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Rothwang on ILM's FRANKENSTEIN, STUART LITTLE and more...
Hey folks... Word has it that the word on FRANKENSTEIN being dead was premature and out right wrong. I apoligize. Apparently a couple of employees at ILM that were let go of in the post-PHANTOM MENACE fray mis-interpretated their reason for leaving. In addition to Rothwang's note about FRANKENSTEIN, I received other (off the record) confirmations that the project is getting ready to enter the 'animating' stage. I apoligize for getting all high and mighty about it, but this is a project that I care about seeing done well, because it represents another step in the 'growing up' of the type of stories Animated films can tell. I'm sick of Animation being considered as a genre for children, when it is merely a tool for storytelling. Well... before I set off again, let me turn you over to our resident evil genius in Germany... Rothwang (ps. Rothwang... send me over a Maria or two)
Oh yeah... And to all of those attending SIGGRAPH this year. I'd love to hear what's going on. That's the coolest conference every year I feel.
Hi Harry, this is a spy from Germany calling in. You
can call me ROTHWANG.
I'm reporting from the 2nd "Film & Media eXchange" (FMX) in
Stuttgart, an important gathering for all people working
in the visual effects business. It's not a commercial trade
show à la Siggraph, but a much smaller, more relaxed meeting with
a lot of panels, workshops and lectures, stretching over five
days. You know -- more of a "spiritual" thing. There are hosts
and visitors from all over the world, and all the big companies
are there: Digital Domain, ILM, Quantel, Avid, Discreet, SGI, Alias,
you name them (the 3 latter ones are sponsoring this event, by the way).
The show is organized by the Film Academy of Baden-Württemberg, one of
Europe's leading film schools, which runs a truly great training facility
for CGI artists in Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart. (Hey suits, check
it out, lot of ambitious talent there!)
There's a lot of stuff going on. Yesterday, for example,
there have been (free!!) workshops focusing on the Maya 3D animation
software, on Discreet high end compositing systems and
Quantel's famous "Edit Box". Among others, Chris Wedge of Blue Sky Studios
presented his making of the award-winning CGI short "Bunny",
Henry LaBounta of Pacific Data Images told the audience
how the VFX in "Forces of Nature" worked (... did they?),
and Ed Hooks did an amusing "Acting for Animators" course.
Today (sunday 6th) I was lucky to visit a number of highly
interesting panels:
First were Tom Bertino and Chris Kubsch from ILM: "All Digital Motion
Pictures"
This conference promised to be one of the highlights
of the event, and the promises have been kept. It was rumoured
that ILM would show (and explain) a lot of effects for Episode 1
and The Mummy. The rumours were wrong. Bertino and Kubsch mainly
focused on the ground-breaking character animation for "Mighty
Joe Young" instead, and showed the evolution of the
famous ape's first wireframe models to the final
effects in the film. Another topic of the conference
was full-length CG features and their future in the market.
With "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life", Pixar proved that
there is an audience for this kind of film. And now, ILM,
together with Universal Pictures, are about to release a competitor
in fall 2000 - a project most of you have already
heard of or read on AICN. I'm talking about the
"CGI FRANKENSTEIN" project. Bertino (who is co-director)
and Kubsch (who produces the feature) _exclusively_
showed large parts of the artwork, test animations,
and animatics never seen before, and the small amount of hi-res test footage
that has already been floating around in Hollywood
and that sold the project to Universal. Despite
all the negative rumours, the project is still alive
and kicking and looks great. Pre-production has been
finished after a lot of changes on the script and
in the storyboard had been made in the past 12 months, and the
animation itself is about to start in the next weeks
(I hope they can match their schedule!). The animatics were
of special interest. They were 2D cartoon sequences, made
from the storyboard sketches. What the guys at ILM do is to scan in
the drawings and then animate them with the well-known "AfterEffects"
software. This kind of pre-production-work, named "Story Reel", gives
a very good impression on how the final film will look,
and on the pacing and impact of the scenes. A kind of animated storyboard.
The few hi-res sequences that have already been
rendered looked spectacular. With these, ILM will
prove that CGI is not just suitable for cute
children's films, but also for horror movies.
