Tangled! (The Artist Formerly Known As Rapunzel)

[Old Fish Tale]

I can't wait for Gothel!

[supertalies]

You mean:

I can't wait for Gothel!?

[Old Fish Tale]

Yes, sorry!

[Super Aurora]

That link proves that Twilight fangirls are serious business.

[supertalies]

Link?
What do you mean?

[Super Aurora]

Link?
What do you mean?

Did you even read the article blackcauldron85 linked?

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/ ... mouse.html

[supertalies]

Yes, sorry!
I didn't understand you.

[yukitora]

man, i want a dark rapunzel! i can just imagine rapunzel cutting her hair, dying it black and giving herself some uber cool bangs.

and the prince could totally be like, why cut your wrists when you pluck your eyes out *GORY*

but honestly, it would've been cool. i'd rather a Black Cauldron-esque film rather than a new 90s-style musical. Of course the latter were better, but we already have a heap of them.

[PatrickvD]

Alan Menken is doing Rapunzel.

Byron Howard confirmed he already wrote songs and a first internal screening is coming up soon. From an interview at Animation World Magazine:

BD: And how is Rapunzel going, Byron?

BH: Oh, very well. It's very early. Nathan [Greno] and I have only been on it for 10 weeks. We're going to have our first screening internally in about a week, and we've got a couple songs from Alan Menken. I think Chris said this very well when we were in Europe: someone was asking us how many times we screen and Chris told them, "Well, each time you screen, you're not making the film, you're just building platforms to see where it could be." So with Rapunzel, we're building this new platform a little higher, a little higher. We're getting that first base and we can step up from that and see where the next place we have to go, which is probably eight weeks later with the next screening. But it is a very fluid and communal and cooperative process. It's nice that you're making this with a team of friends that all care about the same thing and all want to make the film great.

BD: And are you able to take advantage of some of the groundbreaking work on Bolt?

BH: That's true: Bolt did break ground in a lot of areas and a lot of the folks that worked on Bolt are working with us to try and get CG films to look not so computer-generated. I think that's where Bolt succeeded so well... it's still very organic and very soft, and the painterly look actually makes the backgrounds almost look more real than real sometimes.

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=page ... 914&page=4

[Old Fish Tale]

Yeah!

[Marky_198]

It's great to hear Alan Menken is working on Rapunzel!

And I can see what they mean by realistic-painterly backgrounds, but the characters in BOLT look extremely computer-generated. The designs and the movements of the human characters and BOLT himself are just like any other generic 3d film. They look like plastic dolls, moving in some kind of slow-motion, and they have no real emotions, especially the human characters have this "dead" expression in their eyes. And still, all their movements look static.

So although I can see what they are talking about and the improvement of some of the backgrounds, but I wonder if "Rapunzel" isn't coming to soon, because they still have a very long way to go.

Take a look at this clip, and then at 1:42 for example.
There's no denying that that looks just like any other 3d film in terms of movement and character design. That hamster, isn't he like in ANY other film too?

And there's also this soft glow over the whole film, which looks good, but it just makes the image and backgrounds look better, but it still doesn't help the strange movements, dead expressions and computer-generated look. Maybe they should also make the humans less caricature, I don't know. But real emotions would be a good start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SElF6TVhzhc

And this one is even worse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaCEPuRFwKI

[PatrickvD]

I actually thought Bolt had wonderful CG designs for all its characters. What you described sounds more like Shrek. Talk about a dead expression.

I found all the character animation in Bolt to be very expressive.

I do agree they need to find a way to let the CG character designs come closer to what they've accomplished in the background designs. But since an entire team is working on this, who are we to judge that Rapunzel is too soon? We have no idea what they're going to come up with. In fact not a single frame has been animated yet.

they've only been on it for 10 weeks.

[Marky_198]

Yes, let's just wait and see.

But about Alan Menken, I can't find anything on the internet about that.
Why are there other names of composers mentioned everywhere else?

[PatrickvD]

Yes, let's just wait and see.

But about Alan Menken, I can't find anything on the internet about that.
Why are there other names of composers mentioned everywhere else?

I'm pretty sure they started the film over from scratch 10 weeks ago. So other composers listed on other sites are probaply old news.

Also, under Disney's new "Pixar rules" no one is allowed to talk about creative developments to anyone with the exception of producers and directors. So if Byron Howards says in an interview Menken already wrote some songs, who are we to question that, eh?

As for other sites, the official site for Menken's Sister Act Musical also lists Alan and Glen as the composers of the upcoming Rapunzel film.

[Mooky]

So much for Lasseter's fear-of-audience-becoming-tired-of-Menken excuse for not putting him on PatF

For me, "Rapunzel" has one thing going for it at the moment and that's Alan Menken.

[Sotiris]

Upcoming stage and film projects include Sister Act, Leap of Faith and Rapunzel.

Source: http://www.sisteractthemusical.com/creative/music.php

[Neal]

This is wonderful news! I have not watched The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (yet) but the fact that the composer (Tesori) was going from cheapquel musical to a DAC musical concerned me.

It'll be wonderful to have Menken on board.

Anyone think that the change may be because of all of our whining and Lasseter is trying to appease fans?

Also, I wonder if Tesori had any music written already. If so, it'll probably now be lost forever.

[PatrickvD]

OMG! Alan's back?

Are we sure about this? How old is the article that mentions this?

The article I linked to was 2 days old. And it's an interview in wich the director says Menken already wrote songs.

If that's not confirmation then I really don't know what is. I'd say it's at least as reliable as the Sister Act official site.

So yes, it's official.

I'm getting all excited now for Rapunzel!!!!! Although i do think it's a shame that they are not going for something darker anymore...

and you know this how?.... I'd love to know

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I guess that means the script is finished then?

Since they are trying ot make this movie even more painterly than Bolt, it will be another reason to look forward to the trailer. If they could make backgrounds just as paintely as the panorama views in Pinocchio, then I'm happy.

And it has been said many times already, but it couldn't hurt to mention it again. At least at Disney these days, when computer animated movies are made, the first steps of the animation is first done by hand, probably as pencil tests or something, which then is transferred to the computers and recreated as rough computer animation, before finally being rendered. There are still some limitations there, as seen in the facial close up in the trailer for Glago's Guest, but I think that very soon, CGI animation will be just like handdrawn animation in 3D, or "the best of both worlds", as Glen Keane called it. Maybe we will see it already with Rapunzel. No matter what, it will break a lot of new ground.

[yukitora]

Ew Alan Menken. He's no good without Howard Ashman.