The movie I am talking about is the upcoming MONSTERS VS: ALIENS, due in 2009. For this seemingly interesting movie they started to create first promo materials – or better: one which they recycle many times.

Let’s dive into the world of business decisions and business processes and take a look at the promo poster:

Simple, aedequate. Nothing spectacular.

And now, let’s take a look at a screenshot I took of the website:

Did you see it? If you look very closely take a fast look you will notice that strange pose of the girl. Of course, this is because the graphic designers didn’t get enough material to work with, so they used the promo poster. So fast, so bad. But here comes the bummer: would it have been that hard to keep her on the left side of the image? Not only would her arm not hang in the air but – more importantly – she would also hide that remaining shadow of her arm on the building? Or even better: would it have been that hard to render a completely new pose of her?

Gosh, Dreamworks Animation must be in a big pinch.

The action of Kung fu Panda is one of the highlights of this movie. Out of the four main action scenes in this film (the tiger escapes, panda training, the 5 masters against the tiger, the end fight) the training fight and the last fight were without a doubt the best ones. The directors managed here to mix fighting with funny moments almost as good Jackie Chan in his best movies. Well, they couldn’t reach the genius of a guy using anything around him to defend himself in funny ways, but they came close in some moments. I also loved how the end fight was serious at the beginning, when the master faces his pupil but gets lighter in its tone as soon as Po comes into the scene.

Story-wise they also went some new ways and I am glad they did it, although there are some problems with the story design in general. First and foremost Po is a lovable character. He’s your typical geeky fanboy who wants to be more than he is. He dreams of being the biggest hero in the universe who slashes thousands of villains but in the real world he is a fat and pale son of a noodle shop owner. But even more, he isn’t your guy who thinks he is the best one albeit his appearance. No, he knows he cannot be a master of Kung Fu although he wants to be. So when he gets chosen, he keeps being mostly a fan living his dream for a short time knowing it will be short. So, although he gets some load of kicks into his ass he goes along with.

And this is the moment where the message kicks in. Because although he thinks he cannot be the big mysterious master, he must be it, or better: he must believe he can be it. The message therefore goes along the way of “You must believe in your dreams or you will never reach them.” Sounds kind of standard in many ways but the execution saves it from being a total disaster. This is also due to the fact that this message is reflected in the antagonist, the tiger, who in this regard gets some dimension or two added to his character.

The plot as a whole on the other hand is something I am not really content with. Although the message is standard it deserved something better than the second act. You know, as the plot goes into the middle part of the second act the old master discovers that Po has some kind of hidden power in his as he is able to do remarkable moves when he just wants something to eat. So the master uses this to his advantage to accelerate the training. Although this idea sounds nice on paper it didn’t work for me on the screen. It felt way too rushed. I simply didn’t believe that a fat panda could become a master of kung fu in a matter of days or weeks.  I know it takes years of hard training. And no animated movie can make me believe otherwise. Moreover, the hidden powers within Po are a cheap way out of the story problem as it flushes down the core message of this movie. No hidden power, no dream come true.

One way out if this problem might have been something they came up with themselves but for reasons beyond me didn’t use: Po could already have been a pupil of the masters. Of course Po would have been the same dude/fanboy, but being pupil who tries his best but doesn’t believe in himself. As well as everybody else. This setup also is as standard as hell but this way they could have solved at least this training problem. This would also have enhanced the message as it would show that you have to work really hard and believe in yourself to accomplish you dream. This way they could also have minimized this cliché of someone pursuing his dreams while being stuck in his low-level life.

On the visual side of Kung fu Panda there is not much to write about. When you have seen other 3D animated movies you won’t see anything shockingly new on the character and animation part. I think they made one big mistake in my eyes: the 2D animated sequence implementing some elements known from anime at the beginning was visually so great on so many levels it was a horror moment when they went from awesome 2D to standard 3D. It is really sad they didn’t go with this stylish 2D look for the whole movie.

