John K's pitch at Dreamworks

This is why I've never liked DreamWorks movies. They all are just bland and shallow. They're created to make as much money as possible.
 
Maybe John K should have come back with the very same ideas he had before the meeting, but presenting them the way the executives wanted. So, say for the first drawing shown in the blog entry, he could say "I thought about the forest "arena". In forests, there are bears, and fairy tales usually take place on a forest, so I though about Red Riding Hood. I felt wacky so I gave her a third leg." ... For the second drawing in the blog: "Another "arena" I thought of is the city. Dogs are funny creatures that live in a city. Superheroes stories are often set in cities, so I made a superhero dog"...
Has nothing to do with a desert or Casablanca but, after all, the executives said "Well of course John's the character guy. We don't wanna dictate to you what kind of character or which actor to use- you bring us your ideas!" ... "don't let us influence you! We want to hear YOUR ideas!" So there's no problem ignoring the whole desert/Casablanca thing.
 
Wait, John K was willing to do a CGI film? I thought he was all about traditional 2D! I never would have expected him to do that.
In any case, Dreamworks Animation seems to come off as unreasonable and ridiculous when it comes to pitching movie ideas. Good thing I'm not planning to sign up there anytimes soon.
 
I don't think those character designs are appropriate for a Dreamworks film.

None of them are raising their eyebrow.
 
I think I'm gonna need some official confirmation before I buy into this. We're talking about the man who had people convinced he got fired for being "too inventive", instead of missing deadlines.

And, yes, several Dreamworks films, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and the Aardam co-productions were all terrific, and the rest of Dreamworks output was fair-to-mediocre. Nothing they ever produced was that bad; their worst film, Shark Tale, still beats the holy hell out of real "animation-by-comitee" work, like most of Filmation and Hanna-Barberas' post-theatrical stuff. If you think Dreamworks movies are the worst animated productions, than you have'nt seen nearly enough cartoons. :p
 
Shark Tale had some great colors and fluid animation in it, the designs and terrible storyline/writing was what made it suck ass. Over the Hedge was a great DreamWorks film. Let's not jump on this story so soon, John K. has been known to stretch the truth.
 
Well theres that and the fact that most of John K's characters don't have picture real fur since thats important to Dreamworks's CARTOON characters! But yea, to Dreamworks ya gotta have an eyebrow up, even if you're a scaled fish.
The process that DW uses explains why their only movie with characters that somwhat stood out from one another were Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, most of their others you need characters that fit in a given "arena", because cartoons have to make sense right? You can't have cats in a pizza resturant or a mouse in a mobile home.
 
I don't think that was why it was well done. None of the comic creators had anything to do with the film. It was very well animated and had a great story is what made it entertaining.
 
Also, for the record, modeling characters after their voice actors is a practice that's been going on since... at least Alice in Wonderland. And one that, I think, is often succesful.
 
:confused: Arena's? Camel and Casablanca :confused: that's a shame really, because Super Pig looked awesome. If Dreamworks actually gave John K. the power for whatever instead of bogging him down with their ideas, Dreamworks would likely beat Pixar
 
I doubt it's entirely true but there has to be some kind of accuracy in his statements for him to say so in the first place. If he's ENTIRELY making this up, then Dreamworks could sue John's ass off for extreme defamation of the company, and I doubt John is THAT stupid to take such a risk.

I'm pretty sure he's stretching things a bit, but I think it's safe to assume Dreamworks has rather... "unconventional" methods of making films.

And I agree Over The Hedge is pretty entertaining. Nice plot and fun characters. My only problem with that movie is the same problem I have with the Shrek movies, it's extremely boring to LOOK at due to the bad, washed-out color palette. Too much green and brown.
 
For what it's worth, he was pushed to make The Adult Party Cartoon grosser and more over-the-top.

You can find his unfinished pilot for He-Hog (one of the ideas he wanted to make a film of) online and it's pretty funny IMO. Certainly way better than his other post-R&S stuff.
 
I never got that complaint, actually. I thought Shrek and Over the Hedge had magnificent colors; the greens and browns really added to the whole "forest" atmosphere for both films, and... I just thought it really looked good. Of course, this is like the definition of opinion here, so I'm not trying to argue, just wanted to throw that out there :sweat:.
 
You know, its funny that you say dreamworks makes movies based on an arena, and yet How To Train Your Dragon was based on a book and the creators seemed to have more control.

But yeah, John K deserves a better studio than DreamWorks. How about Ilumination Entertainment or Focus Features?
 
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