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"Get Smurfy" is the title of Sony's first all-CGI Smurfs film, and features a separate cast from its live-action predecessors.

Director Kelly Asbury says the story "was not fully in the place we wanted it to be yet."

The all-CG "Smurfs" reboot won't be released until 2016, but you wouldn't know that from the aggressive manner in which Sony Pictures Animation is promoting the film.

Sony announced today that their all-CGI "Smurfs" pic, directed by animation veteran Kelly Asbury ("Shrek 2," "Gnomeo & Juliet"), will be pushed back from its original 2015 release date to 2016.

Sony announced today that their all-CGI "Smurfs" pic, directed by animation veteran Kelly Asbury ("Shrek 2," "Gnomeo & Juliet"), will be pushed back from its original 2015 release date to 2016.

Besides today's bonanza of Genndy Tartakovsky projects, Sony Pictures Animation also made it official that Kelly Asbury ("Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," "Shrek 2," "Gnomeo & Juliet") will direct the upcoming, as-yet-untitled "Smurfs" movie.

In The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow, the new 22-minute mini-movie by Sony Pictures Animation, competition gets the best of Brainy Smurf and Gutsy Smurf and lands them in trouble with not only Gargamel but also the mysterious Headless Horseman who roams the nearby Smurfy Hollow. Presented as a supplement to the recent CGI/live-action film series, Smurfy Hollow bookends its nineteen minutes of traditional animation with 3 minutes of the more familiar CG versions of the characters.

“The movies are hybrid films that focus on the human characters as much as the Smurfs,” Stephan Franck, director of Smurfy Hollow (pictured above), told Cartoon Brew. Smurfy Hollow, however, offers “a chance to refocus solely on the Smurf characters, more in the spirit of the books.”

While The Smurfs were popularized by their animated television series produced by Hanna Barbera from 1981 to 1989, the were originally created as the serialized comic strip Les Schtroumpfs in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Peyo. Franck, who grew up in France reading the book collections in their original Belgian, says, “I have to admit The Smurfs had fallen off my radar,” but he warmed up quickly because of his childhood familiarity with the little blue creatures. “I knew these characters.”

Those expecting a stylistic retread of the original cartoon will be pleasantly surprised, as Smurfy Hollow’s animated performances and visual styling are significantly higher end than your usual Saturday Morning cartoon fare. “We really wanted to showcase the quality of the animation. We didn’t want the 2D to look like a poor man’s 3D.” While the Sony studio created the CG segments, the animation was produced by Sergio Pablos Animation in Madrid by way of Duck Studios in Los Angeles.

In the search for a production studio to handle the traditional work, there were “many contenders” and SPA was chosen for their “raw quality of work” and connection to the “European style” that was considered complementary to the subject matter.

Due to the expense of digital equipment like Cintiqs and the relative difficulty to do cleanup with a stylus, the animators at SPA employed original traditional animation production techniques, i.e. pencils and paper. For the few on the production who did animate using digital methods, Franck explains, their drawings would have to be printed out and re-pegged onto paper before being sent to cleanup. The result is consistently solid animation and subtle characterizations that generally come with well-produced short subjects.

Smurfy Hollow Pre-production gallery

Franck is an industry veteran whose credits include films like An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Balto, Space Jam and The Iron Giant. “I cried tears of blood to learn to draw well enough [to be an animator],” Franck says.

Like many animators whose professional experience traces back to the pre-digital world of the Eighties and early-Nineties, he has his own opinions regarding the animation industry’s fundamental abandonment of traditional techniques. Franck believes that animation is unlike live-action filmmaking, which has steadily evolved its look with each passing decade. Hand-drawn animation got to the 1990s and stayed there. “The visual paradigm of 2D in the 1990s had been ubiquitous with the films and DVD sequels—regardless of story quality and animation, we had already seen this before.”

As a first time director helming an installment of a fifty-year-old franchise, Franck’s approach, from the animation to the voice work was to remain “natural” and “honest”. He worked with production designer Sean Eckols to create a look that is graphically refreshing while remaining true to the source material. This approach extended to the storytelling as well: “The Smurfs stories are not sugarcoated,” Franck says. “They have individual struggles, they have flaws, petty jealousies, egos and they crave approval. [However], at the end of the day, they are a family. I wanted to reconnect to that.”

The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow is available on DVD for $4.99 at Amazon.

