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Wallace and Gromit Studio Loses History
TheFarmerInTheDell writes "CNN is reporting that the Aardman Animations building in Bristol, home of Wallace and Gromit, has been destroyed by fire From the article: 'Today was supposed to be a day of celebration, with the news that 'Wallace and Gromit' had gone in at No. 1 at the U.S. box office, but instead our whole history has been wiped out'"
Be on the lookout for a penguin with a rubber glove on its head.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Contingency planning anyone?
... Good movie, I'm sorry to hear everything is gone. :(
:/
I guess that's murphy
Shadus
Slashdot is getting worse. I read this 12 hours ago on the BBC. Come on editors, in this day and age could we have stories when they're fresh. Soon the newspapers will be beating you.
And that is why 11 out of 10 firemen recommend off-site backup! How do you backup clay btw?
Wait, I thought the fire was supposed to come after the /.ing, not before...
Joking aside, this is pretty sad. But I'm sure they'll be back on their feet in no time and making new stuff.
An e-mail sent this morning to all the subscriptors of the Aarmand website:
On the day that Aardman celebrate a chart-topping opening weekend in the US with
Wallace & Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-rabbit', news of a fire at our storage
unit in Bristol has been devastating.
The facility used to store sets, awards, and historical artefacts, is not a part
of the Aardman studio, and we are glad to report that no Aardman staff have been
affected. However, we have lost a number of irreplaceable storyboards, awards,
props and pieces of film memorabilia from our 30 year history.
None of the material from the new Wallace & Gromit film 'The Curse of the
Wererabbit' was in storage at the time, but we have lost many original sets from
Chicken Run, Creature Comforts, and the three Wallace & Gromit short films, that
were used for reference and toured around the world for exhibition.
This will not in any way affect existing or future Aardman productions as 100%
of sets and props are purpose built for each production.
Wallace & Gromit 'The Curse of the Were-rabbit': http://www.wandg.com/
I could've sworn I put that DRP document around here somewhere....
Since The Wrong Trousers made an appearance at a shorts festival, I've been a fan. The good news should be that the clay figures should be ok evermore now that the heat has turned them into...ceramic...
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
But everything else :-(
Feathers McGraw did it...
That has to be the worst thing that could possibly happen. Especially after all of the work they put in to make that movie. Claymation takes forever and a year people, and this was a feature length movie!
I haven't seen this one yet, but I know it will be good. It's kind of like a tame, clay, Monty Python.
Personal W&G favorite: The Wrong Trousers.
It's either the smurfs or a rabbit from the Isle of Man.
Fleur de Sel
It really is a shame, to loose all that work. It was a big fire too, the smoke could be seen and smelt about 10 minutes walk away. Techincally now, I own part of that history from breathing it in. :)
Maybe a pyromaniac is burning all the animation studios in alphabetical order?
Wallace and Gromit's creator, Nick Park, said the earthquake in South Asia helped put the loss into perspective.
"Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal," he said.
Good to hear that Nick Park is so well-grounded.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Man, I've heard of some crazy stunts for free advertising, but this is crazy.
Well at least Park kept the right mindset (read the article if you don't understand what I mean).
what the hell? you know it would flow a lot better if you changed "You're all" to "You are all"!!!!!!111111
They didn't lose everything, but rather most of the sets they had used in previous films (Chicken Run, Wrong Trousers). A great loss for sure, but they are not sunk as a company. From the article:
That really does put it in perspective. Nonetheless, I feel for the guys and wish them all of the best going forward. They have consistently put out quality entertainment.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
. . . that Wallace and Grommit are Pottery?
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Historic things were lost, yes, but still, they were only *just things*.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
If you read this story, you'll see while it is sad that it happened, nothing of value was lost. The Films are kept off site, and the clay gets thrown away anyway, because they can't keep it.
The summary is misleading, as you can see from the bbc article, it was "only" a warehouse that was destroyed - it seemed to contain old sets, character models and so on. As far as I can tell, the studio itself is fine.
It was their storage warehouse which was destroyed, not their filming studios.
Since you were so quick to post, you apparently didn't rtfa. Even Mr. Park himself said, "Even though it's precious stuff and nostalgic - and it's dreadful news for the company, in the light of other tragedies it's not a big deal."
