Idealogical Contrast

Between Disney (representing western animation as a whole) and Miyazaki (possibly more unfairly than disney repping all western animation, he will represent japanese anime as a whole)

One of the idea's discussed in the lecture which most struck me was the stark difference between the idealogical views expressed both overtly and covertly through Disney and Miyazaki animations.

I have always had works by these two very different groups of artists on separate sides of my mind and perception simply because of their difference in tone, style, content and the feeling they gave me in my tummy, but for some reason it never occurred to me just how intrinsic their cultural differences affected their individual idealogical directions.

Disney definitely has a stronger sense of safe and comfortable, middle American suburb enclosed societies with a good dose of fear of the wild and otherly, occasionally going so far as to possibly suggest those we don't know, aren't familiar with or don't understand are most likely to be evil and try to hurt us, while Miyazaki's work seems to retain a childlike wonder and curiosity which might have something to do with their appeal to me, I strongly believe that it is that particular way to look at the world, through a child's eyes if you will which leaves you with this overwhelming sense of limitless possibility and a mind full of wonderful places that are just waiting to exist just for you to visit them.

Of course there can arise a justified concern for the wellfare of children's impresionable stupid little minds but really I think from an art stand point it is more an argument of what is affective in pulling on the audiences imagination and capturing their hearts. - I take this very abstract and reviewing point of view because I feel that trying to contemplate the affects of disney animation on the youth of today would end up leading to a deep introspective personal psychology session and no one wants that. But I will postulate that maybe we should in fact have some sort of board or organisation at a national level (at first possibly later an international) whose job it would be to design the ideology behind childrens cartoons, letting the artists and the animators still control narrative and character but not nessisarily letting them influence the whole world...

I mean what if we could through Disney have programmed everyone my age to be a better stronger member of society who thinks of the whole before themselves, who value caring and love over hate and who don't procrastinate. I mean while were brainwashing a nation lets do it for the better right. Or at least something funny like getting us all to snap and meet at the north pole when we hear a certain sound forming a giant smiley face of frozen corpses visible from outer-space but I violently digress.

I will not respond to or try to argue against or for the following counter arguement but I feel its nessissary to perhaps provide further the possibility that Miyazaki is a bad example of anime culture to be comparing within this context.

I guess it is not western ideology in particular but more of a universal theme. In my opinion Hayao Miyazaki's work appeal to a much wider audience, and that is because he purposely meant it to be viewed by many and is keeping himself not too tied up with those genres that earn a particular kind or set of audience. Some define anime as animation made for the consumption of a Japanese audience and with regard to their culture but what if your audience is not primarilyJapanese, but also other audiences in the western hemisphere, will this be considered true-blue anime or a disney film-like venture. When I saw Miyazaki's film Spirited Away, it felt a bit like what would i usually feel when watching a disney film. I can only speculate that maybe he was influenced by westernanimation or I guess it is just his style. When it involves a universal theme, like nature, love, friendship or family, it does not really matter much of what ideology it belongs

Also here is a very interesting article on the topic of gender discrimination as it occurs within Disney and Miyazaki's work to varying degrees.

- http://www.inhumandecency.org/christine/miyazaki.html

this might be an unfair argument as alot of Disney's work dates back further than Miyazaki's and therefore more of it comes from a time when gender discrimination was more common place.

Anime and Manga

While we briefly looked at anime and manga as art forms there was a focus on the admitidly excellent work of Miyazaki who's recent release Ponyo:

is one of my favourite films. However I get the feeling that these were discussed in the lectures at length while other relevant anime works were ignored for the same reason Miyazaki has become so popular with western audiences... they are westernised and loose much of the traditional art form's quirks and idiosyncrasies.

While looking at 'My Neighbour Totoro' however was eye opening (I have seen it before many times so not the film itself but its playing shortly after discussing the atmosphere and ideologies of western animation especially Disney) where I found that Japanese story telling does often have far less sheltered fearful concepts and celebrates liberation, taboo and escapism while western animation targeted at a younger audience often focuses on the comforts of the familiar.

