Due to simplistic style of animation and the inclusion of colourful cartoon characters, I would say that my target audience is very young, probably 7 and below. Although my animation involves a mermaid and romance, which can easily attract female viewers, I would argue that due to the pirates and action that feature in my film it appeals more to the young male audience.
Jack is 5 years old. His favourite shows are Little Einsteins, Swashbuckle and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Jack enjoys playing with his toy boats and other bath toys in his paddling pool.
Synopsis: Rex the
Sailor has his ship destroyed by a storm, leaving him at the bottom of the sea;
there he must battle and avoid horrible sea creatures whilst trying to rescue a
beautiful mermaid.
Characters:*Rex the Sailor *Suspicia the Mermaid *Goodwick
the Whale
*Seabiscuit the Seahorse *Seals *Crabs *Lefty the Octopus
*Ace the Shark
Key Scenes: The
key scene is where Rex meets Suspicia but both are chased by Goodwick, as it
introduce a love interest but the lovers are separated by this dangerous
addition to the story. Of course, the happy ending is also crucial, as the
lovers are re-united.
Sound Recordings:
No voice actors will be needed as all characters are silent. The animation will
link up with two sets of music – Symphony of the Seas by Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra and a segment of Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture by Tchaikovsky. Industry Trends: I feel that my character and story are fit for purpose and will appeal to the target audience. Pirates are popular amonst younger audiences, as proved by successful TV shows like Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Swashbuckle and how well these shows have done in terms of views and merchandise sales, so I believe my pirate character will also appeal to this specific audience. The lack of voice allows for more animation opportunity as the character is more dependant on movement and charade. This also mean there is no language barrier so he can appeal to a much wider audience, similiar to children's characters WALL-, Morph and Mr. Bean, who have achieved global success due to using mime and facial expressions as part of their charm instead or verbal communication.
Below are the rough sketches I created of my character.
Below are the five final images I created of my character by placing the sketches on Illustrator, which I used to recreate/trace them in neat, before moving them to Photoshop to colour them in. These images show a range of emotion and actions that I plan for my character to display in the animated feature.
1. Action: Standing.
Emotion: Happy.
2. Action: Being squeezed.
Emotion: Unhappy, uncomfortable.
All these animation companies have produced fully animated CGI films. Pixar have made all their movies using CGI, whilst Disney, and Warner Bros. started with traditional forms of 2D animation before making the step to CGI. Dreamworks started with CGI, made a few 2D animated films, but then returned to CGI for their movies. Aardman was owned by Dreamworks, who encouraged them to make the move to CGI animation. The companies teamed togethor to created Flushed Away, which recieved mixed reviews in terms of it's animation. Aardman left Dreamworks and moved to Sony, where they made Arthur Christmas, another CGI film. Whilst Arthur Christmas recieved positive reviews, many weren't sure of the art style or animation. Aardman returned to their original claymation style, which they had continued to use for their short films.
All these animation companies have used 2D digital animation. Disney used it on films such as The Princess and the Frog and for their award winning short film Paperman. Dreamworks has used 2D digital animation for films like Sinbad and Pixar have used it for projects such as Day and Night. Aardman have used 2D digital animation for the creation of their ident and the opening sequence for Creature Comforts. Warner Bros. still use 2D digital animation for the creation of most of their cartoons and relied on it for the creation of their film The Iron Giant.
Only Disney and Warner Bros. have used traditional 2D hand-drawn animation, which they used on their initial projects. However, neither company uses this form of animation today as many mainstream companies believe it has become outdated and, due to the cost and man-hours this form of animation requires, many animators avoid this challenging form of animation. Another factor of why it isn't so frequently used is also that you can include more realistic detail in a CGI image as apposed to an animated drawing. Disney and Warner Bros. are also the only companies listed that have crossed live action with animation, although it should be mentioned that Aardman's Creature Comforts did use real, unscripted sound recordings and created their animations based around those.
Aardman has been the only one of these companies to use Claymation. Warner Bros. considered making a stop-motion movie using Lego figures, but resorted to the easier option of CGI, although they kept it in the same style by making character actions jerky. Some Disney films have used stop-motion animation and Claymation, but none were created or produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, as Disney is a conglomerate company, so they have other animation companies for other animation projects (e.g. Nightmare Before Christmas was a claymation movie created and produced by Touchstone Pictures, which is owned by Disney, but not part of Walt Disney Animation Studios). Although Pixar make all their films using CGI, they have said the Claymation has inspired them, especially pieces made by Aardman. For example, the designs for the seagulls in Finding Nemo were based on the penguin from The Wrong Trousers. DreamWorks never made any Claymation films, but they did own Aardman for many years and so helped to distribute their Claymation movies.
a) Genre
Like many animated Disney films, Frozen is a fantasy adventure that also incorporates themes of musicals and comedies.
b)Individual Animators
Lino DiSalvo, as well as working as an animator for Frozen, also worked as the head of animation for the film. DiSalvo has also worked with with Disney on some of their other CGI films, working as a supervising animator on projects such as Meet the Robinsons, Bolt and Tangled. DiSalvo credits some of Disney's previous films such as Pinocchio and The Lion King for getting him interested in animation. Frozen went on to receive multiple awards and praise by critics for its animation.
