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Previous News
AUGUST
2004
08.24.04
* I have heard of the name of Seth
Green before and I posted some months ago 03-26-04, that he will be doing some sort of Stop
Motion project for TV. Well, here is some latest
information and it is still a little sketchy about what
it will be about S. Green Launches Animated Series & Green playing with Dolls At the SMA message board someone
posted this in July....Stop Motion Animation show in LA. Apparently, looking for people to
work on a Stop Motion project and it seems to be related
to what Seth Green is doing. If anyone has any more
details, feel free to contact me. As always, I have an anonymity
policy, to protect my "sources".
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Special
Weekend Edition - 08.21.04
* Here is some more from New
York Times about Team America:World Police. An informative, small three page
article. When you go to the link, it will let you read
only the first page and you need an ID & Password to
read the other two pages. At log-in page, try entering testnyt
for both and see if that works. Here is another short
one, more about the politics of it Critics Choosing Sides on TA You may already know that the
makers of South Park are behind TA.
It looks like an NC-17 rating and they
may try for the lesser R rating, but in
either case, that may not diminish its impact at the
boxoffice. This Puppet Movie Extravaganza is
costing about $32 million to make. I suppose,
that is so-called cheap by Hollywood
standards. I am always astounded about the
bureaucracy of mainstream moviemaking and I
guess, that goes the same for our wasteful
government bureaucracy .... Leeches, continually sucking
$$$ out of us. Whoops .... going off topic.
Sorry about that 
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08.16.04
* Something of sleeper project that I
never heard of before Team America: World Police which is suppose to be released
this October. As far as I know, no one at the Stop Motion Forum has mentioned it yet. The
trailer is a GRABBER and the micro-quick cut
teaser scenes look really action packed and fun.
Guess what? From what I quickly read, Team
America primarily uses Real
Puppets including the old classic marionette
methods with no attempt to hide the strings!
Looks like a lot of miniatures & model work....similar
to the original Thunderbirds puppet TV series from the mid
1960's, but Team America being
done in a more contemporary cinematic visual style in how
scenes are staged and edited together. From the teasers,
I cannot tell if any Stop Motion methods were used. It
looks like some shots used some CGI and digital
compositing work to enhance-tweak, but not to
overwhelm. Very fresh and different
visual style compared to the current hyper
smoothness-slickness of the similar looking, fully
computer synthesized CGI animated features. I was hoping
some studio suits might start realizing
this homogenization trend and perhaps,
here is one breaking the
mold and having the guts to be
different with Team America.
I did not have time to do more detailed research
on this but if you find out any more
info, buzz, etc...... post it at SMA.com !
Addendum:
Someone just notified me that the work is being done by
the very talented crew at Chiodo Brothers Studio , well know for their
puppetry/animatronic work and mastery of Stop Motion,
however my source does not think there is any
Stop Mo techniques used in TA. Too bad, it could have
enhanced it but I'm guessing maybe the typical rush
schedule imposed by the suits might have
eliminated Stop Motion which takes a little more patience
and time.
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08.09.04
* Mainstream media has obviously been
reporting on yesterday's death of Fay Wray at age
96, who portrayed Anne Darrow in the
classic 1933 King Kong. Just think, Kong was
first shown 71 years ago, and today, the
strength of this iconic movie has somewhat helped keep
Stop Motion in the public consciousness. Many media
sources reporting on the Fay Wray news. In the past, I
have heard her name mentioned in ocassional articles but
I was always irritated that current photos of Fay Wray
were rarely shown. Want to know how she looked liked
recently? Here is an article Scream Queens: Fay Wray when she turned 95 last year. The photo they show says it was in the year 2001 so
she would have been about 93 years old .... she looks
pretty good. Let us thank Reuters news for their article King Kong Star: Fay Ray Dies and editors having the smarts to
satisfy the public's curiousity how she looks now.
Reuters photo of Fay shows her atop the Empire State
Building and I do not know how recent it was, but she
looks a little more frail compared to 2001 photo. Anyway,
some of us would like to have a long life and Fay Wray
certainly got maximum use! I hope I can achieve a similar
goal and still have a sensible & sound mind at the
higher end of my Gandalf-Yoda wisdomly years!
Addendum: One of my ever vigilant
underground SMW investigators just referred me to an
even better picture of Fay that was taken recently from her
home in Trump Tower. She looks very mentally alert and a
bit spunky!
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08.05.04
* Check out this website Art Gate Puppets These artisans located in Belgium
seem very skilled, talented and capable of all manner of
puppet fabrication. They certainly can do Stop
Motion puppets and it seems they have done work
in this specialty for some clients. Looks like they are
pretty good at doing caricaiture puppets.
Some are over 5 feet tall ....they use puppetry
techniques similar to that of Jim Hensen. Remember the
cool Lipton Brisk Ice Tea commercials
....Bruce Lee, James Brown, Danny DeVito, etc.?? ArtGate
was not involved with those but I am sure the quality of
their puppets would be just as good. Any studios
out here reading this? You should inquire and
get some price bids from them. ArtGate just became a
member of our Animators Webring. Consider joining ... it is Free
.... to individual artists, animators, filmmakers,
studios.
* As you
know, we in the States are addicted to CGI
or at least that is what is being forced upon us,
giving the audiences no other choices. You may
have heard me say in past commentary, Stop Motion
seems to be alive and well in Canada with Cuppa Coffee Studio taking the lead. Unfortunately, I cannot
say the same for the new
Vinton Studios.
Yes, they have Henry Selick there, but it seems Vinton
Studio's direction is CGI. Only The
Corpse Bride seems to be their claim to Stop
Motion but that is being made in England and not
in the USA. We have not heard of other Stop Motion
projects or commercial work from Vinton Studios. Anyway
..... back to Cuppa Coffee ..... they
have a website about one of their Stop Motion projects A Very Barry Christmas. I do have to warn you that it is
a Flash intensive website, so it will be
slow viewing for those with dial-up
internet connections.
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