16: The Little Match Girl

The Little Match Girl, 2006
Disney, Roger Allers

Excuse me for plucking this straight from the latest Nostalgia Critics video, but this truely is one of the best short christmas animated shorts ever.
I DARE you not to cry.
*Sniffle*

09: Igor

Igor
Tony Leondis, 2008

If you followed me from my dA masterlist, then you know JUST how much I was looking forward to Igor. Being the big, wonky line loving, bug-eyed stop motion lover that I am, I took one look at the trailer and thought- Oh My God. It's a total rip-off of Burton's style.
And I LOVED it.
I loved the colours, the designs, and I was already planning in my head which toy I was gunna buy out of the characters (Brain, because he looks like Tom Servo from MST3K).

So I was so hyped when I FINALLY got to see it this weekend, despite the fact that, okay, over the months the warning signs became rearing their ugly heads.
So, okay the posters looked pretty naff, and didn't really match my expectations from the trailer... And okay, the news from Frankensteinia (which I follow religiously, for all my Frankenstein related news) that the early reviewers were really negative, and that the Toy line was cancelled was a little more than disappointing. And then just before we left to go see it, that it had only JUST made £1,110,859 was even more frightening.

But for once, I was trying to be optimistic. Perhaps it had more of a cult edge to it. Sarcasm was one of the main words that jumped out at me from the reviews and I just reasoned that Adults think that sarcasm is lost on kids. And maybe the studio was new at this, and that's why the marketing sucked (Which is true in hindsight- Apparently all they'd ever done before this is this crappy TV show).

So shoving all of that out of my mind, off we went, in the freezing cold, to see Igor on a Tiny screen with the 3 other families that came to see it. (It's not the first time my boyfriend and I have gone to see a kids movie on a date- out first was to go see Flushed Away).

And it was...TERRIBLE.
The point of this post is not to just let me blow off steam, but it's also to try and explain why just because your movie looks cool and you have a big cast of famous actors at your disposal, doesn't mean you can just forget about pacing and scripting.

The opening sequence, in which Igor explains the world starts the unbelievably bad writing that makes an other wise decent little cute movie on the wrong path. Igor is a character that has little real charisma, so having to listen to him give exposition makes it very difficult to pay attention to why exactly the country of Malaria (Which is a COOL name for a country of Evil Scientists in any case) is in darkness, and why the once peaceful farmers are now Evil Scientists holding the rest of the world ransom. Another thing I'd like to point out here is that there is a short montage of the inventions the country has previously used to inflict terror on the world- and they're the same fricking machines you see at the very end of the movie. Lazy.

During this you also get introduced to the concept of Igors. I was rather interested into why exactly the Igors got lumped into the whipping boy position- in the original Frankenstein movie, Fritz (the igor of his day) had a personality- he was cowardly and cruel towards things he didn't understand- he whipped the monster, and gave it it's fear of fire. He also didn't always conform to his master- he swapped the "normal" brain the Doctor wanted with an "Abnormal" brain. The next assistant in Bride of Frankenstein was a convict, and killed willingly for his master, but he lacked a hunch. I know that hunchbacks are now the common stereotype of all Mad since assistants (i.e Ala Young Frankenstein and Rocky Horror) but it's more than a little Lazy to just give ALL hunchbacks the name of Igor, and only one of them to have any sort of motivation- Fritz wanted to kill the monster, The Convict from Bride just wanted enough money to run away, and even Riff-Raff wanted to go home and have incestuous sex with his Sister.

Anyway (enough Frankenstein related fandoming). The monologue ends and we've learnt during the uncomfortable montage that Igor is a secret inventor (as you could have guessed from the get-go), and has created an immortal but suicidal rabbit called Scamper and a brain in a Jar- variously called Brain or Brian due to a misspelling on his Jar to keep him company whilst his Master mistreats him and talks disjointedly about his mother. Both of these characters are SUPPOSED to be the comic relief, and to be fair, they do raise a few small smiles, but they're rather uncomfortable and here's the main reason why.

Pacing. Not a second goes by with out someone talking, or something happening. The jokes that are made are immediately lost on everyone because some one else has already started another. Theres little to no build up and theres no room to breathe. I was constantly looking over at Luke next to me to see if he found it funny or not, but half way through the movie and we were slumped down in our seats, and my optimism from before had vanished.

So the plot races on, and before you know it, the Doctor has a visit from his girlfriend Heidi, who is suddenly Igors love interest. She leaves almost as quickly and we don't see her again until much later. I'd just about taken that in when the Doctor dies. And so does one of the two major actors I'd actually pricked an interest in. John Clesse isn't really that noticeable as his character is really hard to look at. One of two things that bother me aesthetically about this movie is that theres very little surface texture. Call me a harden animation nut, but after so many wonderful Pixar movies in the last few years, I've become accustomed to surface textures. And this movie has VERY little (especially towards the end- its like they gave up). Igor himself has more than the rest of the movie put together.

