Brad Bird Joins Twitter

Briefly, the director of such animated greats as The Incredibles and Ratatouille - and more recently the live-action blockbuster, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Brad Bird, has now joined Twitter.

The Academy Award winning filmmaker is joining fellow Pixarians Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich and Ed Catmull on Twitter. His username is BradBirdA113 (rather similar to mine, although he does have more license to use it) and his account can be found here.

Be sure to give him a warm welcome.

National Film Registry Gets Two New Animated Entries

Two animated films have been inducted into the National Film Registry, being recognised as being of "cultural, historical or aesthetic" importance.

This included Walt Disney's fifth animated classic, Bambi. Bambi, which was originally released in 1942, has been preserved due to, amongst other reasons, "the movie’s resonating, emotional power. Treasured as one of film’s most heart-rending stories of parental love, "Bambi" also has come to be recognized for its eloquent message of nature conservation."

Secondly, A Computer Animated Hand, created back in 1972 by current Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios President, Ed Catmull, has been preserved for its foundational role in the basics of Computer Animation. The description provided by the registry says that the film "worked out concepts that become the foundation for computer graphics that followed."

This is a huge honour for both of these landmarks in animation history, to be preserved for all time and have their paramount importance recognised. The two animated features are amongst 25 to have been added to the registry, including Forrest Gump and The Silence of the Lambs, of 2,228 nominated (full list here).

You can have your say in nex year's addition here.

2nd Annual A113Animation Awards

The winners for the 2nd Annual A113Animation Awards have been revealed. The big winner this year was DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 2, which swiped 7 awards, including a lot of the top ones, such as The Oh So Close Award, the Second Opinion Award, both the Luke's and Sean's Choice Awards (as each of our The Corner reviewers get their own award this year), The People's Choice Award (which it shares with Pixar's Cars 2) as well as Best Director (Jennifer Yuh Nelson) and Best Voice Acting (Jack Black).

However, Kung Fu Panda 2 couldn't quite take the top award, as, as you can see above, courtesy of David A. Price (author of The Pixar Touch), that honour went to Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin. Tintin, which was, in my opinion, just such a brilliant film that I simply couldn't not have it win the award, also collected the Heather's Choice Award and the Best Villain Award (Sakharine).

It seems the general populous agrees with me, that Cars 2 was rather good after all, as Pixar's latest drew with Kung Fu Panda 2 in The People's Choice Award (the poll is currently still up, to the right, if you want to view the results). Cars 2 also took the music related awards, winning Best Song (You Might Think, Weezer) and Best Score.

Disney's Tangled won the Best New Side Character(s) Award for the brilliant Maximus and Pascal, and also the Breakout Film Award, for putting Disney Animation back on the map and reestablishing a sense of credibility for the famed studio.

Rango won the animation related awards: Best Animation - as the animation in Rango is the best I've ever seen in an animated film - and the Ben Kerfoot Award for Specific Character Animation or Design in Fur, Hair or Textures for the fantastically detailed character, Spoons.

Finally, in terms of feature films, DreamWorks' other offering this year, Puss in Boots, collected the award for Best Female Character (Kitty Softpaws).

The breakdown for this years awards, by film, is:

• Kung Fu Panda 2 - 7
• The Adventures of Tintin - 3
• Cars 2 - 3
• Tangled - 2
• Rango - 2
• Puss in Boots - 1

In terms of our final two awards, the Best Animated Short Film Award went to the fantastic CGI Looney Tunes short, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, and The One to Watch Out For Award went to Pixar's Brave.

It's safe to say that 2011 has been a great year for animation, it was particularly difficult for me to pick the Best Animated Film Award, specifically having to choose between Tintin and Kung Fu Panda 2 proved rather challenging; and I have high hopes for 2012.

Reviews for all nominations and winners can be found on the reviews page.

The full awards listings can be viewed on the A113Animation Awards page.

The Future of Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is one of those shows that we all grew up watching, it's a staple of any childhood if you're old enough; the wacky, extremely violent and beloved shorts graced our screens for several decades and are still replayed today. However, in recent years, their popularity has somewhat diminished due to the fact that they haven't been putting out a lot of new stuff. There was a time that Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and the rest of the Looney Tunes characters were more popular and well known than even Walt Disney's best known creations and over the past few years, Warner Bros. have attempted a resurgence of that - to introduce Looney Tunes to a new generation.

Now, I've always been a fan of Looney Tunes - I grew up watching that, Tom and Jerry and Ed, Edd n Eddy more than any other shows - but I'd never obsessed over it in the same way that I have over Disney, Pixar and animated features, however, I've been infatuated with it since seeing Happy Feet Two. As I mentioned in my review of the dancing-penguin sequel, the film was preceded by an all new CGI Looney Tunes short film, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, starring Sylvester and Tweety.



