Triplets and a Bride

Hello all, after another lie in, I thought I would update the Internet with the rest of my week so far. Last Tuesday I watched Belleville Rendez-Vous or Les Triplettes de Belleville for the first time, which is a French animated film by Sylvain Chomet. It was an incredible film, full of surreal characters and settings and a gripping story. It was very touching and a joy to watch, even just for the animation and background paintings which combine to make literally every frame a work of art.

It follows the story of a young boy who lives with his grandmother and trains as a cyclist to enter the Tour de France, but he his kidnapped during the race by the mafia and his grandmother and dog set out across oceans and cities to rescue him. Although a little dark in atmosphere at times, it also has a great sense of humour and an amazing musical score. There is even a scene where the characters make a song out of a newspaper, a fridge shelf, a vacuum cleaner and a bicycle wheel. Now that's inventive.

Although often devoid of dialogue (there is next to none) this allows the characters to truly express themselves with their motion and body language and even their character design (vulnerable characters are small and the mafia are large and square). Full of imagination and creativity, I highly recommend it to anyone!

My second set of films for this post are two volumes that I have somehow managed to not see until now. This is of course Kill Bill Volumes I and II by Quentin Tarantino which I watched back-to-back last night. They have left me speechless.

Although full of very bloody violence I could not help but love these films. From the very first shot you are drawn directly into the story. The quirky combination of stop start action and highly contrasting music created the most bizarre atmosphere that you could only admire. The performances given by every actor was incredible and swung dramatically from serious moments to comedic deaths and jokes in moments.

Quentin Tarantino gives you carefully crafted expectations of what will happen next before completely twisting it around and leaving you emotionally and morally confused, a feeling I have little experienced in cinema. Only in looking back at the entirety of the two films can you piece together where you were fooled.

And of course, what masterpiece can go without a good ending? Kill Bill Volume II does it with ease, leading you on an emotional roller coaster even more intense than the first. I cannot say anything more without spoiling the end, so I will leave it up to you to watch this beautiful film if you haven't already. In one night this went from unknown to easily one of my favourite films/one of the best films I've ever seen.

There is also a gorgeous animated sequence by Production I.G. but bear in mind that this and the two films are rated 18 for a reason, although I think the second one could have got away with a 15 if it wasn't for the mental exhaustion you get from what the characters go through.

But enough of films (even if they are amazing). Yesterday I finally decided what I am going to animate for my next project which is due in next Friday (9th). I had some storyboards for a previous idea, but I wasn't connecting to it, so I went back to the drawing board and redrew a new idea with the help of some great advice from family and my lecturer.

I decided to go along a musical theme to represent my love of musical sound and playing bass along with the graceful playfulness of a mermaid (I'm sure I'm obsessed with them).You can see the original sketches and storyboards for it below, along with an example of how many keyframes I have drawn (and how badly I need a proper camera) so far (46 out of 125 and counting).

The rest of my afternoon will be spent finishing my keyframes and tomorrow I will test the timing on Ernest (our linetester) to see if it's too long or short for 10 seconds! I feel that this animation is far more personal than the random abstract images I had before (it will not be uploaded!) and I look forward to finishing it and showing everyone when I have a copy on film.

Last Thursday was an awesome poster sale at Uni, and I had to go and buy myself some new posters for my room, 'cause one: it was looking too bare and two: the posters were so cool! I took a picture of them (from left to right, Radiohead, art by Daniel Conway and The Nightmare Before Christmas).

And finally, Rob, Zara, Alex, Jess, Bryony and a couple of others from animation and I are setting up a Movie Society here at Newport. We'll be watching diverse and obscure films and animation every Tuesday night to broaden the horizons for the Animation, Film and Computer Games Design courses. I'm really looking forward to it! I made the poster for it yesterday.

(Please click on the image to full view it, there's a lot of detail in the header that I slaved over! See how many movies you can spot! :P)

Anyway, that's me done for now, I have to sort out my washing and finish my animation! Until next time, TTFN!

Love Gemma xxx