Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition at Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, Quebec)

I’m going to confess right now that I procrastinated in transferring my pictures to the computer and that is why this is only going up today. Honestly, I wanted it to be posted a little earlier so that if anyone in the area could go check it out before it ends. It runs until April 8th if you are in the area and want to see it! You can more info HERE.

This is our first time at the Canadian Museum of History. It did feel a little pricey when we first went to pay $20 per person for entry fee but then we realized it included not only all the exhibits: 2 (or it seems more) special exhibits and the 6 other permanent exhibition plus the Children’s Museum along with a film viewing of Shrek 4 – Forever After (it changes every week, I think). Anyways, thats quite the bang for the buck since we did get there late but managed to skim through a lot of the permanent exhibits and hopefully will come back for another exhibit and get there earlier.

Journey from Sketch to Screen

dreamworks animation exhibition

There are days I sit at home watching animated films, especially when Disney (or Pixar) drops sequel non-stop that I think about how great Dreamworks Animations are in general. With that said, I have my definite love for them from Kung Fu Panda to Rise of the Guardians (review), Flushed Away and of course, How to Train Your Dragon (review). So many things to love about this exhibit since it had a lot of the models and sketches and artwork. It had some cool parts where it showed off how the whole creative team goes from sketches to the drawing board. There was even this video that took us for a first person view as we saw Berk be built.

This is only a super tiny portion of exhibition. It was pretty enlightening and lots of stuff to learn from.

After this exhibition, we went to check out the First Peoples Hall, Tsimshian Prehistory and the Canadian Stamp Collection and then wrapped up with the top two floors with the The Canadian History Hall.

Tsimshian Prehistory

Canadian Stamp Collection

Canadian History Hall

This is such a small snippet of what we walked through in the few hours we were there.

Its a pretty awesome museum and we’re definitely looking forward to going back to have more time. I’ll be keeping an eye out for any other cool exhibitions that’ll be going on in the future and hopefully when that happens, we can spend an entire day there to just carefully go through everything. Just the Canadian History Hall was a whole two floors from the very very start to modern history, which is pretty interesting even if I’m not much of a history nut (although my husband is.).

Overall, it was a great experience! Dreamworks Animation: The Exhibition was all kinds of awesome and has me wanting to add on the Dreamworks movies to my Baking project although the title would have to be changed.

Christmas Marathon: Christmas Classics Vol.1/Kung Fu Panda Holiday

What better way to start a Christmas Marathon than with Christmas Classics, right? Thats what I did at least! This is on Netflix and its 9 short Christmas animated films about 15-20 minutes each, I believe.  Some were even 10-12 minutes.

christmas classics vol1 posterChristmas Classics Vol. 1

1. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

2. Somewhere in Dreamland

3. Santa’s Surprise

4. Hector’s Hector Life

5. Snow Foolin’

6. Jack Frost

7. Christmas Comes But Once A Year

8. The Shanty Where Santa Lives

9. The Night Before Christmas

christmas classics 1

There’s the list of the movies.  The only one I’ve ever seen before was Rudolph and The Night Before Christmas however, the other ones are rather cute as well.  Plus,  its short and sweet.  Its a straight forward little story and it covers values.  There’s not much to actually review for this.  My favorite has to be Santa’s Surprise and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Those were really fun 🙂

christmas classics2

Since I don’t want to be cheap and short, I added on another one I saw this weekend:

KUNG FU PANDA HOLIDAY (2010)

kung fu panda holiday poster

Director: Tim Johnson

Cast: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross

Po is given the task of hosting the annual winter feast by Shifu and he struggles to meet the expectations of his friends and make the choice between spending time with his father and dealing with his responsibilities to hosting the Masters of Kung Fu.

This is a little 20 minutes animated flick.  I love Kung Fu Panda so this was one that I jumped on in Netflix.  Plus, it was quick to watch. Its nothing special but there are a few laughs.  Po and Mr. Ping are always fun to watch.  Great for a short family viewing to bring in the holidays and to talk about the importance of family and the things that matter during the holidays.

Just like each of these flicks, I’m going to keep it short and sweet 🙂