Cartoon movie 2016

Cartoon Movie is a different form of pitching your ideas,'Producers have the opportunity to pitch their project to all potential financial partners gathered in the same room, in order to find co-producers, speed up financing and negotiate deals with distributors, sales agents and game companies.'

This Cartoon Movie project allows you to pitch your idea in four different stages of development, for example you would be able to just pitch your concept, your projects in development, your project in production or a sneak preview of the completed animation. I think this is an amazing project to be involved with, not only will you gain networking links and marketing but a chance to pitch your idea, within 30 minutes to convince the public/buyers to invest into your idea. Interestingly game developers attend this as well, with wanting to bring their game to animation, or vice versa, an example of this can be seen Angry Birds,a popular mobile app game.

I would love to pitch my extended work in this project, the experience alone would be worth it.

Source:

http://www.cartoon-media.eu/cartoon-movie-event/cartoon-movie-2016/discover-the-projects-1.htm

Leeds International Film Festival - The Empire of Corpses

The Empire of Corpses, a prominent 2D animation with a merge of CGI approaches to machinery and background characters. This animation was by far my absolute favourite of the all the animation I watched at LIFF, with Ghost in the Shell at a close second. I loved this animation for how beautiful it was, the Victorian theme with a mixture of excelling technology worked well for both the aesthetic and the plotline. The plot line was gripping and I genuinely didn't know what would happen next. I loved the mystery side to it and the relationship between characters which aided the plot significantly. The ending scene was by far my most favourite scene, the visuals were stunning with tension, drama and emotions being attacked and engulfed.

I was heavily inspired by the plot and visuals of this animation. It really inspired me for my Extended project. I wanted my audience to be younger than The Empire of Corpses however the visual storytelling was gorgeous and I really want to absorb these techniques that this animation has used.

Leeds International Film Festival - Ghost in the Shell Arise

After the first ghost in the shell movie last year at LIFF, it was nice to compare how far the advancement of technology and style had added to the aesthetic of this new ghost in the shell movie. Even though the cell animation and painted backgrounds of the first original movie were breathtaking, this new movie absorbs this style whilst also successfully merging 3D and digital 2D aspects. This makes the visuals stunning and this transfers to the motion of the animation. Vivid colours were used to draw the attention of the spectator, specially with the Majors eyes.

The animation works well, no slow or jarred movements. My absolutely favourite scene is the fight sequence between the major and an enemy blocking her path, the same enemy is scene throughout the series that was released before the movie, the movie being the concluding chapter. Majors movements on this fight sequences are fast and fluid working well with the enemies actions as he tries to stop her from jumping behind his back.

I love the facial expressions seen on the Major in this sequence, as in the old ghost in the shell, the Major is the fan service character and is always drawn to look flawless, even with a missing limb, however in the arise movie her expressions are more realistic. You can clearly see the strain and force that the Major uses to fight and defend herself.

Leeds International Film Festival - Miss Hokusai

Miss Hokusai is a 2D animation with elements of CGI that are nicely textured to work with the general aesthetic. The aesthetic is beautiful, it is heighten with the cleverly used cinematography, such as the awareness of space, differing between deep and shallow focus to make the scene more dramatic.

Storyline didn't have that crescendo however loved the story regardless. I would say that the run sequence near the end would have been the crescendo but in my personal opinion it was more of a desperate action to reach her sister whom she already knew the circumstances, that personally isn't a crescendo as the build up was quite slow, so it was more of a nice but emotional end. The story was based on a person in history but would have been nice to have seen her with her husband at the end, even though they divorce, it still would have ended nicely. I knew that her life wasn't meant to be a happy ending as in reality no one really has that knight in shining armor and she herself wasn't that bothered with romance, her work was her life.

I liked the supernatural additions, it reminded me of Studio Ghibli's approach, in fact parts of the character design and overall aesthetic was approached with that iconic Ghibli appeal. I loved the thick eyebrows, they worked so well for the main character, as well as the fly-away pieces of hair.
Referring back to the supernatural additions, I loved how the dragon ripped from the paper and became a gust of wind. It worked so well and the secondary animation of the paper and characters around it being taken with the wind aided the action.

Leeds international Film Festival - Expelled from Paradise

Expelled from Paradise is a CGI animation merged with backgrounds that absorb a mixture of 3D and 2D elements. This helped the atmosphere of the desolate earth that the humans left behind. I quite liked this setting, it meant that the overall appearance of the earth would look distressed which was captured nicely in the backgrounds. I found the overall animation of the characters to be quite fluid, it worked successfully and more realistic, compared to the slowed down movements seen in The Case of Hana and Alice. In addition the CGI in Expelled from Paradise appeared to have the facial features drawn on top. Whether this was a creative choice to have the facial features 2D or an amazing form of texture was used in the 3D software, it worked well for the overall appearance of the show.

The storytelling was slow and did have a crescendo but wasn't enough in my opinion, however I did like how the 'terrorist' was a good guy throughout, even though the plot was obvious. I think the storytelling was missing focus on the main two characters of the show. The beginning of the show purely focused on the main woman character and too much time was shown of just her, if a connection between the two characters had been shown longer throughout the film, the reasoning between the characters relationship at the end of the animation would then be reasonable.

Cinematography was nice during fight scenes, it immersed the viewer in the action, even in slow scenes the dialogue was made interesting with different shots that were used. I quite liked the CG in the ending act, everything was nicely textured so it worked more successfully with the backgrounds and 2D elements in the facial features.

The most inspirational elements were the cinematography and use of backgrounds. I want to absorb their use of cinematography, analysing techniques of cinematography further which I will be researching into for my COP3 project.

Leeds international Film Festival - The Case of Hana and Alice

The Case of Hana and Alice is a CGI and rotoscoped animation. The overall aesthetic looked nice with a merge of 2D and 3D textures/elements for the backgrounds. There was no immediate use of shading on the characters however the use of environment light worked just as well. It aided the style of the animation.

I was quite disappointed with the storyline. The teaser trailer and posters looked amazing, it made it seem like a detective mystery. However the storyline wavered and changed into something different compared to what it teased at. It became a 'slice of life' and comedy genre, which the gags in the plot made the film for me rather than the main plot and visuals. Even though I was quite disappointed I did enjoy the character interations especially with Hana and Alice, and a crazy student who pretended to be possessed; this led to some really funny gags.

The animation was terrible in places, two slow for basic movement, especially the fall sequence at the beginning of the film. I wasn't sure if it was trying to show the movement in slow motion, but the whole scene lasted for two long, and the action just faded by the time she finally landed.

Cinematography stayed close to the main character, this effect kind of made you feel connected to the main character but some of the gags matched with the animation ruined some of the emotional scenes.

I was inspired by the use of gags in the show, which was seen through both dialogue and actions. I want to be able to use this in both Extended and my COP3 practical.