Tintin

[Ben]

Wowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowow!!

I'm one excited bunny having seen the first teaser:

http://animatedviews.com/2011/tintin-te ... ow-online/


Yes, sure, there will be those that attack some of the eyes (the Thompson Twins especially don't really come off great through the newspaper here), but on the flipside we have some truly "non-mo-capped" looking mo-cap in the movements, like Tintin running out the door chasing the car with his gun, and the high-angle shot of the punch-up. Whoa, that looks like classic stuff, and proof that Weta knows what it's doing like no other VFX studio.

I'm loving the visual interpretation too, which is close but no slave to the original albums, and the music is as bombastic as it needs to be (assuming this is new John Williams score for the trailer, which is sometimes the case with a Spielberg film). If not, then I hope he's heading in this direction, because it's really working and pulls the directing and composing duo back from the Indy 4 brink of dullness and back to what they do best.

And that final shot? Ooohh, my skin prickled! The eyes worked excellently here, and I watched, watched and re-watched those frames: this is a marked improvement over anything else attempted so far. I'm sure people will still knock the mo-cap, but remember that where Weta succeeds is in using the data only as reference, keyframing shots until they are right. Bob Zemeckis could learn a thing or two from this, and then maybe his similar films wouldn't be where they are in the doldrums at the moment.

I can't wait for Christmas!

[EricJ]

Spielberg obviously caught the Mocap "virus" from his buddy Bob (who seems to have been recently "cured" of it) but have a feeling at least he'll know what to do with it once he's got it--
It's "different" enough that Spielberg will at least try to stylistically experiment with creating the Euro-comic feel of the story, and not just meat-grinder it out as Young Belgian Indiana Jones. Not every Spielberg project is a labor of love, so have to look carefully whether he's putting a little neato effort into it.

[Dan]

I'm psyched. I'm telling you, I'm psyched.

I remember watching some of the cartoons Nickelodeon used to air in the early days and liked them. Seeing what Spielberg and Jackson do along with Edgar Wright and Steven Moffat should be exciting.

[Randall]

Looks good to me! Those who don't like Mocap need to get over it. Weta will do the best job possible, as they did for LOTR and Kong. I think this movie will rock. Whether it's a success in the USA remains to be seen, but Spielberg's name will likely help make it so.

[estefan]

I can't wait for Christmas!

Well, in your case, you (and the rest of Europe) will only have to wait until October.

Anyway, as a fan of both Tintin and Spielberg, I'm very excited and it looks like there's Uncanny Valley to be found here, not that I was worried about that. This is WETA we're talking about.

But, seriously, can you think of a more appropriate pairing than Spielberg and Tintin?

[Bill1978]

I have a question that is linked to just watching the trailer. Why has the Academy Awards deemed mo-cap generated animated movies ineligible for the Animated Feature Award. If Tintin is a huge hit and getsc ritics support, it is going to look wierd to the general public that a super successful animated movie is ineligible for that award. I know the Academy has plenty of silly little rules, but what exactly is their reasoning with mo-cap over other computer generated movies. Cause at no point in the trailer was I sitting there thinking it looks like a 'real' movie.

[EricJ]

That was partly James Cameron's soapbox-issue lobbying, so that Avatar would be considered an Important Real Film by a Bold, Innovative Director at his Oscars, and wouldn't be "exiled" to Best Animated, just because most of the characters came out of a computer.
Okay, Jim, you got what you wanted, now the rest of us get to test it out...

(Oh, and think that was the same year that Alvin was getting sticky about trying to stay out of the category.)

[estefan]

I actually agree with the Academy's assessment. I don't consider motion-capture to be a form of animation, since they're simply just tracing over the actor's movements and facial expressions. It's also why I'm hesitant to even call something like American Pop animation. How much animation did Ralph Bakshi's crew exactly do on that film?

[Ben]

Six frames.

More seriously, it's great that the Tintin trailer is getting this positive reaction. And remember that, although Spielberg shot the actors' performances, he's long gone onto his next project and Peter Jackson, before embarking back to Middle Earth, has been responsible for the translation of Spielberg's mo-cap data into actual animation, and keyframing will have been used. This isn't just Bob Z's idea of mo-cap, after all (and part of the reason there is that Sony, for all the good VFX it does, just can't do realistic human anatomy).