The characters and artwork looked stunning and
reminded more of the work that DreamWorks did
on "Prince of Egypt" than traditional Disney characters.
The "ILM FRANKENSTEIN", which is in fact still
officially untitled despite the well-known content,
promises to be a very interesting project, and I'm proud
to have wittnessed the most extensive showing
of footage for that film that has yet commenced.
Originally, it was planned to include the famous
werewolf (another Universal creature) in the film
and have the Frankenstein monster and the werewolf
fighting each other. Well, I'd really liked to
have seen this more than any crappy Jason vs. Freddy
battles because, you know, Frankenstein and the Wolfman
are the REAL THING, but unfortunately, these plans
have been skipped and the Wolfman most likely
won't be in the movie. There are 17 artists working
on the project right now within ILM, and the number
will surely go up as soon as the main production will start.
Next up was Jay K. Redd, Sony Pictures Imageworks: "Breathing
real life into a digital character"
--- Jay K. Redd, who worked at Sony Pictures
Imageworks on projects like Starship Troopers
and Contact, introduced a cool project to the
audience that is named "Stuart Little". It's
a lovely film based on a famous children's book and
it features a digital mouse as a main character.
The Columbia Pictures film, which starrs Geena Davis
and the voice talents of Michael J. Fox for the
main character and Gene Wilder for Stuart's
nemesis, an evil cat, is scheduled for a
summer 2000 release. Redd did an in-depth
lecture on the animation of the main character,
focusing on the fur, and, especially, the
clothing. Cloth is very hard to do with
3D animation programs - packages like Maya
do deliver tools for this, but the pre-programmed
algorithms never quite do it, so Sony developed
a bunch of hand-tailored tools for the
animation of different cloth materials.
The results came across perfectly: Stuart the mouse
looks very cute in it's pyjamas and various
other outfits. Stuart is animated very, very well (no
motion capture -- all key frames) and blends
smoothly with the real-world scenes. You can
really see that Sony employs a lot of highly
talented animators who love what they do, and
it's very uplifting to see this. Kids will
love this character, and even all "Jar Jar haters"
of the older semesters will be very pleased with
this character because it is in now way annoying,
but very likable. The acting of the
"human" players looked good as well. I
predict this movie is going to be a _huge_
hit and one of the surprise successes in 2000,
maybe the FX will even be oscar-worthy. The
presentation Jay K. did was very entertaining
and in-depth. Sony is halfway through with the animation,
and I keep my fingers crossed for the 25
animators who are working on this right now.
The FMX in Stuttgart was a great event for all people
in the film biz, local and world-wide, and especially
for everyone involved with digital post. The event
is annual, so I'm sure I'll be there again next year.
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+ Expand All
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Disney vs. Dreamworks-characters? Are they really that different? I sure don't think so...
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Before I hit that damn "return" by mistake, STUART LITTLE may have some great character animation from Sony Imageworks, but don't even begin say that this film is going to be "good." Rob Minkoff turned one of the best, sweetest kid's film scripts I've read into a stupid, lowest common denominator film that is more about selling you the mouse than telling a story. I'm disgusted by the way this film has developed, and would warn all AICN readers to avoid it upon release unless you're just a hardcore animation geek, and even then... take a book.
"Moriarty" out.
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... the lumbering behemoth that was the Disney Corporation died long before the man did. Why doesn't everyone just stop scavenging and fighting over the scraps? It seems as though everyone is waiting for Disney's permission to go further. All these "technological advances" are doing NOTHING to improve the quality of animated filmmaking. They're just making it easier to be lazy. I'll take "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Secret of N.I.M.H." over "Tarzan" or "Prince of Egypt" any day. "Gimme a break!" says Nel Carter, and I for one believe her. Harry, you don't have to wait for the dinosaurs of animation to catch up to your expectations. Just look elsewhere...
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Does this mean that the kiddyfying of the movie has or hasn't happened? Because if it has I'm not all that interested in it anyway.
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NO WEREWOLF, I love the wolfman, always have, always will.....
and that fight would have been the greatest !!!!!
SOMEONE'S GOTTA PAY !!!!! -
NO WEREWOLF, I love the wolfman, always have, always will.....
and that fight would have been the greatest !!!!!
