Week 1

The movies we looked at in class had a very distinct style to them as far as the way they were animated. At most points, there was often very little action taking place on the screen, but there was the illusion of a lot of movement. In animations such as the ones on Todd Gallina’s site, characters are composed of different pieces, which move, or are replaced altogether with other symbols to create the effect of movement. Things such as moving backgrounds or camera movement all can add to this effect as well. This style of animation allows artists to add in more detail with less work. In the movie Con Man, a scrolling background can be seen as the masked man runs along the rooftop. After the masked figure pokes his head over the top of a building, the camera zooms out and down which also adds to the feeling of movement. In another scene, as the two characters fight, a sort of flashing background is used and this adds life to the scene even though the characters are only being tweened slightly. The various camera angles, such as over the shoulder, close ups of faces, or from above all worked to help draw the viewer in and made the movie more interesting to watch. The background colors consisted of all grayscale colors, which made the main characters stand out more. The dark colors also added to the mood of the animation, one that is dark and somewhat mysterious. The story was also fairly simple, the masked character is running through a city, he fights with another character, and in the end, takes something from the other guy’s coat.