Thanksgiving Linkage

As you digest the mounds of white meat you stuffed into your face yesterday, peruse the news from 'Toonland and related environments:

Three Dimensions are coming! Three Dimensions are COMING! Jeffrey K. talks about 3-D cinema down below, but there are more stereoptical features in our future than ever before! (well, at least the most since 1954 ...)

At least 5,000 3-D systems expected to be in place by 2009. DreamWorks Animation’s Jeffrey Katzenberg expects there to be 12 to 18 3D feature films by 2010. 3-D is clearly the future of cinema, at least for the near future. With the recent announcements of Tim Burton’s Alice and Wonderland/Frankenweenie, and today’s announcement of Final Destination 4 in 3D, we’ve decided to compile a schedule for the upcoming 3D movie releases.

If the Vancouver Sun has its facts right, then Canada is producing its first stop-motion 'toon:

Powell and Perfect Circle Productions partner Dean English have been at work on Edison & Leo for the last four years. Unable to raise the $10-million production budget alone (even with funding from Telefilm Canada), they hooked up with Vancouver production house Infinity Features, an Oscar winner for Capote, which invested in the film last December...

Disney Pictures Chairman Richard Cook answers questions:

Q: [On banning cigarettes in Disney movies]: Will you omit Pinocchio smoking in future releases?

Dick Cook: No. We're not taking away from anything that's already been done. We're not taking smoking away from Cruella in 101 Dalmatians—that's just a part of it and that's history. We're not going to have smoking in a Disney movie going forward.

Lotsa different studios are creating 3-D movies (as stated above). But until I read this interview with DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg, this reason for creating them hadn't occured to me:

" ... 25% of our revenue is lost to piracy around the world today ... 90% of that is due to someone taking a camera into a movie theatre.

"You can't camcorder 3D. So the bi-product of this is that it will have some serious implications about that" ...

Actor Patrick Dempsey talks about how to pitch the performance of his lawyer character in Enchanted:

... [T]hat was the real challenge ... trying to find the right tone. How much humor can you bring with that as much as how much reality you will bring to it, and where does it get in the way? Sometimes that was a lot of fun and sometimes it wasn’t because everyone is having a blast around you and you couldn’t get caught up in their style of acting, which was too bad. And then you’re driving the plane but at the same time the reactions my character had is how the audience is going to react, and that was really important."

Walt Disney's Disneyland apartment -- directly above the firehouse -- might be open for tours:

"This was his home away from home," company spokesman J.D. Isip said as he ushered me into the tiny one-room apartment above the firehouse that Disney called his own. "After Walt built Disneyland, Burbank didn't see him much -- he was here every day."

Disney built the 500-square-foot apartment, outfitted with red crushed carpet and velvety Victorian decor, in 1954. It was the park's second structure after the opera house, which doubled as a sawmill.

Usually we're pretty mainstream around here, but let's get a litte more esoteric. The Goya Awards in Spain -- the "Spanish Oscars"-- have rolled out their animated nominees:

One of the favourites to win the award is “Perpetuum Mobile”, produced by Silverspace. It tells the story of a young Leonardo Da Vinci and recollects the events that motivated the young genius to dedicate his life to art and science.

My days of total immersion in comic books ended when Mom threw out eight years' worth of Superman, Superboy and Scrooge McDuck comics, so understand why the Snake King is not a muscular do-gooder with whom I'm familiar. But it's sold a hundred million copies in India, so it's nothing to sneeze at. And now it's (maybe) headed for the big screen:

Motion Pixel Corporation (MPC ... and Raj Comics, announced today that MPC has been granted licenses to develop, produce and distribute a theatrical film release based upon popular Raj Comics property – ‘Nagraj’. The announcement was made by MPC Chairman Manny Bains and Manish Gupta, CEO, Raj Comics. Production on the Nagraj Animated movie will begin immediately in a unique 2D Style format.

The multi-million dollar agreement will see MPC and Raj Comics share in certain revenues derived from the properties, with MPC funding development, production and distribution. Raj Comics will be handling all merchandising in connection with the films.

Cartoon Brew's Jerry Beck writes a think piece on the recently high-flying Beowulf, and what it means to animation. Animators and others chime in:

... Steve Mason at industry watchdog Fantasy Moguls.com proclaims “Beowulf is likely the future of the film business…”. He and several others who have been fawning over this film don’t even know what they are looking at. Far from being the future, Beowulf is a leap backwards into Gulliver’s Travels (1939) terrain ...

Enjoy your turkey casserole, turkey sandwiches, and turkey popsicles in the week ahead. And bon appetit.