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.