By BENJAMIN S. MALKIN
Animation/post co. moves beyond Canada.
The head of a man on the body of a dog paces in the background of a pure white landscape. The dog/man barks like mad, breathes heavily, momentarily walks on its hind legs, wags its tail, and hurriedly runs up to the camera’s face and screams "Try Fusion yet?" as its tongue falls out of its mouth. "Dogman" for Cadbury’s Fusion candy bar, out of Leo Burnett, Toronto, and directed by Peter Montgomery of Sparks, Toronto, is one example of the TOPIX/Mad Dog, Toronto, credo: "Never let reality get in the way of a good idea."
When the company first opened in ’87, it specialized in broadcast logos and show opens for corporate and broadcast clients. Two years later Chris Wallace, founder/president/executive producer of TOPIX/ Mad Dog, received his first offer for spot work-a McDonald’s job-but in the ensuing year, other ad assignments did not exactly come pouring in. When TOPIX finally did receive a call from DDB Chicago to work on a LifeSavers spot, "Good Times," directed by Harold Harris of TOPIX (he has since shifted to Nelvana, Toronto), the company did not disappoint, and hasn’t looked back since.
In the summer of ’95, TOPIX launched Mad Dog, a postproduction arm headed by partner/executive producer Sylvain Taillon. "We went full steam into post because SGI became the platform. Before that, it was all black boxes. We were more of a creative animation boutique," Wallace says. TOPIX/Mad Dog embraced the new post technology, becoming one of the first houses in Canada to acquire a Flint and a Flame. The company, which now boasts a staff of 35, has since added an HD Inferno suite. The animation arm works on an NT operating system with software such as Softimage, AfterEffects, PhotoShop, Illustrator and Painter. The two divisions’ recent credits include Crayola’s "Imagine That," via TBWA/ Chiat/Day, Toronto, with animation direction by Fay Grambart of TOPIX/Mad Dog and live-action direction by Larry August of Maxx Productions, Toronto; "Flying Ball" for Sears, with live action directed by Nigel Dick of A Band Apart Commercials, Los Angeles, and animation by Patrick Coffey of TOPIX/Mad Dog; and "Lucky You" and "Closet Space" for Eaton’s, both directed by Floria Sigismondi of The Partners’ Film Company, Toronto, out of Roche McCaulay & Partners, Toronto. (Sigismondi is repped stateside by bicoastal M-80.) TOPIX/ Mad Dog also just completed work on an international ad for Kellogg’s new Milk and Cereal Bars.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More