I chose this blog because it is a good glimpse at an interesting time in American history post World War 2. A lot of political and social issues are presented in this animation which is very interesting to see 50 years later.
I chose this blog because I spent almost all of this semester looking at American animation. I liked looking at an example of relatively early animation in different parts of the world and seeing how it compared with American animation in terns of quality, and storyline.
For the last blog post of the semester I chose to do one of my favorite animations, and it is just my luck because it is in the animation form we are discussing this week. Wallace and Gromit are very famous stop motion characters and these animators have been doing this for a long time. Therefore, Wallace and Gromit is an example of some of the best stop motion out there because these artists have had a lot of success and a means to perfect their craft. In comparing Wallace and Gromit to other stop motion animation, I found that character expressions were much more detailed and very similar to drawn animation. This class has taught me that being able to convey expression in animation is very difficult, and I could only imagine how hard it would be in stop motion
An impressive part of this animation in particular, is the artists abilities to make things fly through the air. The soccer balls are shown flying, and the dog is also shown flying through the air as he stops the soccer balls. This week in class, I hope to find out how this is possible using stop motion animation. I could only assume that strings or toothpicks are used to suspend the clay. Another interesting part of this animation is that it is called “Soccamatic” because the character is British and soccer is called football there.
I commented on Ian Crawford and Hayleigh Allingham blogs.
I love social and political commentary in funny and “goofy” cartoons. Growing up, the Animaniacs cartoons were always a source of excellent social commentary and adult humor. They were always done in subtle ways which most little kids do not even get. In today’s cartoons, this commentary has become much more in your face with cartoons like Family Guy and South Park. And in some Nickelodeon cartoons I have seen recently, their does not seem to be the same level of social and political commentary.
This week I have chosen to look at two Goofy cartoon from 1941 and 1953. I do not want to comment on the animation itself because that would be a whole other blog topic, but their are multiple differences between the different era’s of Goofy. However, what is the same is the subtle social commentary in the cartoon. What is the same is the theme that humans have not changed very much since the beginning of time. In the first cartoon, “the art of self defense” the animators show two men fighting as cave men all the way through to men fighting in modern day. What is interesting is that the fighting does not change at all throughout history. It is just two men simply hitting each other back and forth in a very dumb manner. In the second cartoon, “how to dance” the animators show groups of people dancing in a very primitive way in a large group. They show Goofy doing all this training to learn how to dance properly, and when he finally goes to a club to dance, everyone storms the floor and the scene looks exactly the same as it did in primitive times.
I wondered why the animators would do this and I started thinking of the time in which these cartoons were made. In 1941, I think the point is that people still fight and go to war with each other and kill each other. Just because the weapons are more advanced, does not mean that the killing is any less primitive. In the “how to dance” cartoon, I think this is an example of the changing times and that rock n’ roll began to take over the music scene and traditional dancing started to go out the window. The dancing they showed also looks very similar to the club scene today which is people just jumping up and down and rubbing against each other. The classiness of dancing is gone, and that is the point made in Goofy’s “how to dance”.
I commented on Britney Alberry and Katherine Danoy’s posts
Chapter 11 tells us how Popeye was a very successful cartoon that ran for more than twenty years and was very successful. However, the cartoon fell into a rut of regularity and the artists at Famous Studios started pumping out recycled material. Even some of the new ideas produced dry animations which had lost a lot of the “fun” that had made Popeye so successful in it’s glory days. I thought I would compare two episodes of Popeye and find some of the differences myself. What I found is that the 1950′s Popeye had not advanced much farther from the 1930′s popeye. The humor was basically exactly the same and the 1950′s version was not even as silly as the 1930′s version.
In the 1950′s version, Popeye has lost some of his funny speech patterns which are very unique to Popeye. Besides that, and the fact that it is in color, nothing has seemed to change for Popeye. He still gets into the same fights with Bluto, and somehow Olive Oyl seems to get caught up in the middle of it. But ahh yes, spinach comes to the rescue! The exception to the rule of Popeye is during the 1940′s during WW2 when Popeye was used as a propaganda tool to make the Japanese look bad. This put Popeye out on the sea’s and gave him an enemy besides Bluto. This cartoon, while it was wildly successful, fell into the same trap that so many shows fall into…mediocrity and lack of enthusiastic, creative ideas.
