tealin: (nerd)
[personal profile] tealin
So ... I was watching Treasure Planet today, trying to get back in the Amelia groove (results of which may be posted relatively shortly-ish), and noticed a couple interesting things:

1. I think Crazy Cartoony Animator Guy, who was on the Milo crew in Atlantis and who I suspect also did the scene where Jim is trying to coax Morph towards him when they're escaping the mutiny, also did a scene of Amelia in her office. I hadn't noticed it before but watching with the sound off puts the animation forward. It looked like he'd been told 'Now, you have to really pull back on this one,' but there's something crazy and cartoony just below the surface. I'm probably vastly overestimating my Name That Animator skills. It's the scene with the line 'Mr Arrow, please escort these two neophytes...' and it hooks up with the one before it which I'm almost entirely certain is a Ken Duncan scene so maybe it's just an anomaly, but ... the mouth ...

2. Who animated her when she's getting up after crash-landing on the planet's surface? Because WOW – holy draughtsmanship, Batman. That's the first scene in the movie where you get a downshot of her head (which is what I was looking for) and then when she stands up and brushes her hair back ... SOLID. It could be the cleanup person, but none of her other cleanup looks like that, and I don't think it's Ken Duncan because the mouth shapes were wrong and it's not his flavour of line. It might be live action reference but if it is, it's very well disguised. I wonder if Sergio Pablos did it ... I want to believe ...

I suspect today's icon is going to get a lot more use in the coming months. Just a hunch.

Oh, and in case I forgot to post this back when I found it (or even if I did, it's worth a rewatch)... best dialogue animation ever:

Date: 2007-05-30 07:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] my2k.livejournal.com
Oh man Sergio Pablos = god. I want to marry this guy.

Also why isn't there a plugin or something for frame-by-frame advance in youtube videos, I can't goddamn look at anything without downloading/converting/whatever, it's making me go insane!!

Date: 2007-05-30 04:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
There is a plugin somewhere that allows you to download YouTube videos, but depending on the version you get you might need to have Flash to view them frame-by-frame. Maybe the Shockwave player will allow you to do that ... there is a sort of back-door way of stop-framing stuff in there sometimes. Bla bla computer babble.

There's always the DVD... that's why I bought the TP DVD. Solely for that. That was before I knew there was rough animation hidden in the bonus features... it takes some digging but you can find it, as my sister did, to my everlasting shame.

Date: 2007-05-30 08:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stevie-roch.livejournal.com
Don't feel bad about nerding out, at least I can hear someone besides myself geeking out over animation. I remember turning to my mom during a preview of Ratatouille and saying, "Man, whoever is animating the rat is AMAZING, because he moves like an ACTUAL RAT," and she just gave me this look that was like, "I have birthed a crazy person."

Date: 2007-05-30 01:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bomburjo.livejournal.com
Treasure Planet is amazing. Still one of my favorites. :)

Date: 2007-05-30 02:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thefordmustang.livejournal.com
I agree with you there! It's a shame it got such bad reviews. I thought it was pretty clever to set "Treasure Island" in an alternate universe with alternate physics (such as you could breathe in space)- the whole solar operation of the ships was cool. I am not in the animation scene and am enjoying reading the tecnical descriptions in these posts, but I did read somewhere that there was some sort of politics at Disney that wound up hurting promotion of the movie.

Date: 2007-05-30 04:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
The only scuttlebutt I heard regarding the promotion had to do with Disney's deal with McDonalds ... Apparently McDonalds' happy meal promotional slate was such that they only had one slot open that year, and Disney was contractually obliged to tie its movies in with McDonalds, so the movie was released right between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and got completely drowned. ... Or at least, had whatever potential audience it had stripped away by the competition. I don't know how well it would have done on its own; contrary to LJ belief it had a lot of problems.

Date: 2007-05-30 10:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thefordmustang.livejournal.com
Ah, thanks for that info. I remember the critic at our alternative weekly "The City Paper" in Baltimordor said something similar to what you wrote that the movie's positioning between other bigname movies would hurt it in the long run. He liked the film but thought the concept would come off as odd to people.

I am one of the people who liked it a lot for the concept, but I know I would be among the minority.

Date: 2007-05-30 10:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
I loved the concept ... which is why I was so displeased with the film. How could PIRATES IN SPACE not turn out cool?? Somehow they accomplished the impossible!

