Surf's Up

Since I just read that Surf's Up is the number one DVD out there right now, I guess this is a good time to post something about it.

First things first, this movie is 1000 times better than that sham of a film called Happy Feet!

Now that that is out of the way... While I may of had some problems accepting an animated mockumentary, it was enjoyable overall. The character designs (especially Big Z and Tank) were nice, the story was fun, and the animation was really good.

I was pretty impressed by the technique they used to motion capture the camera. It really gave it an authentic documentary feel. Well, as authentic as an animated documentary can be. It may of been a little over the top at times, but for the most part worked well. Finally a good use for motion capture!

Putting the real life surfers in the movie as voices was a stupid idea. These guys, except for maybe Sal (?) were horrible. Dry and boring. It put too much reality in the film and drug it down every time they spoke. I also thought that the John Heder chicken character was annoying. A lot of his lines felt really forced.

After watching the making-of, I noticed that the actors recorded their lines with some of the other actors at the same time. The improvising really came through and I thought that gave the dialogue a nice flow.

I'm still not sure what is happening over at SPA now. This movie did pretty poorly and I've heard rumors that they have dropped the idea of doing future CG films. Yet someone else told me they were still in development for a project or two. I guess time will tell. I'm still a fan of SPA first two attempts. However, I thought the story on Open Season was much more fun.