Lighting

Hard light
 “is characterised by a high contrast of bright light, dark shadows and sharp edges”, creating “energy, excitement, suspense and tension”
(Sullivan et al 2008:118)

Soft light 
“is characterised by lower contrast and softer, diffused shadows”, and conveys calm, tranquillity, innocence and romance

(Sullivan et al 2008:118)

A low-key scene is “dark, high in contrast, often lit by a single light source, creating shadows and patterns of light.  The fall-off from light to dark is rapid. Foreground objects are typically seen in sillhouette” (Sullivan et al 2008:118).  Conveys sadness, isolation, depression, alienation, foreboding.

High key lighting “is bright, with light shadows.  It is low in contrast... Usually evokes cheerful, high energy atmosphere [but] can also be glaring, harsh or hot” (Sullivan et al 2008:118).

Who framed Roger Rabbit?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters interact directly with human beings. Who Framed Roger Rabbit stars Bob Hoskins as a private detective who investigates a murder involving the famous cartoon character, Roger Rabbit. Charles Fleischer co-stars as the titular character's voice, Christopher Lloyd as the villain, Kathleen Turner as the voice of Roger's cartoon wife, and Joanna Cassidy as the detective's girlfriend.

 Walt Disney Pictures purchased the film rights to the story in 1981. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote two drafts of the script before Disney brought in Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment to help finance the film. Zemeckis was hired to direct the live-action scenes with Richard Williams overseeing animation sequences. Production was moved from Los Angeles to Elstree Studios in England to accommodate Williams and his group of animators. While filming, the production budget began to rapidly expand and the shooting schedule ran longer than expected.

However, the film was released to financial success and critical acclaim. Who Framed Roger Rabbit brought a re-emerging interest in the golden age of American animation and became the forefront for the modern era, especially the Disney Renaissance. It also left behind an impact that included a media franchise and the unproduced prequel, Who Discovered Roger Rabbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit

A  milestone in film and animation history – four Academy Awards
A “technically-marvelous film” blending animated, ink-and-paint cartoon characters and flesh-and-blood live actors” (FilmSite review)
Hybridity and intertextuality (comedy-noir) Mix of live and hand-drawn 2d
Two ‘worlds’ (real and Toontown)
Use of lighting
Use of screen space

How does the film emphasise both the difference and the connections / transgressions between the ‘real world’ and the ‘cartoon world’?

The real world is dark, and there a lot of brown, greys and blacks, the cartoon world is bright and colourful. In the cartoon world there is more singing and dancing and everyone seems happy there. Throughout the film, on a few different occasions Roger says that it is a toon’s job to make people laugh, Eddie however never laughs. I think these two worlds represent the two characters Eddie and Roger, Roger is mostly happy and optimistic even when he thinks his wife has played pattercake with another man, he writes her a love letter rather than go off into a jealous rage. Whereas the human world everything is dull and dark, Eddie is quite dark as his brother was killed by a toon and the toon was never caught so his attitude towards the toon world is negative. And the contrast between toon world and the ‘real’ world mirrors the contrast between Eddie and Roger’s characters.

METALEPSIS
Definition from narrative theories:“paradoxical contamination between the ‘world of the telling’ and the ‘world of the told’” (Pier 2011)
“any intrusion by the extra-diegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by diegetic characters into a meta-diegetic universe” (Genette, in Pier 2011).

In animation:

Cartoons –  often, as they rely on “exaggerated comedy, meta-reference, or the presence and omnipotence of an authorial entity”

Experimental and hybrid films, mixing different animation techniques, or live-action with animation

Computer or object animation   - less frequently, as neither  “want to distract from the illusion of a perfect mimesis or the illusion of animate objects” .  Sometimes used as a historical reference to classical cartoons

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there is  “a clash of two different physical, social, and moral worlds, and even of two different kinds of perception. Toons and humans move in the same spatial environment, but they still inhabit different sub-worlds, which only partially overlap” (Feyersinger 2010, p 289). “A metalepsis combines the representations of contradictory concepts; two worlds that are perceived as mutually exclusive are connected at the same time. The perception of the viewers is important as their knowledge of reality and common sense determines whether two worlds are understood as mutually exclusive or not” (Feyersinger 2010, p 281).

