Condimental Love (Final Animation)

Condimental Love Macro Analysis.

The lighting used in this short film in my opinion is not very well thought out, the lighting overall is inconsistent and not very impressive. By the look of it, where the lighting changed throughout the film it looks as though the film has been shot using natural lighting. Natural lighting can be good in some situations but by the looks of the film and knowing that animation can never be done in one shoot. You can see the change in lighting and the change in contrast. The effect may be deliberate to make it look real and less staged, as though it’s just an observing way of looking in. I don’t think it was intentional because some parts of the of the film has perfect lighting and contrast. Due to this lack of consistency from the lighting no atmosphere is created. The parts where you can see that the lighting has successfully set up and used to its proper potential there is a really nice atmosphere created, It’s calming and very mellow, it fits in really well with the narrative and the context of the story.

The use of lighting is basic and not really accentuated to show characters or personalities, shadows are avoided so none of the characters are made to seem bad or mysterious. The films sound is very minimal there are no sound effects and only music, i think this was a good choice considering the context and the romantic intentions of the film. I personally think that if there was sound effects and noises added to certain parts it would make the film seem more amateurish and comical. The song choice is probably one of my favorite parts to the film, it fits perfectly with the motion and the animation and really makes the film what it is. The sound truly reflects what is happening in the animation, it fits perfectly. The lack of sound effects helps create a juxtaposition between reality and the surreal. Adding sound effects would have made it seem real, and i don’t think real was what there directors were looking to achieve, it’s as though they wanted to show us a fantasy, a thought process that has actually happened. The atmosphere that is lost from lighting is definitely made up with the music. The music is obviously diegetic because we see the subjects dancing and moving to the music, there isn’t any non-diegetic sound in the film. I think this is a good choice not to have these over layed sound effects as it would probably take some of the elegance away from it.

The mise en scene of the animation is in my opinion really good, the whole look of the film suits the context and the atmosphere it aims to create. The location and the setting keep the colour and tones balanced between the foreground and the background. Each shot is composed very well in my opinion the use of colour and confetti on the table helps to define the break in floor and background. The colours are well used and not to overpowering, they keep the atmosphere and help control the narrative the image that is portrayed. Everything that is in the animation flows fairly well and fits in with the music, this helps keep a good rhythm and keep the audience intrigued and relaxed. Obviously being an animation there isn’t many props and no actors but the characters are represented in a very romantic sense. The music and the mise en scene create an appealing and happy atmosphere that represents the two main characters in a good way, showing them as pleasant a happy.

One area where i really think the film excels is in the camera composition, the minimum depth of field really takes a new light to the animation. It creates a brilliant focus point, creating a zone around the main characters all the time, keeping the audience focused on what’s in hand. The depth of field has also allowed for some very visual and creative focus pulls, this adds a new dimension and changes the animation from its average jump cut. The camera work flows and all cuts are on movement, keeping a consistent flow the animation and making it all stay together with no stop starting. The camera angles and framing really brings the audience into the characters, the close-ups creative a very intimate feeling, adding to the atmosphere created by the song. There is a very visual depth to the shots, allowing some colour to feature in shots. Near the end one particular shot uses the depth to show the characters mood and emotion, he looks lonely and hidden. Making the impression that his upset or knows he has done wrong.The majority of the camera angles are medium and kept to a level ground, avoiding any connotations of power or weakness.

Again much like lighting i don’t think the editing has much influence on the outcome of the whole film. I do think that the flow is held well and the editing is consistent, it keeps in tempo with the music and flows really nicely through certain section where the two main characters dance. The cuts between shots are accurate and continuity is followed by cutting on movement, there isn’t much of a range in transition of effects but i think this is to the benefit of the film.Where the film may seem a little bland in editing is made up in the mise en scene and camera work, the lack of effects is good, it’s allowed to stay simple and clean. Letting the actually animation and story do the talking, not silly effects taking your attention away from the story it’s self. It Appears to me that editing has been used as a process to piece together the story to make it flow and move smoothly, not as a tool for creative input or enhancing the visuals or story.

