Computer Animation

Cloaked protectively in his publication's title of "critic," Howard Rosenberg enjoys the rare journalistic privilege of being able to plunge his pen into favored targets unrestrained by the usual editorial requirements of objectivity, accuracy and fairness. He isn't even required to include a response in his articles from those he has chosen to criticize. The extent to which the Los Angeles Times has entitled Rosenberg can be viewed on Page 1 of the Calendar section of March 10. In his piece, "KCBS Takes 'Action' Too Far . . . Once Again," Rosenberg fumes over a recent Channel 2 newscast that contained 14 seconds of computer-animation depicting the prosecution's theory of how Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered.

A federal bankruptcy judge on Friday approved the sale of Rhythm & Hues, the Oscar-winning visual effects company that recently filed for bankruptcy protection, to an affiliate of Prana Studios, a Los Angeles animation and effects company. The sale, valued at about $30 million, ends a closely-watched auction of one of Hollywood's best-known visual effects companies whose financial struggles have come to symbolize the challenges faced by an industry that was pioneered in California.

"Computer Animation Magic," airing at 5 p.m. Sunday on KCET Channel 28, combines the cliches of high-tech boosterism with the unctuous tone of an old high school science film. Much of the program consists of snippets taken from the show reels of various commercial studios, many of them no longer in business. The images are familiar--glittering chrome and neon shapes that zoom in and out of infinity--and so is the thrust of the program.

An Army Special Forces soldier from Northern California has died in combat in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense announced Sunday. Sgt. 1 st -class James Grissom , 31, of Hayward, died Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany from injuries incurred three days earlier in Paktika province, Afghanistan. Grissom was assigned to the 4 th Battalion, 1 st Special Forces Group (Airborne) from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Grissom was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star.

Robert Abel, the computer animation and graphics guru who used multimedia to create award-winning commercials, films and classroom educational materials, has died. He was 64. Abel, credited with spearheading a transition in network television advertising, died Sunday in Los Angeles of complications following a heart attack five weeks ago.

DreamWorks SKG became the latest Hollywood company to jump into the computer animation business, acquiring a 40% stake in Pacific Data Images of Sunnyvale, Calif. DreamWorks is making the investment in the closely held company, funding a research and development effort, investing in new hardware and producing a yet-to-be-announced computer-animated film with the company. When all of that is added up, sources said, DreamWorks will spend about $30 million.

A uniformed toy soldier fires a cannon, illustrating how an object goes into orbit; a plane slices a yellow cone into sections to produce the basic geometric figures of circle, ellipse, parabola and hyperbola; a caricature of Galileo calculates the volume of various objects. These cartoon-like figures are among the unusual computer graphics James Blinn, Ph.D.

Young people are flocking to the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in impressive numbers. Last weekend, groups of 300 to 400 appeared two and even three times a day. They came not for paintings in the galleries, however, but for a computer animation exhibition in Sherwood Hall. The target audience for the show, organizer Steven Churchill said, was the 18- to 24-year-old range. And he appears to have been right on target. But there were a few younger and older citizens in attendance.

"Electronic Theatre," a two-hour program that's being shown at the Anaheim Convention Center for the SIGGRAPH computer animation trade show, showcases the strengths and, inadvertently, the weaknesses of this newest entertainment technology. Happily, the flying metallic TV network logos that defined computer graphics for most viewers during the '80s have given way to more interesting effects--smoke, flames, water, light and intricately textured and patterned surfaces.

Bill Kovacs, 56, a computer animation pioneer and Academy Award winner, died Tuesday at his Camarillo home from complications of a stroke brought on by a cerebral hemorrhage, said his longtime domestic partner, Kathy Salyer. In the early 1980s, Kovacs co-founded Wavefront Technologies, which produced a groundbreaking off-the-shelf software product that allowed a wide range of companies to create animation.

