BATMAN!

Earlier today, the first trailer for The Lego Batman Movie was released, and, as a fan of Legos, Batman and movies, I am quite excited. The Lego Movie, released back in 2014, was a surprisingly good and very fun movie, and Lego Batman was one of the best characters in it. I am also a fan of how the people responsible for making both of these movies were able to create a fully computer-generated feature that also sometimes appears as though they just used stop-motion with the actual figurines. The simplistic aesthetics of the Lego blocks and figures make the goofy behaviors and dialogue exhibited by the characters feel more believable, which might not have worked as well with real actors in a real-world environment.

Here's the trailer:

Lego Movie Directors bitter as Fathers walking through toy-rooms

One could say the directors of the Lego Movie wish the Board of directors at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would step on as much lego as it took to create the movie for the slap in the face they gave the movie for not nominating it.  The Lego Movie, directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, was not nominated for best animated film for this year's oscars, but did however win the BAFTA award for best animated feature.

(Directors of Lego Movie holding their awards)

Usually the British Academy Film and Television Arts awards are spot on in picking the films that later win American Oscars, but this year was not the case.     For their acceptance speech, Miller and Lord parted with "You guys win the award for best Academy.  This is the end of the awards road for us, so we can say whatever we want.  There's no one left to impress," effectively making a stab at the Oscars.  I support the directors in their views because their movie was better than any animated films Disney produced that oscar season; there was no reason why it should not have been nominated.

Stop-Motion Animation

When someone mentions animation, the first ideas that come to mind are works by famous companies such as Pixar and DreamWorks. Movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, and Finding Nemo have illustrated the power of graphical animation by developing complicated and concise fictional worlds. But, animation doesn't just stop with cartoon movies. Stop-Motion Animation provides an alternative approach to animation that utilizes all forms of media to create a polished project: still images, sound, video, clay figures (actors), set modeling, and the story-boarding process. One of my favorite stop-motion films, as a child, was Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit. Not only did the British stop-motion comedy consist of four short films, but it also included one feature-length film. The academy-nominated relationship, of the two main characters, grows over the course of the series as Wallace's new ideas are constantly met with Gromit's "unimpressed" body language and humorous facial expressions.

                 

This stop-motion graphics artist (below) decided to take the "Wallace and Gromit approach" a step further. With the recent release of Warner Brothers' The Lego Movie, YouTube user, "cheesybricks," takes a stab at his own version of stop-motion animation with the Lego theme in mind. In this short video, watch as the artist "paints with lego."

                     Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxy1fkrXmCI#t=85

This video really opened my mind to the possibilities that one can achieve in animation as a field of study. Perhaps, it will be something that I will pursue in the future. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy its prestige!

Oscars Snubs

This awards season, a number of enraged outcries bubbled to the surface when the Oscar nominees were announced. The nominees revealed that the Academy was made up of a number of white, old gentlemen whose tastes in cinema were blinded by their own privilege. Not only did it reveal how truly awful the academy is at recognizing worthy female and minority actors and directors, it also revealed how much of a sham the animation category is. Although the category included some really beautiful foreign animated films (as it should), its domestic nominees were less than impressive. The nominees included How to Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6, and The Boxtrolls. Although the first two domestic films were both critically acclaimed and beautiful, they lacked a certain amount of imagination that one looks for in a fresh animated film, and relied too heavily on repetitive children's film tropes. The Boxtrolls was altogether forgettable. There was one film that was not included in the nominees, which was critically acclaimed, and challenged the repetitive nature of many animated films. This was The Lego Movie, which managed the add a new spin to the animation genre. The film is fun, imaginative, and features some really impressive computer animation techniques. If any film, aside from Song of the Sea (that's some beautiful stuff) deserved to be in the category, it would definitely be this film. It's really unfortunate that this film was snubbed, and goes to show the carelessness involved in this year's Oscars.

The Lego Movie

When thinking about animation movies that have really impressed me, The Lego Movie was on of them. I'm pretty biased because they were my favorite toys as a kid and I liked making stop motion films with them. So when I first heard about the Lego movie, I was already more then interested.

