Remember a few days ago when we said we’d update later in that day?

We didn’t. Deal with it.

So, I heard that it’s Christmas or something. In celebration of this holiday, we’re gunna DO STUFF.

Stuff: Part 1

Leave a comment in the comments section of this post with a company/cause and we’ll randomly select two or three to display on the right and left hand sides of the site for the month of January. Take advantage of this FREE ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITY. You won’t be gettin’ no lovin’ from the Spectator as far as ads go until school starts up again, so you may as well go for this, you know?

Alternatively, you can e-mail us at yourboro@gmail.com with the information you want on your ad.

Stuff: Part 2

Are you an artist?
Do you know any artists that you feel should be put in the spotlight for their extra-ordinary artwork?

Are you a person who does things?
Do you know any people who do things that should be put in the spotlight for being good at being a person who does things?

Tell us about yourself, or tell us about your friend. We’ll do a whole big article about them.

Part three after this image of a page break in wrapping paper.

Guess what you just did? Helped donate.

We saw a month ago or so, some graphic design company (or something) was donating a dollar to the Sheldon Harmon memorial fund, for every fifty bucks of their merchandise you purchased or something.

Yeah, whatever.

Look at the pure talent this kid had.

We decided that we should probably donate to this same cause, but not benefit from it ourselves. Know what I’m saying?

We get about 300-500 unique hits a day. So what if we would donate a dollar for every 100 hits?

Geeze, guys. Where were you a year ago?

Hopefully it’d generate some buzz and you fools would invite your friends to check out the site. Thusly raising the amount we donate to the fund.

Not costing you a penny.

Man, we rule.

( This ends at the end of the day on Christmas. Unless we feel like it should keep going for no reason. In that case, It’ll probably end at the end of the month. We’ll see how it goes =] )

On the subject of animation, check out this new EMTA commercial by the students in our 3d animation classes:

Better or worse than the batman animation from last year?

http://yourboro.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/jeremy-brown-batman-video/

A post about animation and Christmas would feel incomplete without throwing this out here:

Merry Christmas everyone!

You knew this was coming, right? The blockbuster film of the weekend wasn’t going to sneak by without a little bit of geeky inspection. Not only is it a science-fiction film, the film itself was created using lots of cool artistic technologies and techniques that were themselves science fiction only a couple of years ago. From MSNBC and Space.com:

A member of the Na'vi humanoid race in 'Avatar'

The science fiction blockbuster “Avatar” is set on a mysterious alien moon with out-of-this-world technologies. Its star director, James Cameron, has not only directed other science fiction epics like “Aliens, The Abyss” and the first two “Terminator” films, but was apparently the president of his high school science club, a physics major in college and has an engineer brother who has designed underwater robots.

So how much science is there in “Avatar”?

CAUTION: Possible spoilers ahead.

Pandora
The movie is set on the fictional Pandora, one of the many moons of a fictional Saturn-sized gas giant, Polyphemus, which is located in the real Alpha Centauri system, which at nearly 4.4 light-years away is the closest star system to Earth.

While astronomers have yet to discover moons beyond our solar system, they expect to. And the Alpha Centauri system could be a place worth looking. The larger of the two real, sunlike stars that make up this alien system, Alpha Centauri A, is the fictional Pandora’s sun. In reality, scientists might soon be able to detect habitable moons with the James Webb Space Telescope and also study their atmospheres for key life-related gases such as oxygen, and water vapor.

Tropical rainforests cover most of Pandora’s continents, which suggests its mother planet must be fairly close to its sun to take advantage of its light. A few years ago, this might have seemed implausible, but most of the alien planets scientists have discovered so far are in fact gas giants that are exceedingly close to their stars.

However, life on a gas giant’s moon might present a host of challenges. Jupiter’s moons exist within an intense radiation belt of electrons and ions trapped in the planet’s magnetic field, and Saturn’s gravitational pull leads to extraordinary tidal effects that may have once ripped apart nascent moons to produce its rings, and today can drive winds and volcanic eruptions on its moon Titan.

