Rapunzel in Legos

For Lego enthusiasts, please note the concentric rings used in this construction (wow!). Seriously awesome brick building and tale telling all in one go.

From The Brothers Brick:

Jordan Schwartz (Sir Nadroj) built a very bright interpretation of Rapunzel’s tower. The technique of stacking concentric rings to create a conical tower is very clever, and the effect is one of a kind. The creation looks deceptively smaller than its actual size, which is actually 3 feet tall.

The top level of the tower is modeled after the Peles Castle in Romania while the round part of the tower was based on a Lego design by Deborah Higden (you can see the Rapunzel tower designer's initial questions about the ring construction in the comments).

This 'MOC' (standing for 'My Own [Lego ] Creation') also got a write-up in Issue 10 of the official BrickJournal magazine, meaning the creator (and the fairy tale creation) were both recognized for the feat of 'brick engineering' it is.

You can see more detailed images HERE and see more creations by 17 year old 'Brick Master' Jordan Schwartz (pictured above) HERE.

Fairy Tale Art by Pat Brennan

Goldilocks and the Bears

For your viewing pleasure I'm posting just a few of the fairy tale themed work by digital artist/illustrator Pat Brennan (on deviantArt as moonmomma). The Goldilocks one at the head of the post remains one of my favorites, since seeing it a few years ago.

The Piper

Cinders in the Limelight

The Princess and the Pea

Yuki Onna

Undine

She has a LOT of gorgeous work in her deviantArt gallery, mostly fantasy based (lots of fairies and mermaids) so be sure to visit, take a look and leave a nice comment (and maybe hint how great it would be to see even more fairy tale pieces.. hint, hint). You can also visit her website HERE and her Flickr account HERE.

The talent must run in the family. Her daughter, Rebecca Parker, is just breaking into the book cover illustration biz too.

I'd love to see Pat work on a specific fairy tale project for a book herself though. She has such a lovely touch. While she does do commissions I gather she's very busy, so if you want to work with her be persistent in trying to contact her and let me know if you work together.

Zachary Levi Quotes "The Little Mermaid"

This one is for Disney fairy tale fans.

Zachary Levi (who is the voice of Flynn in Disney's upcoming fairy tale film Tangled) talks about what to expect on the 3rd Season of ABC's Chuck and ends up quoting The Little Mermaid...

(Note: email subscribers, you will need to go to the website to see the video)

Cinderella Gets A Live-Action 'Reboot' (& More)

The writer of The Devil Wears Prada recently had her live-action Cinderella pitch bought by Disney.

From The Wrap:

Using the working title "Cinderella," the film is expected to deviate from the original fairy tale, although it's unclear how, or whether the new version will be released in 3D like the studio's reimagining of "Alice in Wonderland," which has grossed more than a billion dollars since it was released in March.

(You can read the whole article HERE.)

Amanda Seyfried-Raymond (of Mama Mia, who is currently at work with Twilight director on another fairy tale, The Girl with the Red Riding Hood) is rumored to be the star. (see article HERE and IMDB's article HERE).

You'll also see rumors in the articles linked to above regarding Angeline Jolie's rumored attachment to play the lead in Disney's other live-action fairy tale revisit, Maleficent - a live-action Sleeping Beauty.

But that's not all. Snow White is looking at a live-action revisit with the seven dwarves being cast as robbers once again, plus a dragon (not by Disney but a company called Relativity Media). The Wizard of Oz is looking at a revisit too by both Warner Brothers and Disney once again.

[Sidenote: if you enjoy speculating on actresses playing other Disney princesses and why they may - or may not - fit, have a look at this faux casting couch HERE.]

And yes - this is all due to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, so you can thank (or blame) him. ;)

Hansel & Gretel Meet Avatar and Transformers?

The degrees of separation between Grimm's Hansel & Gretel and the hit movie Avatar has just gone from 'lots' to '0'. Announced at the end of last month, Avatar lead character designer Joseph C. Pepe will be on the team, specifically designing the witch and additional creatures from German mythology that are being added to the plot and landscape of the film.

