Less is More

It's hard to advertise TVs. If you don't actually have the TV in front of you to look at, you can't see what the advertisers are claiming. They just use stand-in pictures of flowers or hot air balloons to imply what you cant see.

Also Peyton Manning.

Since I'm trying to write about these same TVs I'm going to try my best to describe what's going on without forcing you to go to store to see them in person.

First off, look carefully at these two clips from The Twilight Zone:



Don't feel the need to watch the whole thing, or pay attention to what's going on with the story. Just look at the quality of the image and the way things move.



You may not be able to describe it in words, but you can probably tell that there's something different between the way those two clips look.

The reason is the first clip is shot on film while the second is shot on video. The way the light bouncing off the actors and the surroundings is converted to a series of fixed images is different between the two methods, which is why they look different.

Okay, I lied. I really do want you see these TVs in person, so put on your shoes and grab your keys...


Go to Shopko or Walmart or some other big store that has a wall of TVs all playing the same movie. If you look closely, the movie will look different on some TVs (namely the big expensive ones) than others.

The difference is almost as stark as it is in those Twilight Zone clips. Two TVs playing the same thing, but one looks like a movie and one looks like basic cable. I was at Shopko the other day and saw Toy Story 3 playing on the TVs and it looked like a videogame cut-scene.

To really see this in action, go to a big electronics store like Best Buy where they have the fancy TVs playing a demo reel that over-emphasizes this effect, supposedly to impress you. What I saw was big budget live action features that looked like soap operas or behind-the-scenes footage and even bigger budget animated films that looked like the cheap educational shows on Nick Jr.

Only one of these cost $80 Million.

What makes these TVs look different is that they have a really high refresh rate of 240Hz, compared to the 60Hz of a regular TV. Every manufacturer has this and each have their own special-sounding name for it. Sony has FlowMotion, Toshiba has ClearFrame (or ClearScan; they call it both ways on their site) Samsung has it, but doesn't have a fancy name for it.

What it's actually doing is taking the frames from the movie and interpolating new inbetween frames to "smooth out" the motion, and in turn changing the picture's inherent visual qualities, just like the videotaped Twilight Zone episodes.

The stated purpose of this is to reduce blurring of images, which may look good watching sports, (which is all you may see on some TV demos) but disastrous for films where the blurring is specifically part of the look of the medium, or even worse CG animation where the blurring is consciously added to make the these wholly manufactured images look more "lifelike".

I don't know what this does to hand-drawn animation. I couldn't bring myself to ask the sales clerk to pop in a Blu-Ray of Princess and the Frog just so my blog post could be more thorough.

Plus blurriness is a normal part of human vision (both from depth of field and fast motion). So taking it away for the sake of technological one-ups-manship and "realism" actually makes it look more fake.

Skyline isn't as impressive as I thought it would be.

I'm already disillusioned about CG films on Blu-Ray in general because I think the added clarity just amplifies the "CG-ness"of it all and reminds me I'm watching a computer model rather than an actual character with a personality. These TVs just kick it further into the uncanny valley.

Marketing Matters

I've come to the conclusion that animated features are overexposed.

The amount of money studios spend on marketing and advertising for movies is truly insane. It can be almost as much as they spend on actually making the movie itself.

Pixar and Dreamworks tend to be the biggest offenders, routinely spending well over $100 million a film to convince you to buy your tickets. (UP cost $175 million to make and likely cost another $150 million to advertise) And from what I can tell, it's not worth it.

Animated films have become the"safe" movies to go to; the ones that you can easily assume will be funny without being confusing or disappointing; not just films for

When I went to see Megamind today the row in front of me had 3 adults in their mid-20's and the row behind me had 3 adult in their late-40's/early-50's; no kids at all.

Given the broad appeal this films have, they could save a lot of money by advertising less and I doubt it would hurt their box office numbers at all.

In the case of Megamind, it would do far better because the advertising effectively ruined the actual movie.

Here's the trailer you've been hammered with for the past several months.


Here's the problem: The whole "Metro Man is retired" thing is a plot twist. For the 50 minutes or so before that you're supposed to think that he's dead.

And note that I didn't call spoiler alert and such, because I don't have to. The movie spoiled itself with its trailers.

If you haven't seen it before (like I hadn't) here's the Comic-Con trailer:



I'd bet anything that after this trailer screened the marketing people freaked out at letting people think the protagonist of their $170 million movie killed somebody so they did theirest to sweep that under the rug even though the movie was probably 90% finished at the time.

I spent bulk of this movie unable to really care about what's going on because I already knew what was going to happen. It wasn't until the 75 minute mark (of this 95 minute movie) that I was able to actually be surprised at what was going on.

