Batman vs. Robin: My thoughts

Batman vs. Robin is a sequel to Son of Batman, the story in which Damien Wayne is raised by the League of Assassins. In this story, Damien has settled into living with Bruce and is about to be Publicly adopted by him. Until Batman goes after the Dollmaker, a psychotic man who kidnaps children and surgically alters them to make them "Dolls"

After they catch the Dollmaker, a man in an owl mask comes and rips the Dollmakers heart out. He then tells Damien that he should let batman go and follow the path of the Assassin. This is the first batman movie I've seen to incorporate the Court of Owls into the story line. The Court of Owls is a secret society in Gotham that Controls the city from the shadows. Its filled with the rich elite who kill off any threat there is to them, by taking assassins and making them "immortal". 

Ive only discovered the lore about the court of Owls recently and I wanted to see how well the story held up in film. Oddly enough I enjoy the rendition they made.

Son of Batman: My thoughts

The Son of Batman is an animated movie made by DC Comics. Its the origin story of Damien Wayne, son of Bruce Wayne and Grandson of Ra's Al Ghul. His mother is the Daughter of Ra's, Talia, who tried convincing Batman to join the League of Assassins. The Leagues headquarters were attacked, forcing Damien into hiding. Talia decides to let Bruce raise Damien. However philisophical fighting ensues since Damien was raised to kill by the League. Bruce tries to normalize Damien while also letting him go on missions with him as Robin. I wanted to watch a set of DC animated films to see how they make their stories. I will say the action and the story are both very compelling, the budget of the animation seems a bit low. It might be because budgeting for these these types of movies can be very costly.

Leucotopia: My Thoughts

Leucotopia is a short 3-D animated film where a man controlled by robotic chickens explore for a woman. This animation was extremely weird. At the beginning of the animation a purple alien woman is shown with a chicken growing insider her stomach. After which a giant blue man in a desert wakes up. Inside the giant man are three chickens controlling his mind. The chickens control him and make him walk to a tree where they make him eat it, so they can get nutrients. Then they find the woman they were looking for and the leader of the chickens takes off his head and starts to feel up the purple woman. The blue man then wakes up and takes the chickens out of his head and smashes them into the ground. The blue man then gets absorbed into the woman's stomach and curls up in a fetal position.

Megamind: My Thoughts

Megamind is an animated movie made by dreamworks in 2010. It centers around two children "destined for greatness" who flee from their planets as its about to be destroyed. One lands in a mansion, while the other lands in the state prison. The one that lands in the mansion is handsome, cunning, and basically perfect while the other is weird, smart, and basically a geek. They both end up going to the same school and thats where the blue child learns that his true destiny is to be the villan to his hero. And they both grow up respectivley until one day, Megamind wins a battle. After that he becomes lethargic and makes a new hero for him to battle. This is an interesting take one superhero movies. Most of the time in superhero movies the hero is the kid whos bullied and misunderstood, but they switch it around in this. It shows that anyone is capable of both good and evil and its up to us what we what to be. The moral of the story is become who you are meant to be, not what everyone makes you out to be.

Chris Sasaki: Pixar

The other day a character designer from Pixar came to talk to us about his life in the work of an animator. He went to college in California for animation. After which he started trying to apply for animation studios who all told him the same thing, "You have a great portfolio, but you lack work experience." He just kept applying for jobs all around until someone asked him to work on animating a sequence for the special edition copy of Beerfest, an american comedy movie about the German Oktoberfest. After that he kept doing more and more odd jobs until he was able to get into Pixar. He ended up doing character designs for Monsters University, which is interesting because he first decided to be an animator after watching Monsters Inc. Chris gave us a lot of insight into the workspace of an animator in america, which I'm going to have to be soon enough. It opened my eyes on how my future might be.

My Thoughts: Anastasia

Anastasia is a movie made in 1997 by Fox Animation Studios. Its a fictional story about the youngest daughter of the last Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. The animation style itself is absolutely beautiful. It was Rotor scoped, meaning all of the characters in the film were animated from filmed references. Many people viewed the movie as good, but missing the "Disney Princess Magic". Its release in 1997 was overshadowed by the Film Hercules, which came out a few months before and at the time was receiving wide media coverage. Still, this movie made it out and was received well with both critics and audience alike. Some of the critics were harsher on it because of the fictional take on the real Princess Anastasia, but said that it was a good story nevertheless.

Thoughtbubble

Thoguhtbubble is an indie comic con based in Leeds. I went over a weekend and met a lot of comic book artists, bought a few of them and went home. Oddly enough there were a lot of American artists selling their comics there, I even met someone from Chicago. I also met a few artists from London, Houston, and a few other places. I bought a poster influenced with pagan symbols from a fine artist going to college in London. It was really interesting to see all of the people there who were like me. I would have cosplayed but I didn't have a costume to go as.

BAF:Strange Hill High

Strange Hill High is an TV series about a group of school kids who go on spooky missions around their school. Its made through the use of puppetry, which is odd if you think about it being in an animation festival. But its not as odd as you would think. Puppetry, like animation, is about creating animated characters out of drawn or crafted art. It's bit like pseudo stop motion. Whereas stop motion animation is created from single frames put together to create an animation, puppetry is in real time. Animation and puppetry aren't that different if you think about it.

BAF: Colin Graham - Watch Dogs

This was one of the highlights of the entire animation festival. Colin Graham is a lead designer for the video game Watch Dogs, a video game about a hacker that lives in a futuristic Chicago. I personally didn't enjoy watchdogs for various reasons, one of them being that the map of "Chicago" within the game is absolutely incorrect. They put Wrigley field in the west side, and on the north side there's an entire woodland camping area that didn't exist before. It wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't call it Chicago, but they did. It seems to me they were trying to pull the fan base from GTA, even though they could have made an accurate representation of Chicago, they decided not to. Still,  I received a lot of insight into motion capture and how its produced within the video game world, Which if nothing less, is interesting.

BAF: Films For Children

The films that we were shown in this screening were created to teach children moral lessons and such. Many of them were in Russian oddly enough. I remember one about a little Russian girl running from bears and ran into a family of them. She didn't know what a bear looked like so she followed them around. Then the bears led her home and back to her parents. I think this story represented two lessons. the first one is of course don't run away from your parents. The second is not to prejudge people based on their appearance.

BAF:Laika Animations - The BoxTrolls, Behind The Scenes

During BAF, we went to  a behind the scenes presentation of the BoxTrolls, along with a Presentation by Travis Knight, President of Laika Animation Studios. Known for their works: Coraline, Paranorman, and now The Boxtrolls., Laika Studios was founded in Portland Oregon, and thus far has won over the hearts and imaginations of children. Something interesting I found out is that a lot of their references are rotorscoped to provide the most natural movement. Travis also brought along some of the faceplates used in Paranorman, Some HERO sculptures from The BoxTrolls, and an Armiture they used in Coraline that got passed around the audience. I managed to snap a picture of it before I had to pass it to the next person.