'The Final Chapter' by Atom pancakes

Atom Pancakes proudly presents 'The Final Chapter'. Our short animation finally finished.

directed by:
       Jordan Buckner
       Ethan Shilling
       Ruben Martins

Synopsis:

"The story follows our crime writer, Arthur Winters, as he attempts to write the ending of his book. As he thinks through possible ideas, things begin to go wrong around him. While having these ideas, Winters enters his dream space and starts to act like the suspects. When he finally realises an idea that works, he burst into motion to finish his book, however the simplest of the tasks is not so simple after all."

Enjoy!!

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Animator: Robert Zemeckis (1952-)

Robert Zemeckis is an American director, producer and screenwriter. who is best known for the 1980's Back to the Future film series, as well as the Oscar-winning live-action/ cartoon film, Who framed Roger Rabbit in 1988. In the 90s, Zemeckis took a more dramatic stance and directed the also Oscar-winner Forrest Gump in 1994.
Although is great sucess in his early films, the latters are the most achieved ones, while Back to the Future already used match moving technique, his recent films take on a recently discovered technique in animation, perfomance capture, where the live-action actor acts as the basic animation, and this animation is transported into a CG Model, who similarly moves like the actor.


Robert Zemeckis was the pioneer of this technique, using it in many of his recent Computer Generated films, such as Polar Express in 2004, Beowulf in 2007 and A Christmas Carol 2009, despite this technique has not being target of good critics as they recall it of creating uncanny and disturbing films, the progress from Polar Express to A Christmas Carol is visible.


Neverthless, a huge achievement in the world of animation, where in the beginning animators opted for stylised movements, nowadays more and more animators believe in animation in a more realistic way.

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Animator: Blue SkyStudios ( Production Company)

Blue Sky Studios is an American Animation studio, which became an unit of the Fox Filmed Entertainment in 1997. However the studio was founded 10 years earlier with the mission to pioneer creative, photo-realistic and high-resolution character based Computer Generated animations for films, television and entertainement industries,

This pioneering ideas really paid off and today Blue Sky Studios focus on creating high-quality imagery accompanied with great-storytelling, and audience-friendly characters.


All this qualities can be perceived in the short-films and full features presented to us nowadays, from the 1998 Oscar Award Winning short film Bunny, the first film to use advanced ambient lighting technology to the full features Ice Age Triology, whic is created by powerful renderers producing outstanding results in digital imagery field as well as story-telling.

The studio has also completed work for Fight Club, 1999, several alien creatures for Star Trek: Insurrection,1998 ,the monsters of Alien Resurrection ,1997, numerous characters and special effects for A Simple Wish ,1997, the final 'Genesis' sequence in Titan A.E., and a host of dancing, singing cockroaches for the MTV cult classic Joe's Apartment ,1996. The studio has also animated numerous commercials and created an instant hit with the 'talking fish' animation for the 1999 season finale of HBO's The Sopranos.



Blue Sky Studios are famous for their animations because they combine the key ingredients of it , good- story telling, the 12 rules of basic animation and ultimately an astonishing environment.

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Animator: Dreamwork Studios ( Production Company)

Dreamworks Animation SKG is an Animation studio based in America, which already produced a series of successful Computer Animated Films, such as Shrek triology, Madagascar films and Kung Fu Panda.
DreamWorks Animation produces high-quality family entertainment by using coputer-generated animation, using a world-class creative talent and technology providing the audience with great- stories films, breathtaking visual imagery for an all range audience,

In 2004, DreamWorks became the first animation company to produce two CG Animated films a year,including the famous and profiting Shrek 2.


DreamWorks Animation often is recalled as the rival of Pixar, not only because it also does CG Animated films, but because often they clashed with similar films such as, Pixar's A Bugs Life and DreamWorks' Antz, telling a story based on similar characters.However, Dreamworks Animation owns two studios in America, it manages to release more films a year that they rival Pixar.
These films that attempt to tell great stories, that are fun a comedic, with adorabe stylised characters and environemts that will brad audiences and capture their imagination despite their age.

