The Generation of New Hollywood Directors

Introduction:

After the golden age of Italian cinema, the world’s eyes shifted back to Hollywood, as a new generation of young directors began the American New Wave or the New Hollywood movement. After World War II and with the release of television in the 1950s, filmmaking in the United States of America was at a low. The response of the studios to their audiences was bringing in something they could not find elsewhere: Technicolor, widescreen, stereo sound and 3D. The old studio heads, however, were out of touch with what the new baby boomers generation wanted. With their retirement, new executives took over who were willing to take more risks than their predecessors.  They realized audiences wanted something different than the classical historical epics or musicals, and they were willing to back up filmmakers and projects that would cater for it.  The new waves from around the world were felt in the United States of America, and it was time for the American New Wave.  Influences from Japan, Italy, France, and Latin America hit the USA in the forms of directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Francois Truffaut. 1967 was a significant year for New Hollywood, as films such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate set the tone and created the content for the future generation of filmmakers, while breaking the mold of what had come before.[1]  Many directors were born from this generation of New Hollywood filmmakers, most of who still have influence on the American film industry today.

Francis Ford Coppola:

Francis Ford Coppola was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 7^th, 1939. After high school, Coppola attended the film program at UCLA and then went on to attend graduate school, where he began working with Roger Corman (director of B-movies).  Corman gave him an opportunity to direct his first feature film, Dementia 13 (1963), which Coppola also wrote. Though that film failed, Coppola found directorial success in the 1968 musical Finian’s Rainbow. His best known film is without doubt The Godfather (1972). The trilogy is based on the novel by Mario Puzo, and follows the lives of the Corleone family, and Italian American family involved in organized crime. For this film, Coppola received his first nomination as Best Director for the Oscars, and won Best Screenplay and Best Picture. The Godfather Part II (1974) was also well received. The mafia trilogy was not complete until 1990 when he completed The Godfather Part III.  Between part 2 and part 3 of the trilogy, Coppola worked on The Outsiders (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).  After stepping away from filmmaking at the end of the 1990s, Coppola focused on his winery and on producing the works of his daughter, Sofia Coppola.[2]

Arthur Penn and Bonnie and Clyde:

                Arguably Arthur Penn’s most iconic film, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), not only defined the industry at the time of its release, but also redefined the entire crime genre.  The movie became one of the most talked about, volatile and controversial gangster films of the 1960s.  The producer of the film, Warren Beatty, also starred in the title role of Clyde Barrow. The film had many opposing moods and tones and was a cross between a gangster film, a romance, a road trip film, and a screwball comedy.  The characteristics of the film exemplified those of experimental filmmaking from the French New Wave. This milestone film, by new generation director Arthur Penn, became a popular and commercial success but was criticized by film reviewers and critics for glamorizing the two killers. When first released, the film gave off a shocking vibe as critics were horrified by the mix of comedy and violence.  After the hype died down a little, there was a period of reassessment where the film became glorified and was even nominated for ten Academy Awards. Penn’s work of art ended up winning two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography (Burnett Guffey).  When Bonnie and Clyde was released in the late 1960s, its sympathetic and revolutionary characters and its social criticism appealed to a young generation of anti-authority Americans who were protesting the Vietnam War, the corrupt social order, and the U.S. government’s role. The couple’s robberies of banks were seen sympathetically by the rural families that had lost everything due to institutions ruining (and robbing) indebted Dust Bowl farmers. The influence of the film spread to hairstyles, period music of the 1930s, retro clothing, and it changed the substance of popular films for the next generation of movie-goers.[3]

The director of this landmark movie was Arthur Penn, born on September 27^th, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He realized he wanted to work in theater while still in high school. He went on to join the military, and while stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, during World War II, Penn formed a small drama group with his fellow infantrymen.  After the war, Penn continued his theater education in North Carolina and Italy, though after landing a job at NBC TV, he decided he wanted to work behind the scenes.  Two years later in 1953, he was writing and directing live TV productions for the Philco Playhouse and Playhouse 90. After a successful career as a Broadway director, Penn returned to films with The Miracle Worker (1962), which became a big hit and earned him an Oscar nomination.  After abruptly being fired from Burt Lancaster’s film The Train (1964), and then again from Sam Siegel’s film The Chase (1966), Penn left filmmaking with disgust. After a year off, Warren Beatty hired Penn to direct Bonnie and Clyde. After a few decades more working in the film industry, Penn transitioned back to television in the early 1990s.  He even signed on as executive producer in 2000 to the Law and Order series, in order to bring the gripping action and violence he was so well known for.  Arthur Penn died on September 28^th, 2010 from congestive heart failure.[4]

Steven Spielberg:

