Per a debate going on over at the Facebook page, I decided I should take a second to fully explain my thoughts on Toy Story 3 and the Oscars over here. First of all, let me say that over on the Huffington Post, Michael Barrier made a similar argument not to long ago, and articulated these ideas far better than me.
Let me also say that I do not think that Toy Story 3 or ANY Pixar work is bad, except--to quote Lisa Simpson--Cars. I think Pixar is terrific, and if you give me the opportunity to go see a Pixar movie or any other piece of work from Studio X that's out at the same time, I'm going to go see the Pixar movie, and I will enjoy it. I have pals that work at Pixar. I have Monsters Inc., Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo toys on my desk where I'm writing this. So this is not about me not liking Pixar movies. I don't even take the hard-line stance that Barrier does. I just don't go into Pixar movies with the blind do-no-wrong attitude with which a lot of fans see these films.
The fact of the matter is, though, that the reason people like Pixar movies is largely an emotional trick. It's like people sit down at these movies and say, "All right, here we fuckin' go. It's cryin' time." The films use music, lighting, and a series of story-telling tricks to manipulate audiences and their emotions.
"But other movies do that!" I can hear you yelling at me as I decry Woody and Buzz. Yes, you're exactly right; other movies do that. These are time honored tricks of story-telling. But people don't seem to see them as that. For some reason, when people see a Pixar movie they think that Pixar has achieved some magic story-telling feat. Praising Pixar for their truly original story-telling. The fact is, if I read you the story for Toy Story 3 or Wall-E or Up they wouldn't seem that original. In fact they're kind of formulaic with toys, robots, or crank old guys and weird birds placed in the spots normally occupied by people. I could take them one by one and show you, but I don't want to. You're smart people, and you can figure it out.
Again, though, that does not mean that these movies are bad. Part of good movie making is hiding the tricks. And the tricks seem to be hidden pretty well from people who are fans. Partly because you're watching a story about a fish instead of a kid and partly because the audience has a knee-jerk response to like whatever Pixar puts out. "That's not true. I don't automatically like everything Pixar puts out. I didn't like Cars." Nobody liked Cars. That's not an argument.
Toy Story 3 is a good movie. Up is a good movie. They are not great movies. I think that Barrier say it best: "There's a sentimentality in most Pixar pictures that are [sic] very manipulative and completely unconvincing to me. They are congratulating their audience for feeling these synthetic emotions..."
Having said all that, enjoy the next Pixar film. I'll probably see you there. Until then you've got a friend in me.
CG
Monday, February 28, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Tiny Tunes Nostalgia
Currently running on television is a commercial for Citi Bank where the narrator guy is talking about his parents getting adjusted to living in Istanbul after his father gets transferred there for his job.
First of all, what job do you have that's going to transfer you to Istanbul? I can't think of any industry of which Istanbul would be the hub. At least I can't think of one that doesn't sound racist: your magic carpet manufacturing, your camel sales, etc.
Anyway, every time I see that commercial all I can think of is this:
Remember when after school cartoons were this good? Funny, smart comedy shows that didn't talk down to kids, that encouraged you to learn why the joke was funny if you didn't get it. Keep an eye on the forthcoming Cartoon Guru Podcast because I have a couple of Tiny Tunes writers and story guys lined up.
CG
First of all, what job do you have that's going to transfer you to Istanbul? I can't think of any industry of which Istanbul would be the hub. At least I can't think of one that doesn't sound racist: your magic carpet manufacturing, your camel sales, etc.
Anyway, every time I see that commercial all I can think of is this:
Remember when after school cartoons were this good? Funny, smart comedy shows that didn't talk down to kids, that encouraged you to learn why the joke was funny if you didn't get it. Keep an eye on the forthcoming Cartoon Guru Podcast because I have a couple of Tiny Tunes writers and story guys lined up.
CG
Monday, February 21, 2011
Angry Dad The Movie
Though it probably wasn't nearly as funny to non-animation industry people, last night's very meta Simpson's was one of the funniest episodes I've seen in a while.
Loved Ricky Gervais in this episode, obviously, and the homage/jabs at Pixar and Nick Parks. This reminded me of the kind of good pop culture satire that The Simpsons used to do all the time, and not the movie parodies they seem to be doing every third episode now.
