The second animation film that I went to watch to update my animation films list, was the long-awaited Pixar's Toy Story 3, directed by Lee Unkrich, having as producers names like John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, is the third episode in the Toy Story films.
It continues the story of our beloved toy characters, Woody, Buzz and Company. This time, Andy the toy's owner is already a grown-up, and is ready to leave for college. So our toys are faced between the trash bag or the attic box, while every toy was chosen to spend the rest of their lives in the attic, Woody being Andy's preferred toy, gains a place into the college box. However, things do not occur as expected, Andy carries the bag to the attic but is interrupted by his sister Mollie. The abandoned bag is left in the hallway and then mistakenly sent to the trash.
After what happens, Woody realizes and tries to save his toy friends, from being carried away and destroyed. All this bad luck, is changed when Buzz Lightyear, now inside the bin bag, saves the other toys. While escaping, they hide in Andy's mum car, where Woody meets them. Although, they were not destroyed, their bad luck is still present when once again, mistakenly, they are transported to Sunnyside day care as donation toys.
Life changes for these toys upon their arrival, they are greeted by all this really happy toys, and cute teddy bear called Lasso, controller in the center.
After an entertaining tour given by Ken , Barbie's partner, Woody and company are sent to a different daycare room. Not knowing what is about to happen, they are eager to meet the kids and play with them, but things show different, the children in that room are too young for those toys so instead playing with them they destroy them.
Our toys are tricked and imprisoned in the daycare center, only a masterplan will help them escape the children, the controlling two-faced teddy bear, Lasso and the tall walls surrounding the recess area.
Toy Story 3 coming from studios such as Pixar, is not a let down, this film shares the same successes from the previous 2, and in fact an amazing sequel.
It has a strong narrative, characteristic of all Pixar films, the concept of the children growing up and forgetting, donating, trashing their toys is presented everywhere, but with Toy Story this same happening is seen in a different perspective, from the Toy's POV, showing that they do also have emotions.
Pixar, also add some more flavour to the animation, by presenting numerous gags and situations which will leave the spectator crying from laughing, yes for example the genius idea of resetting Buzz Lightyear, and he becomes a spanish toy is hilarious, or when potato head, is away from his body and firstly uses a wrap and then a cucumber is one of the funniest things, I have ever seen.
Pixar has power to manipulate audiences, giving gags but not overdoing them so it appeals the spectator, it is all due to a very good art direction. Surely, something look in more depth when dealing with comedy.
In visual terms, Toy Story 3 is a huge leap in technical achievements. After 15 years from the first film, where CG was still growing in every aspect, Toy Story 3 demonstrates the progress of CG in all those years, the realistic quality presented is phenomenal, from CG Animation techniques to CG Visuals, the quality of the outcome is extraordinary. In this film, the use of many more materials and shaders is possible due to this progress, something that would never be achieved ever before.
Toy Story 3, is a Pixar Film with Disney essence in it, where the Disney crying magic dusting powder is ever present.
This film is a must-see, for CG students or the big audience, as Pixar gives you the opportunity to return to your childhood for 103 mins, and relive every moment.
Simply Brilliant !!
To add to this long post worshiping the masters of CG animation at Pixar's Studios, while awaiting to the film to the start we were presented with a short animation by the Pixar Studios, unfortunately is not yet available on Youtube ( only a tiny clip).
The animation is called Day & Night and is a short exploring the differences between day and night. What stroke me the most was the concept, although simple it was really effective, the use of sound effects and imagery in the respective times of the day to show emotions is so clever.
Also the use of a 2D animation foreground with a 3D animation on the background is really interesting different and fresh, who knows maybe it will be the return of the old 2D.
Being this animation shown before the film it was the perfect warm up to what was coming next.
To finalize this post, I gained the habit to stay in the cinema screen until the credits fade to black, with the purpose to find names which are inside the industry so I can be inspired somehow.
This time, I found Daniel Arriaga, the character designer in charge, on Toy Story 3, it caught my eye because being the 1st Toy Story film which adds a half stylised half realistic human characters, I was interested in his work. So I searched online and found his websites with a lot of goodies for CG Students and Character Design fanatics.
Blog : http://darriaga.blogspot.com/
Shared Url: http://www.dopw.us/blog/
Also the name Victor Navone was found by my partner when researching some pictures, just lead her to his blog and to know he worked as an animator in Toy Story 3.
Blog: http://blog.navone.org/
I guess the web is a really powerful and interesting world.
So please do not forget to follow!!
1 comment:
It's a sign of Pixar's ongoing brilliance that even when there would appear to be no real need for another Toy Story sequel the studio delivers one that feels utterly essential.
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