Introduction:
Throughout this week’s blog, it’ll first be talking about what we went through in this week’s lecture, which was mainly focused on the groundbreaking experimental animations created over the years. I’ll then review one experimental animation film that I’ve watched in the past, analysing certain elements that represented formative abstraction and how it was evidenced throughout the work.
This Week’s Lecture:
In this week’s lecture, we discussed and looked at experimental animations. We were reviewing numerous animations, dating back to the early 1900s, seeing how artists reached their potential by experimenting with new technology to create groundbreaking work. We spoke about formative abstraction, focusing upon the manipulation of the visual fundamentals; of colour, form, space, light, and texture, alongside the dynamics of movement, time, rhythm, and sound as a central theme of work. Towards the end of our lecture, we were asked to update our blog, writing about an animated film that we would categorise as an experimental animation and why.
The Red Turtle (2016):
I watched this animated film a few years ago as I’ve always been intrigued by Studio Ghibli’s movies. I realised at the time that this film wasn’t surrounded by the Japanese culture which I thought was different and unusual from all of the Ghiblis’ films I’ve watched, as they have consisted of the Japanese culture. Furthermore, I was fascinated by the aesthetics of the animation as it appeared to be something I wasn’t used to watching. I took this opportunity to re-visit this film and research the ideation behind this movie.
Synopsis:
This film is about a man who gets shipwrecked off the coast of a deserted island, home to countless turtles, crabs, and birds. Later, he encounters a massive red sea turtle who continuously decides to destroy his raft every time he tries to sail away from the tropical island; however, this red turtle leaves an impact on his life.
Trailer:
Categorisation:
This movie would come under the family and fantasy genre. From the beginning of the film, we notice that the protagonist is stranded on some sort of fantasy island. This automatically sets a lonely mood for the audience. However, it also set a peaceful mood for me, even though the narrative was about a man who’s stranded on an island and requires help. This could be because the island was aesthetically pleasing and looked like a place where I would personally like to escape to during hard times. Throughout the entire film, we’ve established that the theme of the film was based on humanity, nature, and the nature of humanity, as we continuously witness a relationship being formed between man and nature.
Form and Function:
Without even researching the ideation behind the movie, I could automatically assume that the director and writer of this film aimed to tell a great story whilst using minimum dialogue. From looking into the director, Michael Dudok de Wit, I found out that his biggest challenge was to design a production pipeline that addressed the graphic needs of his film. As he normally works on short films, rather than featured films, I would imagine one of his objectives was to maintain his unique style, and not let Studio Ghibli implement drastic changes into their project. This probably led Michael Dudok de Wit to work with a smaller animation crew compared to what’s usually expected from a 2D European feature film.
Process:
Michael Dudok de Wit had stepped out of his usual procedure and chose to draw the film digitally, using the TVPaint software on Cintiq tablets. This was the first time he has created a film using digital drawings. He chose to draw the backgrounds with charcoal on paper, with broad strokes smudged using the palm of his hand. He believed that the artisanal quality was crucial as it gave the image a lovely, grainy texture. He would then scan those images and input colour using Photoshop. Many viewers thought Michael Dudok de Wit used the rotoscoping technique to control the character animation; however, live-action reference footage was shot instead to film the actors’ strongest poses. These poses were then used to redraw everything. Even though Michael Dudok de Wit is a hand-drawn animator, he used CGI for the turtle and raft. They were modeled and animated in Autodesk 3Ds Max, and the textures were created in Photoshop and were integrated onto the character using Blackmagic Design’s Fusion. The artist explained that the turtle would be difficult to animate if he hand drew it, due to the shape of the object.
Formal Elements:
Whilst watching this film, I noticed there was a lot of empty space within the majority of the scenes. This works well as the film’s narrative is based on a character who’s lonely on an island. I feel like the empty space within the frames helped to express the character’s loneliness. The artist had used many vibrant colours throughout the movie. I believe the artist’s reason for using the colour Red for the sea turtle was because of what the colour represents. Red is typically associated with passion, love, and anger. We as an audience can see these emotions portray through the protagonist and the turtle’s relationship. The pacing of the film varied from slow to fast, depending on what was happening. for instance, the default pacing of the film was quite slow; however, for the moments where the protagonist attempted to escape from the island or was in danger, the pacing of the film would suddenly speed up, building tension. As I mentioned before, the movie lacks dialogue. The use of silence was a great technique to emphasise the relationship between man and nature. It caused us to focus on the visual elements to understand the story.