I know I'm feeding a troll here but I'd wager he's got things in the correct perspective.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
...you know we're still stuck with those Chevron "talking car" ads.
They lost everything *except* the material for the new movie. That is, the original three W&G's, Chicken Run, and their other material. I feel awful for them. This must feel like watching your house burn down. :(
- ME -
It's bad, but as has been said, there's a lot worse shit going down elsewhere today.
...because they wanted to stay at no.1 in the box office
Does this mean Wallace & Gromit are hard pottery statues now?
seriously, that sucks bad....at least they are making millions at the box office to help cover the losses. It leads to an interesting question....If you had to burn everything you owned in a swap for millions, would you accept it as fair trade?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That will teach Wallace and Gromit to partner with the Madagascar Penguins leading in with a Christmas Caper short. Heard one of them talking about 'boom now?' just the other day.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
All the film stock is still intact.
If the critics didn't like it a simple it sucked would have sufficed.
They didn't have to resort to arson, unless they felt that Wallace and Grommet are really that evil and must be destroyed at all costs.
Keep the faith guys, from the ashes will rise a phoenix.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
They're pissed that a claymation took top spot over some crappy cookie cutter film and that they didn't need to hire an "actor" at 7 digits to draw a crowd.
Oh, the humanity!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
This is what happens when you beat Captain Malcom Reynolds at the Box Office. I imagine investigators will reveal that the cause of the fire was a "Crazy Ivan" Gorram claymation.
If it was so important to them they should have spend the money to store it in multiple locations.
You're totally right, this is what they get for being so lazy. Had I been in charge of storage I would have carefully hid each bit of priceless memorabelia in a scattering of booby-trapped tombs in the most remote sections of the world. Furthermore, carbon copies of each item would have been blasted into a complex orbit which passed through our solar system only once every 217,326 light years, thereby protecting each piece in the case of Earth's total destruction.
Oh... wait... no, that wouldn't be practical... I'd just keep everything in a warehouse so that I'd know where the hell it was...
...was there no preventative measures in place to protet the irreplaceable memorabilia?!
very very slowly...
-everphilski-
*rolls dice*
Come on Disney.
Not wanting to sound like an ass, let me make the following pre-comment caveats:
- I love Nick Park's work
- I own all the videos/DVDs of his films, including Creature Comforts on compilation
- I can't wait to see whatever else his fertile brain imagines.
But, having said that, is this so much a tragedy? The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap? Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it? I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
The artworks themselves are treasures. The other stuff is honestly refuse, unless they seriously plan to use them again. Extrapolated further, in 50 years we're all going to be posting our bitter comments on Slashdot from rooms hip-deep in "priceless memorabilia" (Reese Witherspoon's earrings from Legally Blonde XVII, the dorsal fin worn by a stuntman from Jaws III, etc.). Eventually we'll have to develop the technology to build dynamic-foundation skyscrapers on the mounds of movie-memorabilia that cover the countryside....
-Styopa
Halliburton will announce they have received a FEMA no-bid $10 billion dollar contract to rebuild a devastated chicken farm in England.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Actually I really liked Wallace and Gromit. DVDs are all the history I need now I guess.
WHICH ONE OF YOU PRICKS SET FIRE TO THIS BUILDING?
Indeed, there are people far worse off.
BBC is reporting that an estimated 20000 people (at the very least) are dead in Pakistan and India. Compare that to the 1200 or so people killed in the southern US, or even the 3000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
At least Page is able to put his loss in perspective. It takes a real man to be able to do that.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
It's a penguin with a rubber glove on it's head.
This was only their storage unit and not their main offices which are near the docks, so there at least there was no chance of anyone getting hurt.
Plus I talked to someone there today and they said that some of their best sets are already out on loan for exhibitions, so those "off-site" backups are safe!
...phew!
"Historic things were lost, yes, but still, they were only *just things*."
*Overheard after the British burned the White House, or the Library at Alexandria got torched, or after the Iraqi museums got sacked*
Time to call in Danger Mouse!
Sig Hansen?
