Behind the Magic: The Look of 'Rango'

Via the official ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) YouTube channel, we get a behind the scenes look at absolutely gorgeous animation of Rango.

The video (above) shows some of the brilliant techniques and unparallelled detail that gave Rango some of the best animation of all time; the video shows the film's use of 'emotion capture' and how all the big names helped give the animation its life and vibrancy.

Golden Globe Nominations Revealed

The nominations for the 69th Annual Golden Globes Awards have been revealed today, the full list of nominations and categories can be viewed here.

In terms of animation, the nominations for the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature are:

• THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
  Paramount Pictures/Columbia Pictures/ Hemisphere Capital/Amblin Entertainment/Wingnut Films Production/ Kennedy/Marshall Production A Steven Spielberg Film; Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures
• ARTHUR CHRISTMASColumbia Pictures & Sony Pictures Animation; Sony Pictures Releasing International
• CARS 2
  Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios; Walt Disney Pictures
• PUSS IN BOOTSDreamWorks Animation; Paramount Pictures
• RANGO
  Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink / GK Films Production; Paramount Pictures

It's somewhat strange to me that Puss in Boots and Arthur Christmas (or even Cars 2, due it's rather negative reviews) were nominated, whereas Kung Fu Panda 2 - definitely one of the best films of the year - was omitted.

Nonetheless, it is a very solid field this year, and it seems likely to me that the HFPA will pick either Tintin or Rango. However, we'll have to wait until January 15 to find out.

Via Big Screen Animation.

DreamWorks To Bring Captain Underpants to the Screen

This is a rather late post, as the news broke almost two months ago, back in October, but somehow it evaded my attention until now; DreamWorks have won a bidding war to acquire the film rights to Dav Pilkey's brilliant, funny and superb Captain Underpants book series.

The fantastic, popular kid's books had been not up for film acquisition for quite some time, due to Pilkey's reluctance to see his creation ruined or tampered with by big studios. Nonetheless, the studio behind Shrek will be bringing the underwear wearing hero to the screen in the near future, Empire tells us.

The famed studio's CCO, Bill Damaschke, told us about the studio's ambition for the project:

"We are thrilled that Dav has decided the time is right to turn his beloved property into a movie and we look forward to bringing the greatest Waistband Warrior of all time to the big screen at DreamWorks Animation!"

The brilliant Pilkey added his own words about his sudden change of heart:

"I never wanted to do a Captain Underpants movie in the past because, frankly, I worried that a movie might not be able to properly convey what I was trying to do with the books. Then I saw How to Train Your Dragon and the Kung Fu Panda movies. I loved the subtle way that morality and personal responsibility were handled in these very funny and exciting adventures. I felt that DreamWorks Animation would be the perfect home for Captain Underpants,"

No release date or time frame has currently been announced for the project, although I'll be right near the front of the line whenever it does turn up. The full press release from DreamWorks can be viewed here.

2nd Annual A113Animation Awards Nominations

I've just revealed the nominations for the 2nd Annual A113Animation Awards, to praise and reward the very best of animation from the past year, to be handed out on the 29th December.

Cars 2 and Rio got the most nominations at 8, Kung Fu Panda 2 got 7, The Adventures of Tintin and Tangled got 6, Rango got 5, Puss in Boots got 3, Winnie the Pooh got 2 and Gnomeo and Juliet got 1.

The 5 films nominated for the top award, Best Animated Film, are:

• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
• Cars 2
• Kung Fu Panda 2
• Rio
• Tangled

Also, note, Tangled is nominated for awards as, although it came out in November last year in America, it arrived over here in the UK in January 2011. For the whole list of nominations, head on over to the A113Animation Awards page.

Also, remember to vote in the poll to the right, to decide the People's Favourite Animated Film Award.

Puss in Boots Review - Prepare to be Mewowed

Puss in Boots is a film that I was very pensive about going in. In that, Shrek 1, and indeed Shrek 2 (in which Puss was introduced), were absolutely brilliant- fun, heartfelt, family adventures -, however, Shrek 3 was awful. It still remains one of the few films that I genuinely hate. It angered and annoyed me that from there they decided to make yet another Shrek film, although at least the 'final chapter' was decent enough; it was indeed rather good. However, DreamWorks had really been pushing it and came close, on a number of times, to ruining the franchise for me, so, I was far from pleased when I heard that DreamWorks were planning a spin-off, my immediate reaction was: just let it die. I was even less pleased when I heard that Chris Miller, co-director of Shrek the Third, was directing the film; he had a hell of a lot of redeeming to do. Fortunately, these fears were allayed during the first five minutes of Puss in Boots, as it was a pretty darn great film.