Week 8

This week I watched a movie called The Chase. The story starts out showing a desert with a train running through it. The movie then cuts to a character leaping onto the stage and beginning to run after a something that looks like a cross between a man and a snowman riding on the back of the train. The snowman hurls various objects off the train trying to stop the guy chasing him, but nothing works. Once the other character reaches the train, we see that he is only trying to return the wallet to the snowman character.

The animation starts off with simple tweening; the desert scenery scrolling past, the camera panning past train tracks, and the train moving along the tracks. As soon as the first character jumps onto the screen, the animation changes to frame by frame. The frame by frame character animations are done in a certain style and combined with the camera movements during the chases scenes, a certain energy is added to the movie.

When the movie is starting out, the music is slow and relaxed, but after the chase begins, the music changes to something upbeat, again, adding to the sense of energy and movement that is being established for the chase. Once the chase is over, the music changes back to the slow, country western style music.

The backgrounds were simple, consisting of orange for the sky and yellows for the sand and rocks. This color scheme works well with the desert setting of the animation. The characters are colored with mostly pale colors, which works to make them stand out against the brightly colored backgrounds.