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Previous News
JUNE
2005
Weekend
Edition - 06.25.05
* You got it here FIRST....
before Animate Clay and the Stop Motion Message Board .....
King Kong #2 Teaser (not dial-up friendly).... includes
bronto dino chase scene, giant insect attack pit-like
scene, and Kong's dramatic entrance which looks like a
prelude to T-Rex & Kong battle. It seems unusual
to have such advance release of these teasers. I
do not know if that is good or bad? Ever
since I got broadband internet connection just recently,
I have been visiting Kong Is King site and catching-up with their Production Diaries which is in the form of
downloadable movies only, and it would be tortuously time
consuming for dial-up to download. Kind of unique .... unprecedented
behind the scenes while King Kong is in production. Peter
Jackson's style seems to be relaxed, intimate &
friendly .... sort of allowing us to visit his
"home". Again ..... marketing
is not a science, but an ART. I am not sure if
all this advance revelation could make the Kong
premiere, somewhat anti-climatic? Well ... for us die
hard Stop Mo or Kong fans .... this will be
special for us. Peter seems to be somewhat faithful to
orignal 1933 Kong, being very similar and especially
doing it as period piece. Okay, so it is
CGI  and no Advance
State of the Art Stop Motion was even considered, but I
will try to overlook that! As Kong is
progressing, I may make future comments or rants about
it.
* What's up with the Stop Motion message board? Silence. You
relying on Mike Brent, Nick Hilligoss and a few others to carry
the burden? I am attempting to discipline myself
more and not dominate the forum. Also trying to get some
work done here. Stop Mo board must have
the highest percentage of Lurkers compared to
other forums. Just a few comments once
in awhile by more message board members would be
a contribution. You do not have to write a
speech. The message board is suppose to be a
"Community" participation thing!
____________________
Wednesday / Hump Day Edition - 06.22.05
* There is an updated 2004
edition of the Aardman book, Creating 3D Animation. It sure did not seem to get much
publicity. I only just accidentally found out. This
updated version has 32 additional pages.
The original one was published in 1998. You should know,
it's not really a step-by-step or detail how-to, but an
overview of the Aardman style of producing Stop
Motion. Nevertheless, any book on Stop
Motion is a rarity and this
could be one for inclusion in one's library
collection. Plenty of photos to inspire you give
you insight about overall process. The book is hardcover
and amazingly at a bargain price. Get it while it is still affordable!
* With the impending release of Spielberg's
contemporary version of War of the Worlds,
it looks like it will almost bury Pendragon Pictures version. Stevey's &
Tommy Cruise's clout and the publicity machine saturating
the media. BTW, I am sick & tired
of hearing about Tom C. & Katie Holmes.
I don't give a rat's pink ass about it, but I
know the star struck automotan masses worldwide
suck-up Hollywood's endless hype. GET A LIFE .... PEOPLE!
The "other" War of The Worlds,
unfortunately, will not be as $Flashy$
as Spielberg's. I just saw Pendragon's teaser
trailer. The special effects looks very airbrushy
and has a pasted-on composited look
(doesn't blend in). Interesting though, the Martian
striding machines almost look like
Robotic Stop Mo Armatures! They should have just
used real Stop Motion
and perhaps other more classic special effects
.... miniatures, forced perspective shots, but they did
not. It looks like it was done with mostly
CGI and you can tell. Primary thing I like about
the Pendragon version; it is set in Victorian
England, as H.G. Wells orignally wrote
it. IMO, traditional special effects
techniques assisted with post digital tweaking &
compositiing, would have looked & worked much
better and given this WOTW version kind-of a Harryhausenish,
Bernard Hermann ambiance. Their somewhat artificial
CGI does not blend in with the time period. Same mistake
with Tim Burton's Mars Attacks
.... they should have stayed with Stop Motion (for retro
look); instead they chose CGI. Here is page I made where
you can see Pendragon's WOTW movie
trailer which
includes some still images that I
grabbed from the trailer. I will keep the page up for a short
while, so get it while you can. Also, here is an informative article which mentions both WOTWs.
I apologize to my dial-upper brethern
but I must start posting movie clip links,
as I must do some catering to the Broadband
crowd. I will always fondly remember by dial-up
beginnings
____________________
Weekend Edition - 06.18.05
* Peter Kleinow, a veteran animator seems to have dropped
out? His original website link has not been online TrueEffects, but someone sent me a new link to Pete's website. So I guess, he must still be kicking
around. It looks similar to his previous website. I heard
that Pete has returned to his musical roots. Most likely,
more work doing music, compared to the
rarity of paying jobs in Stop Motion. I hope
that Pete is doing reasonably okay. Our paths have
crossed in the past on some projects.
