More Tintin you say? Well here it is anyway!

If you hadn't guessed from my last post, I love Tintin. The books had an enormous impact on my interests in art, comics, and storytelling. It didn't surprise me at all when I found out that directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were both huge fans of Tintin growing up as well. It was even less surprising when I learned that the two directors where teaming up on Tintin movie. The film will be coming out in late 2011 and will follow the plots of three of Herge's Tintin books: "The Crab with the Golden Claws", "The Secret of the Unicorn", and "Red Rackham's Treasure."

The movie will be completely computer animated and in 3D. Spielberg was originally going to shoot the entire film live-action with only Snowy, Tintin's dog, being computer animated. After speaking with Peter Jackson about having his production company doing the animation, Steven was convinced by Peter that a live-action film would not do Tintin justice and that the entire film should be an animated film. Luckily for Tintin fans, Steven agreed.

Here is the latest trailer for the upcoming film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. (Reminder: this is computer-generated footage. There are no live actors or sets)

Artist Profile: Hergé

Georges Remi (Hergé)

The Brussels-born artist was most known for creating the comic "The Adventures of Tintin". For those of you who are not familiar with his work: Tintin is a comic book character from the late 1920's which has reached international fame with readers as well as art and literature critics. Hergé began his career working for a newspaper titled Le Petit Vingtième where he would illustrate detective stories for the children readers. One such detective story which resonated with readers was the story of Tintin and his dog Snowy.

The first story; "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" was published in 1929 by Le Petit Vingtième. The mix of humor, action, and the surprising amount of history and research Hergé had done for the story had made the artist an unexpected success. His next four books were published in the same fashion as his first and later reprinted in color separate from the newspaper. "Tintin in the Congo", "Tintin in America", "Cigars of the Pharaoh", and "The Blue Lotus" were equally successful works for Hergé. The future looked bright for the artist.

Hergé's success was put on halt when in 1939 there was a small complication involving international warfare. The artist joined the military as a reserve lieutenant which has temporarily stopped his work on his sixth Tintin book: "Land of Black Gold." During the war Le Petit Vingtième was shut down by the Nazi regime and Hergé was forced to find another way to publish his work. That venue was Le Soir, a french daily paper. Hergé published his next six Tintin stories in the paper during the war. After the war Hergé continued creating new Tintin stories, but because of his increasing depression and panic attacks the gap between comics had begun increasing. 

By the 1960's Tintin had begun moving into different forms of media including films and a magazine. In 1960 Hergé published one of his most emotional stories "Tintin in Tibet" which was influenced by his mental breakdowns. The story was awarded the Truth of Light award by the Dalai Lama for its beautiful depiction of Tibet. Hergé's last work "Tintin and Alph-Art" was left unfinished when he died in 1983. 

I Met The Walrus

This short animated film is based on an interview of the famous musician John Lennon in 1969 by 14 year-old Jerry Levitan. In 2006 the recording of the interview was edited by Josh Raskin into a 5 minute dialogue and handed to two artists, James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina, to illustrate and animate a short to correspond with the audio of the interview. The result was the short "I Met the Walrus." The film won several awards including Best Animated Short by the American Film Institute and a nomination for the same award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. 

Being an enormous Beatles fan as well as a lover of animation this film definitely resonates with me. I hope after seeing it you feel the same way. For more information about the film check out their site.

Destino: The Film That Never Was

In the mid-1940's Walt Disney Studios collaborated with surrealist painter Salvador Dali on an animation written by the Spanish artist. The was left unfinished however after Disney and its partner RKO decided the movie would not make any money. Almost 60 years later Disney decided to finish the film and in 2003 Destino was released as a 6 minute short at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival where it won several awards. Destino was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Shirt Film.

This short film is a fantastic example that not all animation does not have to be cartoon-based. Salvador Dali is one of the most admired surrealist artists and he saw the value in animation. Unfortunately he was not alive to see his idea come to fruition but thanks to a group of talented animators we can enjoy his film today.

Breaking down a scene into Layers

We're going to take a look at how an animator goes from a simple sketch to finalized scene in a cartoon. The scene we are observing here is from a project I am working on in my free time called "The Inauguration of Governor Slugwell." This is one of the first scenes in the cartoon where Slugwell goes to give his commencement speech. 

This is a sketch I made of the first scene looking from behind the stage out to the podium.

In animation it is usually best to work from the background to the foreground because of the layering system in Adobe Illustrator (the program I used to color the scene) which allows you to independently build your work piece by piece.

The next closest layer to the foreground would be the audience and seating. You can see how the edges of the layer overlap  parts of the sketched area. This is OK because I can draw over this layer with the next layer.

Here we see the stage layer going into the piece, covering up some of the carpet in the previous layer. Also, I added the podium into the scene.

Here I added the last layer to the background, the curtains. Each wrinkle in the curtain is a different object which I had to draw separately and layer.