So this is a case where a movie would have been vastly better had it been advertised differently, but Megamind is also a laundry list of all the things I hate about Dreamworks films in general. Ugly designs, insincere trendiness, relying on popular songs to carry things, etc... Plus it's wall-to-wall talking. The first 8 minutes or so of this movie is Will Ferrell talking non-stop and it's all stuff you've already seen in the trailers.

Every time I've seen this poster I grunt out an audible UGH of involuntary disgust; even when I passed it as I was walking to my seat. That should've been a tipoff.

If you really love the sound of Will Ferrell's voice, go watch Megamind. And if you can find way to sneak into a screening that's already about 75 minutes in, do that; you've already seen that part anyway.

It's a Plympton-mentary

Are you familiar with the work of animator Bill Plympton?





On top of his dozens of shorts Plympton has also released 5 feature-length animated films, all drawn entirely by him.

Filmmaker Alexis Anastasio is working on a documentary on this legend of animation, but she's got a lot of money left to raise and only about 12 days left to do it.

Check out her Kickstarter Page and see if you can't toss a couple bucks her way.

The 11 cartoon you can't show on television

Check out this article from The Root calling for a DVD release of the so-called Censored 11-a group of Looney Tunes shorts that have been kept under wraps for the past 40+ years because they contain black caricatures and stereotypes.

Run for cover! That rubber nose is loaded!

Much in the same way Disney balked on the idea on releasing Song of the South as part of the more collector and historian-oriented Disney Treasures DVDs, apparently some of the best animation the Golden Age has to offer is off limits because there are black characters in it.

I can see not wanting to air these cartoons for kids on mid-day television, (not that Looney Tunes get aired on TV anymore) which was the main idea of the Censored 11, but on DVD it can easily be marketed to the adults that want to see it.

As the article mentions, Charlie Chan grossly caricaturized Asians as much as (probably more than) these cartoons caricaturize African Americans. And there are dozens of DVD releases for those films.

Left: Completely offensive and should never see daylight. Right: A-Okay!

Plus, none of these cartoons were hateful or mean-spirited toward blacks, and compared to WWII cartoons aimed at lampooning the Japanese they're downright quaint.

I'm against outside censorship and believe all media should be readily accessible, even if it's the stuff giant media conglomerates would rather people forget.

Warners already has their Warner Archive site that sells print-on-demand DVDs of old and obscure movies from the Warner Bros. catalog. Why not dump those and any other unreleased Looney Tunes on there where you can make a buck off the cartoon nerds and the squares are none the wiser?

I'm sure the lure of profits can soften even the grip of decades of over-zealous censorship.

Ebay account OF THE BEAR!

I doubt this is of interest to many people, but if you're a fan of the 80's Filmation show Bravestarr, Christmas just came early:

There are literally over a thousand listings of cels, backgrounds and even entire folders of animation scenes. All ranging from 5-30 bucks!

I got mine:

Big Shot of Thirty-Thirty loking like a Spaz? Where's my wallet!

The lynx has been found

I got a pleasant surprise this morning to see that the Spanish animated feature The Missing Lynx which came out in Europe at the end of 2008 was released on DVD in North America today and is available on Netflix Watch Instantly.



I'm really only mentioning this for people like me who feel compelled to watch every animated film that comes along, (assuming there are such people) because it's such a skippable movie.

The only notable thing about this film is that Antonio Banderas was a producer on it. Literally the first thing you see in this movie is his name. And as far as I can tell he didn't do a voice in it, not even the Spanish version.

I also got word that WB is releasing a complete series set for Batman Beyond almost 3 years after their single season releases. I assume this is for milking out some more money rather than tying in to another property.

Chase the Thief

If you're a fan of Richard Williams and aren't familiar with The Thief Archive then finding it now is going to feel like you've slept through Christmas.



On top of containing piles of newly uploaded ads from his commercial house, interviews, specials and whatnot, it also contains a recut version of Williams' bastardized epic The Thief and the Cobbler that's as close as possible to his original vision.

This is what Youtube is for. Check it out.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

How many things are wrong with this poster for Dreamworks' third animated feature of 2010, Megamind?
So far I've got:

• Ugly "Tude" facial expressions that you find only in animation.
• Selling the celebrity voices rather than the story or the characters.
• Selling the film as a generic "Superhero Movie" which is replacing the Fairy Tale as the most cliche-ridden, overdone and downright lazy genre of stories in animation or any other storytelling medium.

Anything else?

Objects in trailer may differ from those delivered.

How do you sell an unconventional movie?

Films come in all shapes and sizes. Ranging from assembly line, mass market pablum to wholly original works that appeal to a group so small they could have carpooled to the theatre together.

But when it comes time to sell them, all films have a trailer that does it's best to appeal to as broad of audience as possible. So how do you take a movie that doesn't fit in the standard genre boxes and sell without the time-honored technique of lying?

For starters here's one of my all time favorite films that most people have never heard of: Cradle Will Rock.



