Maya Tutorial: Games Modelling Head Part 1 & 2

Transcription: Mary and Max (2009) Review

Fig.1 "Mary and Max" Poster (2009)

"Mary and Max" is a 2009 Australian animated film wrote and direct by Adam Elliot. After Elliot's film "Harvie Crumpet" (2002) won the Academy Award for Best Short Film in the Animation category,  there were very high expectations  of what would be next for Elliot. Again working in the style of animation known as claymation, Elliot decided to make "Mary and Max", his very first feature length film.

Fig.2 "Mary and Max"  Film Still

"Mary and Max" paints two lost souls on opposite sides of the Earth who become unlikely friends. Mary Daisy Dinkle is an eight-year-old girl living in Australia with her monstrous mother and taxidermist father. At the post office one day, she randomly picks a name out of a New York phone book. Max Jerry Horowitz, an obese Jewish man with aspergers, who lives in New York.  They start writing to one another, and continue to write to each other  throughout their lives, filling the role of the only friend they both had  has.

Fig.3 "Mary and Max" Film Still

One of the thing that grabs the audience is that this film is the heart that is in it. You can tell that it was something that was made with love and that every single second of it was thought through.  "In narrative terms, Mary, and Max is indeed classically inclined but by intensifying certain themes and flipping others, Elliot gives his film gravity and adds a very personal stamp on a genre known for hiding its directors." (Cabin, 2010) This is because "Mary and Max" is based on elements of his own childhood and his relationship worth his own New York pen- pal.

Elliot has stylized worlds that Marry and Max live in, this aloud the viewer to make a clear visual distinction among the pair’s home environments. With Max's life in a monochrome busy America and Mary's life in a  Australian suburbia. Their different worlds incorporate symbolic flashes of red, to represent the colour Mary brings into Max’s life. On a technical note the stop motion, movement especially the amazing motion control camera movements through miniature sets are smooth and add to the enjoyment of the film. Alexander Zalben film critic sates in her review that "The animation also is unique to the form, effectively using colour and the stiffness of Elliot's clay characters to create a world through narration and voice over that never feels like an attempt to mimic reality, but rather to hold a mirror up to it. Think of Mary and Max not as an animated film, but a film that uses animation to tell its story" (Zalben, 2009)

Fig.4 "Mary and Max" Film Still

"Mary and Max" is  funny and moving, a film of warmth and consistent heart-warming honesty that shows the incredible emotion depths of adult themes with the use of dark comedy.

Bibliography
Cabin, Chris (2010) Marry and Max Film Review. http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/mary-and-max/1776 (Accessed on 02/02/2012)
Zalben, Alexander (2009) Marry and Max Film Review  http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2009/mary-and-max/  (Accessed on 02/02/2012)

List Of Illustrations
Figure.1 Elliot, Adam (2009)  Mary and Max Still. http://www.cinemagora.co.uk/movie-7773-mary-and-max.html (Accessed on 02/02/2012)Figure.2 Elliot, Adam (2009) Mary and Max Still. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/oct/21/mary-and-max-review (Accessed on 02/02/2012)
Figure.3 Elliot, Adam (2009) Mary and Max Still. http://movieevangelist.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/review-of-the-year-2010-my-top-40-movies-of-2010/ (Accessed on 02/02/2012)
Figure.4 Elliot, Adam (2009) Mary and Max Still. http://absenceofalternatives.com/2010/11/mary-and-max.html (Accessed on 02/02/2012)

Transcription: Initial Thoughts.....

Its the beginning of the transcription unit and after thinking through all the options, I've decided to go for the Text to Digital Set for Film. So environments is the way I decided to go and after my first tutorial yesterday a  few ideas discussed.

Initial Idea One

My Initial thought come form my fascination with Alfred Hitchcock films and with the age range of which the final outcome would be for. Alan said that combing the genre of thriller and film noir with the suggested age range 10 -15 years old, is something that is rearly seen in films. One example is the 1976 film Bugsy Malone and film based on events in Chicago from the early 1920s to 1931 in the Prohibition era, specifically the exploits of gangsters like Al Capone and Bugs Moran, as dramatised in cinema featuring only child actors.

So the idea was to find a crime thriller story that I could then transcribe into a environment for a child film noir film.  The short stories of English novelist G. K. Chesterton about a fictional character called Father brown seems perfect for this idea. As a whole this idea still need some refining if this is the idea I decided to go with.

Initial Idea Two

My second thought was to  transcribed one of artist Edward Hoppers paintings. And after taking to Alan he suggested that maybe I could model the environment that you see in his paintings but then I will also model the part of the environment that you can not see. As there all ways seems to be more to Hoppers painting that you can not see. So it will seem as is you are walking into his paintings and see what is actually happening with the painting . At the moment there are several of his painting that I would really like to use here are a few that I am drawn to at the moment, with more still to look at.

Macomb's Dam Bridge (1935)

Manhattan Bridge Loop (1928)

Rooms For Tourist (1945)

The Lighthouse at Two Lights (1929)

At the moment I am not sure which idea to go with, so I decided to research a bit more into each idea and then make a decision.

Maya Tutorials: Cartoon Character Progress

Modelled 

 Modelled UV

Adding Joints

Everything Bounded

Progress is slow and I have run into a few problems with skinning the character but it is getting there slowly.



Narrative Project Update

As we are coming to the end of the narrative project,  I have unfortunately done very little blogging on my own blog throughout the group project.  So In this post I am to sum up my contribution to the group project as well as the final outcome of Destination Mars by First Light Studios (Max, Justin and Me)

First was pre production we spilt this up into sections and were all giving jobs to do. I worked on the environment concepts and also a few character concepts that we later decided not to go with as we went in a another direction.