Admittedly, I was spoiled by Muppet Treasure Island being the only Treasure Island adaptation I was familiar with, which at the time I did not know was the best pirate movie ever ... I've said this a thousand times and doubtless will again: despite all the silly singing, mugging for the camera, and throwaway gags, MTI still has more heart than TP, which actively set out to have it. And is more swashbuckling. In (I think) four minutes less.

Date: 2007-05-31 08:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thefordmustang.livejournal.com
The Muppet Treasure Island movie- I never caught that one. I think that was in my "I am a prisoner in Washington DC, Workaholic Capital of the World" phase and did not get out too much. Normally I have caught most of the Muppet stuff. I always liked those movies for the adult humor- y'know, humor that was actually intelligent. I will have to take your word for it.
I did catch on the Cinema Blend site (generally my gurus for animation, sci fi and fantasy film reviews), they had a similar view to yours about Treasure Planet- they loved the space stuff but thought it was not original enough- followed the book too much and, therefore, stuck to a formula used in all Treasure Island since the first film.

Date: 2007-05-30 01:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jesskat.livejournal.com
I think it's really interesting to read about observations like this. I can usually tell different animator styles only on cheap TV productions. In feature animation, I can barely separate Glen Keane's more lively style from all the other characters (in the movies he worked on), so I'm amazed someone else could recognise which independent scenes were done by which animators. I know you have more experience though, so I'm not too jealous, just amazed.

Date: 2007-05-30 02:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gardendoor.livejournal.com
Hee! That's awesome!

Date: 2007-05-30 02:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] azvolrien.livejournal.com
So much love for Doppler there.
I need to watch that film again...

Date: 2007-05-30 10:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
The animation may be, but the cleanup drives me batty sometimes. It's not as bad as Atlantis and it's ... well, the lines look nice ... and people are pretty much on model ... But construction! There should have been a formula for Jim's nose so it didn't float around everywhere. And guidelines as to how many tendons and wrinkles you're allowed to draw. And someone, somewhere, should have pointed out that a character that is all blubber and a character that has an exoskeleton should not be animated like they're made out of the same thing. Squash and stretch is a good thing but it has to be tempered to suit the material being animated. I don't know if Scrope's rubberiness is the animator's fault for doing it in the first place or cleanup's fault for not fixing it, but argh! And the coolness of the initial designs was, for the most part, crudely dampened in the final models.

Rgh.

By the way, I really liked Sword in the Stone when I was young ... which raises an interesting question: does it simply appeal to children, or is it an example of Animation Predestination, and I liked it because was was an animator-in-waiting? Would the childhood appreciation of SitS be a convenient way of finding the Animation Elect? Where's a Puritan when you need one?

Date: 2007-05-30 10:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
Cruelly. Cruelly dampened. Not crudely. That adverb must be saved for what happened to the original characters' models when they were cheapquelized.

Date: 2007-05-30 10:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] twirlynoodle.livejournal.com
... Other characters, I mean. From other movies. At least TP's financial failure exempted it from the roster of cheapquel fodder. Thank the animation genii for that ... a loveable adventure featuring the catdog offspring would have been too much to bear.

Date: 2007-05-30 11:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] method22madness.livejournal.com
I really want to see these sketches of yours!
but you lost me with the specific animator stuff... I never even noticed a difference of their styles, but then again I wasnt really looking.
well, anyway...
Awesome, I love treasure planet, just bought it a few days ago!
*beems with Dr. doppler and captain Amelia love*

"You demonstrate a level of ineptitude which borders on the imbucillic, but I mean that in a very kind way."
"Doctor, i'd love to chat, tea, cake the whole shebang, but I've got a ship to launch and you've got you're outfit to buff up."
XD

Date: 2007-05-31 09:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hobbitnat.livejournal.com
Hey just thought I'd commnet on your most recent journal, cause I can't get ahold of you on e-mail.

So I'm hopefully going to be phoning my aunt by this saturday, and I can ask her about that house. If anything she'll be able to give me some history on it, or the name and maybe some pictures.

And I was looking in your picasa albums, in you Holmes stuff, and I noticed you have a very humorous, picture of Mycoft.... is that from the Enola Holmes book?? I just finshied reading it, and thought I remember seeing a doodle like the one she does, and lo and behold I found it in your picasa!! haha, it's a good book.

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