Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION [2004] [DVD] [UK Release] Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. Proudly Presents A Collection of Award-Winning Animated Films and Soundtracks!
Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. says that the ideas that turned me on as a kid are the same ones that fascinated me today. I don’t know that we ever outgrow our passion for adventure, humour or romance. There’s a childlike quality to the art of animation, and, married with a bit of music, it seemed the perfect way to bring these magical stories to life. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making the. Signed Paul McCartney
FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: Great news is that Geoff Dunbar won the 1968 British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Short Animated Film for “Rupert And The Frog Song.”
FILM FACT No.2: Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E.had been planning his Rupert movie since at least the early 1970’s, when his company, McCartney Productions Ltd., acquired the rights to the film the day after the Beatles’ break-up. At one point, the song “Little Lamb Dragonfly,” which was recorded in 1971 and released on the 1973 album “Red Rose Speedway,” was intended for the film.
Geoff Dunbar said: “Paul is amazing – not many people realize his genius also applies to his animation projects.”
Dustin Hoffman said: “When Paul asked me to narrate “Tuesday,” I was delighted, as it was one of my favourite illustrated storybooks as well.”
Director: Geoff Dunbar
Producers: Jacqui Davies, Judith Roberts and Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E.
Composer and Voices: Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E.
Image Resolution: 1080i
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1:1
Audio: English: 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English
Running Time: 45 minutes
Region: PAL
Number of discs: 1
Studio: MIRAMAX Home Entertainment / MPL Communications Ltd / Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Andrew’s DVD Review: With this amazing Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION [2004] Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. proudly presents a collection of award-winning animated films and soundtracks. Three of the animated cartoons that bear the Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. stamp of approval – not to mention exclusive new music – appear in an exclusive compilation for the first time. Features “Rupert And The Frog Song,” “Tropic Island Hum” and “Tuesday” plus a vast array of supplemental features.
Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. says, "The ideas that turned me on as a kid are the same ones that fascinated me today. I don't know that we ever outgrow our passion for adventure, humour or romance. There's a childlike quality to the art of animation, and, married with a bit of music, it seemed the perfect way to bring these magical stories to life. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them."
It would appear as though Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. has always had a thing for animation, given that one of the cartoons in this collection dates back to 1984. According to the DVD disc’s liner notes, and of course Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. had a total fascination with animation that started in his childhood. It was only after watching cartoonist Geoff Dunbar’s film ‘Ubu’ that Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. came up with the idea of collaborating with the filmmaker and really pushing the boat out of some of the cartoon shorts.
It seems Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. to his credit; I feel he seems to care about the quality and was willing to spend the money to get it. The animation is hand-drawn, with computers used only for colouring. Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. also took an active role in making the animated cartoons, composing all of the music, providing most of the voices and even helping out with some of the live action modelling.
Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION present classic music and amazing animation featuring former Beatles bassist Paul McCartney. The knighted musician Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. has produced hit pop songs for decades, and THE MUSIC AND ANIMATION COLLECTION provides a showcase for the best of his work, as he sets his music to three vintage children’s tales: “Tropic Island Hum,” “Tuesday,” and “Rupert and the Frog Song.” This program features the hit song “We All Stand Together.”
So folks, now I have given you some idea of what you would get to view on this amazing Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION DVD collection, so now here is what you would view, so I hope what I am about reveal to you, will make you even keener to go out and purchase this amazing DVD.
By the way, MIRAMAX Films brilliant idea to collect ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s various animated projects together under one roof is a great one, but some people think this DVD ultimately falls short in a couple of areas. However, the three films included in this amazing collection really does warrant a much wider general release and to be seen by the kind of family audiences that used to flock to the latest Walt Disney films. So let’s take a look at them, in year of production:
Rupert And The Frog Song [1984] [1080i] [1.85:1] [41:02] The animation opens with young Rupert eager to go play with his friends, Bill Badger and Edward. When he finds they have to baby-sit Bill Badger’s little brother, Rupert heads off to the trees on his own, finding adventure himself when he follows some frogs into a forbidden cave, where their special ceremony crowning the new king and queen is about to take place. Also tracking the frogs is an evil owl and his two sneaky cats, out to ruin the celebrations. The frogs launch into the main theme, “We All Stand Together,” a wonderful piece of animation worthy of Walt Disney, before the owl makes his move. Luckily, Rupert manages to warn the frogs in time and they all quickly retreat, leaving the owl and the cats empty-handed and the palace completely empty. After hearing his mother call him, Rupert excitedly rushes home to tell his family about what he saw.
