Why James Cameron waited to create Avatar

James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster hit, Avatar stepped over boundaries that had not been crossed in the cinema and CGI world ever before. Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and winning 3, Avatar is also the #1 All Time Domestic movie ever, and the #1 All Time Worldwide movie. But what made this movie so different than any other, and why was it not done sooner? As a matter of fact, James Cameron wanted to release the movie in 1999 because he had the story complete, but did not have the proper technology to complete it until it was released in 2009. What convinced him that CGI effects had progressed enough is when he saw the motion-capture CGI animation that was done to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. The movie is more than half CGI, and each frame of the CHI scenes took an average of 47 hours to render. When I was in London this past fall semester, I worked on a Sci-Fi list documentary where I was able to help find extensive facts about the movies that we were given and able to contact people to interview for the documentary. I researched Avatar extensively and was able to find out this amazing information plus so much more, and was astonished by the achievements and advancements that were made throughout the process and production of this movie. Here's a few of the videos I watched to learn more about Avatar. 

Disney's Animated Short: "Feast"

A teaser of the short film, "Feast."

Patrick Osborne pitched his animated short idea about showing the progression of a romantic relationship through the perspective of a dog to John Lasseter. It was chosen, and Walt Disney Animation Studios began the tedious process of creating a new animation.

"Feast" played in theaters before "Big Hero Six," and received amazing reviews from critics and audiences alike.

The creators studied real Boston Terriers in order to achieve just the right hand-drawn look.

"Feast" just won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Watch this short video that shows some part of the creative process behind "Feast."

Mr. Hublot

The animated short category of the Academy Awards has never really garnered a lot of attention, if any at all. Which is why, this year, when the Disney-made short "Get a Horse!" was up for best animated short, people more or less wrote off everything else in the category. For the most part, the rest were obscure, foreign made cartoons that people had never heard of; unless you had been to a film festival or saw them in a limited release in some art house theatre, there's a really good chance you've never seen any of the other contenders. "Get a Horse!" was just the opposite: it was the lead in to Frozen, the critically acclaimed box office smash that just made over 1 billion dollars globally. People had seen it.

So it came as a shock to most people when a man - who, according to his IMDB page, had never before written or produced a film of any kind - took the win right out from under the feet of one of the largest companies in the win. That man - Laurent Witz - made the film "Mr. Hublot." Haven't heard of it? Yeah, me either. 

My desperate attempts to find the short online have come up empty-handed (the best I can do is this demo of the animation used in the film...which looks really great) but from what I can gather, Mr. Hublot is about a man living in a futuristic city who takes it upon himself to adopt a puppy-like robot. The man, who shows symptoms of OCD (*cough cough "Cracked" cough) takes care of the dog as it grows bigger and bigger. The official website has some more information, such as the festivals it has been in, awards it's won, and where it will play next. 

I know next to nothing about the animation besides that it looks really, really good and that it was partly funded by the government of Luxembourg. I've tried to find videos showing the 'making of' of Mr. Hublot, but to no avail. So unless someone is able to find the short illegally online somewhere (please let me be the first to know if this happens) than I guess some of the mystery surrounding Mr. Hublot will just continue to grow. 

*EDIT

I was actually able to just find this short 'making of' video that shows a few of the techniques Witz used to animate the film. It's actually asking for donations so that they make a book showing the artwork of Mr. Hublot. Pretty cool. 

"Zero" and "The Maker" Short Films

I recently watched an amazing 12 minute stop motion film called "Zero." Directed by Christopher Kezelos, this film is about a world in which "people" (who are little hand-sewn figures) are judged by what number is assigned to their stomach. Zero is a boy born with little to no hope for him, as he is assigned the lowest number you could possible have. After a living a life filled with much shame, he finally meets a girl Zero, whom he falls in love with.  Chaos ensues as their love is forbidden. The rest is for you to watch, as the ending is done incredibly well!

The 12 minute film took TWO YEARS AND HALF YEARS to make. Wow. The team that created the film has made a video that covers all of the production. They started with drawings and designs, then began building prototypes, which took 6 months. After this, they began work on props, final puppets, and sets.

The film has sense won countless awards and has been re-dubbed into 39 different languages.


Here is another one of their films that is truly fascinating, "The Maker."

And for behind the scenes footage, check out the video below! The Maker, which is about a creature called, you guessed it, The Maker, is racing against time to make the most important and beautiful creation of his life. The film took 6 months to create with a crew of 30 people, has been to 22 film festivals, and has been nominated for an Australian Academy Award. It is beautiful!

Logorama

This short animated film is directed by a group who calls themselves H5. Although it’s 16 minutes I highly recommend everyone to take some time out of their night and  watch this. It won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short film and won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Immediately the first thing you’ll notice is all the different logos. In total, this movie used 2,500 different logos/mascots. The extensive use of these logos is a statement of what our society is becoming or what will come. We are run by these major corporations whether we realize it or not. The main characters in this film are all logos from different companies and of course the evil character is Ronald McDonald. The police are trying to take him down because he’s on a shooting spree but simultaneously an earthquake begins and the entire city of Los Angeles falls to pieces and everything explodes and ends. This is a powerful statement about the world we live in and the inevitable demise of it.  Other then the messages, the animation is amazing in this film. The logos come to life and are just as exact as the real ones. 

