Composers have a tendency to make you jump.
Stravinsky’s Firebird has a slow, peaceful opening, then a really sudden BOOM. Evidently, a woman dozed off during this bit and got a fright.
Disney also took this piece and added it their Fantasia 2000 sequence, and it looked brilliant. (L’oiseau de feu literally means “The Bird of Fire”)
If you’ve ever wanted a peek inside the world of everyday Japan, Tokyo Cosmo, a new animated short, may be one of the most stunningly accurate looks you’ll ever get.
Rendered in a style very similar to the work of many Pixar classics, the four-and-a-half-minute clip, directed by Takahiro Miyauchi and Takuya Okada, takes us inside the home of a woman with a fantastic imagination. Her imagination is so powerful that a simple household nuisance soon becomes an epic struggle. Things get so crazy we even get to see a courageous flying pig, a city-destroying monster and a giant lightsaber.
Source: Pixar-style animated short from Japan delivers flying pigs and lightsabers
For once, I’m not talking about the weather. I’m talking about the movie with Kirsten Bell and Idina Menzel. The movie had a lot of hype in America and you know something’s big when you get this released by the studio themselves. It’s the song “Let It Go”, sung by Elsa (Idina Menzel), with lines swapped out for other languages — everything from English, German, Swedish, to the lesser known languages — Catalan, Castillo and even the Eastern languages got a look in — Korean, Japanese, Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin Chinese.
I watched the film yesterday and, although it was sterotypical Disney — good guy, bad guy, love triumphs over everything, etc, etc. There were a few things in there that were not typical Disney. Prejudice over Elsa’s powers, exploitation of Anna’s love for Hanz, my jaw dropped when I saw the sequence for Let It Go, and how Elsa formed the Ice Palace.
The songs were really catchy — unlike some musical films, where the songs are sung too quick, I could hear what the actors and actresses were saying, and I have to say, I suffered last night with Frozen earworms, and “Let It Go” ringing in my head all night.
What I do like about watching professional CG-made films like this, is that they do give you inspirations for your own work.
Blender Fox 