Oscar for Best Animated Feature 2011

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Prince Edward
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Post by Prince Edward »

estefan wrote:39 Original Songs Vie for Oscar's 2011 Playlist

Here are the Disney contenders:

"The World I Knew" from "African Cats"
"Collision of Worlds" from "Cars 2"
"Hello Hello" from "Gnomeo & Juliet"
"Love Builds a Garden" from "Gnomeo & Juliet"
"Life's a Happy Song" from "The Muppets"
"Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets"
"Pictures in My Head" from "The Muppets"
"The Backson Song" from "Winnie the Pooh"
"So Long" from "Winnie the Pooh"

Alan Menken and David Zippel's "Star Spangled Man" from "Captain America: The First Avenger" is also in contention. Other animated songs competing are "Bridge of Light" and "The Mighty Sven" from "Happy Feet Two" and "Hot Wings", "Let Me Take You to Rio" and "Real in Rio" from "Rio".

Personally, I think the nominees for original song should be Hello Hello, Life's a Happy Song, Real in Rio, So Long and Star Spangled Man, with Life's a Happy Song being my pick for the win.
I would consider Alan Menken's song from Captain America to "be Disney" as well, since Disney now owns Marvel...
Favorite Disney-movies: Snow White, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Tangled, Frozen, Pirates, Enchanted, Prince of Persia, Tron, Oz The Great and Powerful
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Post by Dream Huntress »

DisneyJedi wrote:What BS. Tin Tin isn't even really an animated film; how, in their stupid little minds, does motion capture even count??
Then I'm guessing you don't consider any of the films that Don Bluth or Ralph Bakshi ever did as examples of animation. Seriously why is some people so against motion capture? Is it so outside of the realm of possibilities that you can make an animated feature that way?
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Post by Sotiris »

The Black Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Animated Film

Rango (winner)
Source: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2011/12/the- ... le-awards/


Utah Film Critics
Best Animated Feature

Rango (winner)

Runner-Up

The Adventures of Tintin

Kung Fu Panda 2
Source: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2011/12/utah ... -to-drive/
Last edited by Sotiris on Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by jpanimation »

I find it funny that the two frontrunners are Nickelodeon movies (Rango and TinTin). I think that says something.

As far as mo-cap is concerned, as long as it’s not raw, it’s animation. You may not like how mo-cap looks in TinTin or how roto looks in Anastasia but you’re insulting the hundreds of animators who work their asses off on those movies when you say they don’t count. If either of these were pure mo-cap or pure rotoscoping, you would know.

I feel mo-cap and rotoscoping are just the alternative techniques to video capture whose purpose is to achieve a greater realism (although most will agree that it’s more of a handicap on animators). I personally feel caricature comes out better (Horton Hears a Who! has beautiful animation) but I can recognize what they’re [unsuccessfully] trying to achieve with these alternative techniques.
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Post by Sotiris »

97 Original Scores in 2011 Oscar Race
http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleas ... 11222.html

The entries from animated films are:
• The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams)

• Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Mark Mothersbaugh)

• Arthur Christmas (Harry Gregson-Williams)

• Cars 2 (Michael Giacchino)

• Happy Feet Two (John Powell)

• Hop (Christopher Lennertz)

• Puss in Boots (Henry Jackman)

• Rio (John Powell)

• The Smurfs (Heitor Pereira)

• Winnie the Pooh (Henry Jackman)
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Post by toonaspie »

jpanimation wrote:I find it funny that the two frontrunners are Nickelodeon movies (Rango and TinTin). I think that says something.

As far as mo-cap is concerned, as long as it’s not raw, it’s animation. You may not like how mo-cap looks in TinTin or how roto looks in Anastasia but you’re insulting the hundreds of animators who work their asses off on those movies when you say they don’t count. If either of these were pure mo-cap or pure rotoscoping, you would know.

I feel mo-cap and rotoscoping are just the alternative techniques to video capture whose purpose is to achieve a greater realism (although most will agree that it’s more of a handicap on animators). I personally feel caricature comes out better (Horton Hears a Who! has beautiful animation) but I can recognize what they’re [unsuccessfully] trying to achieve with these alternative techniques.
I know. I find it strange that people are feeling up in arms about motion capture qualifying when films like The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks are running for this category and few are calling that into question.
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toonaspie wrote:I find it strange that people are feeling up in arms about motion capture qualifying when films like The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks are running for this category and few are calling that into question.
That's because there are specific criteria that need to be met for CG/live-action films to be deemed eligible:
A significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.
That's the reason The Smurfs was disqualified. If they wish to include mo-cap films into the category, the Academy needs to amend the rules because as they are now mo-cap films are clearly considered ineligible.
An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique.


