Sunday, December 27, 2009

Richard Corliss Speaks

... a discomforting reality:

... Alvin took in more in its first four days than the early December animated feature The Princess and the Frog did in its first 32 days (18 in wide release). The chipmunks should earn back their $70 million budget in a week or two. ...

Like it or not, every exec in the entertainment conglomerate pyramid is taking note of this.

"People are tired of CGI..."? Not hardly.

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Princess & The Frog was a supremely ill concieved movie from the start and consummately indicative of the IDIOTIC rule by committee process that endures at Disney.

Audiences are more savvy than ever, and one thing that they pick up on immediately is when a film is trying to pass off a tired formula as something new. The boom years of Disney faded in the late nineties because the formula became stale.

Could a premise for a movie possibly be more stale than a princess and a frog?!?

I mean honestly, could you dream up an equation with more preconceived notions??

Its clear how it got passed down the pike - there was no risk to it. They tried to stick to something tried and true and got called out for being chickenshit. Real creative successes veer from the pack and carve their own path, they don't try to tap into whats been done before. EVERYTHING had been done before with the insipid "Princess & The Frog". It was a tired premise with a tired formula drawn in a tired style.

The next great traditionally animated film, the one that will start a resurgence of the art form, will come from an independent animator. Fr crying out loud, the LIon King was based on Hamlet. It would NEVER get made at Disney today. I can hear the suit in the meeting room right now "Hamlet isn't family friendly material!"

It certainly won't come from Disney, where no one in an executive position has a shred of guts. If I had my druthers, there would be an eight foot high banner over the door to those offices that reads
"No Risk, No Return"

How many times are the executives at Disney going to water down a product until its thoroughly bland and homogenized before they get the picture?

They deserve to get thumped at the box office.

Anonymous said...

Discomforting , yes, unexpected , no.

I haven't seen Alvin & The Chipmunks 2 (nor am I likely to) so I have a question:

Isn't Alvin primarily a live-action movie with some animation ? Can it really be considered an animated feature ? (what's the ratio of animation to live-action ?)

Anonymous said...

As of right now the ratio is enough for the AMPAS to consider it an Oscar contender in the Animated film category.

Anonymous said...

"Could a premise for a movie possibly be more stale than a princess and a frog?!?"

----

Yes: Alvin & the Chipmunks.

Ridiculous, stupid, stale committee-made movies like Alvin do make money.


I don't disagree that PATF should have broken more with the formula , but I don't agree with you that it was a bad movie. But it was not good enough (or 'fresh' enough) to change the way Disney animation is perceived.

Steve Hulett said...

I'll be interested to see what Rapunzel does at the box office, since in various ways, it has similar elements to The Princess and the Frog.

Except it'll be CGI.

Anonymous said...

Exactly. The rant of the first post would make a lot more sense if the animated movie that HAS been highly financially successful weren't...Alvin & the Chipmunks.

Which is the lowest...lowest...lowest common denominator sludge ever created. Talk about no risk. Just trash.

That said, I can't disagree with the sentiment. Princess is a decent film, but certainly formulaic. Rapunzel will be even more safe and formulaic, without the "daring" move of killing the comic relief at the end. The only hope Disney has is Rich Moore's film.

Mike said...

My prediction is that neither Rapunzel nor Bear and the Bow will be a hit. (Pixar's first miss.) In this day and age I don't think you can get boys, nor teens or adults for that matter to go see a princess movie.

Anonymous said...

Rapunzel will be even more safe and formulaic, without the "daring" move of killing the comic relief at the end.

With all due respect, you havent seen Rpunzel, so you have no clue what you're talking about.

Anonymous said...

When will Disney Animation stop making decisions out of fear?

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, you havent seen Rpunzel, so you have no clue what you're talking about.

With all due respect, you have no idea whether I've seen Rapunzel or not, so you have no clue what you're talking about.

Anonymous said...

The mannered artform that came to be known as traditional 2d animation, became popular partly because it was the only way to tell certain fantastic stories well. At the time of SnowWhite (and up until the recent past), there were many limits on what traditional films could visualize using expensive analog effects. Traditional animation had no such limitations and had cornered the market on certain types of stories.

