Greg Willits runs a marathon, Beowulf the Movie
November 28, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, MOVIES, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS
THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Wow, talk about stress. I woke up on Monday morning stressed out. I had a very fun, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend but the day I went to work, it was instant stress. I woke up with a headache and a neck ache and it hasn’t gone away in four days. I guess I have to get used to the whole quota thing again. Quotas haven’t been really scrutinized for years now so getting back to that mind set might take some more getting used to.
The good news is that the show I’m working on is really funny. It’s really good. It’s a Homer centric episode and he ends up teaming up with an unexpected character. It also has a goofy Marge subplot. It’s a lot of fun to work on. I just need to meet my scene quota.
MOVIES
So my brother, his wife Deborah, my wife, her best friend, and I went to see Beowulf this weekend. Overall I enjoyed the movie. Visually, it was fantastic. It didn’t quite follow the story it was based on very accurately and I’m sure there are a lot of English teachers out there having fits about that. I read Beowulf a while back and it’s funny how much of the language of this story J.R.R. Tolkien lifted from when he wrote The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. I got a kick out of that. According to www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tolkien.htm:
“His scholarly works included studies on Chaucher (1934) and an edition of Beowulf (1937) .”
The movie on the other hand, didn’t have that kind of language although there was some old English spoken by some characters, which I found really interesting. The changes to the story where a little odd but if you don’t take a purist point of view, you can get a little out of it. One of my favorite writers Neil Gaiman, co-wrote the movie. I found it interesting that the movie dealt so much with sin. I liked the idea the movie seemed to present, that personal sin effected not just the individual but the community as well. I also thought it was interesting how the pagan “heroes” of the story seemed to be annoyed by Christianity and would always dismiss it as something bad. They would grumble that after Christianity there were no more “heroes” in the world. Then they would turn around and sin so horribly that it would become a literal monster and effect the lives of many, many people. This would cause them to have to confront and take care of the problems they created at great personal cost but even after they did so, the problems wouldn’t completely go away. I got the feeling that, since they kept rejecting Christianity, they would have to keep fighting the monsters that they created because they would never go away. This is probably why they needed “heroes” and the Christians didn’t. I’m sure the writers didn’t intend that meaning to the story but that’s what I got out of it.
One of the biggest problems I found in the movie was that lack of animation in the character’s faces. They often looked like dolls. It took a lot of work on my part to suspend my disbelief that these characters were “real”. Occasionally they looked good but mostly they didn’t. In the The Lord of the Rings movie, Gollum was a computer generated (C.G.) character, just like all the characters in Beowulf. Theoretically they used the same techniques to make the characters in Beowulf as they used to make Gollum, namely “Motion Capture” (MoCap). Yet Gollum was so much more believably “alive” than the characters in Beowulf. Why?
If you watch “making of” documentaries of Lord of the Rings, you get the impression that the actor, Andy Serkis, who did the MoCap acting and the voice of Gollum did all the work. What you don’t know is that for every moment of real deep acting that Andy Serkis did, there was an animator re-interpreting the acting so that it would work as animation. This is why it looked real. A human being did what a computer could not. Capture the essence of Andy Serkis‘ acting and retranslated it so that it felt real on the Gollum C.G. model. An animator is like a motion caricaturist. A caricaturist looks at a person and exaggerates the physical features that makes a person look like themselves. They capture the essence of the person. An animator does the same thing but through motion. They are actors with computers. I think that the characters in Beowulf didn’t look right because either the animators that they used to interpret the acting weren’t good, the director of animation wasn’t very good about pushing the acting, the director of the movie didn’t understand how to direct the animators, or they didn’t use enough animators and thought the computer would do all the work. In any case, the animation on the humans was the biggest flaw of the movie. I think movies like this will really work great the moment people realize it’s the animators, not the computers that makes believable acting. I still think it’s worth watching. Just be warned, there is a lot of nudity in the movie. Beowulf butt cheeks anyone?
Gollum had really good animation acting in Lord of the Rings
Yoda, in the latest two Star Wars movies, was fully animated. They didn’t MoCap his acting at all. His acting was really good.
“Final Fantasy: Advent Children” had the same stiff MoCap acting problems as Beowulf. Great visual movie though.
Animatrix’s “Final flight of the Osiris” also had stiff MoCap acting.
PODCASTS
I listened to Rosary Army #194 this week. It was really great. Greg Willits ran a marathon this Thanksgiving. The Rosary Army podcast follows the adventure of Greg’s marathon, mostly through Jennifer Willits’ eyes. It’s a very emotional recording. It got me all choked up. I loved it. If you haven’t listened to it then I recommend you do. Afterwards I recommend you watch the video that Fr. Roderick taped of the event. It’s a lot of fun.
CONGRATS GREG!
ANSWERING COMMENTS
Tao responded to my post last week. He said he had an article similar to mine on his blog. I looked it up and I thought it was great. It’s called, “Why Play Board Games?” I recommend it. Check it out. While your at it check out the one called “From the Classics to Modern Board Games” as well.
Thank you for letting me know about you article Tao!
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
Comments are appreciated as well.
I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.
If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.
And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.
Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.