SOMEONE'S GOTTA PAY !!!!! -
It's me from just above. C'mon Harry I know you love the
Wolfman too, write one of your famous letters or something !!!!!
Help -
The only reason there are so many damn versions of Frankenstein constantly coming out is that the work is in the public domain, saving tons of money. They just want our damn money. Bastards. Money grubbing bastards don't want to pay a dime for their source material and can't think of anything new on their own. Who do they think they are, the music industry?
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and says his prayers by day, can't help crying like a baby when he finds out the Wolfman has been removed from the "Frankenstien" CGI project. Unlike many of your readers, Harry, I grew up on the Universal Monsters, and was really looking forward to this project when I first read about it. As much as I enjoy the Frankenstien story, that story has certainly been covered on film many times before. Only Dracula may have had more exposure. The Wolfman, on the other hand, hasn't been ressurected ( at least in his original form) in a long time. Not only was I really looking forward to his animated appearance, I was excited about this story being a new, original story and not just another retelling of the Mary Shelley book. Personally, I wouldn't mind some of the other Universal Monsters to be included, making this a new monster rally to surpass "House of Frankenstien" and "House of Dracula." I liked what I heard about the psuedo-serious nature of the original script, and wasn't pleased when I heard it would be "kiddified." Come on, kids will like it anyway. They don't need singing, farting gargoyles voiced by Rosie O'Donnell to make the medicene go down. Children are so often underestimated by Hollywood, that it's really sad. When kids grow up, it's never the cute and kiddie stuff they remember and cherish. It's the cool scary stuff and good stories! Perhaps, though, my opinions are falling on deaf ears, Harry. Over the last few weeks, since I've been following your website, I've noticed your readers are a very young, spoiled and jaded lot. Many of them have quite a mean streak, and seem to mostly enjoy seeing projects fail and ripped appart. They may have no interest in something as old and unjaded as the Universal Monster movies anyway. Anyway, I hope this project goes forward, and I hope the producers see fit to take us to a time when "the wolvesbane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright."
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um.....of course the mouse is keyframed. how the heck could you motion capture a mouse.
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Listen Geo. No one wants to see another Roger Rabbit......I'M CALLING THE SHOTS HERE......But he doesn't look real Geo. Maybe we can do a Saturday morning cartoon and include this Jar Jar character there this way we can separate the childish element from the universal storytelling you achieved in the Eps 4 & 5......I WAS IN THIS BUSINESS BEFORE YOUR MOMMY WAS MAKING WHILE WATCHING AMERICAN GRAFFITI......but Geo, this film could beat Titanic and live up to everyones expectations at the same time if we only get back Gary Kurtz and Lawrence Kasdan and......GET THEM OUTTA HERE!!! At least take out the ass humour?! And "Exsqueeze me?!"...OUT!!!
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Jun 08, 1999 11:06:45 AM CDT
Pardon me...that was MAKING OUT while watching American Graffiti
by gsolo
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Jun 08, 1999 11:15:18 AM CDT
there isnt anything to bitch and bicker about in this article
by mckracken
"Stuart Small" looks great and you shout this film will be a dud. Mouse not motion capture it was keyframed..duhh. CGI Frankenstien still looks good and you complain about WOLFMAN not being in it (even asking Harry to lobby and official protest) GEESH!! GET FRIGGING REAL!!! There isnt ANYTHING to bitch and complain about in this article as the writer stays truely positive throughout AND YOU STILL COMPLAIN...ugh. There is no pleasing anyone. By the way did any of you morons stop to think that the CGI Frankenstien project might rock WITHOUT the WolfMan? Of course not...then you MORONS would have STOPPED BITCHING AND BICKERING!!!
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Wow. It's amazing how many people on this site are trying to predict the future. "These movies will suck because I would have made them differently or not at all." Please. At least wait until we get some more info before casting stones and building a bonfire for the director.
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Listen McKraken, are you without sympathy to those who've loved universal Horror monsters all their lives and would jump at the chance to see two C.G.I ones instead of just one (especially when they love the Wolfman as much as Frankenstein.) I was only asking Harry to do some sort of official protest due to the fact that I know he loves the wolfman......
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