Tintin

[Darkblade]

I do believe term your looking for to describe the similar technique on what Ralph Bakshi and Walt Disney used is called Rotoscoping. Dave and Max Fleischer used this technique as well for some of their Betty Boop cartoons(the ones with Cab Calloway). I think Motion capture gets a lot of hate manly because of Avatar being more of a hit over Disney's hand-drawn animated film Princess and the frog. Although, Bone(the comic by Jeff Smith) fans are particularly not impressed with the movie also having motion capture. Although rumors are flying that the mo-cap may be used for the humans while the bone cousins(as well as the animals and rat creatures) will be in CG. But thats my two cents.


Ben has a few points, I'll give him that. But keep in mind, when CG was introduced for feature length films for the first time. People were not keen with the idea of it.

[droosan]

I regard motion-capture as a close cousin of traditional puppetry. The basic principles of both methods are much the same: a human performs the actions which drive a physical -- or digital -- puppet character.

And puppetry -- in my opinion -- is a form of animation. **

After all, the bare definition of the word 'animate' is to give something (at least the illusion of) life.

How good or bad (or uncanny) that 'illusion' is shouldn't enter into it.

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** FWIW, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences does not seem to recognize 'puppetry' as animation, either (though, perhaps only The Dark Crystal truly qualifies as a completely puppet film).



addendum: it recently occurred to me that Thunderbirds Are Go! is also a 'completely-puppet' movie ..

[Darkblade]

^ Wasn't Henson a bit annnoyed on that matter?

[droosan]

I'm unsure whether Jim Henson regarded his own work as 'animated' film-making, or not.

Certainly the separation of Best Animated Feature into a separate category was well into the future at the time of The Dark Crystal, though.

I don't recall the film being any less-considered for the traditional AMPAS categories than its live-action counterparts, that year .. but 1982 was (as we've noted in other threads) rather crowded with competition.

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WRT last week's The Adventures of Tintin trailer .. I am still on the fence.

It's not nearly as 'offensive' to my love for the original comics as The Smurfs trailer and promos which I've seen; the 'spirit' of Hergé's albums is definitely there .. but the mixture of realistic and stylized elements makes for some strangely unsettling (dare I say, uncanny) art-direction in the character's faces. The quick glimpses in the trailer -- and shadowy figures, even in the promotional poster artwork -- do not seem to exude confidence.

I really hope to enjoy the movie for what it is (rather than lament what I thought it could have been) .. so, I will continue to wait-and-see, for now.

[EricJ]

I'm unsure whether Jim Henson regarded his own work as 'animated' film-making, or not.

Certainly the separation of Best Animated Feature into a separate category was well into the future at the time of The Dark Crystal, though.

Henson was very clear that their puppetry wasn't "cartoons", and couldn't be--
Not sure whether he considered them Creature VFX, though, and this was two years before the Muppet Babies.

(Brian Froud, on the DVD commentary, mentions showing this to new kids, and hearing "It's not CGI, what is this?" )

It's not nearly as 'offensive' to my love for the original comics as The Smurfs trailer and promos which I've seen; the 'spirit' of Hergé's albums is definitely there .. but the mixture of realistic and stylized elements makes for some strangely unsettling (dare I say, uncanny) art-direction in the character's faces. The quick glimpses in the trailer -- and shadowy figures, even in the promotional poster artwork -- do not seem to exude confidence.

The Tintin trailer seems to be playing hide-and-seek for Big Blockbuster Mystery (eg. not revealing the CGI creature), not because they're embarrassed about it and covering up like the current Green Lantern ads.
I agree it's not the disaster that the Smurfs or Yogi Bear gave away within a few seconds of the trailer--Mocap wasn't the best idea, but we can't fix that, so it's only a question of how faithful the look and feel of what they do with the story comes off And on that, I...see no cause for alarm.

[Ben]

But keep in mind, when CG was introduced for feature length films for the first time. People were not keen with the idea of it.

Actually, you have a point - I do remember that when CG was introduced for feature length films, Toy Story was a colossal flop, putting Pixar out of business and causing DreamWorks to cancel their then in-development CG film An Ant'z Life.

[Darkblade]

Very funny Ben. But also keep in mind that 3D(at the time) was being experimented on video games.

[estefan]

This is somewhat related, so I will ask here. I'm a little confused at the front page headline, especially since the link goes to a press release written in 2010. I mean, isn't that old news?

In regards to Happy Feet in comparison to Tintin and The Polar Express, I feel it does count as an animated feature. From what I gather, they only used motion-capture for the dancing sequences. And even though, the penguin's facial expressions were all done by animators. I don't recall seeing any footage of Elijah Wood or Robin Williams walking around with the dots on his face. I think they even used motion-capture for the dance scene in Shrek Forever After, but that still can be considered a full-on animated feature. Ditto Gulliver's Travels, which the Fleischers only used it on the title character.

[James]

Oops! Sorry guys - that story was not supposed to be live on the site! I was working on some code this afternoon and was using a draft as my test story rather than something posted to the site. But I must have accidentally published it!

That makes two stupid mistakes I made today working on that #$(^@* code!

[Ben]

All the characters in Happy Feet were mo-capped, it's just that Robin Williams and the cast were not in the mo-cap suits! In this case, nameless mime workers performed the actions, with the cast just providing voices, as with most animated films.

[Severen]

I think this should be good since it's not Zemeckis and Imagemovers, this is from 3 talented directors and WETA. WETA does not disapppoint! i'm sure they have the actors in body suits with their real faces exposed then have a mask around by their face to have their real faces shown instead of computerize the faces.

Will this mocap feature be as good as what Cameron did or Monster House?

[Ben]

We can definitely say that they're not showing their real faces by way of any means of masks. This is full-CG imagery.

But, yes, it will be better or as good as Avatar (and certainly better than Zemeckis' Monster House, fun as that movie was), though I'm genuinely intrigued: who are the three directors you mentioned. We know Spielberg and Jackson, but who's the third?

[estefan]

Edgar Wright, whose co-writing the screenplay? After Scott Pilgrim, I would definitely trust him on any comic book adaptation.

[Ben]

Ahh, right...that would make sense. He's doing Tintin with Moffat, isn't he? I wouldn't put him up there with Spielberg and Jackson, but he's certainly dependable (I'd go for Moffat over Wright though, in terms of writing). Wonder if he could be the as yet un-revealed director for the third one?

[EricJ]

I'm sure Spielberg might have considered Zemeckis as the third director, but that may have since.....changed.

Wright seems much more likely, especially if he gets his own (real) comic-book movie out.