Favorites Research

Core 6: Prototyping & Animation Production Concept

Favorite Films:

For the Birds by Pixar Animation Studio (2000)
• Narrative cleverly told with no dialogues, hence breaking language barriers
• Great animation in swift bird movements
• Detailed individual expressions different for each bird
• Exceptional treatment to feather animation
• 3 minute short narrative with great comical ending
• Short and simple storyline
• Genius character designs


My Friendly Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki (director) / Studio Ghibli (1988)
• Story of two sisters’ experience with the spiritual beings of the new house while their mother recovers from sickness in the hospital (Adventure!)
• Innovative characters and stylized character designs (Ex. Big and cuddly Totoro and shape-changing Catbus)
• Demonstrate family relationships and life
• Story plots mainly happen through fantasy realms
• Reveal childhood environment and lifestyle (countryside) that I can relate to


Robots by Blue Sky Studio (2005)
• Main character with dreams of accomplishing or making it in the big city
• Family oriented movie
• Absolutely wonderful character modeling and textures
• Great animation as well! Robot characters look more alive than human characters do in other movies (might be our perception of robots and humans)
• Use of animation dynamics (computer automated physics) Ex. Domino scene
• Can relate to my personal story (Ex. Leaving home to studying in foreign land, family’s constant encouragement and support back home)


Finding Neverland (2004) starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet
• Family oriented film
• Powerful heartbreaking and touching movie
• Emphasis on beauty and power of imagination
• Great imagination scenes of “Neverland”, invites the viewer to imagine as well
• Beautiful composites in shots


Mirror Mask (2005)
• Mix media film with hand drawn animation, 3D modeling and animation, and live film
• Interesting story of a girl in real life, who switched with her evil twin from the fantasy world inside her drawings

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) starring Zhang Ziyi and Ken Watanabe
• Insights into Oriental culture
• Beauty of a culture’s traditional clothing, especially the Kimonos
• Role of women before modernity
• Journey or experience of a person
• Story with beginning (proposition), middle (complication, obstacles, and hardship), and end (happy ending)

Hero (2002) starring Jet Li
• Chinese values of “One Nation”
• Camera angles and framing
• Best pictures (colorful scenes)
• The sequence in which in real version of the story is revealed

Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa (1950)
• Very unique form of narrative where the story is revealed through four different accounts of one murder incident from four witnesses (the woodcutter, the bandit, the samurai’s wife, and the “spirit” of the murdered samurai)
• Great cinematography with nice camera angles and frame shots.

Corpse Bride by Tim Burton (2005)
• Musical score (watch film with only music and no dialogue)
• Stop motion animation
• Contrast between the dead and the living (the living appear more lifeless with monochromatic themes while the dead are portrayed more lively with parties, bars and music)

Monsters Inc. by Pixar Animation Studio / Walt Disney (2001)
• Creative storyline, taking a well-known story and creating another with the opposite perspective
• Great character design and developments, great treatment to monsters’ skin textures
• Viewers can see the relationships between characters evolve throughout the film

Card Captor Sakura Japanese anime series by CLAMP manga team (1996-2000)
• Interesting plot, adventures, and character development
• Intriguing character design and personification

Tom and Jerry cartoon series by MGM cartoon studio (1940-1967)
• Another example of great silent films, telling the story through actions
• Simple storyline, cat chasing mouse, but many different resolutions
• Comedy

The Family Man (2000) starring Nicolas Cage
• Realizing the importance of family over business and wealth
• Family oriented film for adults

Big Fish (2003) Tim Burton (director) starring Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney
• Story slowly revealed through unordered episodes of flashback
• Eccentric personal anecdotes that seems to take place in a made-up world
• Statement on relationship between parents and children, reenacting the common parents being an embarrassment for the child and understanding the parents’ side at the end

Forest Gump (1994) starring Tom Hanks
• Personal anecdote storyline with achievements
• Clever incorporation of the American historical events
• Stories revolve around love for a girl

Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) starring Drew Barrymore
• Happy ending, more modern-day fairytale

Lilo and Stitch by Walt Disney Feature Animation (2002)
• “Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."
• Coping with lost of family and learning to continue with new family
• Alien character in a local Hawaiian house

Favorite Illustrators:

Jason Brooks (pg. 80)
• Digital illustration mostly on female model figures
• Smooth coloring
• Idealizing perfection

Fernanda Cohen (pg. 122)
• Ink
• Unruly lines, quite opposite of Jason Brooks
• Lively and fun illustrations (Ex. Parents with bags that are the kids)

Delicatessen (pg. 134)
• Digital illustration
• Bold shapes and colors
• Very graphic

eBoy (pg. 142)
• Pictures all made in pixel style
• Very detailed works with city streets and people

Kumiko Kitaoka (pg. 250)
• Stylized fantasy figures
• Fairytale themes

Simone Legno (pg. 272)
• Graphics with bright colors
• Cute on first glance but with hints at sexuality and others

Lillycat (pg. 276)
• Women figures, lengthy arms and legs
• Colorful with textures

Berto Martinez (pg. 304)
• Overlays of realistic human figures in patterned settings
• Watercolor, pencil and ink

Carlos Pardo (pg. 372)
• Focuses on human face
• Expressions that tell stories
• Realistic and some caricature style
• Digital paintings with oil or acrylic texture

Dan Seagrave (pg. 442)
• Very detailed surreal and twisted world

worst film --- Hostage

Animation Production Concept

The action and thriller film Hostage in 2005, starring Bruce Willis, began with promising plot propositions. However, like most films based on novels, the simplified storyline leaves the audience with questions.
Bruce Willis plays a retired hostage negotiator in Los Angeles, Jeff Talley, who failed to resolve a hostage situation that caused the death of three victims including a young boy who died in his arms. Leaving the LAPD to become chief of police in suburban California, Jeff did not want to get involved when three young men turned a failed robbery attempt into a hostage situation. The plot thickens when an underground organization kidnaps Jeff’s family and forces Jeff to get involved in order to retrieve their desired information from the house of the hostages. Therefore, Jeff has to battle two groups of criminals in order to save the hostage family before he looses his own family as well.
Although the storyline is complex and well thought-out, there were many areas where the story took a turn for the worse. The three young men who held the hostages consisted of two brothers and one stranger who they met before committing the robbery. The stranger amongst the two brothers is called Mars. The movie does not explain how or why Mars randomly joins the brothers nor gives hints of the role he will play in the movie. It wasn’t until almost toward the climax of the movie did the audience learn that Mars is actually a psycho killer who kills for fun. After Mars murders one of the brothers and acting as if it was accidental, the audience sees a flashback that reveals Mars’ violent history and previous killings, but it did not explain how Mars ended up with the two brothers.
Meanwhile, Jeff had made it into the house and almost got the disk of information he needed to secure his family’s safety. Just then, the team from the underground organization came crashing into the house pretending to be the LAPD or S.W.A.T. team only to mess up everything when they destroyed the disk Jeff was carrying by accident, killed Mars, and set the house on fire. Still, Jeff manages to save the two kids who were held as hostages out of the burning house with only minor scratches.
The ending of the film was even more unrealistic and adds confusion to the resolution of the story. After saving the hostages from the house, Jeff appears in the place of the organization that kidnapped his family in the next scene with no explanation of how he knew where to find them or he even got there since the scenery seemed further out in the country. In a house that looked like a vacant barnyard, Jeff took down the whole gang with guns and saved his family without hold any of his own.
Overall, the movie felt like a drag with more and more things turned bad as the evening progressed. Yet the ending seemed like an easy and fast wrap up to an over exaggerated storyline with more gore splashing than necessary.

What film inspired you to become an animator?

