Slashdot Mirror
The Simpsons Come to Life
musicon writes "Makers of the hit cartoon The Simpsons have a filmed the show's opening titles using real actors.
In the hit viral going around the world we get to see what Bart, Homer, Marg, Lisa and Maggie would look like if they were humans. Simpson's maker Matt Groening has approved the human version of the show's opening credits to promote the brand new series." Amazing attention to detail.
"New series" = "new season"
That's also the reason Marge is driving on the wrong side, it was made in the UK.
This introduction was made by the UK satelite TV channel Sky, although Rupert Murdoch owns both Sky and Fox. If this fil was really made by the makers of the simpsons would the cars drive on the left-hand side of the road as they do in this film?
here just in case there's any trouble with the The Sun's link. As someone pointed out to me yesterday, notice that Homer's car is lefthand drive while Marge's is righthand drive.
Here's a YouTube link (found on MetaFilter)
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223127182 7736577327. God bless Google.
from Bromleys local paper (area where the intro was filmed)
CALAMITY cartoon family The Simpsons brought their own special brand of havoc to Bromley last week - as producers filmed a new 'human' opening sequence for the hit American TV comedy.
The spectacular scenes were shot throughout the day last Friday (30) in Lansdowne Avenue, Orpington, because one of the properties looked similar to the family's home in make-believe Springfield.
Producers wanted to film an entirely different version of the opening credits scene, which is always slightly altered every episode, and called up a host of look-alikes for the job.
Read the Bromley Times for our full exclusive report and pictures.
so either you are wrong, or the local paper who specialise in local stories is, hmm tough choice
Interesting that none of the Quicktime versions will play. Either they've been Slashdotted or the Sun screwed up the format. No problem getting Windows Media to play though. The perfect comment on the Simpsons world.
Homer drives a Lada, a car made in the Soviet Russia...
Here's the video on Google Video. Google Video's streaming works better than other sites' streaming, and they generally let you download the video as an MPEG-2, as well. You may need to rename the ".gvi" file to ".avi", they rename it for some silly reason.
That's because it's meant to be a British family coming home to watch The Simpsons , presumably through one of those ghastly Murdochotron devices that adorn so many homes these days.
Come on people, think!
What do you expect? It's The Sun, the most notoriously bad newspaper in the world that only gets sails because of the tits shown on page three.
Bart never picks up the inanimate carbon rod, he jumps over it on his skateboard.
-bZj
.sig
I agree on the main characters, but they did a better job on the bit parts. The music teacher in Lisa's sax scene is spot on. And if you watch Bart zoom by on the skateboard, you can pick out Moe, Comic Book Guy and Bleeding Gums Murphy. They even have Chief Wiggum, although as someone else has mentioned he's a less stout bobbie.
One more thing I thought was interesting was the special effect to get Maggie onto the couch. Instead of having Marge carry her in, they composited her in. It all happens so fast that I missed it the first time.
I have put hours into this one second of the Simpson's intro. I have frame-by-framed the whole clip from where Homer tosses it out the window/cut to bart on the skateboard/ the rod appears to bounce and disappear, not landing on the skateboare at all, as this is the point where Bart is using the lamppost to redirect himself. I have a degree in film(so i get way more jokes than average joe), editing was my focus... and The Simpson's are one of my all-time favorite t.v shows.
Score: 1pt. please... I have no links, and have dropped no big names in tech.... Don't worry, I am used to only getting the boobie prize of 1 pt.
Sig Hansen?
You forgot the fact that Lisa's playing a tenor sax instead of the bari she should be playing.
Dude, it's The Sun. That's like complaining that the Weekly World News got the color of Bat Boy's toupee wrong... just be glad the story isn't ENTIRELY bullshit and move on.
Comment of the year
Bah. Posers.
"While a baby girl copies the scene where Lisa appears to be driving Marg's car."
Not Lisa. Maggie.
Duh?
Favorite
as you may or may not know, old ladas are just license-produced fiats
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
Instead of having Marge carry her in, they composited her in.
They did it for Bart too, within the time Marge cuts in front of him he goes from rushing to his spot to sitting comfortably. Looks really odd once you notice it.
This reminds me of the house built in Springfield, NV. It brought the house to life. http://www.lasvegassun.com/dossier/misc/simpsons/s tory.html
Now we need this family to re-film this at the house. Maybe then it can be aired in the US.
While many TV shows are sped up when broadcast in PAL format, these are only shows that are actually shot with film at 24 fps. This would include shows like Friends, Seinfeld, Buffy, and many others. Probably any show you can think of, in fact. You Brits should be aware of the fact that those actors actually have noticeably deeper voices than what you hear on TV.
:)
Older sitcoms that were originally filmed in video (such as, say, the Cosby Show or Alf), however, have a different conversion process that maintains the original speed while adding annoying artifacts whenever there is motion. This also affects sports and news broadcasts (anyone watching NBA basketball east of the Atlantic knows what I mean).
Animation series such as the Simpsons fall into neither category. They are not changed in speed nor reduced in quality for PAL lands, instead it seems they are originally rendered at 25 fps at the studio.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong
phozz
If anybody wants save the movies to hard drive. Here they are (I didn't bother with the RealPlayer versions):
High
the_real_simpsons_850k.mov
the_real_simpsons_850k.mov
Medium
the_real_simpsons_330.mov
the_real_simpsons_330.mov
Low
the_real_simpsons_30.mov
the_real_simpsons_30.mov
I didn't label them properly, but the second links point to the WMV version.
Animated characters can move much faster than real life characters and still stay convincing. The timing on the original Simpsons intro is breakneck. Characters whirl all over the place.
Most of the details people are mentioning as missing simply couldn't be done in live action. They are already running the video at about 1.4 times normal speed, and the humans still move too slowly to work it. Run at a high enough speed to match, things would jerk all over the place, Keystone Cops style.
Part of that is storyboarding cheats, though, which the filmmakers could have done had they known a little more about animation. One of the rules of cartoon storyboarding is that as soon as a character is out of shot, they can move infinitely fast. For example, in the saxophone scene Lisa is out of shot for a moment, and when she comes back she's moved further than a human can. The filmmakers tried to approximate this, but they ended up with a jump cut.
Other times, it just doesn't work because live action takes longer to read than animation. The shot that is supposed to look like Maggie is driving the car is just confusing. Car, baby, car in different place, car turns over the storyboarding axis. Unpleasant. The English countryside doesn't help. It's so detailed and lush that the car seems like a minor part of that last shot.
The whip-pan from Homer tossing his rod to Bart skating is odd.
On the whole, I think they concentrated too hard on trying to match the actual shots, and not enough on trying to match the intent of the shots.
http://www.putfwd.com/index/putfwd-dl-action/id.24 89/type.mov
I think you have either no idea about the Japanese culture or a very weird picture of the perfect wife ;).