Storyboarding at Pixar is over for now. I may be back in there early next year.
Speaking of Pixar, last night I went to see the INCREDIBLES again, (this time with an audience of people who had not worked on it) at Oakland’s beautiful Grand Lake Theatre. Of course the reaction was very positive, and the East Bay audience definately got a kick out of the East Bay references at the beginning of the film. I have to say that I enjoyed The Incredibles just as much if not more this (third) time. The group of us had to go to a diner afterwards and geek-out on all the Pixar goodness.
The trailer for POLAR EXPRESS was shown before the movie and it struck me how the more cartoony designs of the INCREDIBLES were more believable (for me) as characters.
I remember thinking a lot about this issue back when I was working on the (cancelled) FRANKENSTEIN project at ILM. A lot of times people in CG animation get hung up on the issue of “realism” when I think “believability” is what it is really all about. for example, Bugs Bunny is very believable but he isn’t at all realistic. Conversely, a lot of CG characters are realistic yet not all that believable. Anyway I am looking forward to seeing more CG films with unashamedly stylized human characters.
Amen, to that, Jamie. The “believability” factor has got to be the number one issue when dealing with so-called cartoon characters. I plan on writing about this soon on my blog. Looking forward to Pinkava’s project. Hope it continues Pixar’s string of amazing hits.
Would love to hear about the inside jokes regarding East Bay in The Incredibles. I’m on the flip-side of the country–Rats!
Hey Ward! thanks for coming by. The East Bay references are just at the beginning of the movie, when young Mr Incredible is watching the pursuit of the bad guys on his electronic map in the car. The map is obviously the East Bay area, something that may not even be obvious to folks over the bridge in San Francisco. Also when you hear the cops on the radio you can hear them mention San Pablo avenue which is in Oakland. So that went over pretty well…