The changing landscape of animation... Disney, Ghibli & Pixar

Studio Ghibli are a Japanese animation company that have enjoyed global success in the last few years with their films 'Spirited Away' and 'Howl's Moving Castle'.

The studio has been operating since the early 1980s and is widely recognised in Japan as a master of its art. Central figures such as directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have been in animation since the 1960s and are still the leading visionaries of Ghibli working with teams of skilled young animators (often obsessively and around the clock, as seen on the 'Making of Howl's Moving Castle' documentary).

A distribution deal with the once-seminal Disney studios has seen Ghibli reaching new audiences with its own magical style of storytelling. For me this has been something of a renaissance for popular animation. The excitement with which new Disney productions were met in their early-90s peak, with films such as Aladdin and The Lion King, is all but gone today; their lackluster films rolling into and out of cinemas without many blinking an eye. Into this void step Studio Ghibli, and a new reason to ge
t excited about going to the cinema again.

Parallels can be drawn here with California-based animation studio Pixar, who since 1995 have really dominated the animation world and like Ghibli, also have ties to the Disney empire. Pixar started life as a wing of Star Wars creator George Lucas’ Computer Division. With 'Toy Story' (1995) the studio found their feet and also a profitable production deal with Disney, which eventually turned sour due to disagreements between the two companies and Pixar's desire for increased independence. This eventually came to quite an astonishing resolution: recognising their own irrelevance and Pixar's innovation and success, in January 2006 Disney bought Pixar, but almost entirely on Pixar's own terms.

Founder of Pixar (as well as director of Toy Story) John Lasseter was installed as Chief Creative Officer of the Disney and Pixar animation studios and also given a post advising the team behind the famous Disney theme parks. The President of Pixar Ed Catmull became the joint President of the Disney and Pixar studios. It is something of a victory for Pixar, whose power and resources are massively increased, while retaining its own identity and control.

Wasting no time in asserting his new power, and perhaps setting a template for creative integrity over rampant commercialism for the coming years, John Lasseter marched over to the Disney studios on his first day on the new job and shut down production on Toy Story 3, which Disney had been pressing ahead on against Pixar's wishes and without their involvement. According to Animation Nation, "they said that sequels should only be made if there is a really great story that demands it, and should be the domain of those who created the original film."

Disney needed Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney, but the two were already so bound up in each other that complete separation was perhaps unimaginable. In a fascinating example of the smaller fish for once eating the larger, Pixar has effectively taken over Disney, meaning they can continue to enjoy their mutually beneficial relationship, but now be the ones in charge. They may not own the rights to their characters and films independently, but Disney can no longer do what it likes with them. It is a recognition of its own failings and the things that have made studios like Pixar and Ghibli successful: innovation and integrity.

In another interesting turn of events, a mutual admiration and friendship between Pixar's John Lasseter and Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki has led to a working relationship between the studios, with Pixar assisting in the release of the English-language versions of Ghibli's films. The possibility of future collaborations between these two powerhouses - between East and West, between traditional and computer animation, between the otherworldly magic of Ghibli and the creativity of Pixar - is enough to make any animation fan wet.

It will be exciting to see what emerges from both sides of the Pacific in the coming years.

LINKS/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nausicaa > Ghibli fansite
Pixar > Wikipedia page
Comingsoon.net > 'Toy Story 3 Cancelled'  ¶ 1:52 PM 0 comments

  OBSCENE / DJ TEEBEE FLYERS

A (11.8MB)

B (11.8MB)

To download:

(Windows) Right-click on the links above
(Mac) Hold down control and click on the links above. Choose 'Save Link As...'

Any problems please phone 07739 026 341

- Sam  ¶ 2:08 AM 0 comments

 


fucking hell not updated this beast in a couple of months, good thing nobody ever looks at the fucker anyway. digging this new D*face stuff just in time for our matriarch's birthday, what an event that was. nice billboard work and looks like D's going down the old-style ad pastiche route a la Faile with the posters. wicked and fresh (yo)  ¶ 9:33 PM 0 comments

 
I ripped this sticker off a phone box on the Headrow last year. I liked how someone had gone to the trouble of finding a Deutsche Post sticker to appropriate after seeing so many of our familiar Royal Mail stickers emblazoned with second-rate tags and plastered round our fair city.

"An ape!" I thought, "brilliant." But why? Why should a primate in a policeman's hat inspire such enthusiasm from a passer-by? For me it has more to do with the ape than the hat, or any combination of the two (or any artistic statement contained therein). Apes are cool. Some are big, some are bad, but they are all big business - inspiring films, cartoons, fashion, magazines and street artists the world over.

