Bedroom Progress (Practice Skills)

Ryan By Chris Landreth

Ryan is a short 13 minute film based around the life story of animator Ryan who's short films are famous in the world of animation but he decided to leave the animation firm he was with and live a life of begging on the streets. This short film uses recorded audio directly from Ryan and Chris talking about his life and from various people he interviewed.




 I really liked the visual style Chris used to depict the characters, it was a very interesting way of showing how fragile the characters are without resorting to dialogue. The animation is very well done and there is no motion capture used in the film at all which makes the animation even more impressive.

Throughout the film you can see that Chris has various inspirations, perticularly the surrealist movement with references to Dahli and René Magritte (the son of man can be seen directly in the film towards the end).

Anthropomorphism (Personification)

One of the major characteristics of animated films is the endowment of animals, objects and environments with human characteristics, this is called Anthropomorphism (also known as personification).  

This technique is used within animation to create new forms while still providing an empathetic or identifiable human aspect. This allows animators to create unusual objects like “dancing washing machines and villainous shrubs, and endow otherwise ordinary things with appeal, ability and abstraction. At the same time, both worlds have a relationship to humankind, despite the sense of ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’.” Referenced from Basics Animation: Scriptwriting by Paul Wells.  This sense of ‘otherness’ is corrected through the animation and imposition of human characteristics and traits that make the material or natural objects familiar to the viewer although they aren’t human.

Anthropomorphism is commonly used in films that contain talking animals such as Animal Farm (1955). There are two terms which simplify this technique into two areas: Theriomorphism, when someone or something has the form of an animal or beast and Therianthopism, when someone or something combines with elements of an animal or beast. When animals are substituted for humans many more points and issues can be raised while avoiding social, political and religious taboos, “Such stories can thus talk about forbidden ideological, sexual, moral and cultural topics under another guise, where talking animals play significant roles.” Referenced from Basics Animation: Scriptwriting by Paul Wells.

Here is an example from Animal Farm by George Orwell (1955):

 

Condensation

Condensation: The maximum degree of suggestion in the minimum of imagery. “Condensation is the animation process which uses the minimum amount of imagery to suggest the maximum of narrative and thematic information. Individual images, sometimes parts of objects and environments, are used to represent the whole of that object and environment, or operate as symbols or metaphors for more complex ideas.” Referenced from Basics Animation: Scriptwriting by Paul Wells. This technique in effect condenses the visual imagery and only focuses on the detail which will shape the narrative and enhance it. Many films will use codes and conventions to tell the narrative and in my Alevel media we had to use this as we had a complex narrative and less than ten minutes of screen time. We used props and visuals to enhance the narrative more than long character developing scenes with heavy dialogue.

Animation mostly will abandon the depth created with lengthy live action character development scenes and dialogue; animators will instead prefer the intensity of suggestion in visual composition and design. The characters created within animation are more defined by what they do than by what they say; the connotations and denotations of how they behave will define the characters rather than the actual scriptwriting.

Here is one of my favourite videos which has no dialogue and is focused entirely on the visuals: Created by mikeinel .

Metamophosis

"The animation film is a form which is ultimately defined by its use of metamorphosis, an effect in which a cinematic image, whether 2D graphic or 3 dimensional, appears to effect a transition in form over a period of time.” http://www.academia.edu/239880/_Graphic_and_Literary_Metamorphosis_Animation_Technique_and_James_Joyces_Ulysses_

Warner identified two different types of metamorphosis, first is when a character, object or environment suddenly becomes something else an example would be Peter Parker transforming into Spiderman. The second is when the character, object or environment goes through organic changes as a result of the circumstances it exists inside. An example of this would be Peter Parker having to resume his normal life.

“Any image can metamorphose into another and consequently, any story can be told through visual transitions from one pictorial element to another.” Referenced from Basics Animation: Scriptwriting by Paul Wells , this suggests that anything can ‘flow’ from one state to another and enables the writer to take short cuts and lead the audience from one perspective to another without using the traditional cutting together of images which is done in the editing process.

Here is an example of Metamorphosis animation: This is done by GhostDancer16 .

Here is another example of Metamorphosis animation: All rights reserved to Marvel Industries



This is a rough 3D version of the above video: Done by kronkhal

My 3D Teddy Bear (Practice Skills)

This was our project today to create a teddy bear to use for our assignment, I found this to be a very laborious and frustrating process (about 5-6 hrs.). I modelled my teddy using 3Ds Max using the polygon editor tool, I modelled the head and body separately then welded the vertices to make it all one solid object. This is a relatively low poly model so it would be more suited to the games industry rather than the film industry which requires much higher poly objects. This is what it looks like with a turbosmooth and realistic colour.

