Animation part 4

Antz (1998) made by Dreamworks Animation was the second computer-animated feature film to be released.

A Bugs Life (1998) that was made by Pixar/Disney

The Periwig Maker (1999) Made by Steffen Schaffler, the short stop-motion film is set during a seventeenth century plague epidemic, Took five years to make and was nominated for an Academy Award.

The Old Man and the Sea (1999) Oscar-winning film by Alexandr Petrov
Made in the unique style of finger painting with slow drying oil paints on multiple planes of glass, often working for days and nights without rest
An adaption of Ernest Hemingway’s story

The Old man and the sea has a very beautiful style of animation very different form other animations of the time, every frame looks like a beautiful painting. also the story and audio work very well with the Animation. However it is a little hard to watch after a while.

Run Lola Run Review

Run Lola Run (1998)
Germany
Directed by Tom Tykwer

Won: Bambi Awards 1998, Bogey Awards, Germany 1998, Bavarian Film Awards 1999, Brothers Manaki International Film Festival 2000.

The use of Split screen and black and white was effective to help tell the story and give a different feel to the film. I would recommend this film.

Pre-Production

Story/Script
Chase scene that follows the protagonist until a point where the camera spins around the protagonist who is caught between two groups of of people chasing him.

Characters
One protagonist
Two groups of people

Genre
Action

Equipment
BMC Camera, wide lens, dolly, (natural shade light)

Location
Near an industrial building

Techniques
360º circular dolly movement of a medium long shot around protagonist.

Animation 1986 - 1889

A range of animations were made from all around the world including:

UK

When the Wind Blows (1986)

An adaption of a Raymond Briggs graphic novel directed by Jimmy Murakami
About an old couple who naively follow the governments survival instructions after an nuclear war breaks out
Used photographed model sets for backgrounds
Praised by critics and presents a powerful argument against the nuclear arms race.

Brothers Quay 

Twin brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay from England made a collection of animated films including:

Street of Crocodiles (1986)
Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies (1988)
Stille Nacht I: Dramolet (1988)
Ex-Voto (1989)

Family Dog (1987)

The first episode, Directed by Brad Bird, was part of Steven Spielburg’s TV series Amazing Stories
Had higher production standards than the low budget, mass produced TV animations of the time

Credited with having a role in the revival of quality animations –
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
The Simpsons (1990)
Ren & Stimpy (1991)

German New Wave

In 1962 New German Cinema was launched. A group of film makers declared a new agenda for German Film. The document was called the Oberhausen Manifesto

Films in Germany were in decline and were of low quality and content


Three directors led the movment:

Werner Herzog, Rainer Michael Fassbinder and Wim Wenders, German cinema began to reflect issues of the time.

New German Cinema:

Yesterday Girl (1966)

Artists Under the Big Top: Perplexed (1968)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975)
The Tin Drum (1979)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

Filmed Drama Shooting

Storyborads

Schematics

Below is the lighting schematics for my short film. This was quite fun to make and I enjoy using Abobe Illustrator.

Lighting exercise HMI experements

This experiment was very interesting as this was the first time using an HMI light.

HMI: Hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide...The lamp operates by creating an electrical arc between two electrodes within the bulb that excites the pressurised mercury vapour and metal halides and provides a very high light output with greater efficiency than incandescent lighting unit.

With HMI bulbs, colour temperature varies significantly with lamp age. A new bulb generally will output at a colour temperature close to 15,000 K during its first few hours. As the bulb ages, the colour temperature reaches its nominal value of around 5600 K or 6000 K. 

The HMI light is very bright and has a colour temperature of 10,000ºK when new and 5600ºK after a period of time.

The HMI we used was between 5600º and 6000ºK so that is what we set the colour temperature at.

This light produced a very artificial looking light that we had to diffuse with silks and flags. After a while, we managed to start getting setups that were looking good. but I would only use a light like this while shooting in a green screen studio to replicate sunlight or positioned outside a house window on a cloudy day (or night time). Personally, I would rather use the natural sunlight and use diffs or flags to control it.















One thing I learnt was about exposing for the face: we used spot metering for this and that is a reflective based metering system. when exposing for the face using a reflective meting system expose exactly what the exposure is telling you to. however if using incidental metering the zone that the face should be (zone 6 for caucasian) should be exposed for one stop above what is read on the light meter.

Lighting exercise - soft light

This was an experiment with a big silk over a 5Kw tungsten bulb as the Key light and the Kino Flow Diva as a fill light useing a

During this experiment, we tried placing the silk at different distances from the light and the subject to see what effect it would make on the light quality,

1:1 Hard Light 

2:1 Hard Light (a little better than 1:1 hard light)

Silk Far (creating a very soft effect to fill light)

Silk Close (This still left some shadows and was not as soft as we would have liked it)

Silk Far and Flozier Diffuser on Fill (this was one of the best setups in my opinion)

 

Lighting Exercise - Firelight

This was a very interesting exercise, to recreate a restaurant dining situation that resembled having an open fire but recreated with lights:

We used a lantern that was positioned very high above the subject to cast a very soft light over them and then a redhead on a floor stand with an orange gel in front of it to resemble firelight.

To my surprise, it actually worked and It did (in the end) resemble firelight.

We tried many different positions such as which side the camera was to be on fireside or not and also how close or far the lantern was to the subjects.



(Photos Pending)