Ed's Newsletter - April 2002

Brad Bird will be happy to learn that I spent $300 on the prettiest
blue and yellow frame for my 1st edition poster of "The Iron Giant".
Looks super cool hanging over my desk in my Chicago acting studio ...
and I think it's deductible.

ACTING FOR ANIMATORS IN GERMANY
I'll be giving a speech about acting and animation at FMX '02 in Stuttgart, Germany at the end of May. (The festival runs May 21-25, to be exact, but I don't know yet which day I appear.) And while I'm in the vicinity, my good friends Sven Pannicke and Thomas Haegele at Filmakademie Baden-Wortemborg have invited me to teach at the school
for three days. The standard of animation training simply does not get higher than it is at Filmakademie, which is why so many of the school's graduates are working in the industry now. I've taught there before and am really looking forward to this trip.

THANKS TO LESLIE BISHKO IN VANCOUVER, CANADA
Leslie got the ball rolling at Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver for an Acting for Animators workshop on April 27-28. This class will be sponsored by the school but will be mainly for the Vancouver professional animation community. An extra added attraction at this class is Ms. Bishko herself, a world-class expert on Laban Movement Theory as it is applied to animation. I consulted with her (and Jean Newlove in London) extensively when I was writing the Laban chapter in my book, "Acting for Animators". Leslie will be co-teaching with me on the segments of the Vancouver class that focus on Laban. If you're an animator in Vancouver or even Seattle and want to participate in a good workshop, contact Elizabeth Edward at Emily Carr. She's handling the details. Her e-mail is:
eedward@eciad.bc.ca. See you there!

ED WILL BE AT BIG IDEA APRIL 16TH
I'll be teaching an Acting for Animators class for the "Veggie Tales" folk in Chicago April 16th. Keith Lango, Marc Vulcano, Tim Meidl and Dan Phillips all are getting animated hugs for making the class happen. See you guys in a couple of weeks! Wear your happy shoes!

CRAFT NOTES
"Is Realism Taking the Fun Out of Games?"

Edward Rothstein wrote an interesting article for the New York Times
(April 6th, Arts & Ideas section) about video games. His thesis is that realism is a party pooper game-wise. He longs for the simplicity and unbridled fun of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, and he thinks that Lara Croft's bodice is too much to have to comprehend while you're playing a game.

With respect, I think that's hooey. Realism has dramatically enhanced the game playing experience and is, in fact, helping the industry to knock on the door of true revolution. Lest we forget, video games are grossing upwards of $9 billion per year now, at least as much as feature films. This would definitely not be the case if all we had to offer was Mario.

The technology is not the problem anyway. A can of paint can wind up as graffiti on the side of a bus or as the laces on Van Gogh's boots. Photo real technology is a tool, that's all. One man's hot time in video-game land is another man's prime example of bad taste. Mr. Rothstein makes a good point when he grouses about something like "Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing", the video game equivalent of "World's Greatest Police Chases" and is advertised to have a really exquisite "facial damage engine." I can personally live without a photo-real depiction of Tyson biting off somebody's ear, know what I mean? But that's just me. I'm already fifty-seven years old. I know half a dozen teenaged boys that would love to exchange ear bites with Tyson, and the bloodier the better.

I predict exciting things for games with photo real design. The state of the video game industry feels to me very much like the earliest days of the motion picture industry. Back when Cecil B. DeMille was shooting "Squaw Man", audiences were still willing to pony up at the box office just to see the technology. It really didn't matter if a movie was good or bad, just as long as it moved. The appetite for simple movement faded in time, and so too will today's audience fascination with games that are photo real for the sake of being photo real. Within the next ten years, just about
everybody will have the ability to turn out photo real animation if they want to, and we're going to see some major, very real box office flops.

It is a significant industry development that schools like Carnegie Mellon and the Rochester Institute of Technology are offering the first master's programs in computer game design. This is an indication that technology is already becoming generic and that the rewards will come with application. Maybe someone will design an updated photo real Pac Man? Don't laugh! Instead of little gobblers, we could have little Osama Bin Ladens, with very real beards.