Chico & Rita

For this week's post, I'm going to be talking about an animated film called Chico & Rita that I recently watched and really enjoyed. 

Havana, Cuba 1948. Chico is a young Cuban pianist who dreams of making a place for himself in the jazz world. Rita is a singer with an extraordinary voice which captivates everyone. Music brings them together and they embark on a passionate and tormented love affair. With a soundtrack of latin jazz as background to their love story, we´re immersed in the world of Cuban passion, sensuality and music. 
Directors: Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, Tono Errando

The film is 90 minutes long so here is the trailer:

The entire movie is filmed with live action actors.

The sets include dummy objects and tracker marks for camera tracking.

The live action shots are edited in Final Cut Pro and becomes the live action version of the animatic.

Approximately 2 frames of every second of live action is traced in TV-Paint and becomes the drawn version of the animatic.

The traced frames are printed on paper, pegged and sent through a classical 2D hand drawn production pipeline with rough animation, key animation, clean up, ink & paint and compositing.

The live action shots are used to create backgrounds in either 2D, 2½D or 3D where 2½D refers to 2D elements positioned in a 3D universe.

All 2D animation and coloring is done in ToonBoom Harmony.

The production takes place in 11 studios around the world.

Despite the artists working in 7 different studios they are all experiencing it as if they are working on one central server on their local network. 

Besides the sever installations HoBSoft has ensured that every studio complies with the productions security strategy in terms of firewalls etc. 

HoBSoft has also done the necessary training in each studio to make the local artist capable of working with the production standards in terms of where to save the files and in which format etc.

HoBSoft automatically renders and transfers the necessary movies and setups to the director and various supervisors in the main studio in Barcelona, Spain. 

Part of the automatic updates is to update Final Cut Pro in several studios with the new footage every time a scene is updated in any one of the studios. 

Mariscal´s recreation of the exhuberant Havana of the late 40´s is full of light and colour. He contrasts this with winterland New York, and the decadence of places such as Las Vegas, Paris and Beverly Hills. The film is packed with scenes of great beauty and visual richness.

Childhood Memories Revisited

I was looking at the news yesterday and came across a headline about the death of Arthur Rankin Jr, 89 years old, on January 30th. It took me a while to figure out where I heard that name before, so I typed it into Google and I realized that this was the man (and his partner Jules Bass) responsible for the creation of one my greatest childhood memories: the stop-motion animation of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

For those of you who might not know what this is (shame on you!) here is a snippet:

Now that brings back some great memories of snowy days, christmas trees, and hot chocolate. I absolutely love this song. I was the type of child who went on movie sprees, not with different movies, but with just a single movie watched about twenty times over three days or more. It drove my brothers crazy. This specific movie was one that kept me entertained for a long, long time. It first aired in 1964 and I was born in the 1990s, so this just goes to show how successful this stop-motion animation was. It was sad to hear how one of its creators has passed on.

Arthur Rankin Jr. was also responsible for films like "Frosty the Snowman" (another personal favorite) and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." 

Rankin-Bass productions also produced hand-drawn animation, but was best known for a stop-motion animation technique called Animagic, which used small, wire jointed dolls instead of clay (see Los Angeles Times article reference HERE). In this article, it quotes Rick Goldschmidt, who wrote about the history of Rankin-Bass Productions, who states that Arthur Rankin was "... a great influence on the Tim Burton films and even more so on Pixar." This history of animation, from where it started to where it is today, is incredible to discover. It has come so far in so short a time and yet, even the old styles of animation are still admired and loved today. "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is just one example. Other examples are squeezed into my movie cabinet on VHS. Disney created stories in a very different way for animation, as we saw in class with the video on the animation of "Bambi." This is so different from live action films, where the older they are, they are sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes less enjoyable because we are so used to the technology we have now. Yet, animation has never (at least in my personal opinion) experienced that problem. The characters that are created are unique, unforgettable, and lovable to the point where students in college still talk about them or go to the movie theatre to see them.

It is amazing to learn new aspects or details on things that you cherished in your childhood. These films were classics that inspired and warmed your heart to watch. This style of animation is rarely seen anymore, and no wonder since it takes a really long time to film stop-motion animation. Yet, the stories Rankin-Bass Productions told and brought to life visually are ones that will continue to be passed down through generations. 

By Amber Capogrossi