Animation for Social Change

This week my blog post focuses on how a creative tool like animation can be, and is used for social change, inspiration, and motivation. Many artists and illustrators have used animation to convey messages on several issues surrounding a society.

Recently, I read an article on why animation should be used for social change. One of the last lines of the article reads: "A well thought out animation can attract and engage a wide audience, be retained in their memory and actually change the way people see an important issue and respond to it."

This line resonated with me because it is very true. In the video below a very strong, powerful message is conveyed. This video is very well-acclaimed and was created by Rodrigo Blass.

Very often in such videos, children are the main subject or the main characters portraying a society. In my opinion, this is because we as humans show most empathy towards children than anyone else.

Another use of animation for change is through illustrations, especially of what would otherwise be considered graphic. The current situation in Syria has created turned many citizens in to refugees. 

The image below is from a Buzzfeed post which consists of artist illustrations after the story of a three year old refugee boy washing up on shore.

In my opinion, animation can play a great role in providing people with new perspectives about certain things in society and it is a great way to engage people in discussions about how a society is working.

The 'Peanuts' Are Back

35 years after the last "Peanuts" feature film and 15 years after creator, Charles M. Schulz, died, a new movie is coming out in November. For this new film, they've gone back to the drawing board to capture the "ethos and art of its creator."

It is computer animated and directed by Steve Martino at 20th Century Fox-owned Blue Sky Studios.

"It's a little retro in a way, but in today's world of animation it feels completely fresh," Martino said. "We're not trying for photorealism or movement where you believe the characters are human. It's a different palette. This is the most complicated creation, to put something up on the screen that looks so simple. I wanted to find that pen line, the wiggle in Charlie Brown's smile."

Craig Schulz, the fourth of Charles Schulz's five children, said, "We always felt like the risk of doing a film and having it be done poorly was not worth the potential gain," Craig said. "But all the studios were knocking on our door."

"It's about preserving a legacy that has tremendous history and not screwing it up," Martino said. "We see that kids meet characters today in feature films in the movie theater, so that's the opportunity. The responsibility is to deliver the experience so that these characters don't change, so that they become a new presentation of what's been wonderful about them for 50 years."

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared... But Actually

The Don't Hug Me I'm Scared series, created by Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling, started in 2011 with the first episode. It just came out with the fourth episode on Tuesday and will be coming out with more soon. It starts off imitating a children's show through the use of singing and talking puppets, but the themes quickly become dark and absurd through psychedelic content and disturbing images.

I love the juxtaposition of the simple, seemingly innocent intros with puppets and song with the uncomfortable and scary ending that makes you question pretty much everything in life.

(These videos are not for the faint of heart.)

The first episode focuses on creativity and prepares you for feelings you will be getting for the next ones:

The second episode focuses on time and is my personal favorite:

The third episode is about love:

And here is the newest one, centering about technology/computers:

Becky and Joseph have won three awards, attended 12 festivals, and many talks for their great work and impact they've had on viewers. 

Life, The Universe & Animation Today

While I have very little experience working with animation, I have come appreciate the immense amount of time an effort that goes into making the various title sequences that help films and television shows standout. For instance in the Bond franchise each film has its own unique opening sequence style and theme that helps set it apart from its predecessors.                  

One of my favorite pieces of animation growing up were the various guide entries of BBC's 1981 adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. One of things that stood out to me in researching these animation sequences was the fact that they were hand drawn rather than created on the computers of the day. Today everything is animated via computers.

Today with programs like after effects and maya we are capable of creating entire three dimensional life-like worlds. After seeing Alex Roman's Third and Seventh I was truly astonished to learn that the entire video we watched was one hundred percent animation. This realization both shocked and amazed me for two reasons. One, the fact that this one man was able to accomplish this by himself in the course of one year. Secondly, the thing that slightly scares me about this is the potential that if someone had a large enough team and equipment, they could easily fool the untrained eyes and blur the lines of reality and illusion. While this may sound like something out of a dystopian science fiction story, we're probably not too far off with all the technology currently available.

While this I don't think I have that level of dedication to create the same quality of work as Roman, I am looking forward to working this semester. Seeing the work of Roman as well as some the videos  of the previous versions of this class has given me something to shoot for. Although motion graphics and animation are not my primary areas study, I hope to continue dabbling in this field after the semester is over.

For those of you who like to go back and look at past posts on this site, here's a video I found a while ago of an interview with Rod Lord.

Epic

The creator's of Ice Age and Rio are coming out with a new 3D animated film called Epic. The stars who are voices the characters include Aziz Ansari, Christoph Waltz, and Beyonce. Yep I said it, Beyonce. Beyonce voices Queen Tara, who is trying to protect the forest against evil creatures. The film is based the children's book the Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.  The rest of the cast is pretty impressive and it hopefully will be as good as it looks! For some reason I haven't heard much about it but if it's as good as Ice Age was then I bet it will be great.