Animation Products

FILM: Belleville Rendez-vous

Year of release: 2003

Which companies produced it: It was an international co-production animation made by 5 production companies with the help of 14 other companies. The companies were all based in the United Kingdom, France Belgium, and Canada. The film screened at the 2003 Cannes film festival, and won two awards for 'The Best Animated Feature', and 'The Best Original Song'.

The five production companies:
Les Armateurs
Production Champion 
Vivi Film
France 3 Cinema
RG Prince Films

Who directed it: Sylvain Chome (also directed The Illusionist)

Animation style: 2D (was praised by the audience and critiques for uniqueness) 

Target audience: Adults, (rating 12A)

Purpose: To entertain, and bring a new style to animation

My opinions on the film: Loved the originality of the over exaggerated characters, as although animation is all about exaggerating the characters, this film takes it to a whole new artistic level, for example, the bodyguards and the Mafia leader being literally stuck together. I also admired the colour grading, which adds to the vintage style of the film, and also the dirtiness of the environment.

SHORT: Knick Knack

Year of release: 1989

Which company produced it: Pixar

Based in: California, USA
Made14  other short films:
Andre and Wally B.
Luxo JR.
Reds Dream
Tin Toy
Geri's Game
For the Birds
Boundin'
One man band
Lifted
Presto
Partly Cloudy
Day and Night
La Luna
The Blue Umbrella

Who directed it: John Lasseter (also directed Luxo JR, Tin Toy, Reds Dream, Toy Story, Cars, Bugs Life and many others)

Animation style: 3D

Target audience: Children, 3+ (rated U)

Purpose: To entertain (still often played before Pixar feature screenings)

My opinions on the clip: When I first saw it in the cinema, being screened before a Pixar film, I found it very entertaining, humorous and sweet. The animation is well done, the three dimensional artwork is in brilliant and the colours are bright and cheerful.

TV SERIES: Gravity Falls

Year of release: 2012-

Which company produced it:

Disney Television Animation

-Airs on the Disney Channel

Also produced series such as:

-Phineas and Ferb

-Kim Possible

- Mickey Mouse

Based in: Burbank, California, USA

Who directed it: 
Created by: Alex Hirsch (also involved in Pineas and Ferb)
Directors: 
John Aoshima
Aaron Springer
Joe Pitt

Animation style: 2D

Target audience: Teen audience

Purpose: To entertain

My opinions on the TV Show:

From the few episodes I've watched, it stood out to me from the usual animated TV series, as the stories were wacky and unique, and I thought the location was brilliant yet spooky, and each episode had an original and crazy twist. The artwork has a very simplistic style, which works for its audience, and also means its not to busy. The colour grading is great, as its overly colourful (like Phineas and Ferb for example), and adds to the spooky atmosphere of the woods, and strays away from your usual animations aimed at a young audience. 

WEB SERIES: Bravest Warriors

Year of release: 2012-

Which company produced it: Frederator Studios
- Aires on Cartoon Hangover (youtube)
- Also produced My Fairly Oddparents, and Adventure Time
Based in: the USA

Who directed it: 

Creator: Pendleton Ward (also created the popular and successful Adventure Time)
Directors:
Breehn Burns
Jason Johnson

Animation style: 2D

Target audience: Teen audience

Purpose: To entertain

My opinions on the episode: From watching episode 1 from the first series, I found it entertaining, silly and humorous. Like Gravity falls, the artwork is very simplistic, which works even better, as due to the colours being so bright, there's no need for the image to be any busier. Unlike Gravity Falls, the lines are a lot lighter and less thick, which works well as there is a distinct difference from each object/person in the frame due to the diversity and exaggeration of the colours.

MUSIC: Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.

