Mixed messages 2011 Animation: 3D, sequeilitis, mo-cap debate, etc.
January 29, 2012
Here is a quote from an article blog-byte I just read … “Then again, it was more about technology than storytelling in 2011″. It took him & others all these years to realize that 
?? Well, maybe I should not complain and at least some are seeing The Light. Of course, myself and the keenly aware niche followers of the FX & Animation biz, have had similar & like-minded observations, in that WE ALREADY KNEW THAT! As I have tiraded many times for some years … today’s special effects & animation mainstream biz is pre-occupied with their technological tools & toys . IMO, that has been their obsessive compulsive quest ever since Jurassic Park. More & more, empty visual eye candy calories …. audiences get bored FAST with only temporary eye orgy feasts … nature of general addictive behavior and the Movie Biz is contributing to the creation of hordes, of young A.D.D. audiences 
. That is my ‘gut sense’ & observation.
The author did mention an animated movie, I do not even remember hearing about … Rango (2011), all CGI, which was released last year March 11. It is the usual typical anthropomorphizing of ‘animals/creatures’ as talking animated characters, and even though I am NOT of the ‘One World CGI Domination Order’ 
(I am not against cgi but want more alternative animated style choices) … Rango seems more unique as a CGI product (compared to others) … maybe more original/fresh, & positively different than the Pixar style and all the other copy-cat imitators trying to be like Pixar. Rango having a more gritty surreal look & style to it.
Below, you can read the news-byte blog commentary. Just remember people, the author is basing his comments about mainstream animation and in addition, using box office mainstream statistics as part of his research. How many times do you hear me state … DO NOT judge the popularity or what’s hot by what mainstream does. The Biz landscape is different now or evolving. More people have alternate viewing choices and more niche audiences being critically selective and looking for more alternate choices such as from independent productions via alternative distribution outlets.
What Went Wrong with Animation in 2011?
Topics: Films - Shorts - Animation, General-Other Animation, Special Effects, Stop Motion | 3 Comments »
SMW Special Effects Notes: Former ‘Kerner Optical’ resurrected as ‘32Ten Studios’
January 19, 2012
To refresh your memories, this past SMW News story, ’Industrial Light & Magic’s … ‘Kerner Optical’ closes its doors‘. The brand new, just started Practical Special Visual FX studio will be in San Rafael, California and I think near or at the same location as the defunct, formerly know as Kerner Optical. This will be a lean machine operation and will be employee controlled with minimal bureaucratic overhead (aks ‘the suits’).
What SUCKS here in the San Francisco Bay Area … almost zero, zilch, nada, resources with regards to good of Traditional and Practical Special Effects … no studios, services and such. Instead, in general, it’s all HIGH TECHY environment around here, and with regards to ’special effects’, of course it’s mouse clicking CGI up the ad nauseum wah-zoo 
. No variety, choices or options for production work here. Sometimes this makes me wish to hang-out in Southern California, Los Angeles area but that is another issue of mixed feelings. You know, L.A., an interesting place to visit, BUT! 
Since 32Ten Studio a practical effects facility start-up, I wonder if they would consider Stop Motion Animation? You know, part of their repertoire of services to clients. Could be some work there especially commercial advertisement. Anyway best wishes to 32Ten Studios and I hope they can succeed in this new venture.
LINKS: New f/x company, 32Ten, rises Ex-ILM, Kerner employees join in San Rafael – Industry Veterans Reopen Legendary ILM Soundstage
Topics: Miniatures - Models - Puppets, Special Effects | 2 Comments »
‘Yoda vs. Darth Maul’ Brisk Ad: Not Stop Motion
January 9, 2012
The animated Brisk Iced Tea Ads has had a long tradition of being handmade, tactile real using the technique of stop motion animation. That was the magnetic draw and appeal of these commercial spots … being actual real puppets with over-sized caricatured heads on small bodies of well known celebrities. A cartoon-esque aesthetics design of having real dimensionality where you can almost touch it because the audience knows the characters are actual REAL PUPPETS (See how many times I will say ‘real’ 
)
It is difficult to find documented history of the beginnings of the ‘That’s Brisk Baby’ Stop Motion animated spots (not even from the Lipton site). Off the top of my head, roughly, I think it may have been around 1997, with Sylvester Stallone maybe being the first one and I think the Babe Ruth Brisk spot premiered for the 1998 Super Bowl. There were other Brisk Ads during that time … Bruce Willis, George Jefferson, Frank Sinatra, Karate Kid, Bruce Lee, Elvis, James Brown. The last Brisk stop motion during that decade was around 2002, where the Brisk puppets went on strike and Danny DeVito as the main celeb caricatured in stop motion puppet form. After the DeVito Brisk campaign, Lipton discontinued all forms of the stop motion ads, however, almost 10 years later, a revival of a new original stop motion animated ad appeared in 2010 called ‘The Way of the Brisk‘ with Chuck Liddell MMA champ (Mixed Marital Arts), then in 2011 a very big revival of the Brisk Ads with Ozzie Ozbournee & Danny Trejo (aka Machete) playing the caricature puppets, then culminated with the big premiere in the 2011 Super Bowl, with Eminem doing the major Brisk ad for the mega millions of the public to see. The past Brisk Ads described above used real stop motion animation methods.
