#a tim burton claymation of this would be amazing

[demonbarberofbeepbeep]

Lucy Barker by DemonCartoonist @igcardoso-demoncartoonist

[jazzy-tzw]

I thought he would have made an amazing horror movie both alone and working with Stephen King and Rob Zombie

Yes!!! Even a Tim Burton type movie with the claymation seems like it would’ve been of interest to him!

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Corpse Bride

“Corpse Bride” might be about undead brides, but it has more heart than most romantic movies that come out nowadays.

Victor Van Dort is to be married to Victoria Everglot, due to arranged marriage. They seem to connect well, but Victor just can’t get his wedding vows down. He flees the church after he accidentally sets Victoria’s mother’s dress on fire, running into the forest. There, he practices his vows and unknowingly marries a corpse named, Emily. Victor must now come back to the world of the living before Victoria marries the wrong man.

I feel like I start most of my reviews with ‘I watched this movie in theaters’, but I can’t help but say that. This film holds a special place in my heart because I watched it and enjoyed it as a kid. The aesthetic perfectly encapsulates the vision Tim Burton had for his cinematic worlds. The claymation still holds up today, The music makes me want to learn the piece on the piano. The story isn’t as tight as I would like it to be, but that’s easily looked over because every frame of this movie is beautiful. This film uses color so brilliantly and it’s a sight to behold. I’m glad that this type of film was made for children. It introduces the horror aesthetic in a friendly, non-threatening way. It invites children to look at death from a more positive light. It also teaches more about love than most romance movies nowadays. Today, most romantic films revolve around a type of love that’s fixated on a selfish pursuit of happiness. “Corpse Bride” wasn’t afraid to show that sometimes, to love someone means to step out of the way so that they could be happy. I think that’s an amazing thing to teach children. I’m pretty sure most people have already watched this. If you haven’t, then what are you doing? Go watch it right now.

★★★★★

Rewatched on October 14th, 2020

[tygerseye]

T-Minus 9 and 8 days!

Sorry I totally blanked yesterday about posting a countdown post!! XD

So today you get TWO!!!! It is (now) 8 days till Halloween!!!!!!

Without further ado I give you:

#9: Coraline

Now, I figure quite a few of you saw Coraline but not many know that it ISN’T A TIM BURTON MOVIE.  Poor Henry Selick always getting overshadowed by Burton :(

Now I like Burton still but Selick is an amazing director too.  In fact he was the director for Nightmare Before Christmas!!! Tim Burton was the producer (and honestly everything in Nightmare Before Christmas came out of Burton’s head.. he had been drawing images of characters in that movie since the 70s at least... but that’s another story).  Henry Selick is also the one who brought James and the Giant Peach to life and one of my all time favorite goof movies Monkeybone!

Back to Coraline! So the movie is based off a book of the same title by Neil Gaiman.  Yep!! That Neil Gaiman who created such wonderful graphic novels and books as Good Omens, Ananasi Boys, The Sandman, and American Gods.  

So (Some Spoilers), Coraline is this young girl who has moved to this old creepy house.  The house is shared by other equally odd tenants including a man training acrobatic jumping mice who lives in the attic and two old ladies live in the basement who used to be famous performers.  She meets a young boy named Wyborn (Why-be-born) who says he’s surprised his grandmother rented the house to a family with a daughter because children aren’t supposed to be inside the house.  Coraline soon finds out there’s more to the house than it seems when she discovers a small door in a wall... at night this door opens to a long and creepy tunnel which eventually connects to a kind of alternate universe of the house where there are duplicates of her parents and of the tenants and even Wyborn... but they all have buttons for eyes.

From here Coraline unravels the mystery of this other world and she faces off against an evil creature that has killed previous children that lived in the house.

My absolute favorite thing about this movie has to be the visuals.  Selick has always had an amazing eye for color and contrast, which you can see throughout all of his movies.  Coraline has the ultimate visuals and came out right at the beginning of 3d movies so there’s certainly impressive moments if you’re able to watch it in 3d, like the sharp end of a sewing needle coming straight for your eyes >:)

Also, it’s easy to forget in a world of computer graphics that this entire movie is classic stop-motion Claymation.  Everything you see is REAL... real sets, little clay doll figures... people took painstaking hours perfecting every little detail.  I love Claymation and I think it’s just incredibly impressive when someone can achieve such art which is then captured in film with clay.