Born on December 16^th, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Steven Spielberg is to date the most commercially successful filmmaker in Hollywood history. He began making short films while attending California State University and received positive notice for his 1969 short Amblin. His shift to feature films came in 1974 with The Sugarland Express.  The following year Jaws cemented his reputation as a rising star, but what declared him as the era’s most prominent director was Spielberg’s 1982 classic, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.  Starting in 1987, Spielberg went through a slump where his films Empire of the Sun (1987), Always (1989), and Hook (1991) were met with disappointment at the box office. The director came back strong with his big successes Jurassic Park (1993) and Schindler’s List (1993).  At the height of his success, Spielberg along with Disney’s former chief, Jeffrey Katzenberg, founded the production company, DreamWorks SKG. He spent the next few years serving as executive producer for films such as Twister (1996), Men in Black (1997), and The Mask of Zorro (1998).  In 1997, Spielberg received several Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for a movie he directed and produced named Amistad.[5]  This talented individual has continued to garner success for his movies, and is still producing and directing blockbusters in Hollywood nowadays.

Most directors that came from this same generation formed part of the New Hollywood movement. However, there were few that slipped through the cracks by becoming successful as independent directors or by focusing on other markets, such as Woody Allen.  Allen’s main focus was the European market and not the American one. Stanley Kubrick, who was making movies during this era as well, for financial reasons, was not considered part of this generation of directors. Regardless, both Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick have gone down as two of the most famous and successful Hollywood directors in the history of cinema.

Woody Allen:

Woody Allen was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 1^st, 1935.  Known for his romantic comedies and well defined female characters, Allen still makes successful pictures today.  His most recent film Magic in the Moonlight (2014) was screened last month at the Torino Film Festival, the second largest film festival in Italy. After Allen failed a course in motion picture production at New York University in 1953, he dropped out of school to write for television. He won an Emmy Award nomination for his work, but soon got bored and tried working with stand-up comedy. His comedy became a success in New York City and career as a writer was solidified.  His directorial debut was made in 1966 with What’s Up, Tiger Lily?  After which his career as a director took off with Take the Money and Run in 1969.  All throughout his career, Allen wrote short comic pieces for The New Yorker magazine. Though the 1960s were important for Woody Allen’s career, his career breakthrough did not come until 1977 when he made Annie Hall.  For the next decade, Allen worked on many big hits (and a few misses), until the 1990s when he ignored Hollywood and focused on low-budget productions. The millennium began with a string of comedies that received mixed reviews such as Match Point (2005) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). In 2012, Allen won the Oscar for best original screenplay for his movie Midnight in Paris.  Woody Allen continues to make films today.[6]

 

Stanley Kubrick:

Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26^th, 1928 in the Bronx, New York City. Kubrick did very well for himself after high school, landing a job as a photographer for the magazine Look. He quit his job after four years to direct his first film, a documentary titled Day of the Fight, in 1950 about the middleweight boxer, Walter Cartier.  Because of necessity and lack of money, Kubrick was director, cameraman, lighting engineer, makeup artist, administrator, prop man, and unit chauffeur of his first movies. His breakthrough role came with Paths of Glory in 1957, where he met Christiane Harlan, whom he eventually married. Kubrick’s following films, Dr. Strangelove (1963), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) are all regarded as masterpieces.  Though critics agreed that the quality of his films declined with Barry Lyndon (1975) and The Shining (1980), they are both regarded as some of his most famous works. In a 1987 interview with the Rolling Stone magazine, Kubrick was told by an interviewer, “You’ve quoted Pudovkin to the effect that editing is the only original and unique art form in film.” To which his response was:

I think so. Everything else comes from something else. Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from the theater, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. You can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.[7]

[1] Hitchman, S. (2013, January 1). A HISTORY OF AMERICAN NEW WAVE CINEMA. Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.newwavefilm.com/international/new-hollywood.shtml

[2] Francis Ford Coppola. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 02:17, Dec 09, 2014, fromhttp://www.biography.com/people/francis-ford-coppola-9257168.

[3] Dirks, T. (2014, January 1). Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Retrieved December 17, 2014, from http://www.filmsite.org/bonn.html

[4] Arthur Penn. (2010, January 1). The New York Times. Retrieved December 17, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/106024/Arthur-Penn/biography

[5] Steven Spielberg. (2010, January 1). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/112325/Steven-Spielberg/biography

[6] Heywood Allen. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 12:41, Dec 10, 2014, fromhttp://www.biography.com/people/woody-allen-9181734.

[7] Cahill, T. (2011, March 7). The Rolling Stone Interview: Stanley Kubrick in 1987. Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-rolling-stone-interview-stanley-kubrick-in-1987-20110307?page=4

The Distribution of Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock’s most successful movie is without a doubt Psycho, but the journey to make the illustrious film was not an easy one.  Hitchcock was the only one to believe Psycho could be a hit, but he was not backed up by the executives at Paramount Pictures. They refused to finance the movie, so Hitchcock and his wife, Alma, used their own house as collateral to pay for the $800,000 production.  In exchange, Paramount agreed to take care of marketing and distribution for 40% of the profits.

