Sandimation

I very much enjoyed Caroline Leaf's sand animations.  To me, sand seems to be a completely different medium for animation, as opposed to things like drawings, 3D, or clay.  In most forms of animation, you're typically re-drawing the same figure in a different pose or you're moving limbs on your tangible clay figure to create a new pose.  But with sand, you have to move the sand to create a new pose, while still retaining the basic shape of the figure.  I would imagine that keeping the same shape of the thing you're animating must take lots of practice when it comes to sand.  Although I wasn't really drawn in by Leaf's characters or stories, I was captivated by the actual animation.  As far as these films go, I think that's all that really matters.  What I loved most about Peter and the Wolf and The Owl Who Married a Goose was her transitioning over to scenes of negative space.  Not only was it a nice idea in adding to the overall look of the film, but it just amazed me how she seemed to move her negative-space characters as easily as she could when the characters were made of sand.  

   

Greatest Animated Films?

Although I can understand why the visual elements and everything that went into creating the two films we saw would make it what it was, it personally didn't do anything for me. 

I can admire what went into creating the film and the different effects, but I didn't find them very entertaining. The films didn't really do anything for me, neither the hedgehog or the wolf. Rather than being intrigued into watching it I felt myself sitting there thinking "When is it going to be over?" 

Stop-motion is not a favorable style of mine overall so I don't really know that I could properly speak on these films. Some of the more uber complex stop-motion like Paranorman and Coraline I enjoy, other types not as much, you could say I'm very picky about my stop-motion enjoyment. 

I didn't really get anything out of the films, whether that is from the visual style or overall story-telling style I'm not sure, but I didn't feel too great about either films.

Lullaby and Goodnight

This video was made by Yuri Norstien.  This was a very extensive video telling the story of the Russian lullaby where the wolf would come and steal babies into the woods.  I adored the animation and the story that went along with the lullaby.  I wish that the video was shorter.  For a lullaby, it really did put me to sleep with all the dark tones and the music.

This artist uses a lot of dark tones and bases a lot of his work at night.  He has many different styles, but I can all detect bits and pieces that lead to him.

While I've been learning how to become an artist and developing my own style, I'm taking bits and pieces of other artist style and applying them to my own work.  It's amazing to see how much I'm learning from other artist.  A lot of people look down on artist for copying their styles, but that's not how artist learn or grow.  When I was in third grade, my art teacher told us it was better to look at something and copy than to use a light board.  Copying was frowned upon, but I used it to develop my skill at copying be seeing.

I want to grow into a better artist, but I don't want to be the next Picasso. I want to be the best artist I can be.

Allow me to gush

TALE OF TALES IS THE BEST THING EVER! IT IS SO AMAZING IT MAKES KITTENS FLY! 5 STARS! A+! 10/10! ROGER EBERT APPROVES! JESUS APPROVES! ABRAHAM LINCOLN APPROVES! IT! IS! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
GGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! uzodHEFWA UTHVSEOFUHEAUSFHGRSJXHFJSK4HFUOJSIRNVAHGOICSNUHF ESANFH UANC

Okay now time to be all srs! Tale of Tales is one of the best animated...things for a reason! For one, the animation. ERMEGERD WHERE DO I BEGIN! First off, if you would have told me that this was made in the late 70s, I would not believe you! The animation is so fluent and full of life that I still can not believe it was not made on a computer! Like when the wolf was running on the highway with the baby who he thought was a piece of paper. I was like "HOW WAS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE IN THE 80S'!" It's that good. Though I would like to say that the animation does remind me of something that Terry Gilliam would do on Monty Python. At any minute I kept on waiting for a giant foot crushing something! And for anyone out there reading this who has not seen Monty Python:



As far as a plot is concern...well there isn't any seeing how this is an art film. And I'm not saying that as someone saying "EW IT'S ALL ARTY AND CRAP! WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM ME? ACTUALLY USE MY BRAIN! AOCNA OJRC AOFIHIUSNPRV HSEOICNXEWHCRUAWNSFXIEGAUNRENCMGFXNECYRNCFIOXAU!" No. I mean more on how there really isn't that much of a plot but it makes you think. Think about why there was a bull jump roping with a girl. And why they are in limbo. And why the wolf suddenly appear in limbo. And why did he take a paper that turned into a baby. And why-GOODNESS THIS MOVIE MAKES NO SENSE! But then I read a Wikipedia article (IT CAN BE RIGHT SOME TIMES!) that says that the movie was supposed to be basically a dream sequence. That the scenes are supposed to be fragmented memories being stringed together. Now usually memories in films would be strung in chronological order, like with Forrest Gump. But here, it is told out of chronological order because when we do remember something, it is usually at one point in time and not in order of events. They come to us at random. And that really does make sense. With the soldiers scenes appearing at random and the kids eating the apple as well. And if it isn't supposed to be a dream, well it's the one that makes sense to me!