Kung Fu Panda is not as funny as some other movies you can buy or rent today. But which movie is? This movie works best with its action sequences and the interesting main characters albeit being full of clichés. Generally the plot somehow ruined for me with its rushed feeling during the second act and the flushed down message. Yet, thanks to this movie, I slowly start to begin to hope that one day in the next few years one studio (not Pixar) will be able to produce a 3D animated movie with a strong story, strong characters without any sign of a silly attempt of being funny. And well, this alone is a some accomplishment of Kung Fu Panda.

By the way, there is one thing that nags me since I watched this movie: how can a bird be the father of a panda?

Rating: 6.5 (Has some nice ideas and doesn't totally suck.)

Back to topic: judging by the first two teaser trailers released so far I certainly start to believe this movie could become Pixars best movie to date. The ideas shown in those two short “movies” are remarkable. The repairing of the Pixar Logo by Wall E. The fun stuff he does all the day. The hillarious and upbeat music which wonderfully contradicts the wasteland atmosphere we see. And the very robotic voice at the end.

The guys at Pixar certainly did their job.

The only small letdown on an atomic level (hence, really small. No Atom Bomb image here at work) is the third trailer they released because I got some”hey, we are funny” and “hey, we can render big sets” vibes. But I am not too concerned about this as they always went beyond this stuff.

Oh Dude. Slowly but surely I really want to work there. Working as a Director (me? at pixar? *rofl* (Note to me: stop dreaming, bastard)) of course would be a one way ticket to HeartAttackLand with the little help of StressBeyond 2000, your only true car on this planet. But I wouldn’t care. Because…

Imagine what you (that is to say I) could learn from those guys…

photo credit: Alternatewords

When you head over to a recent news post at Cartoon Brew, you will learn that there currently is a truly intruiging project in the works: Batman Animated. Or better Batman animated by Japanese Directors. Or in other words: Batman Anime.

Batman…

Out of all the superheroes we have today I find Batman the most interesting one (I gladly ignore the abysmal series of the 60s *shudder*). For the most part this is due to his darker nature and hence darker tone/atmosphere of the stories that revolve around him (I gladly ignore the abysmal Batman Forever and Batman&Robin movies *shudder*). Personally I always understood Batman to some degree as the total opposite of Superman. Ok, this sounds a little bit harsh towards the red and blue flying muscle, yet for me Superman was always too…well, clean, normal, well-behaved and over-powered (Side Note: never was a big comic reader).

I think and believe that this very dark nature helped this franchise to stay alive since its birth. As you can see from m writing above the franchise surrounding this winged avenger had some hiccups in the last decades. Heck, when I think about it it is a marvel (pun NOT intended) that the franchise is still alive today after so many trashy failures. On the other hand it seems that each big failure was only the drawback before the next big step (60s series -> 80s movie; 90s movies -> restart).

…Anime

When you look at Batman and look at the anime industry and their kind of story telling one has to wonder why it took so long to combine the powers of those two worlds. The various guys in the YouTube video are spot on when they say that in anime most heroes are often enough anti-heroes and the stories generally darker. This is one of the elements that draw me to eastern animation for some time now. And of course, they are also spot on with the sense of Destiny which looms in many of not all “superheroes”/action anime series whereas rather often the “heroes” don’t want to have their destiny or responsibility.

Batman Anime

Now the project itself, Gotham Night, is not one single movie, but a series of six shorts. When this rings a bell you are good because it is a similar approach to the Animatrix, which also was made by Japanese Animation Directors. Yet it seems that this time all six shorts will be more interewined than the single parts of Animatrix (with exception of Second Rennaisance which consists of two parts).

Quality wise there is nothing to say except: wow. If you watch this “trailer” closely you can see the work that goes and went into the prodcution: fluid animation, great character designs with new approaches and ideas, as well as a stunning art direction regarding Gotham City itself. Sadly there is a small fly in the ointment which is the somehow weird character design approach in one of the shorts.

Nevertheless I cannot wait to see this new approach to the Batman Franchise. And if the sources are right this DVD is due to sale just at or shortly before the release of the next Batman movie.

So, July I am waiting for you…

Although I am not a true part of the animation blog community it seems to me that there is quite some controversy going on. This seems especially true regarding the question “screenwriting or storyboarding?” as you can read here, here and here.