Universal Studios Simpsons ride
December 21, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, MY WEEK, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS
THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Okay so, it turns out that I got laid off the Simpsons show but I’m still not out of a job just yet. Wednesday, the day after I got laid off, I went back to work because I got put on the Simpsons’ Universal Studios Ride. As it happens, the Simpsons’ writers have discovered that the ride is something that they can actually write for because it’s not a movie or a t.v. show. This means that all the writers have set their eyes on the ride and have begun re-writing the heck out it, seemingly, just because it gives them something to do. Everyone that was working on the ride until now was having a hard time of it but it was getting done and it was going to meet it’s deadline. Not anymore. Now, because of all the re-writes, it’s in huge trouble. How much trouble? I wasn’t even laid off yet, nor was I done with my work, when they called me and asked me to pick up ride stuff so I could start working on it as soon as I was done with the show. On the one hand this is good because it gives me a little more work to do. On the other hand, it’s only for about two more weeks and it’s been as chaotic and stressful as working on the Simpsons movie. If a fact, I feel like I’m on the movie all over again. Speaking of the movie, The Simpsons Movie DVD is out now. (See how I did that?)
Meanwhile the scenes I worked on for Lance’s crew were just insane. I hadn’t worked on so many complicated scenes in a row EVER. They were driving me crazy. They were just so hard. I’m really tired. I need a break. I’m almost looking forward to being laid off…almost.
MY WEEK
So, there is nothing worse then Internet trouble. Our Internet connection wasn’t working for a couple of days this week. We got it fixed but our router isn’t working right now and switching computers is a big pain. Mostly because every time we switch computers, the modem stops working. We have to unplug the modem for a minute and make sure the computer is turned off for it to work with the new computer we plug it up to. At least it’s better than not having Internet at all.
FAMILY
I would like to say a big Happy Birthday to my niece Carolinita. She celebrated her birthday this weekend with a fun little party. My baby girl had a really good time at the party. We ended up having to leave a little early (even though I didn’t really want to) because we needed to see a sick friend (it took us two and a half hours to get to our sick friend’s place that day. That really stunk). I got Carolinita Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. I own regular Carcassonne and it’s a big hit. It’s a simple game where you score points by laying down little tiles that, by end of the game, makes up a big map of Carcassonne that you created yourself and is different every time you play. I got her Hunters and Gatherers instead of regular Carcassonne because I’ve been hearing, a lot lately, that Hunters and Gatherers is a better game. I also heard it’s an even easier game to understand. I hope she likes it. She’s really into Cranium games right now and may not be too into anything else. Especially since the last present I got her was Hey! That’s My Fish!, which I think intimidated her because of it’s abstract, tactical nature. Luckily, even though Carcassonne can be played very competitively, you can’t really tell when you first start playing it and therefore it’s easier and much more fun to get into.
PODCAST
So I was listening to the Rosary Army Podcast #199 and Greg was talking about comics and video games and I just couldn’t help myself, I went on their forums and started a Comics and Games folder. I’ve been writing in that thing all week. For a while, there were only a handful of posts in it that weren’t mine. I was just having a conversation with myself most of the time hogging up the folder. I guess I just like to read my own writing. I must have the biggest ego ever. Pretty pathetic. At least I’ve discovered that there are other people, who listen to Rosary Army out there that play some of the board games that I write about. Also, the people that have written about the comics they read, have made me want to pick those specific comics up (which is bad because I can’t afford to). In any case, little by little other people are making comments in the folder. Hope it keeps up. Don’t want the folder to become my next blog.
Meanwhile Rosary Army podcast #200 is just NUTS! It’s a musical. They did a really great job with it. Go check it out.
Congratulations on 200 episodes guy!
BOARD GAMES
Just thought I’d throw this out there in case you wanted a twenty minute modern board game 101 class. I got this from Board games with Scott. Enjoy:
ANSWERING COMMENTS
Mike wrote:
I agree that being without money helps you appreciate it a lot more once you have some again. Another thing it helps you do is prioritize what’s important and what’s not. Also, it helps you enjoy the good things you already have instead of looking around for the next big thing. Personally, all I really need is enough money for the mortgage, the bills, and food. My wife and I have been talking and planning about this and we’ve actually discovered that we might be able to get by with enough money for this stuff without losing too much from our savings for a few months. Hopefully the strike won’t last that long.
Your board game cultural heritage is has been getting “exported” to the U.S. since Settlers of Catan came over here. European board games have a different flavor to the traditional U.S. Games. 90% of the board games I own are translated European games. The European games have become so popular that there are many new American games that have begun adopting their game mechanics. There is even a new Monopoly game that has done this called Monopoly – Tropical Tycoon DVD Game. Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower podcast (one of the best board game podcasts out there and I highly recommend it) thinks that it’s the best Monopoly game out there.
My sister Elsie wrote:
We really missed you at the party Li, but of course Juan and Deborah didn’t make it either so you shouldn’t feel too sad.
As far as everyone getting what they deserve from the writer’s strike…to quote Shakespeare in my favorite play, Hamlet:
I’m very happy about you new job. I wish you all the best with it and I hope you enjoy it very much.
Even after I get laid off I will still continue to blog. I’m just going to have to come up with a special time to do it. Hopefully I can get my scanner to work, but if I can’t I’ll think of something.
I love you and I miss you.
If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.
And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.
Share this:
Like this:
3 Comments »