I thought it would be interesting to compare an early Japanese cartoon with some of America’s early cartoons. It is my belief that since animation got it’s origins in Western Europe and especially the USA, that cartoons would be a bit more advanced than cartoons in foreign countries. (at least during the early years of animation)
As you can see from this animation, it would seem that my original assumption would be correct. The animation is of a much more simplistic quality than that of American animation. Disney’s Steamboat Willie came out 5 years prior to this short film, and not only does their not seem to be any improvements on the quality, but rather the quality seems to be worse. By this time, Disney was miles away from where he was when he created Steamboat Willie. Many things appear to be borrowed from American animation as well. For instance, one of the main characters looks a lot like Felix the cat! Also, many of the characters eyes are very round and this could be the animators copying the Americans as well because round eyes are a characteristic of western people. Or it may be simply that it is easier to portray emotion in larger eyes.
Furthermore, a lot of adult humor exists in this short film. Disney used some more adult humor in his early cartoons such as tobacco spitting. However, this Japanese cartoon features smoking (probably opium) and drinking. I know that what he is drinking is alcohol because the cartoon even portrays the drink changing a characters attitude immediately, and the animators show a main character passed out with the bottle.
The story itself may be derived from a Japanese story, but it looks to be a story similar to the Wear wolf stories. The film could also be trying to make some social implications. The cat breaks up into multiple little cats and takes on the much larger man who they are fighting. They are portrayed as having the ability to truly scatter, or at least harm, the man. This film, which was released only 8 years prior to the attacks on Pearl Harbor, could be one of the things which was signaling that future event. A japanese person could make a good argument that the drunk person bullying the cat is the United States, and that with persistence and ingenuity, the cat can take down the larger, belligerent person.
I commented on Katherine Danoy and Haileigh M’s blog
After all this animation talk during this semester I started to think, “What kind of jobs exist for a modern animator?” I was thinking this because graduation is approaching and many of my peers are looking for jobs in their fields of study. So I started looking around jobs sites for animation work and was surprised to see many jobs available for someone looking to work in animation.
In order to have a career in animation these days, it seems that a sound knowledge in 3D animation is a must, and being computer literate is very important. In the world of animation, resumes seem to be animation shorts. Many sites encourage animators to create short films to ad into their portfolio. Also, many freelance jobs are available for a wide variety of companies.
Unfortunately, many of the jobs available seem to be pretty boring. (at least in my opinion) A majority of the jobs opportunities are for commercials, or local companies looking to make a commercial. Some of the cool and fun jobs seem to be most available in the gaming world creating 3D animation. Overall, I would say that many good opportunities are available for people who are looking to get into the business.
I commented on Mike G’s and Courtney Webbers blog.
The first blog I chose was Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur. I chose this blog because it talks about the early days of animation which I love. The cartoon is also a lot of fun as well.
The second specimen I chose was the blog Logorama. I chose this blog because I am a Communication major, and I have a love fort advertising and I hope to enter that field as a career. This film is a great example of how many logo’s their are out there!
This is a classic Looney Tunes episode from July, 1948 and is special for a few reasons. First of all, the episode shows a bit of American pop culture, American fears, and a look at the space program which was extremely important at this time in history. Also, this was the first episode in which Marvin the Martian appears!
This episode opens with Bugs “volunteering” to go into space. However, it is quite clear the he is being forced to go into space. This is important because in 1948, space programs around the world (including U.S) began sending monkey’s into space in order to see the effects space travel would have on humans. I’m sure this bothered some people that monkey’s were being used as test subjects, and this portion of the episode plays into that.
