I can't wait. The shockingly talented folk at Pixar are finally making a movie (Brave) with a female protagonist. We are thrilled.
See the just released teaser trailer below:
Showing posts with label animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animation. Show all posts
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Cicada Princess
It's beginning to seem as if everyone and their cousin has a kickstarter campaign of some sort or another, but this one particularly caught my imagination. Maybe I'm just obsessed with insect themed animation.
The Cicada Princess is an animated short currently in production. Like so much of the work that seems to interest me these days, it is not digital. It's old fashioned, meticulous stop motion animation and sculpture. Based on the children's book of the same title, the images are both charming and haunting. See their video below. Find their kickstarter page here.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Remarkable Animation of Ladislas Starevich
I don't remember what circuitous route brought me to the gobsmackingly great animation of Ladislas Starevich, but it hardly matters. I watched his 1912 animated short The Camerman's Revenge on YouTube and was simply blown away. I mean this was 1912! And it's just lovely. As the description on the YouTube posting so aptly puts it, "[it] is about infidelity among the insects, a topic which I dare say has never before or after been attempted on film." Mr. and Mrs. Beetle are dissatisfied with their bourgeoise marriage, so they both embark on affairs - he with a glamorous dragonfly who dances in a nightclub, she with a local artist. Well, just watch. I promise you, it's not like anything you've ever seen:
Starevich began as a naturalist - he had been made director of the Museum of Natural History in Kovno, Lithuania and his first films were live action documentary shorts about insect life. After directing a few films for the museum, he wished to feature insect behavior that was impossible to film, as the creatures were nocturnal and wouldn't behave normally under the lights. After seeing a short film by Emile Cohl, he decided to try stop action animation using insect carcasses. He soon branched into narrative shorts and moved to Moscow, where he created a series of animated shorts using dead animals which were acclaimed all over the world. Some people apparently couldn't believe they were animated and assumed the animals had been trained somehow - which sounds ridiculous to us, but imagine how magical his work must have seemed at the dawn of moviemaking.
Starevich began as a naturalist - he had been made director of the Museum of Natural History in Kovno, Lithuania and his first films were live action documentary shorts about insect life. After directing a few films for the museum, he wished to feature insect behavior that was impossible to film, as the creatures were nocturnal and wouldn't behave normally under the lights. After seeing a short film by Emile Cohl, he decided to try stop action animation using insect carcasses. He soon branched into narrative shorts and moved to Moscow, where he created a series of animated shorts using dead animals which were acclaimed all over the world. Some people apparently couldn't believe they were animated and assumed the animals had been trained somehow - which sounds ridiculous to us, but imagine how magical his work must have seemed at the dawn of moviemaking.
You can see another of his charming insect films, The Dragonfly and The Ant, below:
After the September Revolution he joined the Russian expat community in Paris and worked there for the remainder of his life. He continued to make strange and creative animated movies until his death in 1965. Terry Gilliam has said he is a huge influence on his work.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Yuriy Norshteyn: Glorious, Glorious Animation
I'm hoping one of my loyal readers who's knowledge of all things filmic and Russian far surpasses my own, will have some further information on Russian animation genius Yuriy Norshteyn (Fuzzy Bastard, I'm looking at you!).
And the unbelievably tragic My Green Crocodile. I'm not precisely sure what happens, as it is untranslated, but it's a simple story and I think I get the drift. The Green Crocodile falls in love with a beautiful cow. The other animals are jealous (I think) and it all ends in tears - which at least make flowers grow. It's stunning.
It is for work like this that I endlessly praise the internet. Such beauty, such genius - all at our fingertips, in our homes. It's not too easy, is it? I don't think so. With all this variety, most people still watch the same old corporate garbage to the exclusion of almost everything else. But there's so much to look at and listen to and to read and to watch. How could anyone ever be bored in this true age of wonders?
His work is detailed and beautiful and charming - and unprolific. He is referred to in Russia as "The Golden Snail" for the slowness of his process - he has been working on his (yet unfinished) film The Overcoat, based on the short story by Nicolai Gogol, since 1981. The work by him that is available (on YouTube - the only Region 1 DVD I could find is a long out of print anthology of Russian animation) is beautiful. Below see the magical, toy theater-like Seasons:
And the unbelievably tragic My Green Crocodile. I'm not precisely sure what happens, as it is untranslated, but it's a simple story and I think I get the drift. The Green Crocodile falls in love with a beautiful cow. The other animals are jealous (I think) and it all ends in tears - which at least make flowers grow. It's stunning.
It is for work like this that I endlessly praise the internet. Such beauty, such genius - all at our fingertips, in our homes. It's not too easy, is it? I don't think so. With all this variety, most people still watch the same old corporate garbage to the exclusion of almost everything else. But there's so much to look at and listen to and to read and to watch. How could anyone ever be bored in this true age of wonders?
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