For my Final Blog Specimens, I chose the following blog posts:

1.)  The first blog post I chose is called “Father and Daughter Animation.”  I chose this animation because I greatly enjoyed watching this animation and appreciated how the animation was able to convey such a beautiful story though very simple line drawings, shadows, lack of dialogue and lack of facial expressions to convey emotion.  It reminded me a little of the “Prince Achmed” animation from class because of its use of shadows and simplicity.  Here is the link to the post:

https://animationayshun.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/father-and-daughter-animation-blog-8-2/

2.)  The second blog post I chose is called “Coraline.”  This post is my most recent and is one of my favorites because I had not previously looked so closely at stop motion animation before we discussed this movie in class.  After our class discussion, I went back to Youtube and found a couple of videos that showed the extremely detailed and meticulous process that was done to make Coraline in stop motion.  I found a video on an overall outlook on the production with commentary included by the author Neil Gaiman.  I also found a video that looked at the making of facial expressions alone, and also a video dealing with the making of the super tiny clothing for the characters in the movie.  Here is the link to the post:

https://animationayshun.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/coraline-blog-13/

Having watched Coraline in class for the second time made me realize how incredibly different certain textures such as skin were in this animation compared to other animations we have seen in class.  The outfits and hair on the characters were very realistic as well.  I wondered if this had to do with the fact that this movie was made in stop motion.  I decided to find some videos on You tube to see how stop motion works, and how specifically the characters were created in Coraline.

The video on the top showed how detailed and painstaking the process was of creating miniature puppets, props, and sets for this stop motion animation.  Stop motion brings across acting and performance by the animator, along with adding, in the words of Neil Gaiman a “stylized reality” to the animation.

The video below specifically looks at the way the facial expressions were made for the characters, especially Coraline.  Just the process of changing Coraline’s facial expressions is tedious in stop motion.  There are not only different facial expressions on the computer, but each expression is also hand made to fit the lower half of the puppet’s face to go in accordance with the dialogue, which is recorded first.

The video below explains how exactly they shot one frame at a time for stop motion in Coraline.  The walls of the house opened and closed so the animator could move the figure (in this case the other dad playing the piano.)  The animator showed how he had to move the dad by a little increment, close up the whole set again, take the shot, and then repeat this same step a couple hundred times just to get that one scene.  No wonder this movie took 4 years to make!

Finally, the video below shows how much work and time went into creating the props by hand for the movie.  This video is in regards to the character’s costumes.  In the video one can see how Coraline’s sweater was created thoroughly by hand, with pattern and all.  It goes to show how much the details are worked on for stop motion animations.  According to the lady making the sweater (Althea Crome,) very small needles are used that are almost the “same dimension as a human hair” to knit the sweaters.  The time span for the sweater can be from six weeks to six months.

Overall, I enjoyed watching Coraline again in class.  The animators obviously worked very hard to bring this movie to life and did an excellent job!

**I commented on John Lyver (#27) and Jessica Martin (#30)

Watching “Toy Story 2” in class brought back great childhood memories.  “Toy Story” has been an immensely popular animation, and  I wanted to look at how “Toy Story” has been referenced in popular culture, particularly by Tim Allen and Disney and Pixar’s other animations.

“Home Improvement” had many references to “Toy Story.”  “Home Improvement” was a show in which Tim Allen was a main character.  Tim Allen was also the voice actor for Buzz Lightyear.    Some references were when Tim is playing with a Buzz Lightyear doll with his neice.  Another reference was when Tim tells Marty, his brother, that he’ll love him “for infinity and beyond.”  Another reference occurs when Tim is fighting with the same brother and says instead “I’m not talking to you “for infinity and beyond.”

Another reference is made to Buzz Lightyear’s phrase in “The Shaggy Dog.”  In the movie, Tim Allen has been turned into a dog, and is jumping on to a truck, and while he is mid air he says “To infinity and beyond.”

In “The Santa Clause 2,” Tim Allen tells the Santa clone “You are a sad, strange little man.”  This was a line in “Toy Story” that Buzz uses towards Woody.

