Has computer animation's omnipresence in today's
entertainment left you … Well, feeling a little blue?
Well, don't fret. There are still folks in Hollywood
who are huge fans of traditional animation. Witness Disney's announcement last
week that its Touchstone Pictures division will be handling the North American
distribution of Hayao Miyazaki's latest hand-drawn masterwork, "The Wind
Rises." Or — better yet — what Sony Pictures Animation decided to do
with its latest home premiere, "The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy
Hollow
."
Now given that Sony Pictures Animation has already produced two highly
successful "Smurfs" projects which skillfully mixed live-action &
CG, it would have been relatively easy for this animation studio to go that
exact same route with its newest home premiere. But Bob Osher & Michelle
Raimo Kouyate wanted to do something different with this Halloween-themed
production. Which is why they asked veteran animation director Stephan Franck to consider
2D as he began developing "Smurfy Hollow."
"Which was fine by me," Stephan explained during a
recent phone interview. "Don't get me wrong. The crew here in Culver
City is great when it comes to creating CG Smurfs. But
when I was growing up, the Smurfs that I watched on Saturday morning were
hand-drawn. And I was thinking that — after Sony's success with its two
live-action / computer animated Smurf movies — that it might be fun for us to
try something a bit more old school. Return the Smurfs to their more
traditional roots, if you will."
Stephan Franck in his office at
Sony Pictures Animation
Mind you, Franck wasn't willing to settle for the sort of half-hearted
hand-drawn animation that you used to see on Saturday morning television back
in the late 1970s / early 1980s. He wanted to do something richer, far more
highly detailed. In short, Stephan was hoping to create a Sony home premiere
that would have the same sort of high quality hand-drawn animation that one
used to see in Walt Disney Animation Studios productions of the 1990s.
"That's why I reached out to Sergio Pablos. He was a supervising animator
on Disney's 'Hunchback of Notre Dame
' & 'Hercules
,' not to mention being a
character designer on 'A Goofy Movie
' and 'Tarzan
.' Since leaving Disney,
Sergio has set up his own studio in Madrid
with a team of animators that he likes to call his Spanish banditos,"
Stephan continued. "And these guys just did an amazing job with
traditionally animating 'Smurfy Hollow.'
Honestly, the hand-drawn versions of the Smurfs that you'll see in this
home premiere are the best looking traditionally animated versions of these
characters you've ever seen. The hand-drawn versions of the Smurfs have never
looked this good before."
Of course, Franck is quick to point out that one of the main reasons that this
Sony Pictures Animation home premiere looks so good is that the inspiration for
this production's striking color palate came directly from Disney Legend Mary
Blair.
Mary Blair's take on the Headless Horseman for Walt Disney's version of "The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow." Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"Mary was the master when it came to mixing bold shapes & colors. And
given that this story is set in the Fall — a time of year that I absolutely
love — Well, the bold colors that you see in the leaves during this time of
year just made taking a Mary Blair-inspired approach to the design of this entire
production seem like a natural choice to me," Stephan stated.
"Besides, given that Mary color-designed Disney's own take on 'The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow
' back in the late 1940s, it only seemed right that Blair's
work serve as an influence on 'Smurfy Hollow' as well. So I asked my production
designer Sean Eckols to explore this idea and he delivered in spades."
As a direct result of setting the bar so high for "The Smurfs: The Legend
of Smurfy Hollow," of Stephan & his production team deliberately
attempting to turn this home premiere into a celebration of hand-drawn
animation, this 22-minute movie received rave reviews when it was screened in
official competition last month at the prestigious Annecy International
Animated Film Festival. Which pleased Franck no end.
"You have to understand that I grew up reading the Smurfs. And that —
while I liked the Saturday morning cartoon show and all — I felt that it never
really did justice to the superior line work & design that I saw in the
Smurfs comic books and comic strips. Which is why I really wanted to do this
home premiere as a mostly hand-drawn production. So that I could finally see
these characters the way that I always thought they could be done. As these
fully-realized, traditionally animated characters," Stephan enthused.
"Which is why it was great to get the reaction that we did at Annecy.
With the audience there being so supportive of 'Smurfy Hollow' because they had
never seen these characters done with feature quality hand-drawn animation
before."
Copyright Sony Pictures Animation.
All rights reserved
It's worth noting here that this Sony Pictures Animation
production does in fact include some CG. With this home premiere's opening
& closing sequences being animated by the exact same folks who produced
"The Smurfs
" and "The Smurfs 2."
"And those people did a brilliant job of creating the bookends for 'Smurfy
Hollow.' Effectively creating a transition from the live-action / CG Smurf
movies that most people know nowadays to the traditionally animated home
premiere that we were trying to make here," Franck said. "And given
the extremely short production schedule on this project — we did this whole
thing in less than a year, with the CG elements being produced during whatever
downtime we had on 'Smurfs 2' — it's a real tribute to the artists and
technicians who work at Sony Pictures Animation that this holiday special turned
out as well at it did."
That's right. Stephan said "holiday special." Though
this Sony Pictures Animation home premiere is currently available on DVD, much
in the tradition of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
" airing
annually on ABC, "The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow" will make
its television debut on ABC Family late next month. On Sunday, October 27th to
be specific, as part of that cable channel's "13 Nights of Halloween"
programming event. Which is another thing that makes Franck proud.
Copyright Sony Pictures Animation. All rights reserved
"I just think that it's great that 'Smurfy Hollow' is going to be shown on
ABC Family next month. Because this show has such a great message for families.
Especially families with small children like my own who are dealing with issues
of sibling rivalry right now," Franck said. "I remember telling my now
25-year-old son while he was growing up that he needed to be nicer to his little
sister. That once his mother and I were gone she'd be the only family that he
had left. That's kind of the message that we tried to put across with 'Smurfy
Hollow.' That — when times get tough — families have to put aside all of
their petty competitive stuff and really work together if they're looking to
succeed."
That's something that Stephan now knows from experience. Given that the way
that he reach out and motivate animators on two continents in order to make
"Smurfy Hollow" a reality.
"When the team at Sony Pictures Animation initially started
working on 'The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow,' we thankfully all shared
a very strong vision of the sort of
movie that that we wanted this home premiere to be. Which was this celebration
of the original Smurfs comic books & comic strips that used traditional,
hand-drawn animation as a way to harken back to all that strong line work and
design," Franck concluded. "And as someone who started his career in
2D, I'm just glad that this holiday special turned out as well as it did."