* Check your monthly credit
card statements! Read this Credit Card Security Breach and
40 million card numbers stolen. Of course, news media likes to
create more fear by emphasizing the 40 mil but this is
still a very serious & humongous theft of
consumer's private information. Technology
.... never-ever fully embrace it. The
capitilistic powers that be, push it on us too quickly
and I say it is flawed and not a pancea. I still
have not given-in
to Cell Phones. You
have no patience? Why don't you just wait or
just call your voice mail or answering machine to see if
you got any messages? The Credit Card issuers do
not offer any solid advice about this. They just
say that you should just wait
and see if your card gets illegally
charged and it is your responsibility to
let them know. Almost as though, it's your
problem? If you are in the Amazon jungles on an
expedition or you are away for some months, I guess it's tough
luck for you if you don't catch the illegal
theft card charges soon enough.
____________________
Wednesday / Hump Day Edition - 06.15.05
* Okay .... so the Cable Installer
Guy ....errr .... umm .... I mean "person" ....
is coming out today to hook-up my Broadband High Speed
Internet. Took me about 2 weeks to decide. I
never rush when I buy anything. I take
my time and after a little while, an epiphany
thing always happens when I know it's
right. Applies to almost anything I do, even
creating stuff or decisions or whatever. Armatures for
example. It is designed in my mind before
I draw it out or I actually start fabricating it. Back to
topic .... with DSL (through phone line), many offering
that, but to me, so many variables.... who to choose,
reliability of true high speed bandwidth etc.. If you
want to go into higher speed with DSL, it actually can
cost more than Cable Broadband. Since I have a couple of
cable companies in my area, the choice was a little
easier. They are always offering package or temporary
discounted deals in their advertisements, but they never
reveal the real monthly price after the discount period
expires. It's in the fine
print or not even
listed unless you directly ask the reps. No
digital-shimgital 500 TV channels or fancy shamncy home
phone services, for me. I am only
getting the pure raw broadband
through a big fat mutha cable.
One of the cable company reps did not even know what the
special pricing was. Sheeeeesh ..... I had to push
to get the discount. It is always a battle in
"life"! This internet
broadband is essential and one of the
many initial steps for me to get going in
producing animation product ...... handling large files
online .... uploading/downloading .... distribution,
exhibiting, etc.. For all my Dial-Up bretherns
.... have no fear .... I will never
forget my roots and will always be a champion
for you. I DO NOT like excessively Flash
enabled websites or heavy graphics. They should give
dial-uppers, Html site choice.
IMO, just gimmicks to compensate for something
missing or lousy webmastering design skills. Just
give me a clean, efficient, and well layed-out/designed
website that is user friendly to navigate and most
important .... with solid content. Well, we will
see how it goes, if cable installer people actually know
what they are doing.
* I
ocassionally get press releases and some I get
periodically are from Cuppa Coffee. They now seem to be the Western
Hemisphere Stop Motion production headquarters
and has left the new
Vinton Studios behind, in a cloud of dust!  Here
is recent Cuppa update ....
*** Cuppa Coffee is in
production for THREE stop motion series:
NEW SEASON of JoJo's Circus
for Disney Channel, Director - Tim
Snyder
NEW SEASON of Little People
for Mattel, Director - Dave Thomas
NEW SEASON of Celebrity Death Match for
MTV, Director - Andrew Horne
Two other shows are in Pre production...Studios currently
in operation 40 and Staff of 250
***
Cuppa is in Canada and perhaps a
mystery to many of us. I personally have
not seen any behind the scenes about Cuppa.
I wish someone would write some articles about
them or Cuppa should consider producing
bonus segments to be included with their animated shows
that are released on DVDs. Give us a tour of Cuppa
.... interviews, inner workings, how it was done, the
stop mo production process, etc. etc.!
____________________
Weekend Edition - 06.11.05
* Oh man ...... I DIGS this
article, The Computers that Ate Hollywood. More and more in the
non-mainstream news & media are starting to see the Light about CGI & Digital
effects saturation. It
is so obvious and commonsensical. Nowadays, the longevity
of theatrically released mainstream movies is sooo
short & a quick fix .... like guzzling
down Kegs of Beer,
instead of, sipping & savoring Fine
Aged Wine as in the films of
yesteryear.
Look how fast the films are released to DVDs. Of course,
when mainstream filmmaking starts to bore the US market
and we become more jaded or more discriminating, I know
the corporate movie "suits"
always will rely on the global market audience ..... they
still have a fascination and eat-up USA Tinsel Town
entertainment. Just like McDonalds, KFC, Burger King
..... and plethora of our pop culture trends, flavors of
the moment, and our other brain emptying-numbing escapism
habits, exported & infecting the entire world. I am
not too sure if that is a good thing.
