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In class 10, we watched many animations which is created by small puppet and toy and I enjoyed those animations very much. Puppet animation is such a big part of my childhood. When I was watching those animation which used toys and puppet as the characters , they remind me the old cartoon “Pingu” which is a super fun cartoon of a little penguin live with his friends and families that I watch all the time when I was young.

In the animations we watched in class, I really like the animations of Ladislas Starewich’s “ The Ant And The Grasshopper  (1911) ”. Although it is a black and white movie with no sound , the story is very fun and the characters is very cute. I love how the stage is setted , everything is like fairy tales. They also remind me the first project we did in this class, the red hearted sweet potato.

Lily Lai

In class 9, we studied the works of Mary Ellen Bute, Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Jules Engel. They works share one similarity that all of the works are very experimental . Compare to the general animation, some of them they don’t have a narrative story . The visual is the main object of their. The audience get the feeling from the visual  that the artist wanted to show instead of a story.

For  Mary Ellen Bute’s work “Spook sport (1940)”, this work is a very interesting. compare to the other animation from that age and the color and story is not that complicated and detailed. However,when I frist watch this animation. They remain me the motion graphic these days from those simple sharp and line as character with simple movement. However, I like those kind if animations because they very different from the animation generally we watch and create. Those works show that animations  can be more than just narrative story and the visual element can be the first thing that catch people eyes. 

Lily Lai

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

Documentary animation is a genre of animation that is seamlessly part of the film industry. Documentary animation defies the more commonly known form of documentaries that usually consist of live people being filmed and interviewed. It is different from both the conventional documentary and narrative animation as animation is used as a tool to present the ideas of a documentary in an effective and more interesting way. Documentary animation opens new doors to present the ideas presented in a documentary in a new form that may even reflect the thoughts of the interviewees in a more accurate manner.

Using animation as a tool to convey the content of the animation can result in a more fluid, storytelling like film. This can be seen in the use of paint on glass animation in the documentary animation Truth has Fallen. The flow of the documentary is supported by the animation, and therefore the fluidity of the ideas are easier to process.

Eunhae Mary Park

The development of the Japanese animation industry is quite particular in that it started with the military. Although the first, developing animations were not influenced by the government, Japanese animators looked often at European and American animations. As Japan entered war with China in the 1930’s, however, and Japanese militarism grew to dominate politics, propaganda films were set to be more successful in the animation industry because they would be funded by the government.

However, after the war, unlike China with the cultural revolution, Japanese animators became free to create any creation they wanted leading to a generation of animators free to experiment with style and content.

Osamu Tezuka’s works were particularly crucial in bringing Japanese animation into a new age and larger commercial market as he marked a key point in producing the first Japanese animated television series, Tetsuwan Atom which aired from 1952 to 1968. Tetsuwan Atom was the beginning of the Japanese television animation industry which maintains international popularity to this day.

Eunhae Mary Park