Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Disney, Pixar Make News at CinemaCon

Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar made some major animation announcements to coincide with the CinemaCon exhibition industry confab in Las Vegas Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Disney released a title logo (pictured) and plot synopsis for the highly anticipated short film Paperman, which will play in festivals this year and, likely, in front of Wreck-It Ralph in November.

Paperman's 'revolutionary' animation technique, Disney revealed, involves 'seamlessly merging computer-generated and hand-drawn animation'. It's also created entirely in black-and-white.

Here's the official blurb verbatim:
Introducing a groundbreaking technique that seamlessly merges computer-generated and hand-drawn animation techniques, first-time director John Kahrs takes the art of animation in a bold new direction with Paperman. 
Using a minimalist black-and-white style, the short follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City, whose destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute. Convinced the girl of his dreams is gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him. 
Created by a small, innovative team working at Walt Disney Animation Studios, Paperman pushes the animation medium in an exciting new direction.
My blurb: Paperman is going to rock.

At CinemaCon proper, Disney showed the first few, video game-themed minutes of Wreck-it Ralph, which received a positive response from attendees on social media. "Looks fun, like it can do for video games what Toy Story did for toys," tweeted one user.

Not to be outdone, Pixar announced a title and new release date for Bob Peterson's formerly untitled dinosaur feature, now called The Good Dinosaur.  The film will hit the big screen May 30, 2014. Question: Is it a Barney movie? Pixar could have done better with the title.

Pete Docter's still untitled 'inside the mind' film was pushed back yet again—more than another year—to June 19, 2015. For 2015/2016, the studio announced an untitled Mexican-themed movie, being directed and produced by Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson.

Finally, the audience was treated to the very first teaser trailer for Monsters University, which reportedly got big laughs from the entire audience. /Film's Peter Sciretta tweeted that it "involves Sully pulling a prank on Mike while he sleeps in the dorm."

11 comments:

Sonal said...

Wow, information overload! So much good content coming up, I can't wait. Looking forward to the Good Dinosaur and Paperman.

Anonymous said...

Anyone know if Monsters U trailer will be attached to Brave?

Anonymous said...

Paperman...
Hope not Hype.

Nini said...

I'm still pretty confident MU is going to be good, nice to be back with the guys again but in the past. Seems like Disney is really looking to make mixed media animation a big deal with both Ralph and Paperman from the looks of it, I feel they can pull it off.

Anonymous said...

Also a low-res paperman image here:
http://www.disneyanimation.com/projects/index.html

Looks like it's gonna feel 3d-ish, without any 2d stutter/imperfections and more effects/shadows etc. But what this referencing about it's gonna make mo-cap look silly?
Is it actually hand-drawn? I'm guessing the system they've used has also done away with actual paper and ink and paint?

SammyB95 said...

Wow! awesome! thank you so much!

Anonymous said...

mike - what would you have titled the dinosaur movie?

How about:

Walking with Dinosaurs
Man's (Second) Best Friend
Frozen Under
Another World (borrowing the soap opera title)
If... (borrowing the title from a 1968 Lindsay Anderson movie)

Alexandro Fantino said...

WOOT!!! Mexican-themed Pixar film!!! That means 2 awesome things.
1) Pixar's research team will be coming to Mexico at some point this year, probably on the last days of October, and first days of November, and
2) If it's going to be released around 2015 and 2016, then it means there will be no Toy Story 4!! At least in the foreseeable future...
Mike(y), You made my day (:

Anonymous said...

How about:

-Freedom to Roam
-Roaring

Nate said...

Mike, I think you might want to post Lee Unkrich's full actual tweet, it revealed more then simply a mexican theme...
;)

Mr. Sig said...

I like how the logo for Paperman looks: with the name "Disney" positioned in the lower right corner instead of directly above the title.
I will admit, it's pretty much what I'd expect to see when I see a title by a particular company, kind of how I would see a title on a video game by Nintendo.