The short (clip above) was absolutely fantastic and brilliantly encapsulated the genius of Looney Tunes in just a few short minutes. Using the archived song, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, recorded back in the 50s by the late, great voice of Looney Tunes, Mel Blanc, the short feels wonderfully familiar, quirky and nostalgic and is a very fitting tribute to the animation legend. The short also features Looney Tunes mainstay, June Foray, as the voice of Granny. The characters are far more lively than they could've conceivably been with new voices, and although the CGI animation, in place of the old fashioned traditional animation, took a while to get used to, the wonderful, familiar characters, the charming style, the ridiculously violent comedy, engaging story and Mel Blanc's talented voice work made it an absolute delight.



Puddy Tat was directed by Matthew O'Callaghan - who previously worked at Disney on films like The Great Mouse Detective, as well as directing the feature film adaptation of Curious George. O'Callaghan has been leading the Looney Tunes revival in recent years, after directing three brilliant Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts last year, including the Annie Award nominated Coyote Falls (above). He's also directed Daffy's Rhaspsody (another short, starring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, featuring the voice of Mel Blanc - clip below) and another, as of yet untitled, Road Runner short, both of which will debut in 2012.



From what I've seen, so far, the future looks bright for Looney Tunes, as the beloved cartoons are being done proud by these all new, fun 3D shorts.

The Validity of Performance Capture Animation - What's the Actor and What's the Animator?

Motion/Performance Capture has always been a touchy subject, in terms of, how much of the final product is attributed to the actor's performance and how much is due to the actions and work of the animators. Each side has an opposing argument, animation buffs would argue that the role of the animator is the most important and that the performance is only outstanding due to being brilliantly illustrated and brought to life through detailed, animated characters. Whereas acting thespians would present the argument that animators only add the polish to it and that the powerful, raw performance and the emotion that endears the characters to us is the work of the individual actor or actress.

It's a touchy subject, and one that has been in the spotlight as of late - mainly since Avatar in 2009, but a lot more in the past few months as well - with two films in particular, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Adventures of Tintin. These two films have oppositional arguments; the Planet of the Apes prequel, Rise, is very much a live-action epic, yet, arguably the most important performance of it - in terms of the strength of the acting and the importance of the character to the plot and franchise - was that of Motion Capture veteran, Andy Serkis. Serkis, who rose to fame and public attention with his performances as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and as King Kong in Peter Jackson's remake, turned in an extremely powerful and brilliant performance - one of the best I've seen this year - as Caesar and has been in the awards limelight as of late. Due to his popularity and the strong performance, there has been a large push for Serkis to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor - I think he's more than deserving of a nomination, if not a win. The performance, more so than his work as Gollum, highlights his strengths as it captures his facial performance as well as his bodily movements (there's an interesting article here about his Oscar chances and the arguments for and against) - however, what, of what we saw in the film, should be attributed to Serkis? And what should be attributed to the animators?

Serkis says in the aforementioned article, of Performance Capture, and of Weta Digital (Peter Jackson's visual effects company) who carried out both the special effects on Rise and the animation in Tintin (which Jackson also produced):

“Weta is very loyal to the actor’s performance and are able to interpolate that through the translation process after the director and actors have shot the scene on set. They’re very conscious that when they apply the ‘digital makeup,’ it is to honor the actor’s performance; not to bend or enhance it.”

This seems to, not underplay the role of the animator, but, more highlight the work of the actor or actress instead. However, The Adventures of Tintin (also starring Serkis, as Captain Haddock, and involving Peter Jackson, as producer) plays to the opposite side, in its quest to be nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, it played up that, yes, they do use the performance of the actor or actress, but only as the basis for the still very complex and detailed character animation; highlighting the work of the animators over that of the actors or actresses.

Now, obviously the two cases aren't entirely comparable, but it still raises the question, who gets the credit for these films? Personally, I believe one can't work without the other; there's nothing wrong with traditional, frame-by-frame, animation, but if you're working with performance capture, the role of the actor is equally important as that of the animator, a weak character will come through if either the animation or the acting is weak. As a method of animation, I've never been all that fond of Mo-Cap, particularly because of the just plain creepy Uncanny Valley scenario, which takes you out of the moment, but if used right, it can result in sheer brilliance, as evident by all the films mentioned here. People just need to remember that, performance capture, like any film, animated or other wise, is a collaboration and a team effort.