This is indeed some interesting stuff going on in this community but I believe that it not only misses the important part but also help to hide one even some more important points that seem to be forgotten.

Scriptwriting or Storyboarding?

One thing is for sure: the cartoon in its classic form is a hell of a visual medium. There are exaggerations everywhere as well as funny poses, weird expressions and even more.

But in the end, I believe that all that doesn’t matter. Why? Because in the end everything that is a movie/film/series is visual. The only difference is the way it is presented.

I can understand why many animators say that a cartoon or animation in general should be created mainly on a storyboard as animation is indeed a very visual style of film. There is really almost no way someone can truly and faithfully describe all those stretches and other crazy visual stuff going on. But does this matter?

For me visual gags are not the main element of a good cartoon. Indeed some might argue otherwise but for me it is only the added bonus. For me, the most important thing for an animation is the story. Not the funny things we see, but the underlying story that weaves everything together and gives us more than gags alone.

In this regard I consider storyboarding the second step after the script has been written. Why? Because in the scriptwriting stage you have nothing with which you can compensate the lack of a good story. On a storyboard you can have thousands of extremely funny drawings, on paper you have nothing else than words to bring something to life. If you are successful with that everything else will only make something great even better. Hence everything visual will be a wonderful added bonus.

But I also get the slight impression (correct me if I am wrong) that the discussion is going into a completely wrong direction.

What’s missing in western animation today…

In the last four to six weeks I have read some big number of posts regarding cartoons and animation. One thing that I noted besides the fact that most posts are a great read is the fact that almost everybody seems to be living in the past.
All those analyses of animation, color and composition, and all the discussions going on indicate that almost a whole industry is living in the golden age of animation. Or at least wants to be. When the stories were minimalistic and the animation wonderful.

Please don’t get me wrong when I say this but please get over it already. We don’t live in the early or middle 20th century anymore; we are living in the 21st century. Of course the animation principles still apply as well as composition and everything else. But do you think you can be innovative when you analyze everything that’s between 40 to 60 years old? Don’t you think it is time to move on and look around at things that are being made today? Don’t you think it is time again to be innovative?

I know you are a truly creative bunch of people. So please give me something that is not only good but also modern. Find new stories. Find new principles and ideas. Get the guts to be experimental.

I have stated it in the past and state it again. In comparison to Japanese animation and their ideas of story and animation most western animation looks bland and boring. And it is a shame because western animation could be top notch if it wants to be (perhaps this already happened and I simply missed it?).

If you want to know what I am talking about go to Youtube and watch the beginning of FLCL (Fooly Cooly), a Japanese series consisting of six episodes (note: the beginning is truly only the beginning, it gets crazier). When I first watched this thing it blew my head off. It was an eye opener for me. Crazy yet consistent and layered story, wonderful characters, great and serious moments, kinetic action, new kinds of visual jokes. It was almost as if someone opened the door and showed me a world of truly innovative animation that for me even surpassed every live action comedy.

This is the kind of modern animation you should strive for. Take the past and remodel it to something new. Find new audiences, find new demographics. Don’t strive for kids only.

In other words: please get you act together and be modern, deep, older, fresh, freaky, crazy and the more. You can do it. I know it. And I am the first one to watch it.

Kevin already mentions it in his post but it is nevertheless interesting that each animated short is listed only once throughout the awards. I guess this is partly due to the politics and reasoning. One example is the short THE PEARCE SISTERS with its darker and slightly wicked story. After watching it I knew why it wasn’t on the Oscar’s list (besides the innumberable count of possible alternatives, of course).

For the rest I cannot say very much as I didn’t see them. By looking at the various images and trailers it seems that the shorts cover quite a spectrum. Not only storywise but also on a visual level.

In the feature category we more or less have our usual suspects with Ratatouille being on all three big awards, as well as…none else. Some other movies have a maximum of two entries (SURF’S UP, SIMPSONS). Although I really liked (perhaps even loved (still not sure about that)) Pixars latest 3D adventure I hope that the smaller and 2D animated film PERSEPOLIS will get one or two awards. This would not only give Hollywood perhaps some guts to do some more 2D in the future but also to do some more animated flicks that don’t aim for the children only.