Had enough of those new-fangled, three dimensional, CGI Smurfs? Well, Sony Pictures Animation probably had you in mind when they made a new Smurf “mini-movie” that mixes a few minutes of CG with a whole bunch of hand-drawn animation.

The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow is a Halloween tale directed by Stephan Franck (Iron Giant, Despicable Me) and produced by Mary Ellen Bauder (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania).

Selected into official competition this year at the Annecy Film Festival, the story centers around Gutsy and Brainy Smurf:

When Brainy Smurf is favored to win the annual Smurfberry Hunt for the ninth year in a row, Gutsy Smurf sets out to discover how Brainy wins every year. Gutsy’s investigation takes him into spooky Smurfy Hollow-and right into Gargamel’s trap! Can Brainy and Gutsy, with the help of Smurfette, put aside their rivalry before Gargamel captures them-or worse, they come face-to-face with the legendary ghost, the Headless Horseman?

The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow, will feature the voice talents of Alan Cumming, Fred Armisen, Anton Yelchin and Hank Azaria, all of whom reprise their roles from The Smurfs 2. It will be available on DVD on September 10.

TweetFollowing a multi-volume and ongoing celebrated run of bringing Peyo’s original SMURFS comics to English-speaking reader, all ages comics publisher Papercutz is poised to release the first volume of another Peyo classic, BENNY BREAKIRON on May 7th, 2013. Papercutz, headed by former Marvel editor and all round comics ambassador Jim Salicrup, has been kind enough [...]

By Mark Peters

With the arrival of the new Muppet movie, Kermit, Miss Piggy, Beaker, and our other felt friends are everywhere. There’s no escaping Jim Henson’s creations, and few of us would want to (unless the movie happens to suck, which is doubtful, given the stewardship of Jason Segel, who showed major Muppet mojo in the heartbreaking and spit-taking Forgetting Sarah Marshall). It’s a good time to look at the history of the word Muppet, which has some meanings that would make the Swedish Chef bork with outrage.

Thanks to interviews with Muppet creator Jim Henson, we know Muppet is not a blend of marionette and puppet, though that theory has been appearing since 1959, just four years after Henson invented the crew, who appeared in pre-Sesame Street and Muppet Show fare such as commercials for Wilkins coffee. I love this part of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of Muppet: “Any of a number of humorously grotesque glove puppets.” That phrasing seems humorously grotesque itself, but if it helps a Martian understand a Muppet, I guess it’s worthwhile.

In the eighties, the word took on several meanings. Since 1983, a muppet has been “A lure made to resemble a young squid.” I don’t want to give my enemies (arch or mortal) any ideas, but since calamari is squid, I’m pretty sure this kind of muppet could lure me anywhere. In British prison slang, a muppet is “A prisoner with psychiatric problems; a vulnerable inmate liable to be bullied or harassed by others.” As this 1998 use shows, Muppets aren’t the only Henson creation to carry this meaning: “Their favourite targets are the fraggles, the nonces and the muppets. But anyone showing tell-tale signs of fear is a target for Britain’s jail bullies.”

A muppet can also be an idiot, though I have no idea why, since the Muppets are among the least idiotic members of the puppet community (Elmo excluded). However, this part of the OED’s definition sort of rings true: “someone enthusiastic but inept; a person prone to mishaps through naivety.” With the exception of curmudgeons (RIP Andy Rooney) such as Oscar, Statler, and Waldorf, the Muppets are brimming with optimism from their pieholes to their puppetholes. Green’s Dictionary of Slang also has examples of muppet meaning a child or a cop.

These Muppet meanderings are similar to the meanings smurf has taken on over the years. While most know Smurfs as blue elves with a disturbingly low female population, other smurfs or smurfers make smurf dope: blue crystal meth. A smurf is also “an inexperienced or short prison officer,” as Green’s puts it, and a gay man who’s youngish and blonde. Plus, smurf is one of the most awesome euphemisms for the f-word in the known universe, as seen in words like clustersmurf, mothersmurfer, ratsmurf, and fan-smurfing-tastic. If I didn’t know better, I’d think smurf has an acronymic origin, like fubar and milf. Despite the PG origin, something about smurf feels blue in the naughty sense.

