Animation Aesthetics F18

In class we discussed the multiple types of hybrid animation, in particular "mixed" animation. We defined mixed animated films as films that have both live-action and animation, but keep the two mediums separate. Two different world coexisting in one film. This made me think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as well as Monty Python's Flying Circus. In the TV show, there are brief animated interludes between sketches that tie sketches together. The animator, Terry Gilliam, would create animated sketches that were very dark and twisted but also silly and humorous. In the Monty Python Films, the animation served as a way to serve plot exposition or help transition between scenes. Live action and animation however, always stayed separate.

So after watching Your Name , I realized that the film didn't have an antagonist. I thought this was really interesting because usually the relationship between the antagonist and protagonist is what drives the tension of a story. In this film, it was the couple's desire to meet face to face, despite all the obstacles in their way. I was thinking about other animes I've seen and I saw a similar situation in My Neighbor Totoro, where the tension of the story is drawn when Mai disappears. As a result, I find myself always feeling that I've learned something about the fleetingness of life after these movies. Wondering if anyone else has seen some good animated films that don't have an antagonist, or even contain not a lot of binary opposition (much like Princess Mononoke ).

Recently, I have been thinking about the truly vast number of animated films that are being remade.  These remakes seem to bring up the argument if they are offering anything new or different in comparison to the original.  Usually, these films tend to serve as a reminder of the significance and success of the original film.  What they do tend to change, however, is the visual storytelling techniques and the technology used to create the image.  As technology advances, we tend to see more remakes, because filmmakers want a way to guarantee an audience interest from something they have seen before.  They also want a chance to show off new filmmaking technologies such as CGI and 3D animations.  I wonder if these films offer a new perspective, and breath of fresh air for an old film or are simply shallow attempts for a cash grab. 

We touched on this in class a little bit, but I was thinking about how hyperhybrid stuff has kind of become less of a novelty? It used to be like a tech demo - look at what we can do with this new VFX kind of thing, especially for Avatar &  Planet of the Apes mocap stuff - but I feel like maybe it's starting to reach it's peak and become less exciting on it's own, just because we're so used to seeing it. Same thing with Disney 3D animated films. So then that exhaustion opens up doors for things like Into the Spiderverse , which is twisting the whole 3D animation thing and creating this new visual style. Just wondering if anyone else felt similarly? Do you think we'll start seeing more things like Spiderverse in the future?

I know we really focus on film in this class but Indiewire just posted a list of what they call the Top 50 animated shows of all time. I was happy to see my all time favorite (Archer) in the top 3. How do your favorites shape up? Do you agree with the rankings? https://www.indiewire.com/2018/11/best-animated-series-all-time-cartoons-anime-tv-1202021835/

De-aging in cinema has been around since 2006 with X-Men: The Last Stand. It was used to make Sir Ian McKellan's Magneto and Sir Partick Stewart's Professor X younger for a flashback scene. But, Brad Pitt's de-aging in 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button really launched the technology  into popular use. It has prominent use in the Marvel Cinemtic Universe, notably being used for establishing older characters into an already dintinguished universe with a flashback backstory. The Hobbit films used the same technique for Orlando Bloom's Legolas. This article from The Ringer adds feedback to the uneasiness associated with this technology: "... the characters appear as chilling amalgams of human beings — someone’s real arm, and someone’s real head, and a weird CGI’d face on top of the whole thing. As an audience member you get the creeping feeling that you’re not watching a person, but rather an entity  imitating  a person. It’s  weird  — much weirder than

What were your favorite animated shows as a younger kid? I started to remember all of the animated shows I watched and so many great shows came to mind. A specific show that came to mind was, The Magic School Bus . This definitely wasn’t my favorite show, but I’d say it was up there because I watched it often. This show was so good for kids because it was actually educational. This is rare to find in shows nowadays, I feel like. If you don’t remember what it’s about, the show f ollows Ms. Frizzle (the teacher) and her class when the go on these crazy field trips. I remember thinking, why can’t I go on field trips like this? Which, like obviously, most of these are impossible aka like going through the human body in a school bus. I mean seriously, this bus can transform into a plane, submarine, spaceship or surfboard. Ms. Fizzle teaches the kids about science on their adventures so, then the audience watching this show, learn science as well. Science and animation all in on

