Shrek2 *is* a PDI film and totally done in Redwood City.
I love it when people speak with such certainty, when they're actually blowing smoke.
Virtually all of the story department on Shrek 2 was in Glendale at DreamWorks. Two of the three directors came from DreamWorks. And 20 of the 50 character animators were from DreamWorks and worked in Glendale. I was one of those folks, as were four of DW's supervising animators (James Baxter, Dan Wagner, Pres Romanillos, and Serguei Kouchnerov).
As for the original Shrek, all the production was done up at PDI, but most of the story department was in Glendale, and JK was VERY involved in the development and execution of that film, as he is on all the films DW produces.
Cheers, Kevin! Finally... I see the smoke blowing non-stop by a few individuals who have absolutely NO CLUE as to what they are talking about, but choose to pretend they know it all (no names mentioned). Thanks very much for adding your input, and putting a few of the myths these know-it-alls have in their heads to rest.
Now... Who is going to argue with Kevin now and tell him how wrong HE is too??? I mean, he only works AT DREAMWORKS... What could he possibly know?
—
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Cheers, Kevin! Finally... I see the smoke blowing non-stop by a few individuals who have absolutely NO CLUE as to what they are talking about, but choose to pretend they know it all (no names mentioned). Thanks very much for adding your input, and putting a few of the myths these know-it-alls have in their heads to rest.
Now... Who is going to argue with Kevin now and tell him how wrong HE is too??? I mean, he only works AT DREAMWORKS... What could he possibly know?
Well Kevin may work AT DREAMWORKS but, not being at PDI, you can only know from what you hear. It's just like me talking about the development of SharkTale when I wasn't directly involved with seeing all of the departments and what they did.
Mr. Blue, as someone working at PDI, you of all people should know how much influence and control come from Glendale. Of course you're correct that most of the production and development on Shrek 2 happened at PDI. But saying Shrek 2 was "a PDI film and totally done in Redwood City" was a gross misrepresentation.
By the way, I was up at PDI for 2 months of training, so it's not as if I "only know what I hear." I think those kinds of statements foster an "us vs. them" attitude between PDI and DreamWorks. Fortunately, I don't think most people at either facility feel that way, and the interaction between the two crews enhances both.
As Kevan says, overall, it was an unusual but incredibly successful partnership in making this film. I think Madagascar will be another successful partnering (man that movie is looking great!).
Hey Kevan, I don't think we met when I trained (Feb and Mar of '03). When did you start?
Mr. Blue, as someone working at PDI, you of all people should know how much influence and control come from Glendale. Of course you're correct that most of the production and development on Shrek 2 happened at PDI. But saying Shrek 2 was "a PDI film and totally done in Redwood City" was a gross misrepresentation.
That is why I corrected myself in the last post.:)
By the way, I was up at PDI for 2 months of training, so it's not as if I "only know what I hear." I think those kinds of statements foster an "us vs. them" attitude between PDI and DreamWorks.
I'm not trying to foster that at all. But you must admit that *any* development company that one works for, they will know more about what's going on "under the hood of production" than employees working at the producing studio.
As Kevan says, overall, it was an unusual but incredibly successful partnership in making this film. I think Madagascar will be another successful partnering (man that movie is looking great!).
Not to keep this going, since I think we're pretty much in agreement now, but I guess I'm still confused by your distinction between "developing company" and "producing studio." PDI is a part of DreamWorks. Most of the story development happened in Glendale. Virtually all of the technical development work happened up north. So what kind of development are you talking about? Most of the production also happened up north, although a major chunk of the animation was produced in Glendale, so what do you mean by production?
I suspect you're in one of the departments where everything was done at PDI, and of course that's going to give you a certain view of things. Having worked at both places, I think the "client" and "vendor" model you're suggesting goes too far.
Not to keep this going, since I think we're pretty much in agreement now, but I guess I'm still confused by your distinction between "developing company" and "producing studio." PDI is a part of DreamWorks. Most of the story development happened in Glendale. Virtually all of the technical development work happened up north. So what kind of development are you talking about? Most of the production also happened up north, although a major chunk of the animation was produced in Glendale, so what do you mean by production?
What I mean by "development" is really "production". Development is where all the work gets done as you mentioned, but no cutting to reels or marketing. Production though, in the film industry is exactly this - but adds cutting to reels, etc.. To split the two up, I used "development".
