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Silent Hill : Revelation 3D

Silent Hill : Revelation 3D is the second film based around the game franchise and I was astounded by the visuals when I went to see it. The 3D was fantastic and came right out of the screen in front of you. An example would be when the ash is floating down at the start it feels like it is right in front of you, also when the scraper at the start murders Heather's father in her dream the sword comes right out of the screen also blood splatters on your glasses throughout the film. I also thought the digital grading was very appropriate and gave the film a grungy feeling throughout especially when they return to Silent Hill where the main colour pallet is blood red, black, white and very de-saturated browns and greens. One of my favourite scenes is the one in the clip below, I don't think I blinked during the whole sequence it was that amazing. I thought the way they decayed the walls like skin being ripped off flesh then that decaying off to reveal a cage was a very clever technique and very visually appealing.

 

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 .