If you’ve not already met Greg Mutt, I’d like to introduce you. Greg is, by current standards, a rather minor and somewhat passe brand of youtube personality. I first met him a few years ago, shortly after seeing Avatar (relevance TBA) and cannot remember how or why I stumbled upon his posts.
On a whim, I happened to look him up the other day and was gratified to see his posts were still active (does anything ever get removed from youtube?) and moreover that there were fresh comments only a couple of months old, meaning that he was still being viewed by new and appreciative eyes. I’m glad to see that.
Before I go on, I invite you to treat yourself to a few moments of levity and view Greg’s review of the film Avatar, which is what first made me a fan of his. More on why I think this is a very interesting bit of video below the link.
Fun, right? And if you saw Avatar, (who didn’t?) cannily on the mark.
But Greg’s post has a subtle, subversive sub-layer that is even more interesting.
First, if you hadn’t already noticed, Greg’s not human. He’s a hip, adolescent, thoroughly anthropomorphized canine cartoon character. Yes, a toon. But he’s as far removed from Huckleberry Hound as James Cameron’s Na’vi are from Steamboat Mickey.
Now, my knowledge is by no means current but I do have some background in filmmaking and computer animation, and to my somewhat-educated eye this is a pretty goddam well-executed piece of CGI artistry. Everything about Greg is incredibly lifelike and natural: his expressions, his body language, his physical appearance (watch his ears flap when he shakes his head). All in all, he’s a marvel of CGI.
There’s the delicious irony of this piece: Greg’s youtube film critique – substance aside – shows a mastery of CGI that is equal to or even surpasses that shown in Cameron’s supposedly genre-stretching feature. In a piece of online fanspeak.
I ask myself: who would go to such lengths to produce such a sophisticated piece of work for such a lowly purpose, and I conclude that it must be an inside job. Maybe a rogue unit inside Cameron’s camp like that cowboy team who shot up ILM way back when … or, who knows? But I think it’s a great post-modern comment on A level filmmaking which still resonates today, and I applaud the work for its skill and its audacity.
Sadly, I don’t hear much from Greg anymore. I’d really love to know how he’s doing. And what he thought of The Avengers.