Another method Hitchcock used to keep his audiences in the dark about Psycho was to have his workers buy all the remaining copies of Robert Bloch’s Psycho novel. He also ordered the cast and crew to take an oath: “I promise I shall not divulge the plot of Psycho.” The thing that may have helped the director the most with distributing his film was the use of word of mouth.  “If we don’t have word of mouth, we’re dead,” Hitchcock said after completing production on Psycho.  The director understood few enticements sell tickets faster than the prospect of being scared witless, so he produced a “Manuel for Theater Goers” to warn about the dangers of heart attacks that might occur while watching the film.  He also stationed nurses outside the theater where Psycho premiered to assist any audience members who passed out during the infamous shower scene.  This proved an extremely successful technique, the equivalent of going “viral” on social media today.  As one may know, Psycho went on to become Alfred Hitchcock’s best known film.  He made horror films A-list movies, whereas before they had always opened as B-movies. Hitchcock, to this day, is considered one of the most important directors in the history of cinema.[1]

[1] Hart, H. (2012, November 23). Hitchcock Shows 6 Ways Psycho Slashed Hollywood’s Rule Book to Shreds | WIRED. Retrieved March 11, 2015, from http://www.wired.com/2012/11/hitchcock-psycho/2/

The Theme of Religion throughout Films in Hollywood

In the United States of America, the separation of church and state has always been apparent; especially since this was a country founded on religious freedom.  However, over the years the ability for one to express their religious freedom has been compromised because of the oversensitivity of others.  The media and entertainment industry are testimonies of this hypothesis, as one can witness throughout the history of cinema in Hollywood, the depiction of religion as it evolves (or devolves) thanks to studios not wanting to offend anyone.  In the 1990s, Disney depicted lust, hell, and darkness in their animated films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame yet still managed to gain a G rating for its audiences. Nowadays, everything has to be politically correct in order for no one to become affronted by the content in movies.

In 1916, Thomas H. Ince, Reginald Barker, and Raymond B. West came together to direct the epic plea for peace, Civilization.  The film had a large budget and was compared to DW Griffith’s masterpieces The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance.  The aspect of human weakness in the film resembled those of Intolerance, yet the battle scenes were like those of Birth of a Nation.  Civilization holds one of the first depictions of Jesus Christ in a motion picture.  The protagonist of the movie is a count who is miraculously saved after being on his deathbed. He returns as a messenger (almost prophet) no longer willing to be a soldier and fight in the war.  The count parallels Jesus Christ and shares many similarities, including that of receiving the death sentence for his Holy actions. Jesus Christ’s spirit even comes out of the count’s body in order for the parallel to be clear to the audience and the citizens in the movie (depicted in Figure 1). The overall message of the movie is war is not good and peace is necessary.

Figure 1. Thomas H. Ince, Civilization, 1916. Film, 88 min.

Years later, as the technology of cinema progressed, movies began to have sound and to develop in other ways, such as special effects and narratives.  Cecil B. Demille became one of Hollywood’s most prominent directors of the 20^th century, and showed how successful biblical epics could be by making The Ten Commandments in 1923 and then remaking it again with better technology and Technicolor in 1956.  Even nowadays, the movie is hailed by film critics as an important part of film history.

In 1943, 20^th Century Fox produced a film titled The Song of Bernadette, based on the Marian apparitions of Lourdes, France taking place from February to July 1858. The film was directed by Henry King and adapted by George Seaton from the 1941 bestselling novel with the same name by Franz Werfel.  The novel was so popular that it spent more than a year on the New York Times Best Seller list, thirteen of those weeks as the number one book.  The film was a great success both critically and financially, receiving nominations at the 1943 Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role (for Galdys Cooper and Anne Revere), Best Director, Best Editing, Best Picture, Best Sound, and Best Screenplay, winning four Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Best Cinematography, and Best Music, and winning at the first Golden Globe Awards in 1944 for Best Director, Best Motion Picture, and Best Motion Picture Actress.   Jennifer Jones began production on The Song of Bernadette alongside such veteran actors as Vincent Price and Charles Bickford.  She was 24 years old at the time, playing the part of a 14 year old girl.  Though she won the Oscar for her role, Jones had to go home alone, as she had separated from her husband Robert Walker and her lover David O. Selznick was not about to go home with her.[1]

Figure 2. Newspaper clipping hailing the success of The Song of Bernadette

 

Christianity has been depicted in many ways in Hollywood.  In the 1950s, apart from Demille’s The Ten Commandments, William Wyler also made the successful epic in 1959, Ben-Hur and in 1960 Stanley Kubrick directed Spartacus, another box office success.  As the years passed, Hollywood occasionally released religious films. Some were hits, others not so much. In 1988, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ led to an attack on a movie theater in Paris, which Scorsese credited for the flopping of his movie at the box office.[2]  Kingdom of Heaven was a 2005 film directed by Ridley Scott which flopped in North America but did well in Europe.  Scott insinuated that the U.S. disaster of the film was the result of bad advertising, which presented the film as an adventure with a love story rather than as an examination of religious conflict.  If the movie made does not touch on the moral conflict, but instead just tell a story from a neutral point of view, people are not bothered.  The problem is when the director decides to pick a side of the argument because the people on the opposite side of the argument will not only disagree but also get offended.  Such is true for any scenario, not just religion.