The draw that Pandora has for humans is a naturally occurring ore dubbed “unobtanium,” an old in-joke in science fiction for materials with physically impossible qualities. (Technically, since it’s a mineral, it might better be called “unobtainite,” but that’s a pretty nerdy quibble.) Unobtanium is the best superconductor known, and apparently works at room temperature. Just as real-world superconductors can float in the presence of a magnetic field, mountains on Pandora apparently loaded with unobtanium can float in the powerful magnetic pockets that dot the moon’s surface. The films show these magnetic fields can interfere with technology, just as they would in real life — although, apparently, not whatever wireless links which allow the main characters to link with their “avatars.”

High technology

Continue reading…

Red Eye on Fox News (don’t judge) is OFF THE HOOK!! If you are a night owl like me you really should put the views of the Fox News Network aside and check this show out. It’s like news for dummies but you really do learn about the news dummy. It just so happens to be delivered in a hysterical way. Lately they have been playing with a lot of computer animation trying to keep up with Japan’s crazy ass videos with “current events” acted out by computer people. Keep up the good work “Sergeant Wrinkle.” (For all you Red Eye beginners, that’s what Greg Gutfeld has named the wrinkle that hangs over his nose.)

Baldwin animates the story of a young voodoo doll who will go to any means to escape his master’s wrath. A lovely, creepy, and sad computer animated student film.

via here and here.

This took five years to make!

I know that I liked this book as a child, although the details are a little sketchy. When I heard that a movie was being made of it I was obviously worried that it would ruin the story and all my memories would be trashed.

Being a little apprehensive, seeing it on a tight-arse Tuesday seemed like a good idea. However, it definitely didn’t let me down. I enjoyed the movie and would have gladly paid full price for it.

The effects to animate the face were very impressive, and at times I found it hard to believe that it was special effects. It helped that the actors of the wild things were actually inside the big costumes most of the time – with the giant extra-heavy heads. This meant that the movement was much more natural than a computer could have done.

Max Records, who played the main character Max, was quite impressive. Most child actors are frustrating to watch and either under- or over-act. Records managed to find a good midline and did the role justice.

The story itself obviously differs from the book – it has to to make it last for an hour and a half. However they managed to adapt it and make it work; the story is an average lost-childhood one which a lot of adults would love. The story didn’t do so much for me, but I can’t fault it, it’s just not my style.

The actors playing the wild things were also great but I was little alarmed to hear James Gandolfini playing Carol! I’ve recently been watching The Sopranos, so to put him in a ‘kids’ movie after that is a bit odd. He definitely fit the role though, especially the instability.

I loved the movie, but not for the story.

The Animation Process

What is a Storyboard?

• A storyboard is a graphical representation of a complete animation.
• A storyboard is a kind of “cartoon” of the “scenes” of a piece of writing.
• Storyboarding is the process of producing sketches of the shots of your script.
• The end result looks like comic book of your film.

Where storyboards are needed?

1. Film industry
2. Business and Politics
3. Architecture

Why we need storyboards?

• In short, it contributes to making the quality of your final animation much better.
• Storyboard = an excellent tool for planning a production (Pre-Visualize the idea)+ tool for communication with others (Clearest Language)

Benefits in General (for various fields)

1. Storyboarding helps a group visualize what they are discussing
2. It reduces time spent in undirected discussion
3. It allows all participants to share ideas equally regardless of extroversion or introversion
4. Participants feel empowered in the decision making process
5. It identifies and organizes ideas
6. Decisions and action items can be assigned by group consensus

Storyboard Style
Since the only criteria storyboards must meet is ease of execution and reproducibility, most storyboards are rendered with a fast, easily controlled medium such as pencil, ink and charcoal dust or dry marker for color work.

Storyboard Template: Click Here

Just reading this article in the New York Times about how a Taiwanese news organization is using a computer animation company to create 3D-animated “simulations” of current news events. The thing is, they are sort of recreations of the event based on ideas of what may have happened, often based on hearsay and unsubstantiated facts. The company even has actors on staff who do motion capture to create the animated characters. The video of the simulated sequences depicting Tiger Woods getting beaten and chased by his wife are like something out of a Grand Theft Auto videogame. And the one of him dancing in a club while text-messaging one of his mistresses is like The Sims or something. This is really pushing the edge of what The News is to become – more tabloid and entertainment-based. The dramatic music accompanying the animations is so bad it’s hilarious…

As he says in the NY Times article, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC believes that “this will be done by somebody, in this country, within six months.”

