Persepolis

It was a hard decision to choose just one animation, but I found that “Persepolis” was the movie that caught my eyes the most.  I found this film interesting and different because if we did not watch this film I would have never heard of it.  The film is based off of by Marjane Satrapi French-language autobiographical novel series, that tells about her childhood in Iran after the Islamic revolution.  Satrapi with the help from French comic artist Vincent Paronnaud brought a story and a type of animation different from all American movies. 

            The film takes place during 1970 Iran, with a girl named Marjane Satrapi and how she interprets her world through her childish eyes.  It shows how much her family struggles under the great leader the Shah and how in 1979 the Iranian Revolution defeated the Shah and how the government became a brutal tyranny.  It shows Marji’s life as she becomes a woman trying to express her point of view to the people in her land.  Because of her outbursts and strong opinions her parents send her to Vienna to live a better life and not live through the cruel horrors of war.  The film shows the struggles of living in a new culture and learning to grow up without a family. 

The movie is a coming of age film that gives a point of view from a person from a different country.  I felt this movies animation was very unique and Satrapi and Paronnaud executed the style perfectly with the story.  When reading reviews I found a review similar to the point of view I found interesting in the film.  We both felt the style of animation was well used.  For example, in the film the story is told through the eyes of a young girl who does not understand the political crisis that is going on in her country.  So the animation shows not very detailed sketches, like the crowds protesting in the streets.  The film also uses a family member (the grandmother) as Marji’s conscious through the film telling Marji to not forget who she is and to be proud of her roots.  I found the message of this film great because most Americans cannot imagine what life is like in another country especially during a revolution.  We also do not realize what it is like to live in another country and be treated as a lesser class of people.  The film uses a great technique of using color for the present day and using black and white for the past.  Using this technique gave the effect of a flashback and gave the feeling of oldness. When reading reviews on Netflix and other websites people did not really complain a lot about the film people found it different and surprising.  A lot of people found that the animated style was the shocker because its not what people expect. 

The film had a lot of controversy when it first was released.  In Iran the government complained about giving Iran a bad image and not showing the good results that the Islamic Revolution brought to the country.  In the United States some schools tried to ban the film and graphic novel for obscene content.  Unfortunately the Curriculum Materials Adoption Committee felt that people should not shelter their children from disturbing themes and content.  Besides these controversial reactions to the film, the film was listed on top ten lists of thirteen critics. Some including Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Stephen Holden (The New York Times), Richard Corliss (Time Magazine), and Claudia Puig (USA Today).  The film was also nominated for Best Animated Feature and is the second film to ever be nominated in this category to be rated PG-13.  The film also won Best Foreign Language Film, Rogers People’s Choice Awards for Most Popular International Film, and Best First Work in 2007.  The films budget was $7,300,000 and the films gross was 4,443,403.  Even though the film did not produce as much as planned due to complaints in Iran, to not show the film.  The film was a success and is on the top charts list for best-animated films.  

In the end I found this film very moving and I grasped the emotion of the characters and felt her pain going through the revolution and living in Vienna.  I felt this film is a great lesson teacher in technique of making an animation.  The animators thought about what style to use because the story was told from the point of view of a child and from a woman in Iran.  The film also teaches lessons on coming of age and learning to not be sheltered and be grateful for what you have.  Overall I felt this film was a very moving story and I liked it because it was a film I would have not seen if we did not watch it in class.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808417/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(film)

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/persepolis/

Flash Components

http://flashsources.net/flash_components-id-448-w-500-h-500.html

This flash component that I found was very interesting and appealing to me.  I found it to be a different way of showing a flash slideshow.  Instead of the fade in and out slideshow components this one is like a window or a shutter.  I think this component adds a clean and surprise to users if they want to show images of their work.  The only flaw I will say about this component is that the user does not have control to switch through the photos but his can be seen in a good way to.  For example if the user was building a house they could show pictures of the steps of what work went into making the whole structure of the house.  This component adds cool effects to simple photos and makes it more interesting to look at on a website.

http://www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/3dsphere/

In these components I found them to be very interactive and fun to play with.  Adding any of these components to a website will add great interactivity to your website as well as an interesting way of showing off artwork.  I found the globe set up of having your pictures very appealing and could see it being used on an international website.  If it was on an international website it would give the idea that the pictures are from each country around the world.  I think these components add a sophistication to websites and has great interactivity because people can move the photos around in a circle; like the pictures are spinning on an axis. Also when you click on the pictures they zoom in to show the image in a larger size.  In these components they show a preview of all your work as well as zoom in shots to show artwork.