Figure 3. Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus, 1960. Film, 184 min.

After many wars and social divisions in the United States of America, the two major political parties have been greatly divided almost right down the middle.  With the last Presidential elections being so close (the Democratic Party winning with a 51.1% and the Republican Party losing with a 47.2%), the people are divided and so is their taste for Hollywood films. Films depicting a strong message of religion have been linked to the conservative party.  In 2014, Pure Flix Entertainment (a small Arizona production company) decided to make a film about the problem of political correctness and the oversensitivity of people in schools.  God’s Not Dead was made on a small $2 million budget and was not distributed to large theater companies.  Only small private theaters decided to air the film, causing believers and supporters to drive hours to their nearest privately owned theaters in order to view the film on its opening weekend.  Though the film was a critical failure, Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Markovitz referred to it as “the biggest surprise of the weekend”.  God’s Not Dead made $62 million worldwide and even led to the announcement of a sequel.  Lions Gate acquired the home distribution rights, leading Pure Flix to hand them the right to distribute the movie through EST (electronic sale through), VOD (video on demand), SVOD (subscription video on demand), Pay-Per-View, and television across the US. [3]

Hollywood may have long been divided, but now it is more apparent thanks to the internet and other forms of publicity, which are more easily accessible now than when film first began.  A great example of the evolvement of the citizens of our country and Hollywood as a whole is the Disney Corporation.  Back in the day, Disney was able to put out cartoons and motion pictures with a lot of moral controversy, versus now they would simply get sued by too many people if they tried.  The Donald Duck Nazi propaganda animation, known as Der Fuehrer’s Face, released in support of the troops in World War II would lead to many law suits and a greater division if released in this day and age.  The creative freedom and ability to express oneself has changed over the years.  Once Americans would line up to watch movies with biblical depictions such as Civilization or the Ten Commandments because they enjoyed them, whereas now one could say it is more to prove a point and fight political correctness in the media and the entertainment industry.  A great example of this is the 2014 movie The Interview, about two men who to North Korea to assassinate Kim Jun Un. It became a hit online and at the small theaters that played it, not because it was good movie but because people wanted to prove a point about creative liberty and freedom of speech.

Figure 4. Donald Duck in Der Fuehrer’s Face, 1943. Cartoon, 8 min.

[1] Taken from the documentary Jennifer Jones: The Portrait of a Lady

[2] Greenhouse, S. (1988, October 25). Police Suspect Arson In Fire at Paris Theater. The New York Times. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/25/movies/police-suspect-arson-in-fire-at-paris-theater.html

[3] Lions Gate Acquires Home Distribution Rights for ‘God’s Not Dead’ – Analyst Blog. (2014, July 11). Retrieved March 5, 2015, from http://www.nasdaq.com/article/lions-gate-acquires-home-distribution-rights-for-gods-not-dead-analyst-blog-cm369602

3D Creations: The Future of Animation

1. INTRODUCTION

To explore 3D animation, one must look further and begin with its predecessor, animation. With the mix of technology and hand drawn creations, computer software were generated that made the process for cartoonists and filmmakers easier.  Cartoons on a television screen first began appearing in the early 1900s.  The most successful and influential of the early animation studios was the John Bray studio, where Max Fleisher and Walter Lantz (future studio heads) perfected their skills.  The largest contribution from this studio to the industry may arguable be the introduction of cels, the process of inking the animator’s drawings onto clear pieces of celluloid and then photographing them in succession on a single painted background. This process resembles present-day stop motion. (Crandol, 1999)

Though many studios contributed to the history of animation, the most influential studio from an artistic and commercial point of view is the Walt Disney Studio. “Without Disney’s streamlined organization of talent and creative collaboration the animated cartoon could never have advanced as rapidly or as beautifully as it has.”  (Crandol, 1999)  In the mid-1980s, two men known as Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull came along and transformed the industry.  They knew little to nothing about business but were computer graphics pioneers and had a lot to offer.  They were working for George Lucas until Steve Jobs decided to take a chance on them and funded their project, Pixar Inc. Later on, Pixar would continue to collaborate with Disney before eventually being bought by the Walt Disney Company in 2006.  Pixar brought a lot of innovate techniques to the world of animation.