This is a pretty good trailer that sells a really good film. But what it's selling and what you end up getting are very different.

Cradle Will Rock is an odd film by conventional standards. It's an ensemble film with no real lead character and several different plot lines that intermingle and revolve around a central theme.

I think a movie like this takes a little more effort on the the part of the viewer than the average film, which would help explain why one person I showed it to was bored by everything in it except for Jack Black and asked to watch something else after only half an hour.

Even though it's the climax, the film's only partly about the play, and you never get that big crescendo moment like in the trailer. It's much more understated.

One a completely different tone: Here's a film I love even more: Paprika.



This one is sort of the soft sell. Surreal images, catchy music, critical acclaim. Maybe you want to watch and see what it's all about?



This second one takes a much more conventional approach and actually oversells it a little.

It does a great job of telling you the concept of the movie, even better the movie itself. And even though the music in the trailer is nowhere near the type used in the film it still communicates the basic feeling of things.

If I'd have seen a trailer for Paprika before seeing it, that's the one that would've sold me.

Annecy's 50th Anniversary

Anyone who says there aren't any original ideas left obviously hasn't stuck a fox and a chicken in a field inexplicably littered with champagne bottles.

I did stuff

I just finished a 3 week winter session class in stop motion animation. I never realized how little I knew about stop motion, especially considering how much I know about other forms of animation. Plus I got two pieces of animation done in 3 weeks. One good and one... less so.

First the not so good one:



For some reason, I wasn't smart enough to do the audio until afterward, so I couldn't sync things up the way I wanted. Plus I suck at waves, so the tail looks awful.

Now for the other one:



For my first ever stop motion piece, I'm pretty satisfied. Although I had a lot of problems, I shot it all on a green screen, so I was able fix some of my biggest problems in After Effects. Of course the green screen caused problems of it's own.

I'm a little mad I had to resort of stock sounds for the screams. The ones I recorded just sounded anemic. But thank God for freesound.org.

All in all, it was a decent use of 3 weeks, although I have a ton of paper scraps to clean up.

Back to Brackenwood

If you're not familiar with Australian animator Adam Phillips, you should be. On top of all his freelance work, he's created several animated shorts in his Brackenwood story-world.

He just finished his newest film: The Last of the Dankin.

Also, be sure to check out his other Brackenwood films.

It's pretty inspiring to see someone make so much by himself. Especially since they're full-standing stories rather than little 10 second pencil-tests. If you're the type to kick an artist a couple bucks so he can keep making great work, he's definitely one to consider.

And if you're looking for a way to donate while actually getting something, he's also putting together an online book on animating in Flash that you can buy a chapter at a time.

Would you trust someone who smiles like this?

I'm still not sure about Planet 51, which comes out this next Friday. I like the concept of a role reversal of the standard alien invasion and all, but I don't know if it'll actually be any good.

I haven't even seen all that much promotion for it. That is until today I was at the store when I saw this face glaring at me from the freezer section:

Is this part of the dreaded `Tude that John K always warns about? Not really, but it is the stock "squash one side of the face and stretch the other" expression that doesn't really mean anything. And in this case, his eyes are crossed just enough to make him look like an imbecile.

I can't get too hyped about a movie when the press shots of the main character make him look like a moron.

All Hail Slobovia!

I get so much of my animation news from Cartoon Brew I giving it it's own tag.

Check out this Brew post about an award winning, but rather unconventional Scottish kids show.

It's hard to really judge a show when all you got to go on is a 50 second song chanting about intercourse, plus I haven't found an actual episode form their season on sexuality yet, but here's part 1 of their episode of Charles Darwin:



All in all, I was really impressed by all they covered. Darwin's life, his work, his conflicts with religion, as well as a general snapshot of life in the mid 19th Century. And with a goofy song as a kicker. I'm well past the target demo, but I still felt like I learned something.

When I think of educational TV, I immediately picture the Sesame Street-type shows aimed at the pre-preschool set. So educational shows geared toward 11-16 year-olds is a far less explored area, apart from the Bill Nye/Beakman's World "Science is Wacky and Cool" kind of shows. But even those didn't quite appeal to the learning to drive crowd.

I think it'd be interesting to see more junior high/high school aged educational shows. Especially ones that talk about Friedrich Nietzsche and sing songs that contain the word "erection."

Uncannily Expensive

Word is that Robert Zemeckis' mocap Christmas Carol cost $180 Million to make, putting it above Up which cost $175 Million.

So far it's safe to say that these motion performance capture films aren't better than what studios like Pixar have to offer. But if they're not cheaper, what's the point of making them?

We're getting a bigger kit

I'm not crazy about re-buying a book I already own, but I guess I can make an exception for the best animation book ever written.



I haven't heard what "expanded" means, not even how many pages more it'll be. But since I don't see myself dropping $1000 on the DVD set anytime soon, I guess I'll have to take it.