Film Poster

The process of making this film poster was fairly simple, i knew that the picture was the key element in the poster from my research. Primary viewing for the poster would be around 1-2 seconds, rarely any more. I learnt this from my research, i discovered that in most film poster advertising the message of the film needs to be sold solely through the image. The image is of mass importance, from the examples i have seen they use iconic images and symbols to sell the film and gain the recognized audience, the audience that are familiar with the film either through a prequel or other means. Films like ‘WANTED’ have to use other means to attract the audience mainly they use reputation. The have Angelina Jolie in the main image this sells the film through reputation of this actress, where are ‘DARK KNIGHT’ can use symbols and iconic costumes and images to attract an already existing audience.
I think i have done okay with my film poster considering my audience and it’s release, my film is not to be a cinema released film as i mentioned earlier in my posts and from my research i plan to release this with a youtube type viral video in mind. Now, obviously a youtube viral wouldn’t have a film poster but for the sake of course work i tried to work it in as though it was to be a film for wide release. I followed the same principles as and layouts as the main film posters i looked at.
The design was something i took a while thinking about, as you can see the final draft uses pink as a main colour, i wasn’t to sure about this at first. It didn’t seem to be something that suited the front cover and seemed to be very bright and intimidating. I changed the font and made some colour adjustments, the original main title was completely pink with black behind it. This made it very dark and slightly over powering. I search for a font again and came across what you know see on the poster now. I am a lot more pleased with this font on the page, for some reason i always seem to place a lot of attention into the font. I think a lot can be taken from a font in terms of reputation and representation. This font, colour and design i think really suits the film and the mise en scene on the poster.
With the layout and conventions i stuck to main stream blockbuster films for reference, i know my film isn’t in this industry of cinema but it’s hard to approach and research the area’s such as Pixar shorts. Pixar tend to make short films as tests and for fun, so they don’t really market them.

After some feed bad, the overall connotations from people i have spoke to think that the poster is good and appealing. They gathered from a quick glimpse of it that it was probably a love story and most likely something different. This isn’t a massive message that portrayed but obviously it’s harder for a stop motion to create representation, over a film with an already acknowledged reputation and recognized symbols.
I think i have achieved making a film poster that woul sell my film, although i do think that the film is rather hard to sell as a main stream blockbuster film, seen as it’s a youtube viral.

I have learnt a lot from making this, from my research i realized that there are a lot more conventions to a film poster than i thought. I wasn’t aware the the names and the blurb at the bottom was actually a legal requirement on a film poster. I’ve always been under the impression that film posters are a visual medium, having to sell a film in a matter of split seconds. So have a clear font, simple layout and an easily interpretable image is key when getting the audience to see the poster and actually take it in.

FONT CHOICE.

Font choice for the the last section, my opinion sways more towards either of the college style fonts as they have more of a teen/ young adult relation. The fonts are iconic to American universities and the US college/Universities have connotations of partying and enjoyment. I feel it creates a good image for my magazine, also the representation will fall in favor when targeting that age and audience.

Presentation Scrypt- ‘If Carlsberg Did Animation…’

RUN AUDIO:

‘You’ve got a friend in me’ Music from Toy Story (item 2)

PRESENTER

John Lasseter is the ‘Chief Creative Officer’ at Pixar and Disney Animated Studios, In his stride over seeing all of what is produced by Disney and Pixar. John Lasseter is acclaimed for a long side Ed Catmull developing a revolutionizing the world of animation. Lasseter is more than an auteur he’s a creative genius, he took the research and development of CGI and used his creative tenacity to give the world Toy Story. The first Feature Length CGI film. Dreaming of Disney since a young age, for the age of 5 Lasseter knew animation was where he wanted to be.

Lasseter felt the animation didn’t bring all ages and audiences together any more, he knew it need something new. This outlook and vision for animation is why he is where he is today, CGI and emotion in animation is where Lasseter excels in the film industry.

