FitSugar

Geeks We Love: Maia Kayser, Lead Animator at ILM

Kristy Korcz — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:02:44 PST

ILM lead animator, Maia Kayserr, sat down with me last week to give us an inside look at the making of Rango, and while it seems that this particular project was unique in the way it was made, the life of a feature film animator is one that requires a lot of skill, patience, and a good sense of humor.

Maia was first interested in studying medicine, but after seeing Jurassic Park, she was turned on to a career in animation: "I was really fascinated with the idea of making something look so real, basically giving it life on the screen." So she headed to school in Germany to study computer arts; 10 years and 14 films later, Maia got the chance to head up the animation team for the character Beans, and says that Rango has been the most fulfilling experience of her career thanks to the solid relationships that have developed between team members. Find out what she has to say about becoming an animator, "cartoons" for adults, and whether or not ILM will be working on more animated films in the future after the break.

Tron Legacy Marketing? Bring It!

GeekSugar — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:00:33 PDT

Everyone needs a little pick-me-up during the workday; mine are Lady Gaga videos and movie trailers for comic book and sci-fi flicks. On heavy rotation these days is the trailer for the highly anticipated sci-fi film, Tron Legacy. Being totally OK in my world of geekdom, I'll admit to you that just thinking about the movie gets me excited, really excited. While I was too young to watch the original film in the theaters, it became one of my favorites growing up. But as much as I love it, it's starting to look a little dated. Luckily, the clips for Tron Legacy portray a digital world like nothing I've ever seen before. In a word: awesome.

The marketing for the film has been super fun to experience, and often viral. Fans at last year's Comic-Con were treated to a blacklight scavenger hunt that led them to "Flynn's Arcade" and a real lightcycle, news articles from the faux Tron world are being released, and the Disney monorails were transformed into lightcycles. Besides all the fun viral video game hunting you can do, an animated movie poster for Tron Legacy was revealed in Germany recently. All I have to say is that this slick ad campaign is working. Hey Disney, continue to throw these little nuggets of Tron my way until the December release and I'm yours! Check out the sleek animated poster after the break.

Animated Anthony Bourdain Stars in Cartoon Show

YumSugar — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:15:19 PDT

If you can't get enough of Anthony Bourdain, know that there'll soon be even more to love. The food industry's most opinionated figure is now getting his own cartoon series.

The six-part animated web series, titled Anthony Bourdain's Alternate Universe, will reveal Bourdain's "personal and unique view of the world that lives in his imagination." It's arrived out of thin air, even beating Gordon Ramsay's animated show to the punch. The first line in the trailer below? "If you've ever wondered what really goes on inside his head, you can stop."

Actually, I haven't. I already know the bad-boy chef's tiresome schtick, and it's not nearly as esoteric as everybody thinks it is. In some sort of . . . well, alternate universe, perhaps this cartoon would make more sense. Watch the trailer and share your thoughts after the break.

Ogilvy Paris Ads Try to Make Scrabble Cool

TresSugar — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:00:00 PDT

The whole point of Scrabble for word nerd devotees, though, is the game's extreme nerdiness. Instead of going out on a Saturday night, you hang out with friends and/or a sweetie and string together words unrelated outside of their common letters. In this Ogilvy ad from France, animators imagine a whole array of creatures borne of these disparate words that meet up in a colorful cartoon set to punk music. Preaching to the choir - but pretty cute.

We're Off to See the CG-Animated Wizard of Oz

BuzzSugar — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:30:35 PST

Just as we're getting a Three Stooges movie for a new generation of moviegoers, The Wizard of Oz will also be reappearing on the big screen - in CG animation. The $25 million project is backed by a French production company and will be based on Frank Baum's original novel.

The Variety article adds, "The English-language adaptation maintains the tale's main characters and settings. Unlike the MGM classic, however, it's not a musical."

On the one hand, with today's animation technology, the possibilities are limitless for what Oz might look like, and that could be awesome. On the other hand, do we need another Wizard of Oz movie? Is this messing with a classic? What do you think?

Source

First Look: Teaser for Disney's Princess and the Frog

BuzzSugar — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:31:16 PDT

We've been hearing about Disney's first black princess for a while now, and today they've released a brief teaser trailer that introduces us to both princess and frog in the animated Princess and the Frog. The story is described as "a fairy tale centered on a young girl named Princess Tiana who lives in New Orleans' French Quarter during the Jazz Age." Tiana is voiced by Dreamgirls's Anika Noni Rose.

Tiana was dreamed up after several rewrites of the original concept for this princess, and the animators have quite a while to continue working on the movie; The Princess and the Frog will open December 25, 2009. For now, you can check out the teaser trailer (which is strange to watch - yet kinda refreshing - after so many Pixar-y movies) if you

Source

Nerd Boy Takes His 3-D Animation to Court

GiggleSugar — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:00:00 PDT

When a flying snowball pelted the dude below, one of the lenses in his glasses took the hit and broke. Whoops! Not only did nerd boy take this super serious flyby snowballing case to court, he made an animated 3-D reenactment of the "crime" to give the judge and viewers at home some sense of the pain and trauma he endured that dreadful day. (Cuz a one-sided snowball fight is hard to visualize, you know.)

