Paintings "come to life" in movies?
Jack Bohn
inspired by the Wayne Douglas Barlowe book _Expedition_, and,
essentially, his paintings from that book brought to life.
I was wondering, what other movies feature a three-dimensional,
moving representation of an artist's still work?
My mind recalls an article on Brian Froud that reprints a
painting of his of a witch that was the inspiration for the
Mystics in "The Dark Crystal" ('tho she doesn't have four arms).
Froud mentions that the Henson Co. puppetry is a great way to
give his bizarre creations life with losing his detail, which
animation would have to do to be able to make hundreds of
drawings per minute. Froud also did design work on "Labyrinth".
Then there's H. R. Giger, and "Alien".
The Disneyland TV show created animations in the style of Chesley
Bonestell for their "Man in Space" segments inspired by the
Collier's articles. Chesley himself worked on "Destination Moon"
and designed the Ark for "When Worlds Collide", while the
Collier's articles also inspired "Conquest of Space".
Any I'm forgetting, or don't know about?
--
-Jack
Richard B
look of Frazetta's art and has a number of shots that appear to be based
directly on some of Frazetta's well known paintings.
Richard B
illustrations for the children's book of the same title.
They went back to the original illustrations for the "Oz" books when
they created the characters for "Return to Oz".
The recent film adaptation of Enkel Bilal's graphic novel,
"Immortal" (directed by Bilal himself) certainly captures his art style.
The most obvious example is "Sin City". Which faithfully recreated
the look of Frank Miller's art from the comics.
Jack Bohn
> The most obvious example is "Sin City". Which faithfully recreated
>the look of Frank Miller's art from the comics.
Ah, yes, another attempt to copy the look of comic's art was
Warren Beatty's "Dick Tracy". Not only the look of the villains,
but emulating the limited color palette; taking the red of
Tracy's tie and the yellow of his coat (their one mistake here
was making it of such thin material) and repeating it around the
set.
I've heard the Spider-Man films re-create classic panels or
covers, though the "Spider-Man no more" costume in the trashcan
is the only one that springs to mind.
--
-Jack
Jack Bohn
As long as the characters are moving back and forth and around
and about, I'd fairly consider it 3 dimensional. The problem
with this cartoon is that -at least from the images I can find-
it looks too... "cartoony." The pictures are simplified from the
paintings, and detracts from the "comes to life" aspect.
Animation does bring to life simple comics, such as Peanuts.
It has problems with more complex comic art, a case study would
be Jack Kirby: '60s Marvel cartoons were made directly from his
artwork, but with little animation. The Silver Surfer cartoon of
the '90s featured a heavy Kirby influence, but was still stiff.
The smoothest animation is seen in Superman: The Animated Series,
you can see in the New Gods/Apokolypse stories how Kirby designs
were streamlined for animation. The super weaponry supplied to
Intergang are simplified kirbytech.
Another interesting case is Japanese animation director Hayao
Miyazaki. He created a comic book, "Nausicaa of the Valley of
the Wind" and adapted it to theatrical animation. From what I
remember, the animation may be more detailed than the comic.
(For those who wish to see this, Turner Classic Movies is playing
it January 12 (they are devoting Thursdays in January to anime
movies from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli). If anyone vaguely
remembers seeing this as "Warriors of the Wind" from the '80s,
this a new, unedited translation, you may be surprised to find it
is even better than you remembered.)
--
-Jack
The Thunder Child
Horror rather than science fiction, but such an event took place in the
movie trilogy Three Cases of Murder. In the "In the Picture" segment,
Alan Badel plays Mr. X, a painter cursed to live inside his painting,
which hangs in a British art museum.
He's always trying to add to it, and since he can't do it with paint,
he must do it with the people who come visit the musuem.
A very creepy little chiller, and Badel does a great job with the
role.
Night Gallery tv show of course all the plots are based on a certain
painting shown at the beginning of the show. The only one I've ever
watched is the one with Roddy McDowall, where the figures in paintings
move a little bit each time, as a murdered man comes back to take
revenge on his grandson...
C
The Thunder Child: Science Fiction and Fantasy Journal
http://thethunderchild.omnivoreink.com/
Science and Sanity Blog
http://thethunderchild.blogspot.com
Michael Urban
Jack Bohn <jack...@bright.net> wrote:
>
>I was wondering, what other movies feature a three-dimensional,
>moving representation of an artist's still work?
>
Does the stained-glass man who comes to life in "Young Sherlock
Holmes" (one of the first CGI 'characters') count?
Jerry Brown
wrote:
<snip>
>I was wondering, what other movies feature a three-dimensional,
>moving representation of an artist's still work?
<snip>
Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn are dressed as the couple from
Grant Wood's painting American Gothic during the song 'Dammit Janet'
near the beginning of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Jerry Brown
--
A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)
Jack Bohn
I knew I was expressing myself poorly, but it's not until a week
later that I come up with a better phrase; "Where the artist set
his easel." A sense of reality to what we had only seen painted
before. Of course, as we're dealing with sf.movies, what the
"real" objects look like are influenced by the style of the
artist who'd painted them (eg Wayne Barlowe's aliens). This
melds into movies adopting a certain style; "Sin City" was
brought up as trying to look like a comic in black and white with
spot color. Unfortunately, my phrasing of the subject has led to
some movies where a painting "comes to life" as part of the plot.
In short, for my intended question, I would "count" the stained
glass man if he moves the way you could imagine people in a
stained glass scene would move. (If I'm making myself clear. An
analogy to the way cartoons of hieroglyphics and tomb paintings
have them "walk like an Egyptian.") As I remember it, the man
moved like a CG animation applied to an array of stained glass
panels.
Another example of what I had in mind: Dr. Seuss. The Chuck
Jones cartoons are the artwork brought to life. I haven't seen
the live action Grinch or Cat in the Hat, but I heard they did
amazing work with Whoville.
--
-Jack
mike allegretto
wrote:
>I was just thrilled by the Discovery "Alien Planet" special,
The movie Gettysburg had some scenes staged from Civil War paintings.