MIA Practical Production Evaluation

MIA Practical Production Evaluation

For my MIA coursework, I decided on make a three minute animation that uses two different genres, German Expressionism and Spaghetti Western. I originally choose to do animation after watching Tim Burtons “Corpse Bride”. However I wanted to do a stop frame clay-mation, but during my practical production I realised that having a wire frame within the clay made it too hard to animate and therefore it kept on falling apart. Studios use professionally built wire skeletons surrounded with plastinated latex material, to allow more freedom in movement and expression
To resolve this issue, I changed from wanting to do clay-mation to doing an animation using a wooden figure that was bought out of Cass Art. This is because it enabled me to move the limbs of the figure more fluently, which gave the walking movement of the models a realist look, compared to the unrealistic look that the clay was giving. However to do this, the technique “Green Screening” had to be used, in the professional editing software, Final Cut Pro. This is where you film something in front of a green screen and then later “Key” it out in the editing processes.

(Blue & Green Screen option in the “Effects Tab”)
(Animation Figure, before keying out the green)





Image of Figure After Keying Out The Green:







After having resolved the issues with the animated figures, the next stage was to consider the how I would get the message across that I was adopting a German Expressionist style in this animation. Having watched “The Cabinet Of Dr Caligarii”, directed by Robert Wiene, I decided to create the animation using some elements of the heavy contrast between light and dark which would connote the idea that one of the characters did not get along with someone else, because dark contrasts are not usually linked with pleasant or happy emotions. (Example of influential extract from “The Cabinet Of Dr Caligarii”)



Example of influential extract from “The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari:

German Expressionist Style Shot Combined With a Spaghetti Western










In addition, I also wanted to use a cocktail of genres within my animation, therefore along with the German Expressionist style shot, shown above, I also combined a Western theme to it. This has been done by using an over the shoulder shot to show what is happening from one of the characters point of view, then there is another over the shoulder shot from the other characters perspective. I have reinforced this idea by using the audio track from “The Good The Bad And The Ugly” as this is the typical soundtrack for the Spaghetti Western shootout scene.
As well as using the German Expressionist and Spaghetti Western themes in my animation, I also did this shot in a rotoscoped styled. This means that I have drawn on top of real life footage to give it a cartoon like feel. This was done using a using a Cannon XM2, which was then imported into Adobe Flash and drawn upon, one key frame at a time. After this has been done, I then imported it into Final cut pro where it was added to the sequence and video filters such as “Sepia” was added.
Lastly, I also tired to convey the feeling of happiness when the daughter realises that all of her father’s stuff is hers, by over exaggerating the colour that are used when she steps into her father’s room. This has also been done for comic effect. This has been done by using the colour “Levels” where I have been able to over exaggerate colours.