Gandahar

In the film “Gandahan” directed by Rene Laloux, I found this film very strange but good.  I felt the music in this film could be interpreted as either working or not.  My reasons would be that the music does not work because it seems to separate from the film.  I felt using electronic instruments just took away from the film and made the film seem cheap or a movie not respected.  I am not going to say it was not a great film but I feel that in some movies making images or using music that is to extreme can put the film under the category of psycho.  What I mean by psycho is a film that will not be love by the majority of people who love movies.  My opinions on the storyline would be it was very different and caught my attention right away, which is excellent.  The best ways to get people interested in a film or anything is to create an idea or a concept that people do not understand.  When the film started I did not understand what this planet or whom these people were.  I was also curious as to if this was a future of humans who have evolved.  From what I have found the film was supposed to take place in Korea but when I watch the film I see styles of Asian and European artwork.  The naked people are a mix of Asian and European artwork.  The style of the houses reminded me of Native Americans and aquatic environments. The houses looked like fishes.  I felt the use of color was good.  It made the film seem foreign or like a utopian community.  The people were also interesting they kind of brought the idea of race into the film with the mutation people.  It kind of betrays the English coming to the new land and discriminating against the Native Americans.  I felt the use of making the people a different color and look like humans but also not was a good technique.  It shows that the world is a mysterious planet and does not make people feel that this movie is about humans being barbarians and creating new species and ruining their home.  If you look into the film closely it shows that this is a mirror image of our world today.  In the film the people of Gandahar created the metal men and the metal men are destroying the world. Its similar to people today in how our pollution is destroying the world we know as today.  What I found in the camera angles was when he was flying they used shadows to show movement across the landscapes.  This technique is good to represent depth.  It allows people to see that the people or objects are far away from another object.  Also to show movement they made peoples hair blow which represents wind or moving forward.  I noticed in the beginning they used a lot of far shots and then zoomed in on one of the creatures after the wide shot.  This was smart because it shows the whole environment and what’s living in it.  After seeing the environment and its inhabitants, it then zooms in to show what the creatures look like and what they are really doing.  In my opinions I felt the film was executed pretty well but could be tweaked more.  I feel the music and theme song playing with electronic piano and horns are not good.  I feel the music does not fit what is going on and I feel that music belongs in a Halloween movie.  The music just took away from the film and took the beauty of the artwork and its landscapes for me.  

Adding Sound

             

             In the animation called The Piano by Aidan Gibbons is a great animation that works well with music.  The animation begins with an old man playing a piano, which then turns into the old man playing the piano with his wife or lover.  But his lover then disappears which represents they have passed away.  The old man then goes back to an old memory when he was at war and his partner dies in his arms.  The animation then goes back to the old man playing the piano and reminiscing on his past when he received a gift on his birthday or on some special holiday.  The old man is riding a little toy horse, which then transforms into the present day nephew or son of the old man.  The little boy is riding the same toy horse the old man had when he was a kid.  The ending of this piece took me a while to understand the old mans journey but I figured it out. 

            The old man is reminiscing through his past while playing his piano that he used to share with his wife.  But when his wife dies he continues to play because it brings him closer to her.  Whenever he plays the song  Comptine d’un autre ete – L’apres-midi by Yann Tiersen it reminds him of the song and hobby him and his wife used to share and express their love when she was alive.  While he plays he then thinks about his partner, who dies in the old mans arms.  This journey I notices was very clever.  Gibbons is showing that in life there are tragedies that occur in ones life but with death there is always life.   In the last memory of the old man, is himself as a young boy getting a gift.  It shows the old man as a young boy riding this toy horse.  But the old man’s young self transforms into the old mans present day nephew or son.  The son or nephew rides the horse but then goes to the piano and finishes the piano piece by playing the last key in the song.  This shows that the old man did not lose everything and that his life is still worth living.  The old man can now share his passion for the piano with his son or nephew, like he did with his wife.  His son or nephew can then take the passion for the piano and share it with his future lover. 

