Back From Wellywood
It was short, but it was sweet.
We we brought there by Paramount to look at a bit of The Adventures of Tintin and how it was made. So that meant a discussion with Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson and a trip to the mo-cap stage, where the camera worked perfectly for Peter… and then crapped out when they were about to give us all a moment in the driver’s seat. But standing in that room, I have to say, the possibilities were more fascinating than ever.
I have always said that the revolutionary idea of Avatar was not 3D, but the virtual camera. And watching it in Pete’s hands, I feel exactly the same way. The next great evolution is figuring out how to use the virtual technology for a non-animated film.
The majority of the new stuff that we saw was action, some of which had John Williams score on it that was just a couple of days of the scoring stage.
I think it looks and feels like Spielberg. It’s more on the edgy side than I saw coming – I didn’t know that Captain Haddock was such an accomplished boozer – but when he and Snowy share a bottle, it’s quite a scene. I don’t know how Haddock ended up looking so much like James Lipton of Inside The Actors Studio. Given that the art was being done where Lipton is not known, it’s a remarkable coincidence.
For me – and perhaps this was driven by what we saw – Snowy was the star of this film. Step off, Scooby Doo, there is a new dog in town who is about to become Top Movie Dog. (Reminds me… great line from Spielberg, speaking of America’s lack of Tintin love… “Most of the people my age probably think it’s Rin Tin Tin.”)
More on what we saw later. For now, a couple of shot from Wellington, where WETA contributes to the public are scene. And from the bathroom at the airport, where social networking has a whole new flavor.
I honestly hope TINTIN is fantastic … but unfortunately it’s going to need to be fantastic to have any chance in hell of getting my butt in a seat. I find the whole look of mo-cap incredibly off-putting and after BEOWULF I swore off seeing anymore of these.
I wonder how much of the failure of MARS NEEDS MOMS can be attributed to people being turned off by this process. I’m not sure I know anyone who claims to actually like the mo-cap in these types of films.
I would have been a lot more excited for a live-action TINTIN
Krazyeyes, your complains about Tintin based on what you saw in those films make about as much sense as someone complaining about CGI in general based on what they saw in DragonHeart.
Did you know, for example, that the Academy Award winning Pixar beating Happy Feet was a motion capture too? It is incredibly dumb to base your experience of technology on just one vendor (who, by the way still did some amazing and revolutionary work).
Mars Needs Moms failed for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with how it was made. It just didn’t look interesting to people. It happens.
And if you are going to be comparing Tintin with anything else, do so with project a with witch it shares technological similarities. Hint: it’s not Beowulf, or even Lord Of The Rings (Jackson himself said, Tintin’s mo-cap tech was superior) – it’s Avatar.
One look at a shot above proves that Tintin is, one of a kind.
Understand, too that Spielberg chose to the film this way for artistic reasons. It also gave him incredible freedom and a sense of ownership like never before. He shot the thing himself. It is a big deal to see this master of composition compose in 3D.
I cannot be more excited for this film.
As much as I love Speilberg and Scorsese, I have absolutely no interest in seeing Tin Tin or Hugo unless it gets amazing reviews. It will be interesting to see what they do with new technology, but they should really cut a new trailer to sell a more adult audience. That is if they care or it is nothing more than children’s film.
No I do not see the Avatar comparison. Maybe the technology, but Cameron was a master of making the mo cap and the live action blend effortlessly. I know it is popular to crap on Avatar, just like Titanic before it, but I think it is fantastic populist entertainment.
I am sure that I will get some attitude about it, but I will be curious to see how well Tin Tin does. It is competing with Alvin 3 for the little ones and MI4/Sherlock Holmes for the teenagers.
On the flip side, I am surprised on how excited I am for The new Muppet movie. With Muppets, Dragon Tatoo, War Horse, and MI4, it should be a good holiday season at the theater. Hell, I am even looking forward to the potential guilty pleasures of Piranha 3DD and Harold and Kumar.
