I'm going to be honest with you; Sita Sings the Blues was really terrible. The animation was nothing more than simple tweens with no easing, too much talk backed up with woefully generic voices, vapid expressions, and extremely bland staging. I would also mention that there are people who used Flash for Traditional frame-by-frame animation. (examples: Adam Phillips, Karri Esala, Andrew Dickman, Cory Lajeunesse, Matt Begneaud, and Felix Hildebrandt) This was something that needed to be said.
I found Sita Sings The Blues thoroughly enjoyable. This is just Nina's animation and it suits the design and the film well.
Being a professional animator for hire for 20 years now personally I'd animate things differently, but I enjoy seeing other ways of doing things as long as they are tasteful and have internal integrity.
Adam Phillips and many other ex Disney guys - Australia is full of them - can do good stuff, but they are just so stuck in what they have been taught to do, it is usually just a bland repetition of Disney animation on a tight budget. Look at Glen Keane's pencil test love thing. Mike Barrier wrote about it and I tend to agree with every word in his post.
Nina did her own thing and we should admire her for it!
October 15, 2014 4:29 AM
Janus said...
Nina Paley is excellent and more than excellent. The immense amount of research she puts into everything she does, the daring to take a social and a political stance, the sheer intelligence of her whole body of work...
I find that a common problem with mainstream western animation nowadays is that we're so caught up in technical sophistication that we treat story as something to tack onto the animation afterwards.
November 03, 2014 12:12 AM
Nina Paley, the creator of the animated feature Sita Sings the Blues, has released another segment from her current production Seder Masochism. Music is by The Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra with sound effects by Greg Sextro.
posted by Mark Mayerson at 7:42 PM on Oct 14, 2014
"New from Nina Paley"
4 Comments -
I'm going to be honest with you; Sita Sings the Blues was really terrible. The animation was nothing more than simple tweens with no easing, too much talk backed up with woefully generic voices, vapid expressions, and extremely bland staging. I would also mention that there are people who used Flash for Traditional frame-by-frame animation. (examples: Adam Phillips, Karri Esala, Andrew Dickman, Cory Lajeunesse, Matt Begneaud, and Felix Hildebrandt) This was something that needed to be said.
October 14, 2014 8:29 PM
I don't see how else a single person could make a feature-length animated film in any kind of reasonable time.
October 14, 2014 10:16 PM
Shane,
I'd disagree with you.
I found Sita Sings The Blues thoroughly enjoyable.
This is just Nina's animation and it suits the design and the film well.
Being a professional animator for hire for 20 years now personally I'd animate things differently, but I enjoy seeing other ways of doing things as long as they are tasteful and have internal integrity.
Adam Phillips and many other ex Disney guys - Australia is full of them - can do good stuff, but they are just so stuck in what they have been taught to do, it is usually just a bland repetition of Disney animation on a tight budget. Look at Glen Keane's pencil test love thing. Mike Barrier wrote about it and I tend to agree with every word in his post.
Nina did her own thing and we should admire her for it!
October 15, 2014 4:29 AM
Nina Paley is excellent and more than excellent. The immense amount of research she puts into everything she does, the daring to take a social and a political stance, the sheer intelligence of her whole body of work...
I find that a common problem with mainstream western animation nowadays is that we're so caught up in technical sophistication that we treat story as something to tack onto the animation afterwards.
November 03, 2014 12:12 AM