April 25, 2010

The Real Secret of Kells

Today I had the privilege of seeing "The Secret of Kells" in the theater- what a lovely experience. Its a quiet little film, unpretentious and honest. The story was slow, but never boring. The characters were endearing without being saccharine. The design was breathtaking- there's almost too much to look at in every frame. I think the character animation could have used more time and money, but as thats always the case, its hardly a legitimate complaint. There was so much care and craftsmanship put into this film that I'm not at all bothered by a few characters that are timed on threes and fours. My friend summed up the experience by saying "this is exactly why 2D animation will never die. There are just some things that can only be done traditionally." I highly encourage everyone to go out and see it if its playing near you. But I just gotta say that the main character, Brendan, looks exactly like a kid Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable would have. Thats not really a complaint, but it was on my mind as I was watching the movie.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love that film. Never put the Kim/Ron thing together, but now that you point it out I see the similarity! And rather approve of it actually. Loved the design and flow of that whole film :)

Aoife said...

haha nice sketch! yeah kells is like a feast for the eyes;)

Scotty A said...

aw wow... I'm not gonna be able to look at the kid now without thinking that!

Chris Kennett said...

I had the pleasure of buying it on DVD recently. WOW! I can now pause and take in all that amazing art! Nice sketch and good observation.

Joe Crawford said...

There's nowhere to see it locally, but adding to my Netflix queue.

You say "I'm not at all bothered by a few characters that are timed on threes and fours."

For those of us who are non-animators, what does that mean? My *guess* is that means that some characters have less frequent keyframes, so they look choppy? But that's pure guess.

So what does it mean to be timed on threes and fours?

Joanna Davidovich said...

@ Joe Crawford (artlung)

You got it right. Traditional animation is generally timed out as one drawing held for two frames (on twos), or if you're Richard Williams, you animate on ones, which is a drawing for every single frame. When you time on threes or more, it tends to look choppy. Its just a rule of thumb though- I think mixing up timing is the most interesting approach.

Joe Crawford said...

Thank you--I look forward to seeing it and seeing what you mean!