Cast: Rupert's Father / Father Frog (Windsor Davies voice), Rupert / Edward / Bill / Boy Frog (Paul McCartney voice) and Rupert's Mother (June Whitfield voice)
Director: Geoff Dunbar
Producers: Geoff Dunbar, Linda McCartney, and Paul McCartney
Screenplay: Geoff Dunbar, Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney and Mary Tourtel (characters)
Composer: Paul McCartney
Music Department: George Martin (music arranger)
* * * * *
Tropic Island Hum [1997] [1080i] [1.85:1] [14:45] The animation tells the story of Wirral the Squirrel, who was almost killed by soldiers. Froggo helped him and took him to another place he would go. He couldn't go back there again! But then, he finds a tropical island. Bison is the chief of that island, and Wirral's new love crush is Wilhelmina. Then, all three of them (except Wilhelmina) get cleaned up and that night, they perform the theme song to the island. Bison sings the first part of the song. A parrot gets banged on the bass drum and is dizzy. Later, an alligator sings. Right after that, Wirral blushes at his new love crush Wilhelmina. Then a bad thing appears, the mask-animals try to ruin the party, but then, a school appears, and at the end Wirral and Wilhelmina kiss. In the meantime this stands on its own as a delightfully fun little story.
Vocals: Paul McCartney and Marian Montgomery
Voices: Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney
Director: Geoff Dunbar
Producers: Geoff Dunbar, Linda McCartney, and Paul McCartney
Composer: Paul McCartney
Music Department: George Martin (music arranger)
* * * * *
Tuesday [2000] [1080i] [1.85:1] [27:08] This features more frogs and returns to another literary source, this time an American book by David Wiesner. Not having flipped the pages of the book, I can’t say whether the short is a faithful representation of it, though the designs and artwork certainly look as if they pay tribute to the original illustrations. “Tuesday” tells of a magical time, around 8:00pm, when the frogs of a seemingly enchanted swamp begin to rise with their lily pads and float about, heading toward a nearby town to surprise the other animals and play neat little tricks on the humans there. It’s a little like the “flying whales” sequence in Fantasia/2000, but played much more for laughs and magical-ness rather than the awesome majesty in that Walt Disney film. Will and Frogo are welcomed with a huge celebration song and dance. “Tuesday” is dedicated to the memory of Paul’s late wife Linda.
Cast: Windsor Davies (voice), Dustin Hoffman (voice), Linda McCartney (voice), Paul McCartney (voice) and June Whitfield (voice)
Director: Geoff Dunbar
Producers: Amanda Massa, Geoff Dunbar, Judith Roberts, Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. and Robert Stanger
Screenplay: David Wiesner
Composer: Paul McCartney
Music Department: Richard Bissill (musician: French horn)
* * * * *
DVD Image Quality – MIRAMAX Home Entertainment, MPL Communications Ltd and Buena Vista Home Entertainment presents us with the amazing Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION with a wonderful 1080i image transfer and on top of all that it is presented with an anamorphic enhanced with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio that accompanies each cartoon are surprisingly clear and crisp and especially considering “Rupert and the Frog Song” is now well over 20 years old.