Yes, PDI is a part of Dreamworks. But the "development" teams are indeed seperate, otherwise we'd all be in the same building.:) No one up in the Bay worked on SharkTale.
Anyway, here's to that bonus pool!
LOL! That's in the bag already! I'm waiting for it to pass Finding Nemo!!:)
Beg pardon? Development and production are the same thins with the exception of cutting to reels and marketing? What exactly do you do at PDI? I don't mean to be condescending or anything, but that does not sound like something that anyone who has been around in this industry for any length of time would say. These two areas are two totally seperate entities. Development happens long before any storyboards are done, any animators are hired, or any editing is even dreamed of. Correction. Maybe a couple animators are hired in development stage in order to put together a demo in order to get investor interest and pre-sales.
Anyways... In here, you need ot be very careful on your terminology, as there are many of us who will call you on it, thinking that you are talking out of your arse. (Again, I don't mean to sound condescending or anything)
Cheers
—
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Beg pardon? Development and production are the same thins with the exception of cutting to reels and marketing?
Let's just say that my terminology is different than most people. Let's just say that most of my career, I developed *in* production. But yes, you are correct, they are different.
I should say that the order is: Development (Story, Art, Tools, etc..)->Production (Modeling, Rigging, Lighting, Surfacing, etc.., which will almost always include new developments and troubleshooting of tools)->Post-production(making reels, etc..)->Distribution (marketing, putting into theatres, etc..).
Oh, c'mon, we all know that Gollum was created by that actor, Andy Whatsizname. Why do you animator types always want to take credit for real artist's work?
(In case there's any question, I'm being sarcastic. Just trying to keep this thread going, and get another non-Shark Tale tangent started.)
I just saw the trailer for Sharkslayer the other week when I saw Shrek 2, which I loved by the way even though I really didn't like the first Shrek. I don't know much about the story of SS, seems like kind of like the Brave Little Tailor. What really bothered my was some of the character designs but mostly the fact that it didn't see to take place in water. I understand that it takes place in the ocean, but it didn't LOOK like it. It just looks like it's air. The sharks also seemed to have kind of a velvety texture to them which kind of looked odd to me. I guess setting the movie in water will eliminate the problems with weight that they, PDI or Dreamworks or whoever, seems to have.
I'll wait to pass judgement on SS till I see it which I plan to. As for Delgo? I just watched the trailer, and wow, I'm not spending my ten bucks to see that thing. The characters looked like the scary female apes from Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. I know apes, and they weren't very cute at all. :D
The Ape
—
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
it's unusual to be part of such an animation team - some of whom we see exclusively on a TV screen! it has worked really well in my opinion, and will continue to do so on future productions....
the contribution of the DW guys was incredibly important to success of shrek 2, and their input must be lauded.
I love it when people speak with such certainty, when they're actually blowing smoke.
I only speak with such certainty because I worked at PDI on Shrek2.:) Perhaps we misunderstand each other, but I wouldn't go as far as to say "blowing smoke". I admit that I shouldn't have said, "all done" in Redwood City though..:(
Virtually all of the story department on Shrek 2 was in Glendale at DreamWorks.
Not all the story was done in Glendale. We had storyboard people there as well. But yea, I would agree that most of the design was done in Glendale. To me, that's still not the meat of production though (which is where I was coming from).
Two of the three directors came from DreamWorks. And 20 of the 50 character animators were from DreamWorks and worked in Glendale. I was one of those folks, as were four of DW's supervising animators (James Baxter, Dan Wagner, Pres Romanillos, and Serguei Kouchnerov).
You are speaking of the shared pipeline. Ok, I'll give you that..but I would still say that Shrek2 was mostly developed at PDI. And the character animators could work on the movie because some people may know how to work in PDI's EMO package. They could probably also animate in Maya. But most people down there aren't familiar with the custom tools of PDI yet.
other than his initial statement that Dreamworks was not involved in the production of Antz or Shrek.
This is true (assuming that "production" means art concept, modeling, rigging, animation, lighting, fx, etc..).
No, no, no. By "production" I mean production; not just the imagery, but the entire production of the film: conceptualizing, writing, planning, producing, directing, casting, acting. Often a distributor's role in production is merely the financing, but it appears that Dreamworks had a much more significant role. Let's not forget that the idea for Antz came from Dreamworks, and it's likely much of the writing and directing talent came from Dreamworks as well (although I'm speculating on that last bit).