So I’ll keep this short just because I have another movie to go over.. but what I’ll leave you with is this:

The movie is beautiful, fun, and genuinely has one of the darkest and creepiest plotlines of any family movie.  Pay attention to details... like Wyborn and his grandmother... the parents relationship with Coraline... there’s a lot of interesting psychological tidbits to unpack in this movie which leaves you discovering new aspects every time you re-watch it.  In fact if you’re interested, there’s a number of youtube videos out there explaining just how dark and twisted this story really is.

Without further ado, here is a trailer for the movie! :D

#8 Vincent

Vincent actually IS Tim Burton XD

This 1982 short film is a great early example of Burton’s work.  It really is a short one, but it’s absolutely delightful!  A young boy named Vincent Maloy has fantasies that he’s Vincent Price (the movie is actually narrated by Vincent Price!) and really.. that’s the movie XD

One thing I love about this movie is it’s drenched in Edward Gorey influence.  If you don’t know Edward Gorey, he is one of the kings of Goth.  He created creepy children’s stories such as an alphabet of death called The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

I’ve talked a lot about Gorey before, especially with last year’s music countdown and the song A Gorey Demise by Creature Feature so if interested go take a look at last years countdown to find out more about Gorey :D

Vincent also makes a lot of references to Edger Alan Poe’s work such as The Raven.

Another great thing about this movie is it’s another great example of Claymation stop-motion.  Selick and Burton both always had a great interest in the medium which is why Nightmare Before Christmas turned out so amazing.  What is great to see, though, is early depictions of characters you would later see in works such as Beetlejuice and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Overall, this short film is just the perfect little representation of classic goth and it shows just how long Burton has had these dark and creepy visions running through his mind.

With that here is the entire short film for you to enjoy! :)

[deadtiredmax]

‘DIPPY’S DEMISE’: MULTIMEDIA VFX EVALUATION

Overall, while I think the final outcome is far from perfectly refined, the workflow and digital techniques used show a lot of progress and improvement in my time as an animation student, and the film displays some of my strengths as a creative.

To start, the 2D character was one of the first frame by frame characters I had attempted that lasted several seconds, that had to interact with another media appropriately by moving its arms and changing facial expressions. I’m generally happy with how the character turned out; it’s bold facial expressions and scratchy line boil conveyed the gritty but cartoonish style of the short very well, and its motion overall was very fluid. A negative however was that somewhere along the workflow, too many frames were added and so it later had to be sped up in post to keep up with the footage and react appropriately to what was happening. The workflow of the character itself, while repetitive as frame by frame tends to be, was efficient and resulted in the general outcome I wanted, and I was able to work on the elements of the animation I found difficult (such as the raising hands) with pre-planning and trial and error. This could have been avoided by more concise planning of how many frames would be needed in the animatic stage, and/or keeping track of how the timing is coming along by comparing each shot after competition with the footage. Another element I didn’t like much was the timing of the animation itself which, for the most part, made each shot move at the same pace and didn’t add as much visual excitement or emotion I was hoping for.

The background and Claymation assets matched the themes of the short well, having a handmade, tactile look to them that displayed the multimedia element and inspirations from The Amazing World Of Gumball, Tim Burton and Ghostbusters. While they both had jerky, choppy movements, I think this enhanced the handmade themes and benefitted the outcome, and these assets were able to fit neatly into the composition. As for the sound effects, while I think they were charming and exactly what I had in mind, next time I intend to use Premiere Pro as the sounds can be mixed and altered in ways After Effects doesn’t allow.

