Is there really anything more to be said about Anime?
How about comparing the Moving Castle to the Monster House?
Or this story with 10,000 BC?
We're far enough in the semester for a good, old fashioned compare and contrast.
Have fun with this one.
Don't forget all essays posted before the next class.
Enjoy Spring break.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Exceptional film.
Howl’s Moving Castle was a very emotional, on edge, and well-developed visual masterpiece. The beginning sequence had me sitting on the edge of my seat with my eyes wide open prepared to see something spectacular. I have always appreciated the affect that anime has contributed to the art-animation industry throughout its time. Anime has evolved into its own exclusive stylistic technique that can be easily identified by glancing at illustrations or films that possess similar characteristics. What intrigues me in How’s Moving Castle is the integration of different artistic techniques used to complete the filmmaking process. As the movie begins, you immediately recognize that the ‘Moving Castle’ is a 3d model that has been animated to fit perfectly with the development of the story. This is a brilliant idea that works phenomenally. This technique of incorporating 3d with traditional animation is not the first time this has been used. If you think back to Disney’s Aladdin (it’s a crime not to reference Disney), the magic carpet was animated using a texture mapping technique that would allow the carpet texture to deform with the animation in a believable manner. Beauty and the Beast used 3d scenes to create a better depth of field for certain camera angles, and 101 Dalmatians used animated 3d scenes and models for rotoscoping techniques. The integration of 3d in these earlier films has been an evolving technique that will continue to grow with technology and will be used more often then we might think.
But how does this movie compare to Monster’s House or 10,000 BC?
There are a plethora of things that can be said about these recently viewed films, but since they have all been released within the same decade, there are certain elements that come to mind. All films, in my opinion, are defined by their story development, character depth and visual presence. Each film has been developed differently by their own digital content and used diverse applications to tell their story and connect the viewer with their character’s emotions and adventure. For this to be successful, they must display the most realistic (human and non-human) animation using the most up-to-date technology to ‘capture’ realism and surrealism.
Monster’s House used the motion-capture technique extensively to create believable character movements and gestures throughout the entire film. Similar to rotoscoping used for traditional animation, timing the sequence for animation has become an easily available technique to capture human movements. Now, don’t get me wrong, these movies all have scenes that were incredible; but I would like to point out a couple of things from these two films. Monster’s House lacked a strong visual presence. I grew tired of seeing the same boring scene in front Nebercraker’s yard and across the street from the mysterious house. It made me sleepy. 10,000 BC was a bit more visually interesting because the scenes were massive in size and the journey to save the blue-eyed girl was pretty intense. However, the storyline and special effects were not used properly. Great special effects were involved, but the ingredients were not seasoned properly in order to create a full three-course meal.
“With great special effects comes great responsibility.”
The story didn’t give us a strong connection to the special effects characters. I believe I didn’t grow afraid of the saber tooth tiger, whose presence seemed to be dominated by fear. I didn’t have a reason to fear him. He was stuck in a hole, helped out of the hole and ran away. Please come back and do something. Apocalypto didn’t have much special effects (or English by the way), but was a more intriguing and successful movie. Howl’s Moving Castle was better is every aspect because you got a developed story, character depth and a very strong and mystical visual presence. I was very amazed with the imagery and special effects rendered from the film. Everything worked together to create a completely masterful artistic vision-turned reality. Although the original story was already a written book, the challenge was to bring the story to a visual reality (Miyazaki). I appreciate everything about the story and animation.
“With great special effects comes great responsibility.”
You are SO right about that!!!!!!
I agree with Will's review of Howl's Moving Castle almost entirely. The CG castle made an already stunning and great film even more exotic and beautiful. It fit perfectly that the castle was CG and stood out a tiny bit from the 2D cell animation because it was a phenomenal castle, an other worldly castle in the story as well. The 2d animation meshed so well with the 3d that maybe person who wasn't into CG like us, or as I like to call them "visually underprivilged" wouldn't even notice. They would just think, "Man, why do I think that castle is so awesome and why am I getting the exact emotions the director intended?" Well maybe that thought is a little too calculated, but the idea is there. It's interesting that Will brought up Disney animations with CG in them. He forgot one film though, The Lion King. In the Lion King, the stampede was mostly CG except for the close up shots of the wildebeest. The only reason I know this is because somewhere I saw a behind the scenes explanation of how they did this and the director of the shot who was explaining it was a stereotypical CG artist and he was trying to explain it so kids could understand, but he kept wanting to explain more and more. I wish I knew where I saw this because I would like to see it again now that I know more. And if you want to talk about phenomenal animation, the chase scene with Cruella De Ville driving the car after the puppies in 101 Dalmatians is completely insane. I can't imagine how much work that sequence alone was and though 101 Dalmatians seems to be overshadowed by other Disney films, it is by far the best animated feature as far as animation goes.
To get back to Howl's Moving Castle, this film has everything. It has stunning animation (yeah it's no 101 but what is? Is it even fair to compare...no) great story and strong messages, and expertly implemented CG. One huge contrast of Miyazaki's films to Disney films are the female characters in films. In Disney films, the woman always has to be saved, probably because she has such a small waistline that breathing and movement of the spine is difficult. Even if she is portrayed as a tough girl in some scenes, she has to be saved several times. In Miyazaki's films, specifically Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away, a young girl has to fight and suffer the entire film to complete her objective. She is always selfless, or learns to be, and strong and befriends everyone in the film. What is unique also is in Miyazaki's films, the villain or villians often become friends. Things are cut and dry, black and white, good and evil like in Disney films. In Disney films someone always dies a horrible death. Or is sentenced to eternal imprisonment. In Miyazaki films, though they are rampant with conflict, the lead character finds a way to work things out with everyone. This creates far more complex and relevant themes for children and adults. In fact, one of the only two comparisons that can be made of these two styles of film is they both have so far melded computer animation and 2d animation together effectively. And they are animated. Other than that, the two styles are very different.
