Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Computer Animation in Sin City

Frank Miller created, wrote, and even penned some of the volumes in the hit graphic novel series Sin City. Miller has stated time and time again that the series couldn't be adapted into a film, because it just wouldn't be done right. Independent director Robert Rodriguez, known for his over-the-top action and kids films approached Miller wanting to adapt the series. After some video tests Miller was convinced that Rodriguez would be the perfect director to bring the pages to the screen. A few months later Sin City released on April 1st to praise from critics and fans. It had a modest, yet profitable box office taking. 

The film could've just as easily been a terrible flop. The film doesn't have a particular story or character to fall, just several short stories with reoccurring characters. The reason why the film works out so well is because it has a particular style to it, and what really contributes to the film's style is the animation in the film. The film was shot with a mixture of built sets and green and blue screen. The result is lively characters interacting with their environment, but the backdrops have a flatter feeling to them. Rodriguez and Miller decided to use a heavy amount of animation for the film so that the look of it can resemble what was drawn on the page. The film has a very noir and surreal look to it while also looking pretty realistic. 

The backdrops look fantastic animated, but the animators didn't stop there. They also cleverly enhanced the characters appearance with computer animation as well. The character, Kevin is  a great example of computer animation being used on an actor. Elijah Wood is in costume, but effects are used to darken his face, and place a pair of glowing white animated glasses on his fate. The animation is used in simple yet brilliant ways to produce images that wouldn't be possible if shot practically. 

Colors are played with a lot throughout the film as well. White silhouettes, black and white footage with colorized elements, shadows on faces, vibrancy, ect. It's all simple techniques that make a huge impact on the look and feel of the film. Unlike most films that waste time and money on more realistic looking effects, the animators in the film went for a very loose and fun style, echoing of film noir. I still can't stress how impressive the film looks for being constructed with simple yet effective effects.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Computer Revolution and Pixar

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. 

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Chapter 8 of Art in Motion


Chapter 8, in Maureen Furniss’s Art in Motion,  went over the aesthetics of stop motion animation, discussing everything from look to movement. Furniss argued that 3D animations  had width, height, and depth, compared to a more 2D animation which has only width and height. Furniss also wrote about the three main types of 3D stop motion animation, being figures, clay, and pixilation. From Furniss' writing is easy to tell that one has to pay a lot of attention to detail when going about stop motion animation. Backgrounds, characters, size, angle, and lighting all help to create the mood of the film, as well as allow the production team to get good material. What I found to be really interesting was that sometimes the production designers would make characters bigger at times to get close up shots of them. If done right, the figures can come to life on screen. 


Clay Animation and the Early Days of Television: The ‘Gumby’ Series


Michael Frierson’s article, “Clay Animation and the Early Days of Television: The ‘Gumby’ Series”, focuses on the introduction of television, its advancements, and marketing. The introduction of the television really shook things up for Hollywood, and pushed them to try and make better and cleaner looking work, much like the work seen on a smaller screen in family homes. Sadly, some studios couldn't compete and due to budget cuts a lot of studios began closing sections and selling material. A lot of the material ended up being syndicated on television, because it was mostly cartoon shorts that could easily be fit into a schedule. Cartoons being broadcasted pulled in viewers, especially children. More studios began to develop projects aimed at children. With this new attraction, companies began to search for ways to market television for children.  The filmmaker Art Clokey developed the “Gumby” show. Gumby aired up until 1971, but then in the 1980′s Gumby was resurrected.  Low budget filmmakers have become fascinated with Gumby, and because of this it brought him back. 