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Animator: Nick Park ( 1958-)

Nick Park is an English Filmaker and Stop-Motion Animator, who is known for the creation of the Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep short and full features. Nick Park's style of animation combines plasticine models and stop-motion animation, which gives life to this inanimate characters. this experience comes from is early life.




Earlier in his career, Park joined the staff of Aardman Animations in Bristol, where he worked as an animator on commercial products, at that time, he did part of the animation in Peter's Gabriel Sledgehammer, as well as animating part of the Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Along with all this, he had finally finished his 1st animation, A Grand Day Out. However, at his job another animation was being produced, Creature Comforts, thus the post-production of his film was delayed.
This busy moment in his career paid off, when ironically A Grand Day Out beat Creature Comforts for a BAFTA Award. though it was Creature Comforts, which gave him a Oscar.
His reputation started to raise, and he was able to produce another 2 Wallace and Gromit Short Films, and work on his first full feature length film, Chicken Run (2000).
His second full feature-length film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabit was released in 2005, once again it offered a Oscar for Best Animated Film in 2006.

Nick Park's animation oposes the idea that the jerky and old stop-motion animation is outdated.

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Animator: Hayao Miyazaki (1941-)

Hayao Miyazaki is an well-known Japanese Animator, Filmmaker and co-founder of the Japanese Animation Studio Ghibli.
Although, he started to animate long ago, only recently his work was brought to the western side.
His films often deal with recurrent themes, such as the relationship between human, nature and technology or the difficulty to provide a pacifist charisma. Also, Miyazaki is another filmaker who gives his protagonist a female gender and with a strong charisma, young and independent.
With this characteristics his films have glued audiences around the world to the big screen, for instance, Spirited Away was the most profit film hitting the Japan, beating other big names, such as Titanic.


His animation style bears a disntictive quality, as it is neither, western style or manga style, but rather a mixture of both, creating this beautiful stylised world, full of stylised characters, but not fully stepping onto the Manga world.
For example, 1997's Princess Mononoke, one of his films, is produce within this beautiful natural world and the technology villages trying extinct it. Leading to the creation of delightful characters and astonishing environments.

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Animator: Pixar ( Production Studio)

Pixar is an American CGI Animation company based in California, US. Pixar Studios were one of the 1st to start with CG in films, firslty short films and later by producing full-feature lenght films, from 1995 with the release of the Toy Story. Its reputation is not in vain, to date, Pixar has earned twenty-four Academy Awards, including Six Golden Globes and three Grammys. Due to the technical, creative and production capabilities to create a new generation of animated feature films. Pixar combines the technology and world-class creative talent to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.



Pixar was founded in 1979, as the Graphics Group, a part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. In 1986, it was bought by Apple, that recently sold it to Walt Disney in 2006.

To date, Pixar has made 20 feature films, the first being the pioneering in computer graphics, Toy Story in 1995. After the success of Toy Story, featuring John Lasseter's story-telling skills, Pixar decided to carry on making films in the medium that they are famous for CG. In 1998 was Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters Inc. in 2001, the BlockBuster Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, Wall-E in 2008 and Up in 2009.


Pixar's film, not only are beautifully developed and produced, but also they consist in the principals of good story-telling and animation. Creating films enjoyable to watch.

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Animator: John Lassester ( 1957-)

John Lassester is an American animator, Director and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney. He is the name behind the well-known and innovative computer graphics Animation Company Pixar.



At a young age, he embarked into the world of animation, when he enrolled in an animation course at California Isntitute of the Arts. Where he was taught by 3 of the famous Disney's nine old men- Eric Larson, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, also he had as classmates other famous names of animation today, such as Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick and Tim Burton.

After graduating, Lasseter joined the Walt Disney Studios as an animator, although his stay at Disney, He felt that the "magic" has faded after the release of 101 Dalmatians, repeating ideas and not being innovative enough. So in 1980, he firstly saw some footage from a computer-graphics conference, which showed the very first steps into the digital world. But it wasn't until later, when he was invited by some friends who were working at the film Tron, to see the first publication of computer graphics animation in a film.

