The year 2014 witnessed a great slate of animated movies including: How to train your Dragon 2, The Broxtrolls, The Lego Movie, Song of the Sea, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya are just a few that made heads turn in the year gone by.
Walt Disney Animation Studios is making a comeback of sorts, which commenced in 2013 with the mega block-buster Frozen (that won an Oscar too) and followed it up with 2014’s release of Big Hero 6 (Which too took home the Oscar); but 2015 will see no feature film releases from the studio, barring the Frozen Fever short that will premiere on the release day of the studio’s live actioner Cinderella in March.
But animation movie buffs, don’t worry we are not going to take your salad days away so soon, as we have long list of animation movies coming up this year from some of the most respected and lauded studios globally.
AnimationXpress.com has compiled a list of the top five animation studios and their upcoming movies for this year.
DreamWorks Animation (DWA) studio has released a total of thirty feature films till date, including the franchises of Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon. As of November 2014, its feature films have made $12.5 billion worldwide, with a $419 million average gross per film.
DWA is known for dealing well in the comedy genre. In each movie you will get to see characters which are unique in their own way. And if you have seen all the movies of DreamWorks you will see that each movie focuses on animals as characters; whether it’s a friendly dragon, cute penguins, the confused panda or the donkey from Shrek.
However, despite posting a loss of $247.7 million from its last film The Penguins Of Madagascar, DreamWorks is all set release it 31st animated film – Home this year, featuring voices of Rihanna, Jim Parson and Jennifer Lopez. It’s a computer animated 3D sci-fi comedy buddy film based on the book True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rox. For a change the movie focuses on the relationship between a girl and an alien (no animal in this for now).
The movie revolves around Oh, a loveable misfit from another planet, who lands on Earth and finds himself on the run from his own people. Then he forms an unlikely friendship with an adventurous girl named Tip who is on a quest of her own. Through a series of comic adventures with Tip, Oh comes to understand that being different and making mistakes is all part of being human. And while he changes her planet and she changes his world, they discover the true meaning of the word Home.
With DreamWorks studio still recovering from the dreadful losses, it is crucial for this feature to work its magic as it prepares to land in theatres on 27 March 2015.
Pixar produces both animated feature and short films. It also provides RenderMan Pro Server, a software solution for feature film animation; RenderMan Studio that provides features and tools for creating photorealistic CGI, while streamlining workflows for artists.
Pixar has produced fourteen feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995). Most of the films have received both critical and financial success, with a notable exception being Cars 2 (2011).
For 2015 Pixar has two films lined up – Inside Out that releases on 19 June and The Good Dinosaur set for a November release, making up for a movie-less 2014.
The Good Dinosaur is a funny and exciting original story about Arlo, a lively 70-foot-tall teenage Apatosaurus with a big heart. After a traumatic event rattles Arlo’s tranquil community, he sets out on a quest to restore peace, gaining an unlikely companion along the way, a young human boy named Spot.
Inside Out has been narrated from the perspective of the emotions inside the mind of a little girl. For this movie the team consulted psychologists and read numerous scientific theories regarding the working of the mind of the little girl and the film’s design was influenced by what the team learned from their research.
At one point the team also considered having as many as 27 emotion characters, but they found during writing that it was too complex. The set of emotions in the film is based on the universal emotions as identified by Paul Ekman.
At Siggraph Convention 2013, Pete Doctor mentioned in his speech, “Inside Out is one of the most challenging films I have ever worked on, because the film has to tell simultaneously what is happening to 11 year old girl- Riley and what is happening inside her mind.”
Sony Pictures Animation produces a variety of animated and family entertainment films for audiences around the world. The studio is working around sequels to its already worldwide successful comedy hits that include: Hotel Transylvania, The Smurfs, The Smurfs 2, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 and now the sequel to Hotel Transylvania.
Imageworks is the studio that produces the animation for Sony Pictures Animation (SPA) films, including the upcoming Hotel Transylvania 2 and the all-CG Smurfs movie.
Hotel Transylvania 2, which will hit theatres this year on 25 September is a story about the old-old-old-fashioned vampire Vlad, who arrives at the hotel for an impromptu family get-together and Hotel Transylvania is in for a collision of supernatural old-school and modern day cool.
The movie’s screenplay has been written by comedian Adam Sandler. The star cast of the movie features voices of Selena Gomez along with Sandler and Andy Samberg.
Despite mixed reviews, Hotel Transylvania got the highest-grossing weekend opening ever earning a total of $358 million on a budget of $85 million. The characters in Hotel Transylvania were brought to life using simple silhouettes, vivid colours and strong graphic clarity which was a diversion from its grey and gothic look.
The hotel architecture used for this movie was Romanesque, which has far fewer windows and looked perfect for vampires.
Initially the animation was reminiscent of the traditional Disney style, but it evolved into more of a classic Tex Avery look (something that looks like Looney Tunes). The animators would provide basic postures, and then Tartakovsky, the supervisor, would sketch his desired pose over the image. Smears were also used – Haller (artist) explains that they simulated smears in 2D with long, stretched poses and had to use all kinds of deformers to keep artistic control. Sketching over the top of the animator’s pose helped to show the Tex Avery pose that sells the look of the film.
Blue Sky Studios has produced nine animated films, with Ice Age and Rio being its most successful film franchises.
All Ice Age movies were in 3D and for each sequel new fur and water waves are created. All the artists start from scratch, right from working in sketchbooks and drawing pads, and on digital tablets, they refined their drawings and collaborated closely with the film’s director and art director until each character came out well. Along the way, they also ensured that the designs were transitioned smoothly into the 3D modelling process, which gave their characters full life and mobility.
As it was a 3D animation, every character, prop, and set was sculpted beautifully. This movie is also known for its character placement and shot framing.
But before the next Ice-Age sequel, Blue-sky studio has put its creativity and money in its forthcoming movie Peanuts. The CGI adaptation of Peanuts is being produced by Craig Schulz, the son of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. In case you want to obsess over Snoopy’s soft-white fur, the technique used is one that actually brings you closer to its original comic strip.
The movie that is set to release on 6 November has two techniques, key-framing and cell animation. Before the advent of computer animation, all animation was done by hand. Considering that each second of animation contains 24 frames, one can only imagine the tremendous amount of work that has to gone into creating even the shortest of animated films.
In the two years since Lucafilms was acquired by Disney at a cost of $ 4.06 billion, the studio has returned to its beloved Star Wars feature film franchise, announcing a continuation of George Luca’s film series as well as spinoff, which will kick off in 2015 with Star Wars: The force awakens. As for Lucasfilm Animation, its newest television series, Star Wars Rebels was launched couple of months back with the animated movie Star War Rebels: Spark of Rebellion.
Now, the Lucasfilm Animation studio released its first non-Star Wars related animated movie on 23 January, titled Strange Magic, computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy film directed by Gary Rydstrom, a fairytale inspired by William Shakespare’s Play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In its opening weekend, Strange Magic grossed $5.5 million and $12 million globally.It had the lowest ticket sales of any animated film released in over 3,000 theatres.
Though this studio focuses primarily on sci-fi/fantasy world, Strange Magic didn’t venture too far outside the box. The story revolves around Goblins, elves, fairies and imps and their misadventures and their battle over a powerful potion.