These vintage films that I'm discovering through your weekly shares! Moonbird is magical, and Zuckerland. Wow. I got chills by the end; that beachscape with zoned out humans on their devices, the looming screens. Totally, and sadly, so today. I'm looking forward to watching more films by the Hubleys; could be a new obsession.
Lastly, with regard to Miyazaki praising his son's use of CGI—unless I'm missing something, and if he's speaking in earnest—I was surprised by this given his apparent distaste of computer-generated animation https://www.eteknix.com/hayao-miyazaki-calls-ai-crafted-animation-insult-life (granted, in this example he was specifically critical of AI-generated grotesquerie).
It's such a chilling outro. The Hubleys were phenomenal filmmakers -- glad you enjoyed those two! You might also like their piece The Tender Game from 1958, which has a wonderful, expressionistic style to it.
As for Miyazaki's comments, you're right about his infamous attack on that AI-generated animation. Surprisingly, though, he's not been firmly against CGI in the past. Ghibli was a pioneer of computer-driven pipelines in the '90s, and there's quite a bit of CGI hidden in both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. A few years ago, Miyazaki even attempted a fully CGI short for the Ghibli Museum, under the name Goro the Caterpillar (although it didn't end up being 100% CGI in the end).
A key here is probably Miyazaki's remark that the animation felt disrespectful to his friend. He tends to have strong reactions when he's offended, and disability is an important issue for him. (Even in his mission statement for the Ghibli Museum, accommodating visitors with disabilities was one of his core goals.) He also seems to dislike the idea that the AI is doing the animating, compared to CG pipelines that have human animators. These are just guesses, but they may help to explain why he seems to enjoy Earwig!
These vintage films that I'm discovering through your weekly shares! Moonbird is magical, and Zuckerland. Wow. I got chills by the end; that beachscape with zoned out humans on their devices, the looming screens. Totally, and sadly, so today. I'm looking forward to watching more films by the Hubleys; could be a new obsession.
Lastly, with regard to Miyazaki praising his son's use of CGI—unless I'm missing something, and if he's speaking in earnest—I was surprised by this given his apparent distaste of computer-generated animation https://www.eteknix.com/hayao-miyazaki-calls-ai-crafted-animation-insult-life (granted, in this example he was specifically critical of AI-generated grotesquerie).
It's such a chilling outro. The Hubleys were phenomenal filmmakers -- glad you enjoyed those two! You might also like their piece The Tender Game from 1958, which has a wonderful, expressionistic style to it.
As for Miyazaki's comments, you're right about his infamous attack on that AI-generated animation. Surprisingly, though, he's not been firmly against CGI in the past. Ghibli was a pioneer of computer-driven pipelines in the '90s, and there's quite a bit of CGI hidden in both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. A few years ago, Miyazaki even attempted a fully CGI short for the Ghibli Museum, under the name Goro the Caterpillar (although it didn't end up being 100% CGI in the end).
A key here is probably Miyazaki's remark that the animation felt disrespectful to his friend. He tends to have strong reactions when he's offended, and disability is an important issue for him. (Even in his mission statement for the Ghibli Museum, accommodating visitors with disabilities was one of his core goals.) He also seems to dislike the idea that the AI is doing the animating, compared to CG pipelines that have human animators. These are just guesses, but they may help to explain why he seems to enjoy Earwig!
One addition on the subject of Miyazaki and disability -- another example is his activism around leprosy, or Hansen's disease. It was a core part of Princess Mononoke, and it continues today in his public speaking (https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019/02/2e195cb5ff20-hayao-miyazaki-talks-why-he-depicted-leprosy-in-princess-mononoke.html + https://www.nippon.com/en/features/c00723/).
Ah I vaguely recall discussion around his sensitivity on the subject of disability. I didn’t know about his activism though!
The Tender Game sounds right up my alley—on my list to check out this week, thank you!!