First shots from Beowulf

[MonkeyFunk]

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=863

And so, Robert Zemeckis' Moreau-esque attempts to turn cartoons into people continue.

[athena]

Kinda begs the question why even bother to animate it.

[MonkeyFunk]

Apparently it's supposed to look like a Frank Frazetta painting. Although, I must say, when I look at a Frank Frazetta painting, "photorealistic" isn't the first word to enter my head.

[athena]

Trailer's up... http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/


soooo... qualify for keyframe? we did profile polar express.

[Magnus]

I must say, Angelina Jolie's character looks a helluva lot like Angelina Jolie. The only way to make her look more like Angelina Jolie would be to use....hmmm....ANGELINA JOLIE.

Seriously...why? Has it actually become cheaper to pay 3D modellers for a photo-perfect imitation than to just get the live screentime from the actors themselves??

soooo... qualify for keyframe? we did profile polar express.

I would say it qualifies. It is, after all, a genuinely non-live-action animated feature. If we start trying to distinguish an "animation" based solely on how realistic it is, we'll run into trouble whenever they make movies like Final Fantasy where the characters are obviously stylistically anime and yet simultaneously photorealistic.

P.S. At the very least one could argue this is the dawn of the age of the voice-actor. If the theatrical acting talents of a movie star are undermined by the fact that all of his/her "physical movement" is really just a result of the animators' skills, then perhaps voice acting will finally get some of the attention it deserves.

[MonkeyFunk]

Seriously...why? Has it actually become cheaper to pay 3D modellers for a photo-perfect imitation than to just get the live screentime from the actors themselves??

Apparently Zemeckis sank a lot of money into getting it done with animation in the first place. The film was originally conceived as live action, but from what I understand Zemeckis caught wind of it and figured it'd be a good opportunity to give his mo-cappin' another runaround and flung cash at the original director until the project was handed to him. So it's not down to cost or anything technical like that, it's just Mr. Zemeckis' wacky entrepreneurship.

[lupercal]

Your real problem is going to come when someone makes the first 'non-animated' animated film. i.e. it doesn't even refer to itself as animation any more. And I still suspect live action is eventually going to go the same way as 2D animation, as far as hollywood blockbusters go, anyway.

BTW we already use realism as a criteria, in the sense that the editors have to decide whether the animation is intended to look like animation, or to hide the fact that it's animation. Personally I didn't think 'Polar Express' came across like that. It never gave me the feeling I was watching something that was supposed to look 'real'; though some of it employed very realistic animation, it didn't look like it was trying to fool me into thinking it was 'real'.

BTW, the last time someone tried to make something look like a Frank Frazetta painting, we got 'Fire and Ice' :lol:

[phatPudding]

I don't see the point. What a waste of resources. If it has been Motion captured I would say it is no more animation than a live action film that has been colour graded.

[athena]

Except odder in terms of wasted resources since everything from the environment to the characters has to be created digitally. At least with a film that's been colour-graded, you can save time in having at least some physical elements of the environment on hand that can simply be dropped into the scene... as opposed to having to model and render every chip of stone and blade of grass.

[lupercal]

Except odder in terms of wasted resources since everything from the environment to the characters has to be created digitally. At least with a film that's been colour-graded, you can save time in having at least some physical elements of the environment on hand that can simply be dropped into the scene... as opposed to having to model and render every chip of stone and blade of grass.


Except.... Well, this is why I don't think Polar Express is 'realistic' (for the record, I only gave it 2.5 stars, but that's the highest grade anyone gave it.)

In one scene, the train is going along at night, and the camera tracks right and then folows a pack of wolves, zooms in on them so you get the texture of their fur and everything, before they run down a hill; then the camera zooms upwards to some eagle's nest or something.

Well for a start, there is no way you could possibly film this IRL, so we're not talking about photorealism. Secondly I'm sure nobody got a pack of wolves and stuck mo-cap sensors on them, so even if the human characters were filmed this way, a lot of the rest of it wasn't I realise you weren;t arguing otherwise)

You cannot colourise a a film and make it look like this: it's simply impossible to shoot a film conventionally and then then do this to it.

I've been aware since the start, how my 2.5 for 'Polar Express' clashes with my low rating for so many 3D films. But honestly, I think this is a rather unfairly maligned movie, and most of all, as I wrote when I first reviewed it, I think it's a very important movie - not just an animated movie - because I think this, or something like this, is how they're going to make everything in the future. e.g. Mission Impossible 9, or whatever.

Loop

[The Great Dragon]

Alright, watch the trailer again - when your almost to the middle, a blue - glowing sword (LOTR, anyone?) goes through the Angelina Jolie character. No marks. No sounds. What the.....?