So what are apes? According to Wikipedia, apes are "the members of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, including humans." Apes are omnivorous, and all are expert tree-climbers except ourselves and the gorilla. They are native to Africa and Asia, and most species are endangered. Despite our shared ancestry and the evident intelligence of most ape species, gorillas, chimpanzees and other types of apes are not recognised as "persons" in law. That accolade is only afforded to humans under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

The ape has been of cultural and symbolic significance for years, cropping up in various religious folklore, usually with negative connotations. Old Christian tales tell of apes as being created by Satan as symbols of lust. But in more recent times it seems the physical attributes of the ape - particularly the gorilla - have been inspiration for generations of creatives.

Gorillas are large, powerful animals which have strong family bonds and organise themselves into hierarchical societies (much like humans). Their strength and dominance is a definite theme which has been exploited. Everyone knows 'King Kong' and 'Planet of the Apes', but the gorilla is also the symbol of the US-based X-Large clothing company. As the largest non-human ape, the gorilla seems a natural choice for a company branding itself for a predominantly male market. Potential t-shirt buyers can identify with the ape as an abstract version of the imagined self: big, strong, king of the ("urban") jungle.


A similar thinking can be seen to have been applied by Japanese brand A Bathing Ape (Bape), which perhaps unsurprisingly uses a non-specific ape as its ubiquitous logo. If any evidence is required of the ape's "brand-cool" one need look no further than Bape: the name is a byword for exclusive, expensive, limited edition skate style.

Even the shelves of your local news emporium are not safe from the influence of these great beasts. The Illustrated Ape is a magazine published three times a year, which invariably features a different artist's interpretation of its namesake on the cover. What significance the ape has to its creators is unknown to me; it seems to be another case of a powerful animal becoming a powerful symbol for a brand to rally itself around. No matter - the subject has inspired some great illustrations.

Unfortunately none of these ape-obsessed creatives have done much to draw attention to the reality of many a modern primate: the threat of extinction due to destruction of natural habitats and poaching for bushmeat. You can help at WWF.org

links/biblio...
Wikipedia
X-Large
Bape
The Illustrated Ape  ¶ 11:06 PM 0 comments

 

Big up Google Video!!! Check out this trailer for Brokeback To The Future hahaha  ¶ 10:46 AM 0 comments

 

If you've got an hour to spare watch this "conspiracy theory" documentary about 9/11. It raises a lot of questions about the official version of events that led to the collapse of the twin towers and what happened in the aftermath. For further reading Noam Chomsky has some theories about the US government, if not orchestrating it, then letting it happen.

Isn't it interesting that anyone who questions the validity of what we're told to believe is labelled a conspiracy theorist. Not, "maybe this person has a valid point" or "hey, that is worth investigating". Even the term 'conspiracy' has an air of "paranoid psycho" about it. How is anyone meant to challenge conventional viewpoints, when a government lies and it is "official", but someone disagrees and it is "conspiracy".  ¶ 10:27 AM 0 comments

 

Nintendo are one of those consumer giants for whom you got to have respect: like Pixar, they continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what people can expect in their respective fields. "I could tell you the technical specifications," a Nintendo rep told a hungry audience of industry bods, "I'm sure you would like it, but I'm not going to. Because they don't matter." Their next console, Revolution, looks set to outsmart Sony: maybe not in sales, but in creativity. That's what keeps them afloat. It's all about innovation. hardcore crazy advert too, check it out  ¶ 10:19 AM 0 comments

 



promo CD sleeves i did for marc to hand out ahead of the John B gig. i sent him 2 versions to choose from. one is a pic of marc djing last december, the other is a shot of some random giving the finger in the back of a car, from some collection of photos i accidentally hacked into once of some american kids causing havoc in nowheresville. bo!  ¶ 8:17 PM 0 comments

 

sent the goddam John B poster off to print today. January's almost done... it's been a busy month... feels like i've been working on these John B jobs for years, man. started this complaint project at college properly as well, although i need to focus down on whats happening there- more research, then some clever shit, hopefully..

that thread about my flyers mentioned below has got me thinking a bit about my work. when am i going to stop hiding behind photoshop layouts and really experiment, i need to find my voice, do something totally new. for myself as well as for "the future". i feel a bit stagnant. i need to smash down my own borders and do new things. with skill. "girls only want boys who have great skills"

i'm hoping my drawing project is going to kick off some new directions. the print workshop also beckons. drawing is really the basis of everything, so time to get scribbling..  ¶ 4:21 PM 0 comments