Nowadays, computer generated imagery (CGI) is almost guaranteed to be used in any animated feature. The art form has come a long way since its beginnings in the early 1900s. Many directors such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Bay, and James Cameron have used the devices created to advance in animation in order to create special effects for live action movies.  These directors, along with many others, have become innovators in filmmaking, 3D graphics, and special effects.

1.1 Methodology

The research conducted to carry out this topic was done mostly through the form of investigating on the internet.  However, to take the research to the next level, an animation conference that is held every year in Torino (the VIEW conference) was attended in order to further understand the innovation behind Pixar Inc. and computer graphics. The software Blender was also downloaded and many tutorials were followed in order to further the knowledge on 3D software.  Learning by doing was a major part of this project. By learning and applying what was learned in the Blender software, one is wiser in the practice of 3D animation.  The difference between 2D animation software (such as Adobe After Effects) becomes more clear when one learns to use such 3D software as Blender or Cinema 4D.  Apart from investigating online and learning Blender, another step was taken in contacting a specialist.  Getting different opinions on a topic helps one expand their own opinions, especially if the others are important people in the industry.  A professor of cinematographic engineering from the Polytechnic University of Turin was contacted in order to further discuss the future of animation and 3D in the film industry.

1.2 Aims

1. To discover how the 2009 movie Avatar changed the way audiences view movies forever.
2. To demonstrate the evolution of animation, from hand drawn to computer generated.
3. To explain the use and importance of 3D software in today’s entertainment industry.

 

 

2. AVATAR: THE FUTURE OF 3D ANIMATION

2.1 James Cameron

Born on August 16, 1954 in Ontario Canada, James Cameron is one of the most innovative minds of Hollywood.  Cameron first found success with The Terminator (1984). His movie, Titanic (1997) earned three Academy Awards in Best Picture, Best Director, and Film Editing.  Cameron’s science fiction epic Avatar (2009) took him almost ten years to make. Avatar became his first feature film since Titanic, only making documentaries and low-budget films in between the two epics. Cameron had written the 80 page script for Avatar in 1995 and in 1996 announced he would be making the film after completing Titanic. However, due to lack of technology, it was later explained that the production would be stalled until the proper technology was available to produce the film. Apart from this factor, studios at the time would not finance the development of visual effects. (NA, 2010)

Avatar broke several box office records, grossing almost $3 billion worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film of all time, surpassing Titanic. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won three of them, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. (NA, 2010)  James Cameron is a very innovative man who co-developed a 3D camera system called the Fusion Camera System with Vince Pace. Pace was a Hollywood inventor who had worked with Cameron in his 1989 film The Abyss.  Pace had developed special underwater lighting for the movie. (Thompson, 2010)

2.2 Technological Devices

The Fusion Camera System (FCS) was developed as a way to shoot features in stereoscopic 3D.  The FCS first used the Sony HDC-F950 and later updated to the Sony HDC-1500 HD cameras. The cameras are equipped with Fujinon lenses from Fujifilm. The system uses the two high definition cameras in a single camera body in order to create depth perception. The cameras are placed just two and half inches apart to mimic the stereoscopic separation of the human eye. (Thompson, 2010)

To film the shots where CGI and live action interact, a camera known as SimulCam was used – a merger of the 3D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems.  The SimulCam allows for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.  While filming live action in real time, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch are superimposed over the live action images as in amplified reality and shown on a small monitor. Because Cameron wanted to be able to see the actors moving within the virtual environments while still in the motion capture stage of production, he challenged his virtual production supervisor, Glen Derry, to come up with this virtual camera system. The virtual camera would show a low resolution of Pandora with the superimposed performances. (Thompson, 2010)

The resulting swing camera (so called because its screen could swing to any angle to give Cameron greater freedom of movement) is another of Avatar‘s breakthrough technologies. The swing camera has no lens at all, only an LCD screen and markers that record its position and orientation within the volume relative to the actors. That position information is then run through an effects switcher, which feeds back low-resolution CG versions of both the actors and the environment of Pandora to the swing cam’s screen in real time.  (Thompson, 2010)

Motion capture is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. Cameron used the motion capture technology used in the Polar Express (2004) and further developed it for Avatar. Nowadays, the process of motion capture is well established. The actors are dressed in “mocap” suits that are studded with reflective reference markers and stripes, and then cameras capture the basic movements of a performance which are mapped to digital characters on a computer.  This technology is capable of recording a 360 degree view of performances, so the actors must play out the scenes without knowing where the “camera” will eventually be placed. (Thompson, 2010)

Cameron prefers to call his process of motion capture, performance capture because he decided to take it a step further and also seize the emotions and facial expressions shown in the face of an actor. In order to gain more data from the actors’ faces, Cameron attached a small camera to the front of a helmet to track every facial movement.  ‘”I knew I could not fail if I had a 100 percent close up of the actor 100 percent of the time that traveled with them wherever they went,”’ he said. ‘”That really makes a close up come alive.”’ A digital framework of the actors’ faces were produced by the cameras and then given a set of rules that applied the muscle movements from their faces to that of the Avatars or Na’vi people (depending on who the actor was playing). In order for the computer generated character to express the same emotions as the actor, the digital framework had to translate every single feature of the face, from the eyebrow arches to the expressions. (Thompson, 2010)

Figure 2. Robert Zemeckis, The Polar Express, 2004. Film, 100 min.

