DreamWorks Discussion

Post by **Sullivan** » February 5th, 2006, 1:51 am

Amazing sweep tonight at the Annies.

Luckily they only complete a film every few years.

Next time, let someone else have a chance, Nick!

A great (if long) show.

Presenters included William Shatner, Brad Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Jason Alexander, June Foray, the Family Guy dude, the woman who was the original model for Tinker Bell (she still looked it, too!),Lee Unkrich and Patrick Warburton and others.

The voice of Spongebob Squarepants, Tom Kenny was the host.

Oh and Christian, in case you don't have the results, (some of them on your news story don't show the winner) the winners you're missing are:

Best Animated Television Production

Star Wars Clone Wars II

Best Animated Video Game

Ultimate Spider Man

Animated Effects

Wallace and Gromit

Character Animation

I THINK it was Claire Billet for Wallace and Gromit

Pretty sure it was.

Post by **Dacey** » February 5th, 2006, 2:03 pm

My God, "Wallace and Gromit" won EVERYTHING!!!

And I still think that Amanda Bynes should've been nominated for Best Vocal Performance.

Post by **Meg** » February 5th, 2006, 6:39 pm

I really hated her performace in Robots. Ugh ugh ugh.

I REALLY want to get my hands on a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man, being a fan of the comics.

Post by **Dacey** » February 7th, 2006, 6:27 pm

As much as I loved "Gromit", it would've been nice to see some other films take home prizes. But that may just be me.

Post by **Meg** » February 8th, 2006, 8:14 am

IMHO, Other than W&G, the animated movies last year were pretty so-so.

Post by **Sullivan** » February 8th, 2006, 1:06 pm

I would have liked it if the individual animators were better noted.

Just because W&G was the best film last year doesn't mean that everything in the individual categories was superior.

A few floating CG bunnies, for instance, wasn't better effects animation than the amazing surfing scenes in Madagascar.

Unlike every other Animation award, the Annies recognize the individual achievements of ANIMATORS.

If you win an Oscar, it's for the best animated film. If you win at Annecy or Hiroshima, again, the FILM wins, not the individual animators.

If you award everything in a film, you might just as well give out one award for the night.

Unless everything in the film is better than the competition.

This wasn't the case.

And there were categories where W&G was up against itself multiple times. That's the nominating commitee's doing.

For best character animation, 3 W&G animators were up against a live action movie (narnia) and a Tom & Jerry movie (did that even get released?).

What? Not even the Penguins in madagascar? Not even anyone from Howl's Moving Castle?

To me, it's a crime that Nik Raneri wasn't nominated for Buck Cluck in Chicken Little. Some of the best CG Character animation that's ever been done. And from a traditional guy!

For best voice performance, all 4 nominees were W&G cast members. No mention of the Penguins again. Nor the Lemur King. Nor anyone from Chicken Little.

The Annies have the potential to be something more than a popularity contest. But to do it right, people should be able to vote in their category of work.

Because the very best individual work of the year isn't being highlighted. The best FILM was. But not the best individual work.

Post by **Dacey** » February 9th, 2006, 4:46 pm

Sullivan wrote:
For best voice performance, all 4 nominees were W&G cast members. No mention of the Penguins again. Nor the Lemur King. Nor anyone from Chicken Little.

Exactly! King Jullian was shunned!

And yes, there were some nice voices in "Chicken Little" that might've deserved notice.

And what about "Corpse Bride"?

Post by **Meg** » February 9th, 2006, 6:33 pm

I loved King Julian. He had the best voice in the entire movie, and they didn't even mention him in the "Making of" feature on the Madagascar DVD. Guess they were too busy fawning over Chris Rock and Ben Stiller...

Post by **Dacey** » February 9th, 2006, 7:09 pm

I need to start keeping up with my DVD extras more. I always hear people talking about these "Making-Of" films that I haven't even seen.

Too bad that they don't talk about him on the DVD. I agree, he was the best voice.

Post by **Ben** » February 10th, 2006, 9:36 am

I agree too.

In fact, much as I loved the W&G movie, I did point out at the time that the only thing that somewhat (marginally) marred my enjoyment was Aarman's insistence of animating on twos.

Since all the other films nominated in animation were shot frame for frame, everyone else automatically put twice as much effort into their scenes!

I know these awards are for the acting, but still, I found W&G to be overly theatrical without the nuances of some ChickLit scenes or especially Corpse Bride, for comparison to a similarly made movie.

Post by **Dacey** » February 28th, 2006, 7:09 pm

Ben, what does "Animating on twos" mean? Is it when they use 12 frames a second instead of 24?

Post by **Ben** » February 28th, 2006, 10:15 pm

Yep. And it works for fast action, but not so much on the subtle stuff, and it's a shame they don't go the whole hog.

Of course, there are shots in Were-Rabbit where animating every frame is needed for effect, but in effect, Corpse Bride contained twice the number of poses.

Post by **ShyViolet** » February 28th, 2006, 11:58 pm

Guess they were too busy fawning over Chris Rock and Ben Stiller...

Yeah...DreamWorks has this annoying tendancy of just putting the HBO specials on their DVDs and not having VERY little behind the scenes stuff. (mostly--Shrek is an exception).

It was the same thing on POE. The HBO special, and then boring, boring, boring technical stuff.

Couldn't they show us some storyboard meetings or stuff like that??

Post by **Meg** » March 1st, 2006, 7:38 am

That would be really cool. I really dislike all the fluff with been getting in the behind-the-scenes field.

"And after the storyboards are finished, we start to record lines! YAY! And then we start to animate it! YAY! And then we add shading and details! YAY!..."

It’s such a shame, too, because I’m always wondering how they do certain effects and what not.

Post by **Dacey** » March 1st, 2006, 6:52 pm

Ben wrote:Yep. And it works for fast action, but not so much on the subtle stuff, and it's a shame they don't go the whole hog.

Of course, there are shots in Were-Rabbit where animating every frame is needed for effect, but in effect, Corpse Bride contained twice the number of poses.

And as a result, "Corpse Bride" has perhaps the smoothest stop-motion animation that I've ever seen.

DreamWorks Discussion

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