So QT is shooting `Grind House' on film? ... Animation Timeline

- Not sure the reporting on this item from Comic-Con is accurate, but it implies that Quentin Tarantino is shooting his half of `Grind House' on film. Last I'd heard, Robert Rodriguez was going to serve as the DP for Quentin's half of the movie, which'd make it surprising to hear that he was using a film camera. (I happened to be at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin the day that the Genesis digital camera got delivered.) From the Risky Biz blog:

An audience member asked the directors to respond to the old film vs. digital debate (Rodriguez is shooting his movie digitally and Tarantino is shooting on film). "Fuck the recording device," Tarantino replied. "It's about the magic."

- This timeline from Sight & Sound magazine in the UK traces the evolution of animation from the Phenakistoscope in 1832 to `A Scanner Darkly' in 2006.

Speaking of animation, I had an interesting chat with someone at an IIFF event this week about Pixar, Disney, and 2-D animation. We both agreed the odds are pretty high that the newly-merged Disney and Pixar animation groups will announce a 2-D animated theatrical feature in the near-term. I'll predict here that it could happen by the end of 2007.