Mon, June 30, 2008
After WALL-E
WALL-E had an impressive weekend, besting some predictions for its opening haul even despite a very strong showing from Wanted – it's almost a split vote. I was secretly hoping for $100 million or so, but I knew it was a long shot. One reviewer praised WALL-E for "appealing to the broadest possible audience without insulting anyone's intelligence." Eventually, moviegoers will become accustomed to not having their intelligence insulted – I'm always hoping for sooner rather than later.
The other thing I did this weekend was read a backlog of a couple dozen articles I'd encountered online in recent weeks but refused to read for fear of spoilers. Now that we've both seen the movie (and if you haven't, come back after you have!), here are some of the best.
WALL-E: Pixar's Biggest Gamble – Richard Corliss of Time discusses the risks involved with WALL-E and reviews some of Pixar's process. It definitely is a risk, although obviously their profit is not at risk – WALL-E and EVE are too adorable for the film not to make money. But I don't think anyone else in animation has the vision or the confidence to approach a film this way.
Joe Morgenstern's review in The Wall Street Journal was one of the best I read. I still don't place much stock in reviews, but he hit on a lot of the elements of WALL-E that really worked for me. I wish people would quit recounting the small character moments of the film, though. They take a charmed smile that a viewer of the film would've had and appropriate it for a reader of their review. Hardly fair – Pixar worked hard for that smile!
Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net has a very nice interview with director Andrew Stanton. "I decided to focus my interview not on the obvious questions, but on the more intricate details of Pixar and the development of WALL-E," he writes – which definitely makes for a better interview. You can find answers to the obvious questions just about anywhere.
And the New York Post of all people has a nice rundown of acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins's involvment in the look of the film, particularly the Earthbound scenes. His final quote sums up many of the reasons I like to work in computer animation. (Not that I "work" much, but I do like it a lot!)
There are some great behind-the-scenes featurettes available on the free WALL-E Video Podcast as well. This will take you to the podcast in the iTunes music store, and the videos will play directly in iTunes.
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Bee Boy — Mon, 6/30/08 12:46pm
Also, the usual list of in-jokes and throwaway sight gags. You'd have to be sleeping pretty soundly to miss A-113 in this one, but I admit I didn't notice the Pizza Planet truck until the second viewing. I heard someone say the Luxo, Jr. lamp shows up somewhere – all I noticed was a lamp similar (but not identical) to Luxo, Sr. in WALL-E's tribute sculpture for EVE.
This list is pretty sloppy, with a fair number of false positives – that's not Mr. Incredible; those caution cones are too generic; and Pixar does not do "hidden Mickeys." If I come across a better list, I'll post it.
Bee Boy — Tue, 7/1/08 11:40am
On YouTube: Pixar Goes Space Age, with some great background on the collaboration with Roger Deakins. There are a lot of these featurettes that seem to be from the same series as the Video Podcast but haven't appeared on iTunes yet. Not sure why that is – but this one is worth it even at YouTube resolution.
Bee Boy — Tue, 7/1/08 12:01pm
For an excellent look at the technical background of WALL-E, with high resolution images and a couple of virtual reality tours, see CG Society's The Little Robot That Could. Pixar's attention to detail is staggering – they could probably make the same movie for a third less money, but God bless 'em, they do it right anyway.
Bee Boy — Wed, 7/2/08 12:49pm
From Victor Navone, a self-taught animator who ended up at Pixar and worked on WALL-E, comes a hot tip on another great Andrew Stanton interview:
In the movie, this "keeper of the flame" concept reminded me of similar things from Oryx and Crake and the very end of A.I.. It relates to the idea of how human memory is transferrable, even though errors may be introduced in the copies. Ultimately, something else will outlast us – whether it's robots or whatever – and all that will remain of humanity are these memories. The tantalizing Jorge Luis Borges story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (which is less opaque than it sounds) covers similar territory. Needless to say, it's a subject that fascinates me.
Bee Boy — Thu, 7/3/08 10:58am
If you're as amazed as I am by the camera work in the first half of WALL-E, Animation World has a great in-depth look at the artistic decisions and software programming that went into making it work.
Bee Boy — Tue, 11/18/08 11:52am
Here's an interesting set of behind-the-scenes interviews to coincide with WALL-E's release on DVD today. Some of the information retreads what we read about in the summer, but there's some fun new stuff, too.
(If it seems a little long, feel free to skip the part with Jim Morris and Lindsay Collins. They're nice people, but their segment is pretty light on info.)
Bee Boy — Mon, 3/9/09 3:51pm
Also, enjoy this in-depth discussion of the design of WALL-E with its Production Designer, Ralph Eggleston, won't you?