tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post7636958575483823313..comments2024-03-29T05:13:13.015-04:00Comments on Mayerson on Animation: Michael Dudok de Wit and The Red TurtleMark Mayersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00065971589878678848noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-31272383359853726102017-05-15T02:31:34.108-04:002017-05-15T02:31:34.108-04:00Doctor's films get away with all kinds of logi...Doctor's films get away with all kinds of logic problems, but who cares? Would a person prefer that UP didn't include talking dogs or a knock down-drag out fight between a hero and villain with a combined age of over 160 years? Of course not. Animation can be so appealing, so magical, that an audience will overlook logic flaws. <br /><br />But that doesn’t let an animated film maker off the hook. <br /><br />A truly successful movie should satisfy the needs of both the heart AND the head. Mr. Doctor's films may be chock full of fun, but they don't FEEL completely right. To enjoy them, you often have to give the film makers a pass.<br /><br />But why should you? When you plunk down your 15 bucks for a ticket, don’t you deserve to see something that works on an artistic AND intellectual level? Dudok de Wit says they "...couldn't find words that seemed to fit the style of the film." This is because his movie only appeals to the audience's emotions. As soon as you introduce any instance of brain power into the story, the film falls apart. <br /><br />If the movie did include dialogue, the first thing the adult man would say to the turtle-woman would be "What the hell? Are you a turtle or aren't you? And our kid, what exactly is he? If you can talk to turtles, please tell them to go away and find someone who can GET US THE HELL OFF THIS ISLAND!"<br /><br />This movie has been described by the press as “a gentle fable” and “a profoundly simple meditation.” But it’s really just attractive, well animated gobbledygook. It had no point, and worse yet, put the audience in the position to try and interpret what the filmmakers were trying to say! After seeing a movie made by professionals, certainly an audience deserves to leave a theater with a few answers… not just a bunch of questions.chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12509178948884361307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-81339884722894369222017-02-06T07:18:38.682-05:002017-02-06T07:18:38.682-05:00Mark, where do you think folks like Pete Docter &a...Mark, where do you think folks like Pete Docter & Dudok de Wit, filmmakers with obvious talent and unique voice, are going wrong with their films in attempting to make use of the animation medium & the strengths of its storytelling techniques? Could this be substance for another essay/lecture like your one on "Don't Pitch to a Buyer, Pitch to the Audience”?<br /><br />THE POWER OF ANIMATION; is that you can show the audience things they cannot see in standard film. Animation can make metaphor REAL in the context of a creative visual filter for a story. As an animations staging & visuals become less literal, its content is freed to become more emotionally specific. Metaphors & thoughts expressed using the beauty of visual art & illustration is not something that can simply be copied from reality. It’s cultivated from the context of the director & viewers mind(s) understanding visual association to convey thoughts/meaning. Animation enhances this by creating specific pictorial representation to do so. Representation of the real world above recreating of the real world. Every expression, whether it concerns music, literature or visual art, it’s all about sending a message to the outside world. Making another person aware of an inner emotion, shared experience or striking idea. To make a personal thought visible to others in a cognitively sensual way, tickling their minds-eye/interest, and trying to communicate something in a way so that they are not uncertain about it from an emotional point of view. The issue that makes invention a creative challenge is that there are multiple basic concepts about your fiction an audience needs to grasp before the rest of it beings to unfold. Without this you get uncertainty to a story. We often forget the seemingly simple and stupidly direct “realities” that you need to establish, in order for your grand fantasy concepts & creative viewpoints to actually make sense and be communicated successfully. This balanced against the Tyranny of trying to be concise, and simply being unable to give every context necessary in a single statement or moment in a limited amount of screen time. In trying to create, do or even say anything you have a limited scope of time & resources. Trying to say, point out or cover everything in a fiction so that it somehow matches with the scrutiny of a real world context is irrational & restrictive for a filmmaker. To paraphrase you & others: <i>“What I hope to get from a film is an emotional experience. Despite logic flaws, if the film is emotionally satisfying throughout it can maintain audience cognition/reasoning. But the undoing of this is if too much happens by authorial fiat, where it doesn't correspond to any internal logic of the film.”</i> The problem in creative fiction is an internal logic often becomes the extrapolation of any fictional concept or device taken into the real world and beyond the context of the silver screen that it was intended for. How do you avoid a level of this creeping into a story that isn't set in a pure & directly relatable reality like our own, aka the fantasy setting? Can we nail down what aspects make this successful vs not? Below are some great videos for context on the strengths of the animated medium & inspiration for this line of enquiry asking what you might suggest the strengths of the animation medium are, and how to navigate them.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anQeqlax0qk" rel="nofollow">Andy Saladino on Isao Takahata & the filter of Animation</a> & <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9WEyuMq0Yk" rel="nofollow">Roger Ebert on Grave of The Fireflies & Animation</a> & <a href="http://invisibleinkblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/why-deus-ex-machina-doesnt-make.html" rel="nofollow">Deus-Ex-Machina</a> & <a href="http://invisibleinkblog.blogspot.com.au/2006/09/whats-wrong-with-emotions-anyway.html" rel="nofollow">Emotions</a> by Brian McDonald, Author of invisible inkMatthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08064510044826161777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-89598529936099628542017-01-28T22:09:07.451-05:002017-01-28T22:09:07.451-05:00I don't know for certain, but I'd guess th...I don't know for certain, but I'd guess that the reasons were economic. There were seven production companies involved. I'm sure that most, if not all, of them brought money to the production. Mark Mayersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00065971589878678848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-32304986182828808292017-01-28T19:11:40.694-05:002017-01-28T19:11:40.694-05:00Interesting that the film was produced by Ghibli b...Interesting that the film was produced by Ghibli but the production was actually done in Europe. What's the story behind that? Does Ghibli no longer have access to the animation talent, or was de Wit's sensibilities more European and so working with a European crew made more sense? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com