Animation’s storied Year of the Animal yielded five unforgettable characters.
Brought to life through superb writing, direction, performance, animated ingenuity, and tech innovation were: Judy Hopps, the eternally optimistic rookie bunny cop from “Zootopia,” badass Moon Beast from “Kubo and the Two Strings,” Hank, the cantankerous and camouflaging octopus from “Finding Dory,” Princess Poppy, the eternally happy heroine from “Trolls,” and Buster Moon, the impresario koala bear from “Sing.”
Judy Hopps (“Zootopia”)
Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) represents the heart and soul of “Zootopia.” And to make her and the other animals look and behave realistically, Disney engineers launched iGroom, a new fur-controlling tool.
But it’s a good thing that screenwriter Phil Johnston (“Wreck-It Ralph”) switched protagonists from Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to Judy a year and a half into production when his cynicism dragged the story down.
“And we figured out if the movie’s about bias, then that...
Brought to life through superb writing, direction, performance, animated ingenuity, and tech innovation were: Judy Hopps, the eternally optimistic rookie bunny cop from “Zootopia,” badass Moon Beast from “Kubo and the Two Strings,” Hank, the cantankerous and camouflaging octopus from “Finding Dory,” Princess Poppy, the eternally happy heroine from “Trolls,” and Buster Moon, the impresario koala bear from “Sing.”
Judy Hopps (“Zootopia”)
Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) represents the heart and soul of “Zootopia.” And to make her and the other animals look and behave realistically, Disney engineers launched iGroom, a new fur-controlling tool.
But it’s a good thing that screenwriter Phil Johnston (“Wreck-It Ralph”) switched protagonists from Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to Judy a year and a half into production when his cynicism dragged the story down.
“And we figured out if the movie’s about bias, then that...
- 12/28/2016
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
“Finding Dory’s” Hank, the shape-shifting, curmudgeonly, camouflaging octopus (voiced by Ed O’Neill), represents Pixar’s latest character achievement. He’s an essential sidekick for Ellen DeGeneres’ elevated Blue Tang, lovingly (and wisely) referred to as “anarchy in motion.”
Read More: Pixar’s Ed Catmull Explains Why The Studio Must Evolve With Each Film, Including New Hit ‘Finding Dory’
“Hank was one of the most challenging characters ever built at the studio,” Supervising Technical Director John Halstead told IndieWire. “An octopus’ extreme flexibility and the absence of a skeleton meant that we had to rethink our traditional approach to character construction and animation. We poured everything we had into him, and it was almost three years from the start of initial character design until we completed our first shots with Hank.”
There were issues of ground contact with more than 350 suckers and Hank’s mantle (the bulbous sack that...
Read More: Pixar’s Ed Catmull Explains Why The Studio Must Evolve With Each Film, Including New Hit ‘Finding Dory’
“Hank was one of the most challenging characters ever built at the studio,” Supervising Technical Director John Halstead told IndieWire. “An octopus’ extreme flexibility and the absence of a skeleton meant that we had to rethink our traditional approach to character construction and animation. We poured everything we had into him, and it was almost three years from the start of initial character design until we completed our first shots with Hank.”
There were issues of ground contact with more than 350 suckers and Hank’s mantle (the bulbous sack that...
- 11/15/2016
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
In this video from CNET, Finding Dory character supervisor Jeremie Talbot explains just some of the painstaking work that Pixar animators and researchers put into creating Hank the octopus (actually, he's missing an arm, so he's a septopus), which is the most complex character the studio has created so far. This is a shortened version of the presentation I saw at an early press day for the movie (read much more about that here), and it's the kind of thing I'm always bummed I'm not able to show you guys because it's always better to see it with your own eyes instead of reading someone's description of it. Thanks to CNET for bridging the gap.
Finding Dory is getting some pretty solid early buzz from its earliest reviews. I'm seeing it this weekend, so we should have our own review for you on the site sometime next week. The film...
Finding Dory is getting some pretty solid early buzz from its earliest reviews. I'm seeing it this weekend, so we should have our own review for you on the site sometime next week. The film...
- 6/10/2016
- by Ben Pearson
- GeekTyrant
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