Month: February 2013
Review: Brave
Spoilers galore!
Well, that was disappointing but nice at the same time. For me Brave was a prime example of expectation being crushed and replaced not by something terrible but goodokay. From the Trailers and Teasers* I thought Brave would be about Merida going on an adventure in the Highlands and I was quite disappointed for the first half of the movie when this was simply not happening.
I had also forgotten that this is a children’s movie aimed at children (unlike for example Brendan and the Secret of Kells (or most Ghibli movies) where it is clear that this is a children’s movie but it’s so good that you can still watch it at any age without flinching at the stupidity of what’s happening on screen every now and then) and therefore being full of stupid jokes and strange cartoon violence. I also reminded me why I don’t watch 3D-animated movies: the characters all look like puppets (which doesn’t have to be a bad thing, see puppet animation) with 3D-animation they look like plastic puppets and everything just feels unreal to me.
Animation: The Reward
Bromance.
The Reward from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo. via Catsuka etc.
Well, this has been all over the blogosphere already but Animationsfilme.ch pointed out the production blog which led me to some blogs of the people involved: a Making of by Paolo Giandoso and one by Kenneth Ladekjær.
The bandit leader is by far the coolest character, so sad she only gets about three seconds screentime.
Illustration: Genderbent Fairytales
Yudi Chen (Tumblr) did some nice genderbending on classic fairytales (I think I probably like the idea better then most of the illustrations). We totally need more like this (also on this topic: Slave Leo)
Illustration: Mole Person
No idea why that name but maybe because of the eyes. Makes for a nice avatar.
Nager IT: (Teilweise) Faire Computer Maus
Auf dem 29c3 hat Sebastian Jekutsch einen sehr informativen Vortrag mit dem Titel „Sind faire Computer möglich?“ (Video) gehalten. Für mich war hier vor allen Dingen interessant: Der Unterschied zwischen fairem Kaffee (ein Rohstoff, leicht zu kontrollieren) und Elektronik (viele Bauteile, die aus diversen Rohstoffen Hergestellt werden, eine Kontrolle ist hier also sehr, sehr aufwendig).
Es ist also ein Vorhaben ganz anderen Ausmaßes faire Elektronik herzustellen als z. B. Fairtade-Zucker. Ein Unternehmen (neben den Fairphone-Leuten und Wipro), dass sich dies aber trotzdem zur Aufgabe gemacht hat, um den großen Herstellern das „Es ist unmöglich“-Argument zu nehmen und um eine Nachfrage anzukurbeln, ist Nager IT, die versuchen eine möglichst faire Mouse anzubieten.
Die Website ist sehr aufschlußreich und wirkt sehr transparent, die Maus wird in Deutschland in einer Integrations-Werkstatt montiert. Zur Zeit ist es aber, wenn ich das richtig sehe, nur möglich deutschen Stahldraht und Stahl, der unter „guten Arbeitsbedingungen“ hergestellt wird, zu beziehen, alle anderen Rohstoffe (mindestens elf) werden ohne Kontrolle gefördert. Fair hergestellt wird zur Zeit: das Gehäuse, Kondensatoren, die Leiterplatte, Schrauben, Etiketten und der Karton (wobei, soweit ich mich recht entsinne, sich als nächste Schritte um faire Kabel und ein faires Scrollrad bemüht wird).
Insgesamt ein ungemein spannendes und wichtiges Projekt.
Der Tagedieb …
… führt die Sonne hinters Licht.
Animation: Paperman
m(
Here’s an insteresting and depressing feature on how Disney/Pixar (who cares, Kotaku … um, I mean io9) sees the future of 2d-animation: as an advanced render style for 3d-animation!
While the results look pretty nice it’s totally crazy how much effort goes into faking this 2d-look instead of just doing it in 2d (okay, that might still be more work but … but …). Then again the shortfilm breathes the „missing ye olde times“ so maybe it’s fitting. The interesting thing to know would be: does it work withtout the 3d? Did they find a way so you just need to do the keyframes and the computer does the rest? That would be neat.*
Update: Full thing is here (via Nerdcore). While the storyidea is boringokay, they just drag it on and on. And this is Oscar-nominated? I don’t know if that’s more telling for the Oscars or this short film if this mediocre piece is what they nominate.
And boy, am I bored of white people, does it always have to be white people? Turns out, it doesn’t.
*Especially because then there would be an alternative to this strange morphing that can be seen in movies like Waltz with Bashir and Alois Nebel, I really hate that.