Major Blog Post 16 – John Lasseter

Posted on by Wendy Kong

John Lasseter is an American animator, film director, producer and former chief creative officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is a legend in animation industry. In this lesson, we learned that Toy Story (1995) directed by John Lasseter was the first entirely computer-animated feature film.

Lasseter began his career as animator in Disney, but he was fired because he wanted to promote computer animation in the past. He joined Lucasfilm an he worked on CGI animation there. Lucasfilm became Pixar after it was sold by Steve Jobs in1986. Therefore, he been through all of Pixar’s films and projects. He became the executive producer of Pixar after he directed many of the well known CGI animation including Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998) and Cars (2006). He was the executive producers for Walt Disney Animation Studio after Pixar was sold to Disney. He is one of the most successful filmmakers of all time because produced famous films that have grossed more than $19 billion USD, such as Toy Story 3 (2010), Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), Finding Dory (2016) and Incredibles 2 (2018).

We love all of the films that he produced, he is truly a legend. Sadly, he will leave Disney and Pixar after he is under sexual harassment in workplace. His last Disney film will be Frozen 2 which will be released in next week! Who is ready for it??!!!

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 15 – Japanese animation “Naruto”

Posted on by Wendy Kong

As I mentioned before, Naruto is my favourite Japanese animation ever. I watched it when I was 14, it is the first time that I watched an anime. I fell in love with the story and characters of Naruto right away.

Naruto is a Japanese manga series illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto which published in 1997. It presents the story of Uzumaki Naruto, a teenage ninja dreaming to be the leader of his village, Hokage one day. He has a pretty sad childhood because he grew up without his parent and everyone in his village is avoid him there is a monster insider his body. It is also the reason why he want to be Hokage, he longs for friends and recognition from his people. No matter how many obstacles he had faced, he never gives up. At last, his hard work paid off. At the same time, Naruto’s best friend who is also his opponent, Uchiha Sasuke has a bad childhood memory as well because his beloved older brother killed every people in his family including their parents. He tried so hard to become stronger so he can have his revenge on his older brother. Naruto and Sasuke shared the same sadness, but they picked a different path. Even though Sasuke followed the villain because he is blinded by hatred, Naruto never give up on him.

The story of Naruto is exciting as there are lots of fighting scenes. It also reflects the Japanese culture of Ninja. It is positive because it shows how people work hard on their dreams and never give up. It is touching and heart-melted as it shows how people values their relationships or bonding with each others. It had a huge influence on me when I was a teenager. I think it helps me to be a better person because I learned so many valuable lessons from Naruto. To be honest, some of the story plots of Naruto are just so touching that I used to cry at nights when I was watching. I introduced it to my roommates whose bed was next to me. At night, we just watch Naruto separately (as we were in different episode) but we cried at the same time…I love every single characters in Naruto including the villains. In Naruto, most of the villains had been through their own pain and sorrow which I feel sad for them too.

I really recommend everyone to watch Naruto if you haven’t watch it. It is the No.1 anime in my heart for all time.❤️❤️(I watched the 700 episodes for 5 time plus the manga series🙈🙈)

naruto memes - Never Pause Wote Wat Naruto
ireland - I Don'T Always Die, But Wheni Do \ I Don'T qurkmeme.com

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 14- Czech animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Czech animation has been one of the most developed in history. It has started for about 100 years, Czech animators are known as the innovator in film animation. Czech animation started in the 1920s, they reached the peak and produced some of the best anime between 1950s and 1980s, the period is known as the “Golden Era”. Cutout animation, Puppet animation, and Clay animation are largely used by the Czechs. However, they seldom use 3D animation because of the financial and technical issues. 3D animations are more expensive than what they used in the past, because what they used to make anime, clay and puppets, are low cost. Also, they do not have a lot of trained 3D animators. That is the reason they become less successful and unpopular after the 1980s.

Other countries employed 3D animation because it is fancier and more realistic, which eliminated Cutout, Puppet, and Clay animation. Rumors are saying that Czech animation is coming back, the new generation of animators are currently students, and the universities in Czech support the creation of animated films. I think one of the reasons for the revival is the 3D animation technique getting more common, the price of animation programs varies more than the 1990s. I am looking forward to the new generation of Czech animators! I have a feeling that they are going to kill it!

