The Odyssey Video Collection of
Computer Animation:
The Good, The Bad and the Brilliant
Reviewed by Judith Cockman
Quicktime from Turbulance (636k)
Oh, what fun
the animators of the last decade and a half are having! Those who are creating
with computers are taking us on journeys into the center of our minds'
eyes and, the best of them at least, are stirring the emotional pot that
simmers within all humans.
Call me naive, but some of the artwork still amazes me. As entire computer-animated
feature films come hurtling into view, I guess I should be a little more
world-weary about the results. But I cannot wrap my head around the fact
that a mouse, keyboard and silicone chips are the capable tools of such
mastery as offered in some of Odyssey's collection. Odyssey Video has recently
released through Sony Music Video four new titles: Computer Animation
Classics, Computer Animation Showcase, Cyberscape and Turbulence.
Grab Your Popcorn
Some of these techno Van Gogh's manipulate the tools of their burgeoning
trade with true glee. As witnessed in Computer Animation Classics,
the pioneers of computer animation set the standard in the '80s with imagination
and heart.
If it's your idea of a good time to sit down with popcorn in front of computer
animation, the Computer Animation Showcase and Classics videos
offer up morsels of entertainment in three-dimensionality that can give
the Road Runner a run for his money. Not in silliness necessarily, but
certainly in satisfaction. A mix of funny and touching, both videos are
great rides through the world of brilliant animation.
Artistry and Skill Not Necessarily Synonymous
Sadly, not all videos are created equal. Where artistry and skill alone
part ways is annoyingly evident in the offering of award-winning Beny Tchaicovsky's
Cyberscape.
Tchaicovsky is unarguably a terrific technician. He may even occasion a
point of view or two, albeit in a deafeningly repetitious manner. But he
certainly doesn't deliver the "surreal history of the evolution of
human life and thought" that the Odyssey marketers would have us believe.
If indeed, there is cerebral candy to be eaten here, it's two-cent licorice,
not fine chocolate.
Tchaicovsky's lack of emotional commitment to the work is tiring. One can
only witness so many robotic men marching to the tune of the same drummer.
True, their heads may change ... we have apple heads, block heads, globe
heads, cow heads; none-the-less, they all march with similar purpose and
an excrutiating lack of humanity. Not to mention imagination.
Music Is The Critical Component
Peter Bernstein's music only makes Cyberscape worse, I'm afraid
- a synthesized attempt dominated by the dreaded sound of a drum machine
that directly mirrors the one-dimensionality of the video. I could have
sworn I was hearing the same riff over and over. It's tinny and tedious
and does very little to illuminate the imagery. Odyssey calls it "mesmerizing."
I call it mind-numbing.
The one song in the piece, "A Different World," is embarassingly
immature. The lyrics, such as, "A perfect island in the stream, Where
life is kind and love is free," would be a proud addition to a seventeen
year-old aspiring song writer's repertoire, but has no place in a $15.00
video touted as a "journey into our undiscovered self."
The best animation proffered by these Odyssey tapes weaves seamlessly with
the music. In fact in some, such as Beyond The Walls, produced by
animusic and the grand finale on the Computer Animation Showcase
video, the music becomes the storyteller and the animation an organic outpouring
celebrating it. Composed by Wayne Lytle, each note is made stunningly visual
through an amalgam of highly personalized drums, horns and laser beams.
The raison d'etre of the final offering on the Computer Animation Classics
video is, in fact, the song itself - Mick Jagger's Hard Woman, a
ground breaking music video produced in '86. The magic of this animation
allows a series of spirals to actually ooze sexuality in the form of a
female Mick alter ego, highlighting one of the delights of the more brilliant
of these shorts ... that of creating mankind from abstract form.
Storytelling and Laughter, We Want To Be Touched
For all of it's majesty of skill, the characters of Tchaicovsky's Cyberscape
elicit no recognition of the human experience. Contrast that with the mere
line drawings of Steve Segal's Dance of the Stumblers rendered to
music by Rimski Korsakov on Computer Animation Classics. With glorious
simplicity, we are allowed to applaud ourselves through the interpretation
of these squiggles, recognizing ourselves as adept and graceful, athletic
and balletic even as we stumble and trip in the effort. We may hurt ourselves,
but we support each other, and turn nonsense into whimsy in the process.
Ultimately, it's the superiority of the storytelling fused with skill that
divides the fine from the brilliant in this wonderful medium. The animator
that is moved by his or her story and can equally translate the human experience
into the artwork triumphs with their work. A great example of this is Tony
de Peltrie on the Classics video: a baby grand on a gorgeous
hardwood floor with true stage lighting and Tony, a washed up, enormously-chinned
lounge player tickling the ivories as he silently reminisces about the
good old days. As his voice-over tells the tale, his magnificent face lives
it. What a remarkable evocation of deeply felt memory. What great music.
Until, in sadness and fatigue, he's turned to stone and wind-chipped away
until no part of him is left behind but the piano ... on a gorgeous hardwood
stage, beautifully lit, awaiting the next entertainer to sit down to its
spell.
Of course, the humorous anecdotes are appreciated in the midst of the contemplative
and both the Classics and the Showcase videos have their
share. A short, but infinitely sweet example on the Showcase video,
is a commercial for a potato chip product called Bluebirds. The ominous
introduction of a shark slicing through the water evolves into a funny
episode of a penguin showing off on water skis, unexpectedly being launched
into a precarious and bumpy ride, while being wildly cheered and applauded
with scores of 9's and 10's by a platoon of penguins on a glacier peak.
The piece has humor, great storytelling and human characterization all
wrapped up in great animation.
Turbulence: In A League Of It's Own Quicktime
(636k)
The fourth offering from this Odyssey library, the first Prize Winner of
Images du Future, Turbulence by Jon McCormack, stands in a league
of it's own. It succeeds where Cyberscape failed in that it offers
great depth behind it's showmanship. If the imagery is often ambiguous,
it's meaning, somehow, is not. It excites us on a primal level that we
understand intuitively. Even as McCormack offers us insight into the human/divine
condition, he honors its mystery.
The entire video is rife with provocative imagery. A mere example is that
of alien-looking fixtures, opening and spinning, transporting us to an
existential field of universal thought processes. Through the marriage
of the artistry to the sound track, we are connected with human energy
fields receptive to enlightened sonar systems in space.
Each segment of Turbulence, and the additional two shorts, ENS
and TISA , has a fluidity that sails easily from concept to
concept, titillating our thought processes even as it regales us with glorious
imagery and music. Photographic images are fused into the piece, and the
music and soundtrack are truly integral to both the images and the intent.
"Outside knowledge begotten in earnest," the voice-over intones,
and we believe her.
The ending of Turbulence , a desert regeneration that sounds dry
even as it promulgates remarkable creation, displays a desperation of energy,
an urgent need to be born. A metaphor, perhaps, for the dreams of it's
author.
Computer Animation Classics. 27 films by various artists, 55 minutes.
Computer Animation Showcase. 21 films by various artists, 46 minutes.
Cyberscape by Beny Tchaicovsky, 45 minutes.
Turbulence by Jon McCormack, 30 minutes.
All four titles are available for $14.98 each from Sony Music Video.
Judith Cockman, a Canadian currently living in Los Angeles, is a playwright,
award-winning documentary writer, actor and journalist. She has written
about animation for The Toronto Star, Kidscreen Magazine and SPLAT!,
a behind-the-scenes-type television series about the world of animation.
