Rachel Abramowitz had a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times this week on the angst among Hollywood actors as they watch more major filmmakers embrace performance-capture techniques and animation approaches.  Here's a great follow-up as she talks to Steven Spielberg about the making of "Tintin."

   
Steven Spielberg says there was only one reason to make his new “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” with the cutting-edge performance-capture technology that James Cameron used on “Avatar.”

“It was based on my respect for the art of Hergé and wanting to get as close to that art as I could," says the director, referring to Tintin’s author-illustrator, who created the international blockbuster graphic novel series (200 million copies in print) starring intrepid cub reporter Tintin, and his irrepressible canine companion, Snowy, as they venture through the pre-WWII world.

 “Hergé wrote about fictional people in a real world, not in a fantasy universe," Spielberg said. "It was the real universe he was working with, and he used National Geographic to research his adventure stories. It just seemed that live action would be too stylized for an audience to relate to. You’d have to have costumes that are a little outrageous when you see actors wearing them. The costumes seem to fit better when the medium chosen is a digital one.”

“Tintin” stars Jamie Bell (“King Kong”) as the title character, Andy Serkis (Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) as his buddy Captain Haddock, and Daniel Craig (Bond, James Bond)  as the evil Red Rackham. Produced by Peter Jackson, with the animation done by Jackson’s Weta wizards, the film is due in theaters in 2011. 

Like Cameron, Spielberg shot the actors on a special performance-capture stage. The performers donned lycra suits, covered in reflective markers, and their every movement was tracked by more than 100 cameras. They also wore a head-rigging with a camera near their jawline that recorded intensely detailed data of their faces -- enough detail to avoid the "dead eye" faces that had an unsettling lack of movement or emotion in many previous motion-capture films. Ultimately, all the camera data was fed into a computer to create a 3-D replica of the actor. The digital document of the actor and the performance is so all-enveloping that the director, in this case Spielberg, can go back and change the "camera" movement and orientation long after the actor has left the set.   

For the director of such films as “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” the new experience was transporting. 

“I just adored it,“ he says. “It made me more like a painter than ever before. I got a chance to do so many jobs that I don’t often do as a director. You get to paint with this device that puts you into a virtual world, and allows you to make your shots and block all the actors with a small hand-held device only three times as large as an Xbox game controller.” 

With that small monitor, Spielberg could look down and watch what the actors were doing -- in real time -- on a screen that showed them in the film universe. Working on the motion-capture stage -- which is called the volume -- Spielberg was routinely dazzled by the liberating artistic value of the new science. 

 “When Captain Haddock runs across the volume, the cameras capture all the information of his physical and emotional moves," the director said. "So as Andy Serkis runs across the stage, there’s Captain Haddock on the monitor, in full anime, running along the streets of Belgium. Not only are the actors represented in real time, they enter into a three-dimensional world.”

So though Jamie Bell will be digitally made to look exactly like Hergé's classic renderings of Tintin, “it will be Jamie Bell’s complete physical and emotional performance,” Spielberg said. He added: “If Tintin makes you feel something, it’s Jamie Bell’s soul you’re sensing."

-- Rachel Abramowitz

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Photos: Steven Spielberg in 2008. Credit: Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press. John Dykstra on the set of "Star Wars," photo courtesy of Dykstra. Tintin image: Casterman/Le Lombard

Last month, Morgan Freeman was part of an Oscars roundtable hosted by Newsweek and bristled a bit about the intensifying use of performance-capture work in filmmaking and the purest nature of acting. "I think it's a bit faddish, because it's really cartoons. ... If I can look in your eyes and see a completely different person, that's what I want." Rachel Abramowitz of the Los Angeles Times picks up that thread with an insightful article on the acting community's reaction to the alien allure of "Avatar." This is a longer version of her story that appeared on the front page of Thursday's paper.

Director James Cameron had many reasons to be happy the morning that this year's Oscar nominations were announced; his blockbuster film "Avatar" tied for the most with nine, including best picture and best director. But he was dismayed that his cast, including stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver, was shut out.

