Skip to main content

The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn was a delightful watch. I loved it more during my second watch largely because my first watch was in a poor theater and couldn't really follow all the dialogues clearly. Steven Spielberg's first animation film is indeed different from all the other animation pictures that I had seen. The experience is different because even as the film is animation, Spielberg seems to have treated it just like a live action picture at times especially with his shot divisions that captures the actions so seamlessly.
I haven't completely read the comics of Tin Tin by Herge but whatever I had read and the animation adaptions I had caught up with on television, I was certain that it had scope for a great movie. Spielberg has utilized that advantage to the fullest in making an engaging adventure film. Having Peter Jackson also on board to be the second unit director should definitely have helped the film a good deal.
Besides the shot division, the lighting of the film also plays a crucial role in making it distinct from other animated films. The influence of Janusz Kaminski in making the frames so real is simply mind blowing.
I'm not a huge fan of animated films. I also don't really like the idea of making an animated film photo realistic in look. Then why the hell are live action films for? But in the case of Tin Tin, I guess I don't find the idea all that offensive. I don't think things would have looked so much like the comics if it was shot as a live action film. And the adventures of tin tin aren't exactly about realism but its got a fantasy and surreal quality as well somewhere.
However, I still don't feel that the motion capture technology has grown well enough to capture the human reactions, especially the facial ones even with the hundreds of spots that the visual effects people have all over the actor's face.
I still haven't figured out exactly how this whole film might have been made. It's not that I know exactly how every other film gets made, but I'm very uncertain about how this picture is made to a great extent. I'm also super curious to know how each phase of a film of this sort evolved.
I saw the film in stereoscopic 3D. It seemed there wasn't much of a play with the depends in the overall movie. But, there indeed were a few and few neat ones. Beyond the projection of the images out of the screen, the thing that really amazed me was the supreme excellence in the transition from one scene to another and also the brilliantly planned and executed uninterrupted long take in the film near the climax. Maybe these things where thought and worked out so well since the film was an animated one.
Now that the first part is over, I wonder what all fun Peter Jackson is going to bring with the second installment of Tintin.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nidra

I haven't seen the original version of the film, Nidra, which was directed by Bharathan. But the version his son, Sidharth Bharathan, made was lovable for the way it was made. Nidra is a neat film. It has a writing material well adapted by Sidharth and Santhosh. The dialogues from Santhosh Echikkanam are bang on! Loved the visuals of the film as well but it seemed to have an excess of blue all over it. I wonder if Sameer Thahir did that to cover up for the excess of white that he might have had to  accommodate while shooting on the Red camera. The music and background score of the film sounded well with the film. The editing and sound design were no less good. It did feel as though there where a couple of instances when the footages jumped creating a disturbance for a second or two. But, otherwise the editing by Bavan Sreekumar was just too good. I loved the editing on all those scenes that featured the redish look from Sameer and the scene at the dining table that featur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kaminey

Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey is a classic film targeted at the masses. Vishal Bharadwaj could be a genius. He has handled a movie that could turn out to be a total mess at some other guys hand with great brilliance. He has not only managed to execute the film in style but also taken care of the music, screenplay and dialogues of the film. The plot of Kaminey is simple. The construction of the plot is where Vishal and his team has made the magic. As in a Guy Ritchie film here we travel with one character and then at a point slide over to another. The action as in a Quentin Tarantino movie is gonna come hitting at you as hard as you have ever imagined a Bollywood cinema to be (and the better thing here is that you have very less blood compared to QT)! What makes Kaminey have the class is the the fact that it is truely cinematic. Kaminey is a true film and not a hindi film. Vishal Bharadwaj has been able to communicate with his film very universally with the brilliant dark visual t...
3 comments
Read more

Knowing Stanley

Stanley Winston is popularly known as Stan Winston. He could be called a special effects and visual effects artist or even a creature creator! Stan, who was born on the 7th of April, 1946, died on June 15, 2008. I'm not sure how make people would have bothered to see the end credits roll with the name of Stan. But Stan has made visuals and effects that kept many (including me) at the edge of their seats. Winston had been a frequent collaborator with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron. Stan wanted to be an actor. He became a painter, a sculptor and an artist. Everything to him was creating characters that tell stories in films. Stan Winston was a man adored by Steven Spielberg. How could Steven not adore a man who made dinosaurs that shuck the whole world. Stan was the creator of live action dinosaurs in the film, Jurassic Park . He was also the man behind the terrific makeover of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator series. Stanley has won four academy awards...
3 comments
Read more