HAPPY FEET WINS THE OSCAR!
Why so glum? You just won an Oscar!
But what does this mean for the future of animated films? Will the motion-cature process become the new thing? Is 2D dead? Is CG on the way out? Even Disney is now jumping on the mo-cap bandwagon, setting up their very own department dedicated to motion-capture.
A quick look at this year's animated films tells us that not everyone is switching over to mo-cap...yet. Shrek the Third, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Bee Movie are all CG and the hand drawn Simpsons Movie is sure to be a big hit this summer.
But you can probably bet that because of Happy Feet's success, every studio will start production on a mo-cap movie and have them out as early as next year.
Also, Torill Kove's The Danish Poet won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject.
The other day in my character design class we were discussing our favorite Disney villains. It got me thinking... what makes a great villain? What is it that makes someone truly villainous? I went through the list of Disney villains and discovered there are four basic villain types: Silly, Power-Hungry, Animal Killer, Evil.
The Power-Hungry villains would be Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty), Hades (Hercules) and Jafar (Aladdin). Their motivation is simply that they're not at the top and they'll get rid of anyone who stands in their way of getting there.
The Evil villains are the villains who have no motivation to harm others or do the bad things they do. They're pure evil. We really hate them, even though they're just a bunch of drawings moving quickly in front of us. 
I realize the last three have motivation in that their status or power is being threatened by the main character. But the reason I put the Wicked Witch and Stepmother on there is because they're heartless towards girls who should be treated as their own daughters. The Wicked Witch actually tries to have Snow White killed. And Shere Khan has what I would call the same kind of evil as the Borg from Star Trek. When he shows up, you know you're screwed. All of the animals of the jungle are scared to death at the mention of his name. He rules the jungle because his threatening presence has given him that power. I think he's one of the scariest Disney villains.
My top, most evil, most despicable villain of all time is Judge Claude Frollo. He's racist, judgemental, cruel... and he does it all in the name of God. He judges on appearance. He manipulates. And everything he does is to make him look good before God. We're never really given a real motivation for why is the way he is, other than his religion. To me, he's as evil as they come.
The advertising campaign for Dreamworks' upcoming animated feature has been a fairly clever one. Bee Movie, slated for release November 2, stars Jerry Seinfeld as a bee who files a class action lawsuit against humans after he finds out they've been selling the bees' huney. Even though this is an animated movie, the teaser trailers have been live action.
The 2006 Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was on Monday and Pixar/Disney's Cars took home the Globe for Best Animated Feature beating out Happy Feet and Monster House. No surprise, really. Cars had the highest box office gross out of all the animated movies this year and I think everyone's bias toward Pixar helped a great deal.
I agree with Frost. Pixar should thank the creative brains behind the picture which is Pixar. Hopefully, that will continue with their upcoming pictures.
But wait, there's more! Pixar has released their very first picture of the title character of WALL• E, Pixar's follow-up to Ratatouille. It was just a matter of time before Pixar did a robot movie. I'm not surprised. They've done insects, monsters, underwater, superheroes and even a little outer space. Robots have been tackled many times, like Brad Bird's The Iron Giant for example, but I'm sure that Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton will deliver another Oscar-worthy film.
Also included in the Sneak Peak clip that I posted 
Underdog was a part of a marketing campaign in the 60s to sell breakfast cereal to children. King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo and Underdog were among the characters created for the General Mills campaign. The superhero dog, who was an obvious parody of Superman, quickly rose to fame and won the hearts of children all over the world.
A second teaser trailer for the Simpsons Movie debuted during yesterday's episode of the Simpsons. I find it a little funny that they are putting the emphasis on its traditional 2D animation but most of the backgrounds and props seem to be computer generated but use Toon shading to give it a '2D look'. It still looks nice.