Figure 3. James Cameron, Avatar, 2009. Film, 161 min.

Only about 25% of the movie was created using traditional live performances on the set.  Most of the world of Avatar was created with CGI. Actress Sigourney Weaver plays botanist Grace Augustine and she stated it was “‘the most ambitious movie I’ve ever been in. Every single plant and creature has come out of this crazy person’s head. This is what Cameron’s inner 14-year-old wanted to see.’“ (Thompson, 2010)  James Cameron and his innovative techniques, along with his ambition made Avatar a great success and a revolutionary technological advancement for the film industry and for 3D animation. Virtual creations were on a whole different level.  The greatness of James Cameron is that he experiments with these technological advances before they are perfected. He is a risk taker, and though that may scare many in Hollywood, it is also rewarding if done successfully.

3. DISNEY: FROM 2D TO 3D ANIMATION

3.1 The Evolution of Animation

Today, the Walt Disney Studio holds the monopoly of the film industry.  They are commercially successful, own many other studios (such as Marvel, ESPN, and Pixar), and create software and programs when needed in order to continue the advancement of technology necessary to produce their heartwarming motion pictures.  With every new movie that is released, their animation techniques advance. The following is a timeline of how technology kept improving with each new movie, as the years passed.  This caused a transformation from Disney’s classic 2D animations to their new 3D computer generated animations seen on the big screens today (such as Frozen and Tangled).

Figure 4. Burny Mattinson, David Michener, John Musker, Ron Clements, The Great Mouse Detective, 1986. Film, 74 min.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986), though still using hand drawn animation, capitalized on the CGI techniques used for producing the movie The Black Cauldron (1985), as layouts were done on computers and the climactic sequence within the interior of Big Ben relied heavily on computer-generated animation.[1]

Figure 5. Ron Clements, John Musker, The Little Mermaid, 1989. Film, 82 min.

The Little Mermaid (1989) was the last Disney feature film to utilize hand-painted cel animation. It was the first to use the newly developed Computer Animation Production System process (CAPS) to generate artwork for a few sequences. This was essentially a digital ink system that allowed artists to create and catalogue their work using computers.^[1]

Figure 6. Hendel Butoy, Mike Gabriel, The Rescuers Down Under, 1990. Film, 77 min.

The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was the first feature film done all in CAPS. The founders of Pixar Animation Studio created CAPS while still working at Lucasfilm and then finished it while at Pixar. The founders of Pixar, Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull, went to Disney constantly trying to sell their ideas and software to the studio in the 1970s, but it was not until Michael Eisner and Frank Wells took over the Disney Studio in 1984, that Pixar was finally able to begin collaboration with Disney.  The CAPS project was a system for digitizing the old cel animation process, where everything is digital except the art work. The system worked better than anyone hoped and Disney never made another cel animated movie again. Alvy Ray Smith said many people argue that The Rescuers Down Under is the first CGI (Pixar) movie, but because the art was not done digitally, he does not consider it to be the first one. Nevertheless, it was this movie and this innovation that sealed a relationship with Pixar and Disney.[2]

Figure 7. Ron Clements, John Musker, Aladdin, 1992. Film, 90 min.

In Aladdin (1992), CGI enabled the animators and filmmakers to create the amazing magic carpet ride through the Cave of Wonders, the complexly patterned flying carpet, and the tiger head cove (pictured in Figure 7). ^[1]

Figure 8. Chris Buck, Kevin Lima, Tarzan, 1999. Film, 88 min.

A process called “Deep Canvas” technology was developed for the movie Tarzan (1999) and was later used to create a new process called “Virtual Sets” that allowed the production team to create 360-degree sets for animated environments. This enabled them to use live-action cinematography techniques in an animated world.  The production team developed a 3D painting and rending technique to produce the 3D backgrounds. The software was able to track brushstrokes applied in 3D space and allowed the computer-generated backgrounds to maintain a traditional animated look. ^[1]’

Figure 9. Mark Dindal, Chicken Little, 2005. Film, 81 min.

Though not very successful at the Box Office, Chicken Little (2005) was Disney’s first complete CG-animated feature film. It was the first movie to be presented in Disney Digital 3D. ^[1]

Figure 10. Chris Williams, Byron Howard, Bolt, 2008. Film, 96 min.