But I actually liked 'Final Fantasy,' animation-wise. I thought Squaresoft did a great job making realistic humans (maybe not the movements, but the rendering, like the skin and hair was really nice). If you look at the segment they did for the 'Animatrix'...wow, it's awesome. I think people were really driven away from the 'Final Fantasy' movie because when we think of the usual plots of the 'Final Fantasy' games, we think of swords and magic, not science fiction, spaceships, and alien ghosts as in the movie.
Hmm. I think people were driven away from Final Fantasy by the absolutely hideous script and acting...regardless of the quality of the animation. A bad plot treatment can't be helped by good visuals...In my opinion...then again....The second and third Matrix movies made money..and so did episode II...hmm....
Horrible story drove me away from Final Fantasy. Not to mention the fact that they might as well have used real actors, as there was no damned reason to animate them (poorly). It does not prove anything to anyone if you do mo-cap and it looks like human-esque movement. Maybe the average Joe was impressed by it, but not me.
Now, back to Shark Tale.
—
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Now these are some horrible character designs (apologies to anybody who worked on this if you're reading this ) ...
The worst offender here has got to be the Martin Scorcese ugly faced with thick eyebrows blow fish, he just looks like a mess. And let's not even talk about how the fish seem to use their fins as "legs" to stand up.
Jeez, I've not seen you in some time, Augusto. How the hell are ya?!
Yeah... BRILLIANT character designs... My favortites are the Scorcese and the Angelina Jolie ones. Absolutely HORRIBLE. I too am sorry to anyone who worked on it, but I also realize that it is out of your hands, this kind of thing. Whatever puts the brea dand butter on the table...
Cheers
—
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Bukack! I think the worst design is the main character! Looks like they took a Finding Nemo fish concept and stuck an ugly lanky body on it. Doesn't even look anatomically correct...
Hey Wade, I've been kinda busy at work and was doing some political cartooning on the side on my free time. So haven't posted around here for a while, nice changes to the message board!
Cartoon characters that aren't anatomically correct?!? Oh, the horror, the horror.
Judging a film based on ugly, airbrushed stills from the marketing department, instead of looking at the actual animation? Yeah, now that makes sense.
I've seen the animation, haven't seen the whole movie, but goodness gracious, I should be allowed to form an opinion before deciding to pay money to see the movie, no?
Yeah, I hated the character designs for Antz and Shrek as well, but they turned out to be pretty good movies anyway. At least they're taking chances with their designs, which is more than I can say for Pixar and its cutesy-pie marketing franchises.
the character designs are the same...the animation is good...but it doesn't help the ugly character designs...no offense to anyone. Actually I really like the shark designs. But the fish are all freaky. :D
Didn't mean any offense -- of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. It just seems to me that Shark Tale is getting criticized because the concept is somehow too similar to other productions (esp. Nemo), and at the same time criticized because the designs are too different from what has been done before.
Having seen whole sequences of Shark Tale, I know the designs work just fine. I think people tend to see what they expect to see, and if this film had another studio's name on it, suddenly we'd have a whole different set of expectations and judgments.
I know when I first saw the Nemo designs, I thought they looked like bathtub toys with big cute Keane eyes. Those thoughts vanished when I saw the film. Animation designs can be judged apart from their intended context (i.e., as moving characters within a given story), but I think it's like analyzing a baseball pitcher's throwing motion, and not how many people he strikes out.
I have no problem with what you're saying, however, I have to judge things based on the information I have. I can't predict the future.
As it stands, I don't like these characters visual appearance at all, nor does the underwater animation impress me at all.
I haven't compared this to Nemo, although it is bad for the people who worked on this to release it after Pixar did such a great job on it.
When the movie is released, we'll see what the final judgement is. As of now, a trailer and screen caps are all I have to go, and it doesn't look promising. I'm also not into the the whole underwater mobsters stuff, but we'll see ...
For the record Cybercyst, there is a difference between animation and the texture and shading of a movie. I agree, the the rendering looked nice, but the animation was awful. I did like the shot where she was weightless in her ship in the begining of the moive, thats because they couldn't Mo-cap it, lol. Anyway, just a slight distinction. :)
All I think of when I see the sharks in "Shark Tale" is Jabber Jaw. But thats just me. Or is it? :D I think the story might be alright for this movie, if it is what I think it will be. But Kevin, I've seen shots from the movie animated, and I still don't think the characters work. You say tomato, I say tomato. Oh wait, that doesn't work with text, lol.
