bishoplynx
03-20-2007, 02:33 AM
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00141/the_illusionist385_141680a.jpg
copy/pasted from TimesOnline article.
Cut the cute
European animators are challenging the feel-good, fluffy-edged creations of Hollywood. Ian Johns reports
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Hollywood again dominates the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature with Cars, Happy Feet and Monster Housevying for glory this year. But a future contender may be taking shape far away from the CGI world of gabby gas guzzlers, dancing penguins and menacing buildings. Sylvain Chomet, the French animator of the Oscar-nominated Belleville Rendezvous, is making his next film in Scotland.
The Illusionist is based on an unmade 1956 script by the French comedian Jacques Tati, who charmed cinemagoers in the 1950s and 1960s as the gangly near-silent figure in a smashed hat and crumpled raincoat who was bemused and tripped up by daily life. He was the forefather of Mr Bean, so it’s no surprise to find Rowan Atkinson currently filming a Bean sequel on the French Riviera, causing holiday-resort havoc as Tati did in M. Hulot’s Holiday.
Now the late Tati is again walking with his loping stride, albeit in animated form. In The Illusionist, he’s a magician thrown by rock’n’roll and a Scottish girl who believes his magic is real. “Tati wanted to move from purely visual comedy and try an emotionally deeper story,” Chomet explains as he shows me round his studio — several rooms in a terraced building on George Street in Edinburgh.
Halfway through its four-year production, the film now has a storyboard of completed scenes filling up a corridor wall. In one room, illustrators are sketching characters ranging from a quizzical Tati to a Hebridean drunk. In another, smoke is digitally added to a train’s arrival in 1959 Edinburgh. Like Belleville Rendezvous, this revels in its quirky, hand-drawn detail and characterisation. It couldn’t be more different from the Hollywood formula of family-friendly plots, fuzzy animal characters and starry voices that are still prevalent in such forthcoming films as Surf’s Up (moreperky penguins), Ratatouille (more rats, after Flushed Away) and Shrek the Third (more fairytale spoofs).
“Animation can be mature but too many cartoons have the same shiny bigeyes style so kids only know one taste and can’t tell the difference between good food and junk food any more,” says an exasperated Chomet. “Look at Pixar’s Cars. It makes cars look cute when they’re destroying the planet. It’s awful. The company’s now a corporation and everything they do looks the same.”
Chomet and his business partners, his wife Sally and Bob Last, have recently been trawling Europe to expand their 30-strong team as The Illusioniststeps up production. “There’s a lot of talent but it’s hard to find the right people,” says Sally Chomet. “Students come with this almost institutionalised preconception of animation so show us Disneyesque drawings when what we need to see is their take on the world.” (To be fair, this is a problem even Disney is aware of; see overleaf.)
The Illusionist is budgeted at about £10 million. For Last that means “it allows for an auteur’s vision like Sylvain’s but the film is also aimingto be more than just a critical success”. Last sees European animated features currently split between low-budget, edgy work and large-scale productions that need a broad appeal.
You can see the extremes of this budgetary scale in the Animated Exeter festival, which offers a range of workshops, talks, exhibitions and screenings. At one end is The Chris-ties, an award-winning film of minimalist, psychopathic family vignettes by Phil Mulloy. At the other end is Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Invisibles, a £48 million French production combining live action and busyCG sequences (and also currently on general release) for the tale of a boy looking for treasure in a punky Lilliputian world. With its American setting and starry vocal cast (David Bowie, Madonna, Robert De Niro), it seems determined to challenge Hollywood’s domination.
“Pixar and Disney have shown what’s possible, so why not?” asks a bullish Besson, whose CV of moderately eccentric, safely generic films includes La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element and, as a producer, countless action B-movies. “I’m not trying to better anyone else, I’m just doing what feels right,” he says of Arthur, which offers Norman Rockwell-like 1950s Americana and a darker animated palette than Pixar. “I don’tthink the film is particularly American or particularly French, it’s just me,” he maintains.
So far, Arthurhas done decent business in Europe but hasn’t lit up the US box-office. Along with another disappointing US performer, the German-made fairytale spoof Happily N’Ever After,it suggests that blending in with Hollywood product isn’t the way forward.
“Hollywood does not need other regions of the world trying to copy or imitate it, just as there would be no point in Hollywood copying Europe,” says Serge Bromberg, the director of the annual Annecy International Animation Festival. “Independent European productions will never find their market in the USA or Japan, but are successful in most European countries.” He cites the forthcoming Persepolis, based on a memoir ofgrowing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution, as an example of distinctive storytelling that retains a strong local identity. He also admires Christian Volckman’s French sci-fi thriller Renaissance, which strikingly combines the retro noir of Sin City, the future shock of Blade Runner and the motion-capture software that propelled The Polar Express.It looks like a graphic novel come to life.
