Raya and the Last Dragon

I'm a couple weeks late on this, but I learned about Disney's upcoming animated feature, Raya and the Last Dragon from a friend on Facebook. And at first I thought "okay, ha ha, cute". Another Disney princess animated feature, it ought to do well.

But then, with the success of anime', and films like Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, it made me realize the size of the business prospects of the southeast Asia movie audience.

(copyright Disney, taken from polygon.com, taken from Twitter during D23 in Anaheim.)

Long ago, TV and movies have made me a fan of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Speed Racer, not to mention Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki. Anime and Kung Fu action movies already have a foothold in the U.S. with a healthy fan base, and animated features like Kubo and the Two Strings, and The Princess Mononoke have shown positive and empowering examples of female characters.

While older anime' films and TV shows may have brought a distorted, and cliched view of Asian culture to me and the west, I hope that it has made Americans more aware of current events happening overseas. Not to mention giving Hollywood more cash flow. 'Nuff said!

https://www.polygon.com/2019/8/24/20812723/raya-and-the-last-dragon-disney-animated-movie-release-date

Another factor seems to be the news of protests in cities like Hong Kong show a demand for democracy, although the authoritarian governments there are clamping down hard on free speech and human rights. In a backhanded way, Hollywood may be helping to bring democratic values and human rights to our tattered world.

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/mulan-cast-d23-boycottmulan-1203311115/

https://time.com/5653973/mulan-boycott-liu-yifei/

And then, cliches and stereotypes may be scrapped, and new life may be brought to beloved Asian characters:

https://www.businessinsider.com/marvels-shang-chi-could-be-huge-at-china-box-office-2019-7

But it all comes down to business. I hope they can continue to entertain, while respecting cultures and maybe helping humanity in the long run. I've only scratched the surface on this subject.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/movie-box-office-in-china-now-bigger-than-us-as-domestic-films-draw-big-audiences-2018-05-21

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-china-movies-20181213-story.html

https://screenrant.com/american-movies-better-china/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_China

https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/china-box-office-global-biggest-first-quarter-2018-1202742159/https://www.salon.com/2019/07/13/the-international-movie-market-is-transforming-hollywood_partner/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/filmart-a-market-by-market-169343

Director James Gunn Reinstated For ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy 3’

 After the political hit job, and much clutching of pearls over past sins, and past payments for sins, Guardians Of The Galaxy Director James Gunn is reinstated by Disney. We may finally get proper introduction of Adam Warlock in the MCU.

 (artwork copyright Marvel/Disney)

https://deadline.com/2019/03/james-gunn-reinstated-guardians-of-the-galaxy-3-disney-suicide-squad-2-indefensible-social-media-messages-1202576444/?fbclid=IwAR1c4alcrxcBsdLozrWMmLmg-k9S7NYUt0LWQW3tStjBvcxj09pcp8d8G40

Oscars - Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short for 2018

The nominees for 2018 are -

Animated Feature
“Incredibles 2,” Brad Bird
“Isle of Dogs,” Wes Anderson
“Mirai,” Mamoru Hosoda
“Ralph Breaks the Internet,” Rich Moore, Phil Johnston
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Animated Short
“Animal Behaviour,” Alison Snowden, David Fine
“Bao,” Domee Shi
“Late Afternoon,” Louise Bagnall
“One Small Step,” Andrew Chesworth, Bobby Pontillas
“Weekends,” Trevor Jimenez

With some bad news...

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/academy-voters-dont-watch-the-animated-features-they-vote-on-and-the-academy-is-fine-with-that-170670.html?fbclid=IwAR0fyGO6Nzkyhppfr7V_L1xmc3Nd13TKa1q1X-sMX-BGt1SRpyf-0ktH_yo

And the winners are...
 Best Animated Feature
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
and
Best Animated Short
Bao

https://www.sonypictures-guilds.com/spiderman-into-the-spiderverse

 (copyright A.M.P.A.S, Marvel, Sony and Time-Warner. Sorta)

Behind the Scenes of Zootopia: Gnomon Alumni Panel

It was a packed house in the old Quonset hut auditorium as the Gnomon School of Visual Effects hosted five Zootopia artists, sponsored by Walt Disney Animation Studios. While the buzz for Zootopia may have cooled off a bit, the advances Disney has made should give them quite a lot of momentum at the box office for a while.

https://www.gnomon.edu/community/events/behind-the-scenes-of-zootopia

 Alberto Abril (Animator), Chika Saito (Modeler), Diana Zeng (Lighter), Dylan Ekren (Modeler), and Tyler Bolyard (Look Development Artist) each spoke about their time working on Zootopia, and their learning experiences at Gnomon and the other schools they attended.

They all seemed to have enjoyed working at Disney, and I must admit, I kind of envy their talents and the opportunities that they have had.

Studies of animals in the wild were shown, along with a pencil test of Walt Disney's Robin Hood. Special plugins for Maya, such as Xgen were discussed, along with lighting strategies, not to mention good old-fashioned hand drawn art for development.

Just the development of fur and hair seemed to consume a lot of time and resources. There was some "recycling" as one basic species model of a gazelle/deer was tweaked with different horns, fur color and different outfits to create extra background crowd characters.

(my photo from CTN 2015, copyright Disney)

Unfortunately, there will be no streaming of this presentation due to copyright issues. 

However, I did do a little digging to bring some examples of their work.

Here is Chika Saito’s Modeling Demo Reel 11/30/12

https://vimeo.com/55329417

 Alberto Abril's reel,

 http://www.albertoabril.com/

 Diana Zeng's blog,

 http://dianajzeng.blogspot.com/

 Dylan Ekren's work,

https://www.artstation.com/artist/dekren

And Tyler Bolyard's Facebook,

https://www.facebook.com/tyler.bolyard 

Just being on the grounds at Gnomon is always interesting. Their campus is the old Television Center Studio lot in Hollywood. The buildings are characters in themselves. There's a mixture 1930's and 1940's architecture that has a "Diesel Punk" feel to it. Add in the extra plumbing and cables with Gnomon's high tech interiors, you have some cool, gritty movie exteriors right there.

I'm trying to find out more about the history of the place, but it's past seems kind of murky right now. Which makes it that more interesting. UPDATE:

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/16421261/6311-Romaine-St-Los-Angeles-CA/

The original home of Technicolor, set in a 1920's Art Deco style. There has to be more than a few ghosts haunting that building.