After stepping into this new area of animation, Lasseter was so excited that him and his colleague Glen Keane went on with the project at Disney Studios, in which they would use computer generated environments with hand-drawn characters. Although, Disney firstly agreed with the project, soon they had to cancelled due to lack of support, this event also led to termination of John Lasseter's contract at the Disney Studios.


After leaving Disney, Lasseter joined Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group, where he and a group colleagues continued the cancelled project,and this was the start of computer animation, with his 1st computer animated short: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. Lasseter achieved much more of what he had expected. Not only he created 3D environments, but also the characters were 3D.
While creating some more CG short films, Lasseter had an idea to create a full- feature film, this was the beginning of the so-loved Pixar's Computer Generated films. From beautiful and close story of Toy Story, and Finding Nemo, to the touching stories of Wall-E and Up!. Although Lasseter didnt direct all of them, his touch can be perceived in all of Pixar's Films, a man that knows what is story-telling, and believes that a good story overcomes beautiful graphics.

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Animator: Tex Avery (1908- 1980)

Tex Avery was an American animator, cartoonist and director, famous for producing animated films or short film during the Golden Age of Hollywood Animation. He worked mainly for Warner Bros., but also for MGM Studios, inventing characters, such as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Droopy and also developing others such as Porky Pig, and also animating them.


Avery's way of directing encouraged many animators to produce cartoons where the medium allowed them to, for instance, animate the characters to do things that couldn't be done in live-action films. Creating funny yet painful cartoons of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.

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Animator: Chuck Jones (1912- 2002)

Chuck Jones was a American cartoonist and animator, who produced over 300 animated films. Jones started his career by washing cels for the former and master animator Ub Iwerks at Iwerks Studio. After a short stay at Iwerks Studio, he moved on to work with Friz Freleng as an animator at Leon Schlesinger Studio.
The admiration that Jones had for the animators at that studio helped him not only to work with them but also to improve his way of animating.
During the Golden Age of Animation, alongside other animators, Chuch Jones helped bring to life many of Warner Bros. most famous characters- Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Proky Pig, Coyote and Road Runner, etc.




Although, the huge success with the characters Warner Bros. Studio had to close leaving Jones and many other animators unemployed. Even though he stayed shortly at Disney Studios, Jones moved to MGM Studios, where he created neW episodes from the Tom & Jerry cartoon series.
After working for other studios, Chuck Jones decided to open his own production company - Chuck Jones Enterprise- where he started by producing 9 half- hour animation films for television.
Later in his career, he joined his daughter to publish and share his art and ideas, by creating an educational institution dealing the art of animate.

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Animators: Disney's Nine Old Men

Disney's nine old men were a group of main animators set at Walt Disney Productions. Who created most of the iconic films to date due to its amazing and " believable" animation. Not only they applied the twelve principles of animation to the films , they actually refined them creating a more believable and enjoyable experience to watch.

This group was formed by 9 masters of hand-drawn animation:


Les Clark (1907-1979)


He was one of the first animators to join the Nine Old Men, working with Ub Iwerks creating many of the Mickey Shots in films, He did also many other beautiful scenes at Disney. After all the success at Disney, He moved onto directing many other films.



Marc Davis (1913-2000)


Marc Davis started to work at Disney in 1935, during the production of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. He animated many of the most famous characters at Disney, such as Bambi, Cruella De Vil, etc. For someone who started as an apprentice at Disney, He achieved amazing reputation by the creating and animating, many of the iconic characters building Disney's reputation.

Here's a list of films he worked:


Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs (1937) - Assistant Animator

Bambi (1942) - Animator

Victory Through Air Power (1943) - Character Design

Song Of The South (1946) - Directing Animator

Fun And Fancy Free (1947) - Animator

So Dear To My Heart (1949) - Cartoon Story Treatment

The Adventures Of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (1949) - Animator

Cinderella (1950) - Directing Animator

Alice In Wonderland (1951) - Directing Animator

Peter Pan (1953) - Directing Animator

Sleeping Beauty (1959) - Directing Animator

101 Dalmatians (1961) - Directing Animator

Ollie Johnston (1912- 2008)


Ollie Johntson as 1 of the first core animators integraded into Disney's group Nine old men. Johnston, apart from being an really good craftman, he had also a huge talent for animation.
All this talent can be perceived in the episodes of "Frank and Ollie", where Johnston was part of the animation team, this same drawings not only have life by the power of animation, but also their feelings, pathos and gags.
Nowadays, he has been a source of inspiration for many contemporary artist and animators, including John Lassester and Tim Burton, with his "perfect" animation and emotional characters.