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 13- Animated Documentary

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Animated documentary is a combo of animation and documentary. It is widely used for teaching and giving social guidance. It can also create an imaginary situations or incidents happened in a subconscious level.

I like the “Animated minds” by Andy Glynne in 2003, it shows us how mental illness patients feel in their life. I think this is very educational since it visualizes the situation that the patients are suffering, and my reflection of the film would be we should show more care and love to them. I think people started seeing mental illnesses as serious issues in this decade, which makes me think that, it is possible that this video and other visualizing materials raised the consciousness of mental illness to the population. People will see the patients are not just “crazy”, but they are struggling with the stuff in their mind. Through the film, people can experience of facing mental health issues, which gives them a better understanding the problems rather than labelling and blaming them. This is a really good example of animated documentary educates the audience.

As the technology become more and more advanced, CG, complex scene background, and fancy costumes can make some impossible scenes possible, which leads animated documentary less common. In the 20th century, animated documentary was the technique to make the difficult scenes possible, this was one of an important stage for the documentary history.

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 12- Japanese Animation and Hunter x Hunter

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Japanese anime dominates the animation in Asia. I grew up with Doraemon, Keroro, they gave me a lot of laughter after school every day. I remember I was sad when one of the cast pasts away, I felt like it is never going to be the same, I never watched it since then. When I got older, I started watching a few anime including Naruto, One piece, Dragon Ball and Hunter x Hunter..etc. My favourite anime is Naruto for sure but I would like to talk about Hunter x Hunter because it is a good show but less people may saw it.

Hunter x Hunter started as a manga series and produced in animation form in 2011. In fact, many Japanese animation is created based on a manga. It is very inspiring that it’s about a kid, Gon chases his father, who abandoned Gon to his friend’s household and pursued his own dream. While he was going after his father, he met some friends who have great impact to his life. At the same time, the anime talks about their friendships a lot, including conflicts, respect, the one I liked most is “friends always get your back”. I felt like all them can relate to myself in reality, they also let me know how to be a better friend. My favorite character is Killua, he is super cool but he was messed up because of his family. I liked the part that he tries to overcome the adversity for keeping the friendship with Gon. The part I like most was Killua rescued his brother, who is also messed up because of the family. This anime is highly recommended!

Image result for hunter x hunter
Image result for naruto good

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 11- Drawing And Pinscreen in Animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Animations are started with a lot of drawing. In fact, we can make a little anime by drawing on a booklet repeatedly, a little difference to show the movement on each page, when we flip them quickly, we can see the movement or even the story there! I think the first person who thought of putting drawings together to produce movement was really creative, he/she broke the limitation of time. This action gave the subjects in the drawings a soul, they seem like they are actually running, dancing in the artwork. Comparing animation to drawing, animation is livelier than a drawing, which may interest the population more.

Pinscreen is an amazing invention in animation history. It employs the shadow of the pins on the screen filled with pins. A pinscreen is a flexible tool for artists to create an artwork, because they would not need more materials, like drawing and painting, to create something better, all they need is ideas! I think pinscreen has become a lot more common as I see them a lot in toy stores. I believe I have seen them a lot in the past, but this is the first time I know the origin of pinscreen. We can’t see many people producing pinscreen animation nowadays because it requires a lot of effort to make one and not knowing can it get people pay to watch it. In my opinion, pinscreen animation is very unique and stylistic. I hope I can see some of them in the future!!

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 10-Puppet Animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

I think using puppets in filming is highly related to animism, which usually happens to children, means everything is alive or has a soul, just like Toy Story. However, I cannot figure out would it be a causation, where puppets in animations brought animism to kids, or the other way around, the idea of animism innovated using puppets for filming.

I want to share a little secret here, I still think the stuffed animal I hug every night is alive, he always jumps off my bed when I am knocked out, maybe he doesn’t love my hugs… Anyways, I think using puppets as characters in film is a really good idea, because it can create more variety of characters other than human. Using puppets can also save the money for hiring actors, it is suitable for people want to be a director to start with! In fact, filming puppets has less chance to mess up compare to filming humans or animals. However, puppets don’t look real enough so they have almost been eliminated as the technology develops.