My First 3D Object

 This was the first 3D object I created in 3Ds Max using the line tool to outline the shape then using various other manipulators to create the 3D model. I then added a glass texture to it and made a platform for it to stand on which has a ceramic tile texture.

Reflection On My Screencast

After producing the screencast I realised the software I used called XSplit was difficult to manage and hard to edit after running through all the material. Also my sound was a bit out and grainy due to a bad quality microphone and I need to add background music to keep the screencast flowing. In future I won't use a video to fill time, instead I will use short clips and narrate over them as this is where I fell down. After watching two of my other classmates screencasts about their work and inspirations I feel like I know them a little better and some of the work they showed (by them and by others) was very inspiring and interesting.

My First Screencast

Watch live video from squirle1 on TwitchTV

Animal Farm

Animal Farm (1954) is an animated film based on George Orwell's bestselling novel. "Britain's second animated feature, which, despite the title and Disney-esque animal animation, is in fact a no-holds-barred adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire on Stalinism, with the animals taking over their farm by means of a revolutionary coup, but then discovering that although all animals are supposed to be equal, some are more equal than others." Referenced from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047834/

I thought the idea and storyline was good and an interesting concept but I disliked the animation style. I dislike animation that is done too stylized or too "cartoony" however the emotions of the characters were done very well and conveyed all the right emotions, some people will have more empathy for the animals than for people.
 

There is an interesting concept of propaganda and dictatorship woven into the storyline, the pigs end up ruling over the other animals and making them all miserable. The American cartoon tradition from the 1920’s until after the Second World War, used animals as funny distractions from the social despair of the Great Depression and the war, they sacrificed their 'animalness' and became purely comical.

 This story is based on the Cold War and uses Anthropomorphism very cleverly as if this had used live action actors or human figures it would of reduced the appeal of the film, it would of also had some of the ideas frowned upon due to them being considered taboo. "In 1954, however the Halas & Batchelor Studio released Animal Farm, making the animals far more like animals and less like humans, in order to underpin the seriousness of the political metaphor at the heart of George Orwell’s famous fable." Referenced from Basics Animation: Scriptwriting by Paul Wells.

 

 

This is a short extract from towards the end of the movie (see above).

This story contains a lot of interesting ideas and basis on real events but I still discredit it due to its unappealing animation style. I don't feel that this film has aged well due to the loud and distracting soundtrack and annoying sounds. I feel that this film can be easily understood by anyone of a mature age but the historical and political context is very important to the story, I have never studied this area of history and yet by watching this film I picked up on the hidden and interwoven messages within the film.

Flight Of The Navigator

Flight Of The Navigator the world's first 35 mm feature film to use environment mapping, creating the illusion of a chrome object occupying a live-action frame. This was a new digital innovation and worked very well within the film, personally however I find it to be tacky looking compared to todays standards. Personally I prefer films using either puppets or good cgi, this film came out the same time as Labyrinth which is one of my all-time favourite films due to its storyline and its use of puppets for alot of the characters.

One of Flight Of The Navigator's best achievements was the steps going up into the ship these were actual props with hidden supports which gave a great effect due to them reacting well with the action, for example the shadows and highlights that were shown as they are reflective and have a unique shine to them. This is a much better technique than trying to use full cgi steps as this wouldn't of had the same realism to it.

Overall I enjoyed the film as it was amusing and the cgi and use of props worked very well.

A shot of the ship in fast mode which shows the environment mapping

Snow White And The Huntsman

Snow White And The Huntsman was a very visually stunning film with a fantastic twist on the classic fairytale. I was a bit sceptical when I decided to watch this film due to my dislike for Kirsten Stewarts acting but I found that she suited the role rather well.

The visual effects were stunning and very intriguing especially when the queen (Charlize Theron) turns into a flock of ravens. I also liked the forest creatures especially the fairies and the troll, these have been pulled from various other fairytales and they fir wonderfully with the rest of the film. I especially liked the design of the troll which appears out of the bridge. The digital grading overall was amazing too very dark and grungy similar to Alice In Wonderland (Tim Burton) which isn't suprising as it is made by the same producers.



Fairy



Turtle