Milt Kahl (1909- 1987)



Milt Kahl was another brilliant animator who belonged to the 9 most prestigious and core animators at Disney. He drew many of the importants characters in Disney films, such as Peter Pan, the Lady and the Tramp or even Mowgli in the jungle book. After retiring from Disney Milt Kahl, was privately employed by many other wanabee animators to share his techniques and his perfect craftmanship.



Ward Kimball (1914- 2002)



Ward Kimball was another core animator at Disney in the 60's, even though he didnt have the main characters to animate, he had to animate the secondary with the same effort. He had a secret love for music, and this allowed him to animate characters more fluently, but also more accurately.As I mentioned before many of his works consisted in animating characters that would act alongside the main character, such as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland; Lucifer the Cat from Cinderella; and Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio.



Eric Larson (1905-1988)


Although Eric Larson wasn't one of the most famous 9 old men, as his work instead of belonging to many beautiful animations, stayed in recruting new talents and aspiring animators to would allow the continuation of talent at Disney Studios. with the best animators leaving Disney at that time, this recruiting program gave the opportunity train many wanabee animators such as, Joe Ranft, Ron Clements, John Musker, etc.



John Lounsbery ( 1911-1976)


John Lounsbery was a comic animator, that specialized and mastered the "squash and stretch" principal of animation. Along with the other 8 old men at Disney, many with different techiniques branching from the principals of animation, allowed to create many important films.
His works consisted in the dacing alligator in the "Dance of the Hours" sequence in the film Fantasia. The elephant march in the "The Jungle Book", etc. Not only, he animated for most of his life, but also he directed an co-directed many other films at Disney.



Wolfgang Reitherman (1909-1985)


Wolfgang Reitherman was most known for making the action sequences in such films as Pinocchio, Fantasia and Sleeping Beauty. Creating really dinamic animations never seen before. After "leaving" the drawing room, he directed many other films such as "The Jungle Book", although he did a great job inside Disney's as a director, the period that he directed films showed a decline of Disney's "Magic".



Frank Thomas (1912- 2004)


Frank Thomas is another legendary figure in the world of Animation, being the other part of "Frank and Ollie" animation teams, alongside Johnston. Also, his works consisted in animating Peter Pan's Captain Hook or the ice skating sequence in "Bambi".
Thomas and Johnston shared their ground-breaking techniques in the hand- drawn animation field to future animators, where they used the principal of animation, but also improved them.

All this 9 legends of Disney Animation, created many films that are the company of every child or every adult, giving not only motion, emotion and life to characters and to films, but also by using, what I like to call, the " magic ink", in which these beautiful drawings are made, adding a little hint of magic to the Disney's films.

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Animator: Ub Iwerks ( 1901- 1971)

Ub Iwerks was a American Cartoonist, Animator and Special effects technician, who was famous for working alongside Walt Disney in the creation of the company and of the characters that later labelled it.


Iwerks met Walt Disney in 1919, while working at the Pesman Art Studio in Kansas City, this strong friendship led to eventually start a business together, Although many bumps, and some company bankruptcy, they finally moved to Los Angeles. where they founded Walt Disney Studios. Ub Iwerks at that time was the artist responsible for all the animation in the studio, not only designing characters, but also animating them all by himself. He was the artist, behind many Disney characters, such as Oswald the Lucky Rabit, Clarabelle Cow or Horace Horsecollar. and also the iconic Disney character, Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie, the first sound/ animation film was animated by him.