And...um...yeah...that's all I got...



























Time to light the rockets!

Shooting Flowers of The Fall

Over fall break I had the opportunity of working grip on Flowers of The Fall.
It was easily the best film experience I've had so far. It was the first professional set I've ever worked on. I learned so much from the experience, and I truly discovered what it's like to make a film. And I can proudly say that I'm happy to be in the industry I'm in. The crew was incredible, and even the director said we were the best and most organized crew he's ever worked with. I'm happy my first set experience was so positive.

New Harry Potter Trilogy....Whaaaa?

Ok so I think I speak for a large part of our generation when I say that I have mixed feelings about the upcoming spin-off installments of the Harry Potter movies. For those of you who don't know about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it is a book written by JK Rowling that is supposed to be a textbook used at Hogwarts. Within the last year, they announced that it would be turned into a movie, and now it will be three movies, and possibly more. On one hand, I'm thrilled to have more Harry Potter in my life, but at the same time, I worry that it could be too much of a good thing. It don't think it's unreasonable to have reservations about it because historically spin-offs can be really hit-or-miss. At the same time, there have been spin-offs that have had lots of success in the box office, so it's hard to say. My biggest worry is that Harry Potter has been such a huge part of millions of people's lives, and if we introduce something new into an already settled and accepted thing, it will be a flop in many's eyes.  Hopefully, they will be different enough from the original (and unbeatable) movies, and that people go into it not having expectations about them.

I trust JK Rowling's supervision on this - she hasn't let me down yet! I just don't trust the general public...I'm leaving this in the hands of the makers of the films: if you let us down, you have nobody to blame but yourselves. You can't mess with our emotions when it comes to Harry Potter.

If you want to read more about it, here is the link to the article:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6982525/harry-potter-spin-off-fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them

Oh Yuri Norstien!!

So this week we were covering the works of Yuri Norstien.  He created some pretty cool stuff for being behind the iron curtain.  The first is a piece about war.  I forget if it was based off of history or a folk tale but it was done amazingly.  That was just awesome.  It made me want to just get up and animate something.  Unfortunately I would make something bad but it would be worth it.  The animation was cool and pretty fluent.
The next video we watched was Vixen and the hare which had a cool look especially since it was made to look like a storybook.  The story is that a rabbit is kicked out of his house when a fox's snow house melts.  He gets all these various animals to help him until a rooster helps him with the help of the rabbit.
The other short was the hedgehog in the fog which was really cool.  The fog was pretty cool in the short mixed with the paper cutouts.  The look of the water with the hedgehog looked very cool.  Also I want to know what save the hedgehog in the water.  I'm trying to figure it out.  But with all said and done the shorts were awesome.  I'm just gonna mention tale of tales briefly since I don't remember much.  Though the wolf reminded me of a stuffed animal so if Norstien needs funding on his films he should make it into one.

First let's try, then cry

Last class we looked at the works of Yuri Norstein, arguably one of the greatest animators in the world.  I enjoyed The fox and the Hare because it had good characters, it was funny, and it was short. To be honest, I could hardly stay awake for the half an hour Tale of Tales film. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I loved The Fox and the Hare because of the relationships between the animals. When the Fox takes over the Hare's house, the Hare cries out to a Wolf, Bear, Bull, and a Rooster for help. They all seem like good buddies and want to assist him when he is distressed. It's humorous, especially in the instance with the Wolf. He was about to eat the Hare until he saw him crying, then he bent down and gave him a hug. I also like how the Rooster is the one who repossesses the house, and he's the least fiercest of them all. He also smokes a pipe for some reason?? It's really funny. My favourite line is when the Hare is warning the Rooster about the Fox, saying that the other animals were unsuccessful in engaging her. But the Rooster responds, "First let's try, then cry" as he marches towards the house. I thought that was an encouraging quotation. At least give it a shot, and if it doesn't work out, then that's reason to cry about it. 

Second half

I'm looking forward to the second half of the semester mainly to focus more on the understanding of film an learning all how to break it down into piece and learn more about its purpose/meaning. These next weeks he said we will be jumping categories like different style of film and I'm very excited to learn the different styles and learn more about the history. In the following weeks I hope to be more interact with the subject and more willing to answer questions.