Project

Project Ideas
Brief:

As part of assessment, you will propose a short animation under a broad umbrella of 'student life'.  The proposal will focus on one clear issue that new students are likely to encounter in their first year of the University.   The issue must be presented from a student point of view, as an engaging story with a human interest angle.  Statistics (if any) should be used only sparingly, and official documents may be useful but only as background research.

Ideally, the animation will depict a typical situation through a fictional character.  The central character may be realistic or abstract (or even non-human) but the situation must be recognisable.  You will create a synopsis / treatment;  a set of pre-production materials; and a screen cast based on this proposal.  At the end of the module the work will be shown to potential clients within the University with the view to commission work based on the most successful proposal.  (Please note that the module staff will not be involved in commissioning decisions, and cannot guarantee any outcome.  The module staff will invite the potential client to view the proposals, and it will be then up to the client to contact you when an opportunity arises).  

Situation Ideas
Getting the balance between work and play.

Location – this animation would be set in a bedroom and the characters are the items on the desk, books, rulers, pens etc. The student would be more like presence, the desk characters will talk about the student and his or her life. The animation would be split up into three parts -

1)      The student is going out all of the time, and the characters on the desk are not being used, and feel neglected, the folder hasn’t been picked up in weeks, the book is being used as a coaster and the ruler has been dropped on the floor and not noticed by the student that has been down there for days. The animation will be on the lives of the utensils needed for work. This is to emphasise the student needs to make time to study.

2)      In the second part we see the same characters but they are being over worked, the books are torn from being read so much, the pen is running out of ink from being wrote with all the time, and the group are all over-worked and tired, this is to emphasise that working too hard can also have negative effects on a student’s life, there has to be time to relax and spend with friends, not just work all of the time.

3)      The third part will show that the characters are being used but given time to rest also and they are overall happy and they work better when they have rested.

The animation will emphasise on the fact that students need to have a healthy balance between work and socialising between their friends, in the animation the student will not be seen, only his or her hands in parts two and three, the characters that are the objects will be the ones that tell the story.

Space

Deep space.  Illusion of 3d on 2d surface.  Depth cues (perspective, longitudinal planes, shape change, textural diffusion, up-down position, tonal separation).
Flat space
Frontal walls, no converging lines; no longitudinal planes; actors staged on the same horizontal plane; same amount of detail / texture.

Limited space Some depth cues – size change, textural diffusion, up/down position.  But no longitudinal planes, only frontal surfaces.

Ambiguous space Impossible to tell size / shape of room.  Unreliable spatial clues.

What types of space are presented?  (eg deep, flat, limited, ambiguous)?

Here are two scenes from the film ‘Perfect Blue’  The space in these shot are Limited, we can see different textures and slightly different depths in the room, and the fact that the shot is a mirror image in the second shot gives a greater illusion of depth, but it still feels limited.

Here is  a shot of Andy's bedroom from Toy Story three, here we can see that this scene has deep space as this film is made using 3D software and the room looks 3 Dimensional. 

Contrast and Affinity

“Contrast of tone means two shades of grey that are as different in terms of brightness as possible” (Block 2008:10)

“Any grey tones next to each other on the grey scale have affinity” (Block 2008:10)

“The greater the contrast in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamics increases. The greater the affinity in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamics decreases” (2008:10)

In the films screened so far, how does visual structure use contrast and affinity?

Here is a scene from ‘Barefoot Gen. This is the scene where the audience is first introduced to Gen’s family, here they have been in hiding from the air raids and it is just being announced that the air raid is clear and it is okay to come out of hiding. The contrast in this scene is very high, all the characters are black silhouettes with a white outline and the light from the sun is bright white and has a sharp effect, this could be to emphasise that the characters may have been in hiding for a long time, the same effect when you turn the light on in the middle of the night, your eyes are not used to the light and it causes you to squint until you get used to it, this could be used to show that the characters have not been used to be out in broad sunlight for a while due to the air raids.