Animation Production Concept

Growing up reading Japanese manga and watching weekday afternoon anime, I was always amazed at the drawings that came alive on the screens. Since I used to draw figures modeled after Sailor Moon characters, I wanted to one day make them dance just like they do on the TV screens. However, when my family moved to the Dominican Republic from Taiwan, I was introduced to Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and many of the Walt Disney classics while I learned the languages. Throughout the end of elementary and middle school years, I watched cartoons daily for it was the only thing I could understand from all the TV shows. I began to love animations for its comic relief in entertainment and not so much for its art. Later, as I watched 3D feature films, such as Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., and especially Robots, the extraordinary characters becoming more alive than ever on the screen brought back my interest in animation. Out of all the great 3D movies, For the Birds by Pixar Animation Studio made the biggest impact on me. The short and well-told narrative combined with neat graphics and animation, For the Birds became my top inspirational film.
For the Birds is an animated short by Pixar Animation Studio released in 2000. It has received numerous awards, including Oscar for “Best Short Animated Film” in 2002. The short movie was cleverly told with no dialogues, featuring a group of small birds that landed on the tall telephone wire. They began fighting because each bird was irritated by the other birds standing to its sides until one big odd-looking bird standing on one side of the telephone pole caught their attention. The big bird wanted to join them. However, seeing the odd-looking bird, the small birds began making fun of his big feathers and terrible croaking sound amongst themselves. In the midst of their jokes, the small birds looked up to find the big bird, determined to join them, parking himself on the telephone wire in the middle of the small birds. The small birds began a plan to get rid of the big bird only to get it in return at the end.
The character designs for this film are remarkable. Such simple characters yet with so many different expressions. Each has its own distinct personality when observed more carefully. The personalities also add to the comic relief at the end. The irritable little birds appear adorable and impossible to hate from the beginning while they unkindly rejected and made fun of the odd-looking bird. Even at the end, the naked helpless little birds are more lovable and laughable than ever. Anyone one could get a laugh at the fact that the “bullies” got it in the end, not to mention how funny they look without feathers. Moreover, the character designer played with the perception of size as well. The ill-tempered little birds are actually the bullies of story while the one being bullied is a bird over five times taller than all the little birds. The larger awkward looking bird possesses similar qualities as the Big Bird from Sesame Street. Although big and different from others, it appears friendly and fun. It reminds me of people who can make the best out of any situation, and a friend who is there to laugh with me even in rough times.
More than anything, the animation in the movie kept me in awe. The treatment of the feathers on each bird, the small but fast movements of the little birds, and the animated expression of their face are only a few of the details that make this film exceptional. I am really fascinated with the 3D modeling of these characters and the swift and smooth animation of the birds’ movements. The extraordinary modeling and animation evident in For the Birds sparked my interest in 3D animation.
This short narrative with various chirps and no dialogue made it very understandable for people of all ages, breaking the language barrier at the same time. During almost all the movies I watched with my family, I needed to translate for my parents in order for them to understand details of the plot that are revealed through dialogues. Usually, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with the translations and enjoy the movie at the same time. For the Birds makes great use of the power of animation, its ability to tell a story visually. When I shared this movie with my parents, I could tell they were enjoying it along with me. No translating or explaining to do afterwards, just tons of laughter at the outcome of the movie. It was great. Animation allows the present day busy parents and their slowly estranged teenagers a chance to enjoy something together. That is why I want to be an animator. Well-done animations can bring a family closer.

1st day proposal

Core 6: Prototyping

For thesis, I plan to create a short animated narrative with mix media. The movie should be from five to eight minutes. I do not have a plot yet. However, I do want a story that uncovers a message each audience can interpret differently. Therefore, I intend to try out a silent narrative with no dialogues, focusing on movements of the animation. The medium for this movie will be experimentation with compositing 3D animated objects with hand drawn 2D animation in After Effects. The goal for my thesis is to create an animation that can make people feel what I once felt watching an animated movie because that is the reason I want to be an animator.