It's interesting to think if Miyazaki will ever make an entirely CG film like Disney has expanded to. Really I can't think of a CG film that Disney has made without Pixar that has made an impact on me, but I feel if Miyazaki made one, it would be extraordinary because of the skill he has shown as a director in his animations. All of his animations could be realized in film. His shots are film-like, he doesn't go into song and dance, they really aren't very toony like Disney films will slip into in the middle of the feature. Disney films couldn't be realized in actual film...they can be realized only on ice.
First off, I totally agree with the reviews above entirely. Howl’s Moving Castle, in my humble opinion, is one of the best 2D animated films of this decade. Out of all the Miyazaki films I’ve seen this stands out as the best of them all, even better than Spirited Away. Of course there are many good reasons why. As for the small use of 3D aspects in the Howl’s Moving Castle, they are all done so well that they help and make the whole film have its own unique flare. As for the traditional aspects, the animation is top notch that is basically the equivalent and/or better than many Disney films in the past. Still the best aspect this whole movie seems to be how it captures the audience, including myself, throughout its entirety and yet it all feels that an entire lifetime of entertainment has come by but yet it’s all accomplished within 2 hours.
For the 3D aspects of the movie, one of the obvious things many will point out is Howl’s Castle. The use of texturing and rigging for the castle is very surreal. The rig for every aspect of Howl’s castle works to perfection and blends in well with its movements. The texturing aspect of the castle blends with the environment such that it looks as 2D as possible but not so obvious to the naked eye. In its own way, it looks like a very good 2D rotoscoping animation to the untrained eye. The castle all the way to the very end where it is basically at its last legs and boards is done so well that you don’t really care if it is 3D or not since the story at that point has captured your imagination.
Via the traditional aspects anime has been less famous for being less detailed in terms of quality of animation per frame. This is especially true in the TV realm where Japanese anime shows are on a tight schedule. In a remote aspect, it is kind of like comparing the work schedule that animators and compositors have on a show like Battlestar Galactica where everything is on a tight ship in order to get the best quality they can get out as soon as possible before the broadcast date. In that respect, unlike American animation, Japanese anime has in its own way perfected that trait within the past few decades. This was either done through animating every other frame or just animating critical such as the mouths when time only allows for that. This has led to some critiques that anime is inferior to higher film grade animation in the past. Still when Japanese anime is given a larger budget say a movie style budget along with a longer timeframe to work with; there is definitely a big boost in terms of quality of animation and what can be added on. This has actually been true for the past few anime films that have made the theater screen. For example, a popular series called One Piece has an epic storyline that is told through TV via regular anime made for TV. About once a year for the past six years, the producers of the series make a movie of the series characters that gets the movie style budget treatment. With the movie style budget, almost each One Piece for the past few years has been given important detail to animation that you normally don’t see in its TV counterpart. Including to that, 3D aspects like the ones seen in Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle get added in just to add on to the movie’s story. Like in any animation, whenever an American animation or a Japanese animation gets a movie style budget and timeframe to work with the quality is supposed to go up as well. It also helps if it is also helmed by a director such as Mamoru Oshii or Hayao Miyazaki.
On a related note with 3D and Japanese animation, the use of mixing 2D anime with 3D artwork has become more prevalent and in use each year since the late 90’s. One reason is that with some shows, it’s better to get good or passable animation through 3D. Usually not the characters but more or less for environments, mecha, and anything mechanical like spaceships and airships. Of course with that aspect, Japanese anime has had its share of really bad use of 3D in some anime series and extremely good use in others. This has led to a lot of experimentation in the TV realm that gets better in use as the years go by in comparison to American animation shows in terms of the amount of animated series that gets produced each year. As a result, big Japanese production studios such as GONZO and Production I.G. have gotten better as to when to mix 2D and 3D aspects together in their present and future projects. Of course the same also goes true with Miyazaki films.
Back on Howl’s Moving Castle, the story itself is based upon literature from England. It is from there that Miyazaki takes his own direction with that literature and makes it his own. When comes to picking out literary sources to make movies off of, there can be no other than Miyazaki to pull it off. If I’m not mistaken, with exception to some of his earlier works, most of Miyazaki films are based on literature that have good story background with fantastic characters to work with. These two combinations have helped Miyazaki achieve great quality in terms of his studio work and the current fame that he has today. It is through his direction that these stories get a new light and perspective that intrigues the audience where they are with the characters and actually feel for them as they actually grow throughout the movie. In fact, it’s very well done such that we feel for the lead character for when she feels young and when she feels old we feel but regardless of the crazy age displays she goes throughout the film we find that she is a very strong character that supports Howl till the very end. The type of female character most men would like to marry when they’re looking for a long mental relationship, not a completely physical one.
In conclusion, Howl’s Moving Castle with its direction, style, and resources provided to do the film, comes off as a masterpiece that rivals and surpasses most Disney films of the past. Where Miyazaki might go in the future is unknown but one is certain that if he makes more films of that caliber with the time and resources provided from him most are certain that his films will out beat many Japanese and American animated films of today and yesterday. Still if either Japanese anime or American animation gets the movie style budget treatment the animation quality should be up to par along with the characters and the plotlines.
Post a Comment