Just after Bee Movie's first weekend in theatres, the animation community is bristling over comments Jerry Seinfeld made about animators.
Seinfeld "Frustrated" With Animation
During an interview for Inside Bay Area, Susan Young asked, "Jerry, what would you ask Jerry Seinfeld about producing his first film, animated or otherwise?"
"I would ask, 'What got you really frustrated making this?'" he said. "Animation is a very technical, very sophisticated, very detailed puppet show. Now, I don't get to work the puppet. I get to talk to the puppeteer, so my ability to communicate with the puppeteer determined what the puppet did.
"Instead of being funny, which is what my whole career has been, I'm now describing funny to someone who, in most cases, is not a funny person. It's like describing a bris (a Jewish circumcision ceremony)."
At least one of those animators was not amused.
"I wonder if I’m in the 'most cases' category," wrote DreamWorks animator James R. Hull, who worked on Bee Movie. "I mean, I’m not a hilarious person, but I think I do know what funny is . . . and isn’t."
Seinfeld: "It Takes (Animators) Forever"
In an interview with NPR, Seinfeld talked about how long it took to render the simplest things in CGI animation.
“I don’t know exactly what (animators) do,” he said, “but I know it takes them forever until they’ve done it. Instead of having the eyebrows go down, have them go up — you wait like four days for that.”
Hull defended CGI as a necessarily slow process, and questioned why Seinfeld would knock his co-workers.
"Of course there were a myriad of technical reasons why some scenes would take that long to complete, but is it really necessary to downplay the efforts of the creative staff?" Hull asked, saying he was "a little stung" by Seinfeld's comments. "Especially those who went through so much to fulfill his vision?"
Other animators were quick to agree with Hull.
"I kept hearing horror stories about Jerry critiquing the animator’s work (on Bee Movie) and I really hoped that it wasn’t as bad as what I was hearing but I guess maybe it was," wrote Disney animator/writer Mark Kennedy (Chicken Little).
However, during the NPR interview, Seinfeld did praise the animation process.
". . . another great thing about animation," he said, "is you can do the scene innumerable times, whereas in film, you're lucky to get two or three takes."
Wacko Comments?
This is the second time that Seinfeld has found himself in hot water over comments he made. On October 30th, he appeared on The Late Show, where he defended his wife against charges of plagiarism.
Jessica Seinfeld had recently published Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food with Harper Collins this past October. A thumbs-up from Bee Movie co-star Oprah Winfrey assured Deceptively Delicious a place on the bestseller charts, and the book has sold 1.8 million copies to date.
However, former Eating Well publisher Missy Chase Lapine alleged that Jessica Seinfeld and Harper Collins stole several ideas and concepts from her cookbook, The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, which was published through the Running Press in April of 2007. Lapine had unsuccessfully submitted her book to Harper Collins twice before the Running Press accepted it.
During The Late Show interview, Seinfeld called Lapine a "wacko," and hinted that he was worried for his family's safety.
"We're concerned because (Lapine) is a three-named woman," Seinfeld told David Letterman. "And you know, if you read history, that many of the three-named people do become assassins."
In a statement released through her publisher, Lapine said, "It was painful to be called names on national TV when I am just a mom who wrote a cookbook to help parents get their kids to eat well."
Plagiarism? Not the First Time
The words "plagiarism" and "Seinfeld" have been spoken in the same sentence before. In her 2003 documentary Bitter Jester, Maija Di Giorgio alleged that Jerry Seinfeld and his manager, George Shapiro, stole her concept after she approached Seinfeld for an interview. Seinfeld and Shapiro then, according to Di Giorgio, rushed their 2002 documentary Comedian through production so that their theft wouldn't be obvious. Di Giorgio's companion, Kenneth Simmons, made the cover of the New York Post after a confrontation with Seinfeld and Shapiro turned violent.
The Final Analysis
Did Jerry Seinfeld intend to insult the animators who worked on his film, or is he too arrogant to care? Is he having a Britney Spears-esque meltdown, or is he just trying to be funny? Either way, Seinfeld is keeping his name, and that of Bee Movie, in the public eye. However, it may not be the kind of publicity he wants.
Bee Movie grossed $40 million in its first weekend, about what analysts had predicted for the flick. Gauging by DreamWorks Animation's track record, those same analysts believe that the film will make somewhere around $175 million at the North American box office, just shy of blockbuster status. With widespread condemnation coming from both animators and foodies, even that number may be in jeopardy.
(Thanks to my buddy Bear for the heads-up)
 |