It is also sad that there is no animated flick from good old anime master Japan. I watched some number of anime flicks in the last months and I have to say that compared to them almost everything animated in Hollywood doesn’t come even close to it. Be it on the story level or the visual level.

Just watch the opening credits of the anime movie PAPRIKA. In these two minutes they try and accomplish so much more than I have seen in the western animation industry in years. While we have talking animals and their standard story they try think of something new. You can also watch a short clip from TEKKONKINKREET to see the differences.

Oh man, I would be the happiest guy ever if they would start to make some small animated flicks aimed at adults and not children or “the family”. Animated movies that try to be more than just being funny. Pixar is truly on the right track. I get the feeling that they are one of the few trying that. But I also believe that there is enough money for some small budget projects (as I already wrote about in this post) that go for something completely different. I would gladly watch anything. It doesn’t have to be spectacular. In fact Iwould love it if some would try to go the 5CM PER SECOND way. A small story with breathtaking art about loneliness and the small yet constant struggles we sometimes face in real life.

Oh man, I am dreaming again…

Nevertheless, congratulations to everybody who worked on the nominees/winners. I am truly happy for you.

But be sure of one thing: I will contact you one day to help me promote my 3D short movie

And now a question directly related to this post: do you know how many pop references you witnessed in all those years you watched 3D animated movies? Whenever I ask myself this question I get the feeling that it must have been hundreds if not thousands of references.

Something for everybody?

Pop culture references in themselves are, of course, a nice and easy way to spice up a movie. Not only are those references completely unrelated to the story and don’t interfere with it (well, at least most of the times), they also give something for those middle-aged people being “forced” into such a movie. So it seems everything is fine. Everybody gets something. The writer and director some more seconds to fill without working too much and some of the audience an easy joke.

But, of course, there are some problems with this formula.

Example 1 of bad pop references: Shark Tale

The story of Shark Tale deals with a fish who accidentally kills a gangster shark on the hunt and uses this encounter as a chance to step up the social ladder. Now while this reads quite nice on paper, the result on screen was not that amazing. In fact, I didn’t watch it through. And one reason I switched off were those extremely and annoyingly high amounts of pop references. From direct spoofs of gangster and mafia movies to more subtle/obscure ones, as the “Wings”-Poster (which shows Michael Jordan) in the background for example – this movie has everything. And way too much of it.

Shark Tale is a good example of how pop references (and culture references in general) cannot save a bad or underdeveloped story. A more recent example I didn’t watch is the “Bee Movie” which seemingly tries to squeeze all possible combinations of bee one can think of.

Example 2 of bad pop references: Robots

Now, Robots as a movie is not quite that bad. In fact the story had potential even though it relied on a standard formula. Besides all the (sometimes painfully obvious) pop references you see in this movie there is this one single moment that completely stands out. It is the moment when the “funny” red sidekick starts to dance to the song “Hit me Baby one more time” by Britney Spears:

While this Britney-Moment might have looked funny on paper it is in fact wrong on many levels simultaneously:

• firstly, this reference uses a person that is not really liked by everybody in the world. So by adding some work of her in the end can hurt the movie itself (“Oh, come on! Why her… I can’t stand it anymore…”).
• secondly, it is heavy time-dependent. If some kids watch this in, let’s say, five years with their family or their friends. Can you be sure they get the joke? (“Daddy, what was that song?”)
• and thirdly, this joke/reference disturbs the story of the movie, or to be more precise, the world of the story because the song and the dance doesn’t belong to the world of robots (“What the…Since when does Britney live in a robot world?”)

Especially the third point is in my eyes important: a pop-culture reference in a movie, even a subtle one, can to some degree pull out the viewer out of the story. Either because he hates the thing being referenced, has to think about what has been referenced, hates pop references in general or gets a feeling that it doesn’t fit in.

Either way, I think that the writers and directors have act carefully since a device like this can be extremely damaging to the movie itself.

Some of them might think this is the only way to give something to the older audience so they are not being bored. But I think the best way to accomplish this is to write something good.

As Pixar shows again and again: you don’t have to use many pop-references to create a good movie. You “just” have to write a good story.