“Americans come along with their big films that cost a lot of money, and invade everyone,” Volckman says. “But it’s very good that they exist. [The French] cannot do it like the Americans. We have no choice — we have to find a way of being different.”
The European quest to be different includes Max & Co, a Franco-Swissadventure about a half-boy, half-fox, that’s using stop-frame animation. Based in a Swiss box factory, it boasts 27 sets, 70 puppet characters and an international team of animators whose credits include Toy Story, Chicken Run and Corpse Bride. “Switzerland is a small market but a lot of money is available for the right project,” notes Benoit Dreyer, the film’s Swiss producer, “so it’s a good place to launch productions.”
Increased computer power and cheaper software also means that it’s now viable to make animation for niche audiences. That’s why we’re getting such productions as the British-Norwegian Free Jimmy, about a stoned circus elephant, and Princess, a brutal Danish story about a lapsed priest avenging the death of his porn-star sister. As Sarita Christensen, the producer of Princess,says:“We can’t make films which tell heavy stories any more because nobody will watch them, that’s why animation has become so interesting.”
Bromberg wonders if European animation might benefit from its need for international finance: “Let’s hope globalisation will be positive in this matter. Each country interacts with the other as it draws on technical skills, experience and training from all parts of the world.” But not all collaborations work out. Witness the recent split between Aardman Animation and DreamWorks after the box-office failures of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away. Arthur Sheriff, a spokesman for Aardman, declares it “fantastic news” as it frees the company from the pressures of making only big-budget blockbusters.
Chomet gave up adapting a children’s book for Universal under such pressure. “As the budget got bigger, the studio wanted a less dark, more commercial story and it wasn’t what I wanted to make,” he says. Adds Sally: “We had barely finished a character sketch and its potential as a plastic toy was being assessed.”
Chomet is far happier with The Illusionist.As he shows me a sequence in which Tati is performing his magic act, Chomet gazes at it with the affectionate enthusiasm of a proud father. He leaves me with the impression that European animation can pull something magical out of the hat
copy/pasted from TimesOnline article.
Cut the cute
European animators are challenging the feel-good, fluffy-edged creations of Hollywood. Ian Johns reports
undefined
Hollywood again dominates the Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature with Cars, Happy Feet and Monster Housevying for glory this year. But a future contender may be taking shape far away from the CGI world of gabby gas guzzlers, dancing penguins and menacing buildings. Sylvain Chomet, the French animator of the Oscar-nominated Belleville Rendezvous, is making his next film in Scotland.
The Illusionist is based on an unmade 1956 script by the French comedian Jacques Tati, who charmed cinemagoers in the 1950s and 1960s as the gangly near-silent figure in a smashed hat and crumpled raincoat who was bemused and tripped up by daily life. He was the forefather of Mr Bean, so it’s no surprise to find Rowan Atkinson currently filming a Bean sequel on the French Riviera, causing holiday-resort havoc as Tati did in M. Hulot’s Holiday.
Now the late Tati is again walking with his loping stride, albeit in animated form. In The Illusionist, he’s a magician thrown by rock’n’roll and a Scottish girl who believes his magic is real. “Tati wanted to move from purely visual comedy and try an emotionally deeper story,” Chomet explains as he shows me round his studio — several rooms in a terraced building on George Street in Edinburgh.
Halfway through its four-year production, the film now has a storyboard of completed scenes filling up a corridor wall. In one room, illustrators are sketching characters ranging from a quizzical Tati to a Hebridean drunk. In another, smoke is digitally added to a train’s arrival in 1959 Edinburgh. Like Belleville Rendezvous, this revels in its quirky, hand-drawn detail and characterisation. It couldn’t be more different from the Hollywood formula of family-friendly plots, fuzzy animal characters and starry voices that are still prevalent in such forthcoming films as Surf’s Up (moreperky penguins), Ratatouille (more rats, after Flushed Away) and Shrek the Third (more fairytale spoofs).
“Animation can be mature but too many cartoons have the same shiny bigeyes style so kids only know one taste and can’t tell the difference between good food and junk food any more,” says an exasperated Chomet. “Look at Pixar’s Cars. It makes cars look cute when they’re destroying the planet. It’s awful. The company’s now a corporation and everything they do looks the same.”
