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Lilo & Stitch (2002) and How DVD Overtook VHS

In 2003 USA Today listed Lilo & Stitch as the 12th highest grossing film of 2002 at $145.77 million. The top box office hit was Spider-Man at $403.71 million.

In 2002 a Reuters article stated DVD players reached the 30-million homes mark after only five years in the market, in contrast to the thirteen years it took VHS players to reach the same threshold.

n the same year DVD retail sales represented 57 percent of home video consumer spending at $8.7 billion, of a total of $20.3 billion, including $2.9 in DVD rentals and a number of VHS rentals.

Finally, in June 2003, DVD rentals overtook VHS rentals at 28.2 million vs. 27.million. 

Still, according to Billboard in 2004, Lilo & Stitch was the top grossing in VHS sales.

Reading this data is a time warp for me. I remember my Dad's first purchase of a DVD player at Best Buy. I remember my Aunt Ellen's comprehensive collection of Disney movies on VHS that I borrowed from many times. I remember my first DVD purchase, Spider-Man 2 (2004). 

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Lilo & Stitch (2002)

In 2002 Honolulu Advertiser wrote that elements of Kauai locations could be found in this animated movie, such as Hanapepe, Hanalei, Napali, and Kilauea lighthouse (pictured below).

In 2002 The Canadian Press wrote that Lilo & Stitch marks Disney's first return to water-color backgrounds since its first feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

I like how the alien, Stitch, was animated. More precisely, I esteem the commendation of animator John Kricfalusi for said animation.

Kricfalusi created Ren & Stimpy (1991 - 1996). His blog, johnkstuff.blogspot.com, is a store of animation savvy. It's value is in its focus on core ideas that animators need to know in order to make solid as steel drawings.

Like Darek Gogol, I respect Kricfalusi's definitive stance on what makes well-drawn animation. He, too, can say what cartoons are incredible and what cartoons are regrettable with the same crystal clear conviction as Gogol. 

Kricfalusi wrote that whoever animated the little guy made use of the six principles of exceptional cartoons: construction, line of action, silhouettes, clear posing, appeal, and (a bit of) perspective.

In his words, that was some of the most amazing animation he'd ever seen. 

Example: Watch when Stitch meets Lilo.

Instead of one person being responsible for one character's animation, there is a team that involves a supervising animator, senior animators, medium animators, junior animators, in-betweeners, and clean-up.

However, since movie directors are in practice given the most credit for a film's final outcome, I will likewise give the most credit to Stitch's supervising animator (animation director), Alex Kupershmidt.

Penciltestdepot.com is a gallery of animation reels by professionals in the field. Here is Kupershmidt's reel.

For some weeks I studied figure drawing so I watched animation reels and discovered their lines of solid construction that gave a palpable 3-D feel. It was educational.

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Recap of Darek Gogol's Lecture 10/28

Gogol is a salesman. His job description as concept artist is to sell the premise of a project to reluctant executives who sigh about money.

He said that these "lawyers," or producers, have short attention spans. Since they get bored with traditional scene-by-scene storyboards, Gogol created comic book panels that expand over a 10 ft wall to show the whole narrative flow in one glance. A typical pitch from concept artist to executive must be short-- 10 minutes long.

Gogol's lecture was unlike the college lectures I know. It was not a distillation of core ideas relevant to New Media Arts students. It was an example of how a concept artist pitches to executives.

He went over the action sequence of each of his 10 or so tableaux (five panels for each movie). He'd describe what each character was doing, and what their thoughts were. He spent an hour like this.

I didn't see much point. I wanted more substance. I wanted to hear about his artistic choices, as if I were an apprentice of the craft.

Gogol's purpose in describing each scene so completely was to show others how to act with producers. He gave pointers of which words to use, like "contemporary" instead of "nowadays."His job was to "justify" $100 million dollar investments and get the "greenlight," whereby directors and scriptwriters can go ahead to the movie's production phase.

He told the eager room to use whatever tricks they could to get that greenlight. His concept art for Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) looked like a Japanese woodblock print.

To complete that impression of authenticity, Gogol stamped each work with a signature stamp, like the red stamp pictured above. Gogol had no idea what the kanji he used meant. For all he knew, it meant "Happy New Year." "Guys," he said, "do whatever it takes."

Gogol is a practical artist. His parting message was, adapt to the changing times. Don't be afraid of new tools. His tableaux on the wall spanned  over 15 years of his work in the industry. It showed his transition from the medium of pencil to the medium of Photoshop and photographic manipulation.