Love it, hate it, or don't celebrate it, Christmas is coming, and with it are the classic Christmas movies and shows. A great majority of the classic Christmas specials are animated, Frosty the Snowman  and A Charlie Brown Christmas are both 'traditionally' animated, by which I mean they use hand drawn 2D, but the majority of the specials are stop motion. You know 'em, you love 'em, those weirdly done stop motion Christmas specials that were made during the '60s and '70s. You know, the ones with the really jerky movements and weird eyes? There are the classic classics:  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Clause Is Coming to Town, The Year Without A Santa Clause, and  Jack Frost; the slightly more Christian: The Little Drummer Boy  and  Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey;  the weird spin offs:  Rudolph's Shiny New Year and  Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July;  even something called The Life and Adventures of Santa Clause which I have n

The new "live action" Lion King film is really...really just confusing. It's bizarre not only that many people think it's a "live action" reiteration, but also that they're making this iteration at all. I can't think of any other example in which a studio has simply given a movie a fresh coat of paint and reanimated it. Obviously, Disney is doing this to cash in on nostalgia and the Lion King name, but this is just baffling. 

Watching the documentary in class, I was reminded that there are two different cuts of the original trilogy of Star Wars , the original and the special edition that George Lucas edited to included CGI characters and extended scenes. What are some of you're thoughts on the creation of the special edition - was it a good idea, a bad idea, are you indifferent? I know some of my friends are hardcore Star Wars  fan and they refuse to watch the special edition cuts of the movies (but they also love the prequels so where they stand on the series as a whole is kind of skewed).

Ever since seeing Heath Ledger's adaptation of the Joker I have been very interested in where this character became what he is. It's common knowledge that Heath drove deep into character as the Joker. He was known for doing his own makeup and speaking like his character even at home. The Joker himself is a pretty messed up dude. Everything from his consistent lack of negativity and his dark sense of humor to his "daddy issues" creates that mad man we all know. There have been many comics and cartoons that take a stab at the joker's life before all the insanity. Stories have said that he was originally the Red Hood villain that batman "killed". The Joker is also believed to be an ex-comedian who turned to crime to support his sick and pregnant wife. Each story has very valid arguments but personally I don't believe this mystery will be solved until the release of the new joker movie coming out soon. Hopefully it will shed a new light of the happy crim

I was hoping we'd bring up "Duck Amuck" in this class. It's my favorite of all the Looney tunes sketches. It's such a hilarious representation of the elements of an animated piece. Not only does it make audience members laugh, but it also, in a way, educates them. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ofats

Out of all the shows on Nickelodeon back in the early 2000's, Spongebob was easily my favorite one.  I owned just about every episode on DVD from the first 3 seasons, a Spongebob backpack, lunchbox, posters, basketball hoops and just about any other sort of merchandise you can think of.  I believe I even went as him for halloween TWICE!  That being said, I was labeled "the Spongebob kid" among my young peers and teachers.  Up until I was around 10 years old, I would watch just about every episode live when they aired, basically knowing every episode by heart.  As I grew older, Spongebob began to have a much weaker influence on my life, but it never disappeared completely.  Just yesterday, me and some of my friends in Landon watched some of the classic episodes, like "Band Geeks" "Pizza Delivery" and "Pickles".  A good time was certainly had.  Even outside of my own experience, Spongebob still seems to still be popular nowadays.  The show is a

This may be a bit off topic from animation, but I'm just curious to hear all of your opinions. After watching the documentary on George Lucas and his journey to making Star Wars I decided to look more into George Lucas movies. Whenever you think of George Lucas you think of Star Wars and you also think of him being one of the great directors, along side people like Scorsese or Spielberg. But I realized that not many of his movies were great. Yes, American Graffiti and the first Star Wars were great films, but the other films that he directed seems to have very mixed reviews. Directors like Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino seem to consistently bring out great pieces of work, but with George Lucas only about 2-3 films that he directed really comes to mind. Sure, he created one of the greatest franchises ever and he also helped change the film industry with digital editing, but does that make him a great director?

