Friday, September 26, 2014

Just Crazy

But hey. It's an art form.

'The Boxtrolls' And Why It's Crazy To Do Stop-Motion Animation

“It’s the worst way to make a movie,” said [producer Travis] Knight. “It makes no sense. You’re cutting your hands and contorting your body. But it’s an incredible art form that is so rare and so beautiful.” ...

“Stop-motion combines all the worst aspects of live and stop-motion,” said director Anthony Stacchi at Comic-Con. “It’s very much a performance. We might do one rough pass of moving the puppets and a rehearsal but then we really have to do the whole scene in one go.” ...

Tell us something we don't know.

The reason that more studios don't do more stop motion isn't because it's difficult. Or time consuming.

It's that the big studios have made lots more money with CGI animated features than the other versions of animation. If our fine entertainment conglomerates made bigger grosses from stop motion and/or hand-drawn animation, then the multiplexes would be full of them.

But CGI animated features are the coins of the realm, so that's what Disney, Fox-News Corp, Sony and Viacom tend to mint. There are, of course, the occasional stop-motion/hand-drawn feature from Europe (and elsewhere), but these are small-budget releases that mostly earn small grosses. Niche, boutique features, if you will. (We'll leave off the specialty items derived from tv shows like The Simpsons or Sponge Bob Square Pants).

Until the market changes, CGI features will be what most companies focus on.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

All that work for a not very good kids cartoon And parents are not taking their kids to see this because it looks very off-putting.

The craftsmanship is admirable, even though the taste is highly questionable. Everything is equally un-appealing, and there's an endless supply of ugly design work.

But the problem is the story and lack of strong, identifiable characterizations. Often times, it feels as though it's making itself up as it goes along, and grows tiresome and weary along the way.

Site Meter