I wish a "Best Picture" Oscar for Toy Story 3...

Again, in a week or so, the Oscars are upon us, the 'Academy Awards',
this year, the Academy decided that Toy Story 3 can and WILL be
nominated not only for the 'Best Animated Feature' Award but for the
'Best Picture' Award as well, making the Pixar phenomenal competing
head to head against Darren Aronovsky's Black Swan, The King's Speech
and others.


First, Congratz to Pixar, Toy Story 3 is so Moving and Touching
Emotionally that even the Academy couldn't ignore their Achievement,
as far as I know, Animated Features usually just get the 'Best Animated
Feature' Award and that's it, the only Animated Feature that I remember
being nominated for the 'Best Picture' Award was Disney's Lion King, but
that was over 15 years ago and didn't end well for the animation world,
but still, it was also a very touching and emotional film.


I think the academy has a problem with judging animation, for some reason,
the academy thinks a person is a genius if he can act well but if he can just
draw a scene with a character acting really well, than he's less of a genius,
again, for some reason.


I've seen Toy Story 3 AND Black Swan AND The King's Speech and I
can say for certain that Toy Story 3 was the only one that left me almost
in tears, the other ones weren't even close.


I have no faith in the academy and I'm still mad at them for not letting
the Oscar to The Lion King but I was a good year and Forrest Gump
(one of my favorite movies) got that Oscar, Than they REFUSED to even
give a nominee to Andy Serkis for portraying Gollum in The Two Towers
(the Lord of the Rings Series by Peter Jackson) in 2002 because they
said he wasn't acting, he was ANIMATED... as if that's NOT acting !


Bottom line is that I don't think the academy is close to get animation but
if anyone can make them get it is Pixar, so I hope it's again one of those
times that we'll all say, I can't be done, but Pixar did it.


btw,
if it wasn't for Toy Story 3, I would say the best film this year was The King's Speech,
I enjoyed it greatly...

I have a New Web Site !

hey, I'm sorry I didn't post here for a while now,
I've just entered my new apartment and I needed
to buy myself a new Computer and a descent Chair
to sit on for hours... Oh, and learn how to ride a bicycle !

well, anyway, I spent the meantime to build my own web site,
hopefully I'll have more stuff to put in it soon, enjoy:
http://www.adirsl.com

and please note what happens when you resize your
browser window, it happens in both flash and non-flash versions...

a Blog I wanted to show...

This Blog belongs to a dear friend of mine:
http://zinnfandel.wordpress.com/

it's about her work, we learn Animation
together, I'm into Traditional Animation
and she's really into Stop-Motion
and Computer Games and naturally,
the combination of them both.

She takes what she does really seriously
so she just got back from Germany.
She went on a business tour to Gamecon
the Computer Game Conference,
she played Diablo III before us all !

I should adopt her seriousness about
what I do, I wish I would go to some
Film Festival but I'll save that for when
I'll compete in one, hopefully...
Anyway, check out her Blog, it's worth it !

My Own Student Film on Youtube

I finally did it, today I uploaded my Third Year Student Film
to YouTube, a process that takes Hours, by the way,
well, here it is, "Goose Liver":



I already uploaded my sculpture reference to my Deviant Art page,
there been a few design changes brought up by my Most Talented
Design Teacher: Michael Faust, well, here's the sculpture reference:

Making Fun of Movement...

This is another short film from the 1950s,
it's about a dog in search for food that
becomes the C.E.O of a winner factory
in order to get some food.

what I like about this one is that you can actually
see what Genndy Tartakovsky, the man behind
Dexter's Laboratory, meant when he said he was
"Making fun of movement, NOT copying it",
the movement in this short is pretty, it's functional
and it's way funnier than a realistic movement,
anyway, the idea of this short is great as well.

Where does Pixar get their Ideas for Short Films ?

I've just seen this film the other day, it's from UPA
and it's been directed by John Hubley in 1949,
I'm merely suggesting that Pixar, or at least their
Short Films Department, seen this film and got
influenced by it.
I don't think that the Pixar Directors consciously stole
ideas from some old UPA cartoon, but the similarities
are more than just coincidences. 



now, besides the fun in this movie, they're couple of things that ring a bell
here, first the Crow takes a magic wand that makes bunnies appear
everywhere, if it doesn't sounds familiar yet, so the name of the original
owner of the wand, the magician "Presto", ring a bell ?
(check out the in-film poster on the wall "Presto")

And if that's not enough, at the end when the Fox can't conduct his band

anymore and realize he has to give up his fame, the Crow comes helping

him wearing his All-in-One musical instruments suit, that kinda looks

familiar, don't you think ?

Nice Coraline Poster

well, just a poster I found online, I really liked it because

I feel it says it all without being too out there, I mean,

if I saw this poster BEFORE I've seen the movie,

I would be curious about the character in the back

because the girl seems not too sure about her,

but AFTER the movie I would get that the girl is

scared of her but also kinda fond of her, because

it's her mother (well, other mother, whatever...)

anyway, I also like the design of it, it's not too

childish for an animated film but not too scary

as well, it's just in the middle ground that says

"it's animated and it's ALSO for kids, NOT just for kids"

More 1950s Cartoon Design...

Here's another short film from about 1958 from TerryToons,
I really like the design in this one:



Notice how functional the character design is, Sidney (the Elephant) is sucking
his own Trunk when his scared and when needed his Ears become Hands,
and the part I like the most, when he screams, his hole body becomes his
Mouth, even so you don't see he's breaking out of character, you always
see the same cartoon elephant.
Notice that even in this kind of simplicity, when he talks he moves his whole
body and not only his mouth and that gives character and credibility to the character.


Besides that, notice that the Elephant is BLUE, he's not grey like most elephants,
you can clearly see it in the end, when he stands near the grey Rhino.
The color of the character makes him POP through the other characters because
he's the only blue character there, most characters are yellow, grey or green.
Also the backgrounds are mostly yellow, grey (or dark gray) or green but notice
the different shades of the background colors, it's very smart color picking.


The backgrounds are very smart, not only color-wise, their design is very functional,
I know quite a few people who would lose their point of interest (the Character) in
a jungle background, but because of the jungle's flatness and settle hints for
trees (instead of realistic ones), the Characters just POP out, notice that even
with a almost Black background in the beginning you can see the character clearly,
even when its Lines get lost in the Black of the Background.
and the last thing I have to say is about the usage of the foreground in the backgrounds,
the backgrounds seems kind of flat because the use of only two colors mostly, one for
the fill and background and one for the lines, and yet the usage of Foregrounds gives us
all the depth we need and lack of in color.

1950's Modern Character Design

This is my new Blog about all I have to say,
and this time, about Character Design in
1950's Cartoons, I'll post more about this
subject, but for now, I wanted to show this
Short Film from Disney (1953) by Ward Kimball:



I love the design of the Cavemen in this film, their animation is so cheap
but yet so rich, I specially love the one with the Horn and the one
with the Drum...
the Owl seems too Disney for me, like they did it like they always do
and than just erased the lines instead of really design it as a modern
cartoon character.

That's all I have to say for now,
see you next post >>