Whatever Happened To Colour?

Those who know me well know that I am very much steeped in the popular culture of the 50's and 60's. In fact, most of my favourite movies were made in roughly that twenty year span. That's not to say that I believe movies were better overall from that era in terms of writing and direction, but when it comes to colour and sound then, yes, there's a wealth of pleasure for the senses to be found during that period.

Just the other night I put on my DVD of 4 For Texas, starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin alongside those fine Swedish and Swiss imports respectively, Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress. To be sure, it's a mindless piece of fluff that would never end up on any film critic's list of all-time classics, but it's a bit of fun and most importantly, it looks great! Like most films of that era, it is crisply lit and absolutely awash in lush colour. I know most of you likely value content in a film over style, but not me - I prefer style, critics be damned! (Of course, the goal should be to have both wonderful content and style.)

For me, a movie has to lure me through the senses - it must appeal to the eyes and ears. At one time, Hollywood used to knock itself out trying to do this, with lush Technicolor and memorable music scores. Cinematographers, art directors, costume designers - all were hired for their skill in bringing aesthetic appeal to meet with the director's vision. Scenes were beautifully lit in order to showcase the attractiveness of Hollywood's leading stars of the day, with their warm, tanned flesh tones and well-tailored wardrobes:





But not now...

Hollywood has decided that we can't have beautiful imagery anymore. These days, it seems that the default look for most (if not all) movies is like this - colours drained of all their bright hue and given an overall dull blue tinge:





It's bad enough when horror, sci-fi and fantasy movies seem to slavishly adhere to this unpleasant template, but even mainstream adult dramas like Up In The Air and Fair Game (both of which are films that I would otherwise like) are being drained of all their colour in post-production. This unfortunate trend in dreariness also lessened my enjoyment of last year's Best Picture winner, The King's Speech.

Recently, I did some searching on Google to find out whether others are equally disturbed by this ugly trend in today's films. Sure enough, I turned up this article that helps to explain what is going on. It's interesting to read the numerous comments afterward, as there are many, like me, who abhor this unpleasant trend, while others defend it as being true to the director's "vision". Though they may like to think of themselves as unique visionaries, most directors working today merely conform to one basic template of mediocrity that the Hollywood studios all decree must be followed. Because of this trend toward the drab and ugly, I find myself seeing fewer and fewer films with each passing year. Perhaps Hollywood should realize that many older moviegoers are used to far richer looking movies from the more glorious past - today's films just turn us off. BLECCHH!!

Here's a final parting shot. Compare the dreary, blue-tinged Russell Crowe 2010 Robin Hood to the lush 1938 Technicolor classic starring Errol Flynn:




(And if you want to see the warm, rich colours of gorgeous Ursula Andress, here's the trailer from 4 For Texas!)

Happy 100th, Freddie Moore!

I've been reading on other blogs that today, Sept. 7 2011, represents the 100th anniversary of the birth of legendary Disney animator, Fred Moore. You can read the thoughts of other artists regarding Freddie on the blogs of Jenny Lerew and Andreas Deja. Aside from his iconic and highly influential Disney character designs and animation, Fred was also famous for his drawings of cute, innocently sexy girls. I've written before on this subject here, and I am proud to own a couple of his originals, bought about 20 years ago through the Howard Lowery auction, one of which is pictured at the head of this post.

Recently, former Disney animator and creator of Electric Tiki, Tracy Lee, has created a beautiful figurine based on one of Fred's sketches of a typical "Freddie Girl", pictured in the above photo. The sketch was interpreted into the 3-dimensional figurine by the brilliant Kent Melton, who has been responsible for many extraordinary sculpted animation maquettes over the years, as well as having sculpted figurines for public purchase with the Disney Classics Collection. I had pre-ordered the Freddie Moore Girl sculpture when it first went on sale, and received it a couple months ago, where it now sits alongside other Fred Moore-inspired figurines of the centaurettes from Fantasia that were among the first set of bisques from The Disney Classics Collection. Just adorable!

Pooh Book Illustrations

Seeing the recent Disney Winnie-The-Pooh feature made me think back on the series of books I'd illustrated for Readers Digest back about 10 years ago. I like the Pooh characters, but I must admit I find them deceptively simple in design, as they're actually quite hard to get just right. (And nobody can draw Tigger absolutely right since Milt Kahl retired from animating - he's really tough to do well!)

This was perhaps my favourite of the handful that I'd illustrated, as I really quite like drawing Rabbit. Perhaps I relate only too well to his curmudgeonly attitude! The fun for me was in keeping Pooh and Rabbit in character as best I could, as well as trying to paint the backgrounds as faithful as possible to the watercolour style in the films. I drew the characters as separate elements, scanning in the pencil art and colouring them in Photoshop, then placing them on top of the hand-painted backgrounds that were done with diluted gouache on illustration board. This process helps to keep the illustrations looking much like cel set-ups, resembling the look of the films as closely as I was able to achieve. Anyway, here are all of the interior pages from Happy New Year, Pooh! - some are single pages, others are double page spreads. The simple text is laid in afterward on top of the illustrations in the wide open areas. These books were available in a book-of-the-month-club format aimed at very young readers.

Caricatures For Ellie!

The other night I drew caricatures at a bridal shower for one of my former animation students, Ellie Ventura, who is getting married this coming September. I must confess, bridal showers are my favourite type of event to work, as I get to caricature lots of cute girls! Some people believe that it's harder to caricature females, but I think it's still possible to exaggerate and stylize the features while maintaining their attractiveness. Anyway, here is a sampling of the ones I drew that evening. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sketch Ellie herself, though at least she has the one I did from when she was in my class about 5 or 6 years ago. All the best to Ellie and her beau on their upcoming wedding day!

