Gaming

Magen Thornhill
Blog 14: Gaming

The reading on Lara describes her as being an object for the male gaze. The reading compares her to a Barbie doll and says her body image can give a false impression to boys about the female body. While I do agree that Lara was designed for the male gaze, I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve played a lot of video games and I’ve seen several characters with unrealistic body images both male and female. I view video games as being more fantasy where normal rules don’t apply. There are also characters designed for the female gaze so I think it works both ways. For instance, I played Final Fantasy Crisis Core. There is this one part where the protagonist, Zack is out on the beach stretching with just his swim trunks on.

The reading describes Lara as being one of the first female heroines in video games. I really think that’s grown. There’s Blood Rayne, Parasite Eve, and Silent Hill 3 to name a few. I’m drawn to action/adventure games or role playing games. I wish there was more of an attempt to market them to girls. Since as the reading described games that involve things such as fashion and cooking are often marketed to girls. They didn’t have these games out when I was a kid but I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have been interested in them.

The reading on Inventing Space looks at the development of video games such as the uses of space. It also compares video games to film. I really like this comparison since I do view video games sometimes as a film or book. The stories lines can be so amazing and I find myself trying to quickly get through the next task just so I can get to the cut scene. Cut scenes are also becoming more developed and can even be over a half hour long as in Metal Gear Solid 4.

I really liked the section on Pixar. It was interesting to see how it developed and took off. I did see Avatar and the imagery was really amazing although I didn’t care much for the storyline. I always did think facial expressions looked a bit plastic in CGI so it’s nice to see that’s its changing. It’s also nice to see that Pixar is moving away from more traditional Disney and coming up with new storylines like Up instead of the common the prince saves the princess.

The Computer Revolution and Pixtar: Blog 13

Magen Thornhill
The Computer Revolution and Pixtar: Blog 13

I can really see where Fritz the Cat lead to adult animation such as shows like South Park and the stuff on Adult Swim. It dealt with world issues, issues of sexuality, race, and religion. The one thing I didn’t see too much of was intertextuality. Although I may have over looked it, I just didn’t recognize any. Shows like the Simpsons though and South Park have so much of it.

I really liked this weeks reading since I could think of a lot of examples of what they were talking about. It dealt