DVD Audio Quality – MIRAMAX Home Entertainment, MPL Communications Ltd and Buena Vista Home Entertainment brings us the amazing Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION with an amazing and rich 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio experience which is very effective. The songs, in particular, utilize the surround sound channels so effectively and allowing the viewer to feel as though you are right there in the middle of everything and it is truly amazing,
* * * * *
DVD Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: Paul McCartney talks about the Animation Collection [2008] [480i] [1.37:1] [6:58] With this featurette, here we get to view Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. talking about the story behind the making of “Rupert And The Frog Song” and goes into great detail how it all evolved and especially getting involved with the director Geoff Dunbar and Paul informs us that he regularly read “The Rupert Annuals” and are books containing stories of Rupert and his friends that he loved reading when he was a young child growing up in Liverpool. “The Rupert Annuals” books have appeared non-stop since 1936 and every year a new annual is being published. In “The Rupert Annuals” books there were some wonderful illustrated drawings of Rupert and his friends, but also illustrations of a frog as conductors for the singing frogs and illustrations of frogs playing instruments and that gave Paul the enthusiasm to make the musical animation and did some drawings and that set the wheels in motion to make the animation “Rupert And The Frog Song.” Now Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. talks about how the animation “Tropic Island Hum” and especially using traditional cartoon drawing methods, but was then transferred to digital process methods of making the animation, but it was extremely expensive way nowadays of making those original traditional cartoons, but with the modern computer technology, it makes the job of producing an animated cartoon so much easier, but Paul still wanted “Tropic Island Hum” to look like it had been hand drawn and painted, and to make it look very artistic, and feels very proud of the professional job done for “Tropic Island Hum” animation. Now Paul talks about the subject of the frogs and their adventure in the animated cartoon “Tuesday,” and Paul says he was given the amazing illustrated book “TUESDAY” which as written and illustrated by David Wiesner and is a 1991 wordless picture book published by Clarion Books on his birthday as a young boy and says it was a beautiful illustrated book which we see Paul holding his copy, and says it is a silly little story about a lot of frogs that on one Tuesday evening all go lifting off their lily pads from their pond and magically go flying into the town and all are having fun, while people are mainly sleeping and Paul thought it was such a silly idea and very surreal and started to talking to the author David Wiesner and asking him if they could make an animated cartoon out of the marvellous and glorious illustrated drawings, and initially David Wiesner turned Paul’s idea down, and Paul says, “Why frogs, maybe we love frogs,” but with the help of director Geoff Dunbar, they were given the go ahead to make the animated cartoon “Tuesday,” and feels the animated cartoon is great fun and of course Paul loves the cartoon, especially because it involves frogs. Paul now talks about how he loves animation and all started when he was a young boy growing up in Liverpool and with the cartoons he loved as a child, it all revolves around humour, romance, passion and all the things you like as a young child, and also because of his passion for animation, and never grew out of not loving cartoons anymore, and also with the combination of the music, makes cartoons totally magical, and most of all, loved doing the different voices for the different cartoon characters. Paul now talks about plans for the future, to make a feature length cartoon based on the animation “Tropic Island Hum,” but is not specific on the information, but says it is not an easy thing to put together, but doing the three short cartoons, and feels we learnt a great deal and at the time of the interview say that they are going to use the characters in the cartoon “Tropic Island Hum,” and Paul days he has great hopes for the project, and then says, “We’ll see.” At that point the featurette ends.
Special Feature: The Making of “Tropic Island Hum” [1998] [480i] [1.37:1] [12:03] With this featurette, we are in a building in Bloomsbury Street in London, where they are working on the animated cartoon “Tropic Island Hum” and the image is all in black-and-white, and also we see where they are drawing the characters and also editing part of the film they have just shot. Then suddenly the featurette turns into colour and we get a short clip from “Tropic Island Hum” and we meet the director Geoff Dunbar. Then we see Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. in a meeting discussing the hand drawn coloured cartoon characters which Paul thinks they are really beautiful, and then we get to see the cartoon artists at hard at work and finishing off some of the cells ready to be captured with the camera and then we get to see more clips from “Tropic Island Hum.” At that point the featurette ends.
