The Nightmare Before Christmas

Released: 1994
Director: Henry Selick
Writers: Tim Burton/Michael McDowell

The Nightmare before Christmas was an early project of Tim Burtons that was revisited by him after he had found success in Hollywood. It was released in 1994 and was nominated for 4 Oscars.
The Nightmare before Christmas is the story of Jack Skellington ‘ The Pumpkin King’ of Halloween town, he becomes bored of his job and decides its time for a change. with the help of the inhabitants of Halloween town he kidnaps Santa who he refers to as ‘Sandy claws’ and goes about creating the scariest Christmas possible. On realising his mistake jack must rescue Santa from the evil ‘Oogie Boogie ’ and correct his mistakes in order to save Christmas.
The film is composed of a strange mixture of themes and techniques, it is set in a horror themed environment with the characters strongly fitting the horror stereotype. The soundtrack is that of a musical with outbreaks of song being a regular occurrence. The plot although basic makes good use of suspense and to top it all off there is countless aspect of comedy throughout. The combination of horror in what is essentially a children’s production gives the film an edge that does not treat the child audience as being stupid, while at the same time makes the film watchable by an adult audience.
Although Tim Burton doesn’t direct the nightmare before Christmas he was the producer, and his style is clear throughout the movie. The stop motion animation style that the film is done in is typical of Burton, the over exaggerated movements and a strange idea of space that at times mirrors 2d animation. The character design was done in a great amount of detail, all the characters from jack Skellington to the Jazz playing zombies have both a creepy dark side as well as a comic effect, for instance the character of Dr. Finkelstine has many connotations’ of being an evil scientist, such as his arched posture and lab coat, but he will also open his head to literally scratch his brain for comic effect. The same level of detail goes into all the props and sets of the film. The cast consists of mostly unknown voice actors, who do an amazing job and all give their characters life. This strange artistic combination of so many styles and themes can be seen as too weird or stylish, but it has earned the film the following of a cult audience Over the years and is still seen as one of burtons finest creations.
As an animator I have never been a fan of stop frame animation but despite my biest view I have come to respect the nightmare before Christmas. its crazy twist of horror and comedy with a captivating soundtrack makes it appeal to Children and adults alike. Plus the pain staking detail put into every aspect of the film shows through so clearly that you have to marvel at it.

Crash

Released: 2004
Director: Paul Haggis
Writer: Paul Haggis

Crash centres around a number of characters of different races and social classes all living in Los Angeles and how there lives interact with one another over a period of 36 hours, through a series of crashes shootings and car thefts
The film is about some of the more negative aspects of human interaction, Centring mostly on racial stereotype and discrimination, this is shown through the various characters of different backgrounds and there interactions with one another when forced under extreme circumstances. It not only focuses on racial tension but also looks at the way we treat strangers in general.
Crash relies heavily on stereotype and audience expectation, but often contradicts the predicted outcome. With every new character, a new stereotype is introduced and then contradicted, serving not only to challenge the stereotype but also to reprimand the audience for thinking in such a way. The development of the characters is what keeps the films momentum going, each ones personality is designed so that they are alienated in their own way, this provides a far more dramatic conflict when they collide, because they are forced out of their comfort zones. There is a great deal of suspense needed to engross the viewer, Crash makes good use of time manipulation, especially slow motion, often drawing out an intense situation to make the viewer want a resolution all the more.
Crash is a moving and thought provoking movie, it allows grate psychological insight into its characters that engrosses the audience right from the beginning, to have done this effectively the performance of the actors has to be commended, the characters all have their specific roles to play to further the plot but none of them ever come across as one-dimensional. When simplified the plot gives all the characters a opportunity to break away from the cycle of prejudice, (whether they take it or not) which asks the question “are we all so different?” in places the film becomes a bit ‘preachy’ and often undermines the intelligence of the audience through unnecessarily obvious explanatory shots. But on the whole the film makes its point with effective impact.

Princess Mononoke

Released: 1997
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Princess Mononoke is the tenth film by Japanese animation film studio ‘studio Ghibli’, that following its release in 1997 became japans biggest grossing film of all time.
It is set in feudal Japan, during a time of disorder. The main protagonist ‘Ashitaka’ receives a cursed injury while defending his town from a giant boar. He discovers that the curse will spread and eventually kill him. The plot then revolves around his journey into the lands to the west of his village in search of the god of the forest who can heal his affliction. On his quest the attempts to prevent an approaching war between the creatures of the forest and the people of ‘Irontown’ a small, fortified town that has had to cut back the forest for the wood needed to support themselves.
Princess Mononoke is a fantasy adventures the centres around conflict, everything from heated arguments to pitched battles and plenty of competing interests, including cursed monsters, angry gods, ambitious people, and a selfless hero. But remarkably, there is no villain. Even though it comes across as a simple progressive plot the film carries a powerful moral: it states that man’s tampering with nature brings about as much savagery as it does progression. The fact that the film has no single villain adds to the message that this is a real problem and that the blame cannot be placed on a single individual.
The film is in a two dimensional hand drawn style like most other anime (Japanese animation) but the interesting thing about the picture and indeed all of Ghibli’s work is that it is done using traditional cell based animation techniques. This technique is mostly seen as out of date given the increase in computer animations; this is also reflected in the films cost. When released, Mononoke had cost 2.4 billion Japanese yen, making it the most expensive anime ever made. The film was the first that Ghibli had used computer animation in, and features a total of 5 minutes of computer animated footage throughout the film, and a further 10 minutes used digital paint, a technique which is used throughout all subsequent Studio Ghibli films. Despite this Mononoke goes through grate lengths to blend the two in as subtle fashion In fact the CGI serves as support for the majority of the cell based animated film.
Princess Mononoke is in my opinion one of the best animated movies ever made, it harnesses the beauty of traditional animation while at the same time is still able to use computer advancements to further the story without conflicting with the films hand drawn style. I would recommend anyone even if they are not a fan of anime to look past the style of drawing and see the film for all else that it has to offer. All together I conceder it an amazingly well put together film

Black on Maroon

Black on maroon is one of a series of paintings named the ‘Seagram Murals’ by Mark Rothko, all created to fill the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building, New York. The most noticeable thing about the series is there sheer size; Black on Maroon is an impressive 2667mm high and 3812mm wide.
On completion of the Paintings in 1958, Rothko told the publisher of Harpers magazine that he had planned to paint a series that would “ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room”. when the restaurant failed to complain he removed the paintings claiming that they needed to be in a place where people could pay attention to them without the distractions of a busy restaurant
The painting is typical of Rothko’s style. It features two seemingly luminous, soft-edged rectangles, Like the rest of the Seagram murals the canvas is extremely saturated with paint. They all now sit in the Tate’s “Rothko room” a room specifically built to house the paintings in the conditions that Rothko wished. In the exhibition his paintings are said to have a ‘meditative feel’ the dark room amplifies the already dark shades of deep dark reds, oranges, maroons, browns, blacks, and greys.
Black on maroon is exactly what it says, ‘Black paint on top of maroon paint ’ it has no artistic style and could have been painted by anyone. The most impressive thing about the painting and indeed the whole series is that it took so long for him to do so very little. The only artworks that this can be compared to is the modern artists of today, that like Rothko try to put some sort of deep meaning into whatever random object they come across.
As for the medative qualities of the peaces, after spending some time in the ‘Rothko room ’ I deduced that it was the room ambience rather then the paintings that had this calming effect and blank canvases would have been far more effective.