Police are on the lookout
Without the characters, which can't be preserved anyway due to the physical characteristics of the clay, what's so special about a bunch of sets?
Sure, they represent a lot of hard work and a serious labor of love, but their ultimate value is really limited to what's on the film.
Heck yeah. I'd burn my whole house down to the ground, with pictures and computers inside for a few million. Shoot, I'd do it for, oh, $200,000 so I could get another place.
The real question is, what's the least amount of money you would accept for your past? (photos, old school papers, your computer's data)
Me: $100 (I'm such a history whore) but I know how much other people's past is worth, so I'd probably hold out for $1000.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Plus the mudslides in Guatemala, which I haven't seen news of in the U.S., but then maybe my timing was off. It is listed over to the scrollbox to the side on http://foxnews.com/
Be thankful that Slashdot isn't like GameFAQs. Take a look at all of the rules they have there. Did you know that you can be banned from those forums if you use a line consisting of more than three characters to separate your posts from your signature? The rules are that fucking strict, and that fucking pointless. And as such the place is an utter shithole for true, open, thought-provoking discussion.
Now, let's be fair. At least Slashdot has a fairly public moderating system, unlike a dictatorship like GameFAQs. You can still see any and all posts that have been moderated down, unlike at GameFAQs, where they're deleted outright. At least you can say what you want here, even if it may take people browsing at -1 for it to be seen. Contrast that to GameFAQs, where once deleted your post is not seen by anyone.
The moderators themselves at GameFAQs are most likely the worst problem, secondary to the absurdly complicated and intrusive forum rules. A lone moderator can delete your posts, even on the basis of just not liking you as a person. While that can happen here to some extent, at least other moderators can come around later and fix a mistake or abuse.
Funnily enough, at GameFAQs you can contest certain moderations. Of course, your appeal goes right to the moderator who either fucked up or intentionally abused their power in the first place. So the vast majority of the time you have no recourse when you have become the victim of a rogue moderator. At least here there are other moderators who can come along and remedy the problem.
Every time that someone talks about how horrible it is here at Slashdot, I just think about GameFAQs, and how truly horrible their system is. At least here we can express some disappointment with the Slashdot system. At GameFAQs you would have most likely been banned.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
An animated movie isn't an island. You can learn how things were done in previous shows by actually looking at how they did it. Digging into the storyboard, layouts, sets, etc. can be very helpful. During the movie if artists needed to see what Wallace's bedroom looked like previously, they didn't have to look at the DVD and try and construct a 3D model in their minds--they could actually go and look at the sets used in the previous shows. Blueprints, too, I would imagine. Then there is the world of licensing. In the CG world all that stuff is kept around in digital files. In the analog world, you have warehouses.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I've been a colossal fan of Wallace and Gromit ever since I first saw A Grand Day Out when I was in my early teens, and I'm quite saddened by this loss. I know that, as far as things go, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to Aardmann as a company, but... the prospect of me owning a piece of genuine W&G on-set memorabilia has now diminished quite considerably! Whilst their financial value may have been little, it's very sad to hear that remnants of some of the best animation I've ever seen no longer exist.
/.'er with a sense of humour stifling a giggle or two. As an even more OT aside, it's a pity that the USA doesn't have Wendsleydale cheese as readily available as we do here in the UK!
As an aside, I saw a preview screening of the Were-Rabbit this weekend (first time I've been to the cinema in over a year and I noticed that the Federation Against Copyright Theft are now busy telling all and sundry that using a camcorder will land you in jail for 10 years) and it's well worth a watch. Humour "for all the family" (i.e. it's not dumbed down toy marketing fodder purely for kids) and the wealth of visual puns and arcane geekery will have any seasoned
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
For the folks that work there, I'm sure this hard to take. Remember, they probably have a long history of the location, they lost lots of awards and other physical assets including the sets that were used in four movies.
I would imagine that some of these sets might have been re-used in the future, had they not been destroyed.
Moving making, espedcially using claymation is much more physical than programming. If my office burned down tomorrow, I'd need the offsite backup take restored onto a new server, a new Macintosh, a new desk, and a chair. That's it.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I mean seriously, Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on? "Oh look, here's the backdrop of the setting which hung outside the prop window on his One-Act play which only showed one night and then closed because it sucked!"