The Brave Little Toaster


Recently, I watched Toy Story 3, but something was different this time. I still adore the movie, just something was off to me. The plot of the movie reminded me a lot of another movie, which isn't very unusual these days, yet it brought back feelings of nostalgia. An old childhood film lost in the bac of my mind. Then, when flipping through film websites, a title popped up: The Brave Little Toaster. That's a terrific film that I haven't seen in a long time, and what's more surprising was I saw a few names from the Pixar team on that list. I read into it and found out that a big number of the founders of Pixar met while working on The Brave Little Toaster, and they all acknowledge the similarities between that film and Toy Story 3. Both films feature an object that goes on a journey, feeling lost and unwanted by their master, then through a series of events they end up in a garage dump. I now love both films even more, because Toy Story 3 was the Pixar team returning to their roots and finishing a fine trilogy at the same time. 


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Gender Issues in Ghost in the Shell 


There are clear gender issues within the film Ghost in the Shell. The film does present a female lead, Motoko Kusinagi, in the future with the help of a male sidekick, but Kusinagi is very sexualized in the film. Both visually and metaphorically she's painted as a lesser being in the film, being in tight clothing and being a cyborg; an object itself. Even though most of the individuals in the film, Kusinagi is often seen nude. It should be noted that the puppet master is also, but it still seems that Kusinagi's lead role is overly tainted by the context. The female seems to be part of exploitation in the film. 


Aside from Kusinagi's image in the film, there are some events towards the end of the film that raise questions. Why is it that Kusingai, who's also highly sexualized, go from being a strong female role to having her body replaced by that of a child because it was the only one available on the black market. Not only is Kusinagi being turned into a lesser being the film also unintentionally takes a jab at child prostitution, in the context of a 'child body being sold on the market'. The film seems very conflicted when it comes to Kusinagi's character, not knowing whether to portray her as strong and in charge, or as an object floating through the film.


This movie has some traces of anti-feminism throughout, but Kusinagi's image is too questionable and it ends with a male figure saving her. It's odd how the filmmakers chose to reverse the already reversed gnder roles in the film, making the strong female lead turn into the typical damsel-in-distress, who needs  to be saved by her own sidekick. Maybe the film is actually showing that animated films have always had issues of gender roles in them. If that's the case then I credit the filmmakers for being risky enough to make the gender issues apparent by having them reversed only to once again change into the common Western animation scenario. 



Sunday, March 18, 2012

Animating the Boob-tube


Chapter 7
Chapter 7 in Art in Motion discusses the two categories of full animation and limited animation. Maureen Furniss talked a lot about the differences, relationships, and history of the two animation. 
Furniss believes full animation  is all about every frame being drawn distinctly different or no reptition/cycling of the images.  Limited animation has many sequences of images, which feature reoccuring images, also known as cycling. Aside from this big difference, full animation also uses more metamorphosis of shapes and sizes, playing with the z-plane and has fluid motion, while limited only stays within the x and y planes and has less frames. 
Another significant difference I found to be interesting was that full animation is visually focused, while limited is more about the audio. 


Two fine examples of how broad spectrum of limited animation can be is the fine animator, Osamu Tezuka and Disney studio. Both created limited animation outlets that turned out successful films. Tezuka had methods of cycling crowds and vehicles, while Disney cycled its environments, characters, and sequences in their children's film. 




Mark Langer's Animatophilia, Cultural Production, and Corporate Interests
Mark Langer's article entitled Animatophilia, Cultural Production, and Corporate Interests is about the famous Nickelodeon show The Ren and Stimpy Show and filmmaker John Kricfalusi. What is most interesting about the filmmaker and the children's studio was that got into a huge fight over the production of the show, and the young filmmaker sort of took the route of a rebellious artist pitting himself against a show known for it's children's entertainment success. Nickelodeon couldn't take the missed deadlines and budgetary increases. 


What was a financial issue became apparent in cultural media as the themes of The Ren and Stimpy Show began to become more mature for its young audience. Soon the show was an adult show that was on a children's channel and it became a hit and gained a legion of fans. It was the precussor show for a series of shows like South Park and Spongebob Squarepants that pushed the boundaries and appealed to a range of audiences. 


Public television and animation continues to open up to new themes, styles, and writing. 




