Thursday, April 30, 2009

2.

Walt Disney experienced ups and downs between the 20's and the 50's. He came up with many characters and tried out new types of animations films. He was willing to challenge the impossible. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was the best example to prove this. Everyone was amazed at the amount of budget ($1.5 million) used to creating this film. Disney even had to mortgage his house to help out with the production of this film. The film managed to gross over $180m and it became the top ten American film moneymakers of all time. The version I came across was only the storybook (I don't remember watching the film itself).

Many people criticize Disney for monopolizing classic stories for profit. The original story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was brutal. In my opinion, the original ending is definitely not appropriate for kids to watch them. Disney found the potential in the story and made the story his own. Well I don't see any fault in that. The story is so far one of the most successful one and it's still well-known among kids nowadays. However, I asked my cousin this question yesterday.

Me: "Do you know what's the original story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?"
Her: "Wth, who doesn't know it?! The Disney one lah!"

.... This is when I pity the original author of the ACTUAL Snow White fairywale. Most of the people only remembered the most classic version (which is Disney's) and they are totally not aware that the story was actually ADAPTED by another fairytale. But I wouldn't blame them because I'm not aware of this too.

Thinking back of the clips we have watched in the class yesterday, I realised I didn't watch most of the films before. The versions I've watched are all the TV cartoons (IF I DIDN'T REMEMBER WRONGLY). I know every single character but it's such a pity I didn't get to watch the classic films. I shall go and borrow them from the library one day. The film Pinocchio looked interesting to me. I only remembered watching the cartoon on TV. ):

When Der Ruehef's Face was introduced to us, I was shocked that Disney actually produced animated films related to military in the past. It's interesting to see Donald Duck in Nazi's uniform (HAHAHHAHA SO CUTEE <3). The ending whereby Donald throws the tomato straight into Hilter's face was the BEST PART.

When I first saw The Band Concert I was so so so so amazed! The first Mickey Mouse film in Technicolor looked so new and I couldn't believe it was made way back in 1935. The characters were animated perfectly according to the music and I was laughing happily throughout the whole film. I've got to say that The Band Concert is my favourite cartoons out of all the ones I've watched yesterday (it might be different if I managed to watch the whole of Der Ruehef's Face lol)

In my opinion, it's obvious why Disney managed to become the most influential individual in the history of animation. From silent shorts to cartoons with the characters talking TO cartoons with COLORRRRRR, he developed different animation techniques within the 10-15 years. The major breakthrough would be the multi-plane camera which still benefits the people to date. I'm looking at the top 20 greatest cartoons and I realised the cartoons we have watched yesterday were mostly in the top 20. :o yay!

AND SOOOO my final thoughts, I think that Mickey Mouse is the greatest cartoon star from Walt Disney. If Mickey Mouse wasn't famous that time, we might not have stuffs like the Silly Symphonies. I still think that Donald Duck is not as popular as Mickey Mouse because I remembered myself having a hard time to find Donald Duck toys in the past but Mickey Mouse's ones were everywhere. But I'm referring to SINGAPORE though (omg my Donald Duck toy is staring at me). Walt Disney is still active now and the cartoon world will definitely be different without Walt Disney's presence.

Next up; Warner Brothers.

WHAT'S UP, DOC?

Friday, April 24, 2009

1.

9pm now. It means that I still have 4 more hours to go before "the day ends".

Anyway, I was kind of surprised when I found out that pre-animation started way back in the 18th century. I watched cartoons (such as Popeye, Mickey Mouse and more) and I didn't know that Felix the Cat was the 1st major cartoon. I didn't have much impression of me liking it (cause I didn't like black cats) but I do remember POPEYE THE SAILORMAN which is basically from the same company as Felix the Cat. It was one of my favourite cartoons and I enjoyed watching it. The best part is when Popeye eats the spinach, gets stronger and hits the big fat evil guy in just one punch.

Animators in the past had to continuously draw the background out for all the frames in the animation. There was no camera or computer for them to capture the background or the characters. Every little details have to be drawn over and over again. I can't even imagine me drawing the character and background for a 5 minutes animation. 24 frames per second.. 1 minute would be 1440 frames. 5 minutes would be 7200 . . . . . . . . . . I seriously respect the animators in the past. But well luckily Raoul Barre came out with a "Slash" system that doesn't need them to redraw again and again. Yay for us!

Was looking at the syllabus and it seemed like all the lectures will be fun. Disney, Warner Brothers, Anime, Claymation, I'm interested to know more about them. And the fact that we get to watch films for almost all the lessons seemed pretty cool. Seriously speaking I was hoping that it's a course for History of Film so we could watch films like the Godfather or maybe Leon the Professional (ZOMG MY ALL TIMES FAVOURITE <3<3).
(video removed)
Couldn't remember most of the lyrics. The only thing that runs in my head is "I'M POPEYE THE SAILORMAN POOTPOOT"

hey yo touch man

Myfatherisyourmother. I know it's cool.