"Rocket Tarzan"

This strange image appeared in an item on Hindi (Bollywood) films posters in "Screen" - a weekly newspaper devoted to news covering Indian commercial cinema and was a bit like finding the image from "Famous Monsters", which I mention in a previous posting.

When I was much younger, I distinctly remember accompanying my mum on a visit to a local grocers in Southall, West London - it was an Indian owned grocers catering to the then growing local immigrant community, mostly Asians from the Punjab, and West Indians, and was located in a parade of shops that was set in the shadow of the railway bridge - I think run by one Preetam Singh - it remains a vivid memory for a number of reasons - for one, the shop had a basement for storing dry goods like rice and chapatti flour, and these were hauled up by a block and tackle contraption in the ceiling of the ground floor shop when anyone needed them - quite "old world", it seemed to me, but fascinating to watch in progress.

The other reason was for a film poster which had been stuck on the inside of the shop window to face the street - it was of a rather ominous looking robot holding a girl in its arms, striding purposefully across a bleak planetscape - a clunky robot - and to this day, until I spotted the image in Screen, I had gradually convinced myself that the image had either been a dream or a misinterpretation of something else, filtered through my young, robot-obsessed brain, already fuzzy from asthma medication.

Seeing it again was like a shock - and at the time (probably because I was still in the infants), the title escaped me - and looking at it now its all the more fascinating as an image since it is advertising what is in effect an early "Bollywood" scifi film, but with a weird, almost "Ed Wood" style approach - no one else would think of fusing "Tarzan" & "Rockets" - and where did the robot figure ?? - it would be great to try and dig it out and find out...

Of course, in later years I saw the classic "Forbidden Planet", and its iconic poster art, which this is so clearly inspired by, and at one point I thought it might have been a poster for that film that I had seen and which left such a great impression on me - both posters evoke some mysterious other world so effectively, and both capture the essence of 50's scifi fantasy - robots and scantily clad girls, usually prone and ready to be rescued...

Roger Eberts Blog...

This link appeared on Roger Eberts (of Siskel & Ebert...) blog this week, following his write-up of Nina Paleys' independant animated feature "Sita Sings the Blues" -nice to know it's still out there...


http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/having_wonderful_time_wish_you.html


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By DV on December 30, 2008 2:24 AM

Neil Gaiman, who co-wrote the screenplay for Beowulf, talks of his own experience in adapting the Ramayana to an animated screenplay in the interview below. I get the impression that Neil has real insight into the epic.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/whatson/exhibitions/ramayana/podcasts.html

Interestingly, he describes his own frustration that Sita is too passive in the original.

My comments hinged on comparisons with French director Jacques Demis's 60's musicals, "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" and "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", which I'd just watched over the Xmas holiday - a perfect antidote to the grim weather / economic crisis news/return of "Celebrity Big Brother" and possibly as divergent and off topic as the link itself...

Choc Socky...

Apologies for the bad joke on the title - I was looking forward to this film...I'd seen "Ong Bak" and was impressed by the sheer artistry of no-cgi stunts - yes there's wire work, but its only there as a safety precaution, apparently.

I was drawn to it's story after reading reviews, aside from wanting to see another in your face example of martial arts - this time it's a young girl seeking revenge and pay back for her sick mother, a one time gangsters moll, who is dying of leukaemia.

It's probably wrong to compare films - like most martial arts films, the story is usually the slimmest excuse for the real attraction, but here the films USP is that the lead character has "special needs" and is technically handicapped since birth - this could come across as crass and unsympathetic, but, having a handicapped child of my own, it had special resonance for me.

I was constantly reminded of the Hindi films "Koi Mil Gaya" and its sequel "Krrish" (both, incidentally, hugely popular all over S.E Asia) which had a similar theme behind them - but there after any similarity ends to make way for some truly bone crushing action sequences and a level of brutality (if you like) which almost saves itself by moving into a cartoon-like exaggeration.

It's interesting that all the violence is contextualised by the girls handicap and what might appear totally objectionable, is given a rationale - she even has a face-off with the villains epileptic son in a scene which borders on the comical - in a previous era this scene would have been excised on the grounds of taste, and it does make for uncomfortable viewing.

There is an eye-catching animation sequence in the film at a pivotal point - where the girls motivation is crystallised - & the stylisation of the graphics seems to suggest to the viewer the subjective view of someone mentally challenged, quite effectively.

In total I have to say that the film succeeded in moving me enough that I could almost forgive the level of violence - saved by occassional humour and some rather clever use of CGI which reminded me of the work of the Jeunot brothers ("Delicatessen") - and also the few curiously undynamic scenes which just looked like a girl fighting for her life - ie they seemed to lack the flair & balletic quality present in Ong Bak (also referenced in the film through a film the girl is watching on TV) - but this is all redeemed in a breathtaking climax fought on the sheer walls of a tenement block.

Going by the outtakes and end credits for this film, it seems as if commercial cinema really is a life and death issue in Thailand, at least for the stuntmen involved, and there are moments where you feel you are witnessing something very close to a "snuff movie", which is a worrying development - the level of brutality skims very close to being objectionable and I was left feeling both elated but also rather depressed by the picture of life being presented - so much so that it gave me nightmares afterwards.

The perfect antidote to restore my belief that life is not necessarily so unremittingly grim is the DVD of Jacques Remi's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg", which I bought at the same time - call me a sap, but I'm really not too keen on seeing too many films which feature violence and what seems like a careless disregard for human life, even if its James Bond - and no one can convince me that these films truly reflect modern life in any way, if anything, they seem to be a visualisation of the collective "ID" - a sublimation of anger and angst directed at no one in particular but suggesting a pent up hostility at some unspecified threat - whereas at least in "Chocolate", the girls disability becomes a focus for her behaviour, and that is its one saving grace.

