Madagascar Reaches New Animation Heights
June 6, 2005 | Levent OZLER
The art of making a 21st-century animated cartoon will never be the same again.
That's because the new comedy Madagascar -- a magical mystery tour with zoo animals -- makes such a significant breakthrough in digital animation that it will, in the words of one animator, "blow the doors off" what is possible.
Oddly enough, DreamWorks animators had to go to the past to create their new future. "We wanted to harken back to the old days of animation when it was really snappy movement with the 'squash and stretch' -- really quick stuff," Rex Grignon says during a recent interview in San Francisco.
Grignon, a veteran of the animation business, is the Canadian-born head of character animation for Madagascar.
He co-founded the character animation team at PDI/DreamWorks, the studio's animation arm. The Ajax native is a graduate of the animation department at Sheridan College and has worked on Antz and Shrek for DreamWorks, as well as Toy Story for Pixar/Disney.
As a result of the retro-future approach, Grignon says, Madagascar borrows heavily from techniques pioneered by legendary Warner Bros. animators such as Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson and other members of the famed Termite Terrace gang, including voice genius Mel Blanc and composer Carl Stalling.
Together they created Bugs Bun
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