From VFXPlanet:

In addition to the infamous witch in the gingerbread house, the film showcases the legendary creatures of German mythology. These Teutonic beings will be designed by Joseph C. Pepe, the lead character designer from Avatar. The film is live action.

Not only that, the Director is Transformers own Michael Bay (also of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon). We are being told to expect: "a 3D action packed visual FX experience."

Hansel and Gretel is currently scheduled for a shoot on location in Germany for spring next year, and to be released at the end of 2011. (source: Dominion)

While some people seem a little dubious about all this, and about all the fairy tale films expected to pop up in the wake of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, I think it has a lot of potential. We'll just have to wait and see...

Note: Click on images to be taken to the sources.

Re Disney's "Tangled": Stop Worrying. It's Good.

Since Tangled was already on my radar today I was reminded of some old news (from the end of May) about how the movie is turning out.

From a Disney forum, the post was titled: "I just saw Tangled! Stop worrying. It's good."
Here are a few little excerpts from the post and replies (there are pages of them):

Even in this rough form, it is a VERY entertaining movie, and the audience was laughing their butts off at the gags (even the ones still on storyboard) and was very engrossed in the exciting stuff...

There are some GORGEOUS set-pieces in the works. We had to use our imaginations, but we could tell where they were going. They're gonna be stunning, especially this one thing near the end that I refuse to spoil for you.

Those who were disappointed in the musical numbers in The Princess and the Frog ... Get ready, cause they're about to make it up to you. WONDERFUL songs. At least two of them are Oscar worthy IMHO. One in particular, which involves a tavern full of assorted dangerous scoundrel-types singing about their secret dreams in life, has the potential to be a personal favorite of mine, not to mention a stone-cold classic. It is hee-larious!... it is a crowd-pleaser, fun for all ages and all sexes (yes, boys too, so FORCE them to go see it), lots of laughs, wonderful music, and potentially fabulous art direction. I absolutely can't wait to see the finished product.

Especially where in the heck they're going to put all that dang hair in each scene.

>>A dear friend told me that humor isn't à la Shrek or à la Princess and the Frog (for Princess, humor was too slapstick and there is too toilet humor) and in Tangled humor is intelligent... Do you agree?<<

Not exactly. There's a LOT of slapstick. Rapunzel herself swings a mean frying pan.You can't generalize about the humor too much - there's a variety here. Nothing particularly scatological that I can recall. But there is a lot of slapstick. Very funny slapstick. I enjoyed it, and I'm not much of a Three Stooges or Tom and Jerry fan.

I failed to mention that R has a pet chameleon (non-talking). He's the source of a lot of the gentler humor, and is one of the least obnoxious Disney sidekicks ever (the non-talking thing has a lot to do with that IMHO). There's also this horse that I think is going to be a big hit.

There's a little bit of pop culturism related to the ruffians in the tavern - nothing too distracting IMHO. Certainly nothing Shrekkish. They play the fairy tale vibe pretty straight, although the plot bears only superficial resemblance to the original Rapunzel story.Romantic? Yes, but I don't recall the mushy stuff getting as much screen time as in the Menkin-Ashman flicks. This movie is heavier on the action.

>>would you say the overall storyline follows the fractured fairy tale idea, or is it more like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which takes existing characters and creates a new (albeit entirely appropriate for the characters and situations) story around them, much like a sequel might?<<

I'd say it's a whole new story that uses elements from the Rapunzel fairy tale as a jumping off point. It's a straight fairytale-style adventure - not a satire.

You can read the whole discussion board HERE.

Disney Feature Animation is obviously a lot further a long in production right now and remains on target for the Thanksgiving release (note the 'date' on new teaser poster in the previous post) so fingers crossed.

New "Tangled" Teaser Poster from Disney + Some Development Art

Lots of hair...

(click image for a larger view):

The vibe is 'mischievous'. Think it will grab the boys attention? Personally I'd like to see more of the fencing horse, as in, a horse with a sword (artwork below).