Disney and Pixar also make references to “Toy Story” in another one of their animations, called “Cars.”  Lightning McQueen wants the gas station named “Dinoco” for sponsorship.  this was the name of the gas station in “Toy Story.”  Another reference occurs during the credits at the end of the movie where the characters from “Toy Story” where Buzz, Hamm, and Woody are acted out by the cars.

*Info taken from Wikipedia.

* I commented on Hayleigh Allingham #2, and John Lyver #25

The video above is a great animation called Animator vs. Animation.  It is an animation about the relationship between an animator and their animation and the power struggle going on between them.  The animator used a familiar media, and simple line animations for this piece. This animation reminded me of the Daffy Duck animation that we saw in class where Daffy is trying to communicate with the animator.

I liked how the animator in this clip used familiar media and incorporated it in a creative way in the animation.  Many people have seen a similar tool box in the paint application.  The way the animation goes to the tool box and steals the tools to use against the animator’s destructive animations is done wonderfully.  The animation even uses layers, and makes use of the whole screen, Including more stick figures like himself to fight the mouse on the screen.

The other aspect I like about this animation was that while the whole animation was complicated, especially when the toolbox is being used, the character and the weapons are made with simple line drawings.  The main character is simple as well, as he is a stick figure.

I also liked how the animation’s main character is effective without any facial expressions or dialogue to help convey his emotions toward the animator.  So here while the interaction was similar to the Daffy Duck animation we saw in class, it differed from the Daffy Duck animation because Daffy had both dialogues and expression to show his frustration with the animator.   There is some color used in the explosions, but other than that, the drawings are done in black.  Overall this a very creatively done animation.

**I commented on Hayleigh Allingham (#2,) and Emily Witt (#51)

Here is the video clip for Tim Burton’s “Vincent” :

In this post, I will discuss the characters as well as some design elements of Vincent, a short animation that is written, directed, and designed by Tim Burton.

Tim Burton usually has a unique way of presenting the physical appearance of his characters on screen.  In this animation, the characters have exaggerated features.  Vincent’s face is exaggerated into a long triangle with considerable distance between his nose and mouth. Vincent’s dog has a similar face shape as well.  The black cat in the beginning also has a distorted shape and is incredibly skinny.

The adult characters of the mom and aunt in the animation do not have their faces shown, but are rather shown from their midsection down.  The characters skin seems to have a cloth texture and at times looks cellulite ridden, particularly the aunt and mom’s.  Vincent’s hair seemed like it was completely fried, but at the same time the hair looked very realistic. The aunt does not really communicate with Vincent, and when the mom is shown talking to him, it is in fact not her voice, but the narrators, and she is giving gestures with her hands in the narration.

Speaking of narration, none of the characters actually talk in this animation.  Their actions and thoughts are narrated by a deep voice that helps to convey the mood and setting.  The narration is done in rhymed lines, giving the piece a poetic touch.

In terms of the design elements, The animation is done in black and white to add to Vincent’s eerie imagination.  The lighting throughout is pretty dim, and gets especially dim and dark when we enter Vincent’s imaginary world.

There is a use of  shadows and silhouettes in the imaginary world.  This is seen with a zoomed out shot of the stairs that Vincent goes up to get to his “tower of doom,” or simply put, his room.  A huge shadow of the dog is also seen, along with Vincent’s other inventions.  There are also zoomed in shots of Vincent’s bulging eyes to convey changes in his character or show his fear.

The background music also served very well to convey the tone of the animation, and was particularly successful at the end when Vincent is lying on the floor with the narrator reading the lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” Overall I thought this was a well made animation.

*I commented on Emily Witt (#51) and Brenda Webber #50

I’ve come to realize that as the animation companies move away from cel animation feature films towards CGI animation feature length films, there are no more songs in the movies!   When I say there arent’ any more songs I’m not referring to back ground music, but actual musical pieces.  Re-watching some old animations in class such as Snow White made me realize that songs played a huge role in cel animations.  I usually recall memories of watching these animations as a kid through listening to the songs again now as an adult. I want to take a look at what role these musical song pieces played in these cel animations, and look at some possible reasons as to why CGI animations no longer use song sequences.