Nowadays, we have animation, computer graphics (CG) to produce a movie, that is why puppets no longer reach the audience’s expectations. As the technology becomes more advanced, I believe animation or CG could be terminated. No matter how advance technology can be, I will never forget or throw away my buddy!

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 9- Visual music

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Visualising music is really something new to me, I have never thought of seeing sound, not to mention imagining what sound looks like. It surprises me when I know it started in early 1920s!

I like the “Rhythm in Light” a lot because the visual materials flow with the sound effect, which brings a strong impression to me. Also, I enjoyed the artwork a lot because it comforts me with the structures in the visual material and the music. The visual materials in “Rhythm in Light” are made of many shapes with straight lines, such as rectangles, triangles. They moved like they are in shadow, by moving the light, the shapes enlarged and changed along the music, it seems like they are dancing! Even though the visual materials are mostly made of straight lines, unlike most artists applying curvy lines to fit with music, it turns out really good.

Although this is the first time I learn about visualising music, I think it actually was the basic or the initial step of musicals, movies, animations, linking visual and aural artwork together to produce a greater impact to the audience.

I am sharing this short clip of visual music animation from that I enjoyed. I think is short but cool. It makes me want to do a small visual music project myself!!

Visual Music Animation – Seventeen Years

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 8- UPA and Mr Magoo

Posted on by Wendy Kong

UPA is as known as the United Productions of America which was founded by Zack Schwartz, David Hilberman, and Stephen Bosustow in 1943 as Industrial Film and Poster Service after the Disney animators’ Strike in 1941. John Hubley, a layout artist who worked for Disney and a few of his colleagues were unsatisfied with the ultra-realistic style of Disney animation. To sustain itself, UPA entered the crowded field of theatrical cartoons and secured a contract with Columbia Pictures. The animators of the UPA applied their stylistic ideas and imagination to the characters of Columbia The Fox and the Crow with Robin Hoodlum (1948) and The Magic Fluke (1949).

The first appearance of Mr. Magoo was in the Ragtime Bear (1949) which was a hit in the box office. We also watched this animation during class. I love the story of it a lot because it is really exciting that the bear was pretending to be Mr. Magoo’s nephew all the time! The style of UPA’s animation is more graphic compared to Disney animated films which I think made everything more cartoonish and I also enjoyed looking at it. Mr. Magoo is a nasty, stubborn old man that can not see things well. However, I like the humor and drama created by him. I watched some other clips of Mr. Magoo as well. Here is one that I found quite interesting. Hope you guys will like it and watch it till the end!! ^v^

Mr Magoo: Thin-skinned Divers

Wendy Kong

Major Blog Post 7- The Golden Age of Animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

The Golden Age of Animation is a period in the history of animation that began on November 18, 1928, with the release of Steamboat Willie, and strengthened by the growth of Warner Brother, Fleischer, and MGM in the following years. It ended in the early 1960s with the rise of television animation. Feature animation also began during this period including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumno, and Bambi. Other popular characters such as Tom and Jerry, Donald Durk, Betty Boop, and Mr.Magoo were created during this period. Snow White was an instant success when it was released in theaters in 1937, and became the most financially successful movie of its time. Therefore, almost every studio started to copy Disney’s work. Harman and Ising, former Disney’s employee, Walter Lantz, Van Beuren Studio and even the Ub Iwerks studio led by Disney’s best friend were trying to imitate Disney. All of their attempts failed since they did not import any of Disney’s storytelling skills.

The situation changed after the failure of Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940. In the same year, Tom and Jerry and Bug Bunny got popular along with the releasing of Woody Woodpecker by Walter Lantz, Herman, and Katnip by Famous Studios, Fox and Crow by Columbia Cartoons, and many others. Even though the budget, resources and manpower constraints due to the war effort, many animation companies considered the 1940s to be the peak of animation in history.

Tom and Jerry is the first cartoon that I watched when I was a kid. I can still remember how the conflicts between them made me laugh so hard. The music and sound were well used throughout the whole series. Here is a video clip of Tom and Jerry. I hope you guys will enjoy watching it!!^^

Wendy Kong