In fact, unlike the great majority of best picture nominees, the "Avatar" actors have not nabbed a single major critic's award, or guild prize. The snubs reflect the apparent ambivalence of the film community -- especially actors -- to "Avatar" and its revolutionary use of "performance capture," a new technology that combines human actors with computer-generated animation to create the blue, 10-foot-tall creatures who are the heart of the movie.

To the uninitiated, it raises basic questions: Is this acting, or is it animation? And, does this suggest that actors could become obsolete? It's an issue that provokes a strong response from Hollywood figures, from best actor nominees Jeff Bridges and Jeremy Renner, to directors Cameron and Steven Spielberg. 

"I'm sure they could do it now if they wanted. Actors will kind of be a thing of the past," Bridges told The Times the day nominations were announced. "We'll be turned into combinations. A director will be able to say, 'I want 60% Clooney; give me 10% Bridges; and throw some Charles Bronson in there.' They'll come up with a new guy who will look like nobody who has ever lived and that person or thing will be huge," he said.

Renner, nominated for "The Hurt Locker," put it this way: "Some movies are actors' kind of movies and some movies are more directors' movies. 'Avatar' is a spectacle. It's a beautiful experience, but it's not really an actors' kind of movie. It doesn't really allow for an actor to truly tell a story. The director's telling the story in that one."

Perhaps mindful that actors make up the largest Oscar voting bloc, Cameron fiercely promotes the contributions of his cast to the success of "Avatar." He and other advocates of performance capture (known as "motion capture" in its previous, less sophisticated incarnation), including Spielberg, say not enough actors have experienced the process to appreciate it.

"There's a learning curve for the acting community, and they're not up to speed yet," Cameron said. "We didn't get out and proselytize with the Screen Actors Guild as we probably should have to raise awareness. Not only should they not be afraid of it, they should be excited about it. There is a new set of possibilities, after a century of doing movie acting in the same way."

Cameron describes it as "an actor-driven process." "I'm not interested in being an animator. . . . That's what Pixar does. What I do is talk to actors. 'Here's a scene. Let's see what you can come up with,' and when I walk away at the end of the day, it's done in my mind. In the actor's mind, it's done. There may be a whole team of animators to make sure what we've done is preserved, but that's their problem. Their job is to use the actor's performance as an absolute template without variance for what comes out the other end. "

"I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation," said Spielberg, who is using Cameron's "Avatar" technology in his new movie, "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn." "It's basically the actual performance of the actual actor, and what you're simply experiencing is makeup."

In the case of "Avatar," he said, "the digital makeup is so thin you actually see everything that Zoe is doing. Every nuance of that performance comes through digitally."

Spielberg and Cameron say that making a movie in performance capture is, for the actors, very similar to performing a play. "Motion capture brings the director back to a kind of intimacy that actors and directors only know when they're working in live theater," Spielberg said.

Filming takes place on a spare motion-capture stage called "the volume." Actors wear skin-tight bodysuits with reflective markers; every movement is tracked by an array of more than 100 fixed cameras. There's another specialized head-rig camera to record the actor's face and eyes.

"The virtual camera is always active," explained "Avatar" producer Jon Landau. Gone is the need for camera and lighting set-ups, makeup retouches and costume fittings. Scenes do not need to be shot repeatedly from different camera angles. Instead, the camera data are fed into a computer that creates a 3-D replica of the actor's every movement, and the director can just add his camera moves -- from any perspective -- digitally.

"There's a purity to it. You can't rely on anything else but your own skill as an actor; [it] enables the actor to shoot the scene in one take without worrying where the camera is," said Andy Serkis, a veteran British stage actor who pioneered motion-capture acting as Gollum in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Serkis followed that up with the title role in Jackson's remake of "King Kong" and is currently performing in Spielberg's "Tintin." 
 

"If you don't have the performance, the rest is dressing," Serkis said. "You can't enhance a bad performance with animation. You can't dial it up, lift the lip or the eyebrow. It has to be right at the core moment. It's the same as conventional shooting." For actors to not recognize "performance capture as acting is bad and disrespectful. It's also Luddite."

