Female Characters in Animation

Here's an article from NPR on the shortage of female leads in Pixar's films to date. Of their ten films, all ten have male characters in the top billing.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/dear_pixar_from_all_the_girls.html?ft=1&f=93568166

As the industry leader, Pixar is the easiest example to pick on. But they're not unique in this of course. Most of the animated features that have come out in recent years have males as their leads. And as the article bemoans, the female leads from the old Disney films were almost always princesses.

But of course, the shortage of female leads is not limited to animation. It's an epidemic throughout Hollywood. It's hard to pinpoint with any certainty why this is the case. Do film execs think that moviegoers won't pay to see female characters? Seems to me like a strange assumption.

Tip of the Week: Soft Selection

Fist off, I apologize for not posting in such a long time. I've had a busy couple of months. Things are looking good for the summer though.

For those of you who have been using Maya 2009, you've undoubtedly grown very fond of the new Soft Selection feature. Here's a quick tip I picked up the other day -- It turns out that you can adjust the falloff radius as you would adjust the brush size with any of the paint tools. Just hold down b and drag the left mouse button to scale the falloff size.