Academy Awards

As you may have noticed, I personally like to post about graphics / animation in relation to what is going on in the TV world. As we all know, the Oscars are Sunday night and two of the categories are directly related to our class -- best animated feature film and best visual effects. Although posting clips of each nominee and analysing them would be great, but it would such a long and tedious post // and I am tired and do not want to stay in much longer

Ironically, when I began searching for "oscars graphics" -- I found so many personal graphics reels from animators, named Oscar. This first one by Oscar Nofre created these animations all via After Effects. At :35. you can see the motion blur effect very present. At 1:47 you can VERY QUICKLY see the mask outline and opacity decrease. Overall, this fast-moving + up-beat + high intensity reel is so cool and it just shows that everyone and anyone can learn motion graphics and greatly develop skills to become this skilled.

Another non-Academy Awards "oscars graphics" reel is one by Oscar Garza. This producer seems to have worked at an NBC affiliate station, KXAN, and created their graphics. It seems like these kinds of images and animations are so simple, with basic vector movements and keyframes -- as if we could make have made something similar the third day of class!

Now onto the actual Academy Awards -- some real Oscar animation. I was slightly surprised when I could not find that many open or close animations. This featured one, from 2010 // the 82nd Awards, is great because it explores many lens flare effects and simple typing text that transitions into a bevy of film titles and numerous layers moving in and out

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Academy Award's Best Animated Feature contendors

It was reported yesterday that 18 films have qualified to eligible to be nominated as Best Animated Feature at this year's Academy Awards. The qualifications for what can be nominated as Best Animated Feature have changed as well, putting those involved in making the films on their toes in the hopes that their film can still qualify. The changes are as follows:

1. The need for the Board to vote to activate the category each year was eliminated, so the Animated Feature category is now permanent with no need for the Board to vote on its existence. Eight is still the minimum number of eligible releases for a competitive category.
2. If there are right to twelve features that year, two or three of them may be nominated. This new rule eliminates the minimum of three rule and allows the possibility of only two films to run against each other, so, in theory, a third, "lesser" film can be dropped
3. If thirteen to fifteen films qualify, a maximum of four films can be nominated, which now allows for more than three films to be nominated if less than sixteen animated films are released in a year
4. If sixteen animated films are released and all qualify, a maximum of five may be nominated, this allows the committee to nominate less than five if they choose to.

These new rules won't change much about the Academy Awards nomination process, however the category has become permanent which is very exciting.

The 18 films that qualify are as follows:
1. Rango
2. Kung Fu Panda 2
3. Puss in Boots
4. Rio
5. Cars 2
6. Gnomeo & Juliet
7. Mars Needs Moms
8. Winnie the Pooh
9. The Smurfs
10. Happy Feet Two
11. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
12. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
(and the ones I have never heard of so I've provided the trailer for anyone else who isn't familiar with them)
13. The Adventures of Tintin (release date December 21, 2011)

14. Arthur Christmas (release date November 23, 2011)

15. Alois Nebel (released September 29, 2011, for more on the film visit the Wikipedia page)

16. A Cat in Paris (release date December 15, 2010, for more on the film visit its IMDb page)

17. Chico & Rita (released November 19, 2010, for more on the film visit its IMDb page)

18.Wrinkes (I couldn't find the trailer for this, but for more information you can visit the Wikipedia page)

So what do you guys think? What will be nominated? I definitely think Rango will make the ballot, but other than that I want to wait and see how The Adventures of Tintin and Arthur Christmas do in the box office.

Animated Films and the Academy Awards

Before 2001, animated films have not had much recognition in the Oscar world. We've grown up with so many animated Disney films such as The Lion King, Alladin, The little Mermaid, etc. But the only one of these Disney films to even come close to winning an academy award was Beauty and the Beast which was nominated in 1991 for best picture, but didn't end up winning. It wasn't until 2009 that another animated film was even nominated for best picture. I was astonished to find out that it took 18 years for animated films to get more recognition in the best picture category. Up! in 2009 and then Toy Story 3 was nominated in 2010. But an animated film has still never won for best picture.

 Then in 2001 the Academy Awards finally added a new category for "Best Animated Feature." The first winner being Shrek. This category finally gives more recognition for animated films because instead of there only being one animated feature struggling against all other genres, you now see a larger scope of the animated films throughout the year. I do believe in the next few years animated films will beat out everyone else and bring home a best picture title.

I also found this article from a few months ago that talked about how animation is gaining more and more popularity with more and more films coming out each year. And how it is evolving from being a genre only for kids with films like The Little Mermaid to films with more raw humor for adults such as Rango. Now these films can bring in a larger audience.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/31/animation.success.go/index.html