Week 1: Concept, Story boarding and Planning the experiment

Week 1: Concept, Story boarding and Planning the experiment

Time plan for the experiment

Week 1 and 2 for concept, story boarding and tests
Week 3,4 and 5 for Animatic and 3D animatic
Week 3,4,5 for 3D model Glider
Week 4 and 5 for 3D model Windmill
Week 6 for 3D texturing and UV mapping
Week 6 or 7 for 3D render
bVoice acting, music and SFX
Week 6,7 and 8 for 2D backgrounds
Week 7,8 and 9 for 2D Enviroment
Week 8 ,9 and 10 for 2D Characters
Week 10 and 11 for Rendering and fixes
Week 12 - 15 Reserved in class of problems/ set backs

Note: This is a optimistic plan. I have left 4 weeks free because I anticipate set backs and I want to give myself time to fall back on if all goes to piss.

Concept art

Concept art is going well. While I already have an idea of how I want my character to look for the rest of the story, I have no idea how I want her to look at the beginning (Aka the scene in question)

Storyboards

Process

Create concept art and storyboard.
Create a general 3D animatic.
Model the 3D objects required
Animate and render those scenes.

Need to: Investigate how to make transient background in maya.

Week4: Experiment Progress

Character, glider and windmill designs finished

Modeling has begun for windmills, Glider and robots

Storyboards still needs to be finished.

Running behind time again. So much to do, so little time.

Will try to finish the 3D models week 5 & 6.

Still trying to finish the storyboards as of Sunday.

Week 6

Experiment progress

Glider modeling still under way. Will talk to Vaughn about the cloth physics next week. Trying to keep the model somewhat simple yet still interesting. Not sure how I will make the wing compact and deploy, probably better that I just stick with a static mesh.

Week 9

Modeling going well

Running out of time

UV Editor has been remade, trying to find all the tools

Inserting cloth physics

Unhappy with metal colours, appear different in PS than in Maya

Using mesh to create UV map dupilcates

Week 11, Week 12 and break

UV mapping the models

UV mapping of the glider is taking some time. The unwrapping is playing up and takes way too long. I checked for manifold edges but the mesh is clean. Not totally sure what is going on.

Had to remap the glider and windmill, still not sure what went wrong and caused the maps I set up to break in the first place. News ones seem to be working fine.

Finished texturing the glider and windmill. Mill was WAY quicker than the glider as the glider had lots of strange nocks and corners, and there is still a lot of things I left off the model for the sack of time.

Week 13 (Break)

Finally got ncloth and nconstraits working. Maya seems to be picky about what constraint it will let me use. Will try a render test to get the wind right.

Seems that the wind setting I want is around 15 points.

Will render out the models.

Week 13

Week 13

Creating a looping animation
https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27211

Set graph to infinite
Create Pre and Post cycles


Having trouble moving the ncloth object, things are getting left behind. Vaughn seems to think it is a visual error and it shouldn't affect my model. He seems to be right so far.

Setting up two quick shots to render as I don't have the time to piss about. Using mental ray.

Glider14aug.0014 = Shot one - Frames 1 to 300

Week 10

Week 10

Georges Schwizgebil (Switzerland) - Man without a shadow 

- Paint on glass techniques
- About a man who sells his shadow to a devil-like character in exchange for wealth and a happy life. He finds out that without his shadow he is shunned and avoided.
-Transistions are done using colour and perspective
-Won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Zagreb world festival of animated films.

Run Wrake (UK)

-Made a series of short films that have been influence Len Lye, Oskar Fischinger and Jan Svankmajer
- Made Rabbit (2005) by placing imagery from old children's books/ Stickers and transforming them into a story about the consumerism's corrupting nature.

Stephen Irwin (UK)

-Made "The Black Dog's Progess" a flick boom animation which tells the depressing story of an unwanted black dog.