While the part that says "motion capture by itself" leaves a loophole for mo-cap films to be considered eligible, the fact that it states that any movement needs to be "created using a frame-by-frame technique" instantly disqulifies mo-cap.

Personally, I do think that mo-cap invovles animation; I regard it as a live-action/animation hybrid and I believe it should be treated like the rest hybrid films. Studios need to release data that stipulate what percent of the movements are mo-capped and what are animated. I feel that this is the best solution to the matter, especially when considering award eligibility.
Last edited by Sotiris on Fri Dec 30, 2011 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Sotiris »

7 Top Filmmakers Discuss Animation and Motion Capture
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/h ... tin-275984

Spielberg Talks Tintin
http://www.awn.com/articles/3d/spielberg-talks-tintin

Raising the Animation Bar with Tintin
http://www.awn.com/articles/article/rai ... page/1%2C1
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Post by Dream Huntress »

Sotiris wrote:Personally, I do think that mo-cap invovles animation; I regard it as a live-action/animation hybrid and I believe it should be treated like the rest hybrid films. Studios need to release data that stipulate what percent of the movements are mo-capped and what are animated. I feel that this is the best solution to the matter, especially when considering award eligibility.
I do agree that the Academy needs to make the elegibility rules less vague, since movies like "The Smurfs" or "Alvin and the Chipmunks" are a combination of animation and live-action, the same way that say "Cool World" or "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" were, they don't qualify for the animation category, but thinks like TinTin does qualify, since there is no live-action involved in the actual movie -again, I'm goign with the example of Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi examples-.
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Post by Dr Frankenollie »

Sotiris wrote:The entries from animated films are:
• The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams)

• Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Mark Mothersbaugh)

• Arthur Christmas (Harry Gregson-Williams)

• Cars 2 (Michael Giacchino)

• Happy Feet Two (John Powell)

• Hop (Christopher Lennertz)

• Puss in Boots (Henry Jackman)

• Rio (John Powell)

• The Smurfs (Heitor Pereira)

• Winnie the Pooh (Henry Jackman)
Is this a bloody joke? Firstly, I'm not sure if these count as animated films, and secondly, they are all terrible. Also, John Williams' score for Tintin was a hugely forgettable disappointment.
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Post by Sotiris »

Dr Frankenollie wrote:Firstly, I'm not sure if these count as animated films, and secondly, they are all terrible. Also, John Williams' score for Tintin was a hugely forgettable disappointment.
These are not the shortlisted or the nominees, they are just the submitted entries for consideration.
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Post by Victurtle »

Sotiris wrote:As Disney's hand-drawn vet Eric Goldberg ("Winnie the Pooh") observes, "MoCap is a tool in the same way that rotoscope was a tool. It's how you use it. It's as little or as much as the filmmakers want. Hell, the Fleischers invented rotoscope, and you can't tell me that Koco the Clown or the dance in Snow White isn't animation. Of course it's animation!"

Source: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononho ... -for-oscar
To animate is to make something move. Rotoscope, or mo-cap is simply adding onto something that is already moving. How is that animation Goldberg?
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Post by Sotiris »

I think some people confuse animation with stylization. Just because Tintin is stylized and doesn't look like live-action, does not mean it's animated.
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Sotiris wrote:I think some people confuse animation with stylization. Just because Tintin is stylized and doesn't look like live-action, does not mean it's animated.
Seriously? So the dozens of animators who worked their asses off on it, aren't really doing animation? Just because they are using a live action reference that helps to get the actors more involved in their parts?

I get why mo-cap or rotoscope bugs people -I'm not a big fan of rotoscope myself- but just to say it's not animation feels like a great disservice to all the people involved in the creation of all those projects.
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Dream Huntress wrote:Just because they are using a live action reference that helps to get the actors more involved in their parts?
It's not for mere reference; they trace movement. That's not "animation" in its dictionary definition. Sure, they manipulate (alter and enhance) pre-existing live-action data but they don't create movement from scratch, frame by frame.