As I now know, in a visual effects workflow, poor quality live action/green screen footage can cause a domino effect in terms of problems in post. While I was able to direct my friend in giving a ‘performance’ that matched the cartoon energy of the character and film in general, there was a host of issues that had to be worked on in post; the way the hand was consistently off centre, the footage was incredibly blurry, and the lighting was not even or consistent. While these were problems, this made an opportunity for me to independently problem solve, probably the biggest task yet in my time studying and creating animations as I had done it before but never to this level, since I was trying several different methods I had barely done previously. I tried two new different methods to sharpen the footage, which worked somewhat well but had a harsh outline around it. The second, biggest issue I had was the masking, which is my least favourite part of the short. It clips constantly and isn’t convincing at all, and very little could be done to help this other than constantly trying over and over to get the best possible outcome; these issues all come back to the poor-quality footage. I want to make more multimedia animations incorporating live action in the footage, so I know understand the importance of good quality, well lit green screen footage, as many elements of the compositing rely on it. Despite being disappointed in the live action footage, I’m very proud of myself for working so independently with tools and techniques I hadn’t tried previously. I felt genuinely confident going into processes I was very unfamiliar with and was ultimately able to display knowledge and problem-solving skills in my workflow, even if the results weren’t overly effective.

Final film: https://youtu.be/WhwxewRvD_w

[thegeeklee]

Review: Little Nightmares (PC/PS4/XB1)

I was expecting Little Nightmares to be like Little Big Planet if it was directed by Tim Burton. This comparison isn’t far fetched seeing the makers of Little Nightmares, Tarsier Studios, contributed to many previous Little Big Planet games. Instead it turns out it’s more closer to Inside or Limbo than my original comparison.

For one this isn’t so much a kid game. While Little Big Planet would be rated G in Australia (for General Audiences), Little Nightmares is rated M (for Mature Audiences). There’s good reason for that as well, because while it won’t give me nightmares, I’m sure it could give little kids nightmares! The reason for this is the game is based around a little girl called Six, who must escape from a prison like scenario. There’s platforming to be done, some minor puzzles, but mostly it’s about sneaking around, hiding and running away from creepy characters trying to capture you.

The characters are pretty amazing. Stylistically they remind me of an old stop motion film from the 90s called The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb. The size of your character and the other characters really helps give a sense of scale, as to how small and vulnerable you are. In fact the whole game has this real tactile feel to it. Much like Little Big Planet, the textures to everything have a sense of realism, despite it’s somewhat cartoonish/claymation/puppetry nature.

The overall atmosphere is great, with a wonderful soundtrack and near constant feeling of tension as you slink your way through various sections of this mysterious location. I would suggest avoiding seeing as much screen shots as possible prior to playing the game so you get as surprised as I did in parts. It soon becomes apparent that there is something a bit sinister going on at this place. I could be wrong, but the regular featuring of imagery such as butchered meat and obese characters makes me think the game is giving out a subliminal message about consumerism and meat eating.

Unfortunately though, as much as I was enjoying many elements of the game, Little Nightmares quickly become known to me as “Little Frustrations”. I played on PC with a controller. This should not be an issue as this game has simultaneously launched on PS4 and Xbox 1. Plus from what I’ve heard, the keyboard controls are not as good as a controller. Which must be very bad, because I constantly found myself fighting the controls. I often was having to be a contortionist, to reach multiple buttons at the same time to pull off running/jump/grab moves. Many sections require fairly precise platforming. Trial and error games can be about failing until you figure out the solution of how to approach a section. This is the not the case here. Majority of my failings I felt were because of imprecise/awkward controls rather than my own failings.

This might somewhat have been avoided had controls been able to be remapped, however unfortunately this feature is not included. Perhaps something to come in a future patch. Luckily though the game doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. My playthrough clocked in at 4 hours, but on average most people seem to be taking about 3 hours. If the game was any long, I think the controls may have frustrated me to the point of giving up.

Overall, Little Nightmares is a great little game that is somewhat held back by bad controls. Even if it had better controls, it wouldn’t have been quite the masterpiece that Inside is. That said, if you can deal with the controls for a short period of time and are after a creepy, European flavoured puzzle platformer with some of the most interesting art style and atmosphere of the year thus far, then you might get a kick out of this dark surreal cinematic wordless tale, straight out of a child’s worst fears.

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