In class 13 , we watch a couple animation which is combined life-action.All the the context and story have hidden message and very surrealism. Although some of them the visual style and story are kind of difficult to understand, I still enjoyed watching them so much. His Animation “Food(1992)” is a very interesting , it divides to three part which is breakfast , lunch and dinner . Each part have a unexpected ending , and they all have pointed out a irony situation of the society.
Especially the animations of Jan Svankmajer, the use of color of the whole short film give me a very practical and depressed feeling,however the story is crazy. Before this class , I have already watched the work of him “Alice(1988)” which is one very fun animation. And the way his show the well-known fairy tale Alice in Wonderland is very different. It is like a surrealism version of Alice in Wonderland.
On the day of class 18, we were shown all kinds of animated documentaries that tackled all sorts of subjects and events. The art style of these animations are much more free. There is no limitations, which is close to a more experimental style of animation. The creators of these animations use stories that are close to their personal life or someone has relayed that information. As documentaries are a documentation of a real life event or an occurance or even just to show awareness for a certain thing.
All of the animations featured in class was wonderful and very interesting. Although, I was more interested in the works of American animator Chris Landreth. His works Ryan (2004) and Subconscious Password (2013) were very unique view points on life. With Ryan, it was about a canadian animator named Ryan Larkin, whose work was Oscar nominated. This focused on the real life struggles Ryan had been going through in his life such as drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness. The animated film won an Oscar for Animated Short. With Subconscious Password, we look into the inner workings of Landreth’s mind when it comes to trying to remember a friend’s name. It was dealt with as if it were an episode of a game show.
Animated documentaries are a fascinating way to experiemnt and relay a story to a much wider audience. I greatly am fond of the experimental style of animation when it comes to these topics. I’m also very interested in the process and the use of softwares and mediums in order to create a film, and use these mediums to fit the feelings of the artists by going over limitations.
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.
Another great influence to Japanese animation is Satoshi Kon. He was born on October 12, 1963 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. He was a Japanese film director, animator. screenwriter and manga artist. He was a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). He graduated from Musashino Art University with a degree in Graphic Design. Sadly, he passed away on August 24, 2010, at the age of 46, because of pancreatic cancer. Which robbbed cinema of one of the greatest thought-provoking artist. He was also mentioned on the Fond Farewells portion in TIMEs People of The Year 2010. He has made iconic films like Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and Paprika (2006). I will talk about the other films that were not mentioned in the powerpoint.
Satoshi owes the success of Akira (1988) for the start of his career. He first started out as a manga illustrator, but transferred mediums as he wanted to create animated films. Madhouse studios was the main studio that produced his films. His first film was released in 1998, called Perfect Blue. This was a suspense story about a pop idol dealing with a stalker, and the hardships of being an Idol.
Millenium Actress was released on 2001 and it centers around a former actress. With a movie studio being torn down, a TV interviewer and his cameraman meet a former actress and travel through her memories and career.
Satoshi Kon’s films have a universal theme, Distorted Love. In Perfect Blue, the obvious sign of this was from the stalker fan who wanted to cause harm to Mima, the main character, from all the “distress” her career caused him. Another less obvious one, comes from the feelings of the Mima’s agent, Rumi. Rumi was obsessed with the image of Mima the idol that she takes it upon herself to actually become Mima, referring to herself as “The Real Mima.” Millenial Actress’ distorted love is chasing after a lover long gone. Tokyo Godfathers distorted love focuses on a mother who had lost her child, so she desires any child to lover her as a mother.
It is interesting to what was in the mind of Satoshi Kon and how he depicted and explored social stigmas and the human psyche, which showed how complex life is. His work has been gritty and intense and he does not stay away from mature subject matters. His work will always be the middle ground between ‘cartoons’ and reality.
n class 11,We watched many animation which is created by hand drawings and sand.They are very inspiring that the movement and the media they used are very different to the traditional animation.I like the animation of Jacques Drouin. Mindscape(1976) , the visual style is very unique and everything is like a painting. All the action and the transition of the scene are also work like a impressionism painting which is very impressive.
For the animation of Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker, the story of Le Nez (1963) is very funny. It is about a man find his nose Although , when I was watching this animation , I was confused by the scene a few time. However, I was amazed by the drawing technique of the artist.Plus, the music keep remind me the chinese opera and feel like it combined asian culture element in the soundtrack and it is very impressive for me.
The killing
of an egg is an animation watched in class 12, a short animation produced by
Paul Driessen and Nico Crama in 1977. The animation started with a man planning
to eat an egg as breakfast. When he taps the egg, a voice appeared from the egg.
The man continues tap and finally smash the egg with a fist, the voice ends.
However, killing an unseen victim soon is being punished when he finds out that
someone is tapping his home, ending with his house comes down over the man.
This animation shows a stylistic way to tell a story with simple ideas, but yet conveying an inevitable fate. The whole action is taking place in a single frame and the perspective does not change much. In this limited time and space, Paul Driessen still successful convey the story, showing his mastery of story telling and his mature style of animating.
‘Neighbours’
was a pixilation animation produced by Norman McLaren. Pixilation is a kind of
stop motion animation but with live actors involved. Using this technique, live
actors and the crops need to move slightly in every frame. Therefore, I really
appreciated what Norman McLaren and the actors in this animation, in which the
motion is really smooth even the jumping and throwing scene. This was an
anti-war animation about two men living peacefully in a cardboard house, until
a flower blooms between their houses and they fight each other to death for
owning the flower.
Surprisingly,
this animation was inspired when Norman McLaren’s stay in China, when he saw
the beginning of Mao’s revolution. It might be a very strong film about
anti-militarism and anti-war, when the audiences saw the ending of two men
fighting just for a little flower. There were also different translation of ‘Love
your neighbour’, aiming to spread this message to the whole world.
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!
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!
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.
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 