Looking at the picture above, I just don’t understand the desire in animation to push developments in CGI character design so that someday they can be totally indistinguishable from real people. Why not just hire actors who look the part and save your time, energy, money, etc. for things you CAN’T readily do in real life? I understand doing this to get a Gollem or an intelligent gorilla in the next Planet of the Apes movie, but plain old people?
It’s like an artist toiling his life away so that someday he can paint a portrait exactly like a photograph. It would indeed be an amazing display of skill and discipline, but why the fuck couldn’t he just take a picture?
I’m not all that excited based on the trailer, either, but I’ll wait on reviews before making a decision.
My real problem is that I feel like they took the middle road and crapped out on making something beautiful. Either make it live action or – if they really love the source material as they claim – make it as a hand-drawn piece of animation. That would have been the brave choice.
Awesome satire of junketeering, DP! The line “Step off, Scooby Doo, there is a new dog in town who is about to become Top Movie Dog” is classic bloggeratti quote whoring as well!
But it wasn’t the tag-line or calling Peter Jackson “Pete” that gave it away for me though. What tipped your satiric hand was the fact we’re supposed to believe you’d sit on a plane for 24 hours to go look at some footage and a camera and then turn around, sit on a plane for ANOTHER 24 hours to head stateside. That’s madness!
Well played, David. Well played.
It’s 12.5 – 14 hours each way, Don.
I didn’t really go just to look at footage. But I was interested in the layers at WETA. And I spent time in Wellington a long time ago, have some friends there, and was willing to do the turnaround, which would have required (for me) extending it into a longer trip with my family had it been any more than the 3 days in NZ.
Sorry you hate the Snowy line… that is the sense I have… that they are going to take a popular phenomenon – movie dogs – and top it by making him a full third of the 3-way central hero relationship. Short Round-plus.
And Peter has been “Pete’ for me for a long time. Sorry again for the anguish it caused you.
I pick 1 or 2 trips to go on a year… chose to go on this one…
And so it goes…
Sanjku me this…
Poland flies to New Zealand
Pete, Steven and Tin Tin play in the WETA snow
No DP/30 with Leah
I was just messing with ya, Dave. I’d have probably gone too.
Martin S FTW š
My problem with mo-cap isn’t with the process itself but when filmmakers use it to try to emulate reality. Maybe my problem is just when they try to emulate reality and people. I just do not like the way it looks.
I’m basing my negative thoughts not only on the Zemeckis films but also on what I’ve seen of Tintin so far. The process can be technically superior but based on what my eyes are seeing, it all looks off to me.
One look at a shot above proves that Tintin is, one of a kind.
And this is why we’ll never agree … I think that still looks horrible.
Im trying to understand those blown away by the tintin stills. I dont see anything there that would make me think this is anything better or worse than a Pixar or Zemeckis project.
The folly of this kind of publicity event is trying to generate buzz from saying “it has to be seen to be believed” and all we get are stills that show me nothing. The first teaser showed us very little in terms of visual “wow”. If youre goimg to sell a film on the wow factor, you need to show me more than a shot of some crusty seaman.
“But standing in that room, I have to say, the possibilities were more fascinating than ever.”
I’ve always wondered, just how big is that room they call “The Volume”. Can you give us some idea of rough sq. footage?
This looks absolutely horrendous. Agree with Don, Dave, that you would have a more detached, critical eye if you hadn’t been hobbit-nobbing with Pete ‘n Steve. Also agree that I would go in a heartbeat if offered the opportunity. š
Am I the only who could care less about the mocap as long as the story is good? Seriously? It’s a movie, people did those performances, but they are in a stylized form. Why is that so hard for people to accept? Am I the only person in here who dug Heavy Metal as a kid?
JS, because if the mocap is bad, then it could get in the way of a good story. All tools are in service for the story, and we hold great interest in seeing if they interfere or enhance.
you know io, i’d like to say that story trumps all, but sometimes when so much time is spent telling us how great it looks, we kind of start judging it based on the technical merit and spectacle rather than the story. That’s on us.