When a word is as fun to say as Smurf or Muppet, there’s no stopping how people will use it. Now that the Muppets are back, who knows what this mega-appealing word will soon describe? I have no idea, but let me suggest a meaning, Urban Dictionary-style, that I’ve used and suspect others use: “A harmless, lovable person.” I used this sense when I called my friend Neil a Muppet a few years ago, as Neil was stuck giving a presentation that typically made students reach for pitchforks and torches. This pernicious presentation made presenters long for a force field, or at least student-proof chicken wire. In calling Neil a Muppet, I

Video footage of the disastrous financial moment after the jump:

(via TheDailyWh.at)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: Smurfs, The Smurfs

Spent the weekend going over some new book acquisitions (and one DVD) and surprise! most were pretty good – and a couple were really great. Here’s what I’ve been reading (and viewing), in no particular order:

Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood (University of California Press), edited by Daniel Goldmark and Charlie Keil, is a fascinating collection of essays by noted animation historians and academics, exploring the link – from the outset of the medium to today – between comedy and animation. Fourteen pieces in all, including J.B. Kaufman comparing Disney’s characters to Chaplin and silent comedians; Mark Langer putting Fleischer’s early films in context to Vaudeville and comic strips of the era; Donald Crafton observing the effect of Hollywood cartoons on Depression era audiences; Linda Simensky on the influences of classic cartoons and earlier animators on the TV cartoon creators of today; and Daniel Goldmark writing about “funny music” in funny cartoons. This one is aimed at scholarly – but is highly recommended (by me) to all!

Krazy Kat & The Art of George Herriman, A Celebration by Craig Yoe (Abrams Comic Arts). Another Krazy Kat comics compilation? Not quite. In fact, not at all. Once again comics archaeologist Yoe has unearthed a treasure trove – this time of all things Herriman and Krazy. And once again I’ll say that even if you know nothing about Herriman and his most famous creation, you MUST buy this book. If you love great cartooning, funny drawings, and 20th Century pop culture this is a absolute gotta-have-it volume. It is an absolute joy to leaf through these pages filled with rare unpublished Herriman art – in comics, paintings, doodles, merchandise, etc. This is a companion volume to all the incredible Herriman material now being reprinted – a collection of jaw-dropping “bonus material” (as we say in the DVD world) that even includes several pages devoted to the Charles Mintz animated cartoons of the 20s and 30s. The artwork overwhelms the reader, yet Yoe tops that by including several rare essays on the Kat from the likes of E.E. Cummings, Gilbert Seldes, Bill Watterson, Craig McCracken and Herriman’s grand daughter Dee Cox, among others. I’ve run out of space to continue raving. Only have room for four more words: Buy this book now!

Great Freekin' News!  I can finally stop looking over my back waiting for that phony SPAM to attack. But I am kind of pissed though ... that dumb-ass actually got a multimillion dollar contract for doing something even more evil than killing all of the people in the world named Anton. I'm sure you've heard that Oprah retired from the talk show business. Well now the industry is looking for the

If you were to guess where the first real world village of the lovable blue folk known as Smurfs would spring up you probably would not say Abu Dhabi — or maybe you would, as they seem to be one of the few countries with money to burn on a project like a Smurf Village.

The cerulean-hued hamlet will be part of ‘Summer in Abu Dhabi,’ a display at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, sporting 12 districts and attractions like Papa Smurf’s Story Corner. Smurfette, the only female in the village, will be represented with “Smurfette’s Land of Beauty.”

“Part of Smurf legend is that outsiders cannot find their village except when shown the way by a smurf; thankfully Summer in Abu Dhabi has solved this problem,” said Faisal Al Sheikh, Events Manager, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), which organises the festival. “The Smurf Village is only one component of what we believe is our most exciting ADNEC activation yet. There really is something for everyone – young or old.”

Other licensed character on display over the summer in Abu Dhabi include SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora The Explorer, Thor, Wolverine, Captain America and Dr. Doom.

The Smurf village is only one of a rainbow of Smurf events culminating in the end of all time the debut of the Smurf movie on July 29th. This Saturday, June 25th, is Global Smurf Day, celebrating the birthday of creator, cartoonist Peyo.

On that day, people in 12 cities around the globe will attempt to set a record for the most people covered in blue and dressed as Smurfs. Click on the link to take part and become part of history.

The Smurfs movie stars Hank Azaria as Gargamel and the voice of Katy Perry as Smurfette. It is being presented in 3D. It will be horrible.

When Jack White (said he was starting up a mobile record store, this wasn’t quite what we imagined. The Third Man Standing van will make its debut at SXSW and then begin traversing the country, announcing its stops on Twitter. Along with vinyl... Read the rest of this post