            The storyline I felt was very important because it showed a journey using music and no words.  This technique is very key because it shows that you do not need words or sounds to make an animation tell a story.  If you choose the right music, the music will tell your story.  I also noticed that the camera angles were great in zooming in on the main characters face and on the piano.  Like in the beginning it shows the man playing the piano from a far view, then cuts to a scene with the man (waist up) playing the piano.  It then goes to another scene with only the man’s hands playing the piano.  This viewing shows a progression from a far focal point to the main focus point.  Basically Gibbons wanted to show you the whole stage of his show as a whole and then zoom in slowly to the details on his stage.

 I also found it great how he timed the music.  When the old man plays the right hand and left hands for the piano piece is pretty neutral.  No hand has the main melody.  When his wife appears it shows that there are two parts.  The right hand, which is the wife, has the main melody of the song and the left hand, which is the old man, which is the background or support melody of the song.  This is key because it shows that two pieces makes a whole in music and in love.  I also liked how when he was at war it speeds up cause it shows action is occurring cause if the music was slow it would not have fit the animation.  I also enjoyed how after his partner died the old man looks up and it transitions back to the old man playing the piano.  That transition is perfect and blended well because it was not noticeable and showed a change in the music.  It went from fast to slow which you must show without making it looks choppy.  I feel what I can take from this animation is that I have to time my music to the actions of my story and what my characters do.  I should also think of it as my music is telling the story and not my story fighting with my music to make it work.  I also should think about views of like starting out either far and zooming in on my story or doing the opposite.  Also should I think about the background being empty and simple like this animation or make a full background with detail.  Will making to much detail in a background take away from my characters or strengthen my story.  These are things I need to think about when making my animation and things I can take from this animation.  

Poetry Animation

The two animations I really enjoyed most was The Language by Robert Creeley and Let Us Consider by Russell Edson.  In The Language animation I really felt the artwork and the pauses when reading the poem helped me understand what the animation was about.  I liked how the artwork appeared to be realistic but hand drawn.  I also felt using black and white colors gave the mood of serious and I felt like it kind of contradicted the video itself, which makes it work.  In the animation he says, "Words say everything," which is true but so does color.  Color can represent a mood.  I also enjoyed how the animation is like a dictionary and when the screen shows the word emptiness and makes the inside of the word disappear as if water was draining out of it.  This is such a useful technique because he took a word and gave it an action that made it represent its meaning.  Also when the animation says, "take care not to hurt," it showed a person and then it darkened his heart.  The word hurt was then represented to mean heart, like pain is only from the heart.
     In Let Us Consider I loved how when the old woman transforms the lamp into her son and then the son changed into a sun!  That was just genius.  I did not realize that son (meaning a boy) and the word sun (as in the heat source of planet earth) are pronounced in the same way.  This technique by taking a word and making it represent 2 things gives the audience a sort of like WOW factor.  It makes you think and say, "Hey this word is pronounced the same as this word but they both mean different things."  It may seem very common sense but many people do not realize this until they are shown it.  I also liked the part when they showed smoke cowed tongues for shoes.  I thought it was very clever to take a normal shoe and make it act like a moving tongue but not make the shoe appear as a cow tongue.  In both these animations I found that we should explore other ways of representing a word and give your animation a sort of Wow factor.  Make things not appear the way people would think it could appear as!

Analysis of Animated Worlds

Tell Tale Heart: Animation

Animation is one way to express emotion as well as imaginary worlds.  A great company that has excelled using animation is Disney.  Disney has produced forty-nine hit movies and is loved by many children over the past fifty years.  The key to a successful animation is a interesting storyline, characters are able to express emotion, color usage, and music choices.  In the short story The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe is brought to life using animation by Columbia Pictures. Designer Paul Julian and many others take Poe’s short story and bring it to life using still picture animation.

        In the film Julian uses a lot of dry and dull colors to give a depressing mood.  To enhance the story the music choice also helps by giving a scary and gloomy feeling.  The background in this film is filled with shadows using different tones of black and dry colors (yellow, white, blue, pink).  I would say an effective way to give a dark and mysterious mood is using a lot of dark colors and hiding the characters identity.  Throughout the film the audience is unaware of the narrators identity and what he or she ‘s appearance maybe.  This is a great technique because people in general are only interested in finding out what a story is about and who the main character is.  In this film the audience is left hanging and never finds out who the main character is, except that he or she is an insane person who killed an old man.  The way this film was designed reminded me a lot of the black silhouettes seen in Lotte Reinger’s production pieces because all you saw were the shadows of the characters excluding the old man.  By using dark colors the old man’s white-eye stood out and was more emphasized.  Any object that was white stood out and drew the eyes to that object.  The importance of this technique is that it allowed the audience to realize that the killer was always thinking about the old man’s white-eye. 