In the case of "Avatar," some complain that Cameron's characters are too one-dimensional to merit their actors a nomination, but others believe that "Avatar" star Saldana in particular, whose every minute on screen is in performance capture, was robbed of recognition.

"Zoe played Neytiri with such strength, grace and force. If the audience realized just how much, they would have appreciated the performance more," said "Avatar" co-star Weaver. "The technology is so innovative, and it will just continue to get more innovative -- we might as well recognize [the contributions of actors] now."

From a filmmakers' standpoint, filming in performance capture is unusually free and fast. On a typical day of a live-action production, a director might complete a dozen or so scenes in which the lights, cameras, scenery and actors are repositioned. Spielberg said that on "Tintin" he completed 75 set-ups a day on the motion-capture stage, and finished principal photography in 30 days. That's less than half the time it would have taken to shoot a live-action version of the film.

More than that, Spielberg said, the performance being captured is no less the work of his stars than any other film. “It will be Jamie Bell’s complete physical and emotional performance,” the filmmaker said of the actor in the title role. “If Tintin makes you feel something, it’s Jamie Bell’s soul you’re sensing."

Spielberg said the technology frees him up to focus more on the art.

"It allows the director and cast to focus on the performance," said Spielberg. "The director sits right on the floor [amid the actors]. Because he's not wearing a motion-capture suit, he appears invisible."

"One hundred percent of my focus is on the actors," Cameron said. "I'm not thinking about the lighting, the dolly, or waiting around ... to light the shot."

Though veterans speak enthusiastically about the performance-capture technique, questions remain. Many wonder whether Saldana will get the kind of career boost usually associated with co-starring in a box-office bonanza. The Screen Actors Guild recently appointed a committee to look into what SAG President Ken Howard described as "pay and recognition" issues associated with performance capture in both film and video games. In fact, studios haven't even formally recognized SAG's jurisdiction over the work, leaving it up to each employer to decide whether the performers receive standard union benefits such as minimum pay or meal breaks.

Moreover, the actors are not the only ones unsure about their primacy in the process. There's also a branch of animators who don't want their contributions overlooked. Cameron points out that it took a team of 20 or more animators at the Weta Workshop in New Zealand nine months to fully animate each "Avatar" character.

"The academy has to come to terms with where [performance capture] goes," said director Henry Selick, whose "Coraline" is nominated for best animated film. "Is it animation? Is it a new category? I'm like the academy. I don't know where it fits. I will tell you this, animators have to work very, very hard with the motion-capture data. After the performance is captured, it's not just plugged into the computer which spits out big blue people. It's a hybrid."

-- Rachel Abramowitz

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Photo credits: "Avatar" film scenes and on-the-set photos: Fox. Illustration of Neytiri of "Avatar" receiving an Oscar: Alex Gross / For The Times. James Cameron goes native: Kevin Lingenfelser

Still recovering from "Avatar"? Garrett Warren can relate. The stunt coordinator for the film is now a self-proclaimed expert in the tricky art of banshee riding, and he's also an in-demand man in Hollywood with credits on some of the biggest upcoming releases, including "Iron Man 2," "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Alice in Wonderland." Our Yvonne Villarreal caught up with the 21st century fall guy to get the lowdown on his rough-and-tumble trade.

YV: How did you get involved in "Avatar"? It’s a pretty huge deal, right?

GW: You have no idea. Where do I start? I remember I met Jim [Cameron] on “Beowulf” back in 2005, when he was starting this whole idea. After “Beowulf” was finished, I had a chance to pitch some ideas to him. I got a whole bunch of stunt guys together, and I rented a sound stage and a whole lot of equipment, and I pretty much just threw a whole bunch of ideas at him. Even though I hadn’t had a chance to read the whole script, I had a chance to find out some ideas of the movie.  I threw my best guess out there, let’s say, of some of the things that were going on. He’d look at it and say, “Yeah, this is good. This is good. This is no good. This is no good.” But in the end, he finally said, “This is good stuff. It’d be great to have you on board.” That’s how I got on the project.

YV: Talk about your experience working on the film.

