Thursday, May 19, 2011

Luxuriating at the SPA (and elsewhere)

Today was my Culver City day, and a morning spent at Sony Pictures Animation ...

Arthur Christmas is in its final stretch, and board artists are working on Hotel Transylvania, (some now in their third or fourth year). Some work remains on Smurf movie DVD extras. And three artists told how much they enjoyed the Walt Peregoy interview.

Added to which, several voiced a wee bit of under-enthusiasm for the current SPA management team.

"We've got a guy heading the division who's got no experience in animation, doesn't know much about it. And I don't think he or any of the rest of them really know what they want. Or where they want to go."

But hey. As long as they keep paying me, I've got a job, you know?"

Yesterday I was tripping through Walt Disney Animation Studios, where animation continues on Prep and Landing Deux and development work rolls along on Reboot Ralph as it eases toward full-bore production. (Other features are in development, with more waiting to be pitched to Mr. Lasseter.)

But the discussions I got into at the hat building weren't about Disney features. The main thing that came up was whether 48 or 60 frames per second would ever catch on. Nobody seemed to think so. "Too expensive" ... "The studio bean-counters would never go for it" ... "Maybe 60 fps for action sequences" ... "Maybe they'll go for it if the new Peter Jackson move ["The Hobbit" -- at 48 fps] makes a lot of money."

Tomorrow I'll hit studios closer to the office.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The current director of Arthur Christmas has no animation or any directing experience: hence why they are so far behind. However, Sony doesn't seem to mind the extra cash Aardman keeps paying them for all the delays. The only ones who suffer are the overworked and demoralized artists. The artists are beyond frustrated: they just don't care anymore.

Anonymous said...

"Yesterday I was tripping"

Don't take the brown acid.

Sony did. What a mess it is there. I really feel for the artists. How sad.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty terrible and the artists are most definitely completely demoralized. Their voices mean nothing to the higher ups, even though the artists have way more experience with this stuff then those calling the shots. Another big exodus is right around the corner with a big chunk of seniors packing it in. It's no wonder Sony is unable to get any traction when so many experienced artists feel so under appreciated.

Anonymous said...

I really hope Hotel T makes it out of SPA and into production one day...soon. :/

Anonymous said...

Don't hold your breath I hear they now refer to it as "Hotel TBD"

Anonymous said...

HA! I remember when they called their last project "Cloudy with a Chance of Production".

Anonymous said...

^
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| :)

Steve Hulett said...

"Yesterday I was tripping"

Don't take the brown acid.


What if you're partial to brown acid?

Anonymous said...

yeah...MAN.

Dud!

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