For many people that have watched cartoons as kids, the songs from these animations bring back childhood memories.  When we were watching “Snow White” in class, I seemed to recall all of the songs in the movie like “I’m Wishing for the one I love” “Whistle While You Work,” and “Heigh Ho, It’s Off to Work We go!”  There are songs from other Disney cel feature length animations that I also enjoyed like Lion King’s “Circle of Life,” “I Just Can’t Wait to be King.” There’s also Aladdin’s “Whole New World,” and “You’ll Never Find a Friend Like Me.”  Mulan has “Reflections,” and “Be a Man.”  There’s the song “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which I think was from Pinnochio, and “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid.”  These are just some among many.

While I admit that sometimes it’s just plain annoying to have a song sequence pop up in the middle of an animated movie, these song sequences actually helped the animation.  One of the ways was that they showed the true artistic capability of the animators, especially in terms of landscape.  The song sequences allowed animators to use a wider range of colors, have unique drawings, and quickly transition between frames.

The song sequences gave the animator artistic freedom.  Along with this, they helped convey the narrative of the plot.  Lyrics in the songs were great devices for doing this.  Mulan’s song “Reflection” told us what Mulan was really thinking about herself and her life.  Snow White’s “I’m Wishing For the One I Love,” and “One Day My Prince Will Come” told us that Snow White’s main dream was to meet her Prince Charming.

The songs were also a great way to compress large amounts of time.  We have to remember that cel animations cannot be very long.  Therefore it is a challenge for animators to show a character’s growth within that limited time frame.  One solution to this problem was the use of songs.  For example in “The Lion King’s” song “Hakunnah Matata,”  Simba is shown as a little kid, and through the song, we see him slowly age as he chills with Timon and Pumba, until he is fully grown by the end of the song.

These songs also serve to show the development of love between  characters, like Aladdin’s “A Whole New World,” where in the span of one song Aladdin and Jasmine fall in love.  The songs also show the character’s struggles, as in Mulan’s “Be a Man.”  These are just some roles that songs played in cel animations.

So the question is if songs had so many advantages and appeal, why in the world have they been discontinued in the transition from cel animation to CGI animation?  The only animation I recall with a song sequence in it was “Shrek,” and that was at the very end of the movie.  Other than that, I don’t remember seeing any song sequences in any CGI feature length animations.  I think one possible reason could be that animation companies are now aiming at a more adult audience to increase viewership and revenue.  Another reason could be to save money by not having to pay singers as well as voice over actors.  Whatever the reason, I do wish they would at least have one song sequence in, if not all, then at least some of the CGI animations.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?

**I commented on Emily Witt (#51), and Erica LoMonaco (#26)

For this week’s blog, I want to talk about a great Academy Award winning animation about a father and a daughter. It is a bit long, but is definitely worth the watch! Here it is:

What affected me the most about this animation was its main plot.  It’s hard to sit through an animation with a bad plot behind it.  This plot was incredibly touching because it showed a daughter’s dedication to her father and his memory through out her life.

In terms of animation, I loved the simplicity the animation displayed.  There was mostly black and white color used with simple line drawings and shading with different shades of black.

There was also a zoomed out shot of the characters so their faces were hard to make out.  This makes the animation even more impressive, since it was able to connect emotionally with the audience without showing facial expressions.  There was use of shadowy silhouettes, where the figures were so zoomed out that they looked like shadows, reminding me of “Prince Achmed” from class.

Music played a central role in the animation to transition into the different scenes and convey the emotion of the narrative because no dialogue was used.  The zoomed in bicycle wheels that were shown spinning throughout helped to convey the passage of time.  Other things that helped convey the passage of time were the changes of the seasons, the changing of the water to grass, the flying of the birds, and the aging of the daughter as she rode up the hill and passed different sets of people each time.  The location in the animation also relates in conveying the narrative’s simplicity since the whole animation takes place up and down the hill where it began, with shots of the water that later gets replaced by grass.  Overall, this was a well done and very touching animation!