The End Credits Roll On Elwy Yost

Long before the Turner Classic Movies cable channel came along, lucky movie buffs here in Ontario had Saturday Night at the Movies to look forward to each week. Starting in the mid-1970s, it was on this TVOntario show that many of my age were first introduced to all sorts of film classics from the glorious past. And the man who created the show and hosted it for about 25 years running was Elwy Yost, a round faced, enthusiastic, and very genial film connoisseur. Sadly, I learned yesterday that Elwy Yost has just passed away at the age of 86.

Similar to the appeal of Walt Disney coming into our living rooms every week on The Wonderful World of Disney in the 50s and 60s, a decade later Elwy Yost was also like a favourite uncle arriving every Saturday night to sit down and watch with and discuss some of the best movies that Hollywood's Golden Age had to offer. Every week there would be a couple of films screened on a related topic, or perhaps from the same director or starring the same actor. In between the movies there would be pre-filmed interview portion, sometimes with a well-known star, but more often with a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, makeup artist, or other creative person who had long laboured behind the scenes. Elwy would usually film his interviews with them at their homes and, though the interview might start out a bit stiffly, the subjects would always warm up to Elwy as it progressed, when it became quickly evident that Elwy was really interested in their specific contribution to a film classic. I'm certain that many of the interviewees were delighted to be asked questions about their achievements that nobody had ever been interested enough to ask them before. While Elwy did have a tendency to gush in his "Gee Whiz!" manner, his enthusiasm for the films he covered was quite endearing to his loyal viewers, who probably found him very easy to relate to. Elwy was not a film critic so much, but rather, the ultimate film fan. I suspect Elwy Yost never met a movie he didn't like!

Fortunately, TVOntario has just recently been making a number of Elwy's interviews available to watch on their online TVO Archive. I strongly recommend checking out some of these. Animation buffs will probably enjoy Elwy's interviews with Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. Here is a clip from YouTube that shows Elwy Yost in his hosting duties on Saturday Night at The Movies. Yep, we'll miss you, Elwy...

Liam Neeson

Here's my caricature of Liam Neeson, the subject of the week at Caricaturama Showdown. As I've mentioned often on here, I do my caricatures by sketching from video reference rather than from photos, as I find I get a better feel for the design of the face and the personality of the subject. For this caricature, I started by watching Liam in the 1994 film, Nell, which starred Jodie Foster (who was also co-producer) in the title role of a young woman who has been raised in a log cabin in the backwoods of North Carolina, completely isolated from the outside world. Her mother was a stroke victim, paralyzed on one side of her face, so Nell grows up never hearing properly enunciated speech. When the elderly mother dies, Nell is left speaking what appears to be an unknown language when she is discovered by the sheriff and a concerned doctor played by Neeson.

It's a truly beautiful and touching film, even moreso in retrospect, as it was during the filming of Nell that Liam Neeson met and fell in love with his co-star, actress Natasha Richardson, who plays a psychiatrist in the film. They married soon thereafter and had a wonderful, stable, loving marriage until Natasha was tragically killed in a skiing accident in 2009. I acknowledged the tragedy at the time with this tribute, as I believe there were many people who felt so saddened for Liam in his great loss. It's hard to watch the film today and not shed some tears when you can tell how they were falling in love during its production. And in her performance as Nell, Jodie Foster is truly luminous, and shows what a gifted actress she has become in her years before the camera. A lovely and poignant film that I highly recommend if you have not yet seen it.

Happy Birthday, Bill Cosby!

The subject this week on Caricaturama was Bill Cosby, and the fellow who chose him knew that this challenge would end on Cosby's birthday. I hadn't been participating in this weekly challenge for awhile now, but I felt compelled to draw ol' Bill, as I consider him the gold standard of stand-up comedians. I wanted to portray him back in his prime of the 1970's/early 80's when he appeared regularly on The Tonight Show while Johnny was still at the helm. Those were the days! In fact I drew this from an appearance in 1983 that Cosby made on The Tonight Show that can be found on this new multi-disc DVD set that came out earlier this year.

Here's a terrific Bill Cosby routine I remember fondly, courtesy of YouTube:



PS: Sorry I haven't updated the blog in awhile. I haven't felt very motivated lately, I'm afraid.

Alan Rickman

Alan Rickman was this week's challenge on Caricaturama Showdown. There were a lot of entries portraying him as Prof. Snape from the Harry Potter films, so I wanted to show a very different side of him for variety. I remembered that he was in the Richard Curtis film, Love Actually, a delightful romantic comedy with a great ensemble cast. So here is my caricature of Alan Rickman from that role as a compassionate office boss who plays cupid for two of his employees, while also trying to avoid falling into the trap of an extramarital affair with his comely young secretary. Check out this great scene from the film where he tries to discreetly purchase a Christmas gift for the girl while his wife is off elsewhere in the department store, and he runs into trouble from an overzealous jewelry counter clerk played to perfection by Rowan Atkinson.

Gary Sinise and Natalie Portman

Here are a couple of recent pieces drawn for Caricaturama Showdown 3000:

Sheridan College Open House 2011 (Part 2)

Here are more of the caricatures I drew at last week's Open House:

This first one features one of the new grads from Sheridan's Music Theatre program, Brittany Robinson, pictured here with her boyfriend Trevor. Earlier this year, Brittany had landed the plum role of Janet Van de Graaf in The Drowsy Chaperone, which will likely remain my favourite Sheridan production for quite some time. She is a lovely and talented young lady to whom I wish much success in her career!









Here are several of the Sheridan Animation students who drew along with me at this year's event. This is Leisha-Marie Riddel, who graduated from the program last year.

3rd Year student, Hai Wei Hou.

3rd Year student, Omar Noori gives the thumbs up.

Aaron Fryer, one of my talented students from this year's 2nd Year.