Goth Kangaroo Er… why does Sunny have an English accent?
Wattstax is being re-released! Funky stuff. (watch the trailer)
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I have been sorting through pictures from our L.A. trip and revisiting the memories…
Some of our friends will remember the long rambling three-part email I sent you about our weekend in Las Vegas. For those who have the time to spare, trust me it’s a long one – here it is. (this is a slightly edited version with less pics. The link will also soon be added to “archives” at the bottom of this page)
Our Figurine Empire
Behold the first sculpt of Super Mahi Tiki!
Paul J. Wright is a modelmaker who is making us some promotional plastic figurines of our characters. We’ll have some finished ones to show you in a couple of weeks!
Flash Drawing Tutorial
The current pdf issue of OzAnimation Magazine (by Neil Hughes) has an introductory Flash tutorial - Wenzel Learns Flash MX - by Lorraine Binnington.
I am planning a second instalment: Drawing Tips in Flash for the next issue, due out at the end of June.
The target readership: Beginner Flash artists &/or artists who are more used to drawing on paper and are making the leap to drawing digitally. This isn’t a How-to-animate tutorial. It’s specifically about the DRAWING-in-Flash PROCESS. What it’ll cover:
- Wacom tablets
- From rough drawing to clean drawing (different methods)
- Brief overview of Flash drawing tools
- Strokes Vs Fills (Line vs Brush)
- Tips for using the line tool
- Tips for using the brush tool
- Grouping and Symbolizing (how this helps)
- Export formats (swf, jpeg, ai, gif etc.)
I won’t be repeating what’s already in the MX manual. These tips will come from our own trial-and-error personal learning experiences (between Eddie and me). I remember when we both started using Flash there were only TWO manuals in the stores. And we’d read them cover to cover and had to dig around online bulletin boards for answers to tons of drawing-related issues not covered by the manuals.
Now there are heaps of Flash manuals for character animators & artists. (e.g. by Mark Clarkson and Ibis Fernandez) I wish we had these back in 1998 but better late than never!
Any specific questions about “drawing in Flash”? Let me know and I’ll address these in the tutorial.
The new Ren ’N Stimpy: There are some clips here
We saw some of the storyboards and animation when we were at WBA (someone had a videotape) - The new season is totally EXTREME with lots of IN-YOUR-FACE HOMOSEXUAL (or homophobic?) gags.Which makes sense because someone like John K. would be expected to keep pushing those cartoony boundaries and he is doing just that. And for a network targeting young ADULT MALES no less.
When in L.A. we also saw the first pilot episode of the new Astro Boy series which I believe is coming soon to Cartoon Network Australia – yay!
It’s hard to judge the entire series by the pilot ep. alone – Astro Boy is newly-born; he’s still a bit awkward and not yet fully heroic. The visuals though, are slick and sophisticated. We just miss the original 60′s theme song.
Eddie: Although the pilot looked great (it reminded me a lot of ‘Metropolis’), my biggest disappointment was the fact that Dr. Elefun has been renamed ‘Dr. O’Shea’! So he’s IRISH now? Come on!
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How to Write Your Name In Mayan Glyphs – one of these days I will learn …
Cartoon Network has beaten by Nick in the Webby Awards 2003. And NASA seems to be a favorite web destination for most… (Who’s voting?)
Someone is selling a Ghost in a Jar on ebay.
The Art Of James Bond - with artwork from storyboards, paperbacks, posters etc.
There’s a great write-up for Jorge and Sandra’s Viva Lucha Art Show - here.
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