The blog of John K about cartoons and animation in general is again and again contains really interesting stuff, which is especially true for me, since at some stage I have to animate a short movie myself. Some days ago John has published a post with some very interesting points in it. I don’t want to write about the animation part of 3D generated movies, though, since I am no animator but I want to write about the situation in general.

3D Movies and their stories

You know, John K mentions in his post that it seems that Hollywood is coming with ideas or stories some twelve year old teens could come up with. Perhaps you can’t it really call movies with stupid ideas or stories but more movies with stories that have been done to death – as the one in which main character learns that he has to be true to himself and all around him or that he can make his dreams come true. The usual stuff you see in today’s 3D flicks most of the time. Hell, even Pixar used that story device in “Ratatouille”.

The situation from the production point of view

And although I am personally tired of some of those stories with all the pop-reference galore (one more “I am you father” joke, and I go berserk!) I also understand the production studios. Why should they do it otherwise? There is no reason because it doesn’t matter since almost each and every 3D movie they released was a success. Sometimes the seemingly inferior sequel was even more profitable for them (Shrek: ~270M; Shrek 2: ~440M). Of course there are those guys like me who want something more intruiging or deeper, but the numbers are small omapred to the grosses.

If I were an executive and had to spent one hundred and fifty million dollar I also would look out carefully to what I spent this much money on. I would go look around to see what movies were successes; I would search for the highest possible chance of success so my money is a good (and save) investment. I most surely would go into the standard way. No unusual things. No unusual story or bad resolutions. Because the more unusual a story the smaller the audience.

And as it seems, both sides are happy with this situation. Hollywood can spit out the usual 3D flicks and the audience gets its simple, easy and funny movies in which they can forget the hard reality for one and a half hour. And I don’t blame anyone for this.

A possible solution

Nevertheless, this is not enough for me because I believe and know that Hollywood can do far more than that. But again, there is money you have to spend and earn. So what can we do, what could be a solution?

I think one of the most reasonable paths out of this are small productions that don’t cost that much money. Of course this is easier said than done but I believe that it is possible. Perhaps not 3D animation at the moment but 2D animation.

One production company could spent two to ten million dollar for a small budget 2D movie that blows our minds (the numbers don’t seem too low, since the anime movie Tokyo Godfathers by Satoshi Kon cost 2.7 Million Dollar, whereas Paprika, also by Kon, seemingly cost the same amount). By “dividing” the market, the “mass” audience can watch the normal 3D flicks, and the ones who like something more unusual (Paprika is a good exmaple), can watch the 2D animated movies. Everybody gets something and 2D animation gets a revival the adult way.

The more I think about it the more I like it, because in that regard 3D animation would in some way be the new Disney style – family cartoons with easy to follow stories and characters. 2D animation on the other hand could be the more intriguing brother, showing the adult, uneasy and arty stuff.

Am I dreaming too much?

Buy Big and Large at Buy n Large

Buy n Large is a rather interesting example of a big company selling great and cool product to its customers. Their website is nicely done and modern. The only drawback? Well, this company doesn’t exist. Or better: doesn’t exist yet.

The website of this future company is completely faked, created by the genius minds from Pixar for a viral marketing campaign and as my blog post shows, it is successful in its goal (*lol*, where is my money…!!)

Imagination vs. Safe Game

Besides the fun this fake website shows something very important. While most studios and production companies play the safe game, Pixar is the only one really trying to create something new and compelling, without thinking about pissing its parent off. The idea of a movie about a robot is not entirely new, even in 3D animation (Robots, anyone?), but the promise surrounding a little robot is simply stunning: in the distant future, humanity leaves the planet buried under the garbage of uncontrolled consume and settles in space. Since the humans want to return one day, they build a fleet of the so called Wall-E’s (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) to clean up the mess. Time goes by and after 700 years, in which humanity became even more gluttonous, only one unit remains, desperately trying to do what it was built for (a longer synopsis can be found here).