He said, be uncomfortable because risk begets success. Risk shows commitment. If a Hawaii resident jetted to Korea, where the animation industry is hot, her dedication would most likely impress the hiring team and she would get the job.

After all, Gogol found success when he left communist Poland to animation studios in England many years ago.

What I loved about Gogol was his definitive stance on the worth of movies he collaborated on. Some were "very bad," others were "terrible" (like Catwoman in 2004).

However, every 5 years he would get a movie like Memoirs of a Geisha (produced by Steven Spielberg) that was "beautiful."

Gogol's clear love of interesting ideas impressed me. He is determined to pursue compelling ideas, even if those ideas do not make the final cut. He simply moves on, and his portfolio grows richer for his commitment to quality.

For him, Memoirs of a Geisha was exquisite because the staff behind the film believed in their project. 

Gogol is a intriguing blend of money-sense and of appreciation for movies with heart. Most of all I admire his delicate balance between doing what it takes to stay current and being in line with his integrity as an artist.  

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Windtalkers (2002)

John Woo is the director. I know him as the director of Hard Boiled (1992). I'm amazed. Windtalkers is a decent film, but Hard Boiled is a distinguished film. Empire, a British film magazine, wrote that with it, Woo "elevated the action movie into the realm of art."

Incidentally, Empire magazine or empireonline.com is a cheerful movie review site that I love for its playful candor. In its list of The 666 Greatest Horror Characters, Marion Crane of Psycho fame, #236, is called "the most famous bather in movie history."

I haven't seen Hard Boiled, but from the way I've heard it mentioned in various film books, I respect it. It's been a while since I've seen Windtalkers, so I mostly remember it as the movie the handsome Indian dude from Joe Dirt (2001) acted in.

In the commentary of the Joe Dirt DVD, director Dennie Gordon said that she wanted her casting director to get that Indian dude she liked from this one show she watched-- she meant the ugly Indian, but instead she got handsome chisel-cheeks Adam Beach.

Gordon was dazed but she soon warmed up to the affable Indian who stole the part of the nerdy, the delicious, Kicking Wing. 

Joe Dirt got an even lower rating than Windtalkers from users on imdb.com, of 5.5 stars vs. 5.9 stars. However, it's a wicked cool movie. Maybe I better look twice at Windtalkers.  

I began with Windtalkers because one of its film locations is Oahu. Like Jurassic Park (1993), it has a scene in Kualoa Ranch. Another location is Dillingham Ranch in North Shore (pictured below), also a location for 50 First Dates (2004). The 2,700 acre property houses a "premiere" equestrian center. It's scenic views inspires some to say "I do" there.

Probably my biggest reason for featuring Windtalkers is because Darek Gogol, who I heard lecture yesterday evening, mentioned that he worked on the film in the Art Department.

His anecdote was that in 2002 there was no real facility where the art team could work, so the production company rented a floor of a hotel and holed up a bunch of artists inside with their easels for six months. 

Posted Tuesday, Oct. 29.

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Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark begins with a dissolve of the Paramount Picture mountain into Kalalea Mountain of Anahola, Kauai (below).

It's the second peak from the left, and it is known as King Kong's Profile.

The opening sequence shows Indiana Jones walking through Peruvian jungle towards the Temple of Chachapoyan Warriors, where he will heist a golden fertility idol and replace it with a bag of sand. Despite his clever switch booby traps set off and Jones has to outrun a boulder.

He escapes only to fall in to a Nazi-led ambush. He loses the idol but he manages to swing on a vine to safety, where his friend's plane floats in a lake.

This video shows the first thirteen minutes of the film with side by side comparison to adventure films that inspired Spielberg. Indy swings from the vine at 12:05. http://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM?t=11m56s

When Jones (Harrison Ford) is in the jungle flora, he is in Kauai instead of South America. Inside the temple, he is in Elstree Studios of Hertfordshire, England.

The Kauai location is Hulei River of Kipu Ranch, south of Lihue.

The ranch is a working cattle ranch, and is accessible with one of Kipu Ranch Adventures ATV tours, priced from $89 to $175.

The vine Indy swings from remains.

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Godzilla (2014)

The FAQ of Godzilla (2014) on imdb.com explains that the film is a "reboot" of the original Japanese production in 1954 (ゴジラ), not the U.S. version in 1998.There will be "no connections" to the latter.

According to Star Advertiser's Honolulu Pulse, filming began in July this year. The release date is May 2014.