First off, your example is not going to make your argument. IF such a thing from Shakespeare existed, I have no doubt that collectors would pay through the nose for it. Sotheby's would make a small fortune from the auction comission alone.
However Nick Park noted that, "in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal". I would have thought they had reused some of the props (like the insides of Wallace's house). Instead, they state that each was "purpose built" for their respective films.
Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it?
Yeah I guess I'll just throw George Washington's axe away, then. Who cares about that stupid history stuff.
Just after the fire broke out, eyewitnesses heard a high screechy voice proclaim "It's a surprise! Yuck! Yuck!"
I think the worth is relative. For example, I own a few original animation cels that I consider extremely valuable. If I lose them in a fire, I will be upset and the loss would cause a certain amount of grief for me. Is it as bad as the tragic loss of life in natural and unnatural disasters we see on the news? Certainly not. I'd trade all my cels if I thought it would save lives, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't miss my cels. The loss of these "treasures" in fire is tragic because they had value, sometimes deep value, to the people that created them, and the fans that loved what was created by and through them. It's similar to the pocket watch my grandfather gave me. It is of great worth to me, and I would be really upset if something happened to it. Same goes for these "treasures". People worked hard. It was a labor of love for many. To see it gone effects them. Yes, there are more important things in the world, but there's room for grief of these treasures as well as things that may even be more tragic. Nobody is asking for donations to help the victim's of this fire because they were all inanimate as far as we've heard. I think we're doing a fine job of keeping it in perspective. Let's continue to be sensitive to the grief of others regardless of if we really share it or not.
First the great library of Alexandria, and now this???
Let's hope Western Civilization can withstand the blow.
For example, I have several, hand drawn Disney story boards from Bambi that are (without a doubt) Art. Much like I have several Simpson's production drawings, very much art in my book.
I guess it comes down to what one sees as art, but in my book there is a defined beauty in a simple, hand draw, story board...
With this crowd, you can provide perspective by asking "how would you feel if the original storyboards from the three original star wars movies were destroyed by fire, along with the original models of the millenium falcon, et al?"
Original poster here posting as an AC so I don't get nailed as a troll by some idiot moderator.
Why was the reply to my post marked as a troll? I posted something that, when I read back over it, makes absolutely no sense. Why mark a post as a troll that simply asks me to explain myself?
...yet they grind exceeding small.
What can I say, the gods of Mt Hollywoolympus were not amused by Wallace and Gromit.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Wallace and Gromit meet the Brothers Quay.
I'm here, and I think sentient beings are worth saving as well as bits. Perhaps I don't belong here, then?
They're organized, I know it. Ginger, she's their leader, I reckon.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Atleast Wallace and Gromit are 'real'
And Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks were nothing but pieces of parchment that he scribbled on, too.
/.). This isn't about eBay fodder -- this is about the process and development of an artist. Should future animators wish to learn from Nick Park's storyboards, they'll have to look at his later work. And that's very sad.
For many artists, process is often more valuable than the finished product. As a graphic design student, I find seeing the sketches and previous versions of some of the designers I admire very illuminating. Paul Rand famously provided his clients with process books (including one client notable to
----------
Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wallace_and_Gromit_set s_destroyed_by_fire
"only once every 217,326 light years"
Are you sure that's the right unit of measurement?
don't say that too close to some Star wars/star trek/ghostbusters/whatever movie fans. they get rabid about some obscure piece of fodder from the sets and fawn over owning some random piece of crap one day at an extremely high price.
"This is the cloth they were going to use for darth vader's cloak but changed it before shooting... it's very rare."
"I paid $390.00 for this roll of toilet paper stolen from Wil Weatons trailer when they were filming the last episode with him in it on location! it's very very rare!"
gobs of morons... I mean geeks pine for this crap. it could have made them millions on ebay in a couple of months.
Now I must return to my bidding on a valuable high quality reproduction of the robot from lost in space... It's very rare.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, maybe this is the solution to promoting fresh new content instead of allowing studios like Disney to live entirely by rereleasing old content.