[GrafSpee]

It is artistic license based on the original Grendel story: Grendel's mother was impervious to most swords. The sword in the trailer is not powerful enough to harm her.

[The Great Dragon]

But she just sort of walks through it - no explanation or anything. Just a little strange if you ask me.

[Magnus]

Yeah...whenever I see that shot it seems to me like she's a hologram. But maybe I'll get over it by the time the movie comes out.

[Meson]

This is a movie I want to see.


Ass for the animation, animation can do things live-action can't. However, people can only relate to real live humans. Motion-capture is the only real way to go when you need both.

[athena]

However, people can only relate to real live humans.

Well now that's a bold statement to be making on an animation site. :lol:

My sister and I have actually had this argument before... we were discussing the fact that 'Avatar: the Last Airbender' was being turned into a live-action movie. I was saying something along the lines of "boo! It makes such a great animation!"... and she was saying, "yay! this might be something I'd want to go see."

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that people can only relate to real live humans... isn't the point of animation to create something so spell-binding that you do, in fact, have empathy for a creation of pixels or paint?

[Meson]

It's basic psychology. Humans can only fully relate to something that resembles themselves, thus another human.

Don't get me wrong. I like animation, or I wouldn't be here. However, truth is the truth. Animation needs to advance enough to produce artifical humans before it can really take off.

[athena]

Animation needs to advance enough to produce artifical humans before it can really take off.

Okay, but if the holy grail of animation is simply going to be photorealistic people, then what happens to all artistry and design that goes into animation? What happens to Fantasia or Nightmare Before Christmas or Madagascar* or any animated film that sets out to play with design?

It's sort of like the identity crisis the painting community had after the photograph came along. Here they had been slaving since those days of the early Renaissance to produce paintings that were a close to photo-real as possible, and then along comes this technology that allows you to make a photorealistic image in an instant. So why bother picking up a paint brush at all? Except, of course, if you embrace the fact that that paintbrush can produce something other than photorealistic reality--which, of course, is all a camera is ever capable of producing. And I don't mean simply putting photoreal people in unreal, fantastical situations... I mean making images that are stunning in their own right, but not realistic.


(*Madagascar is possibly not the best example, but I had to wrack my brain to think of anything 3D with an interesting look to it.)

[starlac]

As to this film, well to me it looks like another generic fantasy film trying to capitalise on Peter Jackson’s and Harry Potter’s success. Will it be successful? Will it be any good? I don’t know the answer to either question, but I know that I won’t be rushing off to see it anytime soon.

It's basic psychology. Humans can only fully relate to something that resembles themselves, thus another human.

For what it’s worth, I’ve spent a great deal of my life completely unable to relate with humans on almost any level whatsoever; though this may have more to do with the condition I have more than anything else. These days I can amount something a little higher than general indifference, but this is still isn’t really true emoting.

I’ll like to open the fact that humans really just like to recognise elements of themselves in things, even things which don’t look even remotely human. Humans have had a long history of using anthropomorphic tales and fables, which goes as far back as Aesop’s Tales, and many, many mythologies; many of which contain certain human characteristics in an animal form (i.e. human vices). The Aesop tales eventually accumulated into the funny animal shorts that make up many of Warner, Disney and other companies animated output. If it is true that humans can only fully relate/recognise themselves if they are represented by full fleshed humans then all this use of animals in storytelling has been a colossal waste of the last several thousand years.

But then, It’s the human condition that is the fascinating part about humans, not their appearance; the psychology of the mind. How humans behave as individuals and in groups. Let’s face it, outside of true events and news, both television and the movies strive to entertain with what are fundamentally ‘narrative constructs’. Representations of human life with the more mundane aspects taken out. Every story ever written by humans, one way or another, is basically about humans.

Yet the whole essence of animation is the ability to make a drawing come to life, to invoke an emotional response with the audience, whether a comedic or dramatic or melodramatic one, or anything else for that matter. A good piece of animation can make you (the audience) forget that you are looking at what is a series of stylised drawings and look at it as a living, breating creature. To misquote a phase, the sequences of drawings is, in a stylistic detached sense, a human who acts with a pencil.

Animation needs to advance enough to produce artifical humans before it can really take off.

Maybe it is true, as Loop says, that one day it will be cheaper/possible to do a CGI film so realistic that you could mistake it for a real film if no-one told you otherwise*. Would I go and see that film, probably not.

