Major Post 13: Journey to the East: Animation in Asia –China

Posted on by lilylai98

In class 14, we watched few animation which made in China. Most of story of them are based on the folk talk and fairy tale in China which very familiar with some of us. Although I didn’t read the book or watch any cartoon of The Journey to the West, but I have already understand the story and the story roughly. Animation is such a good way to promote different culture from different countries. And the visual style is also full of Chinese drawing element.

From all the short films we watched in class , I like the animation of  Te Wei. I like the artist combined the Chinese painting with animation and it is hard to imagine how the team finish this animation by drawing every single frame. Plus the story is like a story for kid and the narration is incredible that she can voice over all the characters appear in the animation.

Lily Lai

Major Post 15: Annie May

Posted on by Sammy Liu

Today’s highlight is Osamu Tezuka – “The God of Manga” who created Astroy Boy and Black Jack. Tezuka sees animation and manga as a form of art to convey messages, and without holding back he is open to explore serious and mature themes in his animation – a noticeable difference between Western and Asian Animation.
Following the timeline, 1960s Japanese animation was the rising of the television era. It was a large contributing factor for mass animation, and was distributed out towards different countries.
In 1970s, sports-orientated production became the new hype. After the sports-frenzy, cinematic elements became a prominent factor. They sought to convince audiences how relatable the main character actually is, creating some sort of emotional connection, which attracts many viewers.

In 1973, Tezuka Production was founded. Most of his animations reflected his values which includes; peace, love for nature and social participation.
He questions the function of story-telling in an animation, seen especially in Jumping (1984) which portrays a a rather uncanny theme, despite its fun and outgoing impression. We see everything in the unknown character’s point of view – with no sign or clue of who this character is, until at the very end, we hear a relieved sigh that slightly reveals a part of the character, (I feel like its the audience themselves as they echo their sigh).

Another big influencer was The Animator’s Club in the 1960s, founded by the first three generation of japanese independent animation artist: Yoji Kuri, Ryohei Yanagihara and Hiroshi Manabe. They explored styles and found inspiration in “Saul Bass” and Norman McClaren films.
Yoji Kuri was very experimental in surreal composition, and distracting audio in his works. He conveyed mature-themes through animation – for example “AI”(1965); exploring the relationship between men and women, and more specifically, women’s desire for men and subtly suggests the manipulation of women over men. This theme was repeated in his work “Human Zoo”, in which his funky characters (male and female in a cage) portrayed consistently how men was the animal – the female was the zoo tamer.

Moving back to a more linear storytelling format, we looked at Tadahito Mochinaga and Kihachiro Kawamoto, who were both Japanese pioneers of puppet-animation, . Michinaga had also large influence in Chinese Animation – he had good friendship with the Chinese animators, as he worked in Xinjing, China in 1945.
We also briefly looked at large influencers like Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira [1989]) and Hayao Miyazaki, and Satoshi Kon who continues to inspire many young future generations.

Osamu Tesuka: Jumping (1987)
Broken don film
Yoji Kuri: Ironic storytelling – AOS (1964), AI (1965)
TadahitoMochinaga
Kihachiro Kawamoto: coffee break
Katsuhiro Otomo: Akira, Memories (1995)
Hayao Miyazaki
Satoshi Kon
Koji Yama – Mt.Head

Major Post 14: Old japanimation

Posted on by Sammy Liu

First Generation of Animators in Japan
Which includes Seitaro Kitayama, Oten Shinokawa, and Jun’ichi Kouchi.
They mostly worked with cut-out, silhouettes due to limited budget and had to work efficiently if they wanted to gain profit. Noburo Ofuji, Jun’ichi’s apprentice was also an influential animator, similarly primarily working with cut-outs.

During the war around 1930s, propaganda films were often featured. Animation was a tool for political controversy, to educate and to spread news about the war. in Momotaro (1918) by Seitaro Kitayama showcased a “war hero” character to encourage and build people’s hope. It was also a first to be shown on TV abroad.

After the war around the 1940s, another rising animator, Kenzo Masaoka, who explored cel-animation production founded Nihon Douga, which is now known as Toei Douga. He made Kumo to Chulip (1943), which was delightful to watch. It had sweet old japanese nursery songs that kept it engaging, and a simple story plot.

Major post 12: The Art of Metaphor: Middle and Eastern European Animation

Posted on by lilylai98

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. 

Lily Lai

Major Post 15 – Animated Documentaries & Chris Landreth

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

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.

Julia Reymundo

MJ Post 16: Duffy the Mascot / Puppet Love

Posted on by 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

Major Post 14 – Satoshi Kon

Posted on by Julia Reymundo

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.

Julia Reymundo

Major post 11 Drawing Animation

Posted on by lilylai98

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.

Lily Lai

Major Post 11 – The Killing of an Egg

Posted on by marissatso

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.

Marissa Tso

Major Post 10 – The Neighbors

Posted on by marissatso

‘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.