Give it a watch.
CG
Loved Ricky Gervais in this episode, obviously, and the homage/jabs at Pixar and Nick Parks. This reminded me of the kind of good pop culture satire that The Simpsons used to do all the time, and not the movie parodies they seem to be doing every third episode now.
Give it a watch.
CG
Thursday, February 17, 2011
CG Remakes
Dear Studio Executives,
Doing this to cartoons does not make them better. It does not "turn them on to a whole new generation of kids." It does not "bring them into the 21st century." It does not "give them a new attitude." What it does is piss off fans of the originals, make the characters look horrible and creepy, and bastardizes the humor and the work of the people who created these characters.
If you really want to "introduce these characters to a whole new generation," how about just introducing these characters to a whole new generation. Why not put Rocky and Bullwinkle back on television? Or re-release Yogi Bear?
And who wants these characters "brought into the 21st century?" Here's an idea, how about having an original idea and creating new great characters for kids to watch instead of profiteering off of brilliant minds from fifty years ago.
And maybe, just maybe we could use the WABAC machine to go back and stop this from happening.
Thanks,
CG
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Fowl Weather Friend
Today it's rainy and cold in Los Angeles, and boy am I bored. I suppose it could be worse. While the rest of the country has been getting pummeled with snow for the past few weeks, Los Angelenos have been enjoying 70-degree sunny days. So I guess one or two rainy days isn't so bad in the grand scheme.
However, that don't change the fact that I am bored. I had planned to play tennis and go for a run, but now I'm stuck inside and it's absolutely no fun.
Wait...did you hear that? A rhyme. That's it! I know someone who can help me have a fun time during the rain:
Yay!
CG
However, that don't change the fact that I am bored. I had planned to play tennis and go for a run, but now I'm stuck inside and it's absolutely no fun.
Wait...did you hear that? A rhyme. That's it! I know someone who can help me have a fun time during the rain:
Yay!
CG
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Pink Workout
I have been trying to get in better shape recently. Though I am an avid runner, I lack quite a bit in the way of muscle tone, much less physique. Like I do with most things I life, I wondered if Cartoondom could offer me any direction, so I went online and found this cartoon:
What I learned is that if The Pink Panther can have body image issues, than anyone can. The Pink Panther is one of the suavest, coolest, most mellow cartoon characters there is. If he's neurotic about his level of fitness, then no wonder I am.
Taking a page out of PP's book, I chose not to just look at my body and let myself become a pink amorphous blob. I decided to give some of these exercises a try, but then I got distracted watching Pink Panther cartoons all day.
Maybe tomorrow.
CG
What I learned is that if The Pink Panther can have body image issues, than anyone can. The Pink Panther is one of the suavest, coolest, most mellow cartoon characters there is. If he's neurotic about his level of fitness, then no wonder I am.
Taking a page out of PP's book, I chose not to just look at my body and let myself become a pink amorphous blob. I decided to give some of these exercises a try, but then I got distracted watching Pink Panther cartoons all day.
Maybe tomorrow.
CG
See The Cartoon Guru Live
This Friday, I will be performing live as a part of the DESTRUCTO! Show at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood, CA. Click the photo below for details. Please come on out if you are in town. There will be talk of gay characters in Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
CG
CG
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Believable versus Realistic
Recently on CartoonBrew, Amid posted a link to an article from Salon in which they interviewed designer Shannon Tindle about the current state of character design in animation. Shannon does not come out and say that the character designs are bad, or at the very least unsettling-looking, but the idea is mostly implied. You can find that post and a link to the full interview--which is highly worth reading--here.
The part of the interview that I found most interesting is actually in the part that Amid quotes in his post. Shannon says:
“For me, it should be something that’s believable but not necessarily realistic. Those are two things that people interchange quite a bit on productions...From my point of view, it’s been proven that realism is not really appealing to an audience...A lot of people are actually afraid of stylizing characters in animated films, period. They tend to want to push it to be more realistic, but the first thing people see in an animated film is the characters, and if it’s a character that doesn’t have an appealing, believable design, they’re not going to feel any connection to it.”