Recently watched Animated Film or Short Film
After reading about such shows that pushed the boundaries I felt the need to watch an infamous show in that category, South Park. What's so ingenious about the show is that it appears to be nothing more than a vulgar, violent, and overly offensive show featuring young boys growing up in a demented small town, yet it uses its setting and characters to present issues that can be seen both through the boy's perspectives, as well as their parents. Thus, the viewer is treated to cleverly written story arcs featuring the characters moving through the issue, sometimes several issues, being tackled in that episode. 


A great episode is Something Walmart This Way Comes. I tried to find a clip, but I couldn't so I'm posting the DVD commentary. The video features the creators talking about how a Walmart opened nearby them and their were protests. So they chose to write an episode with Walmart in it to discuss Consumerism and Monopolies. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGfGXNsWyW0

Monday, March 5, 2012

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Issues of Representation

Issues of Representation

"Issues of Representation" was the title of the chapters we had to read in both texts. These chapters discussed race and gender and how they are present in animation, but both writers had very different opinions on the subjects.

Furniss talked about the different ways culture is present in animation, and how it was grotesquely skewered. Artists chose to group characters in stereotypical categories. Numerous side characters, back in the day, seemed very one-dimensional and crude. Example: Speedy Gonzalez. So race was heavily featured in films back then, but didn't seem to serve a purpose other than to laugh at other races. Gender was handled just as poorly in these films. The men would seem barbaric, while the women would seem ditzy, usually with the purpose of being looked at.

Wells seemed to stress gender more in his writings, discussing characters and how their images help to tell who they are as people. Men were usually presented as average hardworking people, while women were sex symbols. Wells talked about how female characters should be more than that and how they too can be presented as strong female characters.



Prince Mononoke


I recently watched Princess Mononoke again with some friends, and fell in love with it all over again. The animation, the story, and the characters are all rich and complex. Miyazaki (and his team) have done a terrific job of immersing the audience in the world of Gods, Demons, and Man. Within a two hour span, it feels as though you've spent your whole life in the land and know all of it's folklore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWWWKKA8jY



Project


The project is going well, as of now I'm constructing the character and sets for my segment of the film. I'm doing cut outs, so I spent the last week researching and now I'm ready to start work.


Sunday, February 12, 2012

Chapter 3 - Once Upon a Time: Narrative Strategies

Chapter 3

Raoul Servais once said that "every animated film must have a story", and I fully agree with that statement, because without a proper concept or structure the film would be nothing. It seems so often that many animated films don't properly tell a story, so the viewer's left with nothing but fancy visuals. Sometimes the visuals can tell way more about the characters or concept than any of the writing in the film, and that's what this chapter was about: the different ways to tell a story, visually and in the writing. 

This Chapter had a lot of key terms:

1. Metamorphosis-Ability for an image to literally change into another completely different image; fluid linkage

2. Condensation-Shortening narrational information into a limited period of time
Two processes: 
Elliptical Cut-cuts between events
Comic Elision-Sequence of comic events that form a self-determining process

3. Synecdote-Part of a figure/object represents the whole of a figure/object

4. Symbolism and Metaphor-An item which is consciously/unconsciously placed to develop another depth to the story. Symbol is invested with meaning. A metaphor grows from the symbolism and serves to embody a system of ideas. 

5. Fabrication-A film's alternative version of material existense: meta-reality formed from constructed environments, substances, and art forms

6. Associative Relations-Based on models of suggestion and allusion, which bring together previously unconnected or disconnected images to logic and inform, rather than being a simple surreal effect

7. Sound-Helps to form mood and atmosphere

8. Acting and Performance-Actions created by characters constructed movements, but the voice helps to add personality to the character. Animation and voice acting work together. 

