Perspective in "Zootopia"

Walt Disney Animation Studios' new movie Zootopia came out last weekend and was an instant hit at the box office. In its opening weekend, it made more money than Frozen and critics gave it a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomatometer." So what makes Zootopia so likable?

Many sources have reported that the movie is made both for kids and adults--which is something I find very common in animated films. What I learned through researching the film (I'm hoping to see it this week or weekend) was that two thirds of the way through, Walt Disney Animation Studios' made a tweak to the story that completely changed it.

Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps

Apparently it was originally supposed to be told from Nick Wilde's perspective. Nick (Jason Bateman) is a fox and low-level criminal that does not like the city of Zootopia. They ultimately changed the film to be told from the perspective of Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a bunny who wants to be a police officer and loves living in Zootopia.

Rich Moore, the director of the film explained why the perspective swap was necessary in a Q&A event in St. Louis:

"About two-thirds of the way through production, we changed the story to Judy's story, because Nick, being kind of a cynical character, he didn't like the city of Zootopia. He was kind of oppressed by the city of Zootopia. And in our movies, we want the audience to like the world, not dislike the world. And it was very confusing with our main character as someone who didn't like the city, how do we feel about this world? So we said, let's just try, as an experiment, making Judy the main character--since she's an optimist, she sees the best in everything--let's try making it her story and see what happens."

Based on the estimated $73.7 million made during the opening weekend, I think it's safe to say that this change paid off (literally) in a big way.

Vanishing Point in Photoshop & AE

Premiumbeat.com is an awesome blog about filmmaking and video work alike. They post a lot of tutorials about using After Effects and similar software. I stumbled across this tutorial on their Facebook page about adding depth from a still photo using vanishing points.

This is probably one of the coolest effects that I have ever come across! Essentially you are taking a photo in photoshop, making it 3D, and then importing that data into After Effects and then can move it around using a camera.

Of course there are limits to this, like the fact that it will only be able to show whats in the still, nothing much beyond that. But still, this is an amazing effect, and will definitely try it out in the future!

For more info about this effect check out the blog post here: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/simulating-depth-using-vanishing-points-in-after-effects/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=Simulating-Depth-Using-Vanishing-Points-in-After-Effects&utm_campaign=10-2015-facebook-posts

or watch the tutorial right here:

Taking inspiration from video games

I've been working on my title sequence project a little bit everyday and so far I've found there are a few extracurricular sources that have really helped me in working out the finer aesthetic details. As I mentioned last week I'm going to be doing a cut out title sequence to the critically acclaimed animated miniseries "Over the Garden Wall". The greatest challenge I've faced so far, beside the laborious never ending tedium that is fiddling with the after effects interface, is combining my onscreen elements in a way that looks and feels like the real show.

In researching this I turned to one of my favorite video games of all time: Paper Mario 2:

Now if you're like me then the very mention of this game is enough to fill you to the brim with excitement and nostalgia. This game stands alone in it's excellence because it masterfully combines fun gameplay with a timeless art style and wraps the whole thing up in a unforgettable sound track. While there are so many things I love about this game, on my most recent play through I tried to focus more on it's paper aesthetics in hopes that I might me able to glean so insight for my own project.

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Among many other elements I noticed that it was the perspective of the world that really brought it off of the page. Any time you move the background moves with you in a sort of layered paralax that really draws you in. Also the way that many of  these set pieces are shaded really adds to the illusion. Overall I'm really exited to keep working on this project and if any of you have any game or tutorial recommendations please don't hesitate to drop me a line!