ASIFA is having a screening of MONSTER HOUSE on Monday, August 14th at 7pm at the Leonard H Goldensen Theater (TV Academy) in North Hollywood. A Q&A after the film will follow with the director, Gil Kenan. Don't miss this members-only exclusive Asifa screening.

August 14th, 2006 - 7pm
Leonard H Goldensen Theater (TV Academy)
North Hollywood, CA
ASIFA MEMBERS: (310-274-3448)

I`m looking forward to seeing Monster House. It sounds like a fun story idea. The reviews and word of mouth are good. I talked to the guy that animated the house at Comic Con last week. (no, they did not put targets on a real house and capture its movements)

The hard part is watching the movie without getting in the middle of the latest media circus. The press is trying to turn motion capture into the next animation battleground. And all I want to do is watch a movie.

For those of you lucky enough not to be in the know, there is a giant stink currently going on around the animation community about motion capture and how the uninformed SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE movie reviewer, Mick LaSalle, thinks that it is a better tool for capturing animated emotional performance. Monster House has the misfortune of being right at ground zero in this mess.

LaSalle kicked over a hornets nest by saying there is no use looking at a close up in animation because it is impossible to get facial expression into the animation process without an actor in a mo cap rig. If you haven`t been over to Cartoon Brew lately to check out the outrage eating up the screens and you like that kind of thing maybe you should check out the fallout from LaSalle`s moronic statement. http://www.cartoonbrew.com

Don`t let the media muddy the water. They love to do that, it sells papers. LaSalle my not even be as stupid as he sounds because now everybody is reading him so they can take shoots at his opinions. The sale of a paper is the sale of a paper. And it all goes to make him richer.

For years the press was screaming 2-D vs 3-D. There is no 2-D vs 3-D, never was. These are just tools for making animation. Here we go again. The press loves to focus on the tool and to hell with all the damage they do. The label for a tool is something that the uninformed can latch on to and beat to death without ever understanding what they are talking about. And some times studio heads listen to them.

To me, a movie stands or falls on it`s own merit. Here is a well-known secret. They normally have top-notch animators animate right on top of the motion capture data. You don`t really believe that Gollum was all mo cap?

Can`t we all just get along? And go out to enjoy a movie without drawing battle lines. I`m not going to let them force me to pick sides. A tool is a tool and so are the muckrakers.  ¶ 11:02 AM