        Another technique used was the use of black.  When the old man awakens from sleep, the film is black.  When the old man’s heart is beating, the film shows flashes of light red to represent a heartbeat and to give the audience a feeling of terror.  When someone’s heart is beating fast it makes another person feel fearful because when you are scared your heart pumps faster because of adrenaline.  I felt this was very effective because it gave a different scene by showing the insides of a character.  Usually in a film we only see zoom in shots or wide shots.  This showed us the internal picture of a character.  This gave the feeling of a heart actually beating.  The other technique that enhanced this heartbeat was the music.  The music started off with a beat of a drum pounding and then sharp sounds as the heart began to pump faster. 

        I would say the most interesting technique used in his scenes was when they showed the police searching the house.  At this point in the story the narrator is scared about the police finding out about the old man’s death.  The film shows a lot of eyes and shows the police walking.  The film also shows a man at the bottom of a staircase and to show movement the camera only moves up the staircase to represent the man searching the upstairs of the house.  This technique saves a lot of work in animation. The moving of the camera up the staircase shows that you can show movement using the background scene and designers do not have to rely on the character itself to show movement. 

        From what I read online I found this a key role in any animation and found it in this story, “After going through the Art, Craft and Science of Animation it looks pretty convincing. However, we are still midway. From here the Animator will have to add 'Something' that cannot be expressed in words or visually. This Something is what makes characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck universally popular and loved across the barriers of 'Cast', 'Creed', 'Religion', 'Race' or 'Nationality. So what is this Something I would say it is the 'Soul',” (Thakur Vijendra).  The something Vijendra is speaking of is the soul. He is saying that in order to make a character come to life and to allow an audience to connect with the character the animator must become that character when designing it.  In the film I felt connected to the old man and the narrator because the artist made the old man look sorrowful and helpless.  By drawing the old man like this, it is human nature to feel bad for any creature that is helpless.  To keep it simple, by making the old man helpless, it allowed me to feel bad for him and gave the emotion of hate and sadness when the old man was killed.  This gave the film emotion in my opinion. In animation you can create emotions by drawing it or using sound.  But in this film the artist made emotion come out of how he drew the character. 

        In the animation I found this film to be very dark and intriguing because I have never heard of this Edger Allan Poe story before.  By using dark colors to represent shadows and the characters themselves, made a picture that was mysterious and evil. This is right on point for an animation for this story because Edgar Allan Poe’s work is very horrifying and shady. The use of still animation, movement of the camera, and dark drawings made the animation unique and gave the feeling of gloomy to the film. 

Bibliography

Thakur, Vijend. "Importance of Animation." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 25 Sept. 2010. <http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importance-of-animation.html>.

"Complete Disney Animated Movies List." Web. 25 Sept. 2010. <http://homepage.usask.ca/~jjs142/movielist.htm>.

"YouTube - Tell Tale Heart Animation." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 25 Sept. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4s9V8aQu4c>.

Cartoon Animation

When designing my cartoon I originally started off with a penguin idea but then transformed it into an elephant.  I then decided that I didn't think my cartoon was giving the feeling of cute and innocent!  I then thought about my childhood and thought about my old teddy bear that I took everywhere who is sitting back at home near my bed.  I then decided to make a teddy bear with big eyes.  I first started off with just a naked bear and then decided to pimp him up with some awesome swim trunks. After I drew the swim trunks I felt that his head looked a little to plain and felt like I wanted to give him a sort of bad boy cool look, with a mix of innocents.  I then added a tooth and stitches to his boy to make him look like a toy who any kid would want to play with.  I am still questioning the hat because I feel like its hard to see his eyebrows.  The had will make it hard to animate his eyebrow emotions when he is surprised or sad, but I will make it work. What I learned from this experience in flash is that you need to have everything on different layers one for movement of eyes.  I used tweens to make him wink and wave.  I hope to learn more on how to animate so I can make him realistic but still animated!  This project helped me brush the rust off of my past illustrator experience and make me learn how to use the program again!