After many of hours of unfair work, and rejection, Ub Iwerks friendship with Walt Disney had fell out and it led to Ub Iwerks leaving the Disney Studios and open a small studio under his name.
The Iwerks Studio opened in 1930, and was expected to have a great success under Iwerks command, Though the creation of characters such as Flip the Frog or Willie Whopper didnt have a major success. Giving all the reputation to his rival of that time Walt Disney.
Iwerks quit the studio and started to produce indepently small short animations, and also being employed by Looney Tunes company to create 4 episodes. All this change in Iwerk's career led nowhere.
Thus, He returned to Walt Disney studios in 1940, but this time only to supervise the animation and work as a technician in special effects. In this other profession, Iwerks succeeded by improving techniques in composing animation with Live- action via blue-screen, and many others techniques.
Iwerks, not only worked with Walt Disney studios in the special effects area, but also he helped Alfred Hitchcock in 1963, to create a masterpiece of technical achievement in the film the Birds.

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Animator: Bill Plympton (1946-)

Bill Plympton is an America animator, using hand-drawn animation techniques to give life to characters.
Plymptons's animations are really stylised in a sketchy style. By the stylisation of the characters and respective world, he tries to create a comedic effect to the story, Although stylised characters are already exaggerated , I perceive Plympton's characters as being a step even further, he over-exaggerates the characters by creating complete perfect caricatures. Plympton's illustrations and cartoons have been published in The New York Times and weekly newspaper The Village Voice, as well as in the magazines Vogue, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Penthouse, and National Lampoon.

As I mentioned before, his animations have an unique style, induced by the sketchy look yet communicative drawings. From coloured Pencils to minimalist line drawings, he approaches animation in many different ways.

Plympton is considered the 1st animator to draw every frame for an animated film. Although he uses less frames per second, as the movement is quite jumpy, this approach really creates an frenetic animation, that jumps from action to action, but that really suits the stylised characters.

Working with him is Signe Baumane, director and animator, who inks and colours each frame.



The Tune was his first animation, and the one, which Bill Plympton fully financed on his own. It features this really exaggerated characters living in these minimalist but yet exaggerated environments. The jumpiness of the animation is visible but it is also essential for this movie as it features a lot of singing and dancing. Bill Plympton, not only change characteristics on the characters but also he applies that to the all world, by over-stretching, over squashing and morphing.

I must admit, that I was not familiar with this animator, but I was stunned in the end , everything was working that really glued me to the screen. The characters were a delight and really an inspiration for my works from this point on.

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Animator: Rene' Laloux (1929- 2004)

Rene' Laloux was a french artist , animator and film director, who started in art by doing painting, and later worked in a Psychiatric Institution, where he started his hand drawn-animations with the interns.

In one of his animations called Fantastic Planet (1973) he uses drawings that are reinforced by the use of really strong colours. The design of the world was really interesting really similar to anything out of the surrealism, where the places looked like dreams, and it went well with the characters, despite his emptiness sometimes. One of the things I caught was the importance of music in this piece, not only it created atmosphere, but also it was used to emphasize the actions.


It bore a strong narrative that drove the audience throughout one hour of film, where it take on the social values and the idea of respect, in this animation humans become the target and the alien civilization Draag become the attacker. In my opinion, it criticizes the way people see the world, as a far superior being compared to other animals or plants. A case where the predator becomes the prey.


Although it had a good narrative, which I enjoyed to the fact that criticized society. i found myself disliking it because of its cranky and not appealing animation.
I don't know maybe because I am used to see hand-drawn animation where all the frames are drawn to the minimal movement detail, for instance's Disney. This one was rather weird, and the walking cycle looked a bit unfinished.



After Uni, I took some time at home researching Laloux's works, and I found a rather less known film called Time Masters,1982 , for the few minutes I saw I really enjoyed it. In this film is visible the delightful world that is seen on the other animation, where the environment looks like something out of Shaun Tan's illustrations. Also the fact that is set in space, gives a whole sense of science fiction to the whole feature. But one of the things that it doesnt share from the previous animation, is the crankiness of the animation. In this film the animation is far better, and the treatment of the picture looks much better.
This Animated film, reminded a lot of 1980' animated TV Series, such as He-Man or Transformers, not that I was one of the biggest fan of them, though the style is quite similar. Maybe because it belongs to the 80's.