Here’s another one – really funny when the narrator changes his voice to be the girl answering her phone “This is Jaimee”:

A unique “Virtual Museum of the European Roots” have been launched at an international conference in Rome.

Accessible through their web site  here , the virtual museum allows visitors to see prehistoric art in full 3D.

Visitors can rotate, scale and move images of the ancient artifacts. They can also take up to 16 thematic routes to explore some key aspects of prehistoric cultures, such as the invention of wine and the first writing systems.

Five tourist cultural itineraries are also online. Extending from Bulgaria to Italy and Romania, they follow fascinating paths filled with art, archaeology and nature.

“The museum provides the possibility to explore in a digital environment the common ancient matrix on which Europe is founded since prehistoric times for the discovery of our shared European cultural heritage,” project coordinator Marco Merlini said.

Read more at Discovery news and see an example of the 3d objects here

ACM SIGGRAPH (Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques)

Second ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia

SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, 16-19 December, 2009

Date:  Dec 16 (Wednesday) to Dec 19, 2009 (Saturday)

Venue:  Pacifico Yokohama (Yokohama, Japan)

Address:  1-1-1 Minato Mirai Nishi-ku Yokohama

The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques www.siggraph.org  is an interdisciplinary organisation concentrating on research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Members include researchers, developers and users from the technical, academic, business, and art communities. SIGGRAPH provides information for the computer graphics community through its annual conference, publications and the SIGGRAPH Video Reviews.

The ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award is presented annually to an artist who has created a substantial and important body of work that significantly advances aesthetic content in the field of digital art.  Nominations for the 2010 award are accepted until November 1, at www.siggraph.org/programs/awards

SIGGRAPH is the best exhibition to meet the world’s leading experts on computer graphics and interactive techniques, to see international of art and animation and tomorrow’s technologies today.  You can find the products and services you need to achieve your creative visions and help with corporate growth. There will be thousands of researchers, developers, producers, providers of computer graphics and interactive techniques on display.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Computer Animation Festival award ceremony will be held on 17 December 2009 to honor the well-deserved award winners!

Speakers

Jun Rekimoto (The University of Tokyo and Sony Computer Science Laboratories Director)

David Kirk (NVIDIA Fellow and former NVIDIA Chief Scientist)

Joe Rohde (Executive Designer and Senior Vice President, Walt Disney Imagineering)

BSCS 3 – Study the whole chapter1 of MIS.
- – -
BSCS 2 and COMPRO – Study your notes in computer languages, review programming in C, JAVA and visual Basic.
Review all the commands in visual foxpro and the entire chapter 1 of DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

BSBA 3 & 4, BS Education 3rd year – Study your notes in humanities, read the chapter 1.

BSCS 3 and selected compro 2 animation students.

Review what we have discussed in COMPUTER ANIMATION

- – Should you have any question please reply

You’ve probably seen the bizarre Chinese “Presto” remake that is literally a frame-by-frame copy. If you haven’t check it out here:

Before you start making references to “The Little Cars” or “Ratatoing”, I’d like to inform that this “rip-off” is in fact a student project from the Marsera Institute of Digital Arts. I guess there’s an assignment for students learning 3D computer animation to take their favorite piece of animation and remake it. On this page, there are other student projects including a “WALL-E” remake and some “Kung Fu Panda” film (and I must say that the actual movie was the best DreamWorks has ever done.)

I’m not quite sure what I’d think of this remake if I had worked on the original short, but I might be honored and pleased to know that some animation student is learning through my work.

Here’s a bit more information on the Masera Institute of Digital Arts, for anyone interested:

The first animation institution in China. It has gained a reputation for leadership in the field of CG education with the largest teaching scale and strong professional training skills throughout China. The programs cover all aspects of Computer Animation; in films and TV, Game Design, Architecture Design, Advertisement Design, Motion Graphics for Television, and Multimedia Design. The mission of Marsera Institute is to deliver highly qualified and innovative intellectuals into the CG industry. So far, thousands of CG elites have graduated from Marsera Institute of Digital Arts and have played major roles in both the domestic and international CG industry. From Game Developers Conference China website.

[/Film article. Thanks to Michael Rianda, commenter on /Film for the link to the Masera student projects page.]