KHON2 wrote that a casting call on June 2nd held on 629 Pohukaina Street turned out 2,000 hopefuls.

Film commissioner Donne Dawson told KHON2 that the film would pump 'several million dollars' into the economy and it would create '200 to 300 jobs.'

Below is Aaron Taylor-Johnson holding a child at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki.

A June Huffington Post article noted that Oahu's film locations will be in its cities, not its jungles. However, since Godzilla is computer-generated, bystanders may not know what's going on.

One notable character of ゴジラ (1954) is Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, played by Hirata Akihiko.

He lost his eye during WWII. He studies how to split oxygen atoms. As the film critic Tim Brayton noted in his review on Sunday, Serizawa is "in-between" Western culture and Japanese culture.

His guilt in "adopting Western habits," like being the only character in the film to listen to Western music, makes him "the film's ultimate hero and most tragic figure, and the most complex representative of national psychology found anywhere in the film."

(SPOILER: Serizawa sacrifices his life to end Godzilla with his invention Oxygen Destroyer).

ゴジラ is fraught with reference to the Hydrogen bomb. A 2012 TIME article recounts the dialogue of a woman on the train who just heard of Godzilla's impending attack, 'I barely escaped the atomic bomb at Nagasaki – and now this.'

Will director Gareth Edwards's reboot, a Warner Bros. and a Legendary Productions picture, reflect the 1954 film's wartime anxiety-filled atmosphere? Unlikely, but it'd be remarkable if Edwards did.

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Beginning at 1:29-- USS Missouri moved from her dock for the first time in 20 years for Battleship (2012).

It was taken to sea just far enough so that the filmmakers could get great shots without the island in the background (source)-- I guess to imply that the ship was way farther out in the ocean than it was. 

U.S. locations for the film include Oahu, Maui, California, Louisiana, and Texas (imdb.com).

The President of Battleship Missouri Memorial, Michael Carr, thanks Universal Studios for the attention and additional public support the movie brings that will help keep up the "restoration and preservation needs of the ship." 

Although appreciated for the tourism it brought, as a film, the movie stunk. Battleship got a rating of 5.8 out of 10 from users on imdb.com, and a 34% from critics on rottentomatoes.com.

One film review blog that I like to check out is Antagony & Ecstasy. The writer, Tim Brayton, gave the picture 3 out of 10 and he titled his entry, "You Sunk My Will to Live!"

Brayton is a member of the Online Film Critics Society and he is listed as a critic on Rotten Tomatoes with 1811 reviews so far. 

Brayton supports his opinions well because he analyzes film structure and film style. In this review he's in bash mode, and it's fun to read.

In the movie when a "small boychild" asks 'what's the difference between a battleship and a destroyer, Brayton writes that the protagonist Alex Hopper (played by Taylor Kitsch) ruined his entire week by not replying, 'one peg.'

When there's a movie done well Brayton's language is poetic. He gave Pixar's Up (2009) a 9.5 out of 10.

In his review he writes, Up is a "movie that's very sad & funny & thrilling all at once; the kind of film that is at first sheer entertainment for every second of its fleet running time . . . and then only afterwards does the full emotional richness of the thing sit in the back of your mind kicking you until you start to realise how deeply moving it was all along."

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History of Mighty Mo (BB-63) and its Role in Film

"Navy carrier planes fly in formation over the U.S. and British fleets in Tokyo Bay during surrender ceremonies" 

The USS Missouri, known as the Mighty Mo, is 887ft. long and it weighs 58,000 tons when loaded. It was commissioned on June 11 1944, and it was operational on Dec. 14 1944.

Battleship Missouri Memorial's Facebook page states the Mighty Mo served in World War II, the Korean War, and Operation Desert Storm.

The pamphlet at ussmissouri.org informs that on the 01 Deck (The Surrender Deck), Gen. Douglas MacArthur and representatives from 10 nations "assembled to accept Japan's formal, unconditional surrender, ending World War II."

A 2001 Business Wire article recounts the story of how a dent still visible on the vessel's hull's rear starboard side came to be.

On April 11 1945 a kamikaze crashed his plane there during the battle of Okinawa. He died instantly. His bomb dropped in the ocean and it did not detonate, but the fire from the crash engulfed the starboard side in flames; despite that, no crew died.

Captain Callaghan ordered this crew to bury the unidentified pilot at sea with military honors, because the young man "had served his country as a warrior and was befitting of such a ceremony."

During a September 1998 reunion the former crew related that though they grumbled at first, in retrospect, they felt Callaghan acted right.