PRESENTER:

In my research i have looked at the progression John Lasseter’s creative influence on CGI and  reinventing the way people see animation. I have focused on 3 key films that demonstrate this point, 3 films that have shaped feature length CGI and Pixar in the eyes of the film industry. ‘ Toy Story ‘ 1995 (Item 2) ‘ Finding Nemo ‘ 2003 (Item 3)  and most recently ‘ UP ‘ 2009 (Item 1)

I shall be looking at certain aspects such as:

• How it all started, Disney and Lucasfilm
• ‘The Pixar Dream’
• Lasseter’s Creative effect on CGI
• The impact of UP

DISPLAY:

Image of the pixar and Disney logo.

PRESENTER:

John Lasseter’s career actually started out at Disney, working on a few traditional animation projects. It was actually the idea of ‘Toy Story’ that got him fired. Even from the start, when the idea of CGI feature lengths wasn’t even considered Lasseter knew it was needed. He knew Disney weren’t creating the same animation, there wasn’t the ‘Walt Disney’ attraction any more.
Lasseter got laid off from Disney in 83′ and proceeded to join LucasFilm soon after.

MUSIC/VIDEO:

Star Wars music- the death march to play to lead into a small part about George Lucas.

PRESENTER:

George Lucas, the man behind the 77′ hit Star Wars used profits from the film to fund a Computer research company. Ed Catmull, employed Lasseter to help him achieve what they all saw as they way forward. Lasseter arrived as “Interface designer” as it was a computer company after all, not animation.

VIDEO CLIP:

‘The Adventures Of Andre and Wally Bee’ (Item 7) clip taken from http://www.youtube.com 1’24”

PRESENTER:

This short is a perfect example and brilliant reason why John Lassester is an Auteur and creative genius. 11 years before even a hint of ‘Toy Story’ Lassester already knew what was needed, the animators touch. Lasseter was quoted saying this on the release of ‘Toy Story’…

“…Character animation isn’t the fact that an object looks like a character or has a face and hands. Character animation is when an object moves like it’s a live, when it moves like it’s thinking and all of it’s movements are generated by it’s own thinking process… It is the thinking that gives the illusion of life. It is life that gives meaning to the expression. As Saint-Exupéry wrote, “It’s not the eyes, but the glance- not the lips but the smile.””

Lasseter knew the dimensions and the approach to animation, he knew how to make life out of shapes. This is what gave him the edge over all the other CGI Developers and made him the successful animator.

DISPLAY:

Pixar logo (LUXO Jnr)  Item 14

PRESENTER:

The Pixar dream began in 1986, when Steve Jobs a computer genius invested $20 million with the Computer Graphics team. The years past and the team, from computer designs, Lassester and Jobs all knew their clear goal. To make a full length CGI film. Lasseter bought this dream to reality along with the team, but the reason i see John Lasseter as an Auteur is down to his pure determination to prove to the world that animation was not dead.

(PAUSE)

DISPLAY:

Toy Story image (Buzz & Woody) Item 15

PRESENTER:

Toy Story was a revolutionary film, changing the industries across the world viewed cinema. John Lasseter was at the hands of a cinema revolution, animation was now enjoyed by kids and adults, loved by all ages. The dream they had all once seen was now a reality, 1994 saw the new era and a new contender to the conventional ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’.
Lasseter unique story telling and attention to detail lead all viewers into the world of CGI, everyone could relate and to a certain extent interact and ‘feel’ with the characters. John Lasseter understood life in animation and that to make it believable and make it work, he had to produce something that was warm and something that had a character audience relationship.

Lasseter has been Claimed Tom Hanks “… has the ability to make emotions seem appealing.” Even with actor and voice artist choice he knew that emotion was how he needed to bring CGI from animated parts in a film to… ‘A real life toy’

The Film ranked Number 1 in the yearly overview film charts, starting off the adventurous styles of John Lasseter and Pixar.