Finally I add Slugwell himself as the final layer. The reason I must have this character on a separate layer is because all objects which move in a scene must be able to independently move on its own or when I begin animating the scene whatever is on the same layer will move as he does. It's also just good practice to keep you image organized. This entire scene consists of around 300 objects.

Artist Profile: Matt Groening

We'll skip all of the background information and start where Matt's career in animation started. Matt Groening moved to Los Angeles from Oregon to become a writer in 1977. After "a series of  lousy jobs," Matt began gaining fame for his comic strips titled Life in Hell which depicted rabbits discussing the troubles with relationships, music, and the general struggles of everyday life. In 1984, Groening began publishing his Life in Hell comics in volumes which quickly flew off the shelves.

Soon after publishing his comics they caught the eye of James L. Brooks, a Hollywood producer, who contacted Groening immediately and offered him a job working on an "undefined future animation project." This project later became The Simpsons. The show began as a series of short sketches which would appear on the Tracy Ullman Show. After three seasons working with the variety show, The Simpsons was developed into a half-hour, primetime show on Fox. Since it's release the show has won 27 Primetime Emmy Awards, 27 Annie Awards, and a Peabody Award. The show is still in production today.

After a number of years working directly with The Simpsons, Matt, along with co-writer David X. Cohen, created a new cartoon titled Futurama which depicts the wacky adventures of a delivery crew set in the year 3000. By the fourth season, even with a strong following, Fox cancelled the series. Reruns were later aired by the late-night cartoon block Adult Swim. While canceled the staff working on Futurama began creating movies of the show for their still loyal fans. Comedy Central recognized that the show had a strong following and brought the series back for its 5th season. The 6th season is set to release this summer.

 

The Pixar Process

Unquestionably Pixar is one of the most respected animation studios today. In 1995, under the Disney umbrella, Pixar released the first ever fully computer animated film Toy Story and with it gained worldwide  recognition as the leader in what will (and did) become the new direction of animation. Here I have found a link of the actual process used by Pixar in making the film Monsters, Inc, their fourth animated film.

Being an amateur animator myself I can tell you just how much work goes into producing these films. The process illustrated in the slideshow linked above doesn't express just how much time each of these steps can take. Finalizing a script and storyboarding an hour an a half animation can take months of work by dozens of artists, especially when the work is going to be given the Disney stamp on the cover. I hope this slideshow can give you a small understanding of the processes involved in making some of the films you enjoy.

Traditional hand-drawn animation obviously doesn't follow these exact same procedures but use the same general principles of writing, storyboarding, designing, editing, etc. Because hand-drawn animation doesn't have some of the same conveniences that computer based animation does more emphasis is placed on having a concrete story because re-shooting scenes and changing the script are terribly time consuming. As computing technology gets stronger and faster every year so do the luxuries of computer animation. This is obvious to anyone who has noticed the amount of digital animation is movies today. I hope this doesn't mean the end to more traditional forms of animation.

My Top 5 Animated Films

Whenever someone mentions animation two works usually come to mind children's cartoons and Walt Disney films. While these animated movies and shows are great in there own right they are not the only work that animators do. I have compiled a short list of some of my personal favorite animated films. All of these films have pushed the boundaries of story telling and had a unique and beautiful art style for their times. So, in chronological order, here are my top 5 animated films:

Yellow Submarine (1968)

This film, directed by George Dunning, was inspired by the music of The Beatles and the psychedelic pop culture of the 60s. The film featured the band going on a fantastic adventure through lands populated by characters from their songs. 

Fritz The Cat (1972)

Developed from a comic by the artist Robert Crumb this animated film became the first ever X-rated animated film. The director Ralph Bakshi was popular in the 70s for his animated films which reflected the drug culture of New York at the time. He later produced the Lord of the Rings animated films and the controversial film Coonskin and the sci-fi cult classic Wizards. 

Akira (1988)

Probably the most visually pleasing film on the list. This anime style set in a futuristic Tokyo where teenage bike gangs rule the streets and the government conducts secret experiments on children gifted with psychic abilities. This film was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and has since its release become a cult classic and received countless nods from the film industry as being one of the greatest animated films of all time. 

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

Another anime styled animated film from Japan. This by the famous animation team Studio Ghibli who has won several awards for their films including an oscar for best animated film for Spirited Away (2002). This film is the follow up to their masterpiece and showcases their unique art style and story telling. 

The Illusionist (2010)

Another oscar nominated film from the french director Sylvain Chomet. The art style alone is enough reason to watch this film again and again. Chomet tells his story with almost no dialogue whatsoever. Using only his art to tell this light-hearted comedy Chomet can reach a global audience without worrying about translation issues. His other film The Triplets of Belleville uses the same technique. These two films are immensely entertaining (even for people not interested in animation) and rival any modern film in terms of story telling and emotional engagement.