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.

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. 

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.