**I commented on Brenda Weber (#50) and Emily Witt (#51)

Being an English major, I find it interesting when animators and live action movie makers alike take famous novels, short stories, or poems, and turn them into either animations or live action movies.  The result of this is different interpretations that are based on the original stories, or new stories inspired by the originals.  The short story that I specifically want to look at in this post is Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Ugly Duckling,” in which I want to touch on a different interpretation of the story in animated format, one done by Disney’s “silly symphonies, and one done by an animation called “How To Grow a Carrot.”

I recalled reading Hans Christian Anderson’s version of the “Ugly Duckling” in a class two semesters ago on children’s literature.  The original story plot is of a little bird being born into a barnyard, but getting scorned and abused until he grows up to be a beautiful swan.  This occurs through his many adventures and misfortunes until he meets a group of swans who accept him because by this time he has grown up to be a beautiful swan.

We saw Disney’s version of this in class which can  be found here.  Disney changed Anderson’s plot line and made it so that the duckling was hatched into the wrong group of birds and would not be accepted, and after tries to be accepted into other families and being rejected, the duckling finally gets accepted by a swan family where he finds other ducklings just like him.

A CGI animation called “How to Grow a Carrot” copies Disney’s Cel animation interpretation of “The Ugly Duckling” but instead uses vegetables instead of animals for the narrative.  Here is a clip:

This narration uses simple shapes to create the animations, where the feet given to the vegetables are not connected, and the facial features are not that detailed.  Despite the simplicity and similar story line, the animation is still effective.

**I commented on John Gayak’s blog (#17), and Christopher DeMarco‘s blog (#11).

Over spring break, the animation I watched, or rather should say re-watched was Disney’s “Pocahontas.”  In this post, I will discuss Disney’s attempt at historical fiction, the animals in the movie, the animation of nature, and the use of song sequences to convey the plot of the narrative.

“Pocahontas” is definitely a story that strays from Disney’s typical fairytale plot line.  It is based on actual history, but this history is not necessarily accurate history.  Here is the history that Disney actually got right: Pocahontas’s spirit.  She was a free spirited girl and conveyed pretty well in that regard.  They also represented the spirit of the other Native Americans, as well as that of the early Jamestown settlement well.  Another thing that is accurate is the setting of James Fort and Powhatan village.  The lifestyles there are pretty well displayed.  The ship that the crew came on was also the right ship called “Susan Constant,” although in reality that was not the only ship that had come to Virginia.  The name of the governor is also right.  John Ratcliffe was in fact in charge of the colony at the time Smith was captured.  Finally, the way Smith was saved by Pocahontas was legitimate, since Smith had written himself that he had been saved by Pocahontas, who had thrown herself  by Smith’s head, coming in between him and the Indians attacking him.  Someone in Disney wanted this to be a Romeo and Juliet type of movie, and someone else wanted the American Frontier.  These two ideas combined together formed the rest of the fiction plot, with Smith as Romeo, and Pocahontas as Juliet.  The movie shows that Pocahontas and Smith met in the wilderness and fell in love (like Romeo and Juliet,) and Pocahontas was engaged to Kokoum but chose Smith instead.  In reality, the first time Pocahontas and Smith really met was when she saved his life, and he became Powhatan’s adopted son.  Pocahontas was actually engaged to Kokoum after she thought Smith was dead, but instead chose to marry John Rolfe over Kokoum.  Therefore, it would have made more sense if Kokoum was in the second movie and not the first.   If anyone is interested in the comparison of the animated Pocahontas and the real story of Pocahontas, this is a great website where I got the historical information, complete with a detailed chart: http://pocahontas.morenus.org/index.html.

Next I wanted to look at animals in the movie.  In the movie “Pocahontas,” the animals do not talk, as they do in some cel animation cartoons.  Rather they communicate with the humans like Pocahontas through certain gestures and actions.  This is also how they communicate with each other.  They are given their animal-like characteristics and actions, yet at the same time, these actions are exaggerated and at times seem a bit humane.  One example is the bird’s need to protect Pocahontas from any danger, in particular John Smith, and Meeko the raccoon’s overly friendly nature (except towards the dog Percy.)  The naming of Ratcliffe’s dog, Percy is also significant. George Percy was actually a colonist council President who followed Smith around and wrote two books about him.  Meeko and Percy also symbolize the relationship between the Native Americans and the colonists, when at first they don’t understand each other and fight all the time, but eventually become friends that help each other out.

