Look on (a teaser of) our Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

The studio released the first teaser for Frozen 2 this week. It’s always fun and interesting to see people’s reactions when they get their first look at what we’ve been working on, sometimes after a year or more of active production on the film. If you weren’t one of the 116.4 million views in the first 24 hours, check out the teaser below:

I started at Disney Animation in January of 2013, during the middle of production on the first Frozen. I was working on Big Hero 6, so I didn’t get my first taste of working with these characters until the short Frozen Fever in late 2014, and even then only for about a month before I hopped onto Zootopia. It’s been fun to spend more time with this world and these characters that generate so much excitement and anticipation from audiences, and I can’t wait for everyone to see the finished product.

I sometimes wrestle with my role as a tiny part of the largest capitalist entertainment conglomerate the world has ever known, but the thing that always wipes that feeling away is the joy and laughter of audiences seeing our movies for the first time.

My California Adventure, Day Twenty-Six: Moonrise Kingdom

The film at this week’s studio screening was Wes Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom. It was very funny and gorgeously shot, and I appreciated the absolute sincerity of all of the performances. A film with an ensemble cast like this can become cheap or silly if it’s clear that the actors are in on some kind of joke (I’m looking at you, Ocean’s Twelve). The two child leads were great, and while I wouldn’t immediately label Moonrise as Anderson’s best work, I think I can confidently place it in the top half of his seven features.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a sculpting class taught by Ron Pekar, a former college professor and sculpting instructor to various animation studios and other organizations. Ron’s work is featured in many places, and his most well-known is probably the twelve-foot bronze of the equine mascot Traveler on the campus of the University of Southern California. Since this was the first class, Ron had us start simply – we sculpted a mushroom.

Ron’s class was fun, and I’m looking forward to working on more advanced stuff in the coming weeks. Tomorrow is the story pitch meeting with all the interns and mentors, so everyone will finally know what we need to get working on to make our short happen.

Young Mr. Lincoln

To celebrate Independence Day (also, just because we wanted to) Jeff and I watched Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) last night.

Directed by John Ford, the film tells the story of the early law career of Abraham Lincoln.  It borders on sympathetic character-worship (Ford was admittedly a big fan of Lincoln) but never quite crosses that line.  Lincoln is shown cheating, intimidating others, and doing what’s necessary to resolve conflicts, so Ford doesn’t present him as a complete angel.  He is ambitious, but humble; shrewd, but honest; tough, but merciful.  Plus, Henry Fonda is simply the spitting image of our sixteenth president:

There were a couple of interesting thoughts spurred by this film.  In the middle of the movie, Lincoln and other residents of Springfield are at a July 4 parade.  Veterans of the War of 1812 pass by, and then veterans of the Revolutionary War of 1776.  It makes sense, but it’s still strange to think that by the time of young Lincoln (1830s) the country was really only one or two generations removed from revolution.  Stranger still was the point Jeff made – that when this film was being made (in the 1930s), there were people still living who had been around in Lincoln’s time.  It made me feel more connected to these parts of our country’s history that I so often think of as ‘ancient.’

The shot compositions in this film are simple but powerful, and can in a single frame tell you everything you need to know about the scene.  For example, there’s a scene where Abe is dealing with two men squabbling over petty damages:

Lincoln totally dominates our view, and everything from his expression to the hat sticking out of the frame to the shrinking silhouette of one of the clients lets us know that Abe is in total control of this situation.  Or take this shot from the courtroom sequence:

Again, Abe dominates.  He looks relaxed, and he’s hunched down as if the frame cannot contain his larger-than-life character.  He’s the darkest part of the shot, the negative-space center of our attention.  Or how about this one from the end of the film:

I’m pretty sure only Batman has a more recognizable silhouette.

As Jeff said, it’s no Bicycle Thieves, but Young Mr. Lincoln is pretty darn good and really funny to boot – Abe is a witty guy, and he has no shortage of one-liners to diffuse the tension in a situation.  It’s a great John Ford film, a great Old Hollywood film, a great Lincoln film, a great Independence Day film…just a great film, well worth watching.

By the hammer of Thor!

(Spoiler alert: this post discusses details of the plot and characters in the 2011 film Thor.)

Being a geek (predominantly of the tech/movie variety, though there’s definitely some comic-book geek in me too), I am well aware of the franchise-mongering that Marvel Studios has been snowballing since 2008’s Iron Man.  Fortunately, they made all the right moves with that installment, hiring a director and star  capable of making the property come alive in a contemporary setting.  Ensuing installments have been, well, less successful.  The Incredible Hulk, while better than 2003’s mishandled, inconsistent Hulk, didn’t really manage to rise above the level of “entertaining.”  Iron Man 2 was even more obviously ad-libbed and off-the-cuff than its predecessor, and wasn’t helped by its mess of a plot.  I will admit, though, that I squealed like a twelve-year-old girl at a Bieber concert when I saw the after-the-credits teaser for Thor that featured S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Agent Coulson uncovering Thor’s hammer Mjolnir in the New Mexico desert.