I got the news in class on Tuesday of Stephen Hillenberg's passing. I had known he had ALS, and had stopped doing press or interacting with the public, but I was not prepared to deal with him being gone. The news hit me like a truck, the wind was knocked out of me, and I instinctively turned to hug my friend and classmate next to me. Hillenberg created my childhood, my sense of humor, arguably some of my best friends growing up. His work had such a profound affect on my life, that every time I'm in Walmart or Target, I stop by the DVD section to see if the first 100 episodes box set is on sale. Spongebob.  Let me back up. I had, luckily, a very bland childhood. No family drama, no mental illness, no childhood trauma apart from light middle school bullying. I firmly believe that the hardest parts of your life are the things that shape you, so for me, the privileged middle class white boy with no real hardship, didn't really have much shaping. This isn't me saying that

I believe that the talent of the actors in films that use CGI is incredible. In class today, we were watching a film about how Star Wars was made. At one point, Carrie Fisher said she never saw, while filming, what was in the final cut. Meaning she had to pretend to watch her ow planet get blown up, because they edited that in afterwards. After earring this, I realized it really takes a special type of actor to accomplish something like this. Visuals are so important to emotions, but without seeing the trauma, how are you supposed to elicit the emotion?

Over Thanksgiving break the new Lion King trailer came out and almost immediately it was #1 trending on Youtube, it was all over my snapchat, all over my Instagram, basically it was everywhere. I can recall reading the comments section with nearly everyone hyping up the movie, excited to see something that essentially came out two decades ago. This really had me thinking. Taking this animation class really opened my eyes, and now that I'm surrounded by people that are passionate about animation I am curious to why we are so annoyed with a recreation of a movie like this while everyone else seems so excited. This may be a stupid question, but besides the fact that we are more aware that all this is money driven, why do we seem so bothered by the recreation of a movie like Lion King?

My family was a big peanuts family. We would watch every special, every year, for every holiday (including Valentine's). We had the Vince Guaraldi CD of the soundtrack, and my aunt owns a gigantic stuffed snoopy that she tried to get on the space shuttle. When I rewatched the Christmas special last night after not seeing it for a few years, I noticed some of the luster fade away from my childhood tradition. All the kids are just.. the worst. Like maybe Schroeder has some redeeming qualities, and pig pen, apart from his exterior, is a genuinely sweet person. But the rest of the cast, Patty, Lucy, Freida, Sally,  Violet and sometimes even Linus are just mean people to Charlie. The kids just treat each other, and especially Charlie, not only childishly but downright harsh. They insult, disrespect, demean Charlie's direction, and then make as if all is solved because they sang a carol. Interspersed throughout the program are various character highlights that display their flaws.

As far as sequels go, I thought Ralph Breaks the Internet was pretty good. Granted, I did really like the first Wreck it Ralph. I think that the world created in the first Wreck it Ralph was really interesting in the way that the video game scape was illustrated. With this film, they went even further with the creative video game world and the internet. The graphics were really pleasing to the eye because the animation was clearly done a little differently than Ralph and Vanellope's characters to show the different aspects of the internet. For a Disney movie, (I personally think Disney is losing its creativity) and for a sequel, I thought that Ralph Breaks the Internet was done very well with the animation styles as well as continuing the storyline.

