Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- After all the to-do about the dancing in Happy Feet **, I spent some time thinking about dance sequences in animated films. There are so many in 2D films that are so brilliantly done, it’s hard to pick a favorite. From Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, from Pinocchio to The Yellow Submarine, there have been memorable and brilliant dance sequences.

However, in cg films it’s hard to think of one. I’m not including Happy Feet with its Motion Capture method; I’m trying to think of films done using keyframe.

For the most part, Pixar has treated their song numbers as background music, and the characters don’t react to the music.

The nearest to a dance number I could think of was the closing credit sequence in Chicken Little. The principal characters dance and lip-sync to rock numbers. A lot of cuts are built into it, so the scenes aren’t long. However, it’s modern and smooth and obviously choreographed.

Are there other cgi dances that I don’t remember? I don’t mean the small moves to dance. Shrek, if I remember correctly, has a small dance but it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m looking for a sequence. If anyone out there can point to others, please let me know.

** re Happy Feet see:
- Mike Barrier‘s review
or
- Mark Mayerson‘s and/or - Keith Lango‘s reaction to the NYTimes article about Savion Glover‘s MoCap dance numbers.

or even
- my own recent posts.

The unfortunate part is that Happy Feet isn’t worth the brouhaha. I was entertained; I didn’t think it was great but had fun. Obviously, there are many out there who didn’t like it at all, but that’s irrelevant to my experience. (Maybe watching it on dvd was something that helped my enjoyment level.)

It wasn’t loud screaming noise like Monster House (which had a good performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal) or Barnyard with the udder problems and the loud screaming everything. Most of the animated films came at you gangbusters and had nothing to say. Cars was beautifully animated and thought out all the moves, but the violently loud soundtrack alone would keep me from watching it again. The story like all animated stories these days was trite and cliched. Happy Feet had the same story problems, but at least it had a responsible message (which none of the other family films offered). It was better than I expected – maybe that’s the problem.

I don’t expect much from animated films these days. I’m rarely disappointed.

The Jim Hill media story on Pixar and specifically about Ratatouille is interesting. I suggest you read it.
Several things weren’t mentioned in the story about marketing Cars and Ratatouille:

. the title is confusing to most of the young audiences who would be targeted to see the film (especially if they have to spell it.)
. Cars did well in the US; it was the foreign recoupment that destroyed that film and ultimately brought it lower grosses than Ice Age 2: the Meltdown.
. The projection that Cars would do well since there are 75 million NASCAR viewers, doesn’t jive with history. People don’t go to racing movies. Anyone hear of Le Mans, Winning, or Grand Prix? Even The Dukes of Hazzard didn’t do very well.

For some reason, the Disney business card on Didier Ghez‘ site really started my New Year off on a good foot. Take a look.

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