Upon arriving to the moon, Bugs proclaims, “I am the only person ever to be here!” But what he doesn’t see, is a carving that reads, “Kilroy was here.” This was an extremely popular phrase which was used by soldiers in WW2 in order to tell other U.S troops where they had been and also used just for fun and as a joke. The phrase carried over into mainstream American pop culture. The phrase is storied to have begun at the docks in the states, where a man named Kilroy inspected the boxes being shipped out, and wrote “Kilroy was here” where he finished inspecting every day. The expression was so popular, that it is actually engraved into the WW2 memorial in DC.
This episode also shows some concerns Americans were having at the time. In Marvin’s first episode he has landed on the moon in order to blow up the world. In 1948, Americans were VERY concerned with Russia’s space program because they thought the Soviets wanted to get into space in order to bomb the United States. Fortunately for us, Bugs Bunny was there to stop the attack!
I commented on Brittany Alberry and Megan P’s blogs.
Logorama is a 2010 Oscar winner short animated short. This film tells a story in a world completely made up of company logo’s. The idea is genius and the film does an amazing job of making the world make sense through logos. For me, the film accomplished a few things- it made me realize how many logos their are in everyday life. Also, I was surprised that I recognized almost every single logo in a world made up entirely of them. So many logo’s and chain stores exist, that many of the scenes from the film look pretty similar to an actual busy road such as rt. 50. What I want to talk specifically about however, is the large amount of profanity and sinister nature of the film. I think that the directors spoke through the attitude and language of the characters to show their dislike for our commercial world.
None of the characters in this movie seem to be particularly kind people. Even in their pursuit of the villain, the two police officers kill pedestrians without blinking an eye. They were also engaged in a very “sailor-like” conversation before pursuing the subject. Obviously the villian (Ronald McDonald) was portrayed as evil, but the rest of the side characters did not have a good attitude and were very rude. Some of the nice and innocent characters such as the m & m’s and Mr. Peanut, were both killed by police because they happened to be in the way. This shows that even our powers at be do not care about sincere people and will disregard their concerns to kill the villain. The profanity also seems to be an expression of how loose our censoring of language has become. Everyone, including the little kids, curse without hesitation many times. The cursing seems almost out of place in this film, but still proves a point about our culture that all of these logos and company’s help to cultivate.
The earthquake at the end is very interesting because what seems to be oil rushes up from the ground to flood the streets of the city. The city is left flooded and abandoned because of the very liquid we all want so badly…oil. This could also be taken as a metaphor about global warming because our burning of oil is what could lead to many of our cities being flooded by rising oceans.
I have commented on Katherine Danoy’s Christen Sandersons posts.
While watching Prince Achmed in class I immediately noticed a parallel between Prince Achmed and the modern Disney animated film Aladdin. Disney films have traditionally not been original stories starting with Disney himself using public domain stories in order to save money. Therefore, it seems to make sense that a modern Disney film would not necessarily be an original story.
The similarities start with the basic fact that both stories take place in an Arabic setting. Also, their is a princess who is highly desired and an evil sorcerer (Jafar) who wants her for himself. Some of the magic is similar as well as seen with the Genie, and the Genie’s bottle is located in similar locations. Also, an argument could be made that a direct “shout out” to Prince Achmed was made during Aladdin because one of the suitors who comes to marry Princess Jasmine is named Prince Achmed. The basic story if essentially exactly the same, but the main difference between the two movies is that Aladdin uses a lot more humor and, at least by today’s standards, is much more kid friendly.
Another thing I would like to point out in Aladdin is the possible use of computer animation. Aladdin came out in 1992 and was by using traditional animation techniques which have not changed all that much since the time of Walt Disney himself. However, during the scene in which Aladdin and Aboo are escaping the Cave of Wonders, I noticed that the lava and cave walls have a much different look than any of the other animation in the movie. It seems that this is evidence of computer animation in main stream feature length films. This scene in particular may have been chosen because since computer animation was fairly new, they wanted to use it on an object that did not need a huge amount of detail. Or, Disney may have realized that computer animation for large waves is simple enough to do that it was very cost effective to make it on a computer
