(no subject)
I was writing this in a John K (you know, the Ren & Stimpy guy)'s blog post, and I thought it would be better in MY blog post so...
I was watching "Kaena - The Prophecy" a throughly forgettable piece of 3D computer animation. Exploding spaceships, a tree growing between two worlds... you've got to love ripped off Euro comics, trippy if lame... this impossibly long pull outs that took about 20 minutes of screen time... like I said, dreck, but not too bad. Kind of an "eh" review.
So, I watching this last year instead of doing whatever we were supposedly doing... I think it was the street scene blowing up or something... and this very forgettable film starts to bug me. What's wrong with it? I ask myself, why is it BOTHERING me? It took about another 20 minutes for me to realize what was wrong with this flick.
Yesterday, I saunter into my local Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Malaysian Video/HDTV store... Oh, everybody has one, just look in the phone book... to talk to the manager. This guy is a nice guy, he obviously loves his work, and he has seen so many films that he hates everything American, most British, some French, Russian, African, Japanese, Chinese, Korean... well, you get the idea. He hates movies, but he keeps watching them. Its like The Comics Journal, the magazine for people who hate comics and refuse to stop reading them.
So, In the video store, he's watching (or has on for background) this Kaena film. I mentioned my findings to him, what the problem was with the film, and indeed with many animated films today. It was two fold, 1) No Color Direction and 2) No Composistion. We will talk about color later, this was his reaction to composistion of the film;
"Well... I guess that if you want every frame to look like a photo, no it does't... but it looks okay in most of the shots."
Well... the conversation shifted and I was driving home when I finally realized this; ITS ANIMATED! EVERY scene could, would, and should be PERFECT! Try telling Brad Bird that is looks "okay". See how long you are on the Simpsons!
It should be perfection. It could if they just move the shots around in the storyboards stage, it would if they cared or if they were experienced artists. These guys were from a game company. The longest they had to let a sequence run is about 5 minutes, not 100! If was so obvious that the guy who layed out the human shots knew what he was doing, only to be sabotaged by lighting artist.
So, avoid that one like the plague. Also, know that I'm trying to LEAN on the layout, cus I can't move these characters too well...yet! ;-) I think I'll try and upload some of my layouts during the process.
Oh, I might be a little hard on these french people because I just watched Seven Samurai (aka. The Magnificnet Seven, in Japanese...) again. Kurosawa is a genius. EVERY, and I do mean EVERY shot in that picture is flawless. Every element in Kurosawa's control, from the crowds to the shadows to the rain and the wind... flawless. Kurosawa made something like 30 films... 22 of them are bonafide classics. I
t is said that Spielburg, before he makes a picture, watches the Seven Samurai. I'll bet he turns the sound down.
So, my universal female is almost done. I'll prolly try for later this weekend or at the begining of next week! Then, more details on the new story... I think it is okay.
Will
I was watching "Kaena - The Prophecy" a throughly forgettable piece of 3D computer animation. Exploding spaceships, a tree growing between two worlds... you've got to love ripped off Euro comics, trippy if lame... this impossibly long pull outs that took about 20 minutes of screen time... like I said, dreck, but not too bad. Kind of an "eh" review.
So, I watching this last year instead of doing whatever we were supposedly doing... I think it was the street scene blowing up or something... and this very forgettable film starts to bug me. What's wrong with it? I ask myself, why is it BOTHERING me? It took about another 20 minutes for me to realize what was wrong with this flick.
Yesterday, I saunter into my local Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Malaysian Video/HDTV store... Oh, everybody has one, just look in the phone book... to talk to the manager. This guy is a nice guy, he obviously loves his work, and he has seen so many films that he hates everything American, most British, some French, Russian, African, Japanese, Chinese, Korean... well, you get the idea. He hates movies, but he keeps watching them. Its like The Comics Journal, the magazine for people who hate comics and refuse to stop reading them.
So, In the video store, he's watching (or has on for background) this Kaena film. I mentioned my findings to him, what the problem was with the film, and indeed with many animated films today. It was two fold, 1) No Color Direction and 2) No Composistion. We will talk about color later, this was his reaction to composistion of the film;
"Well... I guess that if you want every frame to look like a photo, no it does't... but it looks okay in most of the shots."
Well... the conversation shifted and I was driving home when I finally realized this; ITS ANIMATED! EVERY scene could, would, and should be PERFECT! Try telling Brad Bird that is looks "okay". See how long you are on the Simpsons!
It should be perfection. It could if they just move the shots around in the storyboards stage, it would if they cared or if they were experienced artists. These guys were from a game company. The longest they had to let a sequence run is about 5 minutes, not 100! If was so obvious that the guy who layed out the human shots knew what he was doing, only to be sabotaged by lighting artist.
So, avoid that one like the plague. Also, know that I'm trying to LEAN on the layout, cus I can't move these characters too well...yet! ;-) I think I'll try and upload some of my layouts during the process.
Oh, I might be a little hard on these french people because I just watched Seven Samurai (aka. The Magnificnet Seven, in Japanese...) again. Kurosawa is a genius. EVERY, and I do mean EVERY shot in that picture is flawless. Every element in Kurosawa's control, from the crowds to the shadows to the rain and the wind... flawless. Kurosawa made something like 30 films... 22 of them are bonafide classics. I
t is said that Spielburg, before he makes a picture, watches the Seven Samurai. I'll bet he turns the sound down.
So, my universal female is almost done. I'll prolly try for later this weekend or at the begining of next week! Then, more details on the new story... I think it is okay.
Will