My blog

2005-12-13T22:22:00.000-08:00

Post #12

I have already in my blog discussed very fun movies that Disney has released to their viewers and as well have described some movies by pixar. I decided to look in to a differnt production company and analyze their work so i remebered one of the neatest movies for me personally ever to be made was Ice age, even though the character in the movie were of real life animals they were made to look like them in a funnier and unrealist wasy which made their face more entertaining to me. The characters were a sabertooth tiger, a sloth, and a wooly mammoth that find a lost human infant in which they try to return to the tribe. Although the movie was made for mostly children it had so much entertainment for adults. I thought the characters were great and the technology that the artists used you can tell in 2002 was different then what we had been watching previous to that. The characters in the movie look goofy and quickly grow on you. There facial movements are slower reacting then many other films and there extremely exaggerated which gives these characters this goofy distorted look which worked out obviously because it made it through the entertainment business and many have enjoyed it as much as i have. I think also the characters voices made were matched so perfect for their unusuall look, it gave the characters that extra length that intrigued viewers.

2005-12-03T11:59:00.001-08:00

Post #11

2005-12-03T11:59:00.000-08:00

Post #11

2005-12-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

I had never seen the movie Toy Story 2 until class today, i did although see the first one many years ago and had loved it because of all the distinct characters in the movie. Its great to see each character in this movie with their own voices, movements and personalities. It defines the movie and gives it more of depth that veiwers look for. I was actually just remembering another movie that was in comparison to that and it was Snow white, each character of the Dwarfs had their own characteristics which allows the audiance to tell the difference between each character all though they are all similar looking in the movie. Thats what i believe is a definition of good characters in a movie. Also in the movie Toy story 2 the one major thing that caught my interest is that is although this movie is a cartoon and one would think it was for children only, the artists who created this movie also made it interesting for adults to watch by putting lines in the scenes that only adults would catch to entertain them as well their children.

2005-11-14T22:56:00.003-08:00

Post #10

In my last blog I described scenes in some disney films and gave you some input about Disney's hidden images, Where they are found and explained how often mickey the most popular character of disney production appeared and why. Well, one main reason is that disney has made a sport about having there hidden mickeys discovered by their veiwers. So inserting hidden mickey heads in clips of the movie is entertainment for the audience but yet a snip holder for the artists developing major scenes in the story line. Since we just watched pocahontas in class i wanted to see if i can find any secret images for this movie.
After scrolling thru the wonderful world of the internet, I found 3 scenes in the movie where sorounding images of the main characters move together to give the veiwers an image of Mickey Mouses head. In the scene where Pocahontas is told that her father has returned, before she jumps down the cliff, we see a clip of Meeko eating berries. In his hands and in the bushes he is finding these berries they all form the image of mickey's ears and head. If you dont know what to look for its very hard to acknowledge the image because its is so small. Also, in the scene when the girls in the field return to the village after hearing a steady drum. A few trees are moving closer together as the drumming becomes more obvious and form Mickey. This image is a little clearer i thought because it a lot larger than the first. One more really good image i found was when Percy's and Meeko fight infront of Grandmother Willow she creates the ripples in the water nearby and one after the other images of Mickey again appear. These are seem so vague or some even seem as a coincidence because mickeys an easy character to create.

2005-11-14T22:56:00.002-08:00

2005-11-14T22:56:00.001-08:00

2005-11-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

Post #9

Okay......We have all seen many Disney films especially in our childhood. But recently within the past couple of years Disneys public watchers have had concerns of some films having hidden subliminal images which have been featured. One movie in which i remember personally is the Lion King in where the main character Simba kicks of on a plant and a cloud arises. To a person caught up in the movie it is not obvious that the word "SEX" is spelled out with the clouds. With a remote control if you pause it you can make out the word vaguely. The question is does Disney do that on purpose? Well, i went on the internet to see if i can get some information on it. The only neat information i came up with is that they can do it. Sounds Odd???Well not really because Disney could claim that they would never produce such images but they could not claim that no secrets images existed in the films at all. When this claim was brought up to Disney, the animators argued that the scene in Lion King was not intended to spell "SEX" But the abbreviated "SFX" which stood for sound effects in the animation world. Intrestingly enough many other sights in other movie like Little mermaid were found to have hidden sexual images which caused some issue and concern but was never taken into further action. A fact i found that i thought was wierd yet cool was that in many films cartoon characters that were not really intended to be in those specific films would pop up in some scenes to help animators find placement in their scenes. For example while watching a cartoon that was of Goofy (not including mickey) mickey for split seconds would appear real fast. The wierd part is that if you are so into the cartoon you would never notice that mickey popped up you would actually have slowly looked for him and paused with a remote to actually see him.