The Ape
—
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Sorry to keep coming back to Final Fantasy, but I really think they did a good job on this and it was sadly overlooked by the critics...
For the record Cybercyst, there is a difference between animation and the texture and shading of a movie. I agree, the the rendering looked nice, but the animation was awful. I did like the shot where she was weightless in her ship in the begining of the moive, thats because they couldn't Mo-cap it, lol. Anyway, just a slight distinction. :)
I agree; the animation sucked. But the textures were awesome...the imperfections in the skin, hair, etc. made the humans realistic on a level no one had done before, and personally I haven't seen yet (although Princess Fiona from 'Shrek' comes close).
...Squaresoft has almost perfected the art of their textures on Animatrix' 'Final Flight of the Osiris'...
At first, Kevan, I was a bit miffed, thinking it was a Nemo rip-off. But then I thought about it a bit, and remembered that in animation, trends develop, and everyone tends to jump on the band wagon. In the early '90's, it was dinosaurs. Everything was dino this, dino that... Now the trend is fish (weird, cuz I would have thought fish to be the most uninteresting creatures on the face of the planet to make an animated film about... why not platypii, or Anteloupe?).
Anyways, as much as I hate the designs (and I really do hate them), I hope the film does well. Always good to haev animated films do well. Good for us bums, anyways...
Cheers
—
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
But then I thought about it a bit, and remembered that in animation, trends develop, and everyone tends to jump on the band wagon. In the early '90's, it was dinosaurs. Everything was dino this, dino that... Now the trend is fish (weird, cuz I would have thought fish to be the most uninteresting creatures on the face of the planet to make an animated film about... why not platypii, or Anteloupe?).
...That's a good idea for a thread: if you could animate anything in the world for a 3D animated feature and/or series, what would it be (and what would be the story)?
I'm with Kevin, I like Pixar's designs, but they are more cutesy. I for one am glad DW/PDI are doing something different . They definitely do have a creepy vibe but it feels they are more catered towards adults.
I did kind of forget about the designs after seeing the trailer, which actually looks like it might be kind of cool.
I personally thought the Will Smith fish looked a little like " The Incredible Mr Limpet" the rest look like the fish in Monty Python's "The Meaning of life" .
How they had their faces on the fish.
Fish might be boring but I think everyone (especially kids) enjoy them, mostly to the fact that you can make some amazing and very colorful worlds.
Not to mention it probably was the next step for 3d animation to see what they could do with water under water.
see these guys havce been working on their under water film too.
I like how the sharks look, kinda like muppets...
I also like final fantasy on the dvd, where they had the characters do the michael jackson thriller dance. I laughed real hard at that.
Ha! yes sir... (o:
[b][size=3]Matt Shumway
Character Animator
Rhythm and Hues Studios
www.mattshumway.com
www.enigmathemovie.com
[/b][/size]
I love it when people speak with such certainty, when they're actually blowing smoke.
Virtually all of the story department on Shrek 2 was in Glendale at DreamWorks. Two of the three directors came from DreamWorks. And 20 of the 50 character animators were from DreamWorks and worked in Glendale. I was one of those folks, as were four of DW's supervising animators (James Baxter, Dan Wagner, Pres Romanillos, and Serguei Kouchnerov).
As for the original Shrek, all the production was done up at PDI, but most of the story department was in Glendale, and JK was VERY involved in the development and execution of that film, as he is on all the films DW produces.
Cheers, Kevin! Finally... I see the smoke blowing non-stop by a few individuals who have absolutely NO CLUE as to what they are talking about, but choose to pretend they know it all (no names mentioned). Thanks very much for adding your input, and putting a few of the myths these know-it-alls have in their heads to rest.
Now... Who is going to argue with Kevin now and tell him how wrong HE is too??? I mean, he only works AT DREAMWORKS... What could he possibly know?
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Well Kevin may work AT DREAMWORKS but, not being at PDI, you can only know from what you hear. It's just like me talking about the development of SharkTale when I wasn't directly involved with seeing all of the departments and what they did.
-M
Mr. Blue, as someone working at PDI, you of all people should know how much influence and control come from Glendale. Of course you're correct that most of the production and development on Shrek 2 happened at PDI. But saying Shrek 2 was "a PDI film and totally done in Redwood City" was a gross misrepresentation.