Regina Pessoa 

- First film "The Night" was made by engraving plaster plate.
- Made "Tragic story with Happy Ending"

Pedro Serrazina (Portugal)

-Made his first directorial debut in 1995 with Tale about the Cat and the Moon
-Also made The Eyes of the Lighthouse (2010) that is a combination of drawn animation, painting, CGI and live action for the sea

Modern Toss (UK)

-T.V series - Lo-fi adaption of Mick Bunnage and Jon Link’s surreal adult cartoons
-The Modern Toss characters first appeared on a website, then in comic books and on t-shirts and greeting cards before the first airing of the T.V show in 2006

Eyes of the Lighthouse Review 

"Eyes of the Lighthouse" is an interesting blend of 2D and CGI animation. I think if anything this short film is probably aimed at a younger audience as the story is rather simple. With that said, the animation is interesting even to an older audience. Personally I think the film would have been better if it was completely 2D as some of the CGI element, mainly the water effects, don't match up the amazing quality of the hand drawn animation. My personal favourite scene is when the father enters the cave to find the daughter's hoard of random trinkets, as I think the drawing captures the chaos and love of a young girl's hoard of personal treasures.

Overall "Eyes of the Lighthouse" is a great animated short film, especially if watching with children.

Week 8

Persepolis

Director: Marjane Satrapi
Year: 2007
Source Material: Based on a graphic novel/ Biography by Satrapi
Themes: Freedom, family, morality in the face of oppression, the oppression of thought and belief, growing up in Iran during 70's and 80's

Review

Persepolis is an interesting look at war ravaged Iran through the eyes of a woman who grew up during the turmoil of the 70's and 80's. While I enjoyed the animation and its simple drawing style, I found the movie somewhat dis-interesting to watch for a few reasons. Firstly the film is in french, while not the film maker's fault its still isn't very entertaining to read the subtitles.

Secondly, I know this is about real life events and a woman's experience, but the film feels a bit uneventful. It also feels a bit like it has a crisis about what moral it wants to tell. Some points seems to be about the personal mistakes of the main character, some parts are about Iran and the problems caused by fanaticism and international politics.

While I think the animated film is very good and should be show to high school kids who might be thinking about animation or world politics, I can't really recommend it as a entertainment watch. The pace of the movie is indecisive and the story suffers as it is missing large chunks of the author's/ Director's life. It is also very dark at points, so don't expect the film to raise your spirits.

In short I couldn't work out if the biographical film was about Majane Satrapi's view's on her homeland's trouble past and the terrors she saw growing up, or if it is simply Satrapi's biography and a  character study of herself and the important people in her life. Overall good animation and storytelling, but the pacing and tone are all over the place (This is probably due to the fact they are trying to fit several decades worth of story into 96 minutes of film, so take me review with a grain of salt)

Week 5 Scanner Darkly

Week 5

A Scanner Darkly

Director: Richard Linklater

Year: 2006

The rotoscoping technique used in "A Scanner Darkly" was interesting. If the film didn't deal with themes of drug addiction and insanity, I don't think the style would have worked as it made the whole story very abstract. However, because the POV or Protagonist is a drug addict, the constant slight distortion works in the film's favor, making the whole experience surreal. It also means that the most surreal parts of the film, that would normally be done with CGI (such as when James and Ernie turn into bugs), blend with the rest of the film much more smoothly than it would have if they had been done with 2006 computer graphics.

Week 3

Life is Beautiful

Director: Robert Benigni

Year: 1997

The film won several awards, including the Grand Prix and the 1998 Cannes Film festival, nine David di Donatello Awards, including Best film and three Academy Awards, including best actor for Robert Benigni.

Robert Benigni received criticism for trivializing the Holocaust in "Life is Beautiful", while I can understand the criticism, I think from a storytelling perspective the film does a good job of getting the audience emotional invested in the story. For an audience get emotionally invested in the characters on the screen, they need to be able to relate to the characters. One of the best ways to create that link is to show the characters normal life. This is where "Life is beautiful" successes and lot of other World war 2 movies fail. The whole first half of the film is about getting you to care about the characters.

