I recently saw "Australia." It was made by someone that already has my trust, so I take its flaws as part of an interesting and slightly rude conversation with a talented mind. Its flaws, in my mind, all had to do with the construction of the narrative long form. I have lots of room in my imagination for experiments, adventures, challenge. But to do this, you have to master and extend the way we deal with narrative. Its a matter of hardwiring under convention.
The greatest offense is when a filmmaker mistakes overloading for extension, and gives us a long form composed of genre segments. I understand why Baz did this; he was growing the annotative style he mastered in "Moulin Rouge." He actually came close with the dreaming, singing thing. Even in failure, he is worth the investment.
Here we have the very same failure: too much story as a substitute for good story. An overload of borrowed narrative chunks shuffled together as an excuse for narrative. Well, you already know that because even the ordinary critics say so.
Less noticed is the way the animators handled the framing. This is a new animation studio, and this is their first project. Like everyone else in the business without a unique soul, they are chasing Pixar, who pays special attention to story and framing. Framing in this context means the handling of space. Watch this feature from the perspective of perspective to see what I mean. Things are framed on the edge just as Pixar does, with angles, movements and establishing shots that are slightly ever so slightly more radical than the usual.
But look at what they get wrong. Pixar and Welles when they do this it is all about environments. The space is what matters and incidentally there are people. This takes work, especially when you are animating because it means you have to work from the outside in. Dreamworks goes the other way: they design the shots around the lead characters and then fill in the backgrounds with lesser technology. The environment is an artifact only, not intrinsic to what you see. We see objects. The animators are so aware of this that they even make a character someone that fits the story not at all out of disconnected objects.
The key woman in this is a redhead. Its no accident that the best actor in the thing is her voice
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
The greatest offense is when a filmmaker mistakes overloading for extension, and gives us a long form composed of genre segments. I understand why Baz did this; he was growing the annotative style he mastered in "Moulin Rouge." He actually came close with the dreaming, singing thing. Even in failure, he is worth the investment.
Here we have the very same failure: too much story as a substitute for good story. An overload of borrowed narrative chunks shuffled together as an excuse for narrative. Well, you already know that because even the ordinary critics say so.
Less noticed is the way the animators handled the framing. This is a new animation studio, and this is their first project. Like everyone else in the business without a unique soul, they are chasing Pixar, who pays special attention to story and framing. Framing in this context means the handling of space. Watch this feature from the perspective of perspective to see what I mean. Things are framed on the edge just as Pixar does, with angles, movements and establishing shots that are slightly ever so slightly more radical than the usual.
But look at what they get wrong. Pixar and Welles when they do this it is all about environments. The space is what matters and incidentally there are people. This takes work, especially when you are animating because it means you have to work from the outside in. Dreamworks goes the other way: they design the shots around the lead characters and then fill in the backgrounds with lesser technology. The environment is an artifact only, not intrinsic to what you see. We see objects. The animators are so aware of this that they even make a character someone that fits the story not at all out of disconnected objects.
The key woman in this is a redhead. Its no accident that the best actor in the thing is her voice
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.