This idea of characters that are believable, but not necessarily realistic is one that has always resonated with me, and though, I am no animator--outside of my few amateur attempts at short cartoons--when I have a go a creating a character voice, the idea of creating a believable character, not necessarily a realistic character is the major goal. However, this is not something that I came to on my own. I remember reading it in an interview from another great character designer and animator: Chuck Jones.
In the book Chuck Jones: Conversations, an interview from 1999 with Ron Barbagallo is printed in which Chuck says:
"Why do they want it to be realistic? I mean Bugs Bunny doesn't look anything like a rabbit and Daffy doesn't look anything like a duck. They're not realistic, they're believable. That's the key.
In some of the huge new films, it seems to me that they are just showing off instead of entertaining. It's using a tool because it's there.
When Walt Disney needed an opening for Pinocchio, they invented the multiplane camera, and it worked. But they didn't invent the multiplane camera and then use it for everything."
And this interview was made when the most technologically advanced film released was A Bug's Life. I find it interesting that artists today are still making those kinds of observations. Trying to make characters more realistic does not make movies or television better. Rocky and Bullwinkle is genius. It looks terrible, but it is genius. What about Looney Tunes? Have you ever watched One Froggy Evening and thought, You know what would make this even better? If the frog looked more like this:
The idea that characters should be believable is one that Chuck Jones and animators like him discovered in the twenties, thirties, and forties, and yet animation studios continue to strive to make animated films more and more realistic. Can we please return to compelling stories and believable characters, and leave behind the modern day masturbatory technology fests?
I leave you with one last comparison. Hopefully this will drive home the point that technology for technology's sake can do more harm than good.
CG
The part of the interview that I found most interesting is actually in the part that Amid quotes in his post. Shannon says:
“For me, it should be something that’s believable but not necessarily realistic. Those are two things that people interchange quite a bit on productions...From my point of view, it’s been proven that realism is not really appealing to an audience...A lot of people are actually afraid of stylizing characters in animated films, period. They tend to want to push it to be more realistic, but the first thing people see in an animated film is the characters, and if it’s a character that doesn’t have an appealing, believable design, they’re not going to feel any connection to it.”
This idea of characters that are believable, but not necessarily realistic is one that has always resonated with me, and though, I am no animator--outside of my few amateur attempts at short cartoons--when I have a go a creating a character voice, the idea of creating a believable character, not necessarily a realistic character is the major goal. However, this is not something that I came to on my own. I remember reading it in an interview from another great character designer and animator: Chuck Jones.
In the book Chuck Jones: Conversations, an interview from 1999 with Ron Barbagallo is printed in which Chuck says:
"Why do they want it to be realistic? I mean Bugs Bunny doesn't look anything like a rabbit and Daffy doesn't look anything like a duck. They're not realistic, they're believable. That's the key.
In some of the huge new films, it seems to me that they are just showing off instead of entertaining. It's using a tool because it's there.
When Walt Disney needed an opening for Pinocchio, they invented the multiplane camera, and it worked. But they didn't invent the multiplane camera and then use it for everything."
And this interview was made when the most technologically advanced film released was A Bug's Life. I find it interesting that artists today are still making those kinds of observations. Trying to make characters more realistic does not make movies or television better. Rocky and Bullwinkle is genius. It looks terrible, but it is genius. What about Looney Tunes? Have you ever watched One Froggy Evening and thought, You know what would make this even better? If the frog looked more like this:
The idea that characters should be believable is one that Chuck Jones and animators like him discovered in the twenties, thirties, and forties, and yet animation studios continue to strive to make animated films more and more realistic. Can we please return to compelling stories and believable characters, and leave behind the modern day masturbatory technology fests?I leave you with one last comparison. Hopefully this will drive home the point that technology for technology's sake can do more harm than good.
CG
Thursday, February 10, 2011
New Website
In case you were running out of places to get a hold of The Cartoon Guru. There is now an official website at thecartoonguru.mikefunt.com. Be sure to head on over there as well. There will be lots of cool things coming up in the future.
CG
CG
Present Time!
Many of you know I have a birthday coming up and Animation Magazine is reporting on something that I'm sure you'll want to get me:The cell is from The Band Concert, a Mickey cartoon made by Disney studios in 1935. It is expected to fetch a winning bid in excess of $100,000 when Heritage Auctions puts it up for sale in a comics and comic art auction set for Feb. 24-25.