Adult admission to the Mighty Mo (with optional tour) is $22. Kama'aina rates available. A vaction rental site states that there is a Battleship (2012) movie tour where the guide will show the spots onboard where scenes of the film were shot.

Other recent TV shows and films with footage of USS Missouri include, Hawaii 5-O, Biggest Loser, Live With Kelly, and Ice Loves Coco.

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Darek Gogol to Speak in Kopiko 202 Monday

Come Monday 10/28, 7pm - 9pm, Kopiko 202 at KCC. Free, open to the public (note: typo in title of talk, should be 'yourself' not 'ourself'). 

Campus map showing Kopiko building in relation to Olapa building:

Gogol is credited as an illustrator on imdb.com for the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Dead Man's Chest (2006), and At World's End (2007).

His storyboards for Dead Man's Chest: 

His concept art for At World's End: 

I attended the previous New Media Arts lecture with Brenda Chapman in March of this year. It was incredible to hear the account of an artist who worked on some of my favorite movies, like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

Since I missed Gogol's last lecture in January 2012, I was elated to hear that he would speak again.

Posted Saturday, Oct. 26.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Pirates of the Carribbean: On Stranger Tides, the 4th installment of the series, was filmed in Oahu, Kauai, California, and England.

Some Oahu  locations are Haleiwa, Halona Cove, Kalaeloa, and Turtle Bay (www.imdb.com). 

In August of 2010 Star Advertiser reported sight of the ship Queen Anne's Revenge at Heeia Pier in Kaneohe Bay (pictured above), Oahu. Queen Anne's Revenge was the character Blackbeard's (played by Ian McShane) ship.

Ian McShane and his Blackbeard character, pictured below.

McShane also voiced Gordon the Viking in one episode of Spongebob, "Dear Vikings," Season 6, Episode 14, aired in 2008 (www.imdb.com). 

Four residents of Hawaii state-- Tamayo Perry, Kevin Senn, Michael Rosales and Emerson "Malcolm" Tuitt--  nailed roles in On Stranger Tides's 'core pirates' group.

As a Star Advertiser's 2011 article mentioned, the crew had spots right beside lead actor Johnny Depp in several scenes. 

Tuitt (right) also had a role in Bruce Willis's Tears of the Sun (2003). 8 of 9 locations listed for Tears of the sun on imdb.com are Oahu locations, including Kualoa Ranch, Manoa Falls, and Dole Plantation-- all meant to portray settings in Nigeria. 

In April of this year, Pacific Business News relayed that the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean installment, scheduled to release in 2015, was 'hinted' to shoot in Hawaii. A Hawaii Film Office official "would not confirm." 

Posted on Saturday, Oct. 26.

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The scene beginning at 2:20 is hilarious. 

Rob Schneider, who plays Ula, is amusing. 

This character is based on Siope Samuela Ula Lomu, a Tongan man who insisted Schneider did well with his sketch.

He said, 'I think what came across was that I love my kids, and that I'm a caring friend who is always willing to help out,' while he talked with Anthony Breznican of Honolulu Advertiser in 2004.

Here he is: 

50 First Dates (2004) was mainly filmed in Oahu, and partially in California and in Alaska (www.imdb.com). 

Moviemaps.com shows many of the film's Oahu locations on Google Maps. Link: https://moviemaps.org/movies/2l Screenshot:

Posted on Friday, Oct. 25. Edited Satudrday, Oct. 26.

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Jurassic Park (1993) Filmed in Oahu, Kauai

A good amount of shots from the first Jurassic Park were filmed in the Isles. The rest were shot in California studios and to some extent the Dominican Republic.

One Oahu location is Kualoa Ranch, a "4,000 acre working cattle ranch" (www.kualoa.com) 45 minutes from Honolulu on the northeast side.

With an Adult ticket priced at $26, one can view where scenes in 50 First Dates, Lost, and Hawaii Five-O took place.

Here's the sign from Jurassic Park at Kualoa Ranch:

  One Kauai location is Allerton Garden in Poipu. That's where the humongous Moreton Bay Figs filmed in Jurassic Park is.

The species originates in Australia, but it grows 7 times its natural growth rate in Kauai's fertile soil. The 70 year old Moreton Bay Figs in Kauai are the same size as the 450 year old Moreton Bay Figs in Australia.

 Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qESjS891708

Jurassic World (2015) began filming in July of this year, and it is set to film in Kauai, Louisiana, and San Diego (www.imdb.com).

Posted Friday, Oct. 25.