3D animation

wow, my art history and animation history class just collided pretty much in the same week. I had just learned about Giotto in my art history class. He created wonderful paintings trying to create a since of depth with bigger foreground and smaller background, but the biggest thing was he overlapped his figures which before was unheard of. I'd never thought about the realism in 3D with depth. It's a common sense thing but hard to achieve. I was watching trailers and clips from Tron. I have to say that some of the stuff they were doing was really advanced. It's interesting to see that this movie possibly influenced one of the top animators of our time. Indeed 3D movies are the present because they can create realism far beyond what an ink backdrop can do.

I think, however, many of the movies now are overkilling the digital media. I'm not saying that Pixar should drop its productions nor Dreamworks (which I still have yet to see How to Train Your Dragon) but there are the other companies that pop out cheap movies without a good story or something to engage the audience. They also have a more cartoony look about them unlike the realistic Pixar, Dreamworks, and some of the CGI only movies. I'm more of an artist that prefers drawn animation, i don't know if that's because I was raised to appreciate it or I've always liked art in general. Regardless, I wouldn't be surprised in 20 years if all the movies would be made like Avatar and we all get chronic headaches for 3D glasses.

Which is another thing are we striving for realism so bad that everything is turning into 3D?

animation and its audience

Although there wasn't much to say about the controversial t.v. that appeared largely in the 90s. I agree that those paticular shows were widely for teens and adults. When I was a kid I remember disliking Bevis and Butthead because it didn't have action. I was used to watching the superhero cartoons on saturday mornings and whatever animated movie I could get my hands on. I'm sure it was also that I didn't understand the adult humor. I found the section about the various audience and their Disney experiences to be interesting. It made me think about my thoughts on my first remembered Disney film. My mom said the first disney movie she took me to was Beauty and the Beast. I don't remember that experience at all but I do remember seeing Lion King on the big screen. I can relate to some of the things the people were taking about as well. I remember seeing my dad choke up when Mufasa died because my grandpa ( his dad) passed away 3 years prior. The music and story moved me and I enjoyed it. In a strange sense, Lion King was the movie that ultimately inspired me. I started drawing the characters, acting out in imagination to certain scenes. I love that movie and will forever. I'm not saying it's the best animated film I've seen, nevertheless, that movie will always stay close to my heart because of an impacted it had over me.

Stop Motion

I will always consider this to be a strange animation and yet so common. It was probably one of the first types of animation done with a moving tripod. It's amazing how all of the stop animation advanced to feature movies involving complex stories and intriguing characters. Nightmare Before Christmas is a good example of the complexity of stop motion. After reading the section about how they were able to do the movie in so many sets yet keep it smooth by ways of drawing out every single frame. I bet they could take all of those frames and make a 2d version of the movie. I did enjoy Norman Mclaren's 'The Neighbours' for it's artistic motive of stop motion. It must have been difficult for the actors to jump up the same height each time. It's all worth it in the end when everything is pieced together. Hopefully no fingerprints on the clay and all of that.

Japanese

It was interesting to read about how Disney, Warner Bros. and Japanese animation differ. It's something i never thought about. Like Warner Bros. always being the meer 'toons' whereas Disney is so focused on realistic animation. I like them both, Disney for the moving stories and WB for the laughs. I've always had an extra fondness for japanese animation because of the extra 'violence' that the characters showed. It wasn't meaningless violence like the violence of some of the american animation. It was all about moral, fighting bad people for honor and protecting yourself and others. Even the movies or shows today are like that. The unnecessary violence we can see being taught to the children are by tom and jerry, warner bros as well. Elmer fudd just wants to kill the rabbit yet there never was a specific reason,and bugs is usually displayed as the trickster good guy. Astroboy is described as being a robot boy that goes after the bad guys.
I like anime also for the story value. One of my favorites is Full Metal Alchemist. The story is so heartfelt and moving that you really bond with the characters. It's deep and very disturbing at times because it deals with magic, and that magic is darker than the Disney pixie dust. I would recommend it to everyone.

Stop Motion Animation

Don Storm and Myself's Stop Motion animation project.

'Cartoons' wk. 9

I'm debating on which animation has made more impact in our lives. Limited animation came before the full features, at least that's what i'm concluding from our class. I guess using the same jokes and gags would tire after a while. Now it seems like all limited animation does have a story value. Simpsons produces a logical thought out story in just 30 minutes. The humor is mixed between slapstick and jokes which gives it a family value if not more of everyday occurrence humor. I think Nickelodean produced cartoons strictly for teens. The jokes were dirty, disturbing, and almost scary. I remember watching a Ren and Stimpy show, I was around 10 and never had any interest in the show. At one point they re-enacted a Repunzel and Ren was climbing up the 'hair' to reach Stimpy as repunzel. Once to the top the 'hair' is revealed as a long nose hair. I never quite got over that scene or gain interest in the show. While this is a later show of what the chapter describes as limited shows for older audiences, I'd just thought I'd bring up the Nickleodean kids. I'm sure most of college kids now remember old nickelodean with crazy cartoon shows like Rugrats, Ah! Real Monsters, Doug, Ren and Stimpy, and many more. These shows had more joke humor and situations of real life problems that was reflective of kids. Some other shows held a gross humor that was unseen in many limited animation before, like Ren and Stimpy. Even the art was drastic. There would be a pause and extreme close up of the distorted character with all of it's.. disgust. Like bulging eyes, pimples, blisters, gross teeth, etc. It was bizarre.

I miss some of the old shows though, they were different, and I enjoyed them to the sugarcoated artistic style like Disney.

Disney for wk. 8

I think Enchanted (2007) is a good satire example of Disney's characters. Reading the part about Grimm's fairytales, I've always thought that Disney told the true tale. When I was a kid, I assumed everything was that kind of fluffy fairytale like Snow White. NO, red hot shoes, the choking corsette, or the poison hairpin. Yes, I read my grandmother's copy of Grimm's fairytales and was surprised by all the censored stories. Enchanted takes that idea of ridiculous Disney princess censorship to mock and actually bluntly express how cartoon and unreal it is. When Disney made realistic full featured movies, he wanted to show animation in a more realist way. Yet, it seems like it is all unreal and a fairytale.

As for the censoring, I remember as a kid we had a read a long book of Song in the South. I never knew it was a movie for the longest time. It was so demeaning towards African Americans that they never released it since. Yet, we still can see clips of Zip e doo dah and hear the song so much. It's quite sad that they didn't find a way to either get rid of it completely if it's that horrible or just let it be released. There was also a part in Fantasia that can be seen on youtube ( Fantasia Cut) about misrepresenting blacks at the time. This was cut when it was rereleased in the 70's and forever after. Definitely a good scene to remove. I still love the movie regardless, especially the whole ancient greek mythology.