Yeah, it's a shame that it won't be eligible for Animated Feature, but then if it's good enough it could be in there for Picture, and at the very least Visual Effects. If it's good - and I expect it to be - it'll get recognized somewhere.

[Bill1978]

actually agree with the Academy's assessment. I don't consider motion-capture to be a form of animation, since they're simply just tracing over the actor's movements and facial expressions.

While I understand this argument, doesn't that then make the ruling that Andy Serkis couldn't be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Gollum because Gollum was 'animated' a tad hypocritical.

It's almost like the Academy wants its cake and eat it too. Cause based upon those two arguments - Tintin is ineligible for Animated Feature because it's just live actors traced over but yet all the actors are ineligible for acting nominations because they were traced over.

[estefan]

I think they may have reversed the Gollum decision recently. I remember James Cameron pushing hard for Zoe Saldanha to get a best actress nomination for Avatar and I don't recall the Academy saying she couldn't.

[estefan]

Sorry to double-post, but here's an interesting article regarding Tintin's category placement:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/awards/ ... mated.html

Apparently, Spielberg considers it to be an animated film, but I'm still waiting for an official quote from him. But if he does, then I respectfully disagree.

[Ben]

I (think I) respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement.

As mentioned before, Bob Zemeckis' mo-cap procedure is to get an actor to perform his role and then give that data to Imageworks who then simply translate it to the digital character puppet.

But Weta's approach is to use the mo-cap and performance data merely as a reference, the way Disney used to use live-action rotoscope to get an idea of movement and then translate that to animation. Weta keyframes the animated performances for the characters and does not simply rely on the captured data (the way, say, Fleischer or Bluth would simply draw over their live-action footage).

This is not only why Weta is streets ahead of any other mo-cap VFX company, but also why their characters exhibit more emotional resonance. And this places them more in the "animated" category than the mo-cap one. It's also why I don't think the actors of Avatar should ever be nominated for acting awards, because the animators add so much. In all the ballyhooing for Zoe Saldana to get a nomination, it was so clear that what she delivered on set and what her character exhibited in the film were different animals.

The difference was that Avatar was also a hybrid live/animated film. In reality it's a very big special effects movie, as a lot of mo-cap is. But in Weta/Tintin's case, the additional elements are clearly animated. But Weta's LOTR films are clearly live-action. The differences are that one world was created in live-action and augmented with CG effects, where Tintin's world only exists in a computer where real, live animators keyframed the characters' performances to make them animated as opposed to mo-capped, unlike BZ's films, where the data informs the characters (as is usually too slow, flat and dead looking to motor the digital puppets successfully).

Personally, I'd love to see Tintin qualify for animated and visual effects, but then I'd like to also see many fully animated films qualify for VFX too.

[Darkblade]

Everyone knows that motion capture IS NOT animation related(I'm not sounding rude here mind you). But James Cameron confirmed that Avatar wasn't an animated feature, I dont think people are willing to see this now seeing that Mars Needs Moms did rather terribly box office wise.


I was hoping that they make it animated similar to how the comic of Tintin looks. But there might be a slight chance that people in Europe might see this. 2D hand-drawn animation may be suitable for this, but I was hoping like a mixture of it. Like Tintin and the other characters will be in 2D animated while certain aspects and backgrounds are in CG. Anyone know if they might go with this direction if this motion captured film fails at the box office?

[Randall]

If this film fails, Tintin is dead as an animated character in the US for another generation. But overseas, who knows.

Everyone knows that motion capture IS NOT animation related

Funny how it keeps showing up for discussion here, then.

If you really believe that, I think you've failed to read Ben's posts, or to note that Cameron is not the end-all-and-be-all on the subject. MoCap, as applied by the Weta artists, can be more animation-related than Bakshi's films were, and no worse than what was used in some of Walt's animated classics. I don't think the Weta artists were thrilled with Cameron dissing their contribution to Avatar. MoCap is not traditional animation, true, but it is a tool that can be used for animation--- sometimes well, and sometimes badly. And after all, CGI isn't "traditional" animation either, and is closer in many ways to old-time puppet animation than cel animation.

Keep in mind that animation began as zoetropes and chalk drawings, and the field also includes puppet and clay animation. MoCap is just another form of animation, but in this case the contribution of the animators may be unduly limited.

MoCap is a relatively new medium, and is really its own beast. It may or may not belong in the animation Oscar category, depending on the film. But to say it's not animation related is overstating things.