DISPLAY
VIDEO:

Finding Nemo trailer, used for reference and as a visual for the audience. Item 14

PRESENTER:

Finding Nemo, made just under 10 years after the release of Toy Story was a new challenge for the Pixar team. The film in my opinion is relevant for its creative and again Unique style of animation.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, another animator at Pixar the film reaches new levels in terms of creative qualities. At the hands of Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar had always set out to reach new levels and push even further with CGI. John Lasseter was quoted to always mention how science would fuel creativity and creativity would fuel science.

DISPLAY:

Still image from Finding Nemo Item 17

PRESENTER:

Lasseter had already achieved the emotional response he has succumbed that barrier but set out to improve and grab an audience in as many ways as Possible. Finding Nemo is relevant to me because it’s amazing visual qualities, the colours and scenery are out of this would. Noticeable from the first shot the use of light and reflections in the water, adding a new dimension and a new ‘sparkle’ the the animation. The vivid colours and wonderful lighting are what make this film important for me, The new challenge came with the visuals underwater and Lasseter had pushed to get these amazing visuals.
Finding Nemo was in my opinion the next level for Pixar and Lasseter, John Lasseter had taken animation to the new decade and given it a new angle, pushing the team and directors to get the effect that he had strive for. Lasseter had not only entered the new decade in style but he had set high standards for the time to come. Pixar, to date have yet to have a movie that has flopped all films from day one have been a box office hit and memo was the new bench march for feature length CGI, again set by the man who revolutionized CGI, adding his own creativity and with effect took the world ‘To infinity and beyond.’ This is my eyes is the definition of auteur.

This was all reflected in the gross takings from the film, the film is still the most successful Pixar film, grossing and estimated $856 Million

VIDEO:

UP trailer, for reference and to lead into the last part of the presentation. Item 15

PRESENTER:

The recently released film ‘UP’ is one of the most relevant in the Pixar film list for me, in my opinion i think this is the film that defines Pixar and John Lasseter’s creative intuitive mind and determination to challenge conventions.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (George Bernard Shaw)
John Lasseter and Pixar did the unreasonable with UP, the film it’s self has all the Lasseter auteur qualities. The visual styles are stunning as you can see from the clip the balloons and the colour light reflections are beyond belief .Pixar and the creative team have taken attention to detail and character emotion to a new level with this Feature length, not only is the CGI beyond impressive but the story exceeds all possibilities in regards to animation. A 78 year old and a ‘unpopular’ child as main characters set critics to believe that the film would in no way be successful, they slatted the potential for merchandise and the potential for relation to audience. But in my opinion this is exactly what the film achieved. The elegant story gives the thrills and emotion of any movie you expect to see, from a level of Toy Story to UP the film has definitely taken the emotional audience reaction to a new level. John Lasseter has always shown a story of the underdog and this film is a perfect demonstration of that narrative, this is another example of why i consider his as an auteur. As a film in total I’ve decided to use this as an example of Lasseter’s creative auteur qualities as it shows the narrative qualities and visual emphasis that the Pixar Films have. This in my opinion is the most impressive film they have made. It combines the 2 qualities that i mentioned in the 2 previous films, creating the perfect effect in cinema CGI.

DISPLAY:

UP Still image from the film used for a pause break and visual material for the audience.

PRESENTER:

UP, was a shock to most critics they all expected the film to be a massive flop. Instead the opposite happened, following in theme with Pixar the film was the first CGI to open the Cannes Film Festival, once again taking CGI feature lengths to a new era and changing the way people see animation. Pixar and John Lasseter have been at the center of all the major impact CGI has had on the film industry, John Lasseter is not only an auteur with his visual styles and story telling, exaggerating the underdog and making the impossible seem possible. He has changed the film industry and has had a major impact on technology and the world of Cinema. UP is the second most successful film, of Pixars history and is personally one of my favorite animations of all time.
John Lasseter brought life back to animation and in doing so, left his style and mark in the process.