If you’ve ever been to our Library, one of the first things you might have noticed first is the two walls lined with our periodicals. Our magazine subscriptions are wide and varied, and they run the gamut from Fine Arts to Pop Culture and beyond. There are certainly a few magazines here I’d never seen before, but of all the ones I’ve become acquainted with, there are none quite like Stash.

You can tell this will be good.

Stash is, according to their website, “the planet’s only monthly video showcase of animation, VFX and motion graphics”. They stick true to their mission, and each DVD is packed with a whole bunch of videos short films, broadcast design, music videos and commercials from around the world. This wide range of subjects, artists and clients produces equal variety in styles and solutions. Best of all, each DVD is accompanied by a booklet which contains details for each of the pieces.

It’s definitely worth a peek. The variety is each issue is sure to inspire or at the very least, amuse.

Click on one of the following images to see a short, if you’re still not convinced.

The Pearce Sisters

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc

1. SQUASH AND STRETCH

This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it’s broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master and will be used often.

2. ANTICIPATION

This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher’s wind-up or a golfers’ back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality.

3. STAGING

A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audience’s attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isn’t obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene.

4. STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION

Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn’t have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation.

5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION

When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. “DRAG,” in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action.

6. SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN

As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene.

7. ARCS

All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs.

8. SECONDARY ACTION

This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action.

9. TIMING

Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others.

10. EXAGGERATION

Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. Its like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated.

11. SOLID DRAWING

The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time.

12. APPEAL

A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audience’s interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

Bare in mind, this took them five years to make.

It’s got nothing on Pixar but nevertheless this is pretty brilliant. (There’s a quote for their marketing campaign).

Download File: WhatIsAnimation.doc

50 years ago Walt Disney created animated objects such as Mickey Mouse. Today the process used to create animated objects has had to change. In fact, it continues to change.

Animation

The word “animation” is a form of “animate,” which means to bring to life. Thus when a multimedia developer wants to bring an image to life, animation is used. For example, a spinning globe is it better to film the motion on video, or is animation a better solution.

Adds visual impact to your multimedia projects and Web pages

Many multimedia applications provide animation tools.

The Power of Motion

Visual effects such as wipes, fades, zooms, and dissolves are available in most authoring packages. But animation is more than wipes, fades, zooms, and dissolves. Until Quick Time and AVI motion video became more common place animations were the primary source of dynamic action in multimedia.

First you should understand the principles of how the eye interprets the changes are seen as motion.

Principles of Animation

Animation is possible because of a biological phenomenon known as persistence of vision and the psychological phenomenon called phi.

An object seen by the human eye remains chemically mapped on the eye’s retina for a brief time after viewing.

Combined with the human mind’s need to conceptually complete a perceived action.

This makes it possible for a series of images that are changed very slightly and very rapidly, one after the other, seem like continuous motion.

Animation adds visual impact. Persistence of vision allows a series of separate images to blend together into a visual illusion of movement.

Kinematics

Kinematics is the study of the movement and motion of structures that have joints, such as a walking man.

Cel Animation

Made famous by Disney. 24 frames per second therefore a minute may require as many as 1,440 separate frames. Cel animation: is based on changes that occur from one frame to the next. Cel stands for celluloid which is a clear sheet with images drawn on them. The celluloid images are place on a background that is usually stationary. The background remains fixed as the images changes.

Path Animation

Moves an object along a predetermined path on the screen. The path can be a straight line or have a number of curves. Starts with keyframes (the first and last frame of an action).  The series of frames in between the keyframes are drawn in a process called tweening.  Tweening requires calculating the number of frames between keyframes and the path the action takes, and then actually takes, and then sketches a series of progressively different outlines.

Computer Animation

Typically employees the same logic and procedural concepts as cel animation. You can usually set your own frame rate At 15 frames a second the animation may appear jerky and slow

2-D animation can be an acceptable alternative to the expense of creating video

3D Animation

3-D Animation involves three steps: modeling, animation, and rendering

Modeling – the process of creating objects and scenes

Animation – the process of defining the object’s motion

Rendering – the final step in creating 3-D animation.

Morphing is the process of blending two images into a series of images

Warping allows you to distort a single image

Virtual reality (VR) creates an environment that surrounds the user so that they become part of the experience.