Every twelve weeks, animators and other staff working the film would present their work for the film and receive notes and feedback on how others felt about it and what could potentially be improved; many films undergo a similar process, in what is called a test-group screening. This feedback would be taken into account would encourage and influence the scriptwriters, concept artists, storyboarders and animators in what they needed to do to get the best audience results for their final product.
d)Narrative/Storyline
Although inspired by The Snow Queen, Frozen follows a newer story plot. The story starts with our main characters when they're only children and are in a state of equilaibram untill Elsa accidentally hurts Anna with her ice powers and tries to hide her powers from all and so hides herself away.
The characters then transition into adulthood through a musical montage, showing key moments of their lives and establishes their personality. The rest of the opening shows the contrast between Elsa and Anna, as one fears being near other people whilst the other gets excited about the chance. The story continues and reaches a shocking moment when Elsa's powers are accidentally revealed in front of the whole Kingdom and so she leaves to hide in the mountains, turning Summer to Winter by mistake in the process. The audience follow Anna as she attempt to correct this mistake and find her sister, whilst along the way she meets an interesting collection of characters as she comes into contact with love, betrayal and nostalgia which each character she meets. Being a Disney film, the story does of course come with a happy conclusion, although it does come after a shocking twist that goes againt fairy tale conventions. However, the villain is defeated, Anna is saved thanks to her heroic actions and Elsa learns that through the power of love she is able to control her powers and restore the kingdom to how it was, ending with a satisfyng conclusion.
e)Target Audience
Whilst Frozen seems to mostly appeal to kids, it was intended to be a family film, with aspects that would entertain all ages, such as a talking snowman to entertain younger audiences and action and innuendo to entertain more mature audience members. However, whith both the main characters being female, sisters and princesses, you can easily argue that this film was aimed more towards a younge, female audience, espiecally since the movies merchendise is almost always created for young girls. Disney probably relied on the young female audience for its viewing figures due to their large popularity with princess movies and how much they interest small girls.
f)Characters/Stars
The main character of Frozen is Queen Elsa, voice by Broadway star Idina Menzel, who was best known for her role as Elphaba in Wicked. Many viewers observed that the character of Queen Elsa is very similar to Elphaba as both of them are feared because their magic powers, but neither have any true evil intentions, they're just misunderstood. It is believed that the writers for Frozen were heavily inspired by Wicked so the chance to have one of its stars play the main role must have seemed like an ideal casting choice. Interestingly, Menzel auditioned for one of Disney's previous projects, to play Rapunzel in Tangled; Disney were impressed by her audition but felt she didn't suit the role, but saved her for their Frozen project.
Frozen also stars Josh Gad, Jonathon Groff and Santino Fontana, three more successful Broadway stars. You can assume that from Disney's casting choice mostly Broadway stars that they wanted the show to have a mostly Broadway feel about it, which makes sense for a large musical production.
Josh Gad plays Olaf, the talking snowman who fits into the plot as tolken comic relief character to make sure that children are still entertained and add comedy to avoid the atmosphere from ever getting too intense for a younger audience. Gad was known for his role as the humourous sidekick in the comedy musical The Book of Mormon, so he suited the role of a comedic character and would often entertain people working on the film by ad-libbing and experimenting with the script. One of the writers of The Book of Mormon was Robert Lopez, who worked as the songwriter for Frozen, so it's likely that Lopez recommended Gad for the project from his experience with him.
Jonathon Groff, an award winning Broadway actor in his 20s, supplied the voice for Kristoff, the film's love interest. Santino Fontana, another young Broadway actor, played Prince Hans, who at first appears to be the love interest, but in a shocking twist towards the end of the film is revealed to be the antagonist. Kristen Bell plays Anna, and also inspired many of the characters facial designs.
Chosen Animation Company - The Walt Disney Animation Studios
a) Company Structure
The Walt Disney Animation Studios is the leading film
company to be owned by the conglomerate Walt Disney Studios company. It is the largest film production company owned by Disney and has a close partnership with DisneyToon Studios, another animation company created for/by the Disney company.
b) Media Applications
The Walt Disney Animation Studios are recognised for its animated full-length motion pictures and shorts, but they have also supplied the animation for other Disney projects (e.g. animation in live action films and for rides and attractions at the Disney resorts).
c) Types of Animation
The Walt Disney Animation Company specialises in a wide
variety of animation types and styles. Walt Disney himself started with
hand-drawn 2D cel animation, creating the iconic Mickey Mouse cartoons. He also worked on live-action and animation
crossovers in shorts such as his Alice
Comedies, which would feature a real child actress in a world or animated
animals.
