Disney

Talked a lot about Disney this past week. I grew up watching Disney movies all the time. Every sunday night there was a different one on. Disney basically had a monopoly on animated children's films for a very very long time. The only Disney film that came out during my childhood that I can remember was The Lion King. The Lion King was a little different from the Disney Princess type story which catered more to me, a kid who spent a ton of time outdoors.

After that it seemed that a lot more companies, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc became prominent in animated films. I must say that Toy Story was really something different that was a huge success and I really enjoyed it. Another movie we talked about was Spirit. I had completely forgotten about this movie until I heard it mentioned in class. This film was brought up because it featured a prominent character, the horse, that didn't speak. Almost all Disney films had talking animals, or other various creatures, which brought you into another world. While Spirit wasn't really a big big success it was something different and I really enjoyed it.

This week

I watched a neat animation built inside of World of Warcraft this past week. It was a spoof off of a discovery channel commercial but I found it to be quite funny, and fun to watch. I placed the video and a making of at the bottom of my post. I think it is really amazing how people take textures and characters from this video game and turn them into their own animations. I am half inspired to try this for my final project but unsure whether I would be able to handle it entirely.

The animations in World of Warcraft are something else entirely. They are often criticized for being too cartoonish, however it is my belief that these animations add a lot to the game. In a way they make it more appealing than if the animation had been more realistic.

Wallace and Gromit have popped into my mind lately. I haven't watched one of the videos in maybe 10 years but I used to love them. Claymation in general is something I haven't watched in a while. I am thinking about trying some animations using clay, I think it will be a good experience. Only problems I might have is making a skeletal structure with joints!

-Ross

#3

I've been thinking about early animation. Specifically Disney films, and the more I think about it, the more amazed I am by the meticulous detail but into each frame. I am not artist myself, however I can appreciate the time an effort it would take to put together even a small feature. I'm sure this appreciation is inflated 10 fold in the eyes of a real artist.

Another thing I was simply amazed by was the talented work of pin-board artists. A pin-board is basically a board with a ton of pins in it, and you create images by pushing pins in and out to different lengths. We observed a feature that was of significant length and I found in simply amazing.

We also watched a feature done entirely in silhouettes. They used a multi layer system with one artist devoted entirely backgrounds. The artists used a large machine that was about 9 feet tall, and each incorporated their own part of the scene. I thought it was incredibly complex.

Week 2

This week I had thought my flipbook project was due. So I spent some time putting that together. I found it very intriguing how meticulous one needs to be in creating a flipbook. Any little mistake really throws off the animation. Anyways my project turned out ok, its basically just a ball moving around.

In class this week we talked about a few different things. Duck Amuck was featured. This animation showed a stereotypical animation with a few new things. The major difference was the artist was clearly involved in the animation. Throughout the picture the main character, Daffy Duck, would question the artist concerning his surroundings. You would then see a paint brush enter the scene and change it entirely. I found this to be a fun and refreshing idea.

We also watched a little claymation. Creature Comforts, was a film about animals interpretations of their lives at the zoo. I found it to be a good film and the claymation was certainly different and really involved the artist's touch. You could quite literally see the artists fingerprint in some of the work. That is all for now, see you next week!