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The Future of Animation

I recently came across an influencer's Instagram account that caught my eye. The post that drew my attention was a photo of a girl sitting in her room next to a half unpacked suitcase. She wore a grey hoodie, a pair of blue jeans and expensive white leather boots. Her pose was casual, but confident, she was on the phone and looked like she was mid conversation with someone. The photo looked like it could have been any other intstagram influencer, the catch is: she's a robot. Her bio reads: ~ MIQUELA~ 19/LA/Robot. The LA based company Brud has created Miquela as well as four other Instagram accounts for robots that all have their own unique personalities and aesthetics. The CGI robots also have their own youtube channel and complex relationships with one another. They comment on each others posts, and promote real companies' products and fashion. They are very popular as well for not being real, as Miquela has 1.5 million followers. At first I thought this was incredibly bi
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Animation is For Everyone

I've never really thought of animation as something for kids, even though I know it is very often how it is perceived by the film industry. I've watched and loved many animated films throughout my entire life and after taking this course, I still stand by my opinion that animation can be just as much for adults and teens as it is for children. I think many adult cartoons like Bojack Horseman and South Park are proof that adults can find enjoyment in animation. I see animation less as a genre and more of an aesthetic choice, like how in life action, color correction and lighting effects are often different depending on the genre and filmmaker. Different genres in animated films also very often look different. I wish animated films would get more recognition during events like the Academy Awards, which is not to say they haven't before (Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture), but it very rarely happens. I think if animated films were considered for other categor
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takeaways from this class

I've never been a huge fan of animation, but taking this class has made me realize how narrow-minded I was. My understanding and appreciation for animation has gone through the roof. When this class started I had a very undeveloped understanding of animation. Before this class I would have never thought of CGI as animation, even though it so clearly is now. My definition of animation has broadened and became more confusing for me to understand.  Animation is in almost every movie and it's starting to blow my mind.  In addition, I saw animation as a "kid" medium.  I never thought an animated movie would move me as deeply as a movie like Waltz with Bashir  did.  Also I found out I might actually like anime movies. I always thought anime movies were "weird" since they have such a strange stigma behind them. After watch the two anime movies in class, I can honestly say that they aren't as bad as many people make them out to be. I didn't think I would
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More than a movie?

It's common for Spidey movies to make reference to the comics, from major plot lines pulled from the source material or the tiniest of background details that only the true comic readers will notice. But Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse did something quite different: it referenced the previous Spider-Man movies . And not just like paying tribute or using homages or whatever, but directly referring to terrible moments in the franchise's history and using it to make the audience laugh and sort of be reminded they're watching a movie. So if this was your first Spider-Man movie, a lot would go over your head. But that's not really new, Deadpool and Deadpool already did that. But what was new was that during the post credit scene, the film was making reference to a meme . A meme that is very current, too. A meme that most of the audience over 35 wouldn't even understand. But of course the theatre was filled with many people under 35 who were laughing their butts off.
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Feels Like Summer music video

Another interesting thing my friend was talking about lately is the “Feels Like Summer” music video by Childish Gambino. Really the music video is by artist Justin Richburg. I wanted to research more into the artist himself. I read an article about Richburg and it said that Gambino found him through his instagram. He would post some of his work which included drawings of some famous celebrities. Childish Gambino’s team reached out to him and asked if he could do the music video. Just goes to show you how powerful social media can be for artists.
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Shrek Retold

My friend recently told me he saw a video called “Shrek Retold” which is a version of the Dreamworks movie “Shrek” but animated 200 different ways from 200 different artists. This reminded me of the animated short film we watched on one of the first days of this class. The film was animated by different artists all over the world. This is a little bit more of a meme than that film but it is still very interesting to watch! Shrek Retold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM70TROZQsI
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How did they do that?