Bolt (2008) was Disney’s first animated feature to be conceived and designed for 3D, despite the fact that a change of directors from Chris Sanders to Chris Williams and Byron Howard, caused the project to be rushed.  The normal time frame for a 3D CG movie to be created is four years, yet the animation team was given the task to complete the movie in 18 months, shortly after Sanders was replaced. ^[1]

Figure 11. Ron Clements, John Musker, The Princess and the Frog, 2009. Film, 97 min.

In 2009, The Princess and the Frog became Disney’s last film to be done with hand drawn animation.  It was an important movie for many different reasons but most importantly it was a return to classical Disney 2D animation. The relationship with Disney and these hand drawn cartoons is massive and brings authorship back to the animators of the company. John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Studios said, “If there’s a studio in the world that should still be doing hand drawn animation, it should be the Walt Disney Animation Studio… the studio that started it all.”[3]

After Tiana, Rapunzel became the next princess in the Disney Princess lineup.  She also became the first Disney CGI princess. Tangled (2010) is Disney Animation Studio’s 50^th animated feature film and is also their first fairy tale to be created using 3D CG animation instead of 2D animation.  Rapunzel’s hair was a big part of her personality and also the most difficult part to animate. (Carter, 2013)

Animator Jesus Canal describes Rapunzel’s hair as being an important part of her character that required a great deal of collaboration between the animator and the technical team. The technical team developed a system that combined rig-based key-frame animation with hair simulation. This allowed the character animators to control the motion, poses and silhouettes of the hair in response to Keane’s “draw-overs.” This deliberate effort to extend the Disney aesthetic to the CG medium makes Tangled ideally suited to close analysis. (Carter, 2013)

Figure 12. Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Frozen, 2013. Film, 109 min.

Although, Rapunzel’s hair was tricky for the animators and contained 27,000 extra-long strands, in the 2013 blockbuster Frozen, Elsa’s hair surpassed Rapunzel’s with 400,000 individual CG threads. The project was so large that it required the creation of a new program in order to execute it. The program was called Tonic. Software called Spaces was also created in order to bring to life the character of Olaf in the movie. This software allowed the animators to deconstruct and rebuild him as part of the animating process. Apart from Spaces, software called Flourish was also invented in order to allow for easier movements of Olaf, such as the movement of his twig arms. (THR Staff, 2013)

 

4. HOW TO CREATE 3D ANIMATIONS: SOFTWARE

Just as any studio decides what editing software to use, each studio also decides what 3D software they use to edit their movies. Some television studios use Avid to edit their programs, some film studios will use Final Cut Pro, while yet other studios can use Adobe Premiere and After Effects. The movie Avatar used many companies and software in order to produce their final result. However, most shots for the film were created on Autodesk Maya. Though Maya is probably the most popular 3D animation software in Hollywood, university professors will start their animation students off with something more basic.  Such examples of startup software are Blender and Cinema 4D.  In this case, the software used to explain how 3D animation works will be Blender.[4]

4.1 The Basics of Blender

Figure 13. Interface of default screen of Blender software

After downloading the Blender software onto the computer, the first step is to open a new project.  The default setting always shows a cube as the central 3D object with a blue, green, and red arrow to control the axis you want to work on (x axis is red arrow, y axis is green arrow, and z axis is blue arrow). The rectangle with the black triangle on top in the top left corner of the screen is the camera, while the line with the black circle on top to the right of the cube is the lamp.  What one can find in Figure 13 is the 3D view, where an artist or designer does the majority of their work (from modeling to animating to rendering…).[5]

Figure 14. The right corner of the InfoBar

Figure 14 depicts the data visible in the top right corner of the InfoBar. This shows information reports about the current scene.  In the above example, one can see that the current scene has eight vertices, six faces, twelve triangles, three objects (one of which is selected), one lamp, and the amount of memory that is being installed.^[5]

Figure 15. Outliner in the default Blender interface

The outliner in Blender is the hierarchy of the current scene. It can be found on the right of the screen, right below the information reports previously mentioned. One can select a layer by simply clicking on them in the outliner. If one presses the eye icon to the right of each object, they can hide the object on the 3D view.  By pressing the cursor icon next to the eye, one locks the object so that it may no longer be selected at any point. The third icon next to the cursor is a camera, which removes the object from the render. If an animator does not want to delete an object, but wants to prevent it from contributing to a render or hide its visibility, they must click the camera icon. ^[5]

Figure 16. Properties panels in Blender

Found below the outliner is the properties panels, where one adjusts everything from their render resolution to their anti-aliasing settings. One can switch among their settings (camera is the scene, the cube is the object…) by clicking the little boxes in the very top, seen in Figure 16. ^[5]

Figure 17. Timeline in Blender

The timeline is useful for scrubbing through time by left clicking the mouse and dragging it. The current frame can be found where the number 87 is seen in Figure 15.  One can notice the frame count next to the current frame. The start is 1 and the end is 250, stating there are a total of 250 frames in the animation. Settings such as cameras and views can be changed in the View menu button found directly above the timeline (also pictured in Figure 17). ^[5]

There are many other features to be learned about 3D software that take animators many hours of dedicated practice and studying to master. Once the knowledge of how to navigate the software is acquired, the artist may begin their 3D project with ease.  For an amateur, any computer graphics software may look almost impossible to learn, as they are composed of many factors. However, with practice, one masters this software and eventually becomes successful in producing virtual creations.