GW: When you read the script, you’re dumbfounded. I thought it was incredible. I didn’t know exactly where to start. So I figured I’d start from Page 1 [laughs]. He left it up to me to try and design a new way to shoot zero-G weightlessness in outer space — which is how the movie starts. We wound up getting an apparatus which is called a spinning ring, and we wound up using it with different kinds of rigging techniques — sometimes flying it by wires, sometimes sticking it on the end of a metal arm like a yolk and a parallelogram — so that we were able to really create what would look like weightlessness in outer space. It's somewhat of a difficult process to go through to actually get on that Vomit Comet. We first ended up doing that zero-G plane that flies out of Burbank. Also, you only have a certain amount of time where you can film it, and you only have a certain amount of space. Jim didn’t want to be limited with his space because in the movie you see there are hundreds of people on this huge space shuttle, and you want to be able to have as realistic of a set as possible and have all these people floating weightless on your set so … it’s the first time it’s ever been done and performed this way. That’s why it was so groundbreaking. We had this ring that someone could move 360 degrees in all directions. We could fly them up, down and around — that’s what helped give us that feel of what weightlessness in outer space looks like.

YV: So was there a lot of collaboration between you and Jim?

GW: That was probably one of the best things about the movie. I’ve worked with an awful lot of directors.  I worked on  “Alice in Wonderland,” "A Christmas Carol,” “Beowulf” … they’re all very good. One thing is for certain, Jim has a definite idea in his mind, and a lot of times he’ll sit there and say, “I definitely want it to look like this. I want this kind of movement.” But he’ll also say, “Play around with it, and give me some of your ideas.” Anytime we did any action, it would start with his concept, then it would go to us rehearsing the concept and coming up with other ways of doing it — we had variations of the concept — then we’d go back to him, and he would decide what he liked and didn’t like.

 YV: Looking back, what was your favorite stunt sequence?

GW: That’s really difficult. There are so many that were really good sequences. I have to admit one of my favorite stunts was, at one point, our two heroes  Neytiri [Zoe Saldana] and Jake [Sam Worthington], jump off of this tree branch probably about 300 feet in the air. They plummet to the ground and they use these huge, oversized leaves to help slow their speed down so they don’t kill themselves when they hit the ground. Well, when they first came to me and said, “How are we going to do this?”  I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I said we could create — because we had limited height in what we called the volume (Jim set up this big, huge motion capture volume on this stage), our height was only 12 feet tall. So I had to make someone fall hundreds of feet in a 12-foot distance. So we used a technique called “stitching.” We would make someone fall a certain distance and then figure out what his last position was and start him at that position at the top of the fall again and keep on doing it X amount of times. ... We wound up, actually, in the end deciding that we needed more distance and wound up going  to another building that was 80 feet tall and creating what we called the “elevator shaft.” The “elevator shaft” was this huge, tall structure where we would put these oversized pieces of PVC tubing to represent the structures of the leaves so that when our stunt people would fall down and grab them, it would be the exact same thing as falling down and grabbing a leaf.  It was probably my most favorite part of the movie. There’s also the final fight scene in that movie that — to me — is not only epic but one of the better fight scenes that I’ve done in my lifetime.

YV: And what was it like to work with Cameron on his big follow-up to “Titanic”?

GW: There’s one part in my experience with Jim that was typical of what it was like to work with him. At one point, Jake needs to jump on the back of this creature and try to stab Quaritch  [portrayed by Stephen Lang]. We worked out how he was going to climb on the side of it and stab him, but Jim came over and was like, "No, you can’t stand there. There’s a big huge exhaust and you could burn yourself." And I kept going, “OK. I never knew that.” And he would be like, “Yeah, because I made it up. It has to have an exhaust somewhere, right? This is probably the most logical place an exhaust should go, right?” I’d say, “Yeah, I agree with you.” So he’d be like, “Well, we’ll put it here so you can’t stand here.” That was pretty much the way the whole movie went. It was flying on banshees. Flying on leaping objects. Riding what’s called a Thanator. All these creatures were in Jim’s mind.

YV: So he was good at expressing what was in his imagination?