CGI/digital animation came along and made it possible to tell any story that could be imagined with more sophisticated visual imagery.

There were many great silent films, but once "talkies" came along, the general population had no desire to see anything without sound. It was more sensory information for their money.

There were great, visually sophisticated, black and white films, but again, color came along and added "sensory value" to the average film-goer's experience. The general population (with a few odd-ball exceptions) never wanted to go back.

I would suggest that CGI simply adds a level of detail for the eye that makes the average viewer perceive traditional animation as old-fashioned, "cheap" and retro not unlike silent, black and white films. It offers more visual value for one's money.

Aesthetics arguments aside, I think there is a deeper dynamic at work here that is fueling the public's appetite for CGI - whether we like it or not.

Anonymous said...

Well, yes and no.

I think 2d can offer tremendous visual stimulation, that is wholly different from cg aesthetics.

BUT--I don't the Disney house style is necessarily it. THAT just feels tired and old-fashioned. I could imagine large audiences loving a well-told story in the style of pastel, or soft colored pencil, or a Golden Books illustration with gauche or watercolor, or loose oil paint strokes. Or an impressionist painting. Or any host of interesting graphic styles, none of which cg could do very well.

In other words--you're drawing it! Accentuate the drawing aspect! Do things with it that a cg model can't do easily. The Disney house style attempts to hide the drawing behind representational slickness, but at this point, cg has that beat. So go in the entirely opposite direction!

There is a reason why book illustrations are still loved, as opposed to photographs used as book illustrations. People of all ages respond warmly to simple drawings, marvelous drawings that revel in the fact that they are drawn simply by hand in an appealing way.

Anonymous said...

I agree with what you are saying about 2d animation. There is a lot of fertile ground in that realm aesthetically.

I just wonder whether the cost of producing traditional animation can be justified when the public's appetites seem to have changed. Disney's economic model always operated with the underlying assumption that these films were going to be consumed by the general masses, not a niche group of animation fans.

By the way, as with illustration and storybooks, I don't think traditional animation is going away. But just as publisher's don't risk 100's of millions of dollars on new storybooks, there will also be much smaller bets made on traditionally animated fare.

r said...

Interesting observation. Let me remind you of the first few minutes of Kung Fu Panda.
The question would be, would an entire film capture your attention using this style?(I'd say yes!) After a few minutes, it is the story itself that should carry the film.

r.

Anonymous said...

The question would be, would an entire film capture your attention using this style?(I'd say yes!)

>>>>>>>>>>>

If your money were on the line, I'd say "yes!!!" because I would be curious to see if this style could hold the attention of a general audience.

If my money was on the line, I'd say "No way - Let's make a short aesthetically pleasing intro and do the actual movie in CG."

Anonymous said...

But just as publisher's don't risk 100's of millions of dollars on new storybooks, there will also be much smaller bets made on traditionally animated fare.

I think you're right...and what's more, I hope so! I hope the budgets are small. That is where fresh ideas and innovation and interesting graphic ideas are going to come from. They will not come from a movie that has a $100 million budget, which MUST make money, and therefore cannot take any risks, or make any bold choices.

Anonymous said...

I completely agree. More creative risks can be taken with smaller budgets.

However, the realistic downside is that those smaller budgets means smaller teams and smaller paychecks for all involved. Less traditional animation employment and at a lower payscale.

Employment is probably going to be much more stable in the CG realm for the foreseeable future because the big money is flowing in that direction.

Markus said...

It all comes down to public perception.

Toy Story and Specially shrek gived the public the perception that CG films where more adult and shomehow made it cool for teenagers and young adults to enjoy animation ( By breaking the 90´s musical formula). And that´s the label that CG has had ever since...

Disney doing princess and Winnie Pooh is not going to help to change that perception of 2D being for children.

If Dreamworks had produced shrek in 2D things will be probably different now...

Anonymous said...

"My prediction is that neither Rapunzel nor Bear and the Bow will be a hit. (Pixar's first miss.)"

Pixarians working on Brave would respectfully disagree.

Anonymous said...

With all due respect, you have no idea whether I've seen Rapunzel or not, so you have no clue what you're talking about.

Haha. Touche. See you are work then.

Anonymous said...

Meant to say:

See you AT work then...

Anonymous said...

Toy Story and Shrek made money because they felt fresh. Part of the freshness came from the CGI. We need to get past this idea that somehow CG is created by computer programs and it has no aesthetic merit on its own. CGI is just a really technically sophisticated pencil.

CGI is created by animators and storytellers. Some of it is done very well and some of it is garbage. The same is true of traditional animation.

The idea that somehow if Shrek had been produced in 2d we would be in a much different place now is ridiculous. I would take it the other direction and suggest that if Treasure Planet and Sinbad had been done completely in CG they may have been hits. Crazy, but more plausible than the Shrek theory IMO.

Anonymous said...

People still want to see drawings move.

CGI is not capable of being that. When it is, you can suggest hand drawn animation as going the way of the dodo, but until then, there is still something it cannot do.

Anonymous said...

People don't want to see drawings move. Animators and people who are really into animation want to see drawings move.

The general public likes good stories. Whether that story is told with moving drawings or CGI is not on most of the general populations radar.

Animation had a big comeback in the 90's because it felt fresh and now it isn't fresh anymore.

Anonymous said...

Well, someone's doing SOMETHING right, because animated films dominated the box office receipts this year, and it was a record year.

Anonymous said...

Animation had a big comeback in the 90's
>>>>>>>>>

I meant traditional animation had a big comeback in the 90's.

Animation in a more general sense is indeed doing quite well.

Anonymous said...

Haha. Touche. See you at work then.

:)

Steve Hulett said...

I had a robust discussion with the Wise Old Movie Producer today.

He said that he believed that the right hand-drawn feature could make a lot of money. (More than TP&TF.)

I said, based on evidence to date, that isn't the case. Because, except for The Simpsons Movie, no hand-drawn feature in the last decade has made more than $120 million, and all we have to go on are the hand-drawn features that have been released, not the ones that would do gangbusters if they could only get themselves made.

So at this point, I believe that the "hand-drawn features can do real well" credo is unsupported by any actual film that proves it.

Be that as it may, the Wise Old Movie Producer is probably right, for he is the Wise Old Movie Producer, and I am but a union thug.

*Tarzan is the last hand-drawn feature I would call an unalloyed triumph, although I'm incredibly fond of The Emperor's New Groove, a fine film but not an unalloyed triumph. (Lilo and Stitch and Mulan are also terrific features.)

Anonymous said...

It's not going to happen at Disney if they think the way to make a 2D film is to roll back the clock and make the same type of film they made 20 years ago with almost the same people in charge.
When I heard they were going to make a princess movie and had hired Ron and John back to direct I could've guaranteed this would have been the end result.

Anonymous said...

"I said, based on evidence to date, that isn't the case. Because, except for The Simpsons Movie, no hand-drawn feature in the last decade has made more than $120 million..."

Lilo & Stitch actually raked in $145 million in 2002...

Steve Hulett said...

Yeah, it did. After I did some research, I revised the comment above with a post above.

And I've reassesed my position. I now think the right hand-drawn feature could make big money. I'm just not sure a hand-drawn feature will get produced that proves the thesis.

Anonymous said...

"
People don't want to see drawings move. Animators and people who are really into animation want to see drawings move.
"


WOW, you mean The Simpsons movie has made $527 million worldwide from just animators!?!?

Thats hard to believe - probably because it isn't true and you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

But thanks for chiming in with some concentrated idiocy. We'll call you next time.

Anonymous said...

WOW, you mean The Simpsons movie has made $527 million worldwide from just animators!?!?
>>>>>>

Somebody seems to be missing the point here.

Saying that people want to see drawings move is like saying that people only want to see CGI films. How a film is made is something people in the animation community spend a lot of time discussing.

However, the general population just wants to see a good movie.

If you think the best thing that 2d animation has to offer is that "people like to see drawings move" you are completely not understanding why most people go see films.

The novelty of "gosh did they draw every frame with a pencil" has completely worn off for the general movie-goer. Sorry to be the one to give you the bad news.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Eisner was right after all.

Hannah Barbontana said...

"Maybe Eisner was right after all"

And maybe you're wrong just like he is?

Anonymous said...

"Saying that people want to see drawings move is like saying that people only want to see CGI films."

Yeah dude - that was implied earlier in the thread:


"CGI/digital animation came along and made it possible to tell any story that could be imagined with more sophisticated visual imagery."


Try reading the whole thread before jumping to prove someone wrong. You must have simply forgotten to call out that previous point of view - or, most probably, you agree that CGI is so dazzling that viewers go to the cinema to see the style the movie is done in.

One wonders how 3D has had such an affect at the box office if no one cares about the presentation and style of a story....

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I'm not clear what point you are trying to make.

Anonymous said...

"So at this point, I believe that the "hand-drawn features can do real well" credo is unsupported by any actual film that proves it."

-----

You should qualify that statement more narrowly to apply to the North American situation.

A recent hand-drawn movie from Japan "Ponyo" (2008, directed by Hayao Miyazaki) , pulled in the equivalent of $164,565,997 U.S. dollars in Japan alone , but only made a comparatively paltry $15,090,399 when released in the U.S.

Ponyo's total worldwide box-office take stands at $199,460,313 (calculated in U.S. dollars).
That take is balanced against a production budget equivalent to $34 million U.S.

So, yeah, most of that $199,460,313 came from box-office receipts within Japan, but do you seriously want contend that the Japanese people are technologically backward compared to Americans ? That the Japanese aren't heavily into whatever is the latest & greatest gee-whiz tech gadgetry ? And yet somehow the Japanese still manage to be entertained by these moving drawings. Obviously there is something deeply different about the culture of Japan than the U.S. (and also the culture in Europe where there continues to be more hand-drawn production and animation in general is valued more highly) .

I'm not saying that the situation is necessarily going to change in the U.S. any time soon (witness the very small niche audience there was for "Ponyo" and other great Miyazaki films like "Spirited Away" , in the U.S. ), but what I am saying is that CG doesn't necessarily replace Hand drawn because people become more visually sophisticated from being exposed to CG and therefore they will gravitate more towards CG because it is perceived as being more "detailed" and "realistic" or whatever.
(as though "realism" is the highest goal of art ? Duh.)

I'd say it's actually the opposite: the more visually/artistically sophisticated people are , then the more likely they will be able to fully appreciate both hand-drawn and cg imagery equally for what they do best .

What I'm hoping for is that at some point real soon someone is going to make a truly FUNNY, entertaining, yet inexpensive (under $10 million) 2D animated feature with Flash or something , then secure a strong distribution deal (ala the "Hoodwinked" model) , which ends up connecting with an audience.

Anonymous said...

of course CG is not going to completely replace traditional animation. It hasn't completely replaced stop-motion either. Coraline was one of my favorite films this year. That said, for me, seeing a good stop-motion film every 3-4 years is plenty.

I would frankly rather watch traditional animation on my home screen. I find it hard to watch 2d films on the ubiquitous giant screens. (I was one of the ten people who watched "Treasure Planet" on an IMAX screen. Some of the cleanup lines on the closeup shots were thicker than I am tall)

I think the general audience gets plenty of 2d animation exposure from television and DVD.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
the more visually/artistically sophisticated people are
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The general audience is not becoming more visually/artistically "sophisticated". CG offers more stimulus in the consumerist-type sense, just like color and sound, in their day, offered more stimulus for the money. If the general audience was becoming more sophisticated, by now the cineplex's should have been taken over by arthouse films.

My 2 Cents said...

Someone should do a list of theatrical CG films that flopped. The list will be longer than many of you suspect. The novelty is beginning to wear off, for sure.
That's a good thing. Nothing in filmmaking should be automatic; no property, no technique. As several of you have said or implied, when push comes to shove, you simply have to make a good, entertaining movie. If you build it, they will come, no matter what it's made of.

What I strongly object to is the ridiculous analogy between the advent of sound with the advent of color, (to make a point about CG). Movies are rooted in theater which is heavily dependent on writing, dialogue and verbal acting. The advent of sound was a sea change. In a sense, it created a whole new medium. Who would prefer pantomime to a fully articulated performance?

The advent of color, however, was purely cosmetic, artistically speaking. Classic films like Psycho, The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, (and many others), were made long after color films became the norm.
Nobody ever refers to the fact that these films were made in black and white as a flaw or a drawback.

Where does CG fall? In my perception, much closer to the advent of color. Nowhere near as game changing as sound.

Anonymous said...

The advent of color, however, was purely cosmetic, artistically speaking.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I guess someone forgot to let you know that film is primarily a visual storytelling medium that had already defined itself as a new artform well before sound came along.

Color. A superficial cosmetic little trick. Hmmm. That's funny.

Anonymous said...

Thing is, I dont think CG is novelty. I think its just a technique, just like traditional or stop motion.

Its like saying HD cameras are a novelty. No matter what equipment or techniques you use, you gotta have a solid story and artistry behind it. Then again, sometimes THAT doesnt even matter. Sometimes it all comes down to lightning in a bottle.

Surfs Up flopped. Kung Fu Panda did gangbusters. Both extremely beautiful CG movies.

Trying to explain all of this just makes all of us sometimes look stupid, I think.

Anonymous said...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"The general audience is not becoming more visually/artistically "sophisticated"."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Right.

However, earlier in this thread someone suggested:

"CGI/digital animation came along and made it possible to tell any story that could be imagined with more sophisticated visual imagery." ... "I would suggest that CGI simply adds a level of detail for the eye that makes the average viewer perceive traditional animation as old-fashioned, "cheap" and retro not unlike silent, black and white films. "

The implication being that with the advent of CG animation modern audiences have become so used to the supposedly superior quality of the imagery provided in CG movies that they have grown too sophisticated to appreciate hand-drawn animation.

However, I would contend that the more visually sophisticated a person is , the more likely they are going to be able to appreciate both hand-drawn animation and cg animation for what both mediums do best. But I see no evidence that modern audiences are in fact growing more visually/artistically mature. The average moviegoer's tastes have not grown broader or more sophisticated, but rather have become much narrower.

Anonymous said...

When sound came along, the public was into hearing sound in a film for its own sake. This set film back a number or years artistically, as it took some time for film to artistically reach the pre-sound level of sophistication.

The audience was getting more sensory value for their money. They weren't getting better storytelling. That came later.

Traditional animation has been around for close to a century. There have been many experiments with style and storytelling. The only one that has really ever captured the American public’s imagination in a big way is the Disney-style (including Disney and copycats). Maybe there is some new fresh vision for 2d out there, but I’m not holding my breath.

I would suggest that as an artistic tool, CG is a much more general tool than traditional animation.

CG has only scratched the surface visually of what it can do and frankly there are a lot more shiny buttons to push, each button having great artistic potential in the right hands.

I think it is a mistake to think of CG as a monolithic, realistic-looking one-trick pony. CG is nothing but a new way of producing visual stimulus and is only limited by the imagination of its users.

CG can in theory look like 2d or anything else it is crafted to look like. The same is not true of traditional animation. Like it or not, in coming years, CG is going to most likely be where the innovation comes from - the new form that no one has yet imagined.

Traditional animation is a dried-out-shell-of-a-process. IMO. But I would still like to see a new traditionally animated film every few years.

Anonymous said...

--and is only limited by the imagination of its users.

That's the core problem with it. Without limits, it grows in too many directions all at once, signifying nothing. Nothing is interesting in a world where everything is interesting. Most CG movies, not all, feel like they exit reality too casually. The ones that do succeed still have most of their feet in the real world. That's the single biggest mistake directors make with computers. They let them overtake reality. Christmas Carol had to be one of the sloppiest and most bizarre experiences I have ever had in a theater. Were I twenty and stoned and paying three dollars at the midnight matinee, I would have loved it. CG is a B movie that a studio overpaid 100 million to make. Most barely reach the minimum bar of what is required of good cinema. But they are neato.

Anonymous said...

That's the single biggest mistake directors make with computers. They let them overtake reality.
>>>>>>>
This is an aesthetic problem. With time, the use of these new tools will become more sophisticated. But there is an almost unlimited possibility space and smart, talented users have a lot to play with.

Traditional animation, on the other hand, has too many limitations to really do something new. These tired old limitations really are thrown into relief next to the sometimes sloppy and bizarre, but nevertheless dynamic manifestations that are coming out of the CG palette.

I would take something that is growing in too many directions at once over something that is stale and dying any day.

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