Chomet and his business partners, his wife Sally and Bob Last, have recently been trawling Europe to expand their 30-strong team as The Illusioniststeps up production. “There’s a lot of talent but it’s hard to find the right people,” says Sally Chomet. “Students come with this almost institutionalised preconception of animation so show us Disneyesque drawings when what we need to see is their take on the world.” (To be fair, this is a problem even Disney is aware of; see overleaf.)
The Illusionist is budgeted at about £10 million. For Last that means “it allows for an auteur’s vision like Sylvain’s but the film is also aimingto be more than just a critical success”. Last sees European animated features currently split between low-budget, edgy work and large-scale productions that need a broad appeal.
You can see the extremes of this budgetary scale in the Animated Exeter festival, which offers a range of workshops, talks, exhibitions and screenings. At one end is The Chris-ties, an award-winning film of minimalist, psychopathic family vignettes by Phil Mulloy. At the other end is Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Invisibles, a £48 million French production combining live action and busyCG sequences (and also currently on general release) for the tale of a boy looking for treasure in a punky Lilliputian world. With its American setting and starry vocal cast (David Bowie, Madonna, Robert De Niro), it seems determined to challenge Hollywood’s domination.
“Pixar and Disney have shown what’s possible, so why not?” asks a bullish Besson, whose CV of moderately eccentric, safely generic films includes La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element and, as a producer, countless action B-movies. “I’m not trying to better anyone else, I’m just doing what feels right,” he says of Arthur, which offers Norman Rockwell-like 1950s Americana and a darker animated palette than Pixar. “I don’tthink the film is particularly American or particularly French, it’s just me,” he maintains.
So far, Arthurhas done decent business in Europe but hasn’t lit up the US box-office. Along with another disappointing US performer, the German-made fairytale spoof Happily N’Ever After,it suggests that blending in with Hollywood product isn’t the way forward.
“Hollywood does not need other regions of the world trying to copy or imitate it, just as there would be no point in Hollywood copying Europe,” says Serge Bromberg, the director of the annual Annecy International Animation Festival. “Independent European productions will never find their market in the USA or Japan, but are successful in most European countries.” He cites the forthcoming Persepolis, based on a memoir ofgrowing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution, as an example of distinctive storytelling that retains a strong local identity. He also admires Christian Volckman’s French sci-fi thriller Renaissance, which strikingly combines the retro noir of Sin City, the future shock of Blade Runner and the motion-capture software that propelled The Polar Express.It looks like a graphic novel come to life.
“Americans come along with their big films that cost a lot of money, and invade everyone,” Volckman says. “But it’s very good that they exist. [The French] cannot do it like the Americans. We have no choice — we have to find a way of being different.”
The European quest to be different includes Max & Co, a Franco-Swissadventure about a half-boy, half-fox, that’s using stop-frame animation. Based in a Swiss box factory, it boasts 27 sets, 70 puppet characters and an international team of animators whose credits include Toy Story, Chicken Run and Corpse Bride. “Switzerland is a small market but a lot of money is available for the right project,” notes Benoit Dreyer, the film’s Swiss producer, “so it’s a good place to launch productions.”
Increased computer power and cheaper software also means that it’s now viable to make animation for niche audiences. That’s why we’re getting such productions as the British-Norwegian Free Jimmy, about a stoned circus elephant, and Princess, a brutal Danish story about a lapsed priest avenging the death of his porn-star sister. As Sarita Christensen, the producer of Princess,says:“We can’t make films which tell heavy stories any more because nobody will watch them, that’s why animation has become so interesting.”
Bromberg wonders if European animation might benefit from its need for international finance: “Let’s hope globalisation will be positive in this matter. Each country interacts with the other as it draws on technical skills, experience and training from all parts of the world.” But not all collaborations work out. Witness the recent split between Aardman Animation and DreamWorks after the box-office failures of Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away. Arthur Sheriff, a spokesman for Aardman, declares it “fantastic news” as it frees the company from the pressures of making only big-budget blockbusters.
Chomet gave up adapting a children’s book for Universal under such pressure. “As the budget got bigger, the studio wanted a less dark, more commercial story and it wasn’t what I wanted to make,” he says. Adds Sally: “We had barely finished a character sketch and its potential as a plastic toy was being assessed.”
Chomet is far happier with The Illusionist.As he shows me a sequence in which Tati is performing his magic act, Chomet gazes at it with the affectionate enthusiasm of a proud father. He leaves me with the impression that European animation can pull something magical out of the hat