I am not entirely sure who I would recommend this film to. Don't get me wrong it is a good film bit the sudden shift in tone might turn people who like rom-coms off while the first half of the film might turn off other who hate romantic films. If nothing else it is a good film, so I'll just recommend it to a general audience.

Holiday Planning

Do the 3D first? Drawing 2d over it


Useful YouTube videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_mMLzZYjd8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na0O-UwAqnE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw0h9WmBlsw

Useful YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBZUcC_0ktWqj_CJi2w3-QQ




Process seems to be...

Finish your 3D animation

Export into a 2D animation program (toon boom, adobe flash)

Draw over the 3D on a new layer

Stitch together in after effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2BRl1hWnnY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cZrtGPmUAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQGaoj7jnBg

Pre-Production - Planning out my investigation

Planning out the 2D/3D animation investigation

By Christopher Sutton (NZ animation student)

The animation I want to create for this experiment is both a techniques experiment and a story/ character test. I want to do a scene similar to the 12 years later scene, but based on my character Maria and the world she inhabits. The point of the scene in the story is similar to that of the scene that inspires it in treasure planet, to introduce the character. I also hope to add elements that bring depths to Maria's home by showing details of the farmland as she soars past on her glider. This scene is only a extract from a larger story, so this is a good chance to test out the story and gives me an excuse to develop the story in class time as well as my own time. This is a story I would like to develop beyond the confines of SIT, so this is a good chance to develop the work.

2D drawing style

Looking at:
- treasure planet/ Disney.
- Iron giant, Prince of Egypt.
- Avatar Legend of Korra.

3D texturing

Avatar, Treasure planet,...

Genre

Action/adventure/Steampunk

Medium and Software

2D and 3D animation

3D = Maya

2D = Adobe Flash, Toon Boon Harmony

Techniques Recap

The blending 2D and 3D animation.
3D objects will include large environmental objects, steampunk robots and Maria's glider.
2D objects will include Maria, general environment, other human characters (should I decide to include any) and any other ideas.

Test and experiments planned

Blending 3D and 2D using programs I have (Maya, Toonboom, Adobe CC)

The next step (work for the week and the break)

• Treatment
• Storyboards
• Character design
• Environment and object design
• Investigate how to blend 3D and 2D

Week 17

Bob Sabiston

-Developed an animation program called Rotoshop, a rotoscoping program for painting over live action.
- He createda award winning short film called Snack and drink.
- Teamed up with Richard Linklater in 2001 to make Waking life
-Linklater went on to make "A Scanner Darkly"

Michel Gondry

-Notable for his innovative and creative use of non-digital animation effects such as pixillation
-Made music videos for Bjork, Rolling stones and white stripes.

Chris Shepherd

- Created "Dad's Dead" and "Who I am and What I want"

Chris Landreth

-Created "Ryan" and animated documentary about Landreth's hero, Ryan Larkin.

White Stripes music video review

Interesting way of animating, but I feel like that not much is done with it. The video never evolves past the band members snaking through environments, leaving instruments in their wake. Overall an interesting concept that I don't feel reached its full potential. Some people clearly liked it though as the Simpsons parodied the video in an episode.

Run Lola Run

Run Lola Run

Year: 1998
Country: Germany
Director: Tom Tykwer

"Run Lola Run" was nominated for 48 awards including one BAFTA and won 28 of those awards.

I felt like most of the techniques used in the film served the story well. The animation was a bit low quality and felt repetitive.

Some recurring motifs are the dripavite caused by money, struggling relationships and the butterfly effect.

I would recommend this film to other people studying film and animation but maybe not to a general film going audience.

