It’s strange how in a little over nine minutes, Canadian director Cordell Barker reminded me of what can be achieved with two-dimensional hand-drawn animation, just as The Princess and the Frog did last year. While there’s immense merit to the art of computer animation, there’s also a tendency to restrain the visuals, as Pixar has, to worlds of familiarity.
To clarify a bit: we exist in a three-dimensional world, and when thinking and representing our ideas in three dimensions, we have a tendency to ground them in relatable ways. Conversations are held at eye level at moderate distance, character speed is comparable to what is achievable by human beings. There’s no Bugs Bunny style whip-pans and dust clouds in Pixar films — it’s not a bad thing, just a stylistic choice.
Barker’s Runaway (Train en folie), a short animated film that’s screening at Sundance Film Festival today,...
To clarify a bit: we exist in a three-dimensional world, and when thinking and representing our ideas in three dimensions, we have a tendency to ground them in relatable ways. Conversations are held at eye level at moderate distance, character speed is comparable to what is achievable by human beings. There’s no Bugs Bunny style whip-pans and dust clouds in Pixar films — it’s not a bad thing, just a stylistic choice.
Barker’s Runaway (Train en folie), a short animated film that’s screening at Sundance Film Festival today,...
- 1/22/2010
- by John Cooper
- ReelLoop.com
If we did even a half-assed job of promoting our own talent here in Canada then Winnipeg based animator Cordell Barker would be the local equivalent to Bill Plympton or maybe even Nick Park. The man has been nominated for an Oscar twice - for The Cat Came Back and Strange Invaders - and that alone should be enough to guarantee his status, but alas. We don’t do a half-ass job. On a good day we have a quarter of an ass or so and more often than not it’s closer to an eighth. So nobody has much of a clue and the fact that Barker’s most recent short - Runaway - has been selected to screen as part of Critics Week in Cannes has scarcely been noticed by the Canadian media, never mind the average Joe or Jacques on the street. Here’s the skinny:
Happy...
Happy...
- 4/30/2009
- by Todd Brown
- Screen Anarchy
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