GW: You pretty much have to try and fail. He gives you his ideas; he gives you some drawings and some animations and he says, “This is what it’s going to look like. I’m not really sure where we’ll find a place to put your foot, let’s say, when we’re doing the banshee. We’ll have to find a place.” He would talk to us about this clavicle that they would have which is right by where they would breathe. And we’re all looking at each other like “This is ridiculous.” I mean, this is a made-up creature, but in Jim’s mind it was absolutely real. He’d be like, “It breathes right here, it has four eyes, a clavicle right here." He knew the anatomy of these creatures. It was crazy and so fun. He knew what blood type the creature was. He knew them like the back of his hand. And now so do we. I’m now one of the foremost experts on flying a banshee. We would have brainstorming sessions that would consist of Jim and a Sharpie and a piece of paper. Sometimes he’d have a model or drawing.  Sometimes he’d sit there … we’d have a whole lot of equipment — stuff we actually invented and came up with while we were doing this movie — and he’d look at the stuff and say, "It’s sort of like that piece of equipment over there combined with that piece of equipment.” We’d go and grab it and try and secure it as safely as possible, and then I would get on it and he’d say, "Where do you find your balance at?" And then he’d get on. A lot of times, people would come over and say, "How long is this going to take?” and Jim would say, "It could take three minutes or it could take three hours." That was my favorite part. He was creating and inventing all of these new things. The equipment we came up with was never going to be used in this way again. I never would have imagined we could simulate this stuff with just some speed rails, pads and wood to create these flying machines. But we did. If there is one thing I could tell you, Jim is dangerous with tape. He can create a skyscraper, anything he wants with some duct tape.

YV: What’s it like for you now that people can finally see the vision realized on the screen?

GW: I can’t tell you how fun it is to watch everyone’s faces as they gasp or cringe in their seats or clap and stand up and cheer when all of a sudden Neytiri pulls out that arrow for the last time. You will not get a better feeling as a stunt coordinator as you do when you’re sitting in the audience and you see the people go through those emotions. It’s been a huge part of my life. It was like a family member.  It will always be a part of me. I worked on it for four years.  I would liken it to “Star Wars” — I think it has that impact, if not stronger in our day and age. It has such a great message. I’ve worked on so many movies — whether it be “A Christmas Carol” or “Iron Man 2” — this movie is unlike anything else out there. All of those movies are great movies. But this movie … does a lot more than take you through an entertaining experience; it somewhat alters your consciousness. It alters your being. It makes you want to go home and take care of the planet. I’ll never be able to fathom what it’s like to live on that planet [Pandora], but I came as close as possible. You can expect something you never ever could dream up in your whole life. Jim does such a good job of defining every little detail and letting you become involved that you feel  you’re a part of the experience.

VY: You mentioned you worked on “Alice in Wonderland.” Tell me a little bit about what audiences can expect?

GW: Oh, well that’s where I get in trouble. Wait until you guys see it. It will blow your mind away. It’s amazing. The trailers don’t do it justice. It’s that good. It’s one of my most favorite movies. You’ll see something that was only in your imagination come to life. Only your dream state and yet so tangible that you feel that maybe you did go through the experience.

YV: Can you talk about the technology used?

GW: We used some motion capture in “Alice in Wonderland,” but we wound up using a Moven [MVN] suit — that suit transfers information from the user to the computer via Bluetooth.  All the reflective dots that you see on people in, say, “Avatar” … those are by cameras all around the performer.  Well, this suit actually doesn’t have cameras. It actually has little gyroscopes on each joint and that, when it moves, transfers all that movement into the computer. It was completely different than what I was used to on “Avatar.” The other thing that Jim did in “Avatar” that I was incredibly impressed with was when we captured the facial expressions ... he created this little camera boom that will not only capture the facial expressions but was also very safe. ... We would be running through tree branches and vines and that lens: If that boom on your head got caught on any branches, it would put your neck out of place, and that would make an actor or actress have to take some time off. We didn’t know how we would do it. He came up with this breakaway boom. If it was to get caught, it would just snap off to the side of the performer. It wouldn’t snap his neck off. 

YV: And you worked on “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.” What can you reveal about that?

