Ed's Newsletter - October 2004

THANKS TO DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION
To be invited to teach at Disney Feature Animation is, for me, tantamount to being invited to Mecca. Regardless of industry debates about 2D vs 3D and the ongoing saga involving Michael Eisner, Disney is still Disney and is home to some of the finest artists in the world. It is an awe inspiring place. I could not stop staring at the cels from "Snow White" and "Pinnochio" that line the walls. Wow! In particular, I want to thank Mike Belzer, Tenny Chonin and Ed Oboza for assuring that the all-day class and the Lunchtime Lecture were such well-attended successes. You were wonderful hosts, folks, and I'm deeply grateful. Also, here is an animated high-five to the artists working on "A Day with Wilbur Robinson". You've got a terrific project, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Thanks much for spending a day with me!

CONGRATS TO CINEME CHICAGO
Brooke English and Lee Litas put together a game-oriented event this year, and everybody I spoke to said they had a good time. I taught a short class and sat on a couple of high-spirited panels. We kicked around how things are going in games and how to write a successful story. Both of the panel discussions were packed to the rafters, a very excellent sign.

EMOTIONAL TOOLBOX IS INTERESTING STUFF
When I was at Disney, and again at Cineme, I ran into Laurie Hutzler and learned a bit more about what she calls the Emotional Toolbox. She has a website worth browsing if you're interested in her take on story development. I think she and I are in sync on many issues regarding the creation and importance of emotion in animation.

CHECK OUT THIS WONDERFUL FLASH ANIMATION! I have been a fan of Adam Phillips's Flash work for several years. If you want to see Flash stand up and do back flips, check him out. His latest is "Prowlies at the River"

THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT IN LAST MONTH'S CRAFT NOTES:
" President of Paramount Pictures and Vice Chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Donald De Line, (says), "We are delighted to be working hand in hand with Midway Games to translate this innovative game into a provocative film. We look forward to bringing all the excitement gamers will feel playing 'AREA 51' to theaters everywhere." (From the August 31st Midway Games Press Release). Games are not movies. They have entirely different aesthetics. Regardless of how delightful a movie they make from "AREA 51", the emotional experience will not be the same as you get from playing the game. I wonder if these are the same folks that decided to pick up "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"?

WANT TO PURCHASE YOUR VERY OWN PERSONAL COPY OF "ACTING FOR ANIMATORS"?
TRY THIS LINK

ED HOOKS'S UPCOMING SCHEDULE
2004

Oct 30-31 College of Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan

Nov 15th or 16th Tiburon Electronic Arts, Orlando, Florida

Nov 22-27 SAND '04, Swansea Animation Days in Swansea South Wales

Nov 29 National Film & Television School, Beaconsfield, UK

Dec 3-12 Ed vacation - Rome and Florence

2005

Jan 22-23 College of Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan

Jan 31-Feb 4 Animex '05, Teesside England

April 20-23 Louisiana State University Animation Festival, Baton Rouge, Louisana

April 28 - May 1, FMX Animation Festival, Stuttgart Germany

May 2-3 Filmakademie Baden-Wurtemberg, Ludwigsberg, Germany

June 6-11 Annecy, France

CRAFT NOTES
" SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW"

Paramount Pictures is going to get a $70 million migraine headache with this movie. I fell asleep four times while trying to watch it at a first-run downtown Chicago theatre, and I have a strong hunch that I would have stayed awake if they had simply screened the backgrounds and left the actors out.

The director Kerry Conran is obviously a fellow with a lot of promise, but he evidently had zero experience as a director before he helmed this first feature. He graduated from Cal Arts and, in interviews I have read with him, says he mainly focused on computer animation. He authored some rendering software.. Best I can tell, he never worked with actors at all, and his big idea was to treat them like cel animation. It shows.

Conran's major angel on this project was Jon Avnet, an experienced executive producer in Hollywood who became enchanted with Conran's vision and six-minute demo. . Avnet is the one that carried the water on the production side, packaging the stars and ultimately selling the whole deal to Paramount.. The actors in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" are Jude Law, Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow. They all signed onto the project without even so much as a meeting with Mr. Conran, and I think they should have had better sense. Where were their agents? You simply do not agree to do a movie without meeting the director. Was Avnet so persuasive that these good actors would put their reputations and asking-prices on the line with an untried director? It looks that way. I have read they even agreed to cut their fees in order to do it!

On the positive side, the computer generated backgrounds in this movie are drop-dead beautiful. I want to get a cel from that Hindenberg docking sequence at the beginning of the movie and hang it on my living room wall. Whenever I woke up in my seat and brushed the popcorn off my shirt, there was inevitably something beautiful on the screen. The problem is that the actors were adrift, and the story was non-existent. Especially Paltrow and Law did not receive sufficient direction. Their performances were flat as a pancake, and their scenes lacked tension. They both seem to be busy trying to appear iconic, and they forgot an important basic acting lesson: " A scene is a negotiation." The only time I saw the actors react authentically to an event was when they literally fell down while running away from something, like giant robots. This movie is, in a word, a beautiful mess - or, to put a spin on a George W. Bushism, it is "a successful catastrophe." Look for "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" to hit the DVD shelf in about a month. And I hope Kerry Conran will take time out for a couple of acting classes before he begins casting on his next film, "The Princess of Mars".