Special Feature: The Making of “Tuesday” [2003] [480i] [1.37:1] [11:58] With this featurette, we are at High Eagle Productions building in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and it is on a Tuesday at 9:20am, where we see Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. enter the building and says to the camera, “Hello” and we now enter the hub of the building where the artists are doing line drawings for the cells for the cartoon “Tuesday” and of course eventually all the hand drawn cells eventually get finished ready for the camera. Noe Paul shows us his own personal copy of the wonderful illustrated book “TUESDAY” by the author David Wiesner and Paul gets to show us a lot of the amazing wonderful colourful illustrations that were actually drawn by David Wiesner and especially of all the wonderful frogs on their lily pads and of course we get to view some clips from the cartoon “Tuesday,” which again Paul has loved the story of the frogs on their magical adventure flying on their lily pads, and when we see more images from the illustrated book, and the drawings actually look like a storyboard illustration, and we see Paul discussing the actual storyboards. For some of the scenes in the animated film, live action tests were shot to capture real world movements, behaviour and expressions of real live frogs. These are used as a visual aid for the animators, so their drawings can be as accurate as possible. For other characters the Animators refer back to the illustrated book, and to specially produce models before starting on the initial drawings. We also get to see Paul looking at the handmade models of the fat pigs you get to see in the animated cartoon “Tuesday.” A “Line Test” is then produced by recording each page one at a time via a videotape. The Animator can then view how the movement of a character works for a whole scene. Then we see 1. Live action footage. 2. Line Test, 3. Finished animation. Paul says he owns a real terrapin and filmed it to get its actual movements of the animal for the Animators. We then get to view a production meeting with Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. with director Geoff Dunbar viewing some footage from the cartoon. The animation elements were coloured and pieced together using the latest compositing technology. Working at full film quality resolution, so we get to see more clips from the animated film “Tuesday” but this time with the flying fat pigs. Renowned Hollywood actor Dusting Hoffman was brought in to provide the voice over at the end of the animated cartoon “Tuesday.” Near the end of the featurette, we see Sir James Paul McCartney, C.H. M.B.E. with director Geoff Dunbar leaving the building and say goodbye to each other. But just before the very end of the featurette, we get to see everyone gathered at Abbey Road to see the orchestra being recorded for the composed music for the animated cartoon “Tuesday.”
Special Feature: “Rupert And The Frog Song” in Line Tests [2000] [480i] [1.37:1] [10:52] With this featurette, what we get to view are Line tests, Lay-outs and Storyboards and all related to the animated cartoon “Rupert And The Frog Song,” and we see is very rough line drawn animation, but with the actors voices, then suddenly the animation goes colourful of the actual finished animation, then it goes back to the very rough line drawings. But basically, with this featurette, we get to view a certain amount of the animated cartoon “Rupert And The Frog Song,” but with the sound of course.
Special Feature: “Tropic Island Hum” Lay-outs, Storyboards and Line Tests [2000] [480i] [1.37:1] [11:25] With this featurette, we again get to view like the previous above featurette, Line Tests, Lay-outs and Storyboards and all related to the animated cartoon “Tropic Island Hum,” but again we get to view very rough line drawn animation for “Tropic Island Hum,” but with the actors voices, but now and again it goes into colour mode. But again, we get to view nearly all of the animated cartoon “Tropic Island Hum.” As an added bonus which I found out by accident, is if you press your ZOOM button on your remote control, you can expand the animated cartoon image to the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and when you view it in colour, the animated cartoon looks spectacular.
Special Feature: “Tuesday” Line Tests and Storyboards [2000] [480i] [1.37:1] [20:17] With this featurette, for the third and final time, we get to view like the last two featurettes, but this time you just get the Line Tests and Storyboard illustrations with no sound of “Tuesday,” and we get to view it in very rough black-and-white images, but luckily with sound, but then all of a sudden it turns into colour, but only now and again. But again, basically, with this featurette, we get to view nearly all of the animated cartoon “Tuesday.”
BONUS: Included is a wonderful colourful fourteen page booklet that includes articles on “Tropical Island Hum,” “Tuesday,” “Geoff Dunbar,” “We All Stand Together,” “Tropical Island Hum” and the complete lyrics. Plus you get some wonderful colour photos and also wonderful colourful illustrations and photos.
Finally, Paul McCartney: The MUSIC and ANIMATION COLLECTION should appeal to collectors who love animated cartoons, while young children will no doubt get a kick out of these three colourful animated shorts. Young children especially will probably best appreciate this amazing collection, as each of these cartoons has obviously been geared towards their age group. The songs are really nice, but maybe with the parents they may feel the cartoons are aimed more towards the younger generation, still maybe if the parents sit with the children, they may enjoy it with the young children’s enthusiasm for these amazing cartoons that I feel are totally classic, but more so when they were first released. This is a potentially wonderful DVD disc and is almost up there with the “must-haves,” with three really sweet and intricately made stories that do deserve wider viewing. It is very nicely presented and offers up some unique animation that will enchant and entertain, with the extras making for interesting viewing, especially the line tests, which are truly fascinating. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
