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I think that can be said about most stories with a non-tragic hero. Except that it's relatively unique to the animation field. The thing is, Pixar's process i

by froo 18y ago

I think that can be said about most stories with a non-tragic hero. Except that it's relatively unique to the animation field. The thing is, Pixar's process is more story focussed than other studios, A typical Pixar film usually has a 4 year production cycle in which the first two of those are spent primarily on writing and rewriting the story to get the "feel" right. Even then, they have no problem with changing the story at the 11th hour. Case in point - WALL-E's ending was originally very different with WALL-E originally saving EVE from the trash compactors (essentially larger versions of WALL-E for irony). After the film was complete and was screened in Portland, Andrew Stanton changed the ending to what it is today. The story flows better. Compare that to something like Dreamworks or Blue Sky Studios. Dreamworks focusses on making films which are more technically proficient and aimed at children (Kung Fu Panda was astounding from a technical standpoint) and something like Horton Hears a Who or Ice Age are heavily stylised films. Dreamworks are more focussed on the business side, rather than the entertainment side of the process. I first saw Toy Story as a child. Looking back on it as an adult, I remembered that I had a pretty good grasp on the plot and characters as a kid, so I was assuming it had been a simplistic film. When I watched it again, I saw lots of things I didn't notice as a kid. That's Lasseter's influence as one of the Pixar co-founders. This style has permeated throughout the whole studio. Creativity comes first at Pixar. Ironically, he was actually fired from Disney in the 80's for trying to introduce 3D to their production pipeline and Disney ended up buying Pixar for billions... They've built up a pretty solid momentum now, and it would take a series of bombs (like Disney after the mid-90s) to shake it. Funnily enough that's a result of Katzenberg leaving Disney after a disagreement with Michael Eisner (then CEO of Disney) and he ended up co-founding Dreamworks. (Though I'm kind of on the fence about Cars.) Yeah, each of the studios has those little outliers. Monsters vs Aliens has very many adult jokes in it that children just wont get. If you haven't yet seen it, go see it. For example: This is a quote from one of the US Military Advisors says to the President in a secret strategic meeting to deal with a giant alien robot. "We need our top scientific minds on this project... Get India on the phone!" I absolutely laughed my ass off at that joke and I'm sure most people didn't "get it".

tumult 18y ago
Except that it's relatively unique to the animation field. I still disagree with this :) I agree with the rest of your points though. I should probably check out some of these Dreamworks movies I've passed up over the last couple of years. I didn't like Shrek so I was kind of turned off to them.
- froo 18y ago
  I still disagree with this :) Well, I guess my argument is really based off watching all of the films from all studios with the directors commentaries turned on and taking notes of what they emphasise and then looking at all of the information in aggregate. There will always be cases where there are outliers. I'm working on a version of a 3D animation startup of my own to apply with to YC later this year so I take notice of these kinds of things (and actually have many pages of handwritten notes when studying animation in detail as a hobby). Anyway, that's neither here nor there If you want to watch some good Dreamworks Animations, I would recommend the Madagascar's (very reminiscent of the traditional cartoon style, squash and stretch is prevalent in these films), Kung Fu Panda (visually stunning) and Monsters vs Aliens (just plain funny)
- unalone 18y ago
  I think that the biggest difference between the two companies is that Dreamworks doesn't attempt to make lovable characters. Shrek in the original movie is an exception. They make identifiable characters, but rarely are their characters deep and human. Froo and I argued Kung Fu Panda versus Wall-E on IRC, if I recall correctly, and while I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the animation world as he is, it's pretty hard to say that Jack Black in KFP is a more relatable character than Wall-E. Pixar makes people that you really feel like you know. Dreamworks is willing to make caricatures and as a result, their movies feel shallower from a story point of view. Even if Pixar follows a formula, it's a complex formula with deep permutations so that Mr. Incredible and Woody and Nemo's father and Wall-E are all very different people, even if the one recurring thread is that they all feel real to us. This is actually the one problem I had with Annie Hall, which I saw recently for the first time: Woody Allen has a brilliant style, but the characters he made all seemed like caricatures, and so despite being a genius movie, I didn't love it. (I thought of this because back when I was a kid and there were two camps of children, the Ants kids and the Bug's Life kids, I was an Ants kid, thought Woody Allen in that was terrific, and thought the movie was stylistically and conceptually beyond Bug's Life, but going back to them I realize that Bug's Life, for all that, still has the more realistic characters, the ones that feel real, and so Ants's clever and detailed world falls apart at that one big seam.)

by froo 18y ago

tumult 18y ago

Except that it's relatively unique to the animation field. I still disagree with this :) I agree with the rest of your points though. I should probably check out some of these Dreamworks movies I've passed up over the last couple of years. I didn't like Shrek so I was kind of turned off to them.

froo 18y ago
I still disagree with this :) Well, I guess my argument is really based off watching all of the films from all studios with the directors commentaries turned on and taking notes of what they emphasise and then looking at all of the information in aggregate. There will always be cases where there are outliers. I'm working on a version of a 3D animation startup of my own to apply with to YC later this year so I take notice of these kinds of things (and actually have many pages of handwritten notes when studying animation in detail as a hobby). Anyway, that's neither here nor there If you want to watch some good Dreamworks Animations, I would recommend the Madagascar's (very reminiscent of the traditional cartoon style, squash and stretch is prevalent in these films), Kung Fu Panda (visually stunning) and Monsters vs Aliens (just plain funny)
unalone 18y ago
I think that the biggest difference between the two companies is that Dreamworks doesn't attempt to make lovable characters. Shrek in the original movie is an exception. They make identifiable characters, but rarely are their characters deep and human. Froo and I argued Kung Fu Panda versus Wall-E on IRC, if I recall correctly, and while I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about the animation world as he is, it's pretty hard to say that Jack Black in KFP is a more relatable character than Wall-E. Pixar makes people that you really feel like you know. Dreamworks is willing to make caricatures and as a result, their movies feel shallower from a story point of view. Even if Pixar follows a formula, it's a complex formula with deep permutations so that Mr. Incredible and Woody and Nemo's father and Wall-E are all very different people, even if the one recurring thread is that they all feel real to us. This is actually the one problem I had with Annie Hall, which I saw recently for the first time: Woody Allen has a brilliant style, but the characters he made all seemed like caricatures, and so despite being a genius movie, I didn't love it. (I thought of this because back when I was a kid and there were two camps of children, the Ants kids and the Bug's Life kids, I was an Ants kid, thought Woody Allen in that was terrific, and thought the movie was stylistically and conceptually beyond Bug's Life, but going back to them I realize that Bug's Life, for all that, still has the more realistic characters, the ones that feel real, and so Ants's clever and detailed world falls apart at that one big seam.)