So this past week a brand NEW Brisk Iced Tea Ad has debuted, ‘Yoda vs. Darth Maul’ and it has had some viral spread on the internet. As far as I can tell, most of the articles, postings, & comments of this new Brisk ad, have NOT questioned whether this was created using the actual Stop Motion or CGI technique (they are commenting & complaining mostly about G. Lucas). Take a look and you can judge for yourself about the ‘pretend’ Stop Motion ….
Has the general audience been so indoctrinated with the CGI onslaught that they now do NOT know of other forms of animation styles or do not appreciate? Good job CGI proselytizers …. you have maybe succeeded in brainwashing the masses into accepting the One World Order of CGI! You first did it with the Pillsbury Doughboy. When you succeeded with that, you went further for Bob the Builder, Postman Pat, and I’m maybe missing other originally produced stop motion characters that have been CGI Zombified.
How do I know ‘Yoda vs Darth Maul‘ is NOT Stop Motion? The first rumblings was from our sort-of underground Stop Motion message board. I looked further, and sure enough, only a scant few postings on the internet, do allude to, that this Yoda/Maul ad was CGI …. Andy Glass Blog Spot quote, “The animation is fantastic and they did a great job emulating the stop-motion look and feel of the Brisk campaign.” and here Animopus Blog, quote, “Done by Aatma Studio in San Francisco!” LIO note: Aatma Studio lists itself as a 3D Animation & digital content studio (aka CGI).
The last 2010-11 series of Brisk ads (Osbourne, Trejo, and Eminem) were done under the creative control of Mekanism Ad Agency in San Francisco and they hired an entire crew of craftspeople, artists, modelmakers, technicians, and stop motion animators to produce the series of the real animated puppets. Mekanism also was the overseer of this current 2012 CGI synthesized (not stop motion) Yoda/Maul Brisk ad. I am NOT casting aspersions or negatively criticizing the ad agency or any of the people who worked on this pseudo not actually Stop Motion project. Who knows …. it could have possibly been a tight production budget & especially, impossible deadline time pressures dictated by the client, Pepsico (owner of Lipton). I know it may be not intentional, but the perception to me, it’s kind of disingenuous of Lipton/Pepsico to somewhat or indirectly masquerade a CGI created animation as Stop Motion, taking advantage of the legacy of the previous Brisk ads. Pepisco does not exactly say that it is Stop Motion, but instead they describe it as, “The next generation of stop motion” or something similar.
Below is the REAL DEAL STOP MOTION ….
East Coast USA created/produced by Bright Red Pixels – 2010
UK created/produced by Loose Moose Productions – 2002
Disclaimer: Anyone out here with an affinity for CGI should not be pissed-off at this SMW News post. This is a friggn pro-Stop Motion emphasis website! Remember that saying … ‘Do not kill the Messenger’. I merely search, report, and comment/observate what is ‘out there on’ the internet & other news sources. If you put out there and online, EXPECT … the good, the bad, & the ugly (in the form of feedback, comments, opinions, etc.)
LINKS: Some past Brisk Ads – SMW News: Way of the Brisk – SMW News: Eminem Brisk – Brisk Youtube Channel
Topics: Commercials-Ads-TV-Net, Miniatures - Models - Puppets, Puppet Animation, Stop Motion | 15 Comments »
‘In Your Arms’ Stop Motion Jelly Beans & Pixilation: Making Of
December 30, 2011
So … as part of my information & news gathering for this SMW journal/blog, I subscribe to various news alerts services. A month or two ago I’ve been getting plethora of alerts about a ‘jelly bean’ animated music video. Because there were so many alerts, I assumed the music video was maybe intentionally viraled to force our attention, therefore all this time, I did not even click-on & read the news alerts about this music video. It has been kind of slow out there with Stop Motion specific news, and so, I went back and finally looked at the music video.