4.2 Interview with a Specialist

Riccardo Antonino is the CEO and founder of the small Italian production studio, Garybald.  In Garybald, Antonino takes on multiple projects such as working on animations and special effects for films, editing and filming music videos, and bringing to life his own projects.  Apart from running a studio, Antonino is a professor of cinematographic engineering at the best engineering school in Italy, the Polytechnic University of Turin.  The Polytechnic University is first in Italy and eighth in Europe for Engineering.  The following is an interview conducted with the specialist Riccardo Antonino regarding the future of film and animation. (Jerez, 2014)

Q = Question (Conducted by Claudette Jerez)

A = Answer (Response from Riccardo Antonino)

Q: How important are computer graphics in the future of animation?

A: That’s not the future. It’s the present. The largest entertainment industries are videogames, animation and blockbuster movies. All of them already make an extensive use of CGI with a huge number of companies involved in outsourcing jobs from the majors. The future CGI animation passes through differentiation in animation styles and simplification of the software, thus making the production process more accessible to amateurs.

Q: How often are you required to work with computer graphics in your studio?

A: Very often. Even in a small promo for an artist or in a television ad there’s always a small amount of CGI, 2D or 3D, visible or invisible.

Q: What is the largest difference between old hand drawn animation and the new CGI?

A: Hand drawn animation is more similar to stop motion than to CGI. Hand drawn animation gives you much less technical freedom, but still shows more differences in the artistic styles of the different authors. In CGI many more components of a scene can be animated, although making it expensive, long and complicated to make if you want to achieve the Hollywood movies level. I think it’s because of this that I often see that artistic styles of animation in the film industry tend to be very similar to each other. I personally like when hand drawn animation and CGI merge into something unique.

Q: In your opinion, is 3D the future of film and animation?

A: If you talk about 3D stereoscopy, the answer is no, because it’s based on a wrong technical principle: the fixed point of view of the observer. It’s because of this, of the price, of the low brightness of polarized glasses that people still prefer to enjoy a standard 2D movie. Maybe, in the near future, ultra-bright holographic projectors and holographic cameras will be out on the market and real 3D will eventually rule the market.

5. CONCLUSION

Though animation has been around for over a century, with technological advances, these animated creations have continued to evolve. What started as hand drawn cartoons in a studio in the 1910s has become an entire industry. This industry in the 2000s shifted from traditional 2D animations to 3D computer graphics. Though some professionals and amateurs alike may argue that with 3D CG authorship has been lost, studios like Disney continue to leave a mark on young and old alike in the world. Apart from studios, directors themselves have become ambitious with these new arising technologies and have used software and cinematography to manipulate filmmaking into colossal projects.  James Cameron waited a decade to have the technology available to create his 2009 hit Avatar, yet for ten years he did not just sit and wait. Cameron developed software and camera systems to help bring his imagination to life. Many like Cameron have devoted time and money into the development of special effects and computer generated imagery. The future is now, and with every day that passes it becomes more evident that 3D creations are in control of the entertainment and gaming industries.

[1] Information taken from the Walt Disney Animations Studio website: http://www.disneyanimation.com/studio/our-films

[2]  Alvy Ray Smith, Own Transcription (View Conference 2014: Pixels to Pixar)

[3] Information taken from the Special features of the Princess and the Frog DVD on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZOAMoNtp7k

[4] If one goes to File>User Preferences>Input, one can change the Blender software to work like Maya or 3Dsmax, in order to avoid having to learn a completely new software.  (This was my favorite feature about Blender)

[5] Tutorials for the use of Blender can be found on http://cgcookie.com/blender/lessons/interface-and-navigation

F. W. Murnau, director of Sunrise, a Tale of Two Humans

Born in December of 1988 in Germany, Murnau was one of the most important directors in the 1920s. He also is a prominent figure in the German Expressionist movement. By the age of 12, he already read Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen. He served as a commander during World War One in the German Air Force. After returning home, he set up the Murnau-Veidt-film company in 1919.

He made many works, notably Faust and Nosferatu, which were the first feature length films to have an original film scores. In 1926 Murnau emigrated to the United States, where he continued to make films. He joined Fox Studios to create Sunrise. It was very successful and received several of the very first Oscars. His next two films after were not received well. He decided to go to Bora Bora to film Tabu (which was censored in the United States for bare breasted women).

Before he got to see his own film in theaters, however, he died in a car accident after his 14 year old driver crashed against an electric pole. Murnau was only 41 when he died, and his funeral was attended by 11 people.