9. Choreography-Importance of the character's movements. Important to see how the character acts and reacts

10. Penetration-A  revelatory tool, used to reveal conditions or principles which are hidden or beyond the comprehension of the viewer

I found these terms to be interesting to read through, especially the idea that a voice actor and animator work together to bring a character to life. These terms also helped me to appreciate how animated films can use visual presentation to tell a story; I knew that before, but didn't know to what extent the importance of the animation was. A simple character's movement can tell you so much about who they are as a person. Rudolf Laban detailed an ingenious process, known as the 16 Basic Movement Themes, in order to help artists tap their character's inner-being. 



To Die By Your Side

A short film I saw recently with friends was Spike Jonze's "To Die By Your Side". It's a whimsical tale about a skeleton trying to get to a mystery woman, and the mishaps of him trying to get to her. What's so great about it is that it's a simple tale, with terrific animation, especially the underwater effects. I also love the sense of movement in the characters. There's little dialogue, but you truly understanding these characters due to their movements, and that fit in with the ideas of Chapter 3. 

http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/news/to-die-by-your-side-_-an-animated-short-film-by-spike-jones20111020.aspx

Animation Film Progress

As a group, we haven't officially all met, but certain members have been discussing ideas together. Soon we will meet as a group and write a script that we're all happy with, because right now there's some clashing ideas. I expect the project to go a lot smoother once the script is written. 


Sunday, January 29, 2012

Chapter 1 Reviews, and The Thief and the Cobbler Discussion

Art in Motion by Maureen Furniss

Chapter 1 of Art in Motion seemed to be an elongated love letter to animated films and works, brilliantly written by Maureen Furniss, so it presents the reader with both knowledge and respect for the art form. Furniss carefully traverses the important history of animation, detailing its birth, the preservation of works, and the technologcal advances still occurring in the artform today. 

What I found to be most interesting in the reading was the discussion of how animated films were not always taken seriously, because they are not "real"/live action, too commercialized, too closely associated with fandom, and aimed towards children. This was such a surprise to me because I always thought of animated films as timeless works, in the sense that they've had a long history of entertaining generations of people. I never really thought of animation as being exclusive to children. Just because animated features tend to have a rating that's kid-friendly, doesn't mean that only younger audiences will enjoy it, it's just means that it's accessible for children. Disney and Pixar are very successful studios due to their animated works, most of which have a G or PG rating even though they contain a lot of adult themes. Behind the colorful characters, simplistic story, and clean look lies ideas of love, death, sexism, forgiveness, search for acceptance, environmental concerns, I could go on and on. The writing in animated features has to be clever, because you're writing a film for a range of audiences. There has to be jokes that are simple enough for children to get, as well as adult jokes that are sneaked in for parents. Animated films may be accessible for children, but that doesn't mean only children will enjoy them. 

It was also fascinating to read about the preservation of animated works, and how that lead to a newfound appreciation for them. ASIFA, SAS, and especially the Animation Journal really helped to preserve works and develop a growth in discussion over animated features. Another great sign of growth for animation appreciation was the formation of WIA (Women in Animation), by Rita Street. This organization's purpose was to reveal woman's contributions in the field of animation, which is a terrific idea because women usually don't receive a lot of recognition in the film industry. 

The chapter also presented several different ideas of what the definition for animation is:
Edward S. Small-"The technique of single-frame cinematography"
Charles Soloman-Two factors: imagery recorded frame-by-frame, and the illusion of motion which is created
Norman McLaren-"The art of movements that are drawn...animation is therefore the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between frames"

I agree most with Charles Soloman's definition, because it is simple yet correctly discovers the vast amount of animated works. Cel animation, puppetry, and CGI all deal with recording the image frame-by-frame to create the illusion of motion. 

The final idea of the chapter that I thought was worth mentioning was the idea that animated works are a product of time, and that historical, economical, social, technological, and industrial influences are prevalent through the works. 


Understanding Animation by Paul Wells

Chapter 1 of Understanding Animation was more of a dull read to me, mostly in part due to Paul Wells' writing. Wells knows animation well, but the presentation of his research is a bit overwhelming because he shoves so much information onto a page, and jumps around ideas often. What I took most from his writing was the discussion over what animation is, and the different theories of how the illusion of animation is created. 

