When I saw that Mary Norton’s The Borrowers had been turned into an animation, The Secret World of Arietty, my knee-jerk reaction was a blurted out tweet (a twurt?):

Oh crap, The Borrowers have been Disney-d. Why can’t they make up their own damn stories?

Or is it anime-d? Probably both.

Then I promptly reread the first four books in the series straight through (for the first time in many years),  finishing last night with a satisfied sigh.

But I’ve had to give myself a talking-to about the adaptation. It turns out that there are numerous previous film adaptations, and a new BBC one coming out this Christmas. If I take a step back from the strong imprint the book made on me as a child, I can see that the things that made me love it also make it an irresistibly rich story for others to reinterpret. And while for me the drawings by Diana Stanley

are inextricably part of how I imagine and experience the story of Pod, Homily and Arietty, it seems Americans have an equally strong association and love of the illustrations done by Beth and Joe Krush.

So instead I’m going to welcome the new adaptations, and enjoy some new ways of seeing The Borrowers, and the new stories created from them.  I probably won’t like some of the sentimentality, or the idea of Mild-Eye being redrawn as an evil professor instead of gypsy, but that’s okay, I don’t have to. And maybe those aspects will speak to some who would otherwise never have the pleasure of knowing The Borrowers.

This is the trailer for the short animated film adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing which is now released and reeling in awards! It looks great, doesn’t it?  I also like the design of the official website, and Shaun’s account of the process.

Screen Hub reports that producer Sophie Byrne has also ‘optioned the rights to The Arrival and The Rabbits via Passion Pictures Australia, and Tales from Outer Suburbia is a co-development with the UK. They are currently in discussions with US production companies for The Arrival and Tales from Outer Suburbia to be adapted into feature films, whereas The Rabbits is likely to be made as a short here in Australia with Shaun directing.’

I also hear on the grapevine that Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is working on an adaptation of Tales from Outer Suburbia!

Previously:

• The Lost Thing to become a short film
• First glimpse of animation adaptation of Shaun Tan’sThe Lost Thing

Kooky’s Return (Kuky se vrací), a combined puppet and live action feature, has some lovely inventive puppets made by the team that produced the beautiful puzzle-solving game Machinarium.

A seven year old boy whose teddy bear Kooky has been thrown away wonders what his toy is up to in the big world out there, imagining Kooky as he tries to find his way back home. The film was written and directed by Czech Oskar winning director Jan Sverák and production design was created by Jakub Dvorský (Amanita Design). The release will be on May 20, 2010 in Czech cinemas.

There’s also a subtitled version of the trailer and a FaceBook fan page.

Suzie Templeton’s animated short of Peter and the Wolf has, among other things, the most gorgeous and engaging Indian Runner duck. My pet ducks are Runners, and I just love them. Be warned, though, Peter’s one doesn’t make it…

The other three parts follow at YouTube. The film won an Academy Award in 2008 for Best Animated Short Film and is based on the 1936 composition of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. I found a little bit info about the puppets at Pollystaffle.

(Via Espaço das Marionet@s)

Roald Dahl’s great story Fantastic Mr. Fox is being adapted for the big screen using stop-motion animation.  Some early glimpses of the puppets have been released, and the trailer will be out at the end of the month. (Update: here it is).  More details about the production at USA Today.  As usual I am anxious about how it will be interpreted!

InFrame.tv has produced a great 5 minute documentary with Shaun Tan which offers an introductory glimpse at the work-in-progress on his short animated adaptation of  The Lost Thing. It includes little (unfinished) animation clips, and aspects of designing and directing the work. On his website Shaun also writes about his involvement and includes some interesting new sketches and models. I noted the film in 2005, so it is exciting that it is expected to be finished this August!

The film, by Passion Pictures, will be 15 minutes long, and uses CGI with 2D handpainted elements. I’m interested in the comments about achieving rich textures, as they are so much part of the illustrations, and CGI is often so disappointingly smooth and shiny.

I’m happy to see a new book, too: Tales from Outer Suburbia.

I worked on the puppets for Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of The Lost Thing a few years ago, so you will find numerous related previous posts here:

The Lost Thing
Shaun Tan

Also: The Lost Thing website

For those of us with a love of pareidolia, a cool short film called The Lost Tribes of New York City by London Squared Productions.

(via Laughing Squid)

(photo via Spike Jonze Fan Blog)

The trailer of the long awaited Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are has just be released on Apple (interesting choice!).  The movie will be in theatres from 16 October 2009. It’s funny how recognizably Australian the forest and beach are in the opening sequence! I can’t tell yet if I’ll love this, but it is looking promising. For me it will probably depend on how much sentimentality has been allowed to creep in: I’m hoping for very little.

Previously:

Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are: Link Dump

Here are some first glimpses of the Wild Things from Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. They feature on a limited series of skateboards made by the company that Jonze co-founded, Girl Skateboards Company.  In a previous post there is a link to an article about the making of the creatures, and their filming on the Mornington Peninsular in Victoria.

(via Puppets in Melbourne, PuppetVision and /film)

(photo: Sidat de Silva)

Looking for a Monster is based on an original puppet play written by a thirteen year old boy, Hanus Hachenburg in the Terezin concentration camp in 1943, shortly before his transportation to the Auschwitz Death Camp. In 1999, puppeteer Gary Friedman discovered the play in a Jerusalem archive. It was performed for the first time in 2001 and has just been filmed in Sydney for inclusion in Gary’s documentary film about the life of Hanus Hachenburg. Gary has a slideshow of photos taken at the shoot in the sidebar of his blog, Puppetry News, and you can also see individual photos in this gallery.

Incidentally, Gary is running another Puppetry for TV course starting in June.