GW: Tintin was an amazing movie to work on as well.  Once again, I’m not allowed to say anything on that movie either. But I can tell you that it’s an incredible story. It’s not just a great experience, it’s an incredible story.  Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg — two incredible storytellers. And the acting is superb.

YV: On “Iron Man 2,” you’re Mickey Rourke’s stunt double?

GW: Again … I can’t say too much. I learned my lesson. You don’t get better acting than say Robert Downey Jr. and Mickey Rourke. You don’t. These guys work together so well. It’s such a fun and exciting movie. You can’t go away without feeling good.

YV: And there’s lots of whipping, right?

GW: Lots and lots of whipping.

YV: I think I know what your answer will be, but I’m going to ask it anyway: What can you tell me about “The Losers”?

GW: That has a special place in my heart, actually. Zoe Saldana was the one who got me on that movie. We were shooting "Avatar," at the time and she came to me saying there was a movie she wanted to be in called “The Losers.”  The people weren’t sure whether or not she could handle action. She felt so heartbroken because they weren’t able to see the stuff she was doing on “Avatar.”  It was all top secret. She was such an action machine, but nobody knew it yet. I suggested we take a weekend to put together a video to help get her the job. I helped shoot this promotional video for her to show that she could do action.  We had her shooting guns, wielding swords, knife work. … It was unbelievable. She was unreal. She got the part. And then she suggested they use me as their stunt coordinator.  I actually was on our re-shoots of “Avatar” when I got the call from Sylvain White, the director for “The Losers.” He wanted it to be not only like the comic book but somewhat more visceral. It’s an amazingly real yet superbly comical look at these black ops special agents. And I loved the dichotomy. He was thinking the “Bourne” films and “24,” and yet he wanted to have comedy involved.  We met. And he hired me. It’s all live action, 100%.  There is some amazing action in that movie. You will be blown away. People will think, “Wow, that had to be CG.” No. Nothing was CG. We did everything. For real. I dropped actors and actresses on wires. I threw people through doors and windows. And Zoe … she’s a wrecking machine. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to work on that movie.

YV: You seem to be the expert on blending motion capture with live action. 

GW: I enjoy blending the two. It’s such an open field and your imagination is your tool. The sky’s the limit. It’s like dropping a hundred feet onto leaves. How are you going to do that in a 12-foot building? It’s my job to come up with that solution, and I love that. It’s really easy for me to get a guy out there a hundred feet, put him on a wire and just drop him and hopefully it works out perfectly. Whereas, when you’re in a computer stage with height limitations, it takes a lot more work. It takes weeks of rehearsal and preparation. It’s very challenging. And I love it. I love being challenged. I love being able to bring out the emotion and reality of this unknown fantasy.

YV: So how difficult is it to capture the essence of movement and emotion in the motion capture world?

GW: Fortunately, for me, the computer does a really good job of capturing the body. When we first started off doing the movement in “Avatar,” Jim came to me and was like, “I want them to move like two-legged cat-like creatures that can jump like lemurs,” I was like, “Wow.” I did a whole audition process. It took me an awfully long time — this was even before we started filming. I went through people of Cirque de Soleil. I went through dancers.  I went through gymnasts. Through stunt professionals. I went through every person out there that might have some movement I wanted to see. I went through martial artists. I wanted to see any type of movement that was not only interesting but that could lend itself to this movie. In a live-action movie, we’d be able to get a person, paint them blue, and when they’d move, you’d say, “Oh, that’s cool.” When you’re on a motion-capture stage, you’re not confined by height or weight. The sky’s the limit. You can have a short person or a tall person performing the movements. A person of any ethnicity, any hair color — as long as there’s movement. That’s the great thing about motion capture, you can get the best movement for that scene instead of having to be confined by what will match the actor or the actress.

YV: Does it make a difference for you in how you coordinate everything?