Year of release: 2005

Which company produced it: Gorillaz 
- A British Virtual band
-Alternative Rock 
Based in: the UK
Also Produced:
- Dare
- Lil' Dub Chefin 

Who directed it: 
The creators of Gorillaz: Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett
Brian Joseph Burton (stage name - Danger Mouse)

Animation style: 2D

Target audience: Late Teens + (17 - 21)

Purpose: To entertain, and promote and suit their music

My opinions on the clip: I love the originality and craziness of the characters, and how they look as though they may not even be human (the green skin, black eyes etc...). The animation is fairly slow, although this suites the lyrics and message of the song. I love the dark colour grading, as it gives the music video a zombie and dead feel. My only criticism would be that at some points, the mouth doesn't sync with the lyrics.  

ADVERT: Lloyd's TSB - For the Journey

Year of release: 2007

Which company produced it: Lloyd's TSB

- A British retail bank

-Based in Birmingham, UK

Also produced adverts such as:

-The Train for the Summer

- For the Journey part 2

-House in the Sky

-Starting a New Business

Who directed it: Mark Brown

Animation style: 3D

Target audience: Any one who is old enough to join Lloyd's bank (16+)

Purpose: To advertise their bank (each animated advert is done in the same style, with similar characters, so when ever some one sees the characters, they associate them with Lloyd's bank).

My opinions on the clip: Love the unique three dimensional style, and the trademark all of the characters have, being their features (the extra long nose, eye brows and tiny eyes). The colours are bright and cheerful, which suits the advertisement, as people want to think of Lloyd's Bank as a bright and cheerful place. 

Animation Comparison and Write Up

South Park animation process:
They have a storyboard and design department, which is the beginning of the production chain, where they start designing and writing the ideas, jokes and characters etc.
First they get a script, then they have to turn each action that the characters do into camera shots (bring the words to life). They get an hour per page, which isn't long as most places get weeks.  Also they have to design all of the characters, and when doing so they use Cartman as a comparison, and draw a turn around of their new characters (a side view and a behind view).
When the storyboards done, they send it to the editorial department, and get turned into animatics by the lead editor Keef Bartkus. 

Unlike traditional animation, they do it by drawing out each character on the computer, and then making it move digitally, like puppets. If however, the character needs to do something more complicated, like punching some one, they'll have to draw out the character again in their new pose.
Once they're done with the character background props, they send the characters to a lip sync department, where they sync the audio with the characters mouths. Then they begin the animation, where they use the same process for each character, and move features such as the arms, legs, head, body, and have different expressions such as eyes to choose from.

For each show approximately they spend 120 hours a week to get it ready.

Pepper Pig animation process:
Pepper Pig, created by Amy Blazdell and produced by Phil Davies, is made using a programme called CelAction 2D, which is a highly professional piece of software that can produce top quality two dimensional animations, but is also easy for animators to get used to, and takes a week to learn how to use. It is an easy software to use, and the screen can be adjusted to different working methods.

The Pepper Pig studio is based in London, and they have 30 members who all help to produce the film. It takes approximately a week to make one episode. They have 4 teams of 4 animators, and the first series costed 1.4 million pounds to make, which is cheap compared to model, stop motion or computer animation. This is why they chose to produce the series in 2D.

Dot animation process:
Nokia commissioned the makers of the Dot advert to do something to celebrate and advertise their new piece of Technology. The technology allows people to use the phone to capture images of microscopic footage, like cells, which can be used for things such as diagnosing malaria. They took the challenge on, to make the worlds smallest film, using the cell scope technology. They were worried at first, as cells were far to small to animate, so decided to do something different, and made a plastic 9mm tall girl named Dot. They have 50 different replacements for Dot, and 3 standings for each pose. They made Dot by using a 3D printer, and then painted her under a microscope. They produced the set on a flat table, and positioned the phone and the cell scope technology directly above it, moving it for each frame. They filmed it by changing the Dot with a different pose each frame, and each Dot was attached to a wire, which meant they could move her around.Once the animation is done, in post-production they use a back plate to digitally remove the wire.

It takes one man a whole day to make 4 seconds of the animation.