Shilo McClean’s eagerly awaited book ‘Digital Storytelling: the narrative power of visual effects in film’ is out at last. Published by MIT press this weighty volume is an informed and practical extension of Shilo’s earlier work in the area. Her first book ‘So what’s this all about then?’ is a rare and valuable guide for producers who dare to tread into this new territory. Shilo’s work is different from many of the academic texts which cover this subject area in that it is informed by practical experience of the industry. Look out for it in your bookstore or order it from Amazon.

And if you’re interested in getting into the visual effects industry Shilo will be giving a presentation on how to put together a killer showreel on Wednesday 7th February 2007 at 7pm at the Elwyn Lynn Conference Centre at the College of Fine Arts in Selwyn St Paddington, Sydney.

I attended some of the masterclasses run by Autodesk at the beginning of the inaugural Games Connect: Asia Pacific conference held in Brisbane last week. It was refreshing to listen to some of the young artists giving presentations about their work where it was evident they move seamlessly between games and the film and television spheres. Games cinematics are an obvious area of cross over and the quality and 2K resolution of the work screened certainly indicated they have moved to a new level. One artist spoke to me about how he had just come off a prominent feature film project and was now working on a next-gen game where he was required to actually work at an even higher level of visual detail. It’s encouraging to see multiskilled artists emerging but wouldn’t it be great to see more Australian companies doing work across the games/film/TV divide. Pioneers like Weta and Lucasfilm are making inroads in this area but some Australian innovation in this area would go some way towards future proofing our industry.

Seems like the whole Australian animation and film industries breathed a huge sigh of relief when Happy Feet opened in the US taking $40 million US in its opening weekend. And there was follow on box office success during Thankgiving meaning the film was on par with what Madagascar achieved this time last year (a film which also featured penguins – though less photorealistic ones at that).
Happy Feet has accounted for a major percentage of the Australian film production spend over the past three years which indicates as much about the general doldrums of the industry as much as the scale of this production. There is no doubt that if this film had crashed at the box office it would have been an unmitigated disaster for the Australian industry. If nothing else, this production was a chance to propel us into the 21st Century.

Happy feet has been four years in the making and the production process, from all accounts, has been tough. But you have to take your hats off to the team involved – and I’m doing this before I’ve actually seen the film. It really does mark a new era for our industry and will hopefully pave the way for many more Australian made CG features to follow.

While we’re on animation, an article in Animation World Magazine (AWN) offers some interesting perspectives on where animation execs see the future of the business. Needless to say, it’s distribution via portable media, vodcasts and broadband portals that are providing new opportunities for small independents to break into the market. This is a quote from one of the execs called Ken Faier from Nerd Corps Entertainment. I think he is right about the big opportunities for animation in the emerging media landscape.

I definitely feel that the multiple platforms for reaching audiences are a huge opportunity for the animation industry. The value chain is evolving in such a way that it’s starting to make sense for indie producers and creators to reach the end consumer directly, or partner with companies that have the distribution streams, but are starving for quality content. The challenge, of course, is to find a way to produce cheaper without losing quality. Quality doesn’t necessarily mean better animation, it means better storytelling.

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim is a great example of this with old Hanna Barbera series being re-worked to hilarious effect – “Harvey Birdman” and “Sealab 2021” both highly recommended and the dodgy stop motion “Robot Chicken” an all time classic. At a time when the young male demographic is deserting TV, Adult Swim is one of the few things bringing them back. But despite these successes it’s still very hard to get non-kids focused animation funded for series TV. The primary market is still young children, at least in the West.

I’d contend that animation is much better suited to cross media exploitation than live action drama programming. Why is this the case? Animation doesn’t date as quickly as live action so has a longer shelf life with audiences. It travels better across territories and language barriers and it’s easier to break up into constituent parts. This is reflected in the healthy merchandising history surrounding animation properties and the legal and licencing framework in place to accommodate this. In a more mature cross media market we’re likely to see much more tailoring of content to various distribution channels and creative cross referencing of stories and character between platforms. Being able to break up images into constituent parts – characters, backgrounds, objects, sets – and reconstitute them in different ways is somewhere that animation has it all over live action.

In another recent AWN report about the International Licencing 2006 trade show held in New York, it seems there is a major culture shift underway amongst animation property licensors. It seems that TV is no longer as necessary as it once was to launch an animated property to the world and new distribution methods are firmly on the radar.

Podcasts have been particularly successful for Nick Jr’s show “Wow!Wow!Wubbsy” and Frederator Inc’s Channel Frederator reportedly is achieving about 100 000 downloads per week through the iTunes music store. Fred Selbert, president and executive producer at Frederator Inc, spoke on a panel at the trade show and talked about advantages for independent producers in this environment.