They amount of detail and dedication to animating explosions with lego fire pieces and real lego pieces. Some of the scenes were incredibly convincing that it was just lego's and not computers and they did this  by recreating "grudge."When creating physical animations it is difficult to keep everything pristine which leaves behind some dust, oils, and dirt on the animations. The animators replicated some of this to make it even more convincing by putting an oily finger print on Emmett.

This level of detail was applied to the entire universe they created for the film consisting of mostly real lego pieces. They also weaved in simple physical lego animations through out the film during transitions. The sound really drove the film in a way that was in tuned with it's humor. For example most of the animals made sounds that emphasized that this wasn't reality. Cats would be people saying "meow" and engine's would be people making making rumbling noises with their mouths. John Simpson did an amazing job as the foley artist and really brought the film to life. He actually did bring the film to life because there was no natural sound. Sound seems to be the difference between good and great animations.

Animation, Nostalgia, and The Lego Movie

I'm not much of an animation guy. I love cartoons and animated movies as much as anyone else, but I've never been fascinated by it the way some people are. I mean, let's be honest. I spent almost two hours today trying to make Chris Christie eat a Subway sandwich. And that came out subpar, at best (pun 100% intended). You could say it's not really my forte, but that would be putting it nicely. I guess that's one reason why I'm taking this class.

Which leads me to last weekend. I didn't see the Lego Movie on opening day because it was an animated film. I didn't see it because it looked funny, or even because Chris Pratt voices the main character. I saw The Lego Movie because - from the trailer alone - I got nostalgic. I don't think I've played with Legos - really played with them - in upwards of 8 or 9 years. That's almost half of my life; enough time to get appropriately nostalgic about plastic bricks, I think. 

Stick with me: I'll tie this all together. 

I loved The Lego Movie. Thought it was absolutely brilliant. The writing was about as perfect as it could be for a kids movie (entertaining for adults, but with enough silly humor and butt jokes to keep kids - and myself - laughing) and I was totally right about the whole film making me a bit nostalgic. But, surprisingly enough, the thing that really did it for me was the animation. 

As was mentioned in the blog before, the animation is a weird mixture of what appears to be CGI and stop motion, even though I believe the whole thing is done digitally. The attention to detail is impeccable; Lego figures can only bend their legs about 90 degrees at the waist and can't move from side to side, all of the buildings and vehicles are comprised of billions and billions of tiny lego blocks, and nothing is perfectly fluid. The fire and water effects are particularly amazing and stop motion-esque. All done with the appearance of being lego bricks. 

The film would absolutely not be such a success if had been animated differently; I can almost guarantee that. It made me feel like I was a kid again, sitting in my room with all my Legos, seeing what kind of crazy shit I could come up with and create. This movie reinforced what I've slowly been realizing about animation, and that is that a good story should not improve an animated film; it should be the other way around. The animation should be a reflection of the story you are trying to tell. The Lego movie took this in a very literal sense, and it turned out perfectly. I'm honestly not sure who to thank for this. There are the two directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. But then there's also the massive list of people involved in actually animating the film, including the art team, special effects people, and even the cinematographers. To make life easier for everybody, I'll just leave the link to the IMDB page right here.

So while I may not be able to make any chubby governors eat five dollar footlongs, I'm starting to begin to appreciate the relationship between animation and writing a great story. And that's something that I like to think of as being my forte. Sorry Mike Levien; I know you had mixed opinions about The Lego Movie, but I personally thought everything was awesome. 

The LEGO Movie

I have heard so many people recently talking about The LEGO Movie. So many people even college students are excited to go an see the movies. Rottentomatos which is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films, widely known as a film review aggregator, gave The LEGO Movie a 97% saying "Boasting beautiful animation, a charming voice cast, laugh-a-minute gags, and a surprisingly thoughtful story, The Lego Movie is colorful fun for all ages." Here is the trailer for the movie.

The lego movie is mostly made for CG animation but there is some stop motion as well. The thing that I am really impressed with is how realistic the lego pieces look. The pieces have the seams just like they would if they were made as toys. The aim was to also make it look like the toys had been used or played with outside/before the movie. There is one character that really stands out in that spectrum, The Charlie Day, who is an eighties-era spaceman, looks like he’s been well-loved, stepped on and chewed on.

After reading from different articles and hearing things from friends I will most likely be seeing this movie in the near future. Who's in?