Iron Giant Review - Last Blog Entry

I was always a fan of giant monster movies, Cloverfield being one of my favorites. I saw Iron Giant in the movies when it first came out and I loved it. I was young, so all that got across to me was the story and how awesome the giant robot was. Watching it again in class helped me absorb all the other elements this movie has to offer.
The music is fantastic, giving the sense of an epic adventure. I feel like the music would have to be grand, to match the scale of the size of the Iron Giant.
The pacing and action sequences do not disappoint either. My favorite being when the Iron Giant unleashes his secret weapons out of nowhere. That is my favorite animation sequence too. I love how the robot transforms into something more, and does is very seamlessly. It is one of my favorite animations, next to Spirited Away. I applaud the movie for matching everything up to the size of the Iron Giant himself, and it took multiple viewings for me to understand that.

Updated:
After doing a bit more research, new facts and interesting tidbits about these movie have been uncovered. I didn’t even realize that this movie came out in 1999. I believed that it could have been released between 2001 and 2004, easily. The graphics and editing in this movie is phenomenal. I love every second of it. Music was a large part of this too. This is thanks to Michael Kamen, the composer for this movie. His score helped bring the antics of the robot and Hogarth to life. Sadly, he passed away in 2003 due to heart problems. His other works include, but are not limited to, Band of Brothers, X-Men, Frequency, and Mr. Holland’s Opus. Interestingly, the film WALL-E had a trailer featuring a score of his, five years after his death. This just shows how his work will live on after his time.
Brad Bird, the director, is not only a director, but also a screenwriter, animator, and actor; he is a jack of all trades. He’s directed some other fantastic movies such as The Incredibles and Ratatouille; he provided his voice for side characters in each of the films. I also discovered that he is not limited to directing animated movies, he is currently directing Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol (the fourth movie in the series). I feel like this extra research has shown me how versatile one can be and how each and every creation one makes can help create an extensive and impressive portfolio of work.

Lastly, I wanted to look at some reviews for this movie, to see if they point anything else out. Rotten Tomatoes, a popular movie critique site, gave the movie a 97% and a 72%. The 97% is from the critics, and the 72% is from regular movie-goers. I agree with the critics on this one. The movie is “engaging, endearing, affecting and charmingly retro”. That last part stuck with me. I never thought about calling this movie retro, but now I can’t get that idea out of my head because it is so true. I am not sure what the “audience" was thinking, but I completely agree with the critics.

Preloaders

On this website, http://preloaderz.com/design/free-preloader-animations/, I found a couple preloaders I would like to use. Each has something different reasoning behind it. With my flash banner, I will be advertising my dad’s headphones. I feel both could work. The first, is a simple load bar that goes across, I feel it is very simple, but still gets the job done. It is smooth and clean. The second one (the one I will be using) reminds me of sound. I’m not sure if I’m the only one who sees that, but I think it would go very well with the whole headphone/sound theme.

Monkey Time

The Olympics 2008 Monkey Movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr5ZWYRaAyw) animation has a lot going for it. It is beautifully drawn, it has style, a good story, and the camera angels and color are fantastic. After watching this a few times, I really got reminded of the Gorillaz, a fictional animated band. the animation and facial expressions on the monkey and ocean guy really resemble the band members. The story seemed to follow a theme, and that theme being the fact that the monkey’s friends saved him on his way to the olympics. It is simple yet the animation makes it work, and I think it is a good way to introduce new characters.

The camera angles are fantastic, ever changing and always using perspective to its advantage. At one point, the pig jumps of a cliff, and the camera changed to being under him. I thought it was great. I found that movement was something that was trying to be expressed, and it truly came out. The camera would show the characters moving even when they physically were not.
Color in the video was beautiful and vivid. The color choices were ones that would remind you of the fall. Brown, red, and yellow, to name a few. In one scene, they are running through a forest next to a sea and it is probably my favorite part. The color of the leaves were fantastic.


Timing in this movie is pretty spot on. I really does add a sense of urgency and the matter at hand. Not to mention, sometimes it adds suspense too. All in all I think this is a fantastically created animation, and I know it gave me some inspiration.

Poem in Flash

The first of the two poems I found appealing was The Search for Lost Lives by James Tate. The animation of the characters and backgrounds are really well done, but what drew me to this was the use of the poem itself, and how it was implemented in the animation. The text would come and go in a different way every time I felt like the text adapted to it surroundings. It helped explain the story too. I hope use text in my animation the same way it was used in this one.
The second animation I looked at was Bowl by Valerie Martinez, struck me as interesting because the guy looked hand drawn, and most of the story took place in the bowl. That is what I found the most interesting. I think that the fact that the story took place in an object in the whole story was really a nice idea. Maybe my animation will be that clever.

The Cat That Came Back

The 1988 animation "The Cat that Came Back", has three distinct elements that help push this animation to new heights. The three elements are music, story, and facial expressions. All three work together to help the others out. The story is about a man who finds a cat on his doorstep one day. He at first seems ecstatic, but after the cat destroys his childhood toy, attitudes change.
The first thing that struck me was the use of facial expressions form the man. They are over exaggerated, but it really works; it is not like the expressions of the lady in "Lavatory - Love Story". Whereas her faces are realistic, the old man's faces involve being squished and stretched. I think these transformations helps the viewer feel more of his emotion. From the way the cat acted though, I think my face too would have been changed too.

The story here too, although predictable at times, is funny, clever, and enjoyable. He would dispose of the cat in one way or another, only to have it reappear, destroying his house. The way the story panned out really helps the music too. Every time the cat came back, the old folk song would play, really bringing everything together.
Each time the man would throw the cat out, the gags would grow on a grander scale. it started with him putting the cat back on his doorstep, and ended with him riding the rails to finally finish it off. This railroad scene has some elements that, although random, help show how crazy this story is. While riding on the rails, the old man actually runs over all these women tied to the rails. I believe this is paying homage while at the same time poking fun to the cliched scenario of having damsel in distress tied to railroad tracks. He proceeds to easily ride over at least thirty of them, when he comes to the cow. He miraculously rides over him, and just when the audience thinks nothing can stop him, he encounters the ladybug, which he kills, but at the same time thwarts his plan. That whole gag adds to the depth of humor this animation brings.
Lastly, I believe a very important part to this is that the backgrounds help the story as well. They are usually simple, but they add to the location. Perspective is another thing. The perspective is every changing, just from the old mans way of moving. At one part, he walks back into his house, but before he enters, his body leans forward to the point where it seems as though he is incredibly close to the camera, but as a matter of fact, he his actually right next to his door. I think this technique could be quite useful in future projects. Of all the animations for this assignment, I found “The Cat Who Came Back” to be the most immersive and helpful to express storytelling, animation, background and use of perspective, and humor, something I find to be very, very important.

New Character

My new character is a big step up from my last one. At least this one seems like he has some personality. I haven’t come up with a name for him yet but I’m sure it’ll come to me one day. I made him in illustrator and yes, I know he has two separate chins.

I can’t draw. Told You So.

My first sketch looks very creepy, and my second looks like he’s very…relaxed. I tried to add hair on my animation but I really screwed that up so I decided to leave it out. I think with practice I will become better at this, hopefully.