What I would give...

As I write this, the Screenwriting Expo 5 is going on in LA. And who should be speaking there but... Pixar artists! Man, do I want to be there now! Oh well, they release DVDs of past speakers, so maybe I'll buy it if comes out (fingers crossed!) Speakers include Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Dan Gerson, David Reynolds, Lee Unkrich, Mark Andrews, Jim Capobianco, Ronnie del Carmen, and Jason Katz.

But what's really cool is that I picked up a few juicy tidbits from the website here, including the fact that Jim Capobianco is the story supervisor for Ratatouille and an upcoming project directed by former sound designer extraordinaire Gary Rydstrom ("Lifted"), which might be written by Kiel Murray. In addition to the speakers listed, there are two more writer-director pairs. One is Lee Unkrich and Mike Arndt, writer of Little Miss Sunshine. I myself have not seen it, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. To my knowledge, Arndt hasn't written a Pixar film yet, which means he's writing one that's coming up.

And then... Brenda Chapman and Irene Mecchi!! Which implies that Chapman is finally directing a future Pixar project! She's worked on Chicken Run, Cars, Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, and Aladdin, was story supervisor for The Lion King, and directed the Prince of Egypt. P of E was not written by Irene Mecchi, but Mecchi has written screenplays for The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Hercules. I think Chapman is a very talented, but overlooked woman; there's quite a nice interview with her in the book Makin' Toons by Allan Neuwirth. Although she directed P of E, there were two other directors on that project. P of E is not a bad film, but I can't help wondering if it had been better had it been a sole Chapman project. The two other directors, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, have a pretty dismal track record, having produced or directed such Amblimation flops like An American Tail 2, Balto, and We're Back! (That is not my exclamation point.) And it seems that she's working in a company that will really let her abilities shine. I'm sure DreamWorks Animation looked pretty attractive in the beginning, but once they stopped doing 2D, it was clear that they weren't aiming for quality. I'm happy for her, as well as for James Baxter and Aardman, two other extremely talented former DreamWorks entities.

Just a quickie...

I really should be getting to bed soon, but just thought I'd mention...had my first canceled college class today. First class of the day, 9:55-11:40 AM. On Tuesdays/Thursdays, I only have one other class...from 3:40-5:25 PM! And since I commute by train, it isn't exactly easy to go back home. So I had a lovely day at the library-of-no-books. Good thing I had to be at work at 12:00 noon or I really would have been pissed.

Aardman: What's Next?

Come on. Who doesn't like Wallace and Gromit? Or Chicken Run? Oh, silly me, that's like asking "Who doesn't like Pixar?" or "Who doesn't breathe air?" Seriously, Aardman is one of a holy trinity of excellent animation studios, each from a difffernt country, each (thus far) using a different type of animation, and each blowing the socks off anything else to be found in feature animation--or films--today. Aardman's claymation, Miyazaki's "animé" and Pixar's CG prove that YES, there STILL IS talent in the moviemaking business still. It's just not in Hollywood. (Now, if we could bring back the Disney animation of the late '80s and early '90s, I'd die a happy man.)

Aardman is perfectly content to make features in claymation, an art form that's all but lost today. Even Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas were not technically claymation, but "stop-motion." I don't care what Michael Barrier says, Aardman films have a charm and style that can be found nowhere else. And, of course, they have stories and characters that go way beyond the expected, but still end up landing in the heart. Watching something from Aardman gives you a sense of exhiliration, watching a grand adventure unfold across the screen in a fun, quirky manner.

Case in point: Chicken Run, probably the best animated feature of 2000 (although Fantasia 2000 has some excellent segments.) Emperor's New Groove was fine, but Chicken Run goes way beyond that. It's a smart, witty comedy-adventure with great music and one heck of a chase scene, but I suspect you already know that, given the movie's huge box-office take. But, for many, Aardman is defined by...



