Your opinion of Pixar.

Jason Ramsey said:
They were Dreamworks pics weren't they?

Later,
Jason
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Brandon Rice said:
They were from Dreamworks Animation..

Pixar films are fantastic! My faves are Toy Story 2, The Incredibles, and Monster's INC.
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No. Neither Pixar nor Dreamworks has anything to do with Ice Age.
The film was the first feature length movie from a small animation studio called Blue Sky Studios.

Jason Ramsey said:
no. Pixar was owned by Disney for a while though.
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No. In 1991 Pixar entered into an exclusive three picture distribution deal with Disney, the first of which was Toy Story. Disney did not actually acquire Pixar until 2006. This has more to do with distribution and marketing than anything else, obviously. Much more is changing at Disney than at Pixar as a result of the acquisition.

John Lasseter, VP of Pixar and director of many of the Pixar films, is now Chief Creative Officer of both Disney and Pixar. Ed Catmull, Pixar's president, is now Disney's president as well.

Capt Quirk said:
I have always enjoyed Pixar, before they worked with Disney and after. There was some hard feelings between the two, hence the jabs in Shrek.
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What?

Pixar has nothing to do with Shrek. Different company. Dreamworks is responsible for Shrek.

There were however, hard feelings between Eisner and Katzenberg (The K in Dreamworks "SKG"). Before co-founding Dreamworks with Spielberg and Geffen, Katzenberg ran Disney's animation deptartment for a long time. Eventually he was fired by Eisner after asking for the newly vacated position of Disney President.

There's a reason Shrek bears a striking resemblance to Michael Eisner.

eisner.jpg
Shrek%2002.jpg


Also, there's no "before or after Disney" as far as Pixar is concerned, unless you mean their very early commercials and short films. Before 2006, everything Pixar had done in the feature film market had been with Disney as distributor.
 
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Sorry, my bad. I mixed them up. There was a deal that fell through, leaving bad feelings though. I think. It's so hard to keep all the behind the scenes stuff straight anymore.

Anyways, back on topic... Yay Pixar!
 
The opening montage/intro credit sequence in Cars is my fav montage in just about any movie in the last 10 years. A great marriage of music, cinematography and editing. It's very dynamic.

The Incredibles has such a great style to it. It's one of those movies that feels like it could have been done in Live Action but, then it wouldn't have been as fun to watch. Brad Bird has a terrific knack for storytelling. (Check out The Iron Giant for another example, as well as all the Simpsons episodes he did.)
 
Another movie I forgot, by Dreamworks and also one of my favs is The Polar Express. I thought the animation was outstanding.

And just for the record I did like Ice Age (from Blue Sky) 1 & 2 but #1 was better. I did think that 2's story lacked though and thinking it was Pixars I thought it was worthy of discussion. Well call me Blunderman because as we all know now it was by Blue Sky Studios.

So a good effort by them (love Scrat). And while Dreamworks is strong, Pixar still remains king.

In fact I have not seen The Incredibles yet. (whaaa you say?)
But I went out and got it today so that's what I'm doing tonight.
 
I was lucky enough to attend the Pixar panel at comic-con this summer, and see lots of artwork and footage from their upcoming film, Wall-E. They showed a really long, complete sequence, and it was quite interesting. I'm actually excited to see the film. I think it'll be a bit different than their other films. The scene had a kind of atmospheric, slow pace to it. They did a demonstration of the sound (with Ben Burtt) and I guess the characters don't communicate with traditional dialogue, but with synthesized sound effects. And the plot is very interesting too.
 
PK Gillock; said:
So is it illegal to pirate a movie that doesn't even exist? hmmmm Or maybe the video pirates can sue Pixar for piracy when Toy Story 3 finally is made. "Hey, you stole the idea from our Lao movie." hahaha!
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That's a REALLY good point!

Obviously the studio can still get them for using the characters, etc.. but still..


