Ed's Newsletter - February 2009

MONTREAL IS LOVELY, ESPECIALLY IN THE SNOW
Animated thanks to Alexandre, Albane, Gino and all the folks at the National Animation and Design Centre in Montreal. You guys were wonderful hosts, and I had a terrific time teaching for you. (Check it out on the NAD Centre web site, here, and then see if you can find Waldo.)

PAUL EKMAN/"LIE TO ME"
Paul Ekman ("The Expression of Emotion in the Human Face") is the primary consultant to the producers of a new show on Fox entitled "Lie to Me". Actually, the show - a drama starring Tim Roth - is a thinly veiled depiction of Ekman himself. Roth is a modern day Sherlock Holmes who reads micro-expression instead of more mundane criminal clues such as Watson's pocket Watch ("The Sign of the Four") or Dr. Mortimer's walking stick ("The Hound of the Baskervilles"). He is often explaining the science of micro-expression to skeptics, so there is a bit of reality-show mixed in with the fiction. Since I do not receive Comcast cable at my home, I watched the pilot episode on line, and you can too. You may have to download a video player from the Fox website, but I think it is clean.

Take a look: http://www.fox.com/lietome/ And after you finish watching "Lie to Me", check out Paul Ekman's updated website. All that is missing is a red carpet.

ACTING FOR ANIMATORS WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Feb 2-6 Teesside, England - Animex International Festival
May 5-8 Stuttgart, Germany - FMX International Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Digital Media
May 14-17 Kalamazoo, Michigan - Kalamazoo Animation Festival International

CRAFT NOTES

"THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX"
Few things generate more discussion in my workshops than the subject of inter-species communication in animated films. Screenwriters should be very careful when they put humans and critters in the same movie. If the critters absolutely must communicate directly with a human, the writer has to justify it. In "Ratatouille", the writer created a whole new form of hair-pulling communication. "Bee Movie" did not work largely because the Jerry Seinfeld Bee carried on vocal conversations with the Renee Zellweger human. "Looney Tunes" included inter-species communication, but not at length and, anyway, those were deeply stylized cartoons. In other words, all bets concerning communication were off.

And now comes "The Tale of Despereaux" from Universal Pictures. "Once upon a time," it begins, telling us right away that we are going to take a trip to a Never-Never Land, some place where anything is possible. Within the first five minutes, a rat is sitting on a human's shoulder, talking to him. We in the audience accept that as part of the given circumstances of the story. Speaking only for myself, I didn't particularly like the device, but I could see that this was the kind of movie I was about to watch. Well, okay then, rats talk to humans.

Soon enough, we also learn that the King in the story has the power to control the weather, prohibiting the rain. Sure, what the heck? If rats can talk to humans, then kings can make it not rain. And then the hero of our story arrives, a little mouse that has giant ears suspiciously like Dumbo's. Be honest now: How many of you saw those ears and anticipated that, at some point, the mouse would fly like Dumbo. I did. But, overused though that device is, I accepted it because, after all, rats talk to humans in this movie. Sigh ....

"The Tale of Despereaux" is a beautifully animated jambalaya stew of a movie that is destined for the DVD racks. The main problem with the film is not the given circumstances, it is how un-original it is in the final analysis. I appreciate a brief homage (The deer-shooting sequence in "The Iron Giant") as much as the next guy. But it is something else again to borrow heavily from other work. You can make your own list, but I saw strong on-screen influence - or sometimes direct imitation -- of "Ratatouille", "Dumbo", "The Wizard of Oz", "Gladiator", "Shrek", "Three Penny Opera" and "The Man of La Mancha", just for starters.

In terms of scene structure, there is far too much talking. Movies "move", which is why we call them movies. Story and character will ideally be exposed through action, not verbal exposition. This movie is based on a popular children's book by Kate DiCamillo, and so it does a lot of telling rather than showing. Indeed, Sigorney Weaver provides an on-going voice-over narration to tell us what we are seeing.

All of this telling and talking makes for poor scene construction. The movie is chock full of sequences in which characters stand around and talk to one another and/or strike moody poses. I actually had to force myself to stay awake at times because the sequences were so dull from a performance standpoint.

But what a lovely thing this movie is to look at! The animators at Framestore can push their mice (pun intended) with the best of them. The credits are full of the names of illustrious and talented people. Sylvain Chomet ("Triplets of Belleville") even got his fingers into this pudding at some early point, with character design. The lighting is awesome, the fur on the rats is amazing, the human animation is straight out of "Ratatouille", scenic design reaches Maurice Sendak caliber, and the music is swell. The voice acting couldn't be much better or more stellar.

The story is shamanistic, though, and I applaud that. The idea was promising. The problem is that the movie isn't adding anything to Kate DiCamillo's book. If anything, it is detracting. At the end of the movie, as the credits roll, I realized that watching it had been an exhausting - rather than a thrilling - experience. It was like going on a date with someone who is beautiful, smart, literary, can cook a mean bowl of soup and stays overnight. Still, it is a relationship that just isn't going to click.

Until next month...be safe!
"Actors are Shamans"