Then, I thought about it for a second.  Marvel had done such a careful job of creating a modern-day, science-and-tech-heavy universe with their films…they did know that Thor was literally a Norse god that used magic, right?  I couldn’t really fathom how they were going to fit mythical, magical Asgard into the high-tech movie universe.  Then, they threw me another curveball – I found out Kenneth Branagh was on board to direct.

In case you weren’t aware, Kenneth Branagh (KB) has directed/starred in many Shakespeare film adaptations, including Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000).  He’s a serious, heavyweight actor and director, and one of the last people I would expect to direct a comic-book film like Thor.  Apparently, though, something about the story interested him enough to assemble a pretty great cast and embellish Thor with enough Shakespearean flourish to ruffle the Queen’s collar.

The film is epic in scope, with a Lord-of-the-Rings style ancient-battle introduction that establishes Asgard, Odin, and the Frost Giants all in a deft, dazzling, five- or ten-minute sequence.  The set designer did a pretty decent job of combining the old-world Arthurian look of comic-book Asgard with more technological elements, in keeping with the film’s handling of the Asgardian world as a place of advanced alien technology indistinguishable from magic (the film addresses this directly with some dialogue between Thor and Jane Foster, as well as some Einstein name-dropping for good measure).

The performances, on the whole, are great.  Chris Hemsworth does a great job of portraying Thor’s journey from brash arrogance to humble self-sacrifice.  Tom Hiddleston is outstanding as Loki, who ends up being the most sympathetic, tragic villain the Marvel film universe has produced thus far.  Idris Elba makes an imposing Heimdall, and the Warriors Three might as well have walked off the pages of the comic book.  Anthony Hopkins brings the necessary gravitas to Odin (with one inexplicable growl that I assume Branagh left in because he thought it was hilarious), and Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson is actually given something to do this time besides annoy Tony Stark.

I really only had one problem with Thor – the artificial-feeling romance between Thor and Jane Foster.  Jane herself isn’t handled terribly well (though she’s definitely more interesting than, say, The Incredible Hulk‘s Betty Ross) and she seems to fall head-over-heels for Thor for no apparent reason (unless his explanation of wormholes and different realms counts as sweet-talk).  However, the film’s action scenes were more than enough to make up for it – Thor makes quick work of Frost Giants in a myriad of awesome ways, and brawls pretty well as a mortal on Earth, too.

Far more interesting is the dynamic between Thor, Loki, and Odin.  At its root, this is a film about fathers and sons, and the things they try to do for each other.  Odin teaches Thor a priceless lesson about humility by banishing him to Earth and making him earn the right to wield his power.  Loki’s master scheme is an attempt to win his father’s approval.  Thor and Loki’s sibling rivalry isn’t fueled by jealousy but by a desire for respect.  These issues make Thor the most human Marvel film, if not quite the best (that title still belongs to Iron Man).

Oh, and lest I forget to mention it, the film is peppered with more franchise-building Avengers references, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it promise from Thor to aid S.H.I.E.L.D., yet another Nick Fury cameo and an appearance by Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye.  That, paired with the upcoming release of Captain America: The First Avenger, is a sure sign that Marvel’s doing their darnedest to whip anticipation for next year’s Avengers film (helmed by nerd-director du jour Joss Whedon) into a frenzy.  I just hope that, after seven years of buildup (the film was first announced in 2005), The Avengers is worth the wait.  Treatments like Thor make me optimistic about that possibility.

Video overload (also, Umberto D.)

Over spring break I created twenty 20-second videos for my VIZA 612 class.  Some of them are terrible, some are kind of cool.  You can watch them all here.

In addition to working on my ray tracing program and rolling out a new render-queueing system for the Lab, I actually managed to watch another film from my list – Vittorio de Sica’s 1952 film Umberto D. de Sica’s earlier Bicycle Thieves is one of my favorite films, so I’d been looking forward to seeing the film he claimed to be the most proud of.

It was an interesting journey to go on, because at the beginning of the film I felt like de Sica and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini were trying their hardest to make me feel sorry for the title character by pointing out his troubles almost ham-fistedly.  The dialogue, shots of people reacting with disdain to Umberto, and most especially the demeanor of Umberto’s landlady all rather loudly cried, “this man’s life is crumbling and you should feel sorry for him!”  I remember Bicycle Thieves being (or at least feeling) more nuanced in its handling of its characters’ poverty, and evoking a much more natural sympathetic response.

However, I got over this feeling of forced sympathy as the film went on and experience plenty of real emotion, especially as the degree of Umberto’s attachment to his dog, Flike, became clear.  Even the housemaid with whom he shares an almost fatherly attachment is ignored and spoken harshly to when Flike goes missing, at her most vulnerable moment in the film.  It’s sad and touching despite the sometimes odd-feeling interactions between Umberto and Flike (played by a trained canine actor) that seem like something more fitting to a 60s Disney movie.

It’s not quite on the same level as Bicycle Thieves for me, but Umberto D. is definitely a great film worth checking out; I plan on watching it again at the next available opportunity.