The Walt Disney Animation Studios would continue to regularly use 2D cel animation in their films and shorts for many years. The concept of live-action and animation crossovers would also be used in
some of Disney’s other films, such as Mary Poppins and Bed-knobs and Broomsticks. However, whilst The Walt Disney Animation Studios helped to supply these films with animation, the films were not produced under this company to keep its status as an animation company as opposed to a general film company.
Although most of Disney’s films used 2D cel animation, the
animators would sometimes struggle to animate certain physical aspects, so the
company resorted to rotoscoping to help the animation technique and reduce the
risk of error. This involved live actors playing out certain scenes for the
animators to trace over. Animators would also use scenes from their previous
films and trace over those to reduce the cost of ink and again avoid any errors
whilst animating; this technique was heavily used in their adaptation of Robin Hood, which used scenes from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats.
In the 60’s, the animators also turned to xerography to cut
down on cost and man hours; this technique was especially successful with their
film 101 Dalmatians as it helped to
duplicate the amount of animated puppies on screen and give the film it’s own
interesting art style. Film critics also complimented Disney on it’s use of the
animation technique for the film The Many
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, saying that it helped the characters look
more like book illustrations as they were intended to be.
http://vegalleries.com/update_jan12/dalm0798.jpg
In later years, the rise of computer technology inspired the
animators to find new ways to animate. The
Black Cauldron, although mostly created using 2D cel animation and
xerography, was the first animated Disney film to be aided by computers. The
computers were used to create some of the cauldrons and special effects for the
film. Throughout the 90’s, Disney continued to make 2D animated films, but
computers were used to make the animation look sharper and neater and were also
used for some assets and visual effects such as the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast and the Hydra in Hercules.
It was through the development of this technique that the concept of 2D
digital animation was introduced and used more frequently on animated projects
such as The Princess and the Frog.
In 2000, Disney released Dinosaur,
which was heavily inspired by the success of Jurassic Park and its ground-breaking use of realistic CGI
technology. Dinosaur, whilst
featuring some live-action sequences for the scenery, was made mostly using
CGI. Disney returned to 2D digital
animation for a while, but then started to create full length CGI films in
order to compete with other successful animator companies like Dreamworks,
which ditched 2D animated films to impress larger audiences with the new effects of CGI. Disney followed it’s example and started creating 3D
computer animated films like Chicken
Little and Meet the Robinsons. These films were not successful financially or critically, but the company
soon appointed John Lasseter, of Pixar fame, as Chief Creative Officer for their future film projects. Lasseter was responsible for some of Disney's most successful films in recent years, supporting films such as Tangled, Wreck It Ralph, Big Hero 6 and the multi-award winning Frozen, the highest grossing animated
film of all time. Frozen,whilst using
computer animated technology, even had new pieces of equipment and technology
developed for production of the film, including a simulator to create unique
snow flake designs so that each flake of snow in the film would be different. Frozen also opened with a short film titled Get a Horse! which starred Walt Disney's original character Mickey Mouse; this short was made using CGI and 2D cel animation in the style of Disney's original art style. This short was created to pay homage to Disney's classical animation and also show far animation techniques had developed.
d)Regulatory Bodies
Disney specialises in family-friendly films, so before they are released they must be checked and analysed by the MPAA to check that it is appropriate to show to everyone (U rating) or if parental guidance is required (PG rating) or if it needs an age restriction, although this is rare for Disney animation. Due to Disney's colourful, up-beat and family-friendly approach, it isn't usually necessary for an age certificate to be put in place, although Disney have had to make some of their films PG. For example, Big Hero 6 was rated PG as it depicted scenes of violence, death, and implied mature content.
The Rescuers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit were released on
video tape and, with the introduction of new technology features, viewers were now able to rewind, slow-down and pause the films, allowing them to see things they might not have seen before. Both films included inappropriate scenes of
nudity that when played at normal speed would occur too quickly so that they wouldn't register with most people. These moments of nudity were missed by the censors, the MPAA and
cinema audiences and were not discovered until released on video. Both
films had to be recalled upon discovery and modified before re-release, with Disney removing
the inappropriate scenes/sections from future re-releases to avoid complaints from the MPAA or future audiences.
Meanwhile, the Disney movie Song of the South has never been released onto video or DVD, and probably never will. This is because it includes out-dated scenes that depict slavery and many critics consider these scenes to be racist. Disney have not encountered issues with any regulatory bodies about releasing the film, but the company have decided not to release it on video/DVD to avoid causing any further controversy or offence. Though many people have complimented Disney's choice to not re-release the controversial film, some have sighted that Disney could release the film as long the attached a disclaimer in the same style that Warner Bros. released original Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons onto DVD with a disclaimer on the case and another video disclaimer hosted by TV personality Whoopi Goldberb.