I had a house burn down once, and the thing that ended up being most useful afterward was a videotape showing inventory and carefully showing irreplaceable stuff like a portrait photo of my great grandfather.
If only Aardman had taken the time to create a video archive of all these props and objects... something like a movie...
erm... nevermind.
(Especially on grim days like today, I really miss Emily Latella. And Nick Park's classy reaction to this personal catastrophe impressed the hell out of me. Thanks, Nick.)
A real man with feats of clay?
"Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the beast..."
"She's in Congress?" - Firefly, "Objects in Space
If my office burned down tomorrow, I'd need the offsite backup take restored onto a new server, a new Macintosh, a new desk, and a chair. That's it.
And a source of power and security to guard all that 24-7 in the blackened empty lot that used to be your office building.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Shakespeare was great, but would we want to have saved every piece of parchment he scribbled on?
Depends who you ask. If you ask a historian or serious literature buff, the answer is going to be a resounding "yes".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/4318710. stm
-2B
The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap? Isn't the work itself the treasure, not necessarily the tools used to make it?
Why save drafts of scripts or books? Why save blueprints? Why save props and costumes? Why save sets after a show wraps up?
Well, there's historical value to researchers and collectors, as to what the thinking process was, how something was constructed. Sets and props can be reused to save costs. Actual physical objects are cool to look at (note that some of the items went on tour), and took a lot of work to make. Are you going to save EVERYTHING? Hells no, but I doubt that's what the warehouse was storing (except, probably a corner that the prop shop was using.)
I have to say personally, I was extremely discouraged while learning to draw, until I saw rough sketches and early works by painters and artists like Van Gough. They made the same mistakes in perspective and proportions in learning that everyone else does, but you'd never have known it from the final product. As an animator, I learned a lot from studying storyboards and other materials that audiences will rarely see outside of DVD special material.
If you had asked whether the final product from George Lucas (the film - choose one) was the thing to treasure, and that all the props, models, costumes, and other materials should have been discarded, you'd probably get an argument from many folks. There's a lot of detail that goes in to prop work that is never shown on screen, and much of it is art in its own right. I think one person I ran into said it best - we aren't the best people to judge whether something is historic or not, because we lack the perspective that society in 20, 30 years will have on the times we're living in.
You've missed the point of it haven't you ?
It's more about the fact that people know it's done in clay (or whatever they are made of), people know it's taken a huge amount of effort, they know a huge amount of skill is required, and they'll go see it mainly to see what the mad buggers have spent a chunk of their lives on.
These days the allure of CGI has worn thin mainly because your average home PC can crank results very similar, sometimes a CGI film will be released straight to DVD without ever making it to the big screen, it's just become to "normal".
Yes you could do your own stop-motion film but it's going to take you a long time, and 99.99% of people would give up after an afternoon.
With this crowd, you can provide perspective by asking "how would you feel if the original storyboards from the three original star wars movies were destroyed by fire, along with the original models of the millenium falcon, et al?"
And you would get applause if it were the storyboards from the last three star wars movies. Maybe even admissions of guilt for setting the blaze too....
Police have identified the suspects as part of the "Garden Gnome Liberation Front" after recieving a video tape claiming the arson was justified because the claymation sets were "going soft". More information on this at 10 pm.
If you ask a historian or serious literature buff, the answer is going to be a resounding "yes".
Hell, most of us would sell our souls for one bit of scribbled-on parchment. As it is, we have absolutely nothing at all. And do you know why? Because everyone said "Oh, the plays are the thing, nobody's going to want this old draft manuscript..."
I'm a bit of a beginner with this type of thing but ... the only general fire figures I could come up with put burn temperatures below 700C. Granted the commercial setting and open space of a warehouse probably promotes fast burning.
... I thought they used plasticine!
Earthenware is fired to 1000C (roughly 1700F, I think). It seems that the temps reached may not be enough to properly fire the pieces. Also there's the quartz inversion point at about 570C - heating too quickly up to this point could be disastrous.
I also doubt that the pieces are wedged properly to remove air (as they aren't intending to fire them) and so explosion with the air expansion is likely.
