Freakin' Sweet! It's the FAMILY GUY thread!

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by spice9, Oct 10, 2007.

  1. Evan L

    Evan L Beatologist

    Location:
    Vermont
    It was a good character study of Brian and Stewie. A change from the usual.

    Evan
     
  2. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    I think they could have left out the poop-eating though.

    (Geez, I never thought I'd say anything like that...)
     
  3. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I was told that in order to save money they reuse (obviously) all of the computer backgrounds on Family Guy every week and they are not wide enough. Since the new show was created from scratch the stuff was wide from the start.

    That I can believe.
     
  4. Baba Oh Really

    Baba Oh Really Certified "Forum Favorite"

    Location:
    mid west, USA

    This show is not appropriate for children. It is an adult comedy.
     
  5. Evan L

    Evan L Beatologist

    Location:
    Vermont
    Yeah, that was more like John K territory......

    Evan
     
  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Naaa, because all the visual elements exist in layers, all they have to do is recall all the digital files and then just extend the backgrounds out. Given that the show has made a billion dollars, I can't believe it would cost more than $100K per episode to reshoot these sequences in 16x9.

    Bear in mind they already do 90% of the labor overseas, so this is all non-union hack work being done in Asia. All the really creative work is being done by the storyboard artists and writers in LA.

    To me, this kind of thing is sorely necessary because they need to future-proof the show so it doesn't look dated, old hat, and hokey ten years from now. I think there will be a time when children will be as turned off to 4x3 TV shows as they are by old B&W shows.

    Live action shows... that's a much bigger problem in turning those into 16x9, and that's a much bigger compromise.
     
  7. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Yeah if you watch FG a lot like I do late night on BBC3 you'll notice the quality of the animation has improved bit by bit over each season so not much recycling going on there.

    I saw some clips from the new season and it's evident they have moved up again.

    Here on BBC3 they just blow the image up to fill the widescreen. To be honest it doesnt really hurt it, it's not Lawrence of Arabia.

    However, sometimes someone at the Beeb is a little slow hitting the 'Auto fill' button and I sit there through the titles going "Cmon, look at the screen, you need to press the bu...ahh there you go!"
     
  8. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Oh, I hate, hate it when they s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the picture to fill the 16x9 frame. Then, all the actors look like they're about 35 pounds overweight. They do that on a ton of American channels, too, and it looks like crap. Bravo and A&E are particularly bad in that regard -- they even do it for a lot of commercials, which is unforgivable. Idiots.

    What they should do is what NBC News, ESPN, and a few other channels do: put an attractive border on the sides with the logo of the show in it. Or, add a blur effect that sort of duplicates the same color scheme in the 4x3 frame. Anything to avoid the black bars. That works OK for me.

    But fattenizing? Horrible.
     
  9. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Yeah I agree it's bad for regualr shows and films, almost as bad as when you used to get a film showing on UK TV and the start would be all cinemascope widescreen, all sharp and detailed, look superb but you had a twisting in your gut and then BANG...yep once the opening sequence finished it then switched to the regular blurry pan&scan version.

    However, it doesnt seem to affect FG much. I guess a lot of the characters are quite fat and round anyway.

    I dont like the blur/border effect. It just looks a bit desperate to me. I can handle footage shot in 4:3 if thats how it was shot in the first place. I can accept that.
     
  10. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    I just LOVE Brian the dog! :laugh:
     
  11. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    He's become unbelivably annoying and high-and-mighty. Quagmire laid into him in a recent episode and I nearly applauded.
     
  12. Oh yeah, that was classic, all the more so for being unexpected. Why can't the show be more consistently of that calibre?
     
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Uh... I think the character is intended to be this way. Brian the Dog is the very liberal, sort-of educated, rational point of view in the show, but a little too sure of himself. (Done in Seth McFarlane's real voice, BTW.) His interchanges with Stewie are priceless.

    I really liked the episode where Brian the Dog ran over a dog while driving his Prius back from a bar. Good god, that was bizarre -- and absolutely no explanation as to why Brian could talk and lived like a human, and why the dog was... just a dog. (Sort of the "Goofy" vs. "Pluto" problem in Disney cartoons.)
     
  14. nukevor

    nukevor Active Member

    Location:
    CA
    When I was working out today, one of the TV screens had Seth (the creator) on Larry King. Did anybody else catch this?
     
  15. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Oh dear I got to see the Seth & Alex Nearly Live Variety Special last night.

    Holy ***** Lois that was really really bad. Was that intentional? I could only watch 15 minutes before I had to switch it off, so embarrassingly bad.

    Mcfarlane works better in two dimensions.

    Microsoft did the right thing by dropping sponsorship for that at the last minute. Clever move.
     
  16. JonMcK

    JonMcK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Hmmm I watch BBC3 via SKY here in the UK and there's no stretching of FG here?
     
  17. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Well they do over Freeview. Maybe a different setup for BBC3 over Sky?

    My FG DVD's are all 4:3 but on TV they stretch em up.
     
  18. JonMcK

    JonMcK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Yep must be a Freeview thing. I'll check again this week to make sure my memory's reliable, but it's the kinda thing that drives me nuts so I would have remembered shouting at the stretcho-vision.
     
  19. Lazlo Nibble

    Lazlo Nibble Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, Colorado
    MacFarlane was on Ferguson on Friday and mentioned that they have twenty or so episodes in the can at the moment. If true — and I admit that number sounds implausibly high — it could be that production has already cut over to 16:9 but they haven't started airing those episodes yet.
     
  20. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    It's OK on BBC 3 on Virgin Cable, no stretching or squashing. Must be another Murdoch thing!
     
  21. JonMcK

    JonMcK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    Or not, it's ok on SKY and you say ok on Virgin Cable. So it's only Freeview that's showing it wrong and I don't think Murdoch's involved in Freeview!
     
  22. Evan L

    Evan L Beatologist

    Location:
    Vermont
    This show has some very unsettling endings, like the most recent episode with Quagmire's father undergoing a sex change operation, and Brian saying "Yeah, well I f**ked your dad". Or the OJ episode with Simpson protesting his innocence throughout the entire show and then suddenly killing people at the end. I realise this is probably done for shock value, but those kind of endings are unsettling to me.

    Evan
     
  23. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    I thought the two episodes from the start of the new (for us) season 8 were pretty good.

    Some great Stewie asides.

    "Pick up my poop!"
     
  24. BigManAndy

    BigManAndy Active Member

    The most recent one with Quagmire's dad and the whole sex change thing was kind of a weak episode. Definitely not one of the better ones. As mentioned above the line with Brian saying "I f**ked your dad" was the one point I actually busted out laughing during that episode.

    I still really think he's wearing himself out doing Family Guy, Cleveland Show and American Dad. He should have just stuck with Family Guy and put all his talent towards that one.

    I will say I loved the last weeks episode with Stewie and Brian locked in the vault though. :D
     
  25. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    I've heard on a few forums they'll go 16x9 at the beginning of next season.
     

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