The Canadian

Here's another artist interpretation of one of our characters, this time by a Montreal based artist, Donald Caron.  Donald has an amazing painted style that is both vivid and very realistic.  His treatment of light is particularly fascinating to me.  Here's the result of his first contribution to our project:

Crimson

One of the villains we created in Heroes of the North is the character of Crimson.  I don't know why but I wanted a dark assassin version of the Little Red Riding Hood, complete with a wolf...   And we casted the famous fetish model Bianca Beauchamp to embody the character, a task she accomplished with gutso.   And to illustrate her character, we asked babe artist Armando Huerta.  This is the result:

Alice in Underland

I went to see Alice the other day - big tent pole movie in 3D - the saviour of cinema if you listen to some pundits.  Amazing art direction, a typical Burton staple, great photography, good actors in garishly beautiful costumes, a classical story, a director at the top of his craft, decent musical score...  Yet I was bored out of my skull...

I felt no wonder, no excitement at discovering this new world.  I did not hate the film but I was not engaged by it in any way.  I guess it left me indifferent...

Strangely, I felt similar after watching Avatar, probably the most spectacular film I have ever seen visually -  yet I felt somehow disengaged and frankly bored after a while.  And I wonder why.  The story of Avatar was not original by a iota but it is a familiar story that has been told many times before and usually worked.  So why does it not work so well here.  Why does it not keep my interest as an audience despite everything else around it being innovative and top notch?

Is it me as an audience member or is it that films now feel so perfectly manufactured? Note: although nowadays, special effects at that budget level are usually seamless, some work needs to be done with compositing in some shots, both in Alice and to a lesser extent in Avatar - there are no excuses for shoddy composites at such a budget level.  Nothing takes me out of a movie faster than noticing a bad integration.

Perhaps this is the problem - we now know so much about how movies are made, we no longer watch them for the story but also for the technique and it eventually takes you out.  But then again, I watch good movies from other decades, like the 60s, 70s or 80s  and 90s and I am still transported and entertained despite bad (by today standards) effects and lesser cinematic potential.  Alice made me think that there is not one movie in the last decade that has left a major impact on me the way films from other decades did.  Am I just getting older or the films are getting worst?

Figurine Vote

Thank you for participating in our Figurine Vote for Heroes of the North.  You can vote for your three favorite figurines.  Our first batch of figurines requires to make three.  Help us pick which ones should get made!  We are making THREE (3) figurines to start - you can still vote for your favorite and support two others.