Final Concept

Adam Concepts

Adam Concepts

Then after our pitch we went on to production, after assign jobs we went on to modelling everything. I was given the opportunity to model the Hollywood scene and rocket crash scene which i was quite excited about.  

Here are some modelling for the rocket crash scene, I modelled a few props and then but everything together with the rocket that Justin Created.

Then onwards to modelling the Hollywood scene.....

Scene Modelling Started

Finished Modeled Scene  

Next was to UV all the scene which was a stressful experience.

The textured were added which was exciting to see the scene come to life.

So here are some finial renders of the animation in this scene.

So after modelling, texturing, ligthing, rendering everything next was the best bit of this project putting together the final trailer.

So here it is the trailer of Destination Mars by First Light Studios

After 15 weeks, it has been a stressful but at the same time an enjoyable experience. I have definitely learnt a lot and I think that we are all pleased with the final outcome of the our trailer :) Next is the transcription project, which I quite excited about having the opportunity to use the skills that I have developed in this project. Onwards and upwards :)

@Phil: Postmodern Essay Stucture

Phil, I was hoping you could have a look at the essay structure of my postmodernism essay and see if I am on the right track before I begin writing the essay itself ?

Essay Title: A discussion of which the postmodernity theory of Metafiction is used to analysis and interpret  the Scream Franchise?

Essay Structure

• Introduce and defining postmodernism in general terms.
• Defining the postmodernity  theory of Metafiction in detail
• With an additional paragraph about 'meta-film' and general history of slasher films that came prior to Scream
• Introduce the Scream franchise
• Introduce what came before and influenced the Scream films  (Using screen shots to help with comparing elements of the films with other films that come before e.g Halloween).
• Further looking at the additional theories that Scream are  connect to such as Parody and Pastiche.
• Introduce the fact that Parody and Pastiche are part of Metafiction
• Look at how parody and pastiche are used in the scream films.

Postmodernism: Research (work in progress post)

This post is just so that have a place to put all the information and quotes that I find usefull for my essay on the Scream franchise and also metafiction.

Notes

Scream, is a slasher-horror movie based on the tradition Horror films before such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Wes Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm Street. Scream is actually much more than that, it transcending the limits of the genre by having the characters be aware and comment freely upon them. This way, the film becomes a work of “meta-fiction”. But also these movies have an increasingly Ourobouros like tendency towards self-awareness while never abandoning an actual narrative

The film purpose is to prey upon the audience’s knowledge of the horror film genre. Once the characters explicitly state that they know “the rules” for surviving in a horror movie, either those rules must be fulfilled resulting in the characters dying, or broken. It is this tension that sustains the movie. One of the things that made Scream stand out from its numerous successors and spin-offs, was its success as a film that utilized multiple genres and styles. For example, Scream is at once both funny and scary, and the film is aware that it is so.

Beneath all the gore and violence, there's a  sense of wit and intelligence which viewers are likely to appreciate, this is what makes this much more than a common slasher flick.

Scream is also one of the examples of metafiction in a horror film, in that Scream is self-referential and aware of its status as a film in the horror genre. One example form the franchise is that of Randy Meeks, a character in Scream and Scream 2 (with a cameo in Scream 3), that outlines the horror film survival rules that he has learned from working in a video store. It is rare to see a horror film, much less a horror film that can be so silly, comment on techniques employed in its own genre, as well as on the nature of the genre and medium itself.

Scream the horror film survival rules

With Scream 4, Craven decided that there was one key area that needed to be updated, with the earlier films having relied heavily on the telephone as a menacing plot device. But with a new era of communication technology, “Scream 4” had to reflects that, Craven stated in an interview about his recent scream film  that with "The growth of social networking, video cameras and recorders has a big presence in every nook and cranny of our life, and we’re very much in that world, I can’t imagine doing a film set in today’s world without those things being important to plot and character.” says Craven

Whereas the original three Scream films used iconic slasher’s from the 70′s and 80′s such as classic as Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. As the basses for the genre rules that where used as cliches within these films.  But Scream 4 was targeted at films such as the Saw franchise and of course the endless re-makes of such slasher films that have appeared in recent years. This was because Scream 4 was made 10 years after the other films, and since then there have been many other horror film some would say have had the effect. Doing this is making Scream 4 up-to-date but at the same time uses the method that the other three Scream movies used.

When research into the Scream franchise I stumble across a documentary that the Bio channel showed a while back called Scream: The Inside Story. Basically the documentary explains the backstory and all the work that went into the first Scream movie. The documentary itself is very interesting and there are a few quotes I have written down that could be helpfully for my essay.

Scream: The Inside Story Trailer

Scream: The Inside Story Part 1

As well as this documentry, I came across a book which at the moment I am trying to find a copy of called Scream Deconstructed: An Unauthorized Analysis. Which analysis all four Scream movies examine the meaning, themes and philosophy of the movie series that brought horror back from the dead by breaking all the rules. If I can find this book, this could be a great source I could use for my essay.

Quotes

"Scream is rare in that it functions as a horror movie and as a defence of horror movies, as both a criticism of the weaknesses of them and as an embracing of the same weaknesses as tropes that, more often than not, work. It deserves more respect." (Jensen,2010)

"In the ‘Scream' series, whenever rules are stated, it's us as filmmakers saying these are the cliches, and we immediately break the rules, send up the cliches," Craven says.