After a semester of learning about animation aesthetics and delving into how 3D animation has dominated mainstream animation, I'm still left with this burning curiosity about how the heck artists create 3D images. I ran across this video just scrolling through Facebook one day and found it very interesting. I don't know if this how a lot of artists draw their characters but even so: I don't know if this link will work for you:  https://www.facebook.com/Jrockradio/videos/1836480999772427/ It's basically a video of someone drawing in 3D a character's hair with a tablet. From what I can tell from the comments section (the most factual information source known to humans) it looks to be a newish form of technology? It got me thinking, and we touched on this in class a bit as well, as the technology grows and as new technology develops the more styles and techniques we will see artists employing. I'm excited to see what comes out in the future but I also want to
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Academy Awards VFX Shortlist

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Yesterday, the Academy Awards announced the shortlist for 9 categories, including visual effects. Of all of the categories, it seemed like this one was the most controversial based on twitter response. Considering this year had a lot of visually stunning films, it's not surprising some good ones got snubbed. It seemed like a lot of people were angry  Aquaman  was not in consideration but 3 Marvel films were. Personally, I'm sad to see Annihilation  left off, I thought that had some of the coolest vfx this whole year. That scene in the lighthouse is just amazing. What were some vfx that stood out to you this year?
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Wrapping it up

Over the course of this semester, we not only learned about different types of animation, but also the making of different films that we may have not previously realized used animation and how certain companies came to be. I came into this class with an interest in animation, but I am leaving with a passion for it. I realized just how much I love stop motion pictures. Specifically films like Coraline and ParaNorman. Also, watching how Pixar came to be was inspiring. It took me back to when I was a little kid, watching Toy Story, Bugs Life, Monsters Inc., etc. Animation takes you to a completely different reality for a short period of time, allowing you to escape from the world. I'm curious to hear about what everyone else took from this class and how animation impacts you.
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Female Characters Written by Men

For our last class we watched Song of the Sea and had a brief discussion on if the film is feminist or not. From that, one of the other students asked if the girls in the class feel that it's true that men need to stop writing female characters because they're not relatable. My answer to this is fucking of course. As someone who literally always watches movies, most of the women that I see are nothing like me and or any woman that I associate myself with. And that can be very difficult sometimes. This is true for student films as well, which is sad. I can't tell you how many films I've seen men in park make about some manic pixie dream girl who's just looking for her "destiny." They're all the same. And this is a man's ideal girl. It's as silly as any John Green novel. It would be much easier to relate to female characters if they were written by women. One great example is Bridesmaids, one of my favorite movies of all time. One of the reason
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Animation as Art

For me, watching song of the sea really showed me how much of a true art form animation is.  When I think about what traditional "art" expectations are, I think of painting for example.  I think that animation can really take this traditional expectation of art however and bring it to new heights.  Watching song of the sea really just seemed to me as if I was in a moving painting and it truly was a magical experience.  I think that this really is a large part of the magic of animation and how unique of a medium it really is.  Advancing technology also elevates this as technology will no longer get in the way of inspiring artists and animators to make their visions into reality such as this film. Below is an article that I found that hits on animation being seen as an art form. https://www.parkwestgallery.com/animation-art-20th-century/
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Animating Women

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Watching Song of the Sea on Tuesday really seemed to spark an interesting conversation. We were mainly talking about the Bechdel test and films having strong female characters, but that got me thinking of something else. The animation of female characters in films is typically unvaried. This isn't with every animation studio, but many animate women with a narrow nose, big eyes, and small chin. Whereas animated men actually look different from one another. Pixar and Disney Studios in general does this A LOT, rarely varying women's appearances. This is an interesting thing to consider when animating characters, because it seems like something that wouldn't be huge problem--considering that real women have different face shapes. But, men do as well and there's much more variety in the animation of mens' faces.
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CG And Superheroes

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Firstly, I thought this would be a nice note to end the class on. A good video to reflect on the place of special effects in movies today XD. My actual question, though... why aren't there more 3D CG Superhero movies? It seems like it's the one area that would really benefit from a highly stylized look where the proportions can be crazily exaggerated. And there's so much fun stuff you can do with art style.  I'm really happy Into the Spider-Verse is starting to play around with this. I hope there's more in the future! It just seems to obvious to me that CG could be a really good way to bring to life that slick, plastic-y look that so many comic books already have without compromising the creativity of either medium. Are there more examples that I'm just not thinking of? 
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Response to: Kim Possible Live Action

Turning a cartoon animated show into a live action movie could be quite unique. However, all these adaptions fail to recognize the original audience. Focusing more on attracting a new audience. This is fine if they truly want to start a story over, but why leave an entire fanbase out to dry. This isn't cool and its a failure by companies who just want to cash in on an old idea turned new.
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