Friday, December 10, 2010

"Shadow"

Mark D. has been hard at work (with small staff) on this in the upper reaches of DreamWorks Animation's Lakeside Building:

DreamWorks Animation to Combine Hand-Drawn Animation and CGI for ‘Me and My Shadow’ ...

Chicken Little director Mark Dindal will helm the project, while Kung Fu Panda’s Melissa Cobb and Shrek Forever After’s Teresa Chang are serving as co-producers. ...

Mr. Dindal told me some weeks ago that Jeffrey had wanted to do a story involving shadows for awhile. Mark had pitched ideas, and Jeffrey had okayed him developing one of them.. The approach and artwork I saw looked intriguing.

Good to know it's coming along. I've long thought Mark was one of the better directors in the biz.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

is there a vacuum on somewhere...

Anonymous said...

"Chicken Little director?" Whoever wrote that wants to discredit the guy already. Let's not use that abomination.

Let's go with the very well made "Emperor's New Groove" and "Cat's Don't Dance" instead.

Bruce Wright said...

Mark's a great guy with an impeccable sense of comic fun. I'm amazed it took Dreamworks this long to snap him up.

Congratulations!

Anonymous said...

Wonder how many 2d guys will be able to get jobs over at dreamworks now. The timing is pretty good with the only other 2d project recently wrapped up.

Anonymous said...

Winnie the Pooh is finished?

Anonymous said...

"Cats Don't Dance" was crap.

Anonymous said...

"Chicken Little director?" Whoever wrote that wants to discredit the guy already. Let's not use that abomination.

Apparently, Katzenberg thought that the "Disney fire sale" strategy would work as well for Dreamworks to change its stle as it did with Chris Sanders--
Well, how shall we put this, JK, hehehh...HE'S YOUR PROBLEM NOW! :)

(And I recently rewatched CDD on disk a few weeks ago, and how could we not have noticed at the time that the sour hyperactive critter-humor was nearly identical to what we would get eight years later in Chicken Little?...IDENTICAL. Down to some of the exact same gags.
We just didn't notice it at the time, because we'd been blinded by a batch of cute songs, and failed to heed the dire warnings.)

Anonymous said...

Apparently, Katzenberg thought that the "Disney fire sale" strategy would work as well for Dreamworks to change its stle as it did with Chris Sanders--
Well, how shall we put this, JK, hehehh...HE'S YOUR PROBLEM NOW! :)


Did Mark Dindal run over your dog or something?

Anyway, the project sounds fun, and they've already got a lot of talent onboard (Shane Prigmore, Scott Wills, Raymond Zibach). Bring on 2013.

Anonymous said...

"from the writers of 'Get Smart.'"


Oh joy.

Steve Hulett said...

"Emperor's New Groove" is one of the most under-rated of Disney features.

The company didn't support the picture much (Eisner disliked it), and it opened weakly. And then "ENG" went up 50% in its second weekend.

That kind of thing only happens because of Word. Of. Mouth.

Anonymous said...

Agreed Steve. I can never understand the negative reactions towards ENG, it is one of my most favourite Disney moves!

Steve Hulett said...

Because it's wit and style is sky high.

It's really like no other Disney feature, thanks in large measure to Mr. Dindal.

Anonymous said...

"Emperor's New Groove" is one of the most under-rated of Disney features.
That kind of thing only happens because of Word. Of. Mouth.


ENG was a movie you otherwise had to be dragged in chains to see if you hadn't caught it the first week, and that was Word.Of.Mouth.

Like (ahem) most Disney movies that build on second-week word, the audience responded to the story and characters, even though that might not have exactly been the movie's intention going in--
Part of it at the time was also due to the audience's frustration with 90's formula, and that it seemed like throwing a rock at the "Kingdom of the Sun" it was going to be, whether the audience knew that story or not...And as Chicken Little eventually proved, you can't just show up out of the blue with a wacky soulless-hyper Ritalin-bouncing comedy on its own and expect audiences to respond the same way.

Anonymous said...

I gotta join in on the Emperor's New Groove love, that really is an amazing movie. It's got great characters, great animation, and a great sense of timing.

I've noticed that it's become something of a cult classic; even people that don't normally like Disney flicks seem to really respond to it. You're right Steve, it's like nothing Disney's done before or since.

Anonymous said...

I really don't know why I bother reading the comments. I can't believe how negative so many people in our industry are. Can't you just be excited that there's new work on the horizon? That people are still making original stories? That we are LUCKY to be working in a creative industry, instead of working in unsavory conditions (a mine, the freezing cold, a sweatshop, etc.) or simply that we're even working at all?!

yahweh said...

I think you misunderstand why there's so much negativity. BECUASE IT'S DREAMWORKS and there's a lot of Pixies and othr fans that have a problem with DW because they dare to challenge Pixar.

I doubt most of the negativity comes from professionals. Mostly wanna-bes and 'fans' and I use the term fan loosely.

Here we have a well-liked and respected director and animator making a CG/2D film and people are dumping on it! Not likely the dumping is coming from artists actually in the industry.

Derrick said...

Great!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aurora Dawson said...

Yes! Finally, some more work for the now dying art of traditional animation. After Winnie the Pooh, I was worried that there wouldn't be anything else. A little surprised to learn that DW was the answer to my prayers. Glad they're doing this project, sounds like it will be another ENG. (hopefully)

Site Meter