Monster House

Post by **Dacey** » July 27th, 2006, 3:13 pm

Spaz, you come and go around here, don't you?

Post by **spaz** » July 27th, 2006, 3:34 pm

i get time between hangovers.

Post by **askmike1** » July 27th, 2006, 5:01 pm

Ben wrote:I actually think Monster House should have been rated R to make that difference and also allowed the filmmakers to go all out on their horror sides.

I think the PG rating is adequate. In all honesty, the movie is not all that scary. I think a PG-13 would have been going overboard, let alone R. I know that in the theater I was in, all the kids (all under 9) loved it and were laughing the whole way though.

Post by **bawpcwpn** » July 28th, 2006, 2:24 am

As much as I enjoyed Monster House - a concern of mine was the bouncing basketball at the start. It didn't look normal. Something like that should have been keyframed.

Post by **Ben** » July 28th, 2006, 8:49 am

Here's a great piece on how they made it (not sure about the "giant leap forward in animation" though):

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/co ... 1002914155

Post by **spaz** » August 1st, 2006, 3:15 am

off topic but, i saw the latest "Pirates" is was great. ILM has finally put it's hat back in the ring (no help from the x real estate secretaries that now run the company) producing high quality computer graphics after many years of terrible star wars crap. i believe John Knoll is responsible for the latest success; specifically the "Davey Jones" character; as is a fellar named Hal Hickel. i do not know this boy, but , i know Knoll. the last time i saw him, i was amazed to see that not only does he now look like George Lucas but he sounds like him. i read a great anthropology paper once relating to conditions where people who "hang out together" actually accrue traits of the domineer. as i have always said , ILM was a prime example of a socio-economic study of human behavior; with the best and worst that humans can offer. apart from this , i must commend Knoll on crutching ILM back into an Oscar position while being Teinemin squared. ILM used to be a great , creative company. it is now run by idiots and a sad shadow of what it used to be. John Knoll is the last standing soldier of the original ILM Army. "don't take any wooden fortune cookies , Johnny."

spaz

Post by **ShyViolet** » August 1st, 2006, 4:05 am

ILM was a prime example of a socio-economic study of human behavior; with the best and worst that humans can offer. apart from this , i must commend Knoll on crutching ILM back into an Oscar position while being Teinemin squared. ILM used to be a great , creative company. it is now run by idiots and a sad shadow of what it used to be.

On Survey Hell last year a lot of artists b****ed about that place. I think that's one of the reasons they shut that survey down.

About Monster House and other such projects....a lot of negative reactions:

http://cganimation.blogspot.com/2006/07 ... ciety.html

Cartoon Brew discusses it as well...supposadly some "critics" like James Lipton have said how the motion-captured faces are a big improvement over "cartoony" faces and can express things the cartoon faces can't....

THAT'S what I mean when I say most critics don't know anything remotely about film much less art....and James Lipton is a shining example of that!
-

dialogue was a bit forced - like when your dad is trying to act cool in front of your friends - almost embarrassing to listen to

Wow James, I had that same reaction when seeing the commercials.

Post by **Ben** » August 1st, 2006, 4:50 am

spaz - I agree on Pirates 2, thought ILM's stuff was just superb. They played Jurassic again here last weekend and I ended up watching it (again) and still think that what you guys did there is top league.

I mean, everything CGI done since then has the rubbery, non-real textured CG look about it, but those dinos, man, look better than Winston's animatronics in the same scenes.

For me, the closest things that have come since, TEXTURE wise, have been Gollum and Kong, and a few Yoda shots in Clones.

Post by **ShyViolet** » August 1st, 2006, 5:13 am

They played Jurassic again here last weekend and I ended up watching it (again) and still think that what you guys did there is top league.

I agree...every time I see that film....feels like the first time.

That first part with the brontosorous was amazing! "That's a...dinosour!" Sometimes watching that scene I feel that he's going to step on me!

The dinos in King Kong were O.K., but I was expecting them to be even better than the '93 Jurassic dinos. In my opinion, they just weren't as convincing.

Post by **Dacey** » August 1st, 2006, 3:09 pm

We're talking about "King Kong" now?

Post by **spaz** » August 1st, 2006, 4:40 pm

sorry guys. i know i'm responsible for getting us off the topic. now back to our regularily scheduled topic. just one last statement. Joe Letteri did the dino skin shaders back in 92-93; this is why gollum or goolum or whatever bloody name it was, looked so good.

Post by **ShyViolet** » August 2nd, 2006, 3:15 am

sorry guys. i know i'm responsible for getting us off the topic.

Don't feel bad...it's my fault as well.

Post by **ShyViolet** » August 2nd, 2006, 5:05 am

I think this was posted on the Brew on July 25th:

(BTW, I hold no malice towards Monster House--it looks reasonably entertaing, except for some scatological stuff. I only posted these articles of extreme reactions because they make for good discussion.

)

Posted by JERRY at 12:15 PM
A Monster of a Review

A prominent Pixar animator emailed me last night with the subject header "This is real" and a link to this must-read-to-believe SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE review of MONSTER HOUSE. I don't know anything about the reviewer, Mick LaSalle, except that I'll never be able to take another word this guy writes seriously. It's one thing to have a subjective view of a film—it's another to be so glaringly ignorant of the art form you're discussing to completely dismiss one hundred years of accomplishments and proclaim something so obviously inferior as a technological advance. Here is the most egregious part of LaSalle's review:

Animated films always had the advantage of being able to go anywhere and show anything, to defy the laws of physics and follow the imagination as far as it could go. But they never had the ability to show the human face. There was never any point to a close-up in an animated film -- there was never really anything to see. But with the motion-capture process, real actors give their performances with computer sensors attached to their face and body, and that recorded information becomes the template for the computer animation. If an actor is bug-eyed, the character will look bug-eyed. Moreover, if the actor is thinking or is full of doubt, the technology will be able to render subtle qualities of pensiveness or doubt in the animation.

Imagine what Disney might have done with this in the creation of the Seven Dwarfs. Imagine all the things that will be done with this in the future. "Monster House" looks like the ground floor of something important.

So the only question that remains is, Who's going to break the news to Ollie Johnston, the last of the Nine Old Men, that all those classic Disney features he animated on were a waste of time because he never had the ability to show an emotive human face? Poor guy, if he'd only had motion-capture to help him animate

Post by **James** » August 2nd, 2006, 9:25 am

This is actually causing a huge uproar in the animation blog community.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/31/an ... rians.html

Post by **Meg** » August 2nd, 2006, 10:25 am

adsafsoaihet WHAT.