-Steve

How To Tuesdays: The Smart Way To Use Flash
Tutorial #1: I will be starting from the ground up in the first tutorial, explaining how to use the program, as well as how some simple knowledge can play a big role down the road! Stay tooned!

Z Animation is one incredible animation studio!

-Steve

How To Tuesdays: The Smart Way To Use Flash
Tutorial #1: I will be starting from the ground up in the first tutorial, explaining how to use the program, as well as how some simple knowledge can play a big role down the road! Stay tooned!

There are some spoilers in this review. If you don’t want certain aspects of the film disclosed to you, then don’t read this until AFTER you have seen the film!!

OK, Still with me? Good.

“Ratatouille” is the latest film from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar. While the film is getting pretty much universal praise, the film was a bit short on character development in some areas, and as a result you don’t care about some aspects of the characters as much as you probably should.

Shocked? Let me explain.

The film is about a rat who enjoys cooking. He enjoys it so much, that it is what he wants to do with his life. He feels there could be much more to a rat’s life than stealing food and living in the shadows. There are some hints of his life before cooking. We get to meet his father and brother (Emile) as well as a few other rats. While there is a bit of set up here, I don’t think it is enough. When Remey gets seperated from his family and ends up in Paris, I pretty much forgot about his family. They didn’t seem to treat him too well, forcing him to be the poison sniffer. His brother did help him out when he was sneaking food out of hte old lady’s house, but he seemed to be a character who’s only purpose was for exposition. He helps set up the fact that the father is disapproving of Remy’s interaction with all things human. I didn’t get a feeling of brotherly love or anything like that between Remy and Emile.

So Remy ends up in Paris and at the restaurant of his deceased idol, Chef Gusteau, who appears as a figment of Remy’s imagination. Remy’s arrival at the restaurant coinsides with the arrival (and employment) of Linguini. Linguini carries with him a mysterious letter from his mother. While he appears as a bit of a klutz, and mentions having “had so many” jobs, we don’t get anything further from him or any other characters on Remy’s background.

Why did he lose so many jobs? Where did he come from? Why does he want a job in a kitchen? We never get these things answered. While this would work ok for some minor characters, it makes Linguini be nothing more than a bumbler. He kind of plays like Goofy. I don’t care about Goofy’s love life, I just want to see him try to learn to ski, swim, or play basketball. I felt the same way about Linguini in this film. With nothing more to go on, how am I supposed to feel about him?

The other chefs in the kitchen are pretty much minor charatcers, with the exception of Skinner and Colette. Skinner is the head chef, and Colette is the only female in the group. She has fought hard to get where she is and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her career on track. Skinner used to work for Chef Gusteau. He is pushing a line of cheap food for mass market, and we see some photos of him with Gusteau. He is set to take over the restaurant as his own in a few days so long as no heir of Gusteau’s is found. Guess who the heir turns out to be?

There is a love story between Colette and Linguini, Remy’s family finds where he is by accident and tries to get him to come back to the rat colony, Skinner suspects something with Linguini and the rat, and the story starts to go in several different directions at once. This is where the movie starts to come off the rails for me.

There are so many characters, and so much to tell about everyone, that there ends up being a lot of exposition through dialog rather than showing you things about the characters. To me, the story seems to have loose ends because of this. Did Skinner really kill Gusteau? It seems to be hinted at, but it never really gets answered. Throw in some other underdeveloped characters (Remy’s father, Anton Ego the food critic) and it gets even more convoluted.

On the plus side, the animation is impeccable, the effects are astounding, the music is great, and the overall feel of the film is warm and nice. I really liked the visual interpretation of what the flavor of food was like, and the flashback to childhood that Ego experiences when he tastes the dish Remy prepares for him.

I left the theater feeling like I had just watched a high end, animated episode of “Three’s Company” starring John Ritter. That’s not a bad thing. I really like that type of comedy and entertainment, but the characters felt “sitcomy” to me.

While the film overall is good, the lack of character development in crucial areas kept this film below “The Incredibles” and “The Iron Giant” in my Brad Bird film rankings. That being said, I think it was way better than “Cars”.

In all fairness to Brad Bird, this was a project that was not his to begin with. It’s hard to tell what was from the old project, and what was part of the revisions.

I liked the film, and will see it again. I would recommend seeing it to others.

What are your thoughts?
-Floyd Bishop

Such incredible motion graphics!

-Steve

How To Tuesdays: The Smart Way To Use Flash
Tutorial #1: I will be starting from the ground up in the first tutorial, explaining how to use the program, as well as how some simple knowledge can play a big role down the road! Stay tooned!

If you want to see a whole lot of people drawing, there are tons of pictures of Wednesday’s Drinking & Drawing event HERE.

Thanks to everyone who attended, whether you drank, drew, or drank and drew.

– Eric

Click here to subscribe to Channel Frederator or go to iTunes. Please send your suggestions to promotecartoons@gmail.com.

Have you ever wondered what Squash and Stretch was? Or what Flash Symbols meant or what an Animatic does? Or how about doing lighting in a CGI film? What’s CGI?
If you’ve ever asked yourself those Questions, Channel Frederator is here to help you!
Every Tuesday our Expert Ateam of Channel Frederator Bloggers will be dishing out Animation How To tips and tricks!
And if you, our readers, have any tips, tricks, comments,questions or suggestions please email us at jeaux@nextnewnetworks.com!
This is gonna be COOL!

Channel Frederator. Yr #1 SOURCE for Cartoon News & Interviews!
Doctor Bammington.
<3,
-JX!

Who Do YOU want to see On Channel Frederator?
Click here to subscribe to Channel Frederator or go to iTunes. Please send your suggestions to promotecartoons@gmail.com.

Wanna know what else is cool about Channel Frederator?!?

Seriously. If yr film or short is featured on CH.Fred, what better way to promote yrself than embedding the Fred on yr very own website, blog or myspace page? For the extreme Fredheads, there’s the ultimate “Always Fresh” embedding code.
What are you waiting for? All the cool kids are doing it. I have mine up on my Myspace Page now.
Don’t believe me? Take a look, and add me while yr at it!
Cheers!

Now I’m sure some of you have seen this guys art. It’s been sent to me a few times in emails, but I have to say the guy is really talented.

Especially when you look at how he does it.

He must think so warped and abstractly to be able to draw something so distorted as to see it correctly from another angle. Amazing stuff!
You can see more of Julian Beever’s art here.
-Mike Milo

Draw your own doodles online! Compete against others! I confess I tried drawing something and it ain’t easy because you can’t change the size of the pen and you can’t erase! Still it’s pretty cool and there are some incredible examples of art there. Plus you can watch the steps as they draw.
Good luck!
-Mike Milo

-Mike Milo

I really enjoyed this video by Eugene McGuinness. The video has a great feel to it that matches the music well. Enjoy!
-Floyd Bishop