Roger Rabbit 2 CGI Test

The rumors have been going around recently that Roger Rabbit 2, the sequel one of my favorite movies of all time, is getting closer to actually moving ahead. At this point, the original is 22 years old- and Robert Zemeckis is threatening to use his awful-looking mo-cap technology to render the humans. Personally, I don't care how realistic it looks- it takes away from a lot of the charm of the original, which was about 1940's ink-and-paint interacting in the real flesh-and-blood world. It captured my 7-year-old imagination like no other film I have ever seen, and I don't think digital characters could ever have the same effect.

That being said, this here is a CGI test done in 1998, which just leaked on Cartoon Brew. 

It actually doesn't look as bad as I would have thought. Very fluid and rubbery, especially for 1998. Still, for my money, if you're gonna do it, do it right.

Again, not bad, but it doesn't really hold up on still frames. Give the work to those veterans of hand-drawn!

Duckheads

A little Donald doodle I cooked up.

Cartoon duck heads are incredibly fun to draw. The bills have these very satisfying curves to them. I always loved the way Donald's (and Daffy's, too) beak came to that rounded point and you could see where it folds back up around itself. There's a delightful logic to it.

I could draw duck bills all day. Here are some drunken unpleasant ducks I drew on Post-Its at work. They're hidden on my website.

The Pre-War Ladies of the Ink & Paint Club

An interesting article I read in Vanity Fair (weird magazine for me to be reading, I know):

Coloring the Kingdom

"Behind the breakthrough magic of Walt Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and his other 30s and 40s classics—Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi—toiled as many as 100 young women, the inkers and painters, working from dawn to dusk on thousands of cels that brought his dreams to life. The author recaptures their white-gloved esprit de corps, and a golden age of Disney that would be disrupted by strike, World War II, and, eventually, the Xerox machine."

It's a really cool profile of the ink & paint department of Walt Disney Studios in the early days of their feature animation in the 30s and 40s. One of the most interesting aspects is the accepted sexism that went on in those days, not unlike the popular and highly-rated cable TV series Mad Men. The department consisted entirely of young women, and it seems as though the male animators were almost encouraged to flirt with them. Look at Walt's invitation to the company Christmas party:

"All fillies should come in slacks or other very informal attire. Of course, if you want to be glamorous in a little satin or velvet guimpe for your favorite animator, that’s your privilege."

They worked like dogs, but the result was glorious. I know it's ridiculous to pine for the past when the modern computerized systems are so much faster, cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient, but doggone it, the result sure looked great.

Lonesome Ghosts

Hey gang- here's another great cartoon!

This is one of the many Disney cartoons I saw as a kid, over and over and over again on VHS, taped off TV.

As an adult, a part of me finds the Warner Brothers cartoons more appropriate to my tastes- the humor is sharper, the characters better. The prevailing opinion is that while Warner Brothers had better gags and more appealing characters, Disney excelled in smooth, technically brilliant animation. So with a Disney cartoon, you're less likely to actually laugh out loud.

This sounds about right to me... think about Bugs Bunny's wit vs. Mickey Mouse's personality, or lack thereof. On the other hand, Donald Duck, while somewhat narrowly defined, is one of the funniest cartoon characters to watch. More about him in a future post. For now, let's get down to my insane-obsessive analysis.

First of all, look at these bums, lying around, waiting for the phone to ring. This cartoon came out in 1937 – 47 years before Danny Aykroyd & company captured our imaginations with Ghostbusters. Now that's forward-thinking!

I also love the idea of trying to catch ghosts with shotguns and nets. At around the five minute mark, Donald even punches a ghost in the face. Who would think of doing this?

The ghosts' voices are funny to me too- the creators just added a weird echo to them to make them sound "otherworldly" or something, but it's a 1930's effect so it sounds like they're in a bathroom stall or something. I love it- it's one of those details that brings me back to watching it as a kid.

This above is the kind of thing you see more of in the Disney shorts. Both Disney and WB showed you crazy things you couldn't see in real life, but while a Bugs Bunny cartoon might be filled with quotable dialogue, shorts like this were more based around complex visual gags. Mickey bouncing off the door (twice), then having to catch his balance before pulling the door to the floor. It's the kind of thing you can only see in cartoons and here is rendered beautifully- the timing, the subtle details that go by before you even realize they're happening.

Mickey catching his balance after bouncing off the wall is one of those moments I love. It happens so fast you barely notice it, but goes so far in terms of bringing life to the character.

Here's another one of those visual gags- this is a fairly long, slapsticky scene of Goofy getting caught up in this armoire-type thing. He's not saying anything particularly funny, but the animation is executed perfectly so it's great to watch.

I haven't seen this one in years, I can't imagine why these old cartoons are never on TV anymore. Kids would still love them. Youtube is great!