"Tales from Earthsea" Gets Theatrical Release

Disney recently announced that they will be releasing Goro Miyazaki's Tales from Earthsea (Gedo Senki) on August 13th, 2010. Goro Miyazaki directed this adaptation of Uruslea K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels in 2006, but was delayed due to a non-compete arrangement with the Sci-Fi channel.

As usual, the House of Mouse has put together a celebrity voice over cast, consisting of Timothy Dalton, Willem Dafoe, Cheech Marin, and Mariska Hargitay.

For the VO crowd, you'll notice a strong supporting cast. Particularly, Suzanne Blakeslee, Kathryn Cressida, Pat Fraley, Jess Harnell, Tara Platt, and Kevin Michael Richardson.

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of this particular title, but an "average" title from Studio Ghibli is usually better than "good" titles put out by most other studios. That says a lot to me, which is why I've managed to watch this title more than once. Additionally, this is Goro's debut film as a director, and if this is any indication I look forward to his future efforts with anticipation.

Hat tip to the folks at Cartoon Brew for the news.

Disney Featurette from "The Princess and the Frog" - Conjuring the Villan

First off, I shamelessly stole this from Bob Souer's blog. This is worth spreading, but I wanted to make sure that credit is given where it is due.

This is the second featurette from Disney's upcoming animation, "The Princess and the Frog" (I'll admit that I have been eagerly anticipating this production since I first heard of it from a friend working on the production... that the team working on this is so fiercely loyal to Walt's original ideas of animation is very heartening to me).

Here's the thing that I want any readers of this blog to note. If you take a ride in the "Way, Wayback Machine", I spoke about how Keith David used a form of SWOT analysis in how he performed. Pay attention to the clips of his character. Mr. David doesn't do anything that we don't already know him for doing... he just lets those parts of his personality which fit the character come out more so than normal. The result is a very believable and enjoyable Villan.

Regardless of the copy in front of you, you have to have some part of YOU that's performing the read. If you don't, then it just doesn't work. This is a pretty fascinating topic to me, and one which I'll visit again in the future.

Hat tip to the Voiceover Boblog and Justin Barrett for the find.

PS: when I first saw the clip a day or two ago, I was asked to identify the microphone used (some things never change, lol). Based on the clip, it looks like a Brauner to me. Which one is a bit unknown at this time, but based on the shockmount and popfilter, I'd venture to say that it's a VM1 or VM1-KHE if I had to put money down on it.

R.I.P. Wayne Allwine

For those who hadn't heard, Wayne Allwine - the voice of Mickey Mouse passed away yesterday.

Wayne started doing the voice of Mickey back in 1977, taking over the role from Jimmy MacDonald, becoming the third person to supply the voice (after Walt Disney, and later MacDonald). As of 2009 Wayne had been the voice actor for the character longer than anyone else, and was officially inducted into the Disney Legends Program in 2008.



Thanks to the folks at Disney Blog for a very moving and informative tribute to Mr. Allwine.