Films Research

Avatar 

Avatar is a 2009 American epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body with the mind of a remotely located human, and is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

Setting

The movie takes place on Pandora, a fictional moon orbiting the planet Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora is a planet set 200 years into the future which reflects old-fashioned jungle  with an environmental conscience.

For the film's mountain ranges, the designers drew inspiration from "many different types of mountains, but mainly the karst limestone formations in China." According to production designer Dylan Cole, the fictional floating rocks were inspired by Mount Huang (also known as Huangshan), Guilin, Zhangjiajie, among others around the world. Director Cameron had noted the influence of the Chinese peaks on the design of the floating mountains.

To create the interiors of the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico during June 2007. They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the platform, which was later replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI during post-production.

Horton Hears a Who

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! is a 2008 American computer-animated adventure comedy film based on the Dr. Seuss' book of the same name. The film was directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino. It features the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell.  The film tells the story of Horton the Elephant who, in the afternoon of May 15 while splashing in a pool located in the Jungle of Nool, hears a small speck of dust talking to him. Horton discovers that the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a microscopic community called Whoville, where the Whos reside. The Whos are led by a character known as the Mayor.

Setting

The Jungle of Nool is a safe, normal jungle. It's beautiful and filled with lush scenery. Most important, though, it is all that the jungle animals know. They've grown up here and this is the reality that they see. So when they hear about Who-ville—which is definitely not a jungle—they feel like they have to destroy it. We're definitely getting some Cold War vibes, here.

The use of a very natural setting makes it an even more interesting contrast to the Whos, who live in a place with lots of technology and doo-dads that aren't around in jungle land. 

How to train your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation loosely based on the English 2003 book of the same name by Cressida Cowell. The film was directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. It stars the voices of Jay Baruchel and Gerard Butler.

The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named Hiccup aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at finally gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill it and instead befriends it.

Setting

How to Train Your Dragon is set on the frozen scottish island of Berk, a constant theatre of war fought over by a variety of colourful flying beasties and a cheerfully violent tribe of Vikings.

Rango

Rango is a 2011 American computer-animated action comedy western film directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Graham King. Rango was a critical and commercial success, and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

In the film, Rango, a chameleon, accidentally ends up in the town of Dirt, an outpost that is in desperate need of a new sheriff. It features the voices of actors Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant and Ned Beatty. It was released to theaters on March 4, 2011.

Setting

Rango is set in a dusty frontier town where all the inhabitants are animals - talking animals. The citizens of dirt live in human-like homes.

Frankenweenie

Frankenweenie is a 2012 3D stop motion sci-fi family film directed by Tim Burton. It is a remake of Burton's 1984 short film of the same name and is a parody of and a homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley's book of the same name. 

Like both those films, Frankenweenie is in black and white. It is also the fourth stop-motion film produced by Burton and the first of those four that is not a musical. In the film, a boy named Victor loses his dog, named Sparky, and uses the power of science to resurrect him.

Setting

Compared to other stop-motion animation sets, Frankenweenie's set is much larger. As IGN notes, the main character Sparky had to be "'dog-size' compared to the other human characters.  The film has a similar off-key suburban setting like Burton's earlier film "Edward Scissorhands" and shares the same balance of that film's darkness. 

Metropolis

Metropolis is a 2001 anime film loosely based on the 1949 Metropolis manga created by the late Osamu Tezuka, itself inspired by the 1927 German silent film of the same name, though the two do not share plot elements. The anime, however, does draw aspects of its storyline directly from the 1927 film. The anime had an all-star production team, including renowned anime director Rintaro, Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo as script writer, and animation by Madhouse Studios with conceptual support from Tezuka Productions.

In this story, also set in an astoundingly beautiful futuristic city, with three tiers of inhabitants - the elite, the human working class, and all the way at the bottom, the slave-like robots. The powerful corporate leader who runs Metropolis, Duke Red, has created a structure called the Ziggurat, a huge tower designed to control all information and machines in the world. To make this possible, he hires Dr. Laughton, a genius criminal scientist to make a an super-android focal point of the Ziggurat, who is designed in the image of his daughter.

Setting

Metropolis is a futuristic city where humans and robots coexist. Robots are discriminated against, and segregated to the city's lower levels. A lot of Metropolis human population is unemployed and deprived; many people blame the robots for taking their jobs.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 American stop-motion animated fantasy-comedy film based on the Roald Dahl children's novel of the same name. This story is about a fox who steals food each night from three mean and wealthy farmers. The farmers are fed up with Mr Fox's theft and try to kill him, so they dig their way into the foxes' home. However, the animals are able to outwit the farmers and live underground.

Setting

Fantastic Mr Fox is set on a farm in the Uk/ Europe.

District 9

District 9 is a 2009 action/thriller film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James. In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed "The Prawns," appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new 'Prawn' friends.

