A panelist in last month’s installment of the ongoing Marc Davis Lecture Series–presented by ACM SIGGRAPH and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as the keynote attraction at SIGGRAPH 2013–animation director Henry Selick shared his take on the state of the biz as well as hearkened back to the sources of inspiration that brought him into animation and influenced his style.
Selick’s directorial credits over the years include the stop motion tour de force feature films Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, as well as Monkeybone, a mix of live action and stop-motion. His stop-motion animation work also took the form of sea creatures in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. And Selick most recently served as director, producer, screenwriter and production designer for the Oscar-nominated animated feature Coraline.
Assessing today’s marketplace for animation, Selick observed that it’s both an “incredible” and “the worst time” for animation. The positives include an increased demand for talent as animation storytelling–particularly in features–has become a valued commodity. Additionally, access to tools has enabled new, up-and-coming talent to experiment and hone their craft. And exposure for the work of new artists is now more likely given the reach of the Internet and the emergence of new media outlets.
On the flip side, though, feature film budgets are so high today that “people cannot afford to take risks,” related Selick. “Having to make a blockbuster every time puts an unhealthy pressure on the creators.”
In today’s risk-averse climate, Selick said he couldn’t imagine another Fantasia being made today. Still, he harbors hope that a breakthrough will materialize, prompting studios to see the value of smaller projects and trying to bring more of them to fruition.
Indeed smaller projects have served as sources of inspiration for Selick, influencing his animation. He cited, for example, the Canada Film Board shorts, particularly the work of animation director Caroline Leaf. He mentioned powerful adult stories like Leaf’s The Street as being “dark, more adult, with a sprinkling of humor,” a mix that’s akin to what has become a major part of Selick’s brand of animation. Selick recalled as a youngster being captivated by such work from VFX pioneer Ray Harryhausen as Jason and the Argonauts and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Those stop-motion features made Selick “scared and attracted to monsters in animation” at the same time.
Lucy Walker Made A Searing Documentary About Wildfires In 2021; Now, People May Be More Inclined To Listen
When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, "Bring Your Own Brigade," at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge. "It was really hard," the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. "I didn't blame people for not wanting to watch a film about the fires in the middle of the pandemic, because it was just too much horror." And so the film, though acclaimed — it was named one of the 10 best films of the year by the New York Times – didn't reach an audience as large as Walker had hoped, with its urgent display of the human cost of wildfires and its tough, crucial questions for the future. That could change. Walker thinks people may now be more receptive to her message, given the devastating wildfires that have wrought havoc on Los Angeles itself the past week. Firefighters were preparing on Tuesday to attack new blazes amid warnings that winds combined with severely dry conditions created a " particularly dangerous situation." "This is probably the moment where it becomes undeniable," she said in an interview. She added: "It does feel like people are now asking the question that I was asking a few years ago, like, 'Is it safe to live in Los Angeles? And why is this happening, and what can we do about it? And the good news is that there are some things we can do about it. What's tricky is that they're really hard to accomplish." Documenting the human cost, confronting complacency In "Bring Your Own Brigade" (available on Paramount+), Walker portrays in sometimes terrifying detail the devastation caused by two wildfires on the same day in 2018, products of the same wind event — the Camp Fire that engulfed the northern California city of... Read More