All in all, there are worse sights than an eager Wilderness Ranger when you open your front door.

(Disney) Starring the voices of Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, John Ratzenberger, Bob Peterson, Jerome Ranft, David Kaye, Elie Docter, Jeremy Leary, Mickie McGowan, Danny Mann. Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson.

Some people wait their entire lives for the adventure of a lifetime, only to see it pass us by. The truth is, the only reason not to go out and grab our dreams by the throat is our fear of leaving our familiar existence.

Young Carl Fredricksen (Leary) is a little shy but not about his favorite subject – adventurer Charles Muntz (Plummer). With a dirigible luxuriously outfitted for his family of dogs, Muntz goes to locations all over the globe to find strange and exotic creatures for study, and the newsreels of the time eat it all up. After a trip to South America and a particularly remote location called Paradise Falls – a land lost to time – Muntz returns with a skeleton of a large bird. Experts, however, decry the skeleton as fake. Disgraced and stripped of his membership in professional societies and stung by the assaults on his character, he takes off in his airship for Venezuela, vowing not to return until he has a live specimen to vindicate his name. He is not seen again.

Despite his hero’s fall from grace, Carl is not deterred in his worship. He meets young Ellie (Docter) who shares his obsession. She has even commandeered an abandoned house to serve as her personal airship. As talkative and outgoing as Carl is shy and timid, Ellie and Carl take to each other like cats to milk.

They grow up and marry. Now a man, Carl (Asner) becomes a balloon vendor at a zoological park where Ellie works as a docent. He buys her the old abandoned house where they played as children and work hard to make it their dream home. They go on picnics and watch the clouds drift by, but their dream is the same; one day to build a home on remote Paradise Falls.

They save their pennies for the trip, but life gets in the way. They continually have to borrow from their trip fund for everyday crises; auto repairs, home repairs, medical repairs. They have a good life, but not without its share of heartache. At last, there comes a day when Ellie isn’t able to make the climb up the hill to their favorite picnic spot. Faithful Carl stays with her in the hospital, but she knows where this is leading. She hands Carl her adventure scrapbook, meaning for him to read it. Not long after that, he must face life alone without her.

He opens her scrapbook regularly, but is unable to get past the section that reads “Stuff I’m Going to Do” believing that he failed to give her the adventures she dreamed of, knowing those pages would be blank. He is lost, cantankerous and alone, walking with one of those canes with four tennis balls on them. When Russell (Nagai), an overweight Asian-American Wilderness Explorer comes to his door asking him if he can aid Carl in any way (so he can get the final merit badge to become a Senior Explorer), Carl literally sends him on a snipe hunt. The good-natured Russell is only too happy to help.

Around their home developers are putting together one of those godawful mixed use apartment buildings with shopping and casual dining on the first floor. His home stands in their way, and they are constantly pressuring him to sell which he adamantly refuses to do, despite the best efforts of their construction foreman (Ratzenberger). When a construction worker backs into his mailbox which is marked by Ellie’s handprint, Carl loses it.

This gives the faceless developers the opening they need. Carl is taken to court where he is judged a menace to society. He is ordered sent to a retirement facility, which would allow the developers to raze his home to the ground.

Carl is faced with a decision. He can accept his fate and give up on life, or he can take the opportunity to finally become the explorer he and Ellie always wanted to be. With the ingenuity of a born balloonist, he ties thousands upon thousands of balloons to his home, fashions an ingenious steering system through his weather vane and heads up.

Flying over the city, he feels liberated for the first time since Ellie left. He settles into his favorite easy chair to enjoy his flight when there is, oddly, a knock at the door. When he opens it, he is startled to discover Russell, who had been chasing the Snipe (which he admits looked oddly like a field mouse) under the porch at the time of lift off. Russell had scrambled onto the porch and now was a reluctant stowaway. Carl, knowing that it is too dangerous to leave him exposed on the porch, invites him in.

After a storm tosses them about, they at last arrive on the plateau of Paradise Falls, but on the wrong side. They don’t have a great deal of flight capability because the helium is slowly leaking from the balloons. Carl means to drag the house to the opposite side of the plateau to at last retire to the place he and Ellie meant to be.