- Mikko
 
krestofre said:
Story is what sets Pixar ahead of the pack. These guys are comitted story tellers. Watch any of the special features on any of their films. They go through an extensive script writing process. The hammer out every detail before the film going into production and they're not afraid to change something if it doesn't work. They're the only studio that I'm aware of that does this. Story trumps all at Pixar.
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Our company has had a fairly long history (7 years as Disney and another 5 as InLight Entertainment) working on both Disney and Pixar properties. Krestofre's statement is absolutely TRUE. Pixar is incredibly dedicated to both story and character development. One of the very few entertainment companies that can actually claim hold over the 4 quadrant demographic.



krestofre said:
I don't like everything Pixar does, but I respect everything Pixar does.
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I agree.



dmc
 
Cheesesailor77 said:
agreed. Mocap is great for making Gollum come alive into a live action movie, but in an animated film you lose some of that magic that comes from an animator's touch
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They're using the same technique for Beowulf, and I gotta say I don't like it. It's not good film, and it's not good animation. What it is, is annoying.
 
I just got finished watching The Incredibles. Before I comment on that I want to clear up yet another blunder from last night as quickly as possible.

Raptor365 said:
...//Yep I love the Incredibles. Great story....
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I was a little you know what and thinking about something else. Forgive me.

So I wish I had of watched this in 2004 when it came out. The animations look a little dated now but the story, wow. 3/4 ways through I was surprised they were still delivering. If there was any doubt who's king of the heap, this puts it to rest. An academy award winner to boot. An instant classic in my books.
If you have not seen it, at least for great story telling is great. Even a little Bond-ish at times.
 
Capt Quirk said:
They're using the same technique for Beowulf, and I gotta say I don't like it. It's not good film, and it's not good animation. What it is, is annoying.
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I'm not sure this technique is really intended to be animation. I think the motivation behind it is to capture a performance once and then be able to grab whatever angle you want after the fact as the scene is stored in a 3d environment. The problem right now is that the CG and mo cap isn't good enough yet to be completely photo-realistic, so a psuedo-animated look is the result. I'm not saying I like it, as I think the characters in Polar Express and Beowulf look stiff and creepy-eyed, but I think being able to move the camera and re-direct a scene after it's shot is what Zemeckis is really after with this technology.
 
I think mocap works for characters like Gollum but really I feel it dies when put into a fully animated film. What really bugs me is Robert Zemeckis, in my opinion he's one of the greatest directors of all time at least creatively he has an amazing pool of diverse work, but now he seems hung up on these mocap films I think it's a waste of his talent.
 
Polar Express, Beowoulf, and I'm not sure about A Christmas Carol (2009) I know it will be animated most likely will be mocap as well.

The Polar Express broke ground but these other films, personally I would much rather see Beowulf as a live action flick directed by him. I'm not saying it won't be good but I wish he would get back to some live action flicks.
 
The problem with today’s mocap is that the resolution is too limited for facial expressions, today’s mocap is great to capture body movements.

However newer technologies such as MMC (markerless motion capture) and machine understanding facial capture are capturing facial expressions that are superior to anything you have seen before.

That said, I think CG has split into two comfortable niches,

(1) 3d "cartoony" stuff
(2) 3d SFX stuff

The 3rd "holy" grail photoreal humans has been tried but we still have a long way to go, and even if its possible would we really want it?

I see 3d for films as an extension of Stop motion clay animation, they both have a lot of Similarities.
 
Hehe.. this has been a funny thread. We always used to laugh at disney that
even our own families couldn't keep which studios did which films straight :)

As for mocap, folks have dredged up a concept from the 70's of the 'uncanny
valley'.... its the concept from robotics where as something artifical becomes
more anthropormorphic, like with mocap, we start testing the subtle cues
to a higher degree. The little telltales seem to affect our ability to catalog
and emotionally respond to the artifical entity. Ie.. the closer we get
to 'photoreal', mostly from movement, the harder we scrutinize the character
for cues that they are 'crazy' or threatening or artificial.

Its less about the tech right now, as it is about the science of emotional
perception and response.
 
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