sarah drummondBeowulf: Disposable budget used for novelty
December 7th 2007 05:25
I foresee that this will be a(nother) subject to polarise readers and I apologise in advance to anyone offended by the ranting that follows. (Remember, like many film critics/theorists I only comment on the work of others because I have never been able to find success or funding as a film maker myself. So watching and discussing the work of others is a form of compliment.)
Firstly, I must ask: Why would you hire – and pay dearly – for some of the highest-calibre talent Hollywood has to offer and then cartoonise them?
I realise that there’s more to the digital animation than that, but essentially… well, the question remains.
I think there is an audience, large enough, of people that will go see an experiment on the basis of novelty… if the budget is big enough. Looking back, that’s why I went. I wanted to see how it turned out. But I was disappointed. I would have much preferred watching Anthony Hopkins attempt to bed Robin Wright Penn (who I feel suffered in the transition from reality to animation). And who in the cinema audience wouldn’t have preferred to see the real Angelina saunter out of that water?
Are cinema-goers so bored that even redundant fx are better than none? Surely spending all that time and money to animate people to look almost exactly like the actors who posed for and voiced them is a little superfluous. I understand that there were aspects of the film that could not be enacted for a camera by real people, but we’ve seen the flawless additions of the unbelievable and the grotesque into an otherwise un-animated film. The results of which have been gorgeous, I might add.
After ‘The Polar Express’ I began to fear that actors would eventually be phased out. The idea sickened me. Perhaps this is part of the transition phase. (Please tell me it’s not and it’s just a trend that will pass.) People would begin to follow the careers of artificial actors – ‘S1m0ne’ style – as long as the transition included actors we already know and love.
If anyone knows, please tell me: Why could this film not have been a live-action, people-acted movie????
Firstly, I must ask: Why would you hire – and pay dearly – for some of the highest-calibre talent Hollywood has to offer and then cartoonise them?
I realise that there’s more to the digital animation than that, but essentially… well, the question remains.
I think there is an audience, large enough, of people that will go see an experiment on the basis of novelty… if the budget is big enough. Looking back, that’s why I went. I wanted to see how it turned out. But I was disappointed. I would have much preferred watching Anthony Hopkins attempt to bed Robin Wright Penn (who I feel suffered in the transition from reality to animation). And who in the cinema audience wouldn’t have preferred to see the real Angelina saunter out of that water?
Are cinema-goers so bored that even redundant fx are better than none? Surely spending all that time and money to animate people to look almost exactly like the actors who posed for and voiced them is a little superfluous. I understand that there were aspects of the film that could not be enacted for a camera by real people, but we’ve seen the flawless additions of the unbelievable and the grotesque into an otherwise un-animated film. The results of which have been gorgeous, I might add.
After ‘The Polar Express’ I began to fear that actors would eventually be phased out. The idea sickened me. Perhaps this is part of the transition phase. (Please tell me it’s not and it’s just a trend that will pass.) People would begin to follow the careers of artificial actors – ‘S1m0ne’ style – as long as the transition included actors we already know and love.
If anyone knows, please tell me: Why could this film not have been a live-action, people-acted movie????
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