When I talk about Miyazaki's westernisation I will point out that ponyo is in fact loosely based on the danish tale 'little murmaid' but with that japanese story telling flair of fantasy and otherworldlyness which I believe Bill mentioned in the lecture. However its still a story that a western audience can immediately relate to at least within the accepted fantasy established by disney in their classic murmaid tale. Despite this possible pandering to a western audience I still found it to be a unique and highly entertaining take on the original story, perhaps I should emphasise LOOSELY when I said it was 'loosely based on...'

Some other good anime:

Black Heaven is a great example of anime's unique (and often confusing to a non otaku western audience) flair for humour and situational drama, a show relying more on complex social interaction, relying heavily on writing for entertainment rather than traditional western animation humour which is normally cute, slapstick or just entertaining bussiness or gags within the animation itself.

Death Note is a brilliant 20 or so part series which has a clear begining middle and end, watching every episode in sequence would be like watching an incredibly long and detailed film epic, with character development, mystery and intrigue throughout, for an action thriller it tackles a lot of difficult issues which might not be expected such as crime the concept of a personal vengeful god. Using classically accepted (to a japanese audience) concepts of gods of death. It has a very interesting premise which I will not try to go into now but is defonitely worth a look for anyone trying to get into anime with an appreciation for film as art and discussion.

Soul Eater screamingly funny and at times nail bitingly intense. A great example of the strong blend of character relationships, humour and action within a rich and unique fantasy universe which could never exsist in a modern western animation.

Fairy Tale an intentional satire of western fairy tale concepts as the premise of an entirely opposing traditional fantasy action guild oriented adventure epic.

Disney and Ideology

(my notes from the lectures and a drawing I did of a slave to modern idealogical systems)

I found it interesting that the 'Disney Paranoia' of which Bill spoke and which (after some research) most defonitely exists, what I also found to be signifigant was that this fear was coming from all sides of the modern idealogical spectrum (our idealogical system in modern day is of worryingly limited pallete so I specifically mean left and right wing) this gave it a little more gravitas in my mind since it no longer seems like an insane extremist view which is how I ususally dismiss most far right wing fears arguments and deranged unintelligible rants [see Glenn Beck below]


(Glenn Beck the most insane of right wing ranters - this guys is hilarious)

There have been many claims of racism, sexism, anti-semitism and shutin-ism within Disney cartoons from both sides, these may be simply paranoid delusions or genuinely important concerns grounded in truth. I will provide some compilations and clips to let you decide for yourself.

Disney is Racist

Disney is Sexist

Disney is Capatalist

Disney is Anti-Semitic

Ok so the last one is just from family guy but I think it demonstrates my point well about the Disney paranoia that exists. With Disney entertainment products being consumed by so many youngsters it is easy to see why.

Technology's influence on art (specifically animation)

Pixar

then

recently

and now

Surrealism, Metamorphosis and Rhythm

Metamorphisis - The fluid change of an object, form or figure between one form, shape or figure into another. An interesting concept which is without a doubt very much a part of what makes animation (especially 2D animation) special, it is the ability of anything in an animated world to become something else, it is most commonly (and most easily) used in frame by frame animation, creating a sense of freedom outside the normal constraints of form as we percieve them.

2D metamorphisis as demonstrated by Glenn Marshall

It is possible for an animator to draw one thing one frame and then something completely different the next this is however to much of an abrupt change to illustrate convincing metamorphasis, it is therefore in the 'inbetweens', the intermittent frames during which the change takes place that the real skill and imagination of the animator comes to life in the change. It is a very compelling mechanic and a good audience pleaser and has been a recurring theme in animation from all cultures for a long time.

