Author: hazelyin

We watched a stop-motion animation called Duffy the Mascot / Puppet Love, a film produced by Ladislas Starevich in 1933.

 It is a cute story about a dog puppet trying to get an orange to his owner, a sick little girl. In the story the dog puppet and other toys were originally taken to a car by the little girl’s mother. But all of them escaped from the box and the dog puppet got an orange from the market. There are many other toys or devils want to get his orange throughout his journey. Until sunrise, all the devils disappeared and the dog puppet finally get his way back to the little girl and successfully delivered the orange to her. I like story very much and I think it is very innovative to bring a toy travel to hell. it is remarkable that I still remember there were trash or animal bones chasing the dog at night in this film. The expressions and performance in this clip are very clear and dramatic. I feel like that Pixar employees might inspired by this short and made Toy Story.

Hazel Wong

Japanese anime is worldwide popular. It is great to learn about how they developed into such a style and enormous market during the class! I have grown up with watching so many anime in my whole life time. Sailor Moon, Black Jack, Eye shield 21… I love them so much as a kid and I would never miss any episode on TV! Videotape were my best friend when I was in kindergarten to early primary school days. When I get to primary 5, I started watching anime online. The very first animation I found on internet is called “K-on!!”, produced by KyoAni.

KyoAni is well known of their delicate style and character designs which is distinguish from other anime house. I reckon that the style change of KyoAni is definitely having a great impact on the art style of the Japanese anime! The stylistic choice they had made is the big round eyes and the chubby body shapes of teen girls to make the characters look much cuter and softer (if compare to other anime house). And these became KyoAni’s iconic style later on.

Most of their employees are female and that’s why most of their stylistic work looks poetic, romantic and feminine. Unfortunately, an arson attack happened in their 1st studio on 18th July, 2019 and 35 people were killed because of the fire. There were 162 employees before the disaster and now there were only 119 left. I was shocked by the news and prayed for them when it happens. Nonetheless, the boss and employees claim that they will work even harder on their work as a revenge on the criminal! What a noble and professional studio! Soon, they will have a new feature film on screen. Let’s support them by box office!

Hazel Wong

The week before last week, there were some great animators come to our classes and share us their films and experience in the industry. Although the style of the two animators from mainland China are totally not my cup of tea, I still feel thankful for their coming! I feel like their films have some more inspirations or meanings behind, but it is sad that we couldn’t dig a little deeper during the sharing.

The lecture about Hong Kong animation history is definitely the most educational and absorbable talk. Thanks for the lecturer! I missed the introduction of the lecture due to coming class late, but I could still catch up quickly and I felt like I learn a lot. It is too sad that Hong Kong doesn’t have a lot of local featured animation films. I think Hong Kong creators have a lot of potential due to our complex cultural environment. The pity thing is we don’t have enough investment in the industry. When I was very young, I love watching the local cartoon comedy, “My Life as McDull”. It was such a fun film that I had watched it so many times and I still remember some of the jokes.

I am going to transfer to Savannah in the next quarter. Despite dreaming to get a job in a big company, I imagine myself coming back to HK to live with my family and contribute the local animation market recently. However, my parent is planning to immigrant recently due to political and economic reasons. Life is so unpredictable!

Hazel Wong

When we study about Czech Animations, we had watched a film called The Hand (1965). The movie features a confrontation between an impotent clown and a strong Hand. The clown puppet is a sculpture-making maker who love making pot for his beloved flower. However, he was forced to make only Hand pieces. By threatening him, manipulating him and causing him trouble, the Hand tries to change his mind but the clown keep resisting him.

Ultimately, the hand locked him up. The clown collects awards and laurels from the Hand, but he gets depressed and wants to run. He’s taking the statue down and making a hole in the enclosure. He leaps out of the cage and runs away as the Hand chases. He throws away all his trophies and laurels as he races. He finally gets home and there he barricades himself. When the hand barricades himself in a closet, a pot drops on him with a rose.

I think the storytelling is really good. The animator created an intense atmosphere to make audience feel depressed and nervous with the clown. We can feel that the hand is powerful and creepy. It shows me how scary totalitarian can be. They are hypocritical to their people and they demand everyone. Recently, the Chinese government release a new blacklist about the theme of creation. They even banned school romance and many traditionally popular Chinese elements! You can see that creators in China are going to have a tough time. I really hope to see the mainland government can have some more democracy in my future lifetime.