The three shorts are absolutely phenomenal in every way possible, especially the latter two. Choosing between "The Wrong Trousers" and "A Close Shave" is an exercise in torture. "A Close Shave" is more dramatic, but for me, "The Wrong Trousers" wins by a hair. And the feature? Well, interesting story there. You see, I never saw the film in theaters. I can hear the hollers of protest: "Why not, man!!?? It was, like, the best movie of the year!!" Well, when I saw the trailers, it just didn't look appealing to me. It looked like a gag fest with a terminally silly story and characters that had been "Hollywooded up." DreamWorks Animation's fault, probably, and as you know, the film didn't exactly take in balefuls of cash here in the U.S. (Aside: I don't want to be a Jeffrey Katzenberg basher; he's done excellent work in the past and he really has respect for other animation studios. But it seems that either he's lost that creative spark, or it only works when he's with certain people. I personally prefer to think the latter.) Anyway, W&G:TCOTW-R came out on DVD, I finally saw it, and I was right, it was a disappointment.

Just kidding! It was wonderful, of course, as brilliantly executed as the shorts, witty without relying on pop culture references or fart jokes, and having characters with more depth than most live-action ones. Especially Gromit. As Brad Bird says, "He doesn't have a mouth, and yet, to me [and me], he can convey any emotion known to man because the animation is so damn good." Remember in "The Wrong Trousers" when the penguin manuevers his way into Wallace's favor, and Gromit is left out in the doghouse and he looks at the picture of them together and he turns the light off and you see his tears.... That gets me every time. There might be those poor souls who don't want to see W&G because it's "too British." Nonsense. The story and characters are universal and like all good films, it transcends cultural barriers.

So, the question is, am I looking forward to Flushed Away?



Yep, from the makers of Madagascar and Shrek. Um, wait. This is Aardman. Associating Aardman with those films is like associating Pixar with Cinderella II. It's not only wrong, it's misleading. Sure, DreamWorks Animation did the computer stuff, but the story and concept and creative elements are all Aardman and, and, and...

Oops. Hold on. As you've probably heard, DreamWorks Animation and the Big A are splitting after Flushed Away. Over creative issues on the film. CREATIVE issues. Which means that DreamWorks Animation messed with the story, why else would Aardman be angry? So is Flushed Away now more of a DreamWorks Animation film? Is it really going to be a product of the studio that brought us Shrek (the original, at least, was pretty decent) and Madagascar (no comment)? Is it Richard-Williams-Thief-and-the-Cobbler all over again? I don't think it's that severe, but I am fairly skeptical about this new "Aardman" film. So, what smart studio is gonna pick Aardman up? I'm sure Lasseter would love to work with these people, but that would make Disney the American monopoly of feature animation, seeing that it bought Pixar and distributes Miyazaki films. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, especially with Lasseter presiding, but I'm beginning to wonder if that would spread him out too thin...

Open Season

Open Season came out this weekend, as the latest of an overlong string of computer animated films. Thus, it would usually deserve no mention from me, but for two things:

1) It's the debut picture for Sony Imageworks, which looks like a worthy competitor to DreamWorks and Blue Sky both creatively, talent-wise, and commercially. But is it too late for such a big CG feature company to join the melee?

2) All of its directors are masters of their craft: Anthony Stacchi has worked on the special effects for Hook and The Rocketeer; Jill Culton from Pixar, who worked on Toy Story and Monsters Inc.; and Roger Allers, one of the men behind every feature from Disney's second renaissance. He worked on story for Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and headed the department for Beauty and the Beast. Oh, and he directed The Lion King with Rob Minkoff. Pretty impressive, eh?

So, am I going to see it? Maybe. We'll see. It does look refreshingly more "traditional" than previous CG films, and in an interview, Allers said that the characters go off-model quite frequently. And Culton has said the film has heart. However, despite the super star talent behind it, it hasn't really gotten strong reviews (as of today), and there are waaay too many animated films dependent on "rude humor" out there. Pixar! Aardman! Where are yooooouuuu!!!???