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jeriendhalPainting With Fire is the name of the Frank Frazetta documentary that comes as an extra with the Bakshi film Fire & Ice. And it only serves to show the vast difference in the styles of these two creators. Frazetta, famously, doesn't bother to use life models, or photographs, or any references when he does his paintings. And yet he manages to imbed the most incredible details in what at first appears to be the most impressionistic of works. There is a particular Conan painting he did "Conan the Adventurer" where we see our barbarian standing on the usual pile of skulls and bodies, Mighty Thews holding onto his sword which is pointed into the ground. Then you look a bit closer, and you see the scars on his arms from all the swordfights he has won, cut into his forearms where he'd blocked his opponent's blows. This is the man who brought new levels of quality to the fantasy illustration field in the 60's, and who still creates today, even after a series of strokes partially paralyzed his right arm and forced him to learn to paint all over again with his left.
There's also a defining moment in Fire & Ice, during the Making Of ducumentary, that shows the laborious process Bakshi went through to create his film. All of the action was filmed on a soundstage, than labouriously traced and then photocopied onto cels. Bakshi is shown touting this as a new means of creating realistic animation.
Mild problem though. Animation is never realistic. Realism isn't the point animation. And tracing a photograph as was done here will never get the subtleties of expression that a hand drawn picture can capture. If anything, you end up losing details in the process. In the movie, there's one particularly annoying point where the girl (she doesn't have enough personality to be called the heroine) lies back against a pillow. Her head just sorta dissapears into the background painting, as if it's being sucked into another dimension.
Bakshi speaks of using the photos as a baseline, and then exaggerating the action. Except that he never does. When the evil wizard starts throwing spells, he makes some odd hand gestures, we hear some sound effects, and then a guy is thrown against a wall by an invisible force. There's not even an attempt to add any special effects such as fire. Or ice. Or anything that might enhance the scene. It's just there, lying as flat as the voice actors' line deliveries.
And you're left wondering why he bothered draw the scene at all.
There's also a defining moment in Fire & Ice, during the Making Of ducumentary, that shows the laborious process Bakshi went through to create his film. All of the action was filmed on a soundstage, than labouriously traced and then photocopied onto cels. Bakshi is shown touting this as a new means of creating realistic animation.
Mild problem though. Animation is never realistic. Realism isn't the point animation. And tracing a photograph as was done here will never get the subtleties of expression that a hand drawn picture can capture. If anything, you end up losing details in the process. In the movie, there's one particularly annoying point where the girl (she doesn't have enough personality to be called the heroine) lies back against a pillow. Her head just sorta dissapears into the background painting, as if it's being sucked into another dimension.
Bakshi speaks of using the photos as a baseline, and then exaggerating the action. Except that he never does. When the evil wizard starts throwing spells, he makes some odd hand gestures, we hear some sound effects, and then a guy is thrown against a wall by an invisible force. There's not even an attempt to add any special effects such as fire. Or ice. Or anything that might enhance the scene. It's just there, lying as flat as the voice actors' line deliveries.
And you're left wondering why he bothered draw the scene at all.
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Date: 2007-09-20 01:26 am (UTC)Didn't that used to be called "rotoscoping"?
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Date: 2007-09-20 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 07:54 am (UTC)Oh, and the Keanu Reeves film was called "A Scanner Darkly", made by the same producer of "The Waking Life."
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Date: 2007-09-20 01:32 am (UTC)New? Hasn't this man ever heard of the late, unlamented Rankin-Bass version of LOTR? Which was done using exactly that method and looked horribly, horribly wrong and faked?
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Date: 2007-09-20 08:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 04:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 06:53 pm (UTC)But look at the Incredibles, where they chose to exaggerate the characters away from realism, because you end up with a much more believable character. Exaggerated gestures and actions often make for a more realistic character and story, just because they can portray so much more human emotion. Of course, in some scenarios, you go just a bit overboard, like certain anime expressions, which then ruin the character and disrupt the story...