Norman McClaren is mentioned again in this reading, and rightly so, because his ideas concerning animation are a fine read. A quote of his that I think truly captures the magic of animation is "what happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame". This is just such a profound statement to me, because the idea that the carefully created images are (in a sense) not as important as the spacing between the images, for it's the space between the images where movement occurs. To go along with that idea is the "Persistence of Vision" theory, which states that the human eye tries to keep up with the frames, resulting in the illusion of motion. 

There was also a stress of the originality of animation in the chapter. Animation is unlike live-action, because animation provides original effects and allows for the artists to create situations which could be very difficult to film live. A director who has recently discovered the magic of animation is Robert Zemeckis, who was quoted as saying "animation allows one to do things which would be impossible in a live action film". Zemeckis, famous for such films as Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away, recently has turned to motion capture technology to direct animated features such as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. It has been 12 years since he directed his last live action film. much to the dismay of his fans. The irony in Zemeckis being able to do "impossible" visual feats, results in a lack of story to his films these days. Animation can create original effects, but without a proper story the effects are for nothing. 


The Thief and the Cobbler

The Thief and the Cobbler was a labor of love from Richard Williams, which was a result of 26 years in the making, only to sadly be changed by the studio and marketed as a simple children's musical, which a lot of people complained looked too much like Aladdin. I chose to discuss this film because it's truly unique and stresses the idea of an original look.

The Thief and the Cobbler Trailer

The film is cel animation, but looks as though it was done with computers. The way the characters move about the breath-taking scenery is surreal to see, because Williams had his animators draw out twice as many frames as the normal rate. Everything looks so fluid and clean in the film. 

The scenery plays a huge role in the look of the film. The castle and city where the story takes place has visuals that are out of this world. A simple chase scene down a corridor, turns into a psychedelic trip through textile patterns, twisted architecture, and luscious courtyards and rooms. A lot of emphasis is but into creating a world that has never been seen before, and sadly that world was corrupted by the studio, when only a few more minutes of the film needed to be complete. 

This film relates to the reading in several ways. The idea of originality is definitely present in the film, both in the look and creation of it. The film features a variety of complex images, and the doubling of the frame rate creates and eerie motion effect. The film is also proof that animated films are not just for children. I see this film as more for adults than anything, because of the dark writing and overall feel. 



Progress on Final Project

I've made a lot of progress this past week on my final project. I found a group who's nice to work with, and we've briefly discussed a story that we all seem happy and excited with. I'm surprised that it's coming together so nicely, I just hope the rest of the production goes well. My group will soon meet to discuss the plot and actually write a script for it. 

Friday, January 27, 2012

Introduction

My name is Daniel Sliwa, and I'm majoring in Cinema at SIUC. In this blog I will share my views on readings for animation, animated films, as well as detail the progress on my final animation project.

I'm taking this course because I believe that to be a successful filmmaker one must be educated in various genres, and animation is one genre that is very prevalent in entertainment. I haven't worked that much with animation, so I hope to gain some real hands-on experience by challenging myself. I'm also fascinated in the history of animation, and would love to learn about it.

Anime has always been interesting to me, from the childhood days of Pokemon, to the mesmerizing work of Hayato Miyazaki, Japanese animation has a vast amount of entertaining shows and films. Recently, I watched the film Paprika, and I was in awe of how beautiful the artwork was, as well as, how original the story was. I chose to watch it because my friends were talking about how it was both comparable and superior to Inception, so I decided to pop it in and was glad I did so.

I believe the worst animated film I saw was Beowulf. Beowulf is a terrific piece of literature, but the movie just seemed to be trying too hard. The animation was slick, but the cinematography and editing was too over the top for me. I didn't care about any of the characters, and the story was presented as dull. It was truly a bastardization of strong source material.