However, many filmmakers are so busy jerking off with their special FX toolbox that they put all their eggs in the FX basket. I haven’t heard one Tintin story about how much fun it is or the grand adventure we’re in store for. It’s about mocap and photorealistic FX.
To me, the biggest error the PR guys on TinTin are committing is the constant attention to the technology.
I just want to enjoy a fun movie with an interesting story. I don’t care how they bottle the magic. Half the fun of seeing a magician is not knowing how the tricks are performed.
And yet, they keep wanting to pull back the curtain.
While I’d prefer something that looked more engaging (like if it had been hand-drawn), I’ll still see this if the story’s any good. Heck, I watch movies on my ipod screen, so I’m not too partial to how well they look. Story trumps style for me.
But setting aside the mo-cap complaint, nothing in the trailer seemed all that interesting or compelling from a story perspective. If I didn’t know this was from Spielberg/Jackson and based on some legendary comic material, it wouldn’t be on my radar at all.
“Am I the only who could care less about the mocap as long as the story is good?”
Yes! That’s why it’s so annoying to have reporters reporting on technical advances as though that doesn’t repel audiences. People want to be transported by filmmaking, not understand how the engine works. Articles about how beloved a character Tintin is and about his many comic book adventures will help interest us more than seeing a star in a weirdly dotted suit or whatever they’re using these days.
It goes back to that great Patton Oswalt about not giving a shit about where the stuff you like comes from.
“do you like Angelina Jolie… Well heres Jon Voights glistening ball sack”
Maxim… the room was probably about 150ft long and 50ft wide… something like that. At one end of the long side, a control section that looks like a small NASA launch command with as many as 25 people sitting there in front of a bunch of computers.
As for my objectivity, that’s why I offer the facts of the experience. I wouldn’t be saying that it looked good if I didn’t think it did. Nothing hanging over my head. And indeed, the thing that most impressed me was the Snowy stuff… Tintin strikes me as “The Mary” of the story and Haddock as his “Lou Grant” while Snowy seems to be, without it being played sardonically in any footage I saw, as the being that keeps a lot moving forward. cleaning up behind the humans.
Not sure how he plays in the overall film.
I don’t think writing about the technology repels people. I think trailers or ads either excite them or don’t.
If mo-cap takes me out of a story, I don’t like it. Hated the big action sequence in A Christmas Carol, for instance, not because it wasn’t artistically beautiful, but because it didn’t engage my imagination. There are scenes in Beowulf that really work and many that just don’t, technically or otherwise.
Didn’t have a problem during Avatar. Just wonder. In 2D or 3D, though IMAX 3D was too big for me and kept me from fully engaging (which was also true of IMAX for I Am Legend, btw).
Thanks, DP. The description sort of matches how I visualized the thing.
That said, the whole technological conversations around the film have really gotten out of control. I am sick of these so-called experts picking apart something they’ve neither seen nor understand. I wish they all shut up already and let the rest of us enjoy what we saw and loved.
Well, to be clear, I don’t think writing about technology repels me after the fact, i.e. after I’ve seen the movie. If I liked something, then I might be interested in knowing how it was created. But to tell me in detail how you created something before I am given a chance to like it does repel me. It sort of assumes I will inevitably like it enough to care how it was made and thus feels more manipulative.
Not that journalists should stop reporting on tech advances. Just my general feeling on reading and watching these pieces…
Tofu, North by Northwest has some of the more glaring FX in history, but it’s North by Northwest. Does the glaring FX interfere with the story? Not really because it’s North by Northwest. That’s the point which seems to be lost by a lot of people with CGI and Mocap.
Anghus, I reckon they want people to be more comfortable with the technology, so explaining it seems to be their plan. It may not be the best plan but that’s the plan. If the Beard and Derrick have made a film that comes close to capturing the magic of just those Tin Tin cartoons. Well, I am so all about that, it’s not even funny.