Stuff...

And to kick things off, if you've visited the site, you'll notice the "news" page (I wonder how this will look a year down the line..haha...), with the postings re the podcast with Neil Gaiman for the British Library and also the link to Ashok Bankers site, and the archived item on the BAA!...

The BL thing is part of the run-up to the exhibition which runs through the summer of 2008, on the Ramayana, which centres on some miniature paintings of the epic, but will also feature: films, live theatre and other amazing stuff - I helped them acquire a copy of the original 2.5 hour version of the Indo-Japanese Ramayana animated feature which was premiered at the Cardiff International Animation Festival in 1994.

De-Fanged...

O.K...now that I've included a link to this blog on my new and improved website www.raviswami.com - I've decided the current blog needs pruning - so I've ripped out all the potentially offensive rantings of the past year or so - you never know who is actually going to follow the link, do you ?...

About time...

Just finished a Tony the Tiger ad for Th1ng - I art-directed it and designed the BGs with some help from Kimon Christodoulides, who created the 3D bits - animation and direction : Andy Powell, supported by a 5 or 6 strong team.

Apparently this is the last Frosties ad' we are going to see in the U.K that features Tony in this way, due to clamp downs on advertising sugary cereals to kids, the current ad plays out post 8 p.m, which is strange.

The BGs are a mass of photocollage, but were intended to be fully 3D at one point, but in a stylized way, the brief being a sort of hyper real environment for Tony to be in, and an epic feel.

I guess Tony finally gets to be in an ad' set in his natural home at least, which is funny.

I think I approached the BGs (based on layouts from the 2D animators) as photocollage more out of necessity due to the time constraints, but since the job was partly won with a 3D test I did which involved the same technique applied to a 3D move (which Kimon replicated) - it seemed to be the best way to approach the BGs and saved a huge amount of time, the alternative would have involved re-creating detail in a paint program or using traditional methods - the final results sit somewhere between matte paintings and illustrations and are interesting for that reason.

Since the original idea was to have created 3D BGs this approach lent itself to creating realistic texture maps, or maps based on real world reference, to give a more photoreal quality, but changed along the way to retain a kind of surreal quality - they (as in the director & agency) were after an epic but ethereal quality, like old film, with saturated colours and a painterly quality - a bit like 70's Hong Kong Kung Fu films or maybe old post cards.


Footnote : I was a judge (Craft category) at the up coming British Animation Awards (BAA!)2008, this year - which is on the 13th March, second time around since the last one in 2006.

Brendan McCarthy

I had the pleasure of meeting comic strip artist par excellence, Brendan McCarthy, last week - proof positive that the internet is great for making contact, although one can never be entirely certain of the outcome.

In my introductory email to him, via his website www.swiminipurpose.com I mentioned a shared professional history, which intrigued him enough to stay in touch and agree to meet up when he had got back from L.A - which we did, in Soho, over a coffee.

Brendan showed me various projects he is hoping to develop into films or TV series having spent a large part of his career developing things for other people, here and in the U.S.

I remembered his breakthrough comic "Rogan Gosh", from the early 90s, which anticipated the current boom in Indian comics (Virgin etc) by a good few years, and inspired my own "Asian SciFi" character in the form of a short film script.

The meeting ended with Brendan giving me a signed copy of his book Swimini Purpose - very rare and up for grabs on Ebay he tells me and some pitch materials for Rogan Gosh, which he would like to develop as a film.

Aside from a professional interest, Brendan grew up in Hanwell , West London and was a close friend of Brett Ewins, another noted comic strip artist, who was a year above me at secondary school in Hanwell - Drayton Manor Grammar School - according to his blog on the history of Rogan Gosh, the character was dreamed by him and Peter Milligan in an Indian restaurant - I imagined after a visit to my hometown of Southall, just down the road from Hanwell & the centre of West London's Asian community - but in fact it was in a curry house in Soho - very likely the good old Maharani in Brewer St...

More cans of Crazy Foam...

...here are some more...I had the parrot shaped one, incidentally - probably the least interesting of the lot, which added to my disappointment when I realised I'd just p*ssed away my pocket money allowance for another weekend....

Crazy Foam...

People of a certain age will remember this utterly pointless waste of pocket money from the 60's - I have to own up to buying one can of this precursor to shaving foam (when that was an exotic novelty) after being suckered by the outrageous claims made by the advertising - was I gullible...?...yes

Gullibility is one thing which varies with age and intelligence - my sisters could see right through the claims made by the ads - eg "Build a ship in your bath with CRAZY FOAM!!!" - yeah right...with 10 cans of the stuff...

It stuck me that it's ironic that I work in the very industry, advertising, I am attacking - an industry rife with con artists, sheisters & bamboozlers...perhaps Crazy Foam sums up perfectly the world of those almost criminally committed to a make-believe fantasy world where it's possible to make things out of something as transient & insubstantial as foam - films or filmy.

I haven't really changed very much...which worries me....films are after all , a case of making people believe in something transient, sometimes with the barest connection to reality - and the effort which goes into them is akin to the sheer sense of purpose which resulted in a product like Crazy Foam....

Is that what separates the true "artist" from someone who just re-cycles, reactively, the same old stuff ? - or is it just maturity enough to see through the shallow claims of merchants peddling their wares...and use their artistry to hint at greater truths...??