GW: “Beowulf” was my induction into this world. It was somewhat difficult at first because it’s not like you can just have a guy out there who gets hit in the face. I had to account for the space around the person. Like, say, Jim Carrey when he’s playing the Ghost of Christmas Present and he’s this tall, huge monstrous creature versus this normal-sized person. We don’t just get out there and put a ball. We actually put him in that spot and figure out how we’ll make the performance match the scene. We try and put that actor into that height or that dimension, and that’s why it’s difficult. And fun. Jim Cameron, especially, would not allow that to happen. We have a lot of talented actors out there who can pretend they’re looking at a creature. Jim didn’t want that. He wanted to get that creature. To get the actor to really feel what it would be like in that circumstance. When you see an Avatar looking down at a normal human being, we actually had Zoe or Sam interacting with a child. We tried to mimic that situation. That’s what was so good about it. The reason why this movie is so good, every scene, every frame, every movement has that acting or that drama. Nothing was taken for granted. It’s a great film. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it.

-- Yvonne Villarreal

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Credits: Garrett Warren, at top, courtesy of Warren. "Avatar" images from Fox. "Alice in Wonderland" image by Walt Disney Co. Tintin image from Moulinsart.

If you're looking for Tintin in Los Angeles, the best place to go is Meltdown Comics & Collectibles -- and that's especially the case between now and Tuesday night.

The good folks at the landmark store on Sunset Boulevard are hosting Tintin in the Land of Meltdown, which is a product expo done in conjunction with importer Kiss That Frog. Here's the blurb: "A fantastic display of all things Tintin including charming character watches, limited edition cold cast porcelain and resin statues, and a dazzling array of lead miniatures and detailed vehicles that span the cast and events of all the albums ... Meltdown will host this surprise exposition within the store allowing fans and collectors the first opportunity to acquire any of these delights under one roof in the United States."

It's timely, that's for sure. All things Tintin are ramping up with an eye toward the Tintin films that are being made by the powerhouse tandem of Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg (the first arrives in late 2011). I myself am just starting my research into the classic character (I bought my first three Tintin books at Meltdown about two months ago), and I will be dropping by Meltdown on Tuesday for the final day of display.

-- Geoff Boucher

RELATED: REVIEW: 'Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin' by Pierre Assouline

Charles Solomon has a review of Pierre Assouline's new biography of Hergé in the Los Angeles Times today, here's an excerpt.

With his plus-four knickers, button nose and "squiff" hairdo, Tintin ranks as one of the most recognizable and best-loved characters in comics. However, his creator, Georges "Hergé" Remi (1907-83), remains "an elusive figure," as Pierre Assouline notes in this unsatisfying biography: "Most people expect his life to be as straightforward as the lines in his drawings. But it was full of complexity and contradiction, conflicts and paradoxes, of jagged peaks and crevasses."

The basic outline of Remi's career has been reported many times: Born into a stuffy, middle-class family in Brussels, he got his big break when Catholic priest and editor Norbert Wallez put him in charge of a children's supplement for the newspaper Le Vigntième Siècle ("The 20th Century") in 1928. He had adopted the nom de plume Hergé (the French pronunciation of his initials, reversed) four years earlier.

In 1929, Hergé introduced a comic strip about a boy reporter and his fox terrier, Tintin and Snowy, in the supplement Le Petit Vigntième ("The Little 20th") -- and scored an immediate success. The cartoonist presented Tintin's adventures in weekly installments, which he later reworked into books. Hergé's work has influenced a generation of cartoonists, as well as pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

The resourceful Tintin displays all the virtues traditionally ascribed to a Boy Scout, but as Assouline observes, Hergé was a mass of contradictions. A conservative Catholic and patriotic Belgian, he worked for the collaborationist newspaper Le Soir during the Nazi occupation when Le Vigntième was shut down. A generous friend, he nevertheless refused to share royalties or credit with his assistants. Hergé, who professed to value loyalty, left his first wife, Germaine, for the younger artist Fanny Vlamynck in 1956 -- although he didn't divorce Germaine and marry Fanny until 1977.

Assouline devotes more space to Hergé's work during the Occupation than do most popular studies. Many of the Le Soir writers were later tried and given prison sentences. Hergé wasn't prosecuted, although he was blacklisted. Assouline suggests that Hergé never grasped the moral failure of working for the collaborationist press.