2005-10-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Post # 8

A few weeks ago in classs we watched Donald Duck and his cartoons that were released during and after World War II. Around that time Germanys political party consisted of the Nazi's and germany was very big on their militia and war. I remembered many of the exact cartoons that we watched in class from my childhood but this time around for some reason i paid special attention to detail. As a child, i never noticed or knew what the meaning of the Wastika(Nazi Sign) meant nor did i notice that it was so bluntly everywhere in the images that were veiwed to the public. This doesnt bother me because it doesnt affect me in any way, but i wondered after watching these cartoons if it may have made others uncomfortable in the past especially when this time era was going on. If not during, then afterwards, when all the racial hygein took place. I am taking a class called "Racial Hygein Gemany politics" and it just so happened that we are reviewing the outcome of all sciences and Eugenetics so i was just curious but most of all surprised that Disney had so many cartoons that followed what was really going on in politics at that time. So i just wanted to release how i felt and didnt know if anyone had any feedback or information about my curiosity. I would be very interested to know.....

2005-10-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

Post #7

The movie Shrek 1 and Shrek 2 that Dreams Works created was so real looking because it was based on a layering system a new technology that aloud characters to have characteristics such as breathing, sighing, and more fluidity in their behavior throughout the movie. This system was called the PDI. Essentially the computer would attach the characters skull size and allow the developer to create actual muscles that humans use for their characters. The designed expressions can be changed by percentages so that a smile can be set for example as a smile and another could be a excited laugh. This system also allowed Shrek and his group of friends to look like they have different skin types. Shrek, the Oger seemed to have thicker skin and seemed more shielded as opposed to princess Fiona which was just a human being.
And as well, when Shrek came out it was obvious that something was different in the way the movie was delivered, that we had never been introduced to. It had real flowing movements for example in the begining of the movie if you ever watched it, Shrek takes a bath in Mud. The muds movement really looked like mud and splatted against objects sorrounding it which made it appear more realisic.This allowed it to look so similar to if we were to do it in real life. This is what this system has allowed animators to in the most recent movies that they never had done before.

2005-10-12T23:44:00.000-07:00

I never knew that Snow white and the seven Dwarfs was the first full length animated feature of sound and color of Disney. I knew it was old because i remeber watching it many times in my childhood. But apparently this was the first succesfull film that was lead to the inovation of animation history. Disney's creation and hard effort to the making of his characters come to life in film is what made him so popular. He created a way to add great depth to his characters expressions and movements by having models such as animals or humans act scenes of the stories to get a better feel for how that specific character should move. While acting, artists would draw on boards all the scenes step by step by hand adding strong expressions to certain movements that stuck out from the rest. As you can only imagine this kind of work takes alot of patience and time. Snow white and the seven dwarfs took four years until it was released for public to see. This was the films greatest achievement and success lead us to all the newer releases of disney characters.

2005-10-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

POST #5

My all time favorite animated cartoon is Family Guy which was released in 1999 created by Seth Macfarlane. This show is amazing!!!Made specifically for the entertainment of adults it never fails to put their audiences to laugh. The creator himself is the voice of 3 of top main characters the father Peter, baby Stewie, and Brian the dog.

When this show was released for the first time Fox broadcast cancelled the show because they felt that it would never attract adults attention. Four years later(now) everyone i know loves this show and cant get enough of it. Luckily it was brought back for another shot months later. Who would have thought adults would be so intreseted in watching a family with a cursing baby???