By the way, I was up at PDI for 2 months of training, so it's not as if I "only know what I hear." I think those kinds of statements foster an "us vs. them" attitude between PDI and DreamWorks. Fortunately, I don't think most people at either facility feel that way, and the interaction between the two crews enhances both.
As Kevan says, overall, it was an unusual but incredibly successful partnership in making this film. I think Madagascar will be another successful partnering (man that movie is looking great!).
Hey Kevan, I don't think we met when I trained (Feb and Mar of '03). When did you start?
That is why I corrected myself in the last post.:)
I'm not trying to foster that at all. But you must admit that *any* development company that one works for, they will know more about what's going on "under the hood of production" than employees working at the producing studio.
Agreed.:)
-M
Not to keep this going, since I think we're pretty much in agreement now, but I guess I'm still confused by your distinction between "developing company" and "producing studio." PDI is a part of DreamWorks. Most of the story development happened in Glendale. Virtually all of the technical development work happened up north. So what kind of development are you talking about? Most of the production also happened up north, although a major chunk of the animation was produced in Glendale, so what do you mean by production?
I suspect you're in one of the departments where everything was done at PDI, and of course that's going to give you a certain view of things. Having worked at both places, I think the "client" and "vendor" model you're suggesting goes too far.
Anyway, here's to that bonus pool!
What I mean by "development" is really "production". Development is where all the work gets done as you mentioned, but no cutting to reels or marketing. Production though, in the film industry is exactly this - but adds cutting to reels, etc.. To split the two up, I used "development".
Yes, PDI is a part of Dreamworks. But the "development" teams are indeed seperate, otherwise we'd all be in the same building.:) No one up in the Bay worked on SharkTale.
LOL! That's in the bag already! I'm waiting for it to pass Finding Nemo!!:)
-M
Beg pardon? Development and production are the same thins with the exception of cutting to reels and marketing? What exactly do you do at PDI? I don't mean to be condescending or anything, but that does not sound like something that anyone who has been around in this industry for any length of time would say. These two areas are two totally seperate entities. Development happens long before any storyboards are done, any animators are hired, or any editing is even dreamed of. Correction. Maybe a couple animators are hired in development stage in order to put together a demo in order to get investor interest and pre-sales.
Anyways... In here, you need ot be very careful on your terminology, as there are many of us who will call you on it, thinking that you are talking out of your arse. (Again, I don't mean to sound condescending or anything)
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Let's just say that my terminology is different than most people. Let's just say that most of my career, I developed *in* production. But yes, you are correct, they are different.
I should say that the order is: Development (Story, Art, Tools, etc..)->Production (Modeling, Rigging, Lighting, Surfacing, etc.., which will almost always include new developments and troubleshooting of tools)->Post-production(making reels, etc..)->Distribution (marketing, putting into theatres, etc..).
Oh Btw, I said, I work"ed" at PDI.;)
-Mr. Blue
This was the most entertaining discussion ever. I love how 90% of it had nothing at all to do with sharktale. awesome!
Gotta agree with Kev tho.. from what I've seen, it actually looks like a fun movie.. and there's some great animation in there!
hello boy schleif, welcome to the AWN forum! allow me to do the introductions...
j, AWN..... AWN, j!
don't worry, i won't tell anyone that you helped create Gollum. :)
good, yeah, keep that to yourself. :)
Oh, c'mon, we all know that Gollum was created by that actor, Andy Whatsizname. Why do you animator types always want to take credit for real artist's work?
(In case there's any question, I'm being sarcastic. Just trying to keep this thread going, and get another non-Shark Tale tangent started.)
lol!
yep, we were just digital makeup artists. :D
Sooooo... back to the topic :)
I just saw the trailer for Sharkslayer the other week when I saw Shrek 2, which I loved by the way even though I really didn't like the first Shrek. I don't know much about the story of SS, seems like kind of like the Brave Little Tailor. What really bothered my was some of the character designs but mostly the fact that it didn't see to take place in water. I understand that it takes place in the ocean, but it didn't LOOK like it. It just looks like it's air. The sharks also seemed to have kind of a velvety texture to them which kind of looked odd to me. I guess setting the movie in water will eliminate the problems with weight that they, PDI or Dreamworks or whoever, seems to have.
