h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The ImageMovers Animated Film Guide - A87892546
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

The rise and collapse of a mo-cap & performance capture studio.

I must admit that I'm in two minds as to whether the mo-cap & performance capture section should be its own entry – please let me know what you think.

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Very interesting!

"Ambrin Entertainment" - should that be Amblin?

Interesting question about the Mo-Cap section. I think it could make a good standalone Entry - it would just need a bit of context around it so that it could sit neatly alongside the one about Computer Animation and be an asset to the Edited Guide

"Instead of ordinary cameras, the Volume is surrounded by numerous, 224 on Beowulf for example" - numerous cameras of a different kind?

"with his environment" - with the environment?

Ah! The T Pose is something I've done! There's a great interactive wall in the National Waterways Museum, where people do the T Pose and then they can virtually move an icebreaker boat down a frozen canal! I didn't think it would work for me because of the metal of my wheelchair, but it did! Fascinating technology...

Ooo - I somehow missed that there was an Entry about MPAA. Very interesting reading, and I think I might just need to include it in my next Entry

Excellent to include the Bechdel Test, too.

Need to read the films now...

In The Polar Express, you highlight the tickets in the table, but the paragraphs don't explain what significance they have.

In A Christmas Carol it should be Jim Carrey in the table as well as in the paragraphs. What is the distinction between ImageMovers and ImageMovers Digital? The Additions part sentence could perhaps be linked in with the sentence about the rollercoaster ride? Fascinating the differences in the ratings, that this is BBFC PG, but IPAA PG-13 like Beowulf...

Interesting that a Queen song was used in Mars Needs Moms I quite enjoyed Treasure Planet in a weird cheesy sort of way, so I might enjoy Mars Needs Moms similarly if I can find it...

It's tantalising to try to work out how the films pass/fail the Bechdel Test... Polar Express and Beowulf seem easy - there are two or more female characters, but they don't seem as though they would be able to speak to each other, never mind pick a topic of conversation, so the films would be a fail. Jenny and Zee talk to each other about something other than men, I presume? Good to know the female Martians have a variety of topics to talk about as well

Thanks for your comments – at the moment I think I'm leaning towards using a lot of the mo-cap section here as the basis of a standalone entry, stripping down a lot of the detail.

I've added a bit about the tickets now, so hopefully that is clearer.

The ImageMovers and ImageMovers Digital was mentioned in the first paragraph in the 'Films' section. ImageMovers is Robert Zemeckis' company, the films co-produced and funded by Disney were classed as 'ImageMovers Digital', which was a subsidiary of ImageMovers but funded by Disney. When 'Mars Needs Moms' failed Disney pulled the funding plug and it ended.

I've also moved the Additions bit as suggested.

In 'The Polar Express' the only female character on the train is 'Girl' (the characters don't share their names, with the exception of Billy, oh and ). The Boy does have a mother and sister who are very briefly in the film at the start and the end, but they don't share a conversation without the boy being present.
'Monster House' passes – Zee and Jenny negotiate a transaction concerning the purchase of sweets and mutually admire each other's bargaining skills.
In 'Beowulf' both Beowulf's wife and concubine 'enjoy' conversations – but only about Beowulf. Neither meets Grendel's mother.
'Mars Needs Moms' clearly passes if female Martians count, from the opening scene in which they discuss which mother to kidnap and then pretty much every scene they are in.

To an extent the Bechdel Test is a bit useless – it is binary (either pass or fail) without taking into account the context. How helpful can a measure of feminist and/or progressive content be if a three-hour investigative documentary monologue on the nature of the ever-changing concept of women's roles in modern society that challenges the preconceptions of all who watch would fail, while a seedy film titled something like 'Big Boobed Lesbian Nymphomaniaxxx 4' would pass? That said, while it doesn't measure by how much a film passes and whether the film's content is actually positive, the number of fails by big-budgeted blockbusters is damning.

But I do have a soft-spot for the test, flaws and all. It is nice and easy to apply to any film after all.

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Thanks <BB<

"The ImageMovers and ImageMovers Digital was mentioned in the first paragraph in the 'Films' section"

Of course - the disadvantage of leaving 5 weeks between reading the start and end of the Entry!

I like the Bechdel Test, too - powerful in its limitations... The binary result is the most limited, but the detail of the three stages that need to be passed can add extra context. Fascinating to contemplate the applicability in relation to a monologue documentary, and it would be very interesting indeed to find out if the other film example did indeed pass, or whether it actually failed (I can imagine it may fail if it is aimed at the 'Male Gaze', but my knowledge of that genre is extremely limited...).

Thanks for the extra detail - particularly interesting about the women in Beowulf

Are you going to modify this Entry ready for the link to your Mo-Cap Entry to be added?

I've just cut out over 300 words, removing the section on other mo-cap films and condensing the information on what the mo-cap process is and involves. Obviously as there's no guarantee that readers will read the mo-cap entry so I still feel that I need to cover the basic points here too, though not in as much depth as in the other entry.

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Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Hurry - Friday 13th is lucky for some.

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Congratulations!