folks there's been a lot said about PRINCE OF EGYPT, ya know, how it's gonna be this great big revolution in the animated film, about scenes with 4 million moving locusts, about guys spending 3 years of their lives in front of a computer to do the Red Sea sequence. Well... ya know... That is awfully cool, and it that everyone that talks about PRINCE OF EGYPT only talks about the film at that level. I mean, why not, when Disney hypes MULAN they always highlight the big Hun invasion sequence and how computers have come a long ways. The trend for me began with THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE when computers helped with the clock tower innards. Well hell, lets forget about all that pesky character animation, or the huddled masses of artists that draw away, day in, day out. Sketching erasing, creating life by the mere stroke of a pencil. Graphite life.
Recently I was lucky enough to see some of the old style animation for PRINCE OF EGYPT. This is how most of the film will be done, the same way those nine old men at the house of mouse all those years ago created the classics we show every new generation every year. In fact all the character animation and the vast majority of the effects animation was done with the all powerful rendering capability of a good sharp hunka wood with a graphite point upon regular white paper with the same ol holes at the bottom. And even more shocking is the (gasp) fact that most of the backgrounds were really painted with that stuff artists use... ummm... PAINT, yeah that's it. Paint. A radical new invention and process hitherto forgotten by publicist.
So why will this tried and true invention of long ago (thank you Mr McCay) make PRINCE OF EGYPT such a beautiful film? Well, because.. personally I'm a huge fan of 'artists' when it comes to animation. There is a part of me that just loves to have a tangible pencil test or model sheet or storyboard or rough pencils or even the clean ups. When it comes down to it, I'm an animation geek. I've been collecting animation since I was a little kid, in my room I have an Old Witch original red pencil piece of animation from SNOW WHITE, I was lucky enough to trade for it at a show in San Antonio about a year ago. And then there are those two black birds from Dumbo and the head of the bed, "I've seen butter.. fly!" To me it's astounding, to sit back and watch an image move across the screen knowing how the process is done, how time consuming and exacting it is.
I've never been a fan of Rotoscoping, unless it's disguised real well, and luckily PRINCE OF EGYPT has no rotoscoping. What's that? Well, it's where you shoot footage of actors doing the scene, then you trace over their images at 24 frames a second. It gives the animation a 'forced' feeling, as if there is a gliding or a simplicity to the movements, and they never ACT as good as completely imagined characters that were 100% hand drawn.
I've seen some of this work and quite frankly the animated acting is quite subtle, slow raisings of an eyebrows, the fumblings of fingers, nervous tics, characters being a character. It's wonderful to see. This animation is being done by people like Kristoff Serrand (lead animator on OLD MOSES), William Salazar (l.a. on YOUNG MOSES), James Baxter (OLD MOSES) and Dave Brewster (l.a. on Ramses). These are the types of people that should be getting some attention in the limelight. We all know I like cgi, but when it comes to traditional animation, I'm still a sucker for the ol handdrawn look. And I miss the ol ink and paint departments where lines of ladies did makeup on Snow White, adding a touch of blush to her cheeks.
Right now we animation fans are in a holding pattern for this year, MULAN was the first out of the gates with a successful stride, and now we must wait and see how ANTZ, A BUGS LIFE and PRINCE OF EGYPT turns out. I'm in eager anticipation. The items I've seen that were placed upon my doorstep by the Prophet Jeremiah, with a note saying, "If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? -- Verse 12:5" Fairly mysterious and I wonder if it is aimed at the publicity people at Dreamworks.. or perhaps as a dig at Disney in regards to the competition they've had up till now... I don't know, them dang Prophets are hard to figure out at times...
I would personally love to see the publicity machines acknowledging the traditional elements again. Not just in animation films, but in live action as well. For films there is an awful lot of practical effects work from companies like KNB, that is often times overlooked, while the CGI work is praised beyond belief. What about matte artists, remember the days when you would know the names of people like Albert Whitlock? What about the Westmore family? The exception comes when we are dealing with Rick Baker and Stan Winston, but personally there are a bunch of great people out there, let's start hearing about them!!!
