Films
Sundance Selections.
Bill Plympton's latest independent animated feature film, I Married
a Strange Person, has been selected for screening at the Sundance Film
Festival, January 15-25 in Park City, Utah. Selected from over 700 entries,
Plympton's is the only animated feature of the 16 films in the "Dramatic
Competition" category, and of the total 103 showcased features in
the festival, which is known as a key venue for independent films. Plympton's
first feature film, The Tune was screened at Sundance in 1992, but
it was not featured in competition (In addition, several of his shorts
have been featured over the years, including How to Kiss, Nosehair and
How to Make Love to A Woman.) . Also included in the features selection
is Orgazmo, a live-action feature directed by South Park co-creator,
Trey Parker. In the short film program, 68 films have been selected, including
the animated films The Broken Jaw by Chris Shepherd and The Corky
Collection, a compilation of five MAD TV shorts by Corky Quackenbush.
DreamWorks Catches Aardman's Chicken Run. Aardman Animations
has finally lined up a U.S. distributor for their first full-length animated
feature, Chicken Run. It was announced in December that DreamWorks
SKG has signed on to co-finance, and distribute the film in the U.S. and
most international territories outside of Europe. In addition, DreamWorks
will be the exclusive worldwide licensing and merchandising rights holder
for the film. The other co-financier, French company Pathe, which has been
involved in the production since it went into development at Aardman over
two years ago, will distribute the film in Europe. Chicken Run is
currently in production in Bristol, England, under the direction of Aardman
co-founder Peter Lord and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park. Jake Eberts
is producing the film under Pathe's Allied Films banner. DreamWorks principal
Jeffrey Katzenberg said the studio is "thrilledexcitedand honored"
to be releasing this anticipated film. In addition to the tireless persistence
of Katzenberg, Aardman, winner of three Oscars for animated shorts, was
wooed by the likes of Warner Bros., Disney and Fox for distribution rights
to the debut feature film, but they have been cautious in finding the right
U.S. partner. DreamWorks expects to release the film in early 2000, which
will make it either their fourth or fifth animated feature release (Shrek
is also slated for 2000), after Prince of Egypt (November 1998),
"Antz" (Spring 1999) and The Road to El Dorado (holiday
1999).
Geri's Game. © Pixar.
Pixar Plays Geri's Game. Pixar Animation Studios, creator of the Academy Award
winning Toy Story, screened its new animated short film "Geri's
Game," along with a collection of other Pixar shorts, November 25,
26 and 27 at Laemmle's Royal Theatre in Santa Monica, California.
Animation World Magazine got a sneak peek at the program at which Pixar chairman and CEO Steve Jobs, and chief technology officer/executive vice president Ed Catmull spoke about the studio's commitment to short films as a way of nurturing its talent, developing technologies and fostering new ideas as vehicles for "tentacle development," noting that John Lassetter created five short films "on the way to Toy Story." Geri's Game is Pixar's first short film since they turned the focus to commercials in 1989. The film is a 3-D, CGI, animated vignette depicting an endearing old man playing chess against himself. The technical goal of Geri's Game was to depict a compelling, fully dimensional human character with complex facial animation, and the realistic movement of clothing. To achieve this, the studio developed sophisticated programs to calculate cloth dynamics and skin motion simulation (Subdivision Surfaces). In this capacity, the film is an astounding achievement over the human figures depicted in the 1995 Toy Story. How fast technology advances!
The 4 minute and 15 second film contains over one minute of credits, proving its completion was no small task. In addition to director Jan Pinkava and producer Karen Dufilho, more than 80 people, from animators and technical directors to "render wranglers" were involved in the production. Pixar, which now employs 375 people, is currently in production on Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, and in development on another feature in their ten-year, five-picture deal with Disney.
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