I'll wait to pass judgement on SS till I see it which I plan to. As for Delgo? I just watched the trailer, and wow, I'm not spending my ten bucks to see that thing. The characters looked like the scary female apes from Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. I know apes, and they weren't very cute at all. :D
The Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
hello kevin, welcome to the AWN forum!
it's unusual to be part of such an animation team - some of whom we see exclusively on a TV screen! it has worked really well in my opinion, and will continue to do so on future productions....
the contribution of the DW guys was incredibly important to success of shrek 2, and their input must be lauded.
thanks
k
Thank you, Kevin. Finally someone who (presumably) knows what he's talking about.
So now we know that Shrek 1 was a Dreamworks/PDI collaboration.
What's the scoop on Antz?
there's seems to be an awful lot of them in the trailer. being an italian/american it always bums me out when i see the mafia stereotypes.
i hope the script rises above the lowest common denominator in the humor department.
I only speak with such certainty because I worked at PDI on Shrek2.:) Perhaps we misunderstand each other, but I wouldn't go as far as to say "blowing smoke". I admit that I shouldn't have said, "all done" in Redwood City though..:(
Not all the story was done in Glendale. We had storyboard people there as well. But yea, I would agree that most of the design was done in Glendale. To me, that's still not the meat of production though (which is where I was coming from).
You are speaking of the shared pipeline. Ok, I'll give you that..but I would still say that Shrek2 was mostly developed at PDI. And the character animators could work on the movie because some people may know how to work in PDI's EMO package. They could probably also animate in Maya. But most people down there aren't familiar with the custom tools of PDI yet.
-M
No, no, no. By "production" I mean production; not just the imagery, but the entire production of the film: conceptualizing, writing, planning, producing, directing, casting, acting. Often a distributor's role in production is merely the financing, but it appears that Dreamworks had a much more significant role. Let's not forget that the idea for Antz came from Dreamworks, and it's likely much of the writing and directing talent came from Dreamworks as well (although I'm speculating on that last bit).
I think I'm gonna get blasted for this...
But I actually liked 'Final Fantasy,' animation-wise. I thought Squaresoft did a great job making realistic humans (maybe not the movements, but the rendering, like the skin and hair was really nice). If you look at the segment they did for the 'Animatrix'...wow, it's awesome. I think people were really driven away from the 'Final Fantasy' movie because when we think of the usual plots of the 'Final Fantasy' games, we think of swords and magic, not science fiction, spaceships, and alien ghosts as in the movie.
Visit My Online Portfolio!
Hmm. I think people were driven away from Final Fantasy by the absolutely hideous script and acting...regardless of the quality of the animation. A bad plot treatment can't be helped by good visuals...In my opinion...then again....The second and third Matrix movies made money..and so did episode II...hmm....
Bah. Darn the public! :D
Ender
Horrible story drove me away from Final Fantasy. Not to mention the fact that they might as well have used real actors, as there was no damned reason to animate them (poorly). It does not prove anything to anyone if you do mo-cap and it looks like human-esque movement. Maybe the average Joe was impressed by it, but not me.
Now, back to Shark Tale.
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Yes, back to SharkTale.
Now these are some horrible character designs (apologies to anybody who worked on this if you're reading this ) ...
The worst offender here has got to be the Martin Scorcese ugly faced with thick eyebrows blow fish, he just looks like a mess. And let's not even talk about how the fish seem to use their fins as "legs" to stand up.
Jeez, I've not seen you in some time, Augusto. How the hell are ya?!
Yeah... BRILLIANT character designs... My favortites are the Scorcese and the Angelina Jolie ones. Absolutely HORRIBLE. I too am sorry to anyone who worked on it, but I also realize that it is out of your hands, this kind of thing. Whatever puts the brea dand butter on the table...
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Bukack! I think the worst design is the main character! Looks like they took a Finding Nemo fish concept and stuck an ugly lanky body on it. Doesn't even look anatomically correct...
and the blow fish is pretty awful as well...
Maybe the story will be ok?...maybe? ...please?
Ender
Hey Wade, I've been kinda busy at work and was doing some political cartooning on the side on my free time. So haven't posted around here for a while, nice changes to the message board!
Now, let's see how fish have legs in this world:
Does this one need any commentary?
Cartoon characters that aren't anatomically correct?!? Oh, the horror, the horror.
Judging a film based on ugly, airbrushed stills from the marketing department, instead of looking at the actual animation? Yeah, now that makes sense.
I've seen the animation, haven't seen the whole movie, but goodness gracious, I should be allowed to form an opinion before deciding to pay money to see the movie, no?