Before he can do that, he must contend with talking dogs, a rather persistent chocolate-eating bird and an embittered and obsessive Charles Muntz. He must also weigh doing the right thing against completing his dream, but what if doing the right thing would mean betraying the person who has meant everything to him his entire life?

This is being hailed as Pixar’s finest creation to date, and not without justification. First of all, there’s the look of the film. It is brightly colorful, virtually eye-popping in every detail. The animation is stylized, yes but with an amazing and rich detail that will make repeated viewings a pleasure.

Then there’s the tone. Director Pete Docter – who previously helmed Monsters, Inc and co-wrote WALL-E – has crafted Carl Fredricksen’s life with loving care. The opening sequence which essentially sets the table is a stunning bit of filmmaking. Poignant and heartbreaking in spots, it also has some laugh-out-loud funny moments. In many ways, Carl Fredricksen is the most complete character in terms of personality that Pixar has ever created. Fredricksen has a great big heart, but that heart has been broken. He is cantankerous, short-tempered and a bit selfish. He is far from perfect, but when the chips are down he comes through.

It is to Docter and Pixar’s credit that they create an action hero who is old and not in the best of shape. In fact, only Muntz is the kind of fit hero we are used to seeing in adventure movies. Russell is certainly out of shape and Dug (Ranft), the likable talking dog that befriends Carl and Russell, is more of a mutt than the sleek, menacing dogs that Muntz uses as his army.

This was the first animated film to open the Cannes Film Festival, an honor normally reserved for French live-action films, and an honor richly deserved. There is no doubt in my mind that this film is deserving of an Oscar nomination for Best Picture; whether or not that happens is anybody’s guess, but it certainly is a better movie than Finding Nemo and to my mind, Beauty and the Beast which did get the nomination in that category, the only animated feature thus honored to date.

Poignant without being sentimental and never talking down to its audience (which may blow some of the more heart-rending scenes right by younger viewers), this is another triumph for Pixar. Yes, the kids will love the bright colors, the action and the strange creatures of Paradise Falls, but their parents will appreciate the well-rounded characters, the thoughtful story and the uplifting message that we are never too old to begin an adventure. Up is one of the best movies you will see this year.

WHY RENT THIS: Simply put one of the best movies of the year. Poignant in places and funny in others, it presents a well-rounded and believable character in Carl Fredricksen. The colors are eye-popping; it’s a gorgeous movie to look at.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Some of the more heart-wrenching moments may go over the head of younger children, who may get restless in places.

FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for all but the very youngest of children.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: The Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story can be seen in the streets while Carl’s house is rising, and also in the final scene in the parking lot.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: The Blu-Ray contains a new Dug animated feature, as well as footage from the filmmakers trip to Venezuela, which would inspire the Paradise Falls location in the movie.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

TOMORROW: The Ugly Truth

Killer Tracks has just come up with a couple of new releases in 10 different libraries!

For those of you who don’t know, Killer Tracks is most likely our most beloved audio resource. You can browse through hundreds of songs, clips and sound fx through it’s user-friendly catalog or using a more specific search through the “trakfinder”. You can then listen to the clips and set aside those you like to download them. This is especially valuable for those of you in Computer Animation or Digital Film.

Now, Killer Tracks has expanded its library once more, to include the following 15 new releases in 10 different libraries. So be sure to check them out!

Dino line dancing - the next big Hollywood trend.

(20^th Century Fox) Starring the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Simon Pegg, Seann William Scott, Kirsten Wiig, Chris Wedge, Jane Lynch, Josh Peck, Bill Hader, Karen Disher. Directed by Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier.

For most of us, family isn’t the only thing – it’s everything. There are also all sorts of families, some not so readily apparent as others.

The Ice Age is in full swing and Ellie the Mammoth (Latifah) is expecting a child any day now. Her mate Manny (Romano) is of course as bumbling, moronic and well-intentioned as most cinematic expectant fathers. He builds a playground on which he has stuck snowballs to blunt the sharp branches on trees and beaks on birds. He goes into paroxysms of panic whenever Ellie has indigestion. Still, it’s a great time to be a mammoth. Everything is as it should be, with friends all around and Scrat (Wedge) chasing the ever-elusive acorns.

