Zootopia was amazing, and Shakira’s official video of Try Everything gives you a little taste of how fluid and detailed the animation was. I don’t think I have ever seen this many animated characters on the screen at the same time before, and they managed to bring a number of them to life as individuals in the course of this film. I am sure the singer enjoyed the experience of being one of those characters throughout the presentation, and her song at the end was the perfect way to close the story. If you haven’t seen this one yet it is still in theaters, and it is detailed enough that you really need to see it on the big screen at least once.
The SIGGRAPH 2016: Computer Animation Festival is the heart of what comes next for movies, games, and so much more. Watch and be amazed, and remember, no show gets more than 5 or 10 seconds of screen time! I would love to make this gathering in person and see each entire presentation come the 24th through the 28th of July 2016 in Anaheim, California.
The two best choices this weekend are animated: Mamoru Hosoda’s The Boy and the Beast has won awards around the world and is nominated for still more of them. I can not wait to see this one, and would have already declared it the must see film for the weekend were it not for Zootopia. Some reviewers are saying this is the best animation to come out of Disney in decades, and the quality shown in the trailer certainly makes me think they could be right. Let’s face it, I am going to have to see both movies this weekend; decision made!
Aardman Animations of Wallace and Gromit fame have put together their first VR presentation, Special Delivery. It was made for Google Spotlight Stories, who made this into one of their presentations and translated it into an app for Android and IOS Google Cardboard phones. Much like their Shaun the Sheep TV and Film programs this Pink Panther-like video doesn’t bother with words, but creates its humor from the visuals. This is WAY cooler in the 360 degree VR environment of a Cardboard headset, and even just an Android or Apple phone without the headset allows you to interactively change what you see by turning which way the phone faces. But even the flat version you can see on a desktop or laptop running Firefox or Chrome is fun and gives you an idea about what is going on. The second video gives you a peek behind the curtain with a making-of.
The Jungle Book Big Game Trailer gives you an idea of where they are going with this latest iteration of Kipling’s masterpiece as well as a glimpse of the merged Live Action/CGI environment they will be building it in. Come April 15, I hope to be in the theaters for this one.
Studio Ghibli’s Only Yesterday and live action Gods of Egypt both hit the big screen this weekend. The 1991 animated classic Only Yesterday has finally been released in the US now, 25 years after the rest of the world got to see it, and is filled with exactly the kind of touching heart-felt story one expects from them. Its run in the theaters is extremely limited, opening in a single theater in New York on January 1st and expanding on Friday to another double dozen cities. If you are not close enough to make one of them, it will be in still more cities each week over the next four, and then released on DVD for the first time in this country. Gods of Egypt is the flip side of that coin, brand new live action/adventure epic fantasy, although I do admit to studying the trailer carefully looking for a Stargate. I look forward to seeing at least one of them.