Hi
Did you notice the unusual art/animation in last Sunday's ep? Much nicer than average for the last few seasons, with more care devoted to character movement and shadows. This seems to happen every once and a while. The humor also seemed a bit innocent for OFF, so it was almost like watching a different show. Wonder why this happens?
Jesse Morrison wrote in news:[email]:
Now that you mention it, I did... I definitely noticed the tameness in the jokes, and the shading did seem a little better (as opposed to nearly none in most episodes). I haven't noticed it before though. I'll have to start taking a look at it more closely.
I have been disappointed that the only jokes I've been laughing at are the "physical comedy" jokes. I miss the "smart" jokes. It seems like the dialogue jokes these days are more like the type that you see in sitcoms, where you expect to hear a rimshot afterwards. I like the jokes that are snuck in there much better.
Jesse Morrison wrote:
I�d say animation has become much weaker in the current seasons, so episodes with a better style seem to be outstanding. In old seasons, the animators cared a lot for things like good character animation or shading or camera pans or fast 3D spins around entire scenes and characters and so on. In recent years (I think since season 10) everything has become more cheap and by far more static, very little movement, characters walking stiff, a neglect of body/face animation and mostly just frontal views of scenes etc etc etc.
Let's list the 3D spins:
After Abe's wife sees Knute Rockne (was it Knute?) on TV, the camera revolves around her, with cool psychadelic stuff in the background.
When Lisa delivers that speech at church after she finds out that Jessica stole the money, when she says "Under the eyes of God" the camera quickly dollies around her.
I saw one more in a recent episode, though I can't remember when. ________________________________________________________________
If love of money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?
Remove "bination" to reply.
Sydney Assbasket wrote:
There were a lot of 3D spins or half-spins or other examples of dynamic camera in earlier seasons.
Remember the scene in "Whacking Day" when the camera spins around Barry White and then after the spin even moves up to a higher angle of view. That�s true dynamic. Or the half-spin around the kids at the end of "3 Men and a Comic Book" or the spin around the car in "Bart on the Road" or the shading and shadow effects they did in the Raven segment of THOH 1 (symbolical play of light and shadow) and so on and so on. I think in classic seasons, almost every episode tried to have some animation effect, some episodes more and some episodes less (so feel free to continue the list.).
The recent episode you mentioned is maybe "Hungry Hungry Homer" from S12 where the camera spins around Homer at the end. That�s good, but such effects have become a very rare thing in todays static animation. The animation (like the show) has become more of a cartoon mainstream, of a standardized style.
DABF15 is a very outstanding episode by the means of animation, there�s a unusally high number of spins and shading effects and very dynamic camera work. I like it.
Chris
I wrote:
Short addition to my own post:
There are IMO two episodes with improved animation in S13, "Half-Decent Proposal" and recent "Little Girl in The Big Ten".
Both episodes feature a lot of (today) unusal effects like 3D spins, camera pans, detailled and more "living" backgrounds, fade effects, shading, improved body/face animation etc.
Both episodes are also much better written than the rest of the season, with much better plot structure, character handling, and jokes.
I guess the producers don�t have enough money to have first class animation for all episodes, so it seems to me that they select episodes with better writing for better and more expensive animation, while cheap and stupid gag row episodes (well, that�s most of the season) have cheaper and standardized animation with static camera and little effects.
The writers and producers always say "All our new episodes are good" but now it seems to me as if they make some difference. The two episodes with better writing are also the two episodes with more expensive animation, so better writing is maybe still appreciated and somehow...well...rewarded.
While watching "Big Ten" I even noticed that there�s a certain scene where we see OFF�s house at night and even the stars on the sky are twinkling. I�ve never seen that before on the show, not even in the old days.
Chris
Both "Half-Decent Proposal" and "Little Girl in the Big Ten" had the same director, Lauren MacMullen. Her other work was Bye Bye Nerdie.
Joe Namath (and his sideburns)
"Jason Saslow" wrote in message news:[email]...
Makes him look like a girl. Now, Johnny Unitas... there's a haircut you can set your watch to.
Yours truly, Some bozo
On Thu, 16 May 2002 15:24:16 GMT, "Dr Music" wrote:
Yeah -- all the cute girls have sideburns. :-) I love that goof by Abe.