Still, not all is well in paradise. Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Leary) and Sid the sloth (Leguizamo) are feeling a bit left out. Diego, who is losing some of his predatory edge, having been outrun by a gazelle (Hader), decides to leave for greener pastures. Sid, being Sid, finds some strange eggs in an underground cavern and decides to adopt them as his own children. Scrat has discovered a rival, the seductive flying squirrel Scratte (Disher) who is maddeningly attractive.

Then the eggs hatch and instead of furry little mammals there are carnivorous reptiles – big ones. Think Tyrannosaurus Rex-sized. What’s worse, Mama Rex has come looking for her missing babies and is none-too-pleased to find them with warm-blooded types. She picks them up – and Sid too – and carries them back underground.

As annoying as Sid is, his friends decide to band up once again and go search for him in the cavern. Although Manny and Diego are skeptical as to Sid’s survival chances, Ellie and her entourage – Crash (Scott) and Eddie (Peck) the possums – are insistent, so down below they go.

They find a whole new world there, one of lush tropical vegetation, lava falls and lots and lots of dinosaurs. Some are friendly, some not so much. No time to wonder how this world got here or how it can sustain itself, they’ve got to find Sid. However, they need a guide to this world that is unfamiliar and dangerous. One is provided in Buck (Pegg), a one-eyed weasel (make of that what you will) who has spent years tracking down the gigantic white dinosaur who took his eye. Ahab, meet Moby Dick.

I will say this about Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – the animation is superb, keeping the cartoon-like qualities that satisfy the kids but keeping it real to satisfy their parents. Strangely, though, the performances are a bit flat. There’s no sense of fun and wonder that made the first two Ice Age movies so entertaining. Instead, you get the feeling that this was rushed through for the sole purpose of filling a spot on the Fox release schedule and making the big bucks that the first two did.

There is also a lot more of Scrat and his new partner here. Scrat has become more popular in many ways than the main characters of the story are. They use him for the trailers as well as the advertisements. Scrat, as in the first two movies, almost never interacts with the main characters. While his sequences are among the best and funniest in the movie, they seem almost like commercial interruptions and I suppose in a way they are. Gotta sell that Scrat merch, after all. Still, I’ve always loved the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons and the Scrat sequences are a lot like that.

This is very kid-friendly in every way with all that implies. When stacked up against the Pixar and DreamWorks movies, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur doesn’t compare very favorably. Still in all, it’s a pleasant if unchallenging 90 minutes of summertime fun, and the kids are going to want to see it regardless of whether you do or not. Accordingly, make plans to buy this for the tykes if you intend to have any peace in your household over the next few months. Don’t forget the toys, action figures and video games that are sure to be demanded in the wake of the movie.

REASONS TO GO: Extremely well-animated. Nothing here is all that offensive, and the Scrat sequences are hysterical at times.

REASONS TO STAY: Kind of boring, kind of bland.

FAMILY VALUES: Perfect summertime entertainment for bored kids – not so much for their parents.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Buck character was based not on Crocodile Dundee so much, but on Frank Buck, a legendary hunter and adventurer whose exploits inspired the TV series “Bring ‘em Back Alive.”

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: The Expanded 2-Disc DVD and Blu-Ray editions include the Scrat Pack, a collection of every Scrat short ever made, some of which are included on DVD editions of the first two films. There are also a couple of Ice Age games. Surprisingly, the DVD is presented in 2D whereas it was released theatrically in 3D. That’s a shame, because the 3D presentation was one of the best of recent years.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Amelia

I am a huge, massive Star Wars fan who defends even Phantom Menace and AOTC. But I won’t bother defending this one. Sure it was fun at times, but right from the beginning with the cheesy voice-over introduction to the rapid acceleration to the weak plot device ‘The Jedi Must save Jabba the Hutt’s son’ I pretty much knew what I was in for. After that you essentially get an hour and a half of shooting.

They try to set up a good relationship between Anakin and his new apprentice Asoka, which is okay I guess, except that seeing some annoying teenage girl try to be a Jedi was a little annoying and very un-star wars like, more like High School Musical made an appearance in the movie.

The animation didn’t look that great, but I suppose the style of it is a matter of taste. The plot was actually well-thought out even if it wasn’t a big enough or emotionally deep enough story for a movie.

All in all, pretty unnecessary.
4/10

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