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Animator: Jiri Barta (1948-)

Jiri Barta is a Czech stop-motion animator, who was famous by using ,once again, known objects such as dolls or far more natural sources such as wood to create his weird and twisted animation full of uncanny effects. Although, they had this effect, they also helped to create a richer critic to society values or even political.
I must say I wasn't familiar with his work, but after watching the short film>Klub Odlozenych (Club Of The Laid Off), I must say it is interesting and delightful to see how he uses objects that can identify easily with the actual people, and strongly criticizes society. Even though the characters were manikins with a rather scary look, I felt a strong connection between them and people in general, who demonstrated their importance for family and its values. Maybe they appearance helped to identify better or not, but the idea to fight for what is yours and your families was presented.
As I mentioned before, Barta uses any kind of materials for is animations, but with the only purpose to emphasize the meaning behind them and creating a strong narrative.

Definitely worth to have a look at his work, as it is a brilliant approach to animation, not only technically but also story-wise.

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Animator: Brothers Quay (1947-)

Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers are two identical twin American aanimators working in the are of Stop-Motion. Their animation, likely Svankmmajer's, features the concept of the Uncanny, by the use of dolls, the rich highly textured environment, where every bit of dust counts. The Quay Brothers had many influences, from writers such as Franz Kafka or Robert Walser to other Animators such as the Russian pioneer in Stop-Motion Animator Władysław Starewicz or the polish animator Jan Lenica. Also the importance of music in their animation creating a really expressive effect are influenced by the polish composer Leszek Jankowski or by the Avant- garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, creating music that is highly effective.
People may notice the similarities between this type of animation and the one of Svankmajer's, yes they were also influenced by him, who they paid a homage by creating a film called " The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer". Although their animations may seem quite similar, In my opinion they are really distinctive. While Svankmajer uses stop-motion in a surreal way, using well-known objects provoking the uncanny effect or any other concept. Brothers Quay's animation is a rather more expressive, from the dark and weird, almost distorted environments to the whole weird narrative, and the addiction of really expressive music. The use of dolls, yes gives the uncanny feeling, but also helps to create the world in which the narrative is set. this old dirty and long abandoned world or in contrary the world of dreams and nightmares, the unconscious mind.
All these factors seem something out of Tim Burton's film, but is good to mentioned that who got influenced by this animations was the now famous Tim Burton and his "unique" style.

here is one of the their animation, which was shown today to us. and where all the aspect mentioned before, an expressive world, dark, distorted and weird, with rather uncanny-like characters, constructed upon a weird narrative and accompanied by a really avant-garde, yet expressive music.

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Animator: Jan Svankmajer (1934-)

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech surrealist artist, who uses stop motion, to create the most distinct and weird works but yet brilliant. Being a Surrealist, Svankmajer applies themes of dreams, fantasy, emotions and desires into his works. Using as influences, the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo or even Freudian concepts dealing with childhood and the desires that it often arises. His works not only are about dreams, but also share the uncanny aspect, where he uses everyday life objects creating a rather scarier approach and vision of them, by giving life or even a personality.
Although, Svankmajer's work lack in narrative aspect as most don't even have a 3 act structure story, the way it is depicted in such a surreal way using strong editing and camera angles are the delightful aspect of his films.

One of his most famous short films, is Dimensions of Dialogue, 1982.





In this short film is visible the influences I mentioned before, the portraits using flora and natural elements by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. This short film is divided, by 3 types of dialogue, the first part called " Exhaustive Discussion" shows a succession of actions where one of the heads eats the other and vice-versa, these heads being something out of Arcimboldo's Paintings. The 2nd Part is called "Passionate Discourse" and shows a intimate "dialogue" between two hyper- realistic clay busts, where most of Freudian concepts can be perceived.Finally the 3rd part, "Factual Conversation" is once again again a mute dialogue between two clay bust, where each one presents an object that belongs to each other, as they swap places these same objects start to be misplaced.

Also, one of my favourite short films by Jan Svankmajer, is a really short animation called Meat Love, Yes I mentioned it and posted before at the beginning of this unit as I find it really similar to what we have to do.