Portugal 1995

Pedro Serrazina - Tale about the Cat and the moon

- Animated fairy tale

Japan 1995

Ghost in the shell

USA 1995

Henry Selick directed James and the Giant Peach

Starts as a live action and changes to a stop motion animation

Beavis and Butthead

King of the hill

Bill Plympton made "I married a strange person" (1997)

South park (1997)

Late 1990's animation

1990 part 4

Antz and a Bug's life (1998)

Antz (Dreamworks) second computer animation feature film to be released, followed by A bug's Life released by Disney. Both films are aboutant colonies and individual ants who rebel. Disney made accusations that Dreamwork stole their idea as Jeffery Katzenberg left Disney to form Dreamworks animation during the time Disney was concepting "A Bug's Life". BUg's Life proved to be more popular at the box office.

Gorillaz is a virtual band created by bamon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Holds the world record for the most popular virtual band ever.

Perfect Blue

Directed by Satoshi Kon
a Psychological story of a pop star with a distrubed stat of mind. Told from different perspectives and is a deliberately confusing story. Staoshi Kon was a protege of Katshuhiro Otomo

USA Cartoons in 1999

Futurama (Directed by Matt Groening)

Family Guy (Directed by Seth McFarlane)

Spongebob Squarepants (Directed by Stephen Hillenburg)

The Periwig Maker (1999)

Made by Steffen Schaffler, a short stop-motion film is set during a 17th century plague outbreak. The film to five year and was nominated for an Academy Award.

The Old man and the sea (1999)

Oscar winning film by Alexandr Petrov

An adaption of the Ernest Hemingway's story. Made in the unique style of finger paints on planes of glass, often working for days and nights without rest

The wolfman 

Short film by Tim Hope (UK). Afterwards, Hope want on to produce music videos for well known bands.

Example of lo-li approach to computer animation

Sink (1999)
Directed by Satoshhi Tomioka

Pixar Shorts

Geri's game (1997), For the Birds (2000)

Pixar's policy was to produce regular short films to accompany features and also to test out new technologies, techniques and approaches. It also helps to maintains Pixar's image as the kind of company the welcome's new director's and gives' them a chance to prove themselves.

The Man with the Beautiful eyes (2000)

Created by Jonathan Hodgson (UK)

The film was made using non-digitally shot at film using paint, ink and collage. Informed by his interest in unsophisticated scribblings of children. Creates visual poetry he calls his bad animation" - Based on a by Charles Bukowski. Won a BAFTA for best animated short.

Father and Daughter (2000)

Made by Dutch director Michael Ducdok de Wit

De Wit States his influences as Eastern European animation, the Tin tin comics and the art of Tibetan Monks.

Father and Daughter is the a dialogue free film about a young girl who watches her father row out to sea and never returns. Everyday she cycles back to the same spot and waits for him.

Won three British awards and an Oscar for best short film.

Geri's Game Review

For something so old in terms of 3D animation, Geri's game has stood the test of time. It still looks pretty good despite being 17 years old. If nothing else it is a good example of storytelling with only one character and no dialogue. The only fault I have with Geri's game is the sound recording hasn't aged as well as the visuals, but considering the age of the film that is understandable. I would recommend Geri's game to anyone who is interested animation or film.

Reservoir dogs

Reservoir dogs 

Made in 1992 by Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir dogs is about a group of robbers hired to pull off a diamond heist that goes horribly wrong.

While I don't hate the film, it is as Tarantino as can be. I'm not a huge fan of the endless swearing, silly over the top violence and thick headed characters.There really isn't much to say about it. If you like Tarantino movies, you'll like Reservoir dogs. If you dislike Tarantino, avoid this film.

Sally Menke is Tarantino's editor for "Reservior dogs and has edited 4-5 other films for the director.

The best part of the film was it's use of non-linear editing to tell the story. If nothing else, it is well used to control the information the audience has about the events of the film. The other films I can think of that use a non-linear story telling are some of Tarantino's other films, like Pulp fiction and Kill Bill.