Production log- 10.12.09

Today’s lesson consisted of some of the final touches to the layout of the film review page, i was studying a magazine closely as i made it but i wanted to keep a fair away from the design to challenge conventions mostly. I kept to the style and layout to make it seem more realistic, i am pleased with the outcome so far i still have some text to put in but the basic idea is finished.

I gave the colours a lot of thought realizing that the pink was a good option to go with, i kept the rest of it basic using mainly black and white to stay with the theme of the photograph. The pink has a connotation of love and passion, relating to the narrative. The black and white is also connected to the characters, the colours can be seen as connotations of male and female which is a good impression to create with the narrative

Working Title- “Condimental Love”

Through out planning with have had a few names for the title of the short animation, we haven’t been to sure on what fits. We knew from the start we didn’t want it to appear tacky, we wanted the title to be romantic and something that will make you smile. Creating the same effect as the film it’s self.
We had a few ideas, one being-
‘The Salt Shake’
The title has a close relation to the dancing that is featured in the film, we decided that this title was to tacky and ‘silly’ to be taken seriously.
After some consideration and research into certain terms and phrases we found the term-
‘Unconditional Love’.
We felt this suited the film and the narrative, a love between inanimate objects. It allows the audience to understand the concept of love being everywhere, not just what we see, that ‘what if..’ situation.
After looking and seeing the name, we had the idea of trying to relate it back to the style and the narrative more. We had the concept of mentioning the cutlery in the title but couldn’t get around the task of doing so.
This is when we had found the term ‘condiments’ and ‘comdimental’ we decided to try and work this into our Production title. We eventually came up with-
‘Condimental Love’
This term explains the relation to a ‘table top romance’ we feel it fits best and is a term that we shall strongly consider. We shall be conducting some consumer research soon to see what peoples opinions are on this title and also if it makes sense and is understandable to our audience. The audience is a variation of ages, it’s more a ‘community’ than age. We are looking to make the animation appeal to the ‘You tube Community’, a wide a varied audience.

Protected: Catalogue- ‘If Calsberg Did Animation…’ 25.11.09

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Animation Filming- Production/ Post- Production

Frame rate is one of the main things to consider when we start filming, i have been researching into certain things that i have been curious about for our film. After watching some tutorials i have learnt that most amateur animations are filmed in what is called ‘2’s this means that it is filmed for 12 Frames a second. Animations such as ‘A Nightmare Before Xmas’ operate at what is called ‘1’s this means that they are filmed for a full 24 frames and second. I think our best bet would be to operate in 12 frames as this will make the film longer and will still keep a smooth flowing film.

When planning our animation we had many ideas and shot plans for the camera to move in mid shot. After looking at some examples on the internet i have realized that this is avoided in filming in even the most well produced examples on youtube. Camera movement is most of the time kept simple and only changed on movement or to follow the story, taking this into consideration we are well aware that when we film it will be very hard to return to a shot and retake some of the images. So we will remember that it’s best to take more pictures than not enough, moving the camera to change camera angle and shot is the best movement to stick to.

Software

Istop motion would be the best software for us to work on as it has the capabilities for us to use onion skinning which would be a massive help when filming our animation. I have also looked into a program called ‘Frame Thief’ it’s a decent and recommended piece of software, but the charge is to excessive for our needs. Istopmotion is also something that is kept by a money issue, we can’t afford to obtain the program so we are having to settle with the software that was included with the Canon 500D i recently purchased.

Production Log 12.11.09

In today’s session i was looking at a film magazine called Filmstar, this was for 2 reasons. 1 being that it has a very relevant article to my case study for film and media, 2 it’s a very good example of something i can look at to get a good understand of how film magazines and posters look. I spent some time looking into the front cover and the review page just to get a good feel for what is needed and what they contain. I know have a fairly decent knowledge of the reviews and how they are set out. I’m more aware of what is needed and how important images are in the process of attracting the audience, much the same as a music magazine. They share very similar conventions and keep to the same limits. I shall look further into film review magazines to get a more wider and varied knowledge, i shall look into magazines such as empire as this is the leading film magazine.