Have you ever noticed that we have a completely different sense of humor than our parents? There are some tweets, photos, and movie scenes that make me laugh so hard I literally pee my pants. While they don’t incite any response from my parents. I have thought about what could have caused this divide, and I think it all stems from the highly successful show Spongebob Squarepants .   The show has been incredibly influential on our generation and it has created our sense of humor. The jokes are goofy, irreverent, and they are based on these key principles: character humor, parody, and wordplay. There are others principles but tbh I don’t want this to be too long. Character humor can be found in the situation and circumstances of that particular character. For example, Mermaid Man is supposed to be a superhero but he lives in a retirement home and literally wears a bra and slippers. This depiction of a superhero also connects to the show's use of parody. The superhero troupe

Over break my family and I watched Castlevania, which is this series on Netflix about vampires. It’s actually based off of a video game which I thought was really interesting. Usually you hear of shows being adapted from books/short stories, historical events, or even from a movie or movie series. But I had never heard of an animated series being adapted from a video game. I’m not a huge gamer but I know a lot of video games have a lot of great storylines and narratives that make them even more fun to play because you become a character yourself. I was just wondering what the process of adapting from a game is like. Especially within animation, Castlevania was a game you could play on your GameBoy (ugh, simpler times)! The TV series had to extrapolate their own animated characters, sets, and styles from the game. I guess my main question is, who is deciding this and how do they decide?

Age of Sail is the newest Google Spotlight Series project, an immersive VR experience and accompanying 12 minute short. This animation, directed by John Kahrs, who also directed the disney short Paperman, is already getting oscar buzz. The VR experience is supposedly unlike anything before seen and an incredible feat. One of the biggest challenges that Kahrs talked about was designing the story to work inside a Virtual Reality landscape. One issue was that the entire thing was set on a ship and they did not want the viewer getting seasick. I'm not sure how to access the VR portion but you can watch the short here. It's quite good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=TH3HOcRayC8

"Star Wars The Clone Wars" opened up the Star Wars universe more to me. Having seen the originals when I was quite young, and then the prequels soon after, I was living with a blurry memory of the Star Wars tales. But when Clone Wars came around, I was pleasantly surprised by the childhood feel the show had, as well as the mature and more adult themes that could be found lying below the surface. I got more into Star Wars and loved the animated style. It allowed for more epic scenes and a broader scope of characters, both of which, could not be created well enough in the original films or even the prequels. One due to a lack of technology and the other due to a lack of well done animation.

The Uncharted  series is Naughty Dog's greatest work so far. However, their video game, The Last of Us , stands out as a steeping stone between two Uncharted games that shows a leap in visual details. Right off the bat, The Last of Us , gives us a beautiful opening cinematic. Visually showing the relationship between a father and his daughter. Joel, the father, is commanding on screen, he dominates the dialogue and leads confidently. We are immediately attached to him. As the game carries on and a fungal virus takes over the population, Joel is shown having his morals shaken. We learn through dialogue and his knowledge of the various traps and shady people we encounter, how Joel spent the twenty years between the opening of the game, and where we pickup with him later on.  When Joel begins viewing a girl as his daughter, we see that his physical characteristics are changed. Joel's posture is more stiff and unsure, his confidence is gone, and his eyes appear as the same ones we

Monsters Inc., Toy Story,  and The Lion King are just some of the films that I absolutely adored as a kid. However, I believe that both Monsters Inc. and Toy Story were both ruined by their sequels. Well I guess ruined is a strong word, but they definitely did not do the original justice. I typically believe that a lot of films, especially these iconic animated films that I grew up knowing and loving, should be left at one film. The new Lion King film is definitely something I am skeptical of. The trailer seemed really good and the cast is definitely interesting and could potentially be fantastic. However, after seeing the path that many animation sequels and remakes go, I am unfortunately worried that it will fall very short. There is also the new Toy Story film. To be honest, both the second and third were far from memorable for me. When I think of Toy Story, I think of the first film and nothing else. When I found out that there is going to be a Toy Story 4 I couldn't believe

After watching The Lion King trailer, I wanted to take some time to give my thoughts. First off, I would like to note that the effects look astonishing. The animals shown throughout the trailer look photorealistic for the most part. The cast is also impressive. I'm especially excited to see John Oliver as the voice of Zazu. However one thing I am concerned about is the actual plot of the film. It appears to be, from what the trailer showed, exactly the same as the animated version. Many people, myself included may see this as a problem. Now I'm honestly not sure how they could change up the first half of the movie without turning it into a completely different movie, however I definitely think the writers could, and should, diverge the plots after the second half starts. I see a lot of potential for them to prevent the films from feeling too similar, which I hope is what the writers will end up doing.