1990's animation part 2

1990's animation part 2

The Tick 1994

-The success of "The Simpsons"

- Based on Ben Edlund's spoof of the comic book superhero story

The Critic 1994

- Created by the writers of "The Simpsons" Al Jean and Mike Reiss and produced by James L Brooks

- about an self important, overweight film critic who hates contemporary films.

Duckman 1994

-Created by Everett Peck, based on characters from his own surreal comic

-aimed at adult audiences

- Voiced by Jason Alexander who played George from the 'Seinfeld' sitcom

The Big Story 1994

-Tim Watts and David Stoten created the stop-motion short film

-Animated argument between a young Kirk Douglas and an old Kirk Douglas

-Quentin Tarntino enjoyed the film so much he requested that it be before every cinema screening of Pulp Fiction

- The Big Story was nominated for an Oscar and won the BAFTA for best animated short in 1995

-Watts and Stoten want on to work on other films, including story boarding for 'The Corpse Bride' by Tim Burton.

The secret adventures of tom thumb (1995)

-Created by Dave Borthwick using a mix of Pixillation and Stop motion, similar to Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer music video

-An adaption of the Tom Thumb story which satirizes animal experimentation, pollution and the class system 

The End of of the world in four seasons (1995)

-Paul Driessen, interested in visually told, nonlinear and multiple narratives, often experiment with split screens and parallel stories.

- Created 'The end of the world in four seasons' which features eight interlocking stories in eight split screens.

Opinion on "The End of the world in four seasons"

- Hard to keep track of what is important on screen

- Poor drawing quality

-Confusing story line

-Kind of boring

Toy Story (1995)

- First animated film to be completely computer generated 

- Collaboration between John Lasseter's Pixar and Disney

- Animators followed the principles of animation that were developed by Disney and applied them to their 3D characters

- Toy story paved the way for future computer-animated features

Assignment 1

Treasure Planet or Iron Giant 

2D/3D hybrid

Ron Clements and John Musker

1990 Animation 

The Simpsons

Created by Matt Groening after he was asked to pitch ideas for an animation based on his 'Life is Hell comic strips. As he didn't want to risk losing the rights to his comics. he pitched the idea of the Simpsons instead.

Ren and Stimpy

John Kricfalusi created and directed Ren and Stimpy for Nickelodeon. A fan of the old Warner Bros. shorts, Kricfalusi and his team used extreme and dynamic poses in his cartton. Kricfalusi was sacked after two seasons as the show was considered to gross and violent for children.

Cartoon Network (1991)

Cartoon network created its own series of 'creator driven' animated shows. These shows included the likes of ...

2 Stupid Dogs - 1993 by Donovan Cook

The Powerpuff girls - 1995 by Craig McCracken

Dexter Laboratory - 1995 by Genndy Tarakosky

Johnny Bravo- 1995 by Van Partible

- Powerpuff girls, Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory are all parts of my own childhood. I can  credit some of my personal liberalism to my exposure to certain character in the powerpuff girls.

Batman: The animated series (1992) Bruce Timm

Barry Purves (UK) - Screen Play (1992)

Jurassic park (1993)

The Abyss (1989)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

 Live action film that has CGI that detracts from the story: Matrix reloaded 

Probably just because of the "Neo vs. Lots of Agent Smith" fight scene. The multiple versions of agent smith just don't look right. Maybe it is the lighting or the fact there is hundreds of the same person but none of the Smiths in the scene look right and it is hard not to see that they are all CGI. It gets even worse in the slow-motion shots as an audience can see just how unrealistic their faces look, shiny and smooth as if carbon copies or made from plastic.

Live action film with CGI elements that added to the story: Rogue one

While I think some of it was unnecessary to the story, I can't deny that I thought that the CGI in  Rogue One was pretty awesome. Both the CGI characters and environment meld seamlessly with the live action characters and environments (that's saying something as there is a lot of CGI in Rogue One). The only CGI I noticed in Rogue One was the eyes of General Tarkin and only because my dad continued to mention it both before and after we watched the film.