On his first trip to Los Angeles in February, Japanese director Goro Miyazaki found a native custom perplexing. "I've never been to any other place in the world where you see so few pedestrians," Miyazaki said, speaking through a translator in a rare interview at his Beverly Hills hotel. "Normally I go for a walk every morning, but I was told that if I'm just walking around, people will see me as somebody strange. " Miyazaki is accustomed to moving to a different tempo. He's the son of Hayao Miyazaki, the so-called Walt Disney of Japan, whose fantastical, hand-drawn animated films such as "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," "Ponyo" and "Princess Mononoke" have made him his country's most successful filmmaker and a defiantly old-school hero in a global boom era for computer animation.

Universal Pictures is getting back into the toy business - led by a swarm of small, yellow creatures with a penchant for mischief. The Hollywood studio plans to unveil an array of new toys and games for its upcoming 3-D computer-animated sequel "Despicable Me 2" at this weekend's Toy Fair trade show in New York, signaling a willingness to reenter the competitive consumer products market with some of its bigger movie franchises. Much of the product line, to be launched ahead of "Despicable Me 2's" theatrical release July 3, focuses on the signature pill-shaped, jabbering creatures called minions that were featured prominently in the original 2010 film.

When Ang Lee first read Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" soon after its 2001 publication, the "Brokeback Mountain" filmmaker came to the same conclusion as any number of reasonable people in Hollywood would: There's no way this novel can be made into a movie. Lee's concern was tied less to staging the bestseller's central conceit - how could you stick a human actor and a tiger on a lifeboat without the loss of life? - than whether show business economics would transform the book's metaphysical narrative into something less than thought-provoking.

Legend 3D, the 3-D conversion company based in San Diego, says it wants to hire some of the 300 workers recently laid off at Digital Domain's studio in Florida. Legend 3D founder and chief creative officer Barry Sandrew said his company would hire up to 200 workers in the next three months to work on several projects, and that he hopes many of the new hires will come from Florida. Digital Domain Media Group, owner of the Venice-based visual effects house, last week announced it was closing its new computer animation facility in Port St. Lucie and laying off most of its 320 employees.

Smokey Bear, the mascot of the U.S. Forest Service, is planning to tour NASA's  Johnson Space Center in Houston on Friday to celebrate his 68th birthday. The bear, tasked with warning all Americans about the dangers of forest fires, will record a new public service announcement at NASA to air on NASA Television later this month. Smokey is the longest-running public service announcement campaign from the Advertising Council Inc., which also did the crash test dummies and United Negro College Fund PSAs.

Steven P. Jobs, the charismatic technology pioneer who co-founded Apple Inc. and transformed one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies, has died. He was 56. Apple announced the death of Jobs - whose legacy included the Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. "We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple said. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives.

Chris Bailey isn't impressed by the periodic announcements that computers are about to take over the animation industry. The 25-year-old artist has done both drawn animation (Disney's "The Great Mouse Detective") and state-of-the-art computer graphics (Mick Jagger's "Hard Woman" video). Frustrated by the limits of computer graphics systems, Bailey is back at the drawing board, working on "Oliver and the Dodger," Disney's next cartoon feature.

He can do a flawless quadruple toe loop in men's figure skating. He's also an expert Alpine skier who can land the perfect ski jump. On top of that, he's an extreme speed skater. But when he makes his appearance at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games, which begin Friday in Nagano, Japan, medal contenders needn't worry. Ergoman will display his winning form only in cyberspace.

Easter may be weeks away, but that won't stop the holiday's iconic bunny from bouncing right over the competition at the box office this weekend. "Hop," a hybrid computer-animated comedy about the Easter Bunny's teenage son that also features live actors, is on track to open to about $25 million, according to people who have seen prerelease audience surveys. That should far exceed the ticket sales of "Source Code," a sci-fi thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which is likely to collect $15 million to $18 million.

Paramount Pictures' "Rango," a family movie about a chameleon sheriff in the Wild West voiced by Johnny Depp, marks the studio's entry into the crowded field of big-budget digital animation. The little critter could cause some big headaches. Computer animation is one of Hollywood's few growth industries, with nearly every major studio now wanting to stake a claim in a market dominated by Pixar Animation, Disney and DreamWorks Animation. And "Rango," which opens Friday, will put Paramount into direct competition with one of those industry giants, DreamWorks, which has been the studio's chief supplier of family animated films.