Saturday, August 16, 2008
A By-Product Result of Siggraph 2008: More Appreciation For Disney & Pixar
Disney and Pixar were both major presence at this year's Siggraph 2008. The past two years have seen the purchase of Pixar (the new Disney) by Disney and this summer both studios are riding high with the artistic and economic success of Wall-E. One of the first sessions I attended at this year's SIGGRAPH was a talk about how non-digital cinematography techniques were employed in Wal-E's unique look and feel. It was very impressive. They showed how they were able to emulate hand held camera, use aspects of anamorphic photography like lens flare to get a more realistic image. They also pushed limits and expectations of a look and feel of a CG created film by not overstaging or overpolishing the images and letting much of the film, especially in the first act have a darker look. "Dark is the New Light" was a motto stated during Wall-E's production and planning.
Prior to Siggraph, I have appreciated and somewhat admired Pixar for their accomplishments and success in family entertainment, but I am not a Pixar fan boy, and feature animation is not where I am likely to spend my time in either movie theater or in front of television and computer with DVD. Siggraph sessions this year with Ed Catmull and John Lasseter's introduction of the studio's sponsored documentary on their history and accomplishments, The Pixar Story de-thawed my ambivalence for Lasseter, Catmull and their 3D animations.
As for Disney, let's just say, its not my thing. The last Disney animation feature I saw in a theater was the Aristocats. I've never made it through Lion King, Pochantes, or The Little Mermaid. I have a hard time with cute, with sentimental, and the crafty saturaation marketing that Disney employees.
But my feelings about Pixar and Disney were most transformed by two shorts that have recently been created by the studio(s). And maybe not coincidentally, the studio name on each of the shorts seems reversed. Glagos Guest and Presto! were both featured in a standing room only session.
I saw Disney's Glagos Ghost three times at Siggraph, the first screening was in 3D. It reminded me more of a Pixar short like Luxor Junior than any Disney film I can recall. Its stark, minimalist staging and subtlety in a tale of a 1924 Russian soldier on patrol in Siberia who has a "close encounter" felt more like an independent or school based animation short that would be running in competition rather than the North American premiere of the major animation studio in the world's new short subject. Here's a short excerpt:
The look of the film was modeled on Dr. Zhivago and Reds. The color palette and attention to historical detail were painstakingly planned out in advance. I understand from a fellow who works at Disney that the short may be distributed with their Thanksgiving 3D animation feature, Bolt, where John Travolta voices a talking dog. That seems like a strange combination to me.
Presto! was featured before audiences viewed Wall-E this summer. It is presented as a Pixar short, but its manic rabbit vs. magician humor seems more a throwback to Disney. The production session showed how the story of it evolved. The early versions did not have the rabbit's main motivator as hunger for a carrot. They were just outdoing each other with magic hats. The session also showed underscored how the Pixar production model worked. Revisions and stages of the production are subject to a brain trust critique where any kind of note is given to the director who finally decides to utilize or reject the comments. One also got a sense of how integral John Lasseter's taste and leadership are to these studios.
Both Glagos Guest and Presto! are well-executed, perhaps state of the art short subjects. I'm thinking they also served as kinds of test runs to bring the two animation teams together. Certainly, the identity of what one considered Disney to be and Pixar are not readily seen by the content of these two short films.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:54 PM
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