New German Cinema

Oberhausen Manifesto

New German cinema was created in 1962 when a group of young filmmakers declared a new agenda for German film. German cinema in decline and lacked any deep meanings or subjects of importance. New German cinema lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. French New wave cinema was a big influence for the German filmmakers involved in this film movement.

A response to the German film culture that developed after the second world war. Aimed at the younger German audience and was not accepted by the general German audience. This film movement Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Harun Farocki, Volker Schlondorff, Helma Sanders Brahams, and more. The German government backed these film makers in an attempt to help the struggling German film industry get back on its feet.

New German cinema focused on ideas of loneiness, aleination, and other dark themes. The films also reflected on Germany, both past and present, and the people who made the country want it is.

1986 -1989 Animation

When the wind blows (UK 1986)

An adaptation of a Raymond Briggs graphic novel directed by Jimmy Murakami. About an old couple who naively follow the government's survival instructions after a nuclear war breaks out. Interesting but the poor quality of the clip shown sort of ruined it.

Brothers Quay

Influenced by Eastern European animation, surrealism and the work of Jan Svankmajer. Street of the Crocodiles is the Brothers Quay best known work.

Sledgehammer

A music video made for Peter Gabriel  which rejuvenated his career. The video used a mix of stop motion and pixilation. Aardman animation and Brothers Quay both had a part in making the video.

Family Dog

The first episode was part of Steven Spielburg's TV series 'Amazing Stories' and was directed by Brab Bird. The show had a higher production standard than the mass produced animations of the time.

Akira (1988)

Japanese manga artist Katsuhiro  Otomo released the animated version of his epic sci-fi masterpiece Akira in 1988. The film was a big success and helped bring Japanense anime to the western market.

The Hill Farm

Review

Yes it does work without dialogue

Blair witch Project review

Blair witch Project

Directed by  Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. Screened January 1999 to the Sundance audience but released on July 1999.

I really won't recommend this film, it is mostly just a lot of shaky camera work and three student failing at navigating a forest. The 'witch' is never seen, probably due to budget not allowing for monster creation. As with most main stream horror film of the time, it is mostly characters making poor choices and ending up dead as a result. My biggest problems are that it is hard to care about the characters and the film lacks good pacing or a sense of danger. Honestly, Blair witch fails in the way a lot of horror films do, by failing to be scary.

The marketing is probably the most interesting about the movie. The filmmakers started promoting the film just by word of mouth, spreading the news of the film like a rumor or legend. They then only screened the film to a select number of venues and put up posters with the film's signature stick figure symbol. The filmmakers also put up fake missing posters for the characters in the film and a fake website with stories about people going missing or strange sightings near the fictional woods of the story. These tactics created a sense of mystery around the film, playing on the natural human curiosity to get people into the cinema.

Motion Capture and the uncanny valley

Motion Capture and the uncanny valley

Rotoscoping 

An old version of animating the relies on an artist painting over an actors recorded motions. Films that use this technique include Snow White and the seven dwarfs, Gulliver's travels, Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly.

Motion Capture

Early uses of motion capture include Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Sexy Robot commercial, Don't touch me music video, The Lawnmower man.

Some more recent examples of motion capture are The Last of us, Lord of the ring: the two towers, The polar express and Ex Machina. More modern motion capture involves Mo-cap suit and advanced computer graphics.

The Uncanny valley

An example of the uncanny valley used to an intentional effect is in Ex Machina, when the character of Kyoko (played by Sonoya Mizuno) peels off the skin just below her eye ball to reveal that she is an android like Ava (played by Alicia Vikander). This pushes the character of Kyoko from a beautiful Asian woman into a creepy replacement for a human being. This is designed to make the audience uncertain as up until that point we are lead to believe that Kyoko is human, and this scene shows us that she is certainly not.