Finally
Plasticine (aka "modelling clay") melts when heated, FWIW.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticine
http://www.vanaken.com/howclay.htm (note "melting them in a large vat")
Glad to see it won't affect future productions. I guess a lot of things saved for nostalgic and posterity value were lost. Such a shame.
This may or may not be relevant, but to me, the actual sculpture/set/object that I toiled away upon for hours and a photo of said sculpture/set/object would be held in different esteem.
CGI animation houses get revenge?
Any other conspiracy theories?
Townspeople: [gasp]
PC McIntosh: Yeah. Someone arsen' around!
http://imdb.com/title/tt0312004/quotes
... you managed to sound like one.
But asses have no sense of historic perspective, so no worries....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...a great deal of the production art from the classic Warner cartoons aka "Termite Terrace" aka Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies era would be gone. The standard operating procedure at animation studios was to wash and reuse cels...Clampett would sneak out the occasional cel, the occasional sketch, etc. and keep them. It is only since the 1960s that there was any care taken to preserve the ephemeral art that were by-products of animation production.
Who's to say that an original set from Chicken Run or The Wrong Trousers or the Peter Gabriel "Sledgehammer" video isn't art? Who's to say that storyboard sketches aren't art? Damn, I would have loved to have one of the original storyboards from an Aardman production. I have lucked out in that I have some layouts and sketches from some Spumco productions thanks to our family friend Jim Smith.
The sketch really is where the art lives, you know. A cel is pretty and colorful but the artist's soul is in their sketches. It's at the point where I'd rather have a sketch than a cel. And considering that almost everyone scans sketches into a computer for "ink and paint" cels are pretty much made only for collectors by artists who had nothing to do with the original production, the sketch is really the only thing left now. In some cases the sketch doesn't even exist anymore...some animators nowadays like to directly work with a computer tablet instead of paper and pencil.
This is a big loss. Maybe it won't seem like it now, but later on, when animation historians are trying to document what Aardman has been doing over the past 20 years or so they will look at this day as being when the history of a unique animation studio was lost. I grieve with Nick Park and his crew. This is not a lightweight thing.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
... the way George talks I wouldn't be surprised if the original non-special-edition films had already sufferred this fate.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The storyboards, the sets - why are we saving all that crap?
What's this "we"? Did you work on Wallace & Gromit? Is this a part of your own personal history that just went up in smoke?
If not, shut the fuck up.
I think that claymation tells a story superbly, as you get so much more of a sense of reality. However, I also think that a film like The Wrong Trousers has a strong enough script to be done in other ways.
I also think that CG can be done superbly, like in the case of Pixar who are pushing the envelope.
Aardman Animations has announced the limited run sale of 1200 kiln fired Wallace and Grommit figurines.
Lucas already destroyed the original reels so he wouldnt have to give profits of the sale to his exwife.
No shit.
Yeah, your point really works, when in reality, its because lucas is a greedy petty bastard who cant stand that a woman called him on his lameness.
Well, why keep the source when you have a working app?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
As someone who's lost his office and everything in it to a fire, let me tell you - it smarts. The decades of data that you painstakingly helped to collect, even though you've written a few papers out of it, are worth countless human hours, blood, sweat and tears. They may still have a use, and they're worth a lot to you and your colleagues. To see them senselessly destroyed takes a few days to get over.
Of course, when you put it into perspective of the bigger human tragedies in the world, it suddenly seems rather inconsequential. But it still hurts... for a while.
Lack of planning on their part doesn't constitute sympathy on mine. In other words, stupid people made stupid mistakes and now are paying the price - boo hoo. Bet they're glad they went with the lowball building designer now, after all fire supression and prevention is soooooo much like rocket science ... wait, it's not.
IIRC in the 60s Warner Brothers Cartoons got sick of storing everything and made a bonfire out of cels and storyboards in the parking lot.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
If only thousands of people around the world had all their various past releases on their PCs...
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
... you didn't say a disgruntled Serenity fan!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Now you've ruined everything *snob*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
They had no backup ?
Our knowledge of Shakespeare is so sparse that there's an entire genre of claims that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else. Everyone from Ben Jonson to Francis Bacon to Sir Walter Raleigh has been put forward as the "real author". David Kahn's classic work on cryptography, The Codebreakers , devotes almost an entire chapter to debunking the "secret coded messages", supposedly hidden inside Shakespeare's plays, which reveal their true author.