Actually, very interesting, unique & fresh. I can see now that this music video, likely went naturally viral on the internet. You do not see that much fresh & original pixilated stop motion (animation of real people). Last one I remember that caught my attention, was the Her Morning Elegance music video. There are a cornucopia of amatuer & some pro made stop motion pixelations out there and some can get kind of repetitive and/or formulaic. I have to admit though, I do not watch much stop motion pixilation and I’m sure, some quality works are out there that I am not aware of. For me, with a pixilated based animation you have to be REALLY CREATIVE & ORIGINAL to pull it off. I think this one succeeds …. the foundation of course, using creatively good music, song, & artist, further enhanced by the also creative music video presentation ….
So basically, everything in the above music video was all hand made tactile real & photographed IN THE CAMERA and beforehand in planning & designing stage, Digital Tools used to pre-visualize, then post production tweaking, enhancing, editing. The coolest aspects of Stop Motion or any REAL CREATED SPECIAL EFFECTS (see previous ‘The Thing’ news), is the behind the scenes can be just as entertaining as the finished animated product. The making of grabs the general audiences attention as it taps into our core internal genetic makeup of the need to relate to the real tactile world. Babies & little kids are first drawn to and desire furry stuffed animals, dolls, real toys, etc. …. NOT iPods.
I know that ‘Skills’ are obviously involved with CGI but IMO, it is pretty DULL watching CGI Making Of’s. Basically, with CGI Behind the Scenes, you are looking at someone in front of a computer screen and mouse-clicking & keyboarding away … dry, monotonous, unexciting, etc. …. yawn. Sorry, I am not dismissing those who work in the CGI animation & effects biz, but merely doing personal observation here 
. I am not the only one who has this view (plenty others agree too but not as vocal about it). Anyway, take a look at the Making Of ‘In Your Arms’ … tactilely, real world, hand-made gratifying ….
LINKS: Her Morning Elegance – Pixilation
Topics: Behind the Scenes, Commercials-Ads-TV-Net, Stop Motion | 7 Comments »
SMW Special Effects Notes: Spectral Motion’s ‘Lady in the Water’ (2006) & ADI’s – ‘The Thing’ (2011)
December 19, 2011
New feature …. periodic specific posts about other areas of Special Visual Effects. We are all ‘family’ … practical effects, make-up effects, model-making effects, animatronics, stop motion animation … any special effects techniques in which the IMAGES are originally photographed as real handmade tactile created (can be digitally tweaked in post). Hopefully, I will not cover the CGI synthesized effects which IMO, has ad nauseum inundated & saturated the worldwide mainstream consciousness … yawn … predictable, repetitive, formulaic CGI. If I do mention CGI, it would likely be commentary tirades 
. In the past, I have done very random posts on other special effects methods (example) but not as regular SMW News spotlight features.
Spectral Motion behind the scenes showing showing an animatronic fantasy styled Wolf with grass-like fur, for movie some years ago called, ‘Lady in the Water‘ 2006. Never heard of this movie or maybe not enough empty CGI visual eye candy calories to satisfy the A.D.D. general mainstream audiences? Spectral Motion’s behind the scenes are at facebook & cannot be embedded into an external website, so instead, click The Making of the Scrunt or on the image below and it will take you to Spectral Motion’s Facebook Fan page. I think you can watch it and you do not have to signup or be member of facebook …
Below is Amalgamated Dynamics Inc aka ADI effects work behind scenes for the recent ‘The Thing‘ (2011) prequel …
Kind of COOL seeing the above? It sure is refreshing seeing this compared to the behind the scenes of mouse-clicked/keyboarded CGI! If the above video clip does not download, you can also watch here ‘The Thing’ behind the scenes at Youtube (better quality)
Always will repeat this because ‘Tinsel Town & Suits’ do NOT want to listen …. using combination special effects methods, mixing old with new technology gives plenty of competition to the plethora of CGI. Still though in my opinion, alternative special visual effects has not been extensively exploited yet in mainstream but hopefully a renaissance in independent features & other visual media work, as optional choices for niche audiences, instead of the same old churned out, mundane CGI effects stuff. Also in commercial advertisement work, Ad Agencies seem more open in exploring other different visual aesthetics & styles which can encompass ol’ school effects mixed with new. I do not want to hear that it is more expensive to do Special effects via traditional, classic & ol’ school methods. That is a wheel barrow load of Bovine Crap! It is OBSCENE, today’s production budgets for these mainstream CGI special effects ladened flicks. Computers & technology supposedly reduces costs? …. NOT (I say).
LINKS: Spectral Motion website – Amalgamated Dynamics Inc – Lady in the Water (2006) reviews – The Thing (2011) reviews – First Showing website: Cool Stuff
Topics: Behind the Scenes, Learning-Education-Tools, Special Effects | 4 Comments »