Yeah, I hated the character designs for Antz and Shrek as well, but they turned out to be pretty good movies anyway. At least they're taking chances with their designs, which is more than I can say for Pixar and its cutesy-pie marketing franchises.
Theres a trailer on the website...
http://www.sharktale.com/trailer.html
the character designs are the same...the animation is good...but it doesn't help the ugly character designs...no offense to anyone. Actually I really like the shark designs. But the fish are all freaky. :D
Didn't mean any offense -- of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. It just seems to me that Shark Tale is getting criticized because the concept is somehow too similar to other productions (esp. Nemo), and at the same time criticized because the designs are too different from what has been done before.
Having seen whole sequences of Shark Tale, I know the designs work just fine. I think people tend to see what they expect to see, and if this film had another studio's name on it, suddenly we'd have a whole different set of expectations and judgments.
I know when I first saw the Nemo designs, I thought they looked like bathtub toys with big cute Keane eyes. Those thoughts vanished when I saw the film. Animation designs can be judged apart from their intended context (i.e., as moving characters within a given story), but I think it's like analyzing a baseball pitcher's throwing motion, and not how many people he strikes out.
I have no problem with what you're saying, however, I have to judge things based on the information I have. I can't predict the future.
As it stands, I don't like these characters visual appearance at all, nor does the underwater animation impress me at all.
I haven't compared this to Nemo, although it is bad for the people who worked on this to release it after Pixar did such a great job on it.
When the movie is released, we'll see what the final judgement is. As of now, a trailer and screen caps are all I have to go, and it doesn't look promising. I'm also not into the the whole underwater mobsters stuff, but we'll see ...
For the record Cybercyst, there is a difference between animation and the texture and shading of a movie. I agree, the the rendering looked nice, but the animation was awful. I did like the shot where she was weightless in her ship in the begining of the moive, thats because they couldn't Mo-cap it, lol. Anyway, just a slight distinction. :)
All I think of when I see the sharks in "Shark Tale" is Jabber Jaw. But thats just me. Or is it? :D I think the story might be alright for this movie, if it is what I think it will be. But Kevin, I've seen shots from the movie animated, and I still don't think the characters work. You say tomato, I say tomato. Oh wait, that doesn't work with text, lol.
The Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Sorry to keep coming back to Final Fantasy, but I really think they did a good job on this and it was sadly overlooked by the critics...
I agree; the animation sucked. But the textures were awesome...the imperfections in the skin, hair, etc. made the humans realistic on a level no one had done before, and personally I haven't seen yet (although Princess Fiona from 'Shrek' comes close).
...Squaresoft has almost perfected the art of their textures on Animatrix' 'Final Flight of the Osiris'...
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At first, Kevan, I was a bit miffed, thinking it was a Nemo rip-off. But then I thought about it a bit, and remembered that in animation, trends develop, and everyone tends to jump on the band wagon. In the early '90's, it was dinosaurs. Everything was dino this, dino that... Now the trend is fish (weird, cuz I would have thought fish to be the most uninteresting creatures on the face of the planet to make an animated film about... why not platypii, or Anteloupe?).
Anyways, as much as I hate the designs (and I really do hate them), I hope the film does well. Always good to haev animated films do well. Good for us bums, anyways...
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
...That's a good idea for a thread: if you could animate anything in the world for a 3D animated feature and/or series, what would it be (and what would be the story)?
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I'm with Kevin, I like Pixar's designs, but they are more cutesy. I for one am glad DW/PDI are doing something different . They definitely do have a creepy vibe but it feels they are more catered towards adults.
I did kind of forget about the designs after seeing the trailer, which actually looks like it might be kind of cool.
I personally thought the Will Smith fish looked a little like " The Incredible Mr Limpet" the rest look like the fish in Monty Python's "The Meaning of life" .
How they had their faces on the fish.
Fish might be boring but I think everyone (especially kids) enjoy them, mostly to the fact that you can make some amazing and very colorful worlds.
Not to mention it probably was the next step for 3d animation to see what they could do with water under water.
see these guys havce been working on their under water film too.
http://www.bassholemovie.com/
http://www.icepond.com
I like how the sharks look, kinda like muppets...
I also like final fantasy on the dvd, where they had the characters do the michael jackson thriller dance. I laughed real hard at that.
Don't do nothing because you can't do everything.
Seriously?!?!?!
*shaking head*
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
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