The difficulty of having metamorphisis in a 3D animation lies in the way that 3D objects are constructed, they are normally esentially a wireframe of lines in 3D space, which can bend and move connected at intersections by verts and visible because they are joined by faces, this mesh therefore will move and bend and twist as much as you like WITHIN the constraints of its own physical nature, it will break if you twist it to far and warp/pass through itself if it is distorted. There are technologies being developed to allow for convincing metamorphisis in 3D but how soon this tech will be utilised in cinema is to be seen. The video below demonstrates that it IS possible to do in 3D but it is clearly far less a developed technique than in 2D as in the example previously

Surealism

I think its a good example of how differnt media suits different techniques/styles/movements as metamorphisis which is quite common in animation, (perhaps not so common in fine arts) and surrealism which is a fasinating movement, with a plethora of talented, inspiring and somtimes deranged artists supporting it is almost entirely absent from animation in any traditional sense, the only surrealist (partly) commercial animation that springs to mind is courage the cowardly dog.

In the animation as art world, there is a whole nother story, with pretentious and yet terribly brilliant masters of surrealism and subtlety like

the quay brothers

the brothers Quay are far too cool.

Rhythm

Rythem was a huge part of early animation, with the 'cartoons' relying heavily on the beat and sounds of a live band playing along to the animation, the characters would be constantly in motion, often a simple (and cheap) repetative up and down motion, bending their knees to the music, but this still kept the sense of movement and rythem alive, as it was thought by alot of early animators that to have a character dead still for any length of time was to kill them and ruin the illusion that had been so carefully built. On many occasions this spread to even the enviroment, with the sceneary and props all bobbing and dancing along to the music. A good example of this is an early Betty Boop or Micky Cartoon

It was discussed in the lecture that animation has over time come to rely less and less on a beat or rhythm, I think that is perhaps true in a very literal sense with the use of more sophisticated sound tracks and characters that are perhaps better grounded in reality which do not need to be in constant motion, but primarily I think the intrinsic nature in which rhythm is a part of animation has not changed at all, it is simply a more subtle use of rhythm as animation has developed and the average length of a piece of animated cinema has increased it has become unnessisary to have that constant movement and wacky dancing to keep the audience engaged, it would have been ridiculous to have snow white bumping up and down like a disco child throughout the whole film. Rather I think rhythm and timing happen across the whole of the narrative building to crescendo's both with sound and narrative over periods of half an hour rather than every few minutes which means the intensity of the sound and movement has to be made more subtle for it to be bearable.

and now for some Richter animation which demonstrates exquisitely rhythm and metamorphosis in animation.

Sci-fi and the idea of genre

Starship Troopers is an excellent film from the sci-fi genre and is one of my favourite films of all time. What I particularly remember liking about it though was actually how remarkably similar to old war movies it always seemed. It was actually defonitly part of the war film genre aswell while due to the film being set in the future it is automatically put in the sci-fi genre.

This leads me to question what science fiction really is as a genre, and how genre is defined. A film set a long time ago can be catogorised as a 'period film' but is likely also a part of another genre, comedy, thriller etc. So I have to question whether or not being set in the future is enough to make something a sci-fi film.

"Genre (pronounced /ˈʒɑːnrə/, also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/; from French, genre French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ʁ], "kind" or "sort", from Latin: genus (stem gener-), Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature as well as various other forms of art or culture, e.g., music, based on some loose set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions"

Moving on wikinformed to takle these questions;

Sci-fi is known and understood today through its stylistic history of settings and narritives, the science fiction genre has seen a plethora of incredible and varied film masterpieces. Perhaps a misunderstood child in the genre family household but the directors who visit and use the members of the family to make films have often used his mysteriousness to great end. (most strained analogy ever...)

Science Fiction Greats:

Moon

District 9

(im going to come back to this one again later)

The Thing

Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind

Metropolis

A Clockwork Orange

Aliens

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Star Wars: Original Trilogy (the title says GREATS)

Blade Runner

Its clear from the examples above (of course there are a great deal more great [and possibly greater {not greater than Blade Runner} ] examples of science fiction)

I was simply trying to make the point that it is a uniquely broadly approached genre, with films of vastly different nature being produced within. In some respects it simply affords a director or author to create environments, situations and characters which exist outside the current scope of possibility. This is not simply a disregard for logic and sense however as any good sci-fi just swaps out real world physics and logic for a consistent and believable set of physics, logic and technology postulated to exist in the future by the author or director.