Fun Memorable:
Stewie Griffin: [Talking to a flight ticket agent] Now listen to me... [ He looks at the agent's name tag].......... Jo-LENE. I've got an army to raise and I must get to Nicaragua. I require a window seat and an in-flight Happy Meal AND NO PICKLES. OH, GOD HELP YOU IF I FIND PICKLES.

2005-09-28T22:35:00.001-07:00

2005-09-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Post #4

I was on the internet this weekend looking for intresting facts for our animation class when i found a link refering to the history of Walt Disney. So, i figured instead of writing in this journal about what we have done in class today i would entertain you all by giving you some facts from the past.

In 1941 the famous Walt Disney had a strike which was a huge turning point for his company which lead to making Disney a union shop. This strike did'nt effect Disneys public or cartoons but caused problems with the staff of "Mouse Factory" fromthe famous mickey mouse. Disney at one point, layed off some members on the staff but problems occured with one man that was released Art Babbitt who by all the staff was also known as the "troublemaker". This took place on May 29, 1941 while making the movie Dumbo and it lasted 5 weeks.

Art Babbitt after fired belived his release from his job unfair and filed a Union Labor Suit while he joined the army which forced Disney to rehire him after he was released from the army. I can only imagine how uncomfortable work was everyday after that!

2005-09-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Post #3

How neat was it to watch "The Cathederal" the other day in class? That was visually stimulating would'nt you say? You can tell the artists had great passion from all the details in characters and their surroundings. The story was amazing to me (never seen anything like it) because as scenes went by, i found myself changing what i thought was going to create the story line but no, i couldnt just stick to one. Very ambigeous i would say! Tomek Baginski was the creative artist of this animation. After watching it in class i decided to try to find what the real storyline was and how and where someone could come up with such a dynamic expression.

After doing some research i found that Tomik had based his animation on a famous novel by Jacek Dukaj. The story line was aimed to fulfill the ideas in the book of a piligrim who arrives to his final destination of his long journey and that for the character was the "edge of the world" where this huge unlight cathedral was. As he enters into it, he finds secrets from the past. Somehow or another the man becomes a part of the cathedral and the cathedral in seconds was no longer a building. Wow! would you say confusing or what? Well that was a way for the artists to express that everything in life was connected in such a way that everything was one. Intresting huh?

2005-09-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Post #2

I really enjoyed watching "Felix the Cat" in class today. The mischivieous little cat reminded me of taped reruns we used to watch in my childhood saved from my parents time and how popular i heard he was. So, when i got home i was curious to find and understand his history as a character and how artist reached to the level of making him look so realistic from his older versions.

One thing i didnt know is that the cat was known world wide and was the first character to ever be imaged on brodcast t.v. That is really impressive! It all started with a man named Otto Messmer who was an artist doing the thing he enjoyed best, drawing! Of course no one new that he was going to become the first artist to make his favorite character a real live one, if you will. Otto Messmer started the character but met a man named Joe Oriolo who helped in creating a more lovable cat throughout the years.

Filex the cat became famous when Charles Lindenburg chose the character to be a mascot for the very first attempt for television. At first the image on television was a doll set to be 3D made of paper mache. His character as the humble cat took cartoon watcher all over the world to a new historic phenomenon. Slowly, Felix was everywhere from newspapers as comic strips, on magazine covers and ofcourse on newly television commercials.

2005-09-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

2005-09-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

This is my first animation class, and i have to say i realized during class on Wednesday how much for granted i take animation. Im a huge cartoon watcher and during class watching the video of the boy and his ballon made me realize how people were so entertained by such simple objects, a stick figure and his balloon. Now a days our expectations are so high of animation because we are constatntly challenging ourselves to create better images such as the movie Polar express.

Now with our excellent computer technology we are able to create such sharp, 3-D, clear images. However, now these images are not only used in cartoons, but in other sources of entertainment such as video games and movies. Animation has progressed a long way to come about what it is today. One thing that I learned in class was that animation originated in Europe rather than in the United States.

It took so much for the creators of animation to develop such techniques to finally reach the images we have today. It was really intersting to see one movie in action and that was the "Trip to the Moon". The images, or should say, the props and backdrops makes you glad that we have come to a better innovative century.