So the Doctor dies, and Igor is alone to create his masterpiece at last something no other Mad has ever done before- Life! Which I find strange- aren't Mad Scientists all about "Tampering in Gods Domain?"* So they go about creating the most oddly shaped woman in the history of monsters.

The Monster (or Eva) herself is pretty cute, but she would be, seeing as she essentially has the quintessentia Burton Face. Big eyes, tiny nose, and twisted lips- she could be Emily Corpse BrideSally ragdoll's cousin. She's dressed, oddly enough, as Snow White, which I thought was a little odd a first. It's the oddest choice ever, but then she does oddly enough suit the look.

The rest of the characters take this line too, virtually copying every "indie" animated and creepily designed franchise (Luke swears that the main bad guy looks like Lord Barkis from Corpse Bride and that Scamper reminds him of Ren, and I think that The King looks alot like Couch Oleander from Psychonauts).

So she comes to life. But Oh NO! She's too Nice! Instead of doing what any other self-respecting Igor in movie history has done, and poke fire in her face (come on thats obvious! every igor knows that!) They decide to get her brainwashed. I actually liked the Brainwashing scene (Nice touch with the guy with the fly head/ fly with a human head there) but the major plot point of the movie also comes from here- one that I'm still not sure I'm convinced by- Eva's personality is the result of watching too much of the biography channel, about some woman's acting career. As such she convinces herself she's also an actress- specifically one who wants to star in Annie- thus officially becoming the most random of all Frankenstein-style monsters. This is all very well, but the pacing is SO bad in this movie that It's around here I start to loose track of whats going on, and I am only going via memory here, so lets just go straight to the end of this half hearted rant shall we?

A good animated "kids" movie needs alot of things to make it work. I'll write up a proper check list one day on what I think makes a good animated film (mainstream or otherwise). But for now just consider this.
You can fill your movie with as many stars as you want, design it as "quirkily" as possible, pump up the colours and copy ever is popular amoung the trendy dark set, but you can still fuck it up by having a poorly written script, crappy jokes and pacing it so fast your out blinking in the sunlight before you've even finished your pop-corn wondering what the heck happened.

I was sorely disappointed after waiting all summer to see this.

*(if you get the reference, then you've gotta suggest what the next cartoon I blog about).

07: Bedshaped, Keane / Butterfly

Bedshaped, Keane
Butterfly
Corin Hardy, 2004

When I think of my favourite animated music videos I think in particular of this one. I saw this when I was 14 and I was just starting to wonder about what I wanted to do with my life, and an absurd idea forming in the very back of my head whispered "I want to do THAT."

Bedshaped is one of many creepy stop motion videos that are floating around out there. Another one that pops to mind is Insanity (Which I have pondered blogging but it seems redunant seeing as I love the song more than the mind-boggling video), but of course this is a full on model based animation, rather than toys.

What I didn't know about Bedshaped at the time is that the models and the story ( I haven't seen the whole movie yet but I really want to now) is that they're from a previous movie directed by Corin Hardy.

In the interests of being a good blogger I found the trailer, and oh my...is it beautiful. When you watch Bedshaped you always wonder what the rest of that world is like outside the stall, and the trailer gives you a very good idea of what horrors are out there.

It's a very perfectly imperfect style. It's a very fine-artsy approach to an unrealistic world. Stop motion in general is supposed to be Jerky and incomplete movement, which is what gives it its charm. When you watch old movies like Jason and the Argonauts for example, especially the scene with the skeletons, you get the feeling the animator is trying too hard to be realistic. When you watch the tears fall jerkily from Boy's face in Bedshaped, you geniunely feel sad but its detatched in a way that feels real.

Heartbreakingly beautiful...I only hope that I can achieve such a wonderful work of art one day.

Go to Colin Hardy's Myspace to find out about more of the music videos he's produced for some very popular english bands.
Or to his website.

06: Flowers, Emilie Simon

Flowers, Emilie Simon
Cosa Productions, 2003

Oh god is it hard to find information about this video- I've had problems with it before, and its what made me give up the dA version of this blog. But that's all behind me now. I have completed the task, after completely forgetting everything the first time I tried finding it all out- I just ended up going back to the exact same blog I got the production company name from the last time. Oy Vey...
Anyway, Flowers is possibly my favourite video I've stumbled across this year. And it's easy to see why right? I'm only going to mention the Burton connection ONCE because its everywhere else I've come across people going on about it. YES it has that creepy cuteness that His Stopmotion pieces have- a child could point that out.

