it's late and I'm just sitting around getting inspired with my roommates, so I thought it would be a cool time to post some links of stuff that I have either grown up with or have discovered recently. I won't go all out in one post, so I'll try and just do this in segments.
This is one of my most favorite animated films ever made: Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards"
(ps. there are a couple of scenes where an army animated via live-action rotoscope fights an army of traditionally animated characters. This is the only time other than Bakshi's animated LOTR film that anything like this has ever been done. ycklutcilyfckyfclu!!!)
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Ridley Scott films! I don't think I've ever seen a movie by this director I haven't completely enjoyed. The attention to detail in the overall design and tone of his films is what makes them so great. Here are my two favorites:
Blade Runner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcZHjKJBnE
The story alone, being drawn from Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", is so great. It may not be the first time they combined film noir with science fiction, but it is something that propelled the idea into a lot of people's minds. Harrison Ford plays a cop-type character who's job is to hunt down renegade androids living as humans on Earth. As much as that description might sound like a chunkhead's ideal storyline, it is taken on in a very subtle and meaningful way. The atmosphere is so dark that you literally do not see a sky until they end of the film (referring to a scene where a bird flies away, not the crappy theatrical version ending. I don't mean to get all angry nerd-guy on this, but the only version you need to watch is the director's cut.)
and Legend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxViR7eCuM
I saw this movie when I was little, and even though it's meant to be a fantasy film, it scared the cannolis out of me. This movie has some of the best make-up and costume design I have ever seen, coupled with a great attention to crazy voice acting. The main character is played by a teenage Tom Cruise (meh) who sets out to rescue his lady friend from Satan. Yes, Satan. Technically he's called the "Lord of Darkness", but come on:
That's Tim Curry, by the way. He's somewhere under the layers and layers of latex and red make-up. So anyways, if anything, this movie is an awesome experience, whether you can stand the corny storyline or not. (weird fact, the original score for this movie was completed by Jerry Goldsmith, who really hit the nail on the head in every moment of the film He even considered it his best work. However, during the first screening of the film, R. Scott hated the reactions he was getting. Some people showed up completely stoned, expecting a kind of lush, fantastical trip. Which it totally is! Ridley immediately took it away from theaters, and approached Tangerine Dream about composing the score for him. They finished the entire thing within 3 weeks, giving the movie a much more progressive, haunting atmosphere. Both versions of the movie are open for purchase, and both are equally memorable.)
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One of the many claymations I grew up with was Aardman Animation's "Wallace and Gromit" series. I've already talked about how their animated logo was one of my favorite things to watch when I was little (again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISaQVAYzxIs). The world of Wallace and Gromit is so wonderfully quaint. I mean it kind of has to be, with claymation you are making every single set and so the universe is only as big as you can imply it to be. However, with Aardman, they always seem to play off of how small they can make this little town of people, most of the time only showing the main characters & where they live/work. The animation has always been top of the line, along with the audio work. This is one of those companies I always keep a hopeful eye on, always scanning their job listings. Anyways, one of the scenes that I always remember is the triumphant plane segment, where they pretty much defy physics and animate Gromit making a daring escape in his bike/plane transformer thing. Not only do these movies look great, but they are so clever with all the little inventions and goofy mess-ups that they get involved in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy9QeosTh7w
-also, with the sheep part of the scene there has got to be some kind of reference to early film chase scene. Maybe the keystone cops or Buster Keaton or something
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On sort of a smaller scale, this is a music video someone edited together for "A Little Longing Goes Away" by The Books. For some reason, this is something that has always stuck with me. It has given a bit of inspiration to both music and visual work that I've produced in the past year. It's a really great marriage of audio/video, using imagery from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and other bits of Nasa Footage to back the really airy and subtle music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-oNlYp6AeU
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This is an older BBC animation of Mozart's "The Magic Flute". I loved everything about this the first time I saw it: the colors, the design, the music, everything except maybe the goofy story/singing dialogue part (but that's an opera, duhhh). The initial scene is one that has been stuck in my mind for a long time, specifically that so much is communicated with no dialogue in this totally abstract world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Wp3p3did4
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Here is a really great film called "Baraka" that was one of the first really visual-based documentaries I ever saw. This is one of those movies that I watch and get really pumped to go capture anything with a camera. The whole film was completed in14 months, spanning 24 countries, on 6 different continents. I don't know if I could encapsulate this craziness well with words, so I'll just post the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tJjZpwUZ8
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I'll end on this for tonight... my teacher recently edited this video together (hopefully starting a series of them) that goes through a highlighted timeline of early film. I will admit that I have yet to check out a lot of these things, but this video alone makes me want to devote a day to investigating some of these movies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVHXKzT_LB0
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Hopefully, if you've made it this far, there was something cool in here for ya! I'll try and compile some more links/info of cool projects in the near future. In the mean time, animation has been occurring almost every day. Some of it turns out really cool, some of it is shot and looks poopy, but overall this has turned out to be one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on- which it should! It's thesis! Have a good night and do cool things!!
(pps. meet Bodhmall, another of Fionn's caretakers)
super proud of this model. those eyes are nearly the size of ants. took so long to get them to look not horrifying haha
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