For the record the last live-action films I went/was forced to see, I found to be utterly tedious and have pretty much given them up. I just can’t relate to real life ‘narrative constructs’ and so the only live action stuff I watch these days is the news. That and listen to BBC radio 4 and 7 programmes, which I do relate to, strangely enough. I suppose the basis from which I relate to things is different than the way you might do; as an artist I like mediums were I can create the pictures in my own mind, like books and radio, or else can see the renderings of another artistic mind doing something which is impossible in reality and which I find magical to watch.

The only 'realistic' animated films I've watched where the two Final Fantasy films (both forced on me BTW). I found Spirits Within film dull, actually I fell asleep the first time, somehow watched it through to the end the second and almost fell asleep on the third. At no point did I care about any of the characters or the multi-million dollar graphics; but this was because I didn’t find any of the character in the least bit interesting. Sure they looked more or less realistic, but their acting ability was abysmally poor. I enjoyed the ‘sequel’ to the seventh game, but I can’t help wonder if this was because I had some fondness for the original game or because it left any pretence of realism at the gate with its videogame style action sequences.

As for the ‘Taking off’ remark, erm, yeah; not the best choice of words on an animation site. The animation industry is worth billions of dollars these days, in both the domestic and foreign markets for works past and current. There are more ongoing projects in production today than at any other time you care to mention. Also, some of the highest grossing films of their time were animated, so in what way has animation failed to take off?

-

*Some might say we're alreadly there, this attached image from Spider-Man 2 - Warning Spoiler - was apparently all CGI (according to the film's commentary). So, maybe it's just a matter of fronting the bill, or giving up stylings for realism. Mind you, the shot only requires the character to look dead, a tad easier than acting me-thinks. :rolleyes:

[Magnus]

I agree with starlac that there are often many aspects of animation to which we can relate. However, I also agree with Meson that, in terms of "relating" alone, we can always (with some exceptions) relate more to a live-action film than to an animated one (also personal tastes will vary, but I think this is a general rule). After all, I can sit down and watch something like Forrest Gump and feel almost physically connected to the character in a way that I'm sure I never quite could if that story had been animated.

This is not to say that live-action is superior...far from it. But I don't think we should compare the two on account of how well we can "relate" to them. Again, there is certainly a great deal in the way animated characters converse, act, and react that we can relate to; but I think animation's power comes from its creative side, its ability to expand the viewer's story and character definitions beyond what is commonly accepted as "real."

For example: Starlac described animation as a way of bringing drawings to life. I think this is true; let's compare animation to film by comparing drawings to photographs. When we look at a photograph or live-action still frame, we accept the scene we are looking at as being "real," or at least as a presentation of a possible reality, although sometimes we must assume a few things about the setting of the scene before the reality could become possible. Is this true with a drawing? Absolutely not! Drawings are a step further: They depict, not a reality that COULD be possible, but rather a reality that is simply IMpossible. Could humans ever have eyes that big? Will a light source ever create the perfectly defined, solid-color shadows you see in cell shading? Of course not. Yet we can still perceive the drawing to be almost like a "photo" of a living, breathing character, and we can still watch an animation and see that character come to life, as starlac said.

So if our enjoyment in animation doesn't come from our ability to perceive the story we're watching as any kind of visually possible reality, where does it come from? The writing alone? I don't think so. The reason people love to draw, and to look at drawings, is because drawings can make a human, MORE human. For example, in real life, we look into each others' eyes as a means of emotional expression, and even just communication in general. By drawing eyes that are larger and more colorful, we emphasize the emotions they express to a degree that is just as impossible in real life as the eyes themselves. We create a character that is more rich, more unique, and more expressive than any living, breathing character has ever been or will ever be. If you ask me, THAT is the undeniable, insurmountable, and incomparable power of animation. Long live cartoons!

...Of course, we'll always have the photorealistic animations, and arguably they will one day replace live-action entirely. But again, I think photorealism is a different sort of story. That's why I hesitate to talk about "relating" to an animation, because it seems to me that "relating" to a story implies finding a certain degree of physical realism therein.

[The Great Dragon]

In the shortest terms, this is all I want to say.

Humans don;t need to see humans on the screen to be enchanted by them and relate to them - not in the slightest sense. It's the things they face - their personality, their character, and what the go through that really makes the audience care for them.

Yes, the way to relate most is to have a regular old human on the screen, but is that really what animation is for? Animation is for capturing the very things that can't be, the things that you can't have in live action. (That is why, say, in Star Wars, I prefer the model ships to the CGI ones, because they can actually be made in real life, but anyway). Animation, in a sense, is escaping from the world, if only even for a few minutes.

Animation CAN create 100% photoreal things, but then, you are not escaping from reality. You are watching a live action movie. If you want to relate to human characters, go watch a live action movie.