Sadly this video is the only example I can find of the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPGwADlqPNI

Skip to 5:30 to find the scene.

British New Wave

Overview

British new wave cinema was started by directors such as Lindsay Anderson, Jack Clayton, Tony Richardson in the late 1950s and continued till the late 1960s. Much like French new wave and Italian neo-realism, British new wave focused mostly on the lives of common people and their plights.

The films were made in black and white, generally featuring unknown actors in most roles. These films were also known was 'Kitchen sink' dramas.

Modern dramas influenced by British new wave

• The full Monty
• Nil by mouth
• Fish tank

Ideas for Assignment 1

Films

• Donnie Darko
• Iron Giant
• The Backwater gospel 
• Waltz Duet
• Avatar 
• Ava's demon videos
• Overwatch cinematics
• The Dark Knight
• Mad Max
• Starcraft 2: Kerrigan's betrayal cinematic
• Annie Mei project

The thief and the cobbler: Richard Williams

The thief and the cobbler: Richard Williams

While I admire Williams for his artistic spirit, I can't help but feel like he set himself and his team up for disaster. The fact he worked on the project for 24 years and still hadn't finished the pre-production stage yet felt that he had the right to waste money and run his crew ragged, tells me he is not the sort of person I would want to work for or be in charge of a project.

In my personal opinion, Williams should have had his pre-production aspects sorted before he looks for funding and staff.

Also I find the comparisons to Disney's Aladdin to be very hostile, unjustly so. All the animators who worked on the Thief and The Cobbler complain about being ripped off, but the matter of the fact is that the Thief and The Cobbler was in production for 24 years and there was clearly some inspiration for other films like Lawrence of Arabia and The Thief of Baghdad in both films. So while the Cobbler and Aladdin are similar, I feel like the team that worked for Richard Williams was a bit sore that Aladdin was produced relatively successfully and a lot quicker than their own work.

I mean, Aladdin is now a Disney classic and the Thief and the cobbler is relatively unknown to a mass audience. Who gets the last laugh I wonder?

Listening to his interview for the prologue make me think he hasn't learned his lesson. He keeps using words like 'Like nothing you have seen before". I think maybe the best thing Richard Williams did was creating the animator survival guide after the flop of "Arabian knight".

BSA206: Monday 20 to Sunday 26

Dogma 95

A Danish film movement started by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterburg. The movement sort to go back to basics, as they felt that technology hamper genuine creativity. They created a set of 10 rules named "The Vow of Chastity". This creates a film that is very similar to found footage films such as the Blair witch project.

The 'Vow of Chastity' stated that all filming must be done on set, special visual or audio effects are allowed to be used, the camera had to be handheld, the film must be in color, teh film must be shoot in the present, Use Academy 35 mm and the director must not be credited.

Not to be rude to the directors, but they come of as a bit egotistical. They seem to be very impressed with their own little movement but it doesn't seem to far detached from other 'Fly on the wall' film movements. The films don't feel like they have any purpose or cause. In fact I feel that the whole movement feels like a rebel without a cause. The impression I got from the directors that started Dogma is that their trying too hard to be interesting, cool, artistic and hip. So basic I feel like there is no reason for the movement other than the directors wanted to be noticed.

Blog task 

The directors that were involved in the movie include Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Jean-Marc Barr and Harmony Korine. The movement ended in 2005.

The rules the movement imposes on the filmmaker seem to me to be very impractical and rather snobby. The idea that technology and innovation ruins something is silly. The way I think of it is that people thought that when cinema and radio first appeared that it would kill the use of books.

As for the idea that it makes the film more real and interesting, I can honestly say it does the reverse for me. I didn't care what was happening on screen or about the characters. If anything, all the rules really achieve in my eyes is that it makes the film seem sloppy and unfocused.