The promise alone could fill two movies, and it is by far one of the darkest ones in Pixar’s young history of movies. But this premise clearly shows that Pixar seems to be the only production company at the moment with the guts to try something really new. Looking at the other studios can make you really…desperate. Either everyone settles with the standard formula of talking animals in silly stories (Over the Hedge, Madagascar, Chicken Little), or they don’t take the premise of their movies to their full potential (Robots). They don’t even try to create a promise as dark and edgy as this one.

The same Fate as 2D animation?

Because of these reasons I am currently deeply concerned that with all those talking animals and bad sequels we perhaps might see a future similar to the classical animation: the stories became weaker and sillier and soon no one watched it anymore (as with the recent Disney movies).

I sincerely hope that Pixar will be the one in 3D which Disney in 2D wasn’t: a production studio that doesn’t think of animation as something for kids only but simply a different method to tell great and emotional stories. Well, and by the list of recent movies I really loved (Incredibles, Ratatouille) and by the upcoming Wall-E, I am convinced for now that at least 3D animation in Hollywood has a chance of survival.

Titan A.E., Treasure Planet and freedom

If you watch the movies Treasure Planet by Disney or Titan A.E. you can see the approach to imitate 3D-movies very well. In Treasure Planet the ship they are cruising on is 3D as the robotic arm of the pirate. In Titan A.E. almost everything besides the characters is 3D.

Of course there is one big argument for these decisions: 3D is 3D. This means a hand-drawn movie with flat backgrounds cannot rely on action sequences that much. Again, Titan A.E. is a very good example for that. They simply couldn’t have realized these chase sequences in 2D. But on the other hand this doesn’t mean that action-filled movies are not possible. You only cannot have those fancy camera movements all the time.

So, while 2D animation lacks some ‘possibilities’ in some areas it has many other ones to substitute for those lacks. And there is one benefit which is the main problem of 3D animation: visual freedom. Or to more exact: visual freedom with the object and visual freedom with the scene.

Visual Freedom with the Object

The first one, visual freedom with the object, is the thing for which we all love those old Warner Brothers cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Coyote and all the other ones. It is the freedom to deform the characters and exaggerate their reactions and/or faces only limited to ones fantasy.

If you tried to imply the same principles of those cartoons to 3D animation you would not only get silly looking results but also an animation control setup too complex to handle. While the latter one might be solved with pure hard work the first one can’t. The reason is the fact that 3D animation might be completely artificial but nevertheless be more “real” than 2D animation. The characters and environments have volume for example. Deformations therefore can only be used in a very limited matter as you can see in Ice Age for example.

Visual Freedom with the Scene

The second benefit of 2D animation, visual freedom with the scene, is the fact that the animator or director, in fact, can do whatever they want with a scene. They can change the colors, they can add ornaments and they can change the line style of the drawings themselves for a certain effect. Everything is possible because most of the time we accept that without bigger problems. The reason? Because we know it is animated. Because we know everything we see is in fact flat. Because it is that far away from our reality we know. 3D animation doesn’t have that luxury. It is – more than 2D animation – bound to reality. If suddenly the sky color in Toy Story or Ratatoullie would change or the colors of the characters, we would be disturbed – even if it was established at the beginning of the movie.

Some Examples

To show you my point, I have a collected some examples for your viewing pleasure:

This first example is from an anime movie called Dead Leaves. As you can see in this image, the animators added (Japanese) text to the explosion which creates an interesting effect.

The second one is from the anime series called Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Here the character is unique in many ways (his eyes for example) which would be difficult to create in 3D.

What you see here is a action scene from the series Noein. Here the animators almost scribbled everything to emphasize the motion and fluidity which in creates a stunning effect.

The last two images are from the series Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, Mr. Despair). These examples show the visual freedom with scenes very well. The change of style and colorization is remarkable especially when you consider that I captured those two screens in one second only.

Final Thoughts

All these examples show what you can achieve with animation in an unusual way. Of course this would be difficult to realize in a Disney Family Movie but at least some elements could be added to spice things up visually. Therefore, if anyone creating a 2D animated movie would ask me, what he should try, I would tell him to use the benefits of 2D. Try to exaggerate, draw bold lines, scribble in the movie, do everything a 3D movie can’t. Set it apart from the competition. Don’t try to imitate it.

And, of course, tell a great story!