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

-- Charles Solomon

Credit for Tintin and Snowy image: Moulinsart

The "Harry Potter" juggernaut is starting to wind down. As the franchise moves closer to its finish line, Hollywood executives are scrambling to find the Next Big Thing — a multiple movie property that appeals to youngsters, has an epic sweep and fantastic landscapes that suit modern CGI filmmaking. It also needs to lend itself to those all-important licensing deals. Rachel Abramowitz, who writes about the film industry for the Los Angeles Times (and authored the book "Is That a Gun in Your Pocket: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood"), has some intriguing insights into the quest to replace the boy wizard of the box office.

It was a seminar that top executives at Sony and Paramount couldn't afford to miss. Forty-six of them — including Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton, co-Chairman Amy Pascal, Paramount Film Group President John Lesher and marketing teams from around the globe — crowded around a table recently in one of Sony's conference rooms.

The reason: to hear a presentation on Tintin, the 80-year-old comic strip series by Belgian artist Hergé about a boy reporter and his loyal dog, Snowy. Sony and Paramount are jointly producing "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn," a 3-D film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. The $200-million production is set to be one of the big event movies of 2011 and the first in a planned trilogy.

Despite the pedigree of the filmmakers, "Tintin" presents a difficult challenge for both studios: The comic is widely popular abroad but is largely unknown in the U.S.

So during the meeting in Culver City, the studio executives were given a backgrounder by two representatives of the Hergé estate, who touched upon everything Tintin, including the comic strip's history and its cultural significance. At the same time, the executives debated how to prime the U.S. market for "Tintin" and discussed possible release dates.

Sony and Paramount aren't the only Hollywood movie studios that are studying childhood classics and plotting strategy. Others are working on "Yogi Bear," "The Smurfs," "The Lone Ranger" (with Johnny Depp as Tonto) and a live-action adaptation by director M. Night Shyamalan of Nickelodeon's animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

Big-screen versions of popular children's books are also being readied, including last century's classic "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien and current favorites such as "Goosebumps" by R.L. Stine and Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."

The studios want to be ready when a gaping hole opens in the family movie market: In 2011, "Harry Potter," the second-highest-grossing movie franchise in history, will end with its eighth installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II." ...

READ THE REST

— Geoff Boucher

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Johnny Depp photo from December 2007. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: I changed the Tintin book image because the previous image was one we used too often, as a reader pointed out.

Tatiana Siegel has an interesting piece in Variety about "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," a long-elusive labor of love for Steven Spielberg that is now underway. The director of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Jaws" is teaming with "Lord of the Rings" and "King Kong" auteur Peter Jackson, and the article gets into the secrecy around the project as well as the logistics of that staggering partnership. It's a lengthy piece and well worth reading. Here's an excerpt:   

Steven Spielberg this week will quietly wrap 32 days of performance-capture lensing on "Tintin," then hand the project to producer Peter Jackson, who will focus on the film's special effects for the next 18 months.

Although the baton-pass is stealthy, "Tintin" is anything but a low-profile project. And that's just the first of many contradictions inherent with the film, which brings together two of cinema's visionaries.

The Tintin comicbook series about a globetrotting teenaged boy reporter, which originated 80 years ago in Belgium, is wildly popular in many countries around the world. In the U.S., however, the character is little-known, especially among children.

Spielberg and Jackson's respective camps have tried to keep a lid on the details of what is expected to become a three-film franchise while hyping the one-of-a-kind aspects of "Tintin's" motion-capture technology, which is being created by Jackson's New Zealand-based effects house Weta.

Just don't ask too many questions. Spielberg's longtime spokesman Marvin Levy, who welcomed a story on "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn," said, "You have to see it to understand [the technology]. It really can't be described."

But he quickly nixed the idea of a visit to the set. "That wouldn't be feasible," he says.

The film's other producer, Kathleen Kennedy, is happy to talk about "Tintin," but admitted the world Spielberg and Jackson are creating is hard to describe.

"It's extremely difficult to explain to someone unless they are standing here next to me," Kennedy says from the Los Angeles set. "And usually then their reaction is, 'Oh my god.'"

--Geoff Boucher

RELATED: Is Tintin gay?