In this scene Gen and Shinji are helping their father on the wheat fields, they are having fun, and we see Shinji and Gen’s relationship with their father, they are playing around and an having fun, we can see that they have a happy and healthy family life.  This scene is calm; there is greater affinity than the scene shown above, there is no sharpness to this image, we see two boys laughing, running having fun, the weather is a sunny, and there is a soft blue sky. This scene looks child-like, as if it had been made for the specific audience of young children, this style is not carried out throughout the whole film, the style changes when dealing with more sinister subjects.

This is the scene were the atomic bomb hits the town of Hiroshima we can see that there is a lot of contrast in this scene, the land is all white with a black outline and the red is the atomic bomb going off. The red contrasts the almost white background. Using the colour red as the colour of the bomb going off could be to indicate blood, and the death of the many many people that the atomic bomb will murder and leave the city devastated.

Here are the images of when the bomb hits Hiroshima, the colour fades out of the images and we see the black and white harsh images. This effect adds intensity to the scene, and the audience is aware that something terrible is happening.

Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen is the story of a young boy called Gen and his family and how they struggle in World War II, The beginning of the film focuses on the family's struggle to afford food and ration cards and Gen's pregnant mother, Kimie falls ill due to malnutrition. Gen and his younger brother, Shinji try and find food for their mother and their unborn younger sibling. The family is made up of Gen, Shinji, Daikichi, their father, Kimie their mother and Eiko their older sister. We can see through the film that they are a loving family.  

Throughout the film there are constant air raids from the war and the town is constantly wondering why they have been targeted yet as they are one of the main cities in Japan, they are soon targeted with an atomic bomb, this bomb ends up killing Daikichi, Eiko and Shinji leaving Kimie and Gen on their own, the night of the atomic bomb Kimie goes in labour and Gen has to deliver the baby, Kimie has a baby girl and Gen names her Tomoko which means 'friend' as he hopes Tomoko will always have lots of friends. Gen takes it upon himself to take his father's place and he goes and searches for food and fresh vegetables for his mother and baby sister.

On his search he comes across a soldier who is going bald and vomiting blood, he takes him to first aid and he is left for dead by the doctors after having an incurable disease caused by the atomic bomb. Soon after Gen then begins to lose his hair. After bringing home food for his mother and Tomoko they that catch a young boy Ryuta, who is trying to steal rice from them and Gen is shocked at how much Ryuta resembles his younger brother Shinji and him and his mother feed him and decide to keep him with them.

The two boys then go on a search for milk for Tomoko, they come across a man who offers them a job looking after his sick brother for 10 yen a day, the brother is rude and arrogant but the boys choose to stay and help him as they need money to buy milk for Tomoko, none of the others who have worked with this man have lasted and the man ends up paying them 100yen, they go to the black market and spend the full 100yen on milk for Tomoko, they go back to find that it is too late and Tomoko has already died due to malnutrition. The film ends with the crops growing and Gen's hair then begins to grow back.

Perfect Blue - Notes

Notes

Live-action Narrative

Perfect Blue was originally written to be a live action film, but due to unforeseen circumstances was made into an animation instead.

Hybrid Genre

This film could fall in to the genre of Drama, Thriller and Horror. The drama being a young girl trying to find her way in becoming a serious actress after being a pop idol in the girl group CHAM!. She is scared of tarnishing her reputation and never being able to be a pop idol again. The thriller ellements of the film are the fact that she is being stalked by a fan 'Me-Mania' and somebody is writing a blog called 'Mima's Room' which seems to know intimate details about Mima's life. Mima is also suffering from a split personality disorder so throughout the film we are not sure if Mima is commiting the murders or just dreaming about them. Some of the scenes in this are very bloddy and gory and these are from the horror genre.

Editing techniques

The film is edited with lots of jump-cuts which jump from scence to scene which is designed to confuse the audience as the main character Mima is confused.

Multi-layer Narrative

The film is a film within a film, not only are we seeing Mima's life, we are watching Mima'a characters life and also Mima's nightmares and dreams. The is not shown the difference between real life/ the tv character and Mima's dream it is left for us to work out for ourselves.