Before I get back to District 9

more about Starship Troopers - "Starship Troopers is one of the greatest anti-war films ever made in my opinion, up there with many others. This is something that not many seem to recognize considering that, when it was first released, most critics seemed to have been somewhat disturbed by the fact that the `good guys’ resembled Nazis and that was about as far as they went before blowing it off as just another shoot-em-up and proceeded to sharpen their knives."

I've discovered this quote and a few other pages expressing a similar interpretation, this was interesting to me as I found the futuristic setting coupled with the seemingly idealic (personally anyway) earth future brought the 'war' aspect of the film into better light, and there is no doupbt that the film glamourises the violence of battle along with the heroism of erm... heroes. [palm on face]

"you trying to be a hero, watkins?"

"trying to kill some bugs, sir!"

I also got a strong sense of a 'Them and Us' mentality which would have been prevelant in WWII films especially those produced at the time, depicting the entirety of human kind regardless of gender and race, acting as one, pit against a deadly enemy.

It is weird how the good guys look like nazi's I don't really have the time or desire to get into that but these guys really did if you are intrigued.

Starship Troopers or Nazi stormtroopers?

http://forums.sciflicks.com/showthread.php?t=4704

Now to talk about District 9

I found this to be one of the most intense open and infact rather brutal films I have seen in a long time. As a Southafrican the story it tells is a little maybe a little closer to home but I think most educated people understand the history it is so transparently retelling and it's lack of restraint has caused a little controversy

I think the film HAD to be in the sci-fi genre for it to have attained its critical success and to perhaps educate a new generation of past injustices which would not be well forgotten. If anyone hasn't understood it or not scene it or just don't know what point im trying to make;

(District 9 mirrors apartheid) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid

The sci-fi trope of aliens, is used in District 9 allow the story the director wanted to tell an analogy for a countries dark history to be told with unrivalled impunity. There are no extra terrestrial focus groups.

Possible alien visitation seems to have become more and more acceptable in the mind of the audience perhaps as technology develops and we become more intelligent or maybe just through the over use of this particular science fiction trope.

I think it is evident that a science fiction setting or situation can be used within a film of any genre.

(an incredible styalised and serious work of science fiction cinema)

A little more on genre before I go:

Definitions of genre on the Web:

• a kind of literary or artistic work
• writing style: a style of expressing yourself in writing
• music genre: an expressive style of music
• a class of art (or artistic endeavor) having a characteristic form or technique
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• A genre (, also ; from French, ' , "kind" or "sort", from Latin: ' (stem gener-), Greek: genos, '''') is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance. ...
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre

• A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(music)

• Genre magazine was a New York city-based monthly periodical written for gay men. It was owned by gay press publisher Window Media, a subsidiary of Avalon Equity Partners.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(magazine)

• Genre is a 1996 Live-action/animated short film by animator Don Hertzfeldt, his second student film, preceded by Ah, L'Amour (1995).
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(animated_film)

• Video game genres are used to categorize video games based on their gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges. ...
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_(gaming)

• A kind; a stylistic category or sort, especially of literature or other artworks
  en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genre

• Genres - This is a list of the commercially-relevant genres in modern popular music. Styles that are not contemporary or commercially marketed in substantial numbers have been excluded, in accordance with the following criteria: #Art music: classical music and opera. ...
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genres_(popular_music)

• Style of film dictated by particular thematic conventions.
  aso.gov.au/about/glossary/

• A literary form; examples of literary genres are tragedy, comedy, epic, and novel. Generic classifications may appear simple on the surface, but one faces serious practical problems when one tries to define terms such as comedy and tragedy with reference to an actual corpus of literary works. ...
  courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/lsl01-tm.html

• The class or category of an object when considered as an intellectual work.
  www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/Glossary.html

• a collective grouping or general category of literary works; a large class or group that consists of individual works of literature that share common attributes (eg, similar themes, characters, plots, or styles). Examples: drama, epic, lyric poem, novel, etc.
  condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/awtech/lexicon.html

dooodling

just some doodling done during the lectures.