December 24, 2011
December 07, 2011
The Gutsy Frog On Brubaker's Blog
Charles Brubaker just did a great series of posts on his blog about another 70s anime with pretty funky animation -- "The Gutsy Frog." I highly recommend reading them.
http://bakertoons.blogspot.com/2011/11/gutsy-frog.html
http://bakertoons.blogspot.com/2011/12/gutsy-frog-continued.html
http://bakertoons.blogspot.com/2011/12/gutsy-frog-part-3.html 
http://bakertoons.blogspot.
http://bakertoons.blogspot.
http://bakertoons.blogspot.
November 27, 2011
Pooh Review and Muppet Musings
Recently I've seen two attempts to bring beloved franchises back to their former glories. (Three if you include Sonic Generations, but I'm sure none of my readers want to hear about video games so I'll just say I loved it and leave it at that.)
Winnie the Pooh was designed as a throwback to the original Pooh shorts from the late 60s. I think in attempting to be faithful to the quiet, low-key charm of the classic shorts, they went too far and just made a movie where nothing really happens. The familiar wordplay arguments are taken to extremes here-- the characters spend the whole movie arguing about what they should do, and never get around to doing it. The songs were also completely tuneless. Still, it was definitely the best Pooh movie in quite a while. It did have its moments, and the animation and voices were as good as one would expect from Disney.
On the other hand, I flat-out loved The Muppets. I haven't paid much attention to the Muppets' output over the past decade but the last I saw, it seemed like they were still struggling to get over the various deaths (Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, Jerry Juhl) and retirements (Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson) that had shaken up the franchise. I'm happy to say that this issue has now been sorted out.
Steve Whitmire's Kermit still doesn't sound 100% like Henson's did, but he's close enough. Frank Oz's characters are now played almost perfectly by Eric Jacobson. I say "almost" because most of them are dead-on, but Fozzie Bear's voice alternates between sounding indistinguishable from the original, and being barely recognizable. He definitely has Fozzie's speech pattern right, which is no easy feat, but the timbre of the voice wavers a lot during the quieter moments. His Piggy, Animal and Sam the Eagle are consistently good though. The replacements for Jerry Nelson and Richard Hunt are also fantastic. Dave Goelz is still playing Gonzo, 35 years on, and seems to be in good health, so I assume he'll continue for a while.
The movie was directed by James Bobin and the new songs were written by Bret McKenzie. They were two-thirds of the main creative force behind the Flight of the Conchords TV series. I loved that show, so I enjoyed their contributions. You can definitely hear the Conchords touch in the lyrics, which were full of puns and sly phrasing. Also, this movie has one of the best versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ever recorded.
This was clearly a movie made by Muppet fans. It was almost surreal seeing so many cameos by obscure characters and nods to past films, in a theater full of fellow fans reacting with cheers and laughter. The Muppets have been out of the public eye for so long, it started to feel like nobody else remembered them, let alone still liked them. Which of course is exactly what the movie is about.
I was worried it might feel too self-glorifying--"Jason Segel and his fellow Muppet-lovers convince the Muppets to mount a comeback" just as easily describes the behind-the-scenes events that led to the movie. But the human leads and the new Muppet character are likeable, and they stay out of the spotlight for most of the movie. Segel's enthusiasm was obvious whenever he was onscreen, and Amy Adams was adorable as always. The only time I actually thought about the real-life parallels was the ending, in which (spoilers? ...no, not really) everything works out and the Muppets are beloved once again. If the movie had failed at the box office, then that ending scene would've been uncomfortable to watch, but so far it seems to have done good business, which is a relief. I want this movie to do well. It deserves to.
I'm curious what the Muppets will do next. This movie was great, but they can't keep playing the nostalgia card. The team has shown that they can faithfully recapture the original magic, but now they have to show us some new tricks.
Winnie the Pooh was designed as a throwback to the original Pooh shorts from the late 60s. I think in attempting to be faithful to the quiet, low-key charm of the classic shorts, they went too far and just made a movie where nothing really happens. The familiar wordplay arguments are taken to extremes here-- the characters spend the whole movie arguing about what they should do, and never get around to doing it. The songs were also completely tuneless. Still, it was definitely the best Pooh movie in quite a while. It did have its moments, and the animation and voices were as good as one would expect from Disney.
On the other hand, I flat-out loved The Muppets. I haven't paid much attention to the Muppets' output over the past decade but the last I saw, it seemed like they were still struggling to get over the various deaths (Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, Jerry Juhl) and retirements (Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson) that had shaken up the franchise. I'm happy to say that this issue has now been sorted out.
Steve Whitmire's Kermit still doesn't sound 100% like Henson's did, but he's close enough. Frank Oz's characters are now played almost perfectly by Eric Jacobson. I say "almost" because most of them are dead-on, but Fozzie Bear's voice alternates between sounding indistinguishable from the original, and being barely recognizable. He definitely has Fozzie's speech pattern right, which is no easy feat, but the timbre of the voice wavers a lot during the quieter moments. His Piggy, Animal and Sam the Eagle are consistently good though. The replacements for Jerry Nelson and Richard Hunt are also fantastic. Dave Goelz is still playing Gonzo, 35 years on, and seems to be in good health, so I assume he'll continue for a while.
The movie was directed by James Bobin and the new songs were written by Bret McKenzie. They were two-thirds of the main creative force behind the Flight of the Conchords TV series. I loved that show, so I enjoyed their contributions. You can definitely hear the Conchords touch in the lyrics, which were full of puns and sly phrasing. Also, this movie has one of the best versions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ever recorded.
This was clearly a movie made by Muppet fans. It was almost surreal seeing so many cameos by obscure characters and nods to past films, in a theater full of fellow fans reacting with cheers and laughter. The Muppets have been out of the public eye for so long, it started to feel like nobody else remembered them, let alone still liked them. Which of course is exactly what the movie is about.
I was worried it might feel too self-glorifying--"Jason Segel and his fellow Muppet-lovers convince the Muppets to mount a comeback" just as easily describes the behind-the-scenes events that led to the movie. But the human leads and the new Muppet character are likeable, and they stay out of the spotlight for most of the movie. Segel's enthusiasm was obvious whenever he was onscreen, and Amy Adams was adorable as always. The only time I actually thought about the real-life parallels was the ending, in which (spoilers? ...no, not really) everything works out and the Muppets are beloved once again. If the movie had failed at the box office, then that ending scene would've been uncomfortable to watch, but so far it seems to have done good business, which is a relief. I want this movie to do well. It deserves to.
I'm curious what the Muppets will do next. This movie was great, but they can't keep playing the nostalgia card. The team has shown that they can faithfully recapture the original magic, but now they have to show us some new tricks.
November 18, 2011
Robotnik Skipping
This is a pencil test I shot about a year ago for school. It's not the best one I did, but it's my favourite. We had to animate a character jumping, and then skipping (I think the original idea was to have the character jumping rope, but there was a miscommunication and our class ended up doing this instead). Anyway, we had the option of either designing a character or using a pre-existing model sheet to work from, so naturally I picked Milton Knight's Robotnik design from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.
At one point the teacher commented that it was too rubbery and stretch-and-squashy. He questioned whether it was "on-model," so I showed him the hilarious model sheet, which includes the legendary direction "Keep it loose and distorted. Draw EXPRESSIVELY, not WELL." This clearly bothered him, but he allowed me to continue with the animation. He eventually had me correct a few things and tone some of the stretch and squash down, but this is an earlier version that I like better. The biggest mistake that sticks out to me now is the popping of the stripe on his back during the skip. I should've just left that off.
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