I don't get why so many people can't understand this obvious and fundamental difference.
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Post by Sotiris »

Online Film Critics Society
Best Animated Feature

Rango (winner)

The Adventures of Tintin

Arthur Christmas

Kung Fu Panda 2

Winnie the Pooh
Sources: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2011/12/onli ... nations-2/


Austin Film Critics Awards
Best Animated Film

Rango (winner)
Source: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2011/12/aust ... cs-awards/


Central Ohio Film Critics
Best Animated Film

Arthur Christmas (winner)

Winnie the Pooh (runner-up)

The Adventures of Tintin

Kung Fu Panda 2

Rango
Source: http://www.awardsdaily.com/2012/01/cent ... minations/
Last edited by Sotiris on Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by jpanimation »

Sotiris wrote: It's not for mere reference; they trace movement.
They don’t trace anything for mo-cap, only rotoscoping (to an extent). Also, have you ever worked with mo-cap? You make it sound like it’s the equivalent of using a photoshop filter. Even Amid on Cartoon Brew disagrees with this gross oversimplification of the technique:

“To be honest, it’s hard for me to judge the animation in Tintin. Photorealistic cartooning—which some will argue is an oxymoron—makes even keyframed CG animation look traditional. Many will say it isn’t even animation. The confusion is understandable. Animation is evolving so rapidly before our eyes that we can barely keep pace with these changes. We desperately try to apply old labels and definitions and find them insufficient. Still, Tintin at its core is pure animation created frame by frame. True, it was augmented by other processes, but the end result was achieved distinctly through frame-by-frame techniques. And if the mark of a true piece of animation art is the director’s control over every element within the frame, then never has this been truer than in Tintin.”

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film ... toons.html
Sotiris wrote: That's not "animation" in its dictionary definition.
You mean it’s Academy definition; the dictionary [any of them] don’t specify and who cares what the Academy thinks. As far as they’re concerned, an animated feature only has to be 40 minutes (used to be 70+) or the length of an average network television episode. What kind of crap is that, a feature is 60+ and always has been (how lucky for Winnie-the Pooh, now it can qualify). Academy rules bend to what the studios want them to be, not the artists and experts in this medium.
Sotiris wrote: Sure, they manipulate (alter and enhance) pre-existing live-action data but they don't create movement from scratch, frame by frame.
Caricature is achieved when an animator manipulates (alters and enhances) real life mainly through exaggeration. Once again, creating it from scratch only matters if you believe the Academy to be the authority on all things animation. How would you characterize Shrek, where they didn’t use mo-cap but they stuck VERY close to their live action reference on many of the characters? Does an animated film just have to be frame-by-frame to get your approval or does it have to have some form of caricature to it’s motion?

This is why there shouldn’t even be a Best ‘Animated’ Picture category and there should only be a Best Picture category. It’s like being thrown at the kids table just for being produced in a certain medium and now that the line between the mediums are being blurred, the Academy doesn’t know how to react. For a couple years now animated features have been nominated for Best Picture, so why keep the kids table? It’s purpose isn’t to celebrate the medium but to trivialize it through segregation.
Sotiris wrote: I don't get why so many people can't understand this obvious and fundamental difference.
We do but we just don’t think of the Academy as an authority to determine what qualifies as animation (or what qualifies as a good movie for that matter).
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Post by Sotiris »

jpanimation wrote:How would you characterize Shrek, where they didn't use mo-cap but they stuck VERY close to their live action reference on many of the characters? Does an animated film just have to be frame-by-frame to get your approval or does it have to have some form of caricature to it’s motion?
Caricature is a style. You can't claim that caricature equals animation. For an animated film to be considered 100% animated, it needs to be completely created frame-by-frame. Otherwise, it's a hybrid. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad, it just means that it's something different.
jpanimation wrote:We do but we just don’t think of the Academy as an authority to determine what qualifies as animation.
But we are specifically talking about award eligibility. Since there are certain rules (unfair or not), they need to be uphold.
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Post by jpanimation »

Sotiris, you're appreciated (it may seem random of me to say but it needed to be said) :wink:

That said, I hated the music in Pooh.
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