Here's a reminder of the synopsis:And below is some uncredited development art that's been released (though much of it it looks like Glen Keane's work). I'm just posting a small selection. You can see a whole lot more HERE. I see a "lather, rinse, repeat" regarding some of the motifs (most of which I did not include here) - I'll leave you to discover what I mean by that - but I'm guessing it's supposed to be a tribute to the classics.Looking forward to seeing what they do with the chameleon. I hope he still doesn't talk by the time it gets to the big screen.This one below is lovely, although again a 'tribute' sort of piece to the classics and yes, there's a book for the beginning too - at least in the development art. That makes me happy. :) The mosaic is gorgeous.Again, you can see a whole lot more behind-the-scenes art HERE.

In case you missed it on the SurLaLune Blog, here's a behind-the-scenes featurette recently released by Disney on creating Tangled.


Sources for poster HERE and development artwork HERE.

Book Trailer for "White Cat" by Holly Black

Holly Black is well known for her fairy tale based writing and has been called one of this generations greatest writers. We're eagerly awaiting her new release "White Cat", based on the fairy tale "The White Cat" (you can catch up on the tale HERE), which is due out on May 4, 2010.

Author Holly Black

Here's the synopsis from Holly's website:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

There's an excerpt available to read HERE while we're waiting and also a new book trailer to introduce the story and the series, called "Curse Workers".


You can find out more about Holly at her website HERE and her blog HERE.

Le Cabaret Grimm

Starting today (April 8th) is a new mixed-discipline theatrical show is opening by The Performance Lab in Boston, called "Le Cabaret Grimm-a punk cabaret fairy tale (sans fairies)".

The show is unashamedly experimental with masks, puppets, circus acts, music and more thrown into the mix as they interpret some tales by the Brothers Grimm through a variety of Arts and styles, including steampunk, cabaret and burlesque. Music ranges from from R&B, to Tom Waits to Ska to the Dresden Dolls.

An article from wubr.org (which also has an interview you can listen to) explains the Director's thoughts behind melding the art forms on stage:

“There’s circus arts, and there’s burlesque and cabaret and all kinds of really fun alternative things going on in the city but people don’t really know about it — it’s all in segmented places,” Slavick explains. “And I want the Performance LAB to be a bridge between the mainstream arts community and the mainstream audience, and the fringe, experimental community in Boston. ”

Here's the blurb from the official website:

From somewhere between Paris, Berlin and the bowels of the Bowery comes Le Cabaret Grimm, a punk cabaret tale of loss, longing, and desire - with a healthy dose of irony. We've got sexy girls and boys, conjoined twins, demons, and talking chickens. We'll take you on a journey drawn from the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, with music, mask, dance, and spectacle, led by the great chanteuse Veronique du Blahblahblah.

Each night we are joined by special guest performers. We bring you music, burlesque, circus, drag and more, hosted by the extraordinary Johnny Blazes.

Welcome to Le Cabaret Grimm!

I can't find any information on the use of the fairy tales or even which ones are being used except for this quote which reads: "We’re using these fun, contemporary styles to draw in the audience” says Slavick, “but we’re combining them with classic tales that have a universal quality and resonate deeply.” (source: StageSource) I'm very curious as to which tales are incorporated and the few photos available don't give many clues but it's interesting to think of any fairy tales being presented this way. I wish the 'LAB' every success.

If you're interested and can get to Boston in time, the show runs through April 24th, 2010.

Lissy Elle's Imagination

Photographer, Lissy Elle, has done some really nice work in capturing the whimsy of childhood imagination and other fantasies in her "Let's Play Pretend" photo set. While she does explore dark themes too, it's the imaginary play ones that are memorable for me. Here are my favorites.
There are many more on Trendhunter, where she's currently being profiled for her fairy tale-like work.
She also has a Flickr account HERE, with even more dreamlike images.Takes me back... :)

Note: Not all her pictures are sweet daydreams. She explores darker themes too.