The major studios and distributors may have bigger pockets, but independent players have the advantage of speed and innovation, which can be more important in alternative environments. “There is no boundary between what you can do and what they can do,”

New distribution methods are seen to be an effective way to launch brands and build audiences but I’m interested to see who will take the next steps and begin to tailor content for platforms and integrate interactive elements.

The other thing to consider is that innovation is very likely to happen first in the animation space precisely because it is targeted to young audiences who are first adopters of new technologies.

Speaking about their new animation targeted at teenagers called “CoolCity”Carmen Llanos Acero from Comet Entertainment Inc says:

The viewers want to be involved in the show, interaction is needed. Viewers also want to be able to watch what they want the way they want and you have to offer them not only TV content but something else. Teens want to use all their portables: phones, PSPs, Ipods, Pocket PCs, etc. for all the entertainment. Gaming, TV, Movie Playing and Music, all-in one platform and on-demand.

This is the next stage of development and involves cross over of gaming with linear animation and strategic campaigns which launch aspects of a property over multiple media devices and channels.

Kids just love watching animation, in fact they can’t get enough of the quality stuff. And ‘kids’ are getting older – I remember going to the video shop one night and my 5 year old and 9 year old were swapping Spongebob jokes with the teenagers behind the counter. Seems to be the mark of success – if you can cross over the adult/child divide then you’ve cracked the animation game. Look at the Simpsons, Futurama, Pixar and Dreamworks titles…

My five year old was obsessed for a good while with Monster’s Inc and played it over and over for at least a one year period. I’m sure if Pixar had released more films in that year he would have moved on and watched all of them – and I would have bought the DVD (and probably taken them to see the film at the cinema too).

So it’s not surprising the spate of 3D animated features now appearing in an attempt to emulate the great Pixar successes. A recent article in the SMH titled Glut of Cute Films Fail to Animate Audiences
started:

WITH more than a dozen computer-animated movies being readied for release by mid next year, Hollywood is facing viewer fatigue worthy of Sleeping Beauty. Now, with so many movies for audiences to choose from, some are failing to meet expectations or flopping outright.

3D animated films have been the mainstay of the entire US box office for the past few years. Last year, when Pixar didn’t release a film the total US box office receipts were down by half.

While mediocre 3D features may have been able to make their money back while they were still a novelty, the figures don’t look quite so good any more. Disney’s “Wild” and “The Ant Bully” have flopped and there are many more 3D movies in production and pending release. We can only speculate on how Warner Brother’s “Happy Feet” will fare as this movie has dominated Australian media production (on a dollar by dollar basis) for the past 2 and a half years. There is a lot riding on the success of this film and its success will make a big impact on future production here so we hope it does well.

But when it comes down to it, the success of an animated film has little to do with whether it is 2D or 3D animation – it’s the story that counts, then maybe marketing and production values a close 2nd and 3rd. The 2004 “Spongebob Movie”, which I mentioned was a big hit with small kids and big kids alike, was created using traditional 2D animation methods. This didn’t stop it pulling in $140 million worldwide at the box office (plus DVD sales). By contrast “Valiant”, the low budget 2005 UK 3D animated feature, barely managed to cover costs after failing to excite the US audience.

But this is the exception rather than the rule. When Disney recently closed their Sydney studio (which was the last 2D Disney studio in the world) I was interviewed by a Fairfax journalist about what this meant for the future of animation. The angle the journalist had in mind was that the digital media advocate would voice the opinion that 3D animation was the future technology of choice and that the Disney toons studios were obsolete.
I told the journalist this wasn’t my view at all and in fact I thought Disney was the victim of it’s own dated approach to storytelling. Their own forays into 3D like “Dinosaur” from the famed “Secret Lab” was as saccharine as their 2D fare and failed to cut it with a young audience brought up on the Simpsons and King of the Hill. This comment never made it to print which is a shame because it’s a fairly widespread opinion in the industry. The smartest thing Disney could do was to buy Pixar – not for their technological prowess but for their approach to storytelling which isn’t rooted in 1950’s family values. Let’s hope that Steve Jobs isn’t too many steps ahead of them and they get another five years of blockbuster box office out of the deal.
But if 3D animated movies are being rushed out in the hope that audiences will be attracted by the novelty of 3D I’m sorry to say that this moment has truly passed. If the story doesn’t connect with where audiences are now then they are doomed to failure. But of course a good animated film still needs to delight and surprise and I for one have now now seen one too many of the “Madagascar” variety. By the way, this dreadful film was the 9th most successful 3D animated feature of all time so maybe I’m missing something.