Hazel Wong

This week, we submitted our research paper and I wrote some analysis about feminist in Disney princess movies. But when I was planning about the theme, I had thought of the idea about writing a documentary of Shinkai Makoto and his latest two films, “Your Name” and “Weathering with You”. I will try to aviod spoliers!

I had watched “Your Name” at home online, and “Weathering with You” twice in the cinema for some reason. I had also read some film review from Taiwanese and Hong Kongers. These two movies are the most business-like animations in Shinkai Makoto’s work, especially for “Weathering with You”. And they both got a big hit and become phenomenal in terms of box office and online discussions. Other than that, they do both have some historical background which is talking about the concerns about natural disaster and psychic culture in Japan.

Honestly, I am not a real big fan of Shinkai Makoto. Years ago, when I watched some clips of his past work (forgot which one), I feel like that he had tried too hard to imitate Miyazaki Hayao. When everyone was shocked and screamed for the plot twist in “Your Name”, I am not that surprised at all since I had already read something similar in Japanese novels during middle school. Sometimes I feel like the teenagers have no reason to fall in love with each other in the films and I don’t really like that kind of depiction about romance.

However, the animations he made are still very amazing and he is an undeniably great animator. The beauty of some of the scenes and the atmospheres are just beyond description. His work had become more iconic in these years. I actually got goose bumps for the ending part in “Weathering with You”. By the way I really like songs by Radwimps since I was 13!

Hazel Wong

Pinscreen animation uses a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out of the screen by pressing an object. From the side, the screen is lit so the pinscast shadows. This method can create a wide range of different textures. In class, we had watched some pinscreen animations like “The Nose”(1963) and “A Night on Bald Mountain”. Although the story is kind of boring and creepy to me, I was very impressed by the sense of 3D in these films. It is no doubt that the artistry of the pinscreen animation is amazing. But you can also imagine that the making progress is tough and time consuming! It looks cool but also really hard to achieve. That’s why pinscreen animation is no longer a common way for animation in the industry. Maybe today we can use 3D printing to simplify the making progress, but there are so many digital methods which is a lot more convenient than making a pinscreen.

Hazel Wong

Puppetoon animation is a kind of replacement animation, a kind of stop-motion animation itself. The puppets are created in conventional stop-motion with moving parts that are repositioned between frames to create the illusion of motion when the frames are played in a fast sequence. The puppets are rigid and static pieces in puppetoon animation; each is typically used in a single frame and then change to another near-duplicated puppet for the next frame. it can provide a bigger flexibility and a sense of natural on the characters’ facial expression. It sounds like a really tough work though! I know that Laika studio is still using puppetoon method to make their film and that sounds a crazy workload and you need tons of patience.

Laika had made the most terrifying movie in my childhood, which is also a puppetoon film. I watched it in the cinema when I was around 8 years old and I still remember that was an early May (right before my birthday). I literally cry out in the cinema. YES, the movie name is Coraline. If you love horror, it is my top recommendation. Definitely not for an innocent 8-year-old little girl who was looking forward for a fun cartoon in the dark cinema. I still blame my mum about that.

Now I am grown up and I really appreciate and respect people who can make a gorgeous stop-motion animation! Their skill are just marvellous! But I still freaking hate that horror animation. Like, NOPE, I WILL NEVER TOUCH ANY PUPPET WITH BUTTON EYES .

At the beginning of animation history, animation seems to be a simple little entertainment for people to watch before a live-action movie in the theater. As time progresses, continuous development, animations become more and more popular with the creations of characters like Felix the Cat or Betty Boop. We can see that people started target the market on children and I thought most of the animation at that time were just for fun and crazy performance.

And then we watched The Idea (1932), a French animated film talking about censorship. The artist used a poetic way to convey serious social themes. It isn’t hilarious at all, you can even say it has a strong tragic vibe. Without actual history knowledge base, I wasn’t enjoy it very much during class  cause I didn’t understand the message what’s happening behind the screen. But I believe it is a great animation that remind other animators at that time that animation can be an art form for people to express their opinions and feelings. Not only can animation be a great entertainment, but it can also be a tool to push us rethinking about ourselves. That’s why we can always feel connected and empowered from the universal themes of animations nowadays.

Hazel Wong