In terms of animation, I like how Disney animated nature in “Pocahontas.”  One good example is Grandmother Willow.  The morphing of the tree trunk into her face and back again is done quite well.  Also, it is interesting how the animators used only the elements of the tree trunk to make her face.  For example, her eyes are hollow holes in the trunk, as is her mouth when she talks.  The tree vines on Grandmother Willow’s tree are also animated and give Grandmother Willow more personality.  They are used as her hands.  She smacks people with her vines, picks up Meeko, and can point and reach towards the water and touch it.  The other part in which nature is brought to life is in the song “Colors of the Wind.”  Here there is a sequence where everything on the screen appears painted with different colors, including Pocahontas.  The colors are smudged and look as though they are flowing all around Pocahontas.  The movement of Pocahontas’s hair also conveys the blowing of the wind.  In this way, the song sequence is describing its titles and literally showing the colors of the wind, which is usually colorless.  In another song, “Listen to Your Heart,” the wind and the nature are given a voice as echoes of Grandmother Willow’s songs are heard everywhere.

Songs play an integral part in the narrative of the movie.  I already talked above about some ways that the songs “Colors of the wind,” and “Listen to Your Heart” help in the plot of the film.  The song that I thought did best in conveying the film’s narrative was the song “Savages.”  Here are some of the lyrics that the colonists are singing:

[Ratcliffe]
What can you expect
From filthy little heathens?
Their whole disgusting race is like a curse
Their skin’s a hellish red
They’re only good when dead
They’re vermin, as I said
And worse
[English Settlers]
They’re savages! Savages!
[Ratcliffe]
Barely even human
[English Settlers]
Savages! Savages!
[Ratcliffe]
Drive them from our shore!
They’re not like you and me
Which means they must be evil
We must sound the drums of war!
[English Settlers]
They’re savages! Savages!
Dirty redskin devils!
Now we sound the drums of war!

Here are the Native American’s side of the lyrics:

[Powhatan]
This is what we feared
The paleface is a demon
The only thing they feel at all is greed
[Kekata]
Beneath that milky hide
There’s emptiness inside
[Native Americans]
I wonder if they even bleed

They’re savages! Savages!
Barely even human
Savages! Savages!
[Powhatan]
Killers at the core
[Kekata]
They’re different from us
Which means they can’t be trusted
[Powhatan]
We must sound the drums of war
[Native Americans]
They’re savages! Savages!
First we deal with this one
[All]
Then we sound the drums of war

Here is the video with lyrics:

This song sums up the whole movie for me.  The lyrics clearly convey that each side does not like the other, mainly because the other side is different, which makes them think they must be evil and not trustworthy.  However, seeing as how this is a cartoon movie aimed at children, the lyrics are a bit harsh, especially the first part that the colonists are singing.  The words are very racist.  There is talk of blood, war, killing, and offensive remarks made about skin color.  There are also guns being thrown, axes being sharpened, glowing face and body war paint, canons, pitch forks and shovels being raised, and Smith is shown with a rope around his neck and is being dragged.  While I appreciate that these lyrics do a good job of conveying each side’s mentality, these words do not appear suitable for a children’s movie.  Along with the lyrics, the song is filled with images of fire, smoke, and dark lighting on part of both sides as they get ready for war, which might frighten kids.  While I think this song did an excellent job of conveying the narrative both through the drawings and the lyrics, I don’t think it was necessarily suitable for a child audience.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching Disney’s “Pocahontas” again.  I noticed things in it this time that I hadn’t before, and had more appreciation for the historical fiction, the beautiful drawn cel animation, the animation of the animals and nature, and the song sequences.

**I commented on Brittany Alberry’s Post (#1) and Hayleigh Allingham (#2)