Toren Atkinson

I was interviewed as part of mypaxblog.com
Go read it now [here.]

Spoilers await you:

Bruce Timm, who was behind the best cartoon to come out of the 90’s, Batman: The Animated Series, and who then moved on to Superman and Justice League, is now producing a more experimental line of DC Superhero direct-to-DVD movies such as Justice League: The New Frontier and Superman: Doomsday.

The most recent such DVD is a prelude to the upcoming The Dark Knight film, and takes place in between the two movies, if I understand correctly.

The DVD is actually an anthology of short films created by various anime studios, quite similar to how the Animatrix DVD was produced. There are 6 short films on the DVD. I watched them last night. I will review them all, to some extent.

“Have I Got A Story For You” is a tale of four skater kids who witness a fight between Batman and a high-tech robber, albeit at different times and locations. The animation is the same style as Tekkonkinkreet and “Beyond” (from Animatrix). It is the most interesting style on the disc and atypical of what modern anime has to offer, showing that some animators in Japan are ready to move on from the persistent tropes that many of us sat through in the 70’s and 80’s. The story is a simple one, but the twist is that every kid has a different interpretation of the Batman, and the animation illustrates their perception of him, not the reality. As such we get a wide gamut of powers and character, all of which are interesting and a joy to watch. 9/10

“Crossfire” shows two cops who have different opinions on Batman. The animation itself was generally poor, as much anime is – relying on style and detailed backgrounds rather than range of expression or body language. In this case the style itself was nothing to write home about. The action was, for the most part, melodramatic and trite. 4/10.

At this point I should mention that Kevin Conroy, who voices Batman in the other Bruce Timm productions, is cast once again as the dark knight in all of these shorts. This is a shame because while I think Conroy does fine work on all previous incarnations, I feel that the disparity of styles on this project lends itself to try out some new blood. Gotham Knight seems to want to introduce new and unexpected takes on Batman and I find Conroy’s reintroduction works to counter that.

“Field Test” is about a personal, bullet-deflecting force field that Batman tries out. The story is an interesting one, though the ending is weak. The animation is traditional hackneyed manga style complete with pointy chins and bad hair. 4/10

“In Darkness Dwells” is a slightly clumsy story involving Scarecrow and Killer Croc. The animation in this one is something a little different and lends itself well to the character. The action and intensity is pretty solid with only a few minor gaffs – I would say this is the second best of the six shorts. 7/10

With a good premise but a disjointed and somewhat lackluster telling, “Working Through Pain” has some of the most grounded yet dynamic animation. 5.5/10

“Deadshot” introduces the villain of the same name. This short has probably the most engaging of plots especially since we get enough time with the enemy to learn something about him. The animation is stylistic and like “In Darkness Dwells” it works well for a Batman story, though the now time-honored misuse of CG animation over traditional art is appropriately unsettling. The action is way over the top, which I imagine many anime fans embrace as it can often be typical of the medium. 7/10.

Continued from [here]

First rehearsal started off with more photos of my face and hand. In the film the monster uses his dendritic tentacles to fasten me against the wall and then it drains the life out of me. My skin gets covered with black veins and then I believe the skin gets sunken in as I perish. So at some point my arm and face are replaced with a digital version, so they take super high res photos so they can get every pore and folicle exact.

The crew is quite an international bunch – a Spaniard serving as director, a German on texture duty, and I believe two Chinese fellows round up as producer and photographer. So there’s lots of hilarious cultural gaps and ESL foibles, to my delight.

We went through the shots one at a time, and surprisingly in sequence of the story rather than convenience of camera setup.

Later that week I was to meet them at the Blenz by Commercial skytrain for a fitting. Seemed like a strange place but that’s Hollywood for you. We met up with Attila the wardrobe guy and then we all bused down to the Value Village on Hastings where we vexed the lady in charge of the change rooms who decides who goes in what change room and makes sure nobody goes in with more than 5 items. We basically spent an hour and a half trying on pants, shoes, shirts and sweater vests, with other shoppers confused about the change+critique+repeat process. Finally they found something they liked and after they left I did a little shopping of my own.

A second rehearsal was practically the same as the first (they dropped one shot), except this time in costume. The shoes scuffed up the floor pretty good.

The thing about Dairy Queen’s menu is that almost everything is made with a combo of ice cream and syrups. So when you look at the menu boards and you see that they have an “Arctic Rush Frozen Beverage” with flavours like watermelon or blue raspberry, or an unfortunately-named “Moolatte” frozen blended coffee, you can ask the “Blizzard Techs” to make you a blizzard with these flavours as well, even though none are on the official Blizzard flavour list. And they will. And then you’ll be in a small exclusive group of people who know what watermelon & Oreo cookie flavoured ice cream is, with me! Solidarity in weirding out DQ employees!

Here’s my current design for the back of the tour shirt

I saw Hellboy II: Golden Army and it surpasses the original. As a presumably-well versed student of modern fantastical-type artwork I found it almost distracting. The design work was very tasty indeed, and no means homogenous, which is both a strength and a weakness. Throughout the entire movie I was calling out to myself “that’s pure Mignola…that’s a Wayne Barlowe design…that’s from a Beksinski painting” – it’s like the film was a moving gallery of Morpheus International artists. If you don’t know any of the names I’m throwing out, you can concentrate on the story. If you’re like me I’m guessing you’ll absorb more the second time around. I won’t say anything else about the film because you haven’t seen it yet.

No, I will say one more thing – all of the trailers before the film are way too long. I didn’t feel urged to see any of the movies (including Death Race) because by the time the 5 minute long trailers were over, I felt I’d already seen the relevant context.

Hi Toren,

I finally got a copy of your latest CD and think it is the best that I have heard yet. I liked all the other ones, but The Shadow Out of Tim is a real achievement. I know of only 2 other LPs that tell a story over their play time. I know of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and a band called Queensryche’s Operation: Mind Crime. Thank you and the band for producing such a piece of entertainment. It inspired me to re-read The Shadow Out of Time by HPL. If you know of any other CDs that tell stories in this fashion and would recommend I would love to read about them.

Thank you for you attention. Please keep up the good work.

Rob

Anyone know of such albums?

I got a call from my agent about a student film that was doing auditions. These are non-paying gigs but the last one (Hello Goodbye) was quite rewarding so I take them when I can. She had submitted two other people from her roster and I don’t know if they asked any other agencies to send them some actors. My agent described it as “a professor reads a book and is greedy and then scared,” which didn’t phase me as job descriptions are usually vague. The last commercial audition I did, for which I got a call back, I had no idea what it was about and still don’t (Sam got the job – yay Sam!).

Anyway I rode my bike down to the VFS campus on Burrard and Pacific and called one of the guys. They brought me up and described that this is going to be a 50 second short film about a guy who finds an evil book and starts reading from it. He summons a (CG) monster which attacks him and drains his life. End of film. The name Lovecraft came up. They had no idea who I was.

They showed me the animatic they did with one of the other students as the professor. Then they took me into another room and took photos of my head and my left hand from 45 degree angles (straight on, 3/4 view, profile, etc). Then they had me act like I was being attacked by a Cthulhu monster.

A few days later I got an email saying I got the job.