Life and Linkoramas

The last two days, your friendly biz rep's existence has been meetings and talking to people on the phone and trying to occasionally come up for air (and mostly failing). He squeezed in a visit to Disney TVA on the Disney lot (where Phineas and Ferb and Kick Buttowski are rolling smartly along). And heard this:

"Knowing you've got two years of work in front of you is a good feeling. I've got a buddy working across at the hat building and the guy doesn't know if he'll be there in three months. He says the place doesn't have anything going that seems permanent ..."

It always helps when you're working on a show that's making the conglomerate a comfortable amount of money.

“Phineas and Ferb” is TV’s No. 1 Animated Series in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 ...

Elsewhere in Animationland, various newsworthy things are happening, like for instance George Lucas dragging his Big Franchise in a new direction:

... Lucasfilm Animation is developing an animated series to look at the lighter side of Ewoks, Storm Troopers and Gungans and it has enlisted the aid of "Robot Chicken" creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, as well as "Daily Show" writer Brendan Hay ....

Sony's new tentpole has commenced principle photography in the Big Apple:

...Sony has started production on The Smurfs and they’ve announced two more actors hired to provide voices for the film’s smurfy, little blue characters. Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin is on board to play Clumsy Smurf and Fred Armisen is in to play Brainy Smurf ....

I can remember walking through Sony Pictures Animation and hearing animation artists complain that the live-action director was trying to make the Smurfs too photo realistic. But the picture will be a masterwork, just you wait and see.

Entertainment Weekly tells us which Three Dee movies are worth seeing:

... That list would include: Avatar, now the official granddaddy of in-your-face sensual spectacle; the touching and marvelously kinetic How to Train Your Dragon, with its flying sequences that outdo any Quidditch match by literally making you feel as if there’s open sky on every side of you; the punchy and buoyant and hurtling Beowulf; and about three spider-leggy minutes of Coraline. ...

(The best dimensional movies I've seen would have to be Avatar, Dragon, and Monsters v. Aliens. And Christmas Carol was pretty immersive.)

Ralph Bakshi talks about 1974's Hey Good Lookin':

... There was virtually no preparation on Lookin’, because the budget was incredibly low. Lookin’ cost $1.5 million. That would be the equivalent of about $3.6 million today. There was no money. First of all, I had this style where I didn’t care too much about preparation. Preproduction was one of the things we didn’t enjoy. We basically had a week for that with casting. I was very much into shooting what was in front of me. I was like, “If I thought it was right, it was right!” I didn’t question much, and I didn’t like slickness, because I was animating! If I was doing a Scorsese film, I might basically want to polish things up. [laughs] ...

(H/t to Steve W. at ASIFA archives.)

The legacy of former Disney chairman Ron Miller lives on:

... “Tron Legacy” isn’t due until December, but Disney already is putting a sequel on its monorail track. ... Insiders have suggested that writers/ executive producers Kitsis and Horowitz are working on a way to round the story into a trilogy ...

Lastly, a brief history of the Man of Steel (who has nothing to do with the RNC ...):

In the second part of an ongoing series that focuses on the History of Comic Books, producer Derek Crabbe views comics history through the lens of those comic book characters that are lucky enough to be adapted for both movies and television.

Have a glorious mid-week experience. And don't work too hard.