Setting

The setting of District 9 is inspired by historical events that took place in South Africa during the apartheid era, with the film's title particularly referencing District Six. District Six, an inner-city residential area in Cape Town, was declared a "whites only" area by the government in 1966, with 60,000 people forcibly removed and relocated to Cape Flats, 25 km (15 mi) away. The film also refers to contemporary evictions and forced removals to new suburban ghettos in post-apartheid South Africa as well as the resistance of its residents. This includes the high profile attempted forced removal of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Cape Town to temporary relocation areas in Delft, plus the attempted evictions of Abahlali baseMjondolo and evictions in the shack settlement, Chiawelo, where the film was actually shot. The temporary relocation area dubbed Blikkiesdorp, has also been compared with the District 9 camp earning a front page spread in the Daily Voice.

Final Animation

Rationale

My animation explores the theme of superstitions within the rhyme Ring-O-Rosies. Ring-O-Rosies is a traditional nursery rhyme written centuries ago, describing the symptoms and superstitions of posies used during the Great Plague of London. In order to reinterpret the rhyme to a modern audience, I decided to focus on present-day superstitions. Superstitions are defined as irrational beliefs often proceeded from fear. My animation focuses on the superstitions of crows, china breaking, ladders and most importantly- black cats. The black cat superstition is of relatively recent origin derived from folklore, which often depicts them as demons. My narration tells the story of a black cat walking down a city street, when all of a sudden unfortunate events start to occur within his presence. Similarly to the Ring-O-Rosies rhyme, I chose to finish my story with an ending that proves the superstition is wrong. Therefore once the cat feels unloved and sad I made it rain- revealing the cat is in fact white in colour and was just covered in dirt or sot.  

Having a strong interest in Japanese anime, I decided to base my visual aesthetic on particular anime’s and morph that with my own style. I also looked at a variation of video games in order to get a unique look for the characters in my animation. Overall I wanted to achieve a simplistic character style, whilst retaining definition through outlines. The setting uses a natural colour palette with a generic subtle gradient style displaying no major contrast. Helping with the overall simplicity, and relatable environment for the character.

My biggest focus in this brief was to have the cat convey misconception of superstition with a sense of personality. In order for the personality to succeed, the audience must form a connection with the cat. To achieve this I started with the cat exploring and interacting with certain elements in the story. After displaying her personality of a happy and oblivious cat, I then decided to have the audience emotionally connect with her by ending with her being misunderstood and feeling lonely.

Type for my animation was an integral part of the communication method. I decided to have the type integrated into the settings. This helped blend the text subtly with the environment it was displayed in. I chose to simplify the rhyme even further by only portraying only the key word from each sentence, and translated it into kanji to further reinforce my overall visual theme of Japanese anime. These words appear four times in the duration of my animation- in the concrete ground, on the grass covered wall, on a plaque and on a signpost. Overall I aimed to achieve a subtle and discrete integration of the type, as I wanted the focus to be on the character. To further enhance my anime theme I also added in katakana sounds often seen in Japanese manga to reinforce the sounds that each scene comprised.

I believe I have achieved a narrative where the main character and typography explores the misconception of superstition in rhyme Ring-O-Rosies.

Development Final

Development of final with sound-

Development Final - Sound

Here is my planning for sound. I recieved majority of my sound effects from the shared server at Uni and the background music is from Indigalgames (http://www.youtube.com/user/Indigalgames?feature=watch). For the young girl and the mothers voices, I recorded my sisters voice.

Development Final

Here is my first draft of the final animation. At first I had trouble rendering, as lines would appear all over the images once rendered. After discussing the problem with my tutor I was able to overcome this problem by changing the rendering settings. Overall I believe the scenes have come together well, and fit the time limit and criteria given. Now I will continue to add sound to the video.

Transition

Now finishing the animating of my sequence, I am considering transition between each of the scenes. SO I decided to watch a video "The Basics of Motion Design" (found here: http://vimeo.com/album/2270016/video/7440725 )

I learnt that transitions are used to switch from a scene to another one.
Dissolving to black means that a long amount of time passes between scenes.
Cut transition means that scenes are consecutive without time gaps
Cross transition means that the time of the second scene is the end of the current action.

Anime also uses these principles-
Naruto Shippuden (Movie Trailer)-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LDHxfKZMpw

In this clip a sense of what is past and what is present is created instantly through the changing in types of transition. The scenes that fade to black indicates a past event or a jump in the time of scenes displayed. The cut transition is used to depict a quick jump where no time gaps have intervened or quick action is taking place. The cross transition is displayed when the first scene is a step to the second, mostly when zooming or analysing the important elements of the story in this case.

Katakana

Continuing with my Japanese anime theme, I looked at a variety of manga and liked the technique of the visual sound effects. They achieve this by writing the sound created by a character or aspect in the story beside the element that is creating it. For example, the word swoosh by a tree blowing in the wind. To gain a better understanding, I scanned a few of my manga that display this technique throughout their series-

Doraemon-

These scenes display the sounds for a whirlwind and a all cracking

 Tokyo MewMew-

This scene shows visually sound through the splash text around the water

 Kingdom Hearts II -

Here katakana is displayed to emphasize the sound of the stick hitting the mans head

Including Katakana in my animation to visually help display sound I believe will work nicely, and help the viewer further understand what is happening in the scene.

experimentation