Sunday, June 29, 2008
"THE BIG STORY" AND "BOB'S BIRTHDAY"
Here's the best stop motion short done in the last twenty years, the best I know of, anyway. it's by Tim Watts ("Corpse Bride") and Dave Soten, with voices by Frank Gorshin. It spawned a few great commercials and nearly won an Acadamy Award in the mid-nineties, but I'm surprised that it didn't do even better than that.
The style easily lends itself to computer animation and demonstrates that 3D features needn't have confined themselves to kiddie subjects like penguins. Imagine what a Kirk Douglas enthusiast like John Kricfalusi could have done with a look like this!!!! Imagine, of course, what Tim and Dave could have done!
I was curious to see what animated short beat this film for the Oscar. Somebody speculated that it was "Bob's Birthday." I just watched it, and it's not horrible. What do you think?
That Bob cartoon is part of a series of cartoons called Bob and Margaret I believe.
ReplyDeleteused to show it on cartoon network, and later comedy central
that bob cartoon looks like the National Film Board of Canada style, its basically what the far side would look like if you sucked all the funny out of Larsons drawings
ReplyDeleteBob's Birthday was okay... I wish it was in English, but I got most of it. Most being just over half...
ReplyDeleteIt seemed like the kind of animation I would do... simple drawings to make it easier, aha...
I had never seen "The Big Story" before, but had heard about it as it was played in front of "Pulp Fiction" in the UK. It's pretty good, great use of lighting and camera angles. Frank Gorshin provided the voices.
ReplyDeleteOther stop motion animation of recent years I like is the work of Aardman (Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts) and Tim Burton's short, "Vincent".
The sight gag where they go chin to chin was great, is that it though? KInda short even for one
ReplyDeleteTim & Dave had a film in development with Disney that would extend the BIG STORY concept to feature length. It was to be populated with caricatures of all the great movie icons-Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Bogart, both Hepburns etc. The project died once Disney realised the nightmare of getting all the concerned 'estates' of the deceased involved. Shame but the designs Tim made were fantastic.
ReplyDeleteits not too bad ... straight to the point with not much frills
ReplyDeleteMatt: Holy Cow! That would have made a great film!
ReplyDeleteThe Big Story was kick ass. Those clay dudes were hard asses. Must of got out of the kiln. Bob's Birthday...I speak English and that's all I need right now.
ReplyDeleteThe first one should have won.
ReplyDeletejinks and replicalhandbags are spam eddie
ReplyDeletethe big story was amazing and impressive from the start. bob's birthday seems to be that whole canadian style of animation, which i would not e able to get myself to care about if i tried. it would be an enormous effort on my part. i'm pretty sure this has been dubbed. i think i saw it on that show "o canada" that aired on cartoon network about ten years ago, and it was in english. as is, it's pretty "meh." looks very styerotypical for something that would win an oscar. relatively uninspired.
ReplyDeleteI really like Bob's Birthday. It's simple, quite innocent and very British. It's a more gentle sort of humour.
ReplyDeleteThe Big Story is great, of course, but part of me thinks it's almost cheating to just do Kirk Douglas - a personality so big and so well known? It's kind of just cashing in on his work, rather than taking qualities and inspiration from it. But then there's no doubt it's really well done. No doubt at all.
And the chin to chin shot is genius indeed.
What do you think, Mr.F? Give us more thoughts.
Oh, and the whole Canadian animation thing? Bob's Birthday is British and very British at that.
Bob is nice (reminds me old Hungarian cartoons) but some more complex characters are much to my liking.
ReplyDeleteThat was quite enjoyable
ReplyDelete"The big story" is great! But could you tell my more about Tim Watts?'cuase it's the first time I heared this name...When the talk is about "Corpse Bride" I think only about Tim Burton. ;D
ReplyDeletewhat an idea, love it, it`s handmated animation, isin`t it !?
ReplyDeletehttp://kickie.blogspot.com
wow, never heard of big story. lots of fun.
ReplyDeletespeaking of stop motion, how cool is david borthwick's secret adventures of tom thumb? where human actors were filmed in stop motion? anyone else seen that?
Hmm fairly interesting but when it comes to cartoons, I'm an out-and-out Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies kinda dude. Bugs Bunny and Road-Runner being my favourites. Some modern cartoons seem to inject a fairly vicious edge to the intended humour, such as that of South Park or picks upon the dysfunctional element as with the Simpsons but with a more positive and generally hilarious result.
ReplyDeleteDon't have much time for commenting on bloggs but thought your views on the approach creating cartoons vis a vis Goldberg were interesting.
Thanks
J.D.GLUGG
The Big Story has the best stop motion acting I've ever seen. You can watch it with the sound off and can still understand the relationship between the three characters. That's hard enough to do in real time, but to animate that frame by frame is incredible. I wonder how they pulled it off.
ReplyDeleteI recognize Bob and Margaret, I've always liked what I saw. But The Big Story was more unique - and more 'adult' - than a lot of animated filming, and I appreciate that differentness about it!
ReplyDeleteI thought the stop motion and the way it used shadows made it much better. Only my opinion though, :)
ReplyDeleteHey Eddie,
ReplyDeleteDidn't Tim and Dave also make commercials like this for Lipton's Brisk Iced Tea?
- trevor.
There's something mildly amusing about most NFB shorts, like Bob's Birthday, but that's the best it can do - mild amusement. I can't stand most NFB. You look at which cartoons started winning Oscars in the dark ages of animation, the 70s, and it's mostly all them.
ReplyDeleteThey don't even try to be funny, just ornate and precious and smug, like New Yorker cartoons!
No personal offense to Canadians, but the government's socialist arts funding makes for really godawfully boring art, and the socialist model of society discourages individual creativity and excellence. That's why we here in the states welcome every great talent who figures out they need to leave...
"The Big Story" is a parody of the Billy Wilder classic, "Ace in the Hole." Wilder changed the title to "The Big Carnival," they say, because critics who didn't like the movie started calling it "Ass in the Wringer."
ReplyDeleteshare your thoughts at www.indiasurfer.com
ReplyDeleteChip Butty (and others), I was about to go off again on how Bob's Birthday is British and what's with the Canadian animation thing, when I checked and, bloody hell, it was part funded by the Canadian NFB. Who knew? Well, I mean, apart from you guys. Okay, so I'm the only one who didn't, seemingly.
ReplyDeleteSo I owe you guys an apology. They didn't make much (any) mention of Canadian money over here in Britain when the short actually came out - it was all British-this and British-that. I wonder how they managed that? I mean, I'd love to get the NFB to pay for some work... you think if I asked nicely, they'd send me some money?
you canadian bitter? Just pitch a story about your immigrant hungarian Grandfathers childhood and youll get a grant
ReplyDeletelester hunt's the kind of guy who wears a belt & suspenders.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not Canadian but if they give me money I'll be anything they want me to be. I'm a cheap date.
ReplyDeleteI had watched "The Big STory" at least half a dozen times before you mentioned it here, and it makes me laugh every time. I like to say, "And what have I got? A Woman who eats five dollar BILLS!" when I feel maligned.
ReplyDeleteI had always wondered what JohnK mihght have thought of that short, knowing his admiration of K. Douglass.
The Big Story was done in 2D first. I guess they used that as a template, you can look at the so-called animatic (consisting of full finished animation) right here:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtube.com/watch?v=gDQDf416MGQ
I think it ok...I think I have seen other stuff buy the same people.
ReplyDeleteMight have been better in english !
ReplyDeleteJoel http://www.Ask-Joel.com
Bob's Birthday is Awesome!
ReplyDelete