Selfie game

Fall Break

Because you care so much... Here I go:
Saturday, I went to a Lego (not sure what to call it, not quite a convention, but whatever...), known as Brickworld. It was very, very delightful. Essentially, it was mostly a showcase for amazing Lego constructs, but there were a variety of sellers to buy things from.
Of particular note to me is the hybrid Simpsons/Futurama display. I am a massive Simpsons fan (well, seasons 3 through 9 anyway...), so it was easily the coolest thing there.

Look at this *!#@!

(This is tangentially related. Lego -->Lego Movie = Related to film ok?)

Weekend recap

This weekend was full of fun and laughter. It began doing the week though as I went to house church and the topic was our character and I really began questioning things so this weekend I began reading the bible and starting to get more involved with things around campus like house church, where we meeting every week to go over a section in the bible then we go in our small group to break down the topic and talk about it and then put it into our life. And so after many weeks of house church it has definitely have changed the person I am.

This weekend was the birthday weekend I had people come home for my birthday to come celebrate and also I enjoyed having them around and without them this weekend would be nothing so I'm so fortunate and happy that they were allowed to come and make it here safetly to celebrate my 19 th birthday.

half way through

We are half way into the semester and finally getting into the stuff I love. The last week we started learning the basics of Dma. And watching the two kids videos I thought it was absolutely funny, the first one I watch it was with the little girl who loved to make a mess and her grandfather came over to try and watch her and make her behave. But it didn't quite work that way until he took her to a religious gathering where you get to yell and throw stuff into people's face and that's exactly what the little girl love to do. So the quickly ran back home to sit at the dinner table so it did not look like they moved and the parents were like wow and then quickly left again.

The second video kind of remind me of myself as a girl keep yelling and trying to break things as she was frustrated and was throwing a fit. Which I remeber what I loved to do haha so by the end of the video her mom walks in and she gives her a big hug and smiles.
Y

Tampopo

Ok, so I don't watch many foreign movies not because they're odd to me but because I really just don't expand my interests, but Tampopo was the most oddest of them all. I understood the main plot: a stugling small noodle business is in need of a change because with the help of some truck drivers. What I didn't understood is the sub stories within the movie. Some were interesting and funny but one of the sub stories was very uncomfortable, and for those whom seen it know exactly what I'm talking about.
You guessed it, the eggs scene...

 

No idea man! Out of nowhere they just start sucking eggs! LITERALLY! 

 Haha and sorry for so many gifs. You can't imagine how nasty it was.

(My Exact Reactions)

Mind in the Fog

 

Hedgehog in the Fog was fun. Several students have told me how much they love this film and it is indeed a masterpiece. However, what is it about these films we keep seeing that lack a solid ending? Hedgehog in the fog would have been fine if it wasn't for the fact that the Hedgehog's mind remained with the horse in the fog, not to mention that he never got the answer to his question that took him down there in the first place. He's there by the fire with his chatterbox buddy, drink in hand and jam present before him, and all he can think about is the place of horror and danger he just barely escaped from.

Perhaps there is a lesson here about human nature and how we always neglect the words of the old hymn that goes, “Where duty calls or danger, be never wanting there.” We get into situations where we fear for our lives (or maybe just fear the consequences we have brought on ourselves from reckless action or inaction) and yet return to the ways of near destruction that we longed to escape from. I cold try to connect Hosea's wife to this analogy but I think that kind of falls flat.

Jumbled Memories

Tale of Tales has been rolling around in my noggin for a while now and I still make as little sense of the story as I did watching it. The whole thing reminds me of the way my memory replays things. Distant memories from childhood are often fragmented, corrupted by my imagination, or just not there. There's the baby nursing and seeing the little wolf, followed by a glowing doorway that leads to a field with a buffalo skipping rope with a little girl, an artist who seems to be having writer's block and musician's butterfingers, a cat whose only concern is fish, a mother trying to prepare dinner or wash clothes (I can't quite tell), and a father returning home with a catch of fish. Then there is a house that gets boarded up with the wolf from before investigating the cars parked around the house. Suddenly the cars start, a small grass fire gets lit and then all the cars leave. Then winter comes and goes...well you know the rest. Or if you want to watch it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Xne3FztR0

But anyways, this masterpiece is brilliantly rendered and has so many underlying themes that one cannot simply decide what it is saying after the first twenty viewings. But perhaps that is another lesson to take away from it. We are not always going to find meaning and life lessons in good and beautiful stories or works of art. And that should be okay.

I have trouble being okay with it, but it is...really.