This weeks assigned chapter talks about digital animation and its rise in cinema today. It's rare to find a film today that doesn't feature animation. You have computer animated films, animated films, stop motion-Even live action films technically have animation in them, because a large group of feature films today use special effects. Special effects became grossly popular towards the end of the 90s. It was hard to find a film that wasn't using animation to broad the scope of their film. 75% of all films in 1997 contained CGI. As much as I love animated films I find that animated effects in live actions films has become very excessive and cheap looking, and I hope that filmmakers would return to models and puppetry.
Recently I watched Waking Life, not knowing anything about the film and I was truly blown away. I'm a fan of Richard Linklater, and was expecting a nice treat, but this just blew my mind. The concept is simple, yet it allows the story and its characters to build as they search for answers to their questions. Since the film was about dreams, of course I compared it to Inception. I'm not really a huge fan of Inception, because it takes the incredible concept of dream exploration and makes it look really dull. For a film about dreams you'd expect their to be more fantasy, much like his film or Paprika. After making this comparison I realized truly how incredible animation is, because it can create images and movement that are impossible in live action film. When putting together a film you're always going to experience moments of sorrow when you realize a certain element or scene won't turn out exactly how you imagined. Filmmaking is rewarding because it allows you to create and share your vision, but the final product will never match the dream you had. Animation isn't like that. Whatever the artist wants to include in their film can be drawn out or designed on a computer screen.
Our project is going well. The character and sets are all ready, and I've just begun to start capturing their motions. I hope to finish animating in a week, maybe sooner. Then out group can start editing soon.
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