Mind Space

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2006)

Steve Jobs, we're gonna miss you in the movie creation business.
Of all the things that Jobs is credited with, the one that matters in the creative process is the notion of parallel metrics. In the computer business, he'd (with much advice) draw up a set of traits for a product and then independently seek excellence according to each list. It sounds obvious but this isn't the way it is normally done; usually you have one trait you sell and you attach others done well enough to not ruin the mix. So in computers, consumer electronics and films.
Ah, in films. Within the first few minutes of a film, you can pinpoint the one thing the filmmaker is trying to do, the one value around which everything else is assembled, often with just passable competence. Pixar is different. They have several lists, several things that need to be as perfect as possible.
So its an odd thing, reading reviews of Pixar projects. The movie press is set up to address one value per film, and we as readers of this material have come to limit the way we actually see. And not just in the theater, but in elements of life as well. So thanks, Steve, for adding some dimension to the mix.
I don't write reviews, only comments, so I don't feel obliged to run down each of the Pixar lists. Do it yourself, recognizing the obvious: story and character of course, nesting in values, rhythm, dialog and how it settles in the music and all that. Ordinary stuff.
I focus on space and what I call folding. "Folding" is the engineering of how the viewer is placed in the narrative and often it is a matter of careful engineering. The folding here is how two movie genres are mixed: one is the spectator sport where the spectators (with us included) are explicit. What the "people" in the stands value is what we do, the excitement, the sportsmanship. The other movie is the one about city visitor to hick town and each changes the other. Its a rewarding enough formula, which I like best in the Swayze/Newmar "Wong Foo" version.
So the folding, while expert and lucid is a bit obvious.
Its the use of space that blows me away in these things. How the dimensions are exploited. I've heard Lasseter talk about this. The thing that modern animation gives us is not that we can have talking cars, that's about 85 years old now. It is that once you design a scene, the camera can be anywhere and move in any manner.
Pixar has a group that concerns itself with the visual excitement of such things. Its both a matter of excellence and novelty but the novelty cannot be too extreme or we reject the thing. Look at the shorts Pixar presents, in particular the one coupled with "Cars," "One Man Band," to see experiments in spatial adventure.
Prior projects have been designed in some ways to exploit this dimensionality, especially "Nemo" which doesn't have a surface, a horizon or much gravity. When you do these things, you can exploit space in only a few ways. You can use architecture, a technique that is challenging, rare and uniquely rewarding. You can have the action be the center of the dance. Or you can center the dance on the camera. Its the latter that is done here.
You should watch it just for that, just for the way your mind's eye can be stretched. The group responsible for this list, these values did well, better than anyone else in animation for sure. Steve, we're gonna miss you.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.