So I was thinking about some music videos I liked that were mostly animated, and then I thought of two that were both animated using a Japanese anime art style. Both songs are totally different in tone and the music videos reflect this, but I think they play off each other well, they are Linkin Park's 'Breaking the Habit', animated by Studio Gonzo and Daft Punk's 'One More Time', directed/animated by Leiji Matsumoto. I think the gritty realistic setting of Breaking the Habit plays well against the cotton candy sci-fi of One More Time and gives a good introduction into the variety of visual content that anime-style music videos.

I think that as movies come out as features using exclusively CGI it is important to draw the line between animation and live action.  In many ways animation can impersonate live action, but I think we will always be able to define it as bringing something to life.  That being said, the line becomes more blurry with live action remakes of animation, such as the lion king which was just announced.  These films are clearly meant to be more “lifelike” but in my opinion should still be considered animation.

I was recently speaking with my aunt, who is a die-hard star wars fan, and she brought up the interesting fact that the star was universe leaves endless stories to be created. While in the originals there was live action with a dash of stop animation (walkers), the newer films have taken advantage of the realistic CGI and used it to create much more detailed films. The star wars franchise has also branched out into tv shows, in the form of the animated series The Clone Wars. Animating a star wars show allows the creators and storytellers to exaggerate the fight scenes and movie magic. This animated show allows a lot more than the live-action films.

When people think of superheroes, Batman is always up there along with the greats like Superman and Spiderman.  What's there not to like about Batman?  He has an awesome presence, cool costume, a slick car and an iconically deep voice, not to mention a ton of animated and live action adaptations.  But what separates himself from all the other superheroes?  He has no crazy powers like Superman's near invincibility and Spiderman's web techniques.  Ironically, it is this fact that answers the question.  Batman doesn't need any special powers to stop crime, and makes clever use of his gadgets in order to get the job done.  In the episode we watched in class, Batman even catches a cold, which is usually unheard of for superheroes.  The recent reading also touches base upon the idea of human weakness and its contribution to Batman.  The same logic can be said for certain presidents, including George W Bush.  His popularity stemmed from the fact that he was an ordinary, hardwo

She-ra is a Netflix original spinoff of the he-man franchise. I was never a fan of the original show, but I thought I'd check she-ra out and I'm glad I did. It's a fun show, and I wish we had more like it when we were kids. It's one of the few kids shows where women outnumber men in the lead cast, and there's so much gay but it's not like "woah look at all this gay!" It's a lot more subtle, and I think that's great. Of course, there are more seasons to come, but I'm glad that the first one showed as much restraint as it did. I feel like if we treat LGBT people as special, it'll only perpetuate the idea that they're something "other" than straight people. It's important that our pop culture reflects the idea that gay people are just, you know, people. Take all that with a grain of salt though, I'm a straight cis white guy. I just wanted to start a conversation.

Let’s talk about the Grinch. It’s been remade so many times, there’s the cartoon version, the live action version, and now the new Grinch, which I guess I would say is 3D CGI. I loved the cartoon version, it was the original and it makes me nostalgic. The live action remake was beautifully done and I’m not usually a huge fan of live action so kudos to all the people who really made it work. Also, Jim Carrey is incredible. I’m really interested to see how this one will do because it seems like it has it’s own spin on it. I mean after all, Tyler the Creator sings in it, which I never saw coming. I’m usually not a huge fan of remakes either because they are never usually as good as the original, but I haven’t been disappointed yet by the Grinch so, hopefully this one will be good.