All of this speculation could be disposed of, if only we had a few scribbled pages of Hamlet or The Tempest. But we don't.
Fortunately, Aardman Animations is far better documented than Shakespeare. But the destruction of their storyboards and sets is still a terrible loss.
You know what they say... those who lose their history are doomed to repeat it.
*drops Chicken Run into the DVD player*
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Also, Gromit is not a real dog!
You know, there really needs to be a mod +/-1: Bad Pun mod option.
Kind of like comparing Jonathan Larson to Shakespear, no?
The loss of the Wallace and Gromit material is just one instance of a much larger process of history destruction that goes on continuously. More than half of all the movies ever made have been lost forever, because they mouldered away in vaults and filing cabinets instead of being out in free circulation, their owners hoarding them on the chance that one day they might produce profit, or forgetting them entirely and letting them crumble away. Simple neglect can be as destructive as fire or any other disaster.
As Intellectual Property rights are strengthened, this type of loss is going to happen more and more. Rights holders will have tight control over the distribution of "their property," even to the extent of disabling it whenever they want. Fewer and fewer unmonitored copies will exist, and more and more material will be simply yanked out of circulation because it competes with something newer that somebody wants to sell.
I collect Old Time Radio shows from the 1940s and earlier. Thanks to our Congressmen-for-hire, these shows and ALL audio recordings made before 1972 are still copyrighted, and will remain so until the year 2067. Theoretically the only legal copies are those kept by the rights holders. Ironically, most of the shows that still exist have survived only through the illegal activities of a diehard fan community. Most old time radio shows were never intended to be heard again. They were recorded only so they could be retransmitted later to different time zones, or simply so the studio didn't have to be in the same building as the transmitter. Most were destined for the trash, or sometimes already in the trash, when they were rescued and taken home by radio station engineers and the like, later to be copied to tapes, CDs and mp3s over the years, and sold/traded/handed out to other collectors. These "pirates" have kept this material alive for decades while the original rights holders in most cases did absolutely nothing. These old shows may not be great literature, but they do provide an invaluable record of popular American entertainment during one of the greatest times in our history, showing us what average everyday people thought was funny, interesting and frightening at that time. You can't get that sort of thing out of a book, and we wouldn't have it today if everybody had played by the rules.
Ran out of cheese again... They'll be back and restore everything.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
"I paid $390.00 for this roll of toilet paper stolen from Wil Weatons trailer when they were filming the last episode with him in it on location! it's very very rare!"
And if the toilet paper had Wil's crap on it, it'd be worth 10 times as much.
It's funny (and sad) because it's true.
While I don't disagree about the restrictive use of copyright in general, there is really no way that file sharing or fan collections could save this kind of material since (a) it isn't material that is easily reproducable, and (b) the only way it would wind up in the hands of collectors would be if Aardman felt it had no significance at all, which means it would most likely have been destroyed anyway rather than warehoused (like many other production houses do with their obsolete props).
In fact this is an example of a company attempting to preserve its technical history (not even the finished works) and failing to do so because of an unfortunate accident. Copyright doesn't come into it because we're talking about the physical property of Aardman, which nobody except Aardman can claim a right to, even in principle.
The parent might be a nice anti-copyright rave, but it really is off-topic (except that it mentions Wallace and Gromit in passing).
Blank until
And you know what, I even agree with you.
But what's your standard? Where, between da Vinci and Pauly Shore movies, is the breaking point? Yes, da Vinci's scribblings are priceless insights into genius. Should we save the storyboards for Madonna's "Erotica" because they 'might' be?
It's an entirely irresolvable conflict of subjectives, obviously, which actually is resolved economically. If anyone really felt these W&G things had intrinsic value for the ages, they'd have stored them in a safer place. So they were lost, that's too bad, but obviously someone felt that they had no more value than any other props.
Nick Park certainly earned my deepest respect for his comments on the subject.
-Styopa
Cool, check out johnlscott.com for real estate. It's the best site for this area. (I'm just an hour north of Portland)
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela