Peanuts! Feature film by Blue Sky

[idragosani]

In a way, I like the rendering they chosen : even if it's 3D, they kept the original core of Charlie Brown's animations
I mean, the animation is a little "rough" and "twitchy".

(But yes, of course, I would have prefer to have a full 2D animation feature film, but that's better than nothing )

I have to admit, this didn't turn me off as much as I had expected it would. I think it looks better because it's using a combination of 3D elements and the hand-drawn squiggly lines for mouth and eyes, which are the most important aspects of the characters' personalities. If everything had been rendered 3D, it would have looked awful. Awesome news that TVPaint is being used for this!

[idragosani]

The twitchiness gives it an almost stop-motion feel to it.

[Elodie]

Phew, thank you Idragosani, I'm glad to read you share a little my point of view

[D.T. Nethery]

Simple, graphic characters CAN be animated in full animation , with a lively inked line and full use of all the principles of animation such as anticipation, squash & stretch , and overlapping action, etc.

Sure they can be all that and they can be 3D, but both cases are destructive to the spirit of the Peanuts strips and books. Simple, graphic characters can be vandalized by the overdone, stupid squash & stretch gimmickry at every move. Simple graphics are often best when left to simple, dead pan animation, which was the appropriate approach the Melendez studio took at the time they took it.

I'm with Paul here: I feel the approach of Bill Melendez was completely appropriate with these characters. But I'm used to it, I had my share of eastern european animation and lots of experimental stuff, so for me limited or even jumpy animation is completely normal. Someone grown up with only a diet of Disney might react differently.
(

If those remarks are directed at me I have no idea how you could conclude from my comment about "Simple, graphic characters CAN be animated in full animation , with a lively inked line and full use of all the principles of animation such as anticipation, squash & stretch , and overlapping action, etc. ... Elegant , stylized hand-drawn animation retaining the graphic look of Schultz's comic strip could have been wonderful. " meant I was advocating that the Schulz characters should be animated to look like 1930's - 40's Disney characters or that in saying so I must have "grown up with only a diet of Disney" . Three of my teachers at Sheridan College who I learned a lot of animation principles from (including squash & stretch) were Zach Schwartz, Zlatko Grgić , and Kai Pindal, all of whom appreciated Disney technique to an extent , but weren't slaves to the Disney style. But Zlatko and Kai in particular were not afraid of cartooning and exaggeration in their animation.

Paul, does the use of squash & stretch always mean it must be an "overdone, stupid gimmick" ? Even the relatively limited , deadpan Melendez "Peanuts" TV shows used squash & stretch (especially in Bill Littlejohn's animation of Snoopy ) .

Well, anyway, what do I know ? You and Richard Williams agree : he also dislikes squash & stretch , he almost gags on the phrase every time he mentions it in his "The Animator's Survival Kit" book and DVD , preferring to speak of "sophisticated use of distending/distorting of a character" rather than the dread "squash & stretch" which must be too Mickey Mouse/Bugs Bunny for his tastes.

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My objection to what I'm seeing in the Blue Sky CGI interpretation of "Peanuts" is not that it isn't skillfully done or that they aren't sincerely trying to retain Schulz's style (as much as is possible in CG) , but that the whole approach seems wrong-headed to me . They're spending a great deal of effort to simulate a sort of 2D look , which would come naturally if they'd just hand draw the animation . Another film I'm skeptical about is the forthcoming CGI adaptation of Patrick McDonnell's "Mutts" . I'd much rather see it animated in McDonnell's drawing style , as in the "Shelter Stories" PSA's that Paul and Sandra have done (which I enjoyed quite a bit) . I just object to the current conventional wisdom that any and all DRAWN works (comic strips, graphic novels, illustrated children's books, hand-drawn animation) must be revisioned as 3D CGI .

[slowtiger]

David, I'd never assumed that you were someone who only would've watched Disney movies. I just have met lots of people who had a quite limited knowledge of animation, be it Disney, or Anime, or Hannah-Barbera, or whatever subset of the art, and those people had that annoying habit to call everything else un-natural or wrong. With my own students I have a chance to broaden their horizon, so this habit will eventually fade away.

[idragosani]

An interesting analysis of the animation in this teaser:

http://www.filmdivider.com/freeze-frame ... s-trailer/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Elodie]

Thank you for sharing

[Paul Fierlinger]

If those remarks are directed at me I have no idea how you could conclude from my comment about "Simple, graphic characters ....... " meant I was advocating that the Schulz characters should be animated to look like 1930's - 40's Disney characters.

Yes, that is what I had thought, so I am glad you have clarified this now. BTW, I have lectured a couple of times at the Sheridan School and always believed it was by far the best animation school in the world in its heyday; probably about the time you studied there. Kai Pindal is a good friend of ours and Sandra and I have a certificate given to us by him, stating that we had successfully mastered the piloting of his electrical train in his garden. Zlatko Grgic and I became friends during the Oscars in 1980 where I had offered him the use of our studio to make his own films, when he decided to defect from Yugoslavia. Just before he died he wrote me that he had always regretted not taking me up on that offer -- he was very unhappy that he had instead chosen to work for the Film Board in Canada. But I never thought of those two animators as Stretch & Squash guys... if they ever did use that in their films, it must have been very judicially and simply done right, by which I mean in great moderation and only when absolutely called for.

[Elodie]

Stretch & Squash in animation is like sugar in a cake :
• no sugar, it's flat and poor
• too much sugar, it makes you feel sick

[ZigOtto]

In a way, I like the rendering they chosen : even if it's 3D, they kept the original core of Charlie Brown's animations
I mean, the animation is a little "rough" and "twitchy".

the animation of the trailer looks fine to me as well,
(keeping the spirit of the original strip as far as it's possible when it goes to adapt comic characters to animated film),
my objection, I mean my main disappointment, come with the "rendering" bias,
the charming jaggy outline (from Schulz's shaky hand) is a huge part of the character to my eyes,
also, look how the ears and nose black-inking is acheived, a kind of "open doodle" done with the same pen used for the outline,

nothing to do with this fluffy (body + head) and plastic (ears and nose) toy ...

why not everything tvpainted like the feet of the snap above ?
Relief, hairy/velvet textures and sophisticated lighting are definitively anti-Snoopians imo !

[Elodie]

You have a point concerning the non-existing contour lines.
Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of you with concrete arguments

[animatorBellyAcher]

I dont see what the fuss is about, they're obviously trying to do something original compared to more generic 2d -> 3d conversions like Yogi Bear and Peabody (such as omitting giant irises.) And if its successful it could lead to more different styles of 3d animation than just the normal style we've grown acccustomed to. The worst case scenario is it does poorly and its forgotten quickly (remember Marmaduke?). So its kind of a win win. And go ahead and rewatch a few of the old cartoons before complaining, they hold up better in our nostalgic memories than the actual product.

[Paul Fierlinger]

If you're thinking completely in terms of business success, then you are correct; whatever sells, goes (like Elvis or a sunset painted on black velvet). When the discussion is centered around the integrity of art there are other values in play which do not necessarily translate into win/lose or win/win terms but I wouldn't call it fussing either.

[Fabrice]

And go ahead and rewatch a few of the old cartoons before complaining, they hold up better in our nostalgic memories than the actual product.

I do not often read this kind of sentence, but it makes sense to me, especially regarding the old video games from my childhood.
ok, I'm a bit off-topic, since we are not talking about them.

[D.T. Nethery]

I just have met lots of people who had a quite limited knowledge of animation, be it Disney, or Anime, or Hannah-Barbera, or whatever subset of the art, and those people had that annoying habit to call everything else un-natural or wrong. With my own students I have a chance to broaden their horizon, so this habit will eventually fade away.

I find that the influence of Anime and TV-style limited animation (Hanna-Barbera, etc.) is much more pervasive than Disney. Many students nowadays are a 'generation that knew not Walt'. Anime-style flat mouths flapping on motionless faces (except for the HUGE eyes occasionally blinking) is more the norm than "Disney-style" squash and stretch. And yet squash & stretch is observable in real life. The human face is pliable. Most pliable objects that contact another object will show "squash" on impact. (this is clearly revealed in slow-motion action studies) . Even hard objects contacting with sufficient force will distort (squash) and then recoil (stretch) in reaction to the impact.




Just because squash & stretch (or any animation "principle") can be over-used or used poorly doesn't mean it isn't good when used correctly.

Real faces can do THIS :



So certainly a caricatured or cartooned face can do this .


As Elodie quite rightly commented:

Stretch & Squash in animation is like sugar in a cake :
• no sugar, it's flat and poor
• too much sugar, it makes you feel sick

.