I struggle to find the word that describes movies like "Song of the Sea" and "Secret of Kells" because because it needs to be a word that means joyful, dazzling, and haunting while at the same time quiet, unpretentious, and simple. I had the privilege of seeing a screening of "Song of the Sea" at CTNx this past November, and I just saw it again in the theater. Maybe its just my pregnancy emotions, but I cried streams of tears both times I saw it. I cried not just because the story and the characters were so touching, but also because films like this feel very personal on an artistic level. I sometimes feel so cynical about my own career and the state of animation in general that when something like this comes along, it shakes me up. This isn't really a review- I just wanted to say I really loved the film. There are lot of great contenders for Best Animated Feature this year and I couldn't say without bias which film is best, but if "Song of the Sea" wins, I will cheer very loudly. If you haven't seen it yet, please go throw money at it at a theater near you.
5 comments:
Sadly, the film isn't out in some countries until July. It opened in the US WAY ahead of everywhere else, possibly in time for Oscar Season. Even in Ireland, the country where it was co-produced, we won't get to see it until July.
Amazing that they do alot of animation in Adobe Flash (well, they did for Secret of Kells). I wonder if they have migrated to toon boom Harmony or another software package? Flash is going farther away from animation, and more towards application development.
I hope whenever it comes out, you get a chance to patronize it. I didn't hear that "Secret of Kells" was done in Flash- they actually made quite a to-do about animating on paper. Perhaps a combination? I know "Song of the Sea" had a digital pipeline, but it was still hand-drawn using TV Paint.
Well, I don't think I'd patronize it...I'd rather compliment it for good reasons, which I hopefully will.
I saw a talk with Tomm Moore about the making of the previous film, Secret of Kells. And he was really interesting talking about it.
The interesting thing about Flash (well, older versions, new versions are moving away from animation altogether) was how sleek and clean the lines one could get when using the package. And how well it lent its self to animation. And one could do some amazing animation within it that gave a really clean, paperlike feel to it. They did their animation in flash, but with a traditional approach. It helped them do some of the really intricate animated shots.
Funny thing about that film is that Moore was worried about how they would depict the Vikings, and wanted to stay away from being offensive (he is married to a lady from Norway). Well, when they screened it in Norway and Sweden, (to name a few Scandinavian countries) they loved it. Turns out they see themselves as the Hells Angels of Europe.
With Toon Boom Harmony, which Disney used for Princess and the Frog, one gets much of the old feel of Flash (a good thing) as well as many, many benefits such as similar tools seen in Photoshop. That's why I was wondering if they used it for Song of the Sea.
Can I just.... echo your thoughts exactly? When I watched this, I didn't want to review it either... I just wanted to be in love with it. It's one of those special movies that reaches out to remind me why I got into animation in the first place.
Haven't seen anything but the trailer yet, but I like your versions of the characters better.
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