Being a music video, it has ALOT more detail, and dare I say skill in it. I'm also going to throw it out there and ask; Is this ACTUAL stop motion? I rather want to disagree, because even if it is only 2:47 long, Stop motion has a hell of alot of work involved. Considering the small amount of time between single release and the video coming out, I'm gunna say no. It's a very masterful imitation of StopMotion but it just can't be- Look how long Coraline is taking!

The video features some stunning settings, and has a very charming feel around it which echoes the timeless yet modern music. And has some very cute and creepy character design. Including...
...A Frankenstein Monster who plays the upright bass...
...A werewolf on the guitar...
...A Vampire on the Keyboards...

...And this guy who I love, but does nothing but play with his steampunky toys.

It's a beautiful video, and I urge you too go take a look- or if you've already seen it, another.
That song will stick in your head all evening.

04: Shiva, Austin TV

Tandem Post with 03: Viva Calaca!!

Shiva, Austin TV
Alberto Cerriteño, 2008

I paired this one for this Tandem post (in that I'm writing the two posts together, and the two posts have pretty direct comparisons) with Viva Calaca!! for several reasons.

First of all, the two are both illustrative flat motion style music videos. Whilst Viva was done for a personal project, Shiva was a paid gig. And I do think it makes all the difference. For instance, the detail is so much more evident and secondly is alot smoother moving- partly methinks, because the animator had someone else to help that part of the job while he could focus more on the more tedious design aspect.

Also, Skeletons.
The designs are wonderous and the animator's blog has alot of the individual parts saved on his blog, so do go have a look.

Viva Drawn!

03: Viva Calaca!!

Tandem Post with 04: ShivaViva Calaca!!, Voltaire
Ritxi Ostáriz

I paired this one for this Tandem post (in that I'm writing the two posts together, and the two posts have pretty direct comparisons) with Shiva for several reasons.

First of all, the two are both illustrative flat motion style music videos. Whilst Shiva was a paid gig, Viva was done for a personal project, and I do think it makes all the difference. For instance, the detail is very beautifully done as is the character design, but in comparison to Shiva, Viva's detail is hard to make out because the rate of the "camera" swings around its almost impossible. This however, could just be a personal quibble at best, because alot of Ritxi's work has the same kind of movement. It makes me a little sea-sick to be honest. And although I do love this video, I do prefer the story telling of Shiva to this one in retrospect.

But then skeletons make everything better.

Be sure to visit his website to check out his other videos.

Via Drawn!

02: Mary, Scissor Sisters

Mary, Scissor Sisters
Don Bluth, 2004

Animated music videos are usually a really good estimate of how good the animator is. Because usually the animator won't have a structured storyline or plot to rigidly follow, but rather a vague idea of what the band wants. Then you have to factor in how much money is being thrown at it- usually its not that much. At the end of the project you come out with around 2-3 minutes of animation that probably months and months has gone into. Singles, especially these days have a limited shelf life, and with supposed Music Channels like Mtv moving on to more mainstream "entertainment" rather than actually showing music videos, and other channels following suit, and Animated featurette is going to catch people attention- even if its rubbish. But of course, if that music video is good, it'll live on through requests and classic video reruns, or even in the back of our heads.

Of course, Mary has the wow factor. But would you expect less of Don Bluth? His distinctive, edgy-Disney (if you'll pardon the comparison) has been used to great effect in alot of my childhood favourites; Rock-a-Doodle (1992), Anastasia (1997) and Titan A.E (2000) aren't exactly Disney level in terms of popularity perhaps, but I know for certain I'm not the only one who remembers them (Yes, I COULD mention All Dogs go to Heaven, but I really didn't enjoy it as a child, so I never mention it). So a familiar style that draws in all the kids of my Era.

Then there’s the quality of the animation itself. All the backgrounds are simple and look a little weird in comparison to the actual characters- but I think that’s because they look a bit too bright- I would have toned the contrast down a touch but they look fabulous because their such parodies of the medieval style fairy tale backgrounds- like the ones in Sword and the Stone for example. And I love the tower and the outside of the castle...it looks all mysterious and foreboding but still whimsical.

The characters themselves- I have no idea what going on with the three troll women (I do love them, but they don't have as much character as the humans do), but "Mary" and her rescuer remind me alot of Anastasia’s humans, and they have that really lovely pretty but flawed feel about them, which makes them alot more interesting to watch than say any of the Disney princesses and their card-board cut out princes'.

I really could have sat through a full-length movie of this. As it is, Mary is a lovely insight into the daydreams of a bored and lonely office worker- and one of my favourite Animated music videos.