Media Studies Animation Lesson!

Today in our Media lesson we watched 3 videos, each showing an animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy2hrrI5BKY    -   John Lewis 2013 home insurance ad.

The beginning of Chicken Run (Ginger in solitary confinement to Edwina being taken to the chop).

Wallace and Gromit, Curse of the Were Rabbit (Wallace opening the skylight to brainwash the rabbits to Hutch twitching in his cage).

Each one had different aspects of animation and I admired and would consider using myself eventually. For instance, in the Chicken Run clip, the sky continues to change colour as the day progresses. When a key character is shown with the sky behind them, the sun acts like a halo as if they are radiating light and shows they are innocent. When the evil Mrs Tweedy is shown, the sky has clouded over and the blue becomes dull and grey. I enjoyed this aspect of animation and I would use it to show how much time has passed in a single day without directly stating it.

In the John Lewis ad, I liked how as a lot of household objects made their way outside, they were positioned to mimic the movements of animals: the spoons standing up in the draw reminded me of meerkats, some of the books reminded me of birds and the rug that rolls itself up near the end gives me the image of the slug or a snake. These animals are as familiar as the objects found in the home, so the link is more entertaining as the furniture that is usually inanimate mimics the animals that would never be found in the home.

In Wallace and gromit, the use of the moonlight through the skylight gives everything a blue filter as well as shadow, so when the camera changes silhouettes of the rabbits and the machinery become larger and the wisps of brainwaves out of focus give it a very gothic feel, as if they are still on the move without the characters' consent.

Even though I couldn't find the right parts of two of the clips they still made enough of an impression to give me a few good, clear ideas of what I might take from this to create my own work.