“This cel is, in many ways, the ultimate Mickey Mouse item a collector could ever hope to acquire,” said Barry Sandoval, director of operations of the comics category at Heritage. “The Band Concert was the very first theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon in color, and has long been cherished by Disney fans worldwide.”
Read more about the Mickey cel here.
CG
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Facepages and Such
Sunday, February 6, 2011
The 2011 Annie Awards
Last Saturday was Cartoondom's biggest night, when ASIFA Hollywood presented the 38th annual Annie Awards to honor outstanding achievements in animation. How To Train Your Dragon swept the ceremony taking home 15 awards including Production Design, Directing, Writing, and Best Animated Feature.
Although this year's awards were riddled with controversy including rumors of unfair voting practices and Disney pulling out as a sponsor, I still managed to have a great time. Which, as we all know, is the most important thing. The evening was just stunning and one of the most fun times I have had on Annie night.
First of all, it was great to have Tom Kenny back at the podium as host. He took a year off last year to hand the reigns off to William Shatner, but was back this year for his sixth run at hosting. He held the show together nicely with some really funny bits along the way, including a bit about this place:
The show ran smoothly and felt shorter than previous years, and the after party was overrun with animations high rollers and heavy hitters including Matt Groening, Bill Plympton, Jim Cummings, and Billy West. This was the first time I've gotten to meet Jim in person and it was thrill to shake his hand and tell him that much of my love of cartoons started watching Darkwing Duck.
I think that How to Train Your Dragon was deserving of many of its awards including Best Animated Feature. It certainly, for my money, surpassed all of the other nominees in achievement, including The Illusionist, which I loved, and I have never really been on the Toy Story train. I like Toy Story, I don't love Toy Story. I stand firm in that, though I know some people who want to crucify me for saying it.
Do I feel, though, that it deserved the sweep it had? Eh...Let's just say I'm starting to see why certain former sponsors of the Annies are starting to get their panties in a twist. All I know is by the end of the evening, when dinner was imminent, all I could think of was, "Jesus, we're thirty seconds closer to dinner if you don't even bother opening the envelope."
CG
Although this year's awards were riddled with controversy including rumors of unfair voting practices and Disney pulling out as a sponsor, I still managed to have a great time. Which, as we all know, is the most important thing. The evening was just stunning and one of the most fun times I have had on Annie night.
First of all, it was great to have Tom Kenny back at the podium as host. He took a year off last year to hand the reigns off to William Shatner, but was back this year for his sixth run at hosting. He held the show together nicely with some really funny bits along the way, including a bit about this place:
The show ran smoothly and felt shorter than previous years, and the after party was overrun with animations high rollers and heavy hitters including Matt Groening, Bill Plympton, Jim Cummings, and Billy West. This was the first time I've gotten to meet Jim in person and it was thrill to shake his hand and tell him that much of my love of cartoons started watching Darkwing Duck. I think that How to Train Your Dragon was deserving of many of its awards including Best Animated Feature. It certainly, for my money, surpassed all of the other nominees in achievement, including The Illusionist, which I loved, and I have never really been on the Toy Story train. I like Toy Story, I don't love Toy Story. I stand firm in that, though I know some people who want to crucify me for saying it.
Do I feel, though, that it deserved the sweep it had? Eh...Let's just say I'm starting to see why certain former sponsors of the Annies are starting to get their panties in a twist. All I know is by the end of the evening, when dinner was imminent, all I could think of was, "Jesus, we're thirty seconds closer to dinner if you don't even bother opening the envelope."
CG
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Ladies and Gentlemen...Science!
I have two big obsessions in my life: science--particularly zoology--is one. The other is cartoons. Well, I discovered an artist, who I think is meant to be my best friend. He is a Korean artist named Hyungkoo Lee, and he has an art exhibition currently touring the world called Animatus. The exhibit features hand-fabricated skeletons of famous cartoon characters along with detailed anatomical drawings. According to the Lee, the Animatus series started with the “intention to analyze anatomical structures and physical forms of animation characters, within the hypothesis to visualize their possible anatomical foundation.” He constructs the skeletons using a hybrid mix of real animal bones and synthetic materials. You have to see some of these:
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny Anatomical Drawing
Donald Duck
Mickey Mouse
Wile E. Coyote
The Roadrunner
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