Flashback: Tyra's Vaseline Intensive Scare

GiggleSugar — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:00:00 PDT

It didn't happen very long ago, but Tyra's "big" beauty giveaway already warrants a flashback. She gave every member in her audience - wait for it, wait for it - a crystal bedazzled jar of Vaseline. You're jealous, I'm sure. But Tyra went wild, her audience went wild, and I wouldn't be surprised if the producers had to bring in stink bombs and taser guns to halt the nonsensical madness that followed. Watch the real deal here and then check out the animated interpretation below.

Horton Hears A Who: Sweet and Surreal Seuss

BuzzSugar — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:30:08 PDT

Turning a classic children's story into a mass-market, big-screen movie is always a risky proposition. So many never live up to the promise of the original - or, worse, change it into something unrecognizable. But luckily, Horton Hears A Who is on the other end of that spectrum. 20th Century Fox's animated adaptation balances Seuss's sweet story with stunning visuals, deftly sharing its message ("a person's a person, no matter how small") with only brief interludes of cheesiness.

In case you were more of a One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish fan, here's the story of Horton in a nutshell: In a magical jungle, there lives an elephant named Horton, who one day spots a little speck on a flower. Thanks to his big ears, he can hear the noises coming from the speck and finds a way to communicate with the Whos of Whoville, who have lived their entire lives unaware that their universe was nothing more than a precarious resting spot on a flower somewhere. Horton wants to get the Whos to a safe place, but the jungle's bossy kangaroo doesn't believe Horton (and certainly doesn't want all the other jungle creatures imagining there are worlds on their flowers, too) and tries to thwart his mission. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Whoville - the only person who can communicate with Horton - has some doubters of his own who want to make a fool of him for suggesting their universe is merely a speck. Will the two worlds ever find common ground? Well, it's Dr. Seuss, so I suppose it's no spoiler that the answer is yes - but the way it plays out on film is fun to watch, so

On a visual level, the movie is stunning - not because it's so realistic (that's more Pixar's bag) but exactly because it's so surreal. The landscapes and loopy line drawings look like Seuss brought to life; the saturated colors tell a whole story in themselves, from the leafy greens of Horton's jungle to the spooky grays of the villains' lair. The houses of Whoville are lopsided and loopy, perfect for a land that's just a little off-kilter.

One of the best decisions, in terms of keeping the story true to Seuss's spirit, was to have a narrator (Charles Osgood, better known for his news-anchor job) speak in Seuss's traditional, sing-song-y rhymes. Anytime it seemed like the movie was getting too far from the original story, Osgood's calming voice was there to ground it. Other voices are also highlights: Jim Carrey faded so completely into Horton that I never really connected the actor with the elephant. Steve Carell, on the other hand, simply is the Mayor of Whoville; that character is right in his bumbling, inept wheelhouse. My favorite, surprisingly, was Seth Rogen as Horton's dopey sidekick, Morton; apparently, Rogen is good at playing the buddy in any form.

Horton is clearly shooting to appeal to the whole family, and for the most part, it succeeds: There are enough clever details to keep adults entertained, while the lumbering goofiness of Horton himself kept the kids at my screening riveted. Unfortunately, what doesn't work are the parts of the movie aimed at the pre-teen crowd. Granted, I'm not in that demographic, but I was surprised at how flat those jokes - mostly gags along the lines of "Whoville mayor gets fishbowl stuck on crotch" - fell. And I'm not sure why the movie includes a montage of characters singing "Can't Fight This Feeling." It felt unnecessary, a cheap dig for a last laugh.

But does any of that really matter? In the end, Horton tells a sweet story with fine acting and a quirky visual style that perfectly fits its source, and that's all I ask from a movie like this.

To see the trailer and more clips from Horton Hears A Who check out movies.ivillage.com.

Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

First Look: Wall-E

BuzzSugar — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:30:00 PST

I'm generally of the opinion that everything Pixar touches turns to (shockingly well-animated) gold, so I'm excited that a full trailer has been released for Wall-E, the studio's upcoming release. The film, from Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton, follows a robot named Wall-E who's been left in a post-apocalyptic world for 700 years, sorting trash all alone. Alone, that is, until a probe sent to check on Earth brings him Eve, a darling girl robot with whom he falls in love.

At first, I was a little worried about Wall-E; the concept for the movie was developed around the time of Toy Story, and I thought the lonely-robot idea was showing its age. But I've steadily gotten more confident about it, first because of this ingenious Web site for Buy n Large, the company that owns everything in the future, and now because of the trailer. There's very little dialogue in the movie - Wall-E just makes mechanical noises - and I'm curious to see how that holds up over a full feature, but if anyone can do it, Pixar can.

Plus, this trailer is worth a look just for the adorable bit with Wall-E and Pixar's Luxo Jr. mascot at the start. The movie is out in June 2008, and to watch the trailer, just

Source