(right hand rule, right?)

Yesterday, I saw the new Pixar movie, Up, in 3-D. The production’s design and story lend themselves to the Real-D technology and work with it to good effect. The 3-D-ness of it enhances the storytelling, without resorting to the gimmickry of sending objects hurtling at the audience. I really appreciated that, after seeing trailers for other movies that do precisely that in order to hit the viewer over the head with the fact that “hey, kids! This movie is 3-D! Aren’t we cool?”

Not necessarily.

Over five years ago, I wrote the following on another, now defunct, blog:

April 30, 2004

2d non-cg animated features (it’s the story, stupid)

I was thinking about the recent news that Disney has no upcoming projects involving traditional (i.e. non-computer-generated/three-dimensional) animation. They cited the poor showing of the last several projects they worked on in that genre — Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, etc… — and changing trends in audience preferences, since supposedly there hasn’t been a true flop among 3-D computer animation features yet.

The key word in that last sentence is “yet”. It’s the new “in” thing, the animation equivalent of “reality TV” — the 3-D bubble. I think the bigger issue isn’t so much the animation techniques used as the story. The last non-CG Disney animated feature that I really enjoyed was Hunchback of Notre Dame. Their releases since haven’t come close, IMHO — they’ve seemed either dumbed-down to target younger audiences or just plain flat. The success of recent non-CG animated features such as Spirited Away and The Triplets Of Belleville ought to demonstrate that there is a market for such films, and it persists in spite of Disney’s shift away from it. Disney needs to return to its roots, to realize that the reason that the Pixar films they seek to emulate with their CG initiative are successful is not the animation itself but the story.

It’s now looking like 3-D is the new CG. I think that there’ll be a period of inanity followed by one of real innovation as the filmmakers explore the potential of storytelling in the third dimension. It’s too bad we can’t bypass the novelty phase. Didn’t they do this already in the 1950s with the anaglyphic red-blue glasses?

I really liked Up, by the way. C. heard that one of the story leads at Pixar, Ronnie Del Carmen, was going to be at a local gallery for a signing today, so we went. Ronnie did a great presentation that gave the audience a look behind the scenes, and he was very clear: everything they do is in service of the story. From this I conclude that, just as with previous features, Pete Docter’s team on Up did it right and put the story first. And the results are fantastic. It’s a very emotionally charged movie, though, so I think I’ll wait a bit before I go see it again.

What do you think of the new 3-D? And if you’ve seen it, what do you think of Up?

Currently reading: The Art of Up

Tags: 3-d, animation, movies, pixar