After the break you’ll find the next two installments of my “Frogumentary”, focusing on The Princess and the Frog animator Eric Goldberg and clean-up animator Marshall Toomey. You may wish to catch up on part one first.
I want to extend my congratulations to Goldberg who last night won a richly deserved Annie Award for Character Animation in a Feature Production with his rendering of Louis in The Princess and the Frog. You’ll get some idea of why from the video below.
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Below the break are the first installments of The Frogumentary, my videoblog from Walt Disney Animation Studios. It takes us behind the scenes of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and the studio’s return to hand drawn animation. If you, like me, live in the UK, today’s the day the movie opens nationwide for you and, not to put too fine a point on it, I can’t really recommend it enough.
You may choose to watch all of the videoblog installments in order, and get an overview of the entire production pipeline for a modern hand-drawn animation movie, or you may choose to watch only the chapters that particularly interest you. After the break are the first two episodes. I hope you’ll agree that they push to go places that typical DVD supplements or TV coverage of movies don’t.
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If you thought the prospect of a new Muppet film co-written by Jason Segel was exciting, prepare yourself for another potential dose of awesome. Vulture is reporting that Flight of the Conchords co-creator James Bobin may end up directing the project. There’s no solid deal yet, but a Disney insider told Vulture “the movie is James’ to direct — if he wants it.” The project may seem like a perfect fit for Bobin — who also wrote for Da Ali Gi Show — but another potential directing gig with Segel’s bestest bud Judd Apatow may prevent him from committing.
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Two recently revealed news bit on upcoming Blu-ray releases seem to have particular interest to the /Film readership, I would guess. First of all, DVD Town have run a list of the Warner Bros. 2010 slate and, besides some of my own must-buys like Three Kings, Mars Attacks and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, there was also a listing for The Goonies: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition. The film has already been given a basic (and region free, thus importable) release in Europe, but so far has yet to hit US shelves. According to the site, there will also be a DVD release, which suggests new special features and not just a HD upgrade.
Meanwhile, there’s also a rumoured release for Jurassic Park on Blu-ray later this year. There’s no info on any special features, but I’d imagine Universal will peg this as a flagship title and push the boat out a little. Interestingly, Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World is also rumoured, but not chapter 3. The story originates on Planete HD, found via Blu-ray.com.
Disney have declared that we are in a season of Wonderland Wednesdays, an era of mid-week updates on the upcoming Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie. Each week the studio releasing a new video, some new text copy and a nice, tidy little pile of art work. Wrangling it all into a single post would be quite tricky - not to mention fairly time consuming - but I certainly want to share what I consider to be the best bits.
After the break are the official Disney-issued character descriptions for five of the characters, alongside images of said characters. And then, there’s some more pictures too, including a close-up of the caterpillar that I found quite astonishing.
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The first concept art for Brad Lewis and Pixar’s upcoming Cars 2 has been unveiled. That’s it above. Okay, I say concept art - it’s probably, to be more specific, a panel from a colour script. Already we have a great feel for how thise scene is going to look, what kind of emotional texture it is going to radiate.
Content wise, it looks to me like we’re wathcing Lightning McQueen and a new character on a race track, Mt. Fuji looming in the background. The film takes place on a round the world trip and seems to have shades of North By Northwest about it.
From The Disney Annual Report via Pixar Planet
It bodes well for Alice in Wonderland that Disney are now reportedly lining up another revisionist re-take on one of their cartoon classics for Tim Burton to direct. Maleficent will be a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story that focuses on the Mistress of all Evil instead of that pretty somnambulist and her slightly creepy Prince Phillip.
The studio registered the domain name maleficentmovie.com some time last summer, so I’ve been waiting for news a while. Of course, until now I wasn’t entirely convinced it was going to be a live action picture - well, in so much as it will be live action, which I’m expecting will be probably to just the extent that Alice is - and not an animated spin-off, a la the Tinkerbell series or that Timon and Pumbaa picture.
One question is where this leaves Burton’s Dark Shadows, a film we had previously been told would shoot this year.
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Here’s to a school of dagger-propelled, orange barracuda siccing any listmeister who jumped the gun and failed to consider A Town Called Panic for his or her top ten films of 2009. Undeniably the most entertaining and energetic movie of that now-caput year, I found myself funstruck from film’s start to its fireworks-laden finish; ATCP is also 2009’s best animated film, somehow scurrying and climbing past other visionary, grand entries from the oh-nine like Wes Anderson’s fireside-classic Fantastic Mr. Fox, Pixar’s latest crown jewel Up, and Disney’s strong, under-appreciated The Princess and the Frog. This superlative—and I realize how questionable it may seem to those unimpressed by the accompanying image—is not fueled by contrarianism or ostentatious indie preferences; this Fantastic Fest Audience Award winner is simply that effing good. Seek it out.
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Break out the champers because the short answer appears to be yes. But why the confusion?
The story starts on December 28th, when Spanish home video site Zona DVD ran an Iberian equivalent of an April Fools joke and unveiled a spoof trade ad for Blu-ray releases of the Back to the Future trilogy. “5 Discs in High Definition” it declared, “Totally remastered and restored, supervised by director Robert Zemeckis”. There’s also a box-out which promises “New exclusive short film Jaws 19 in 3D”. Looks immediately to me to be a fake, if a wonderfully well produced one, and you can see it in full below the break.
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While there’s very little new material in the new Toy Story 3 featurette Drawn to Animation, what little there is has premium fan value. Finally, we’re given our first look at Mr. Pricklepants, the pretentious thespian stuffed-toy Hedgehog who seems set to be one of the major additions to the cast. Of course, we still have no idea at all what role he actually plays in the story. Maybe he’s fundamental, maybe he’s not but you can pretty much guarantee he won’t just be an irrelevant adjunct. Those kind of narrative loose ends just don’t exist in Pixar pictures.
See the full clip for yourself after this break and get to hear Pricklepants speak. He’s been voiced by Timothy Dalton, who has probably the most geek-centric resume of any Bond - Dr. Who, Hot Fuzz, some Ghibli dubbing, Looney Tunes, even the Flash Gordon movie…
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