Anymore research about this Animator will be expressed in my essay as he is the chosen topic.

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Animator: Ray Harryhausen (1920- )

Ray Harryhausen is an American film producer and a special effects creator, who uses Stop- motion to create the most incredible of the environments. Harryhausen's passion started as a child, he liked to make his own models of dinosaurs and other monsters, all perceived from the museums he had visited and films he had watched. The direct influence for his work was the ancestor in special effects Willis O'Brien, with the creation of Kong.
Although Harryhausen's stop motion follows the same concepts of O'brien's one, by the means of the evolution of technology, Harryhausen's is more fluent with lesser bumps. and allows him to create superb environments such as the colossus in Jason and the Argonauts.



Jason and the Argonauts was showed to us yesterday, as a film which it is known only by one name, Ray Harryhausen because of the special effects.



Jason and the Argonauts is a 1963, fantasy and mythology feature film directed by Don Chaffrey. It shows Jason's trip to Colchis, a land on the other side of the world. As he adventures in this quest many incidents will occur, from fighting with Titans to fighting with hydras and skeletons.
Exactly, this film is really famous for his story, because apart from being a transcription from a Greek legend, it was also changed to adapt better to time. And no, the acting is horrible, making us laugh in some parts where he shouldn't suppose to. I mention what is famous and well produced for its time in this film. The special effects, yes the special effects are a delight to look at.
Although they may look a bit dated, as nowadays the use of CG took over the special effects in film. For that time the use of stop-motion was the only technique used and how mastered it was by Harryhausen. From the fight with the Colossus, though a bit bumpy it created actually a good effect, to the fight with the hydra and its seven heads which had been a challenge to animate. Not forgetting the most dynamic and interactive scene of them all, the skeleton fights, Although this scene looks also dated, it is still a pleasure to look at it because it was one of the 1 big steps onto intereaction between special effects and the characters. Previously in King Kong, also interact with the set and with the characters but no in such dynamic way, as a sword fight.



While, Jason is fighting the Skeleton is visible some faults, not by the part of animation , but rather from acting, but really who cares when you are presented to such an innovative and frenetic scene in the history of cinema.



To conclude that Harryhausen was a real master in stop-motion, creating scenes never imagined possible by man.

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Animator: Willis O'Brien (1886-1962)

Willis O'Brien was a Irish-American motion picture special effects, who used stop-motion to create actions not really possible to do in real life. Alongside with Ladislaw Starewicz, he was a pioneer in this field of animation. He was known of working in many films in Hollywood, such as Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933).The latter being one of the most famous in the history of Hollywood cinema.


King Kong is a 1933 action film, co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Where by the pioneering work of O'Brien, a lot of monstrous fights can be seen. Its plot evolves around a photographer who wants to take the "perfect" picture of these beast that lies on this never visited Island. However, to complete this picture, the photographer has to find a woman to travel with him and pose with the beast, in a tableaux-vivant, in which the photographer likes to call the Beauty and the Beast. When they arrive to the Island, they are not aware what really lies in there, but after seeing this tribal ritual, they start to realise that they just stand inside a trap. Where the Big Kong reigns. Not only they can find, but actually they bring him back to New York to be the center of attention, this and the feeling of not being loved results in King Kong's death.



On one hand, I find King Kong technical side an important step for the history of cinema, because it opened the door for the special effects in films, and it created worlds never seen before, and impossible to portray. However by applying stop-motion, it created more dynamic scenes such as the fight with the dinosaurs, or when Kong attacks the sailors in the log scene. It applied stop-motion in scenes, but also made it interact with live-action footage which by the means of editing and montage created delightful scenes.



On other hand, It is also a good achievement in story-telling, and what such a sad story, I felt so sorry for Kong, who was taken from his habitat, where he lived with a new found love, the woman to be transported to a true jungle full of "rifles" of capitalism, shooting at him from all sides. A love story between Kong and the woman, that resulted in his death.
The latter happening was labeled as " the beauty killed the beast", but in fact it all started where they decided to bring Kong to so "civilized" world.

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