* Just accidentally discovered a
series of books that I never heard of before ..... they
title them Hack Books .... covering variety of subject matter
..... computers, software, digital media, operating
systems, etc. A new one just published and could have
some application to our work. Stop Motion is also
"film-making" however we do not generally use
live actors, but mostly use puppets. Some of live
action production principles do apply to Stop Motion.
Here is the press release for the book ..... Digital Video Hacks. Also, directly from O'Reilly Publisher, description of book. I have not
bought too many how-to books recently. IMO, mostly what's
out there, seems to be theory of making movies (which is
good, I suppose) with maybe "some" hardcore
how-to info. Just reading content description, I am
kind-of jazzed about this one. It looks like it
has some cool, practical & useful how-to tricks.
Since it has just been released for this July '05, I
could not find any reviews of it yet. Could be a good
book for beginners and I think useful even for the more
experienced. Digital Video Hacks is
also a whopping 432 pages! Only $30.
(USD) I just hope that it will be reasonably good for
one's reference library. Sure beats the expense of a
specialty college class instruction or course!
____________________
Monday Blues Edition - 06.06.05
* This article The
Imperfection of Animation has been posted at message board some time ago, but everyone has a short
memory, and so, I actually saved it and reprinted it,
just in case it does not become available online, later
on. It was written by Tom Gasek. Many
years ago we crossed paths on the Gumby TV series. He writes cogently, the essence
of what animation can also achieve. IMO, I think it can also
apply to Harryhausen style .... semi-realistic, ethereal
surrealistic. Tom does it in such a
friendly non-rant manner. I wish, I could do
that but the myopic suits may not take
notice of his salient observations. I bet the Studio
$bean counter's$ eye's would just glaze
over if they read Tom's article. Mainstream biz
don't give a rat's pink ass about this ...... the deeper
aspects of animation and value it can have as artistic
medium and also it's unique quality as entertainment and
story telling medium.
* Rutger Hauer....awesome, powerful character actor,
tremendous presence like the actors from ol' school
movies. To me, he gets better as he
becomes older. Give me Rutger anytime, over Tom Cruise,
Bratt Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Will Smith, or any of the
current, so-so pansy pretty boy actors. Rutger will make
an appearance in Batman Begins! This version is suppose
to be serious and dark, the way it should have always
been. Not many films I have seen at theaters, since they
usually are released to DVD pretty quick. But this ONE
MOVIE, I may actually make an effort to get my butt to a
theater and see it on the big screen.
____________________
06.01.05
* This 5 page publicity piece is for
the upcoming Spielberg-Cruise modern day
version of
War of the Worlds. It also brags
about the proprietry software used and how
fast they did the film. Wonderful (not) ....
even more "pressure" on Special Effects people
and more "expectation" from other
"suits" to pump-out mainstream
formulaic & homogenized overbudgeted movies.
Omissions or ignorance in the article too. They conveniently
did not mention the other War of the
Worlds, period piece version
being done by Pendragon Pictures. To me, it seems to be in limbo? I
have not heard recent news about its progress. Also, the
Speilberg-Cruise fluff piece says about the George
Pal Wotw version, *** They
wanted to do tripods in 1953, but they couldn't figure
out how to make them walk .... so they switched to
hovering saucers, then built models and suspended them
above the soundstage on wires so they seemed to float
above the ground. Now we have the technology (Cgi) to do
it.**** -Well ... that is not
correct.The technology was available in
1953 .... Stop Motion, large &
miniature rear screen methods, & perhaps travelling
matte work. Studios as always .... not
having faith or understanding of Stop Mo. From what I
heard/read in past.... George Pal knew Stop
Motion could be used for the striding Tripod Martian
machines and it seemed, he perhaps had a feeling
the studio was not going to give him
budget for it. They mention it here too 1953 War of the Worlds (about 4th paragraph) I
shake my head ..... if it's CGI ....
how the studio suits willingly turn-on
the mega-million money faucet, myopically
thinking that's the holy grail solution,
greedily chasing after that elusive blockbuster
$cash-cow$ Updated - Edit 06.02.05
* Webster Colcord posted an article at message board ..... Dreamworks Stock. It says .... quoting from it ....***There's
one other problem for 'Madagascar,' says Gray, one he
calls 'computer animation fatigue' With
an unprecedented number of such films in the marketplace,
it will be harder to
make a CGI film stand out from the pack***
Duhhhhh!? I foresaw this long time ago! Audiences
overloaded & getting jaded with homogenized &
cloned-like products. Also another quote, how SUITS
categorize you, the audience into their
demographic statistics ***The kinds of movies that do
well in animation are essentially comedies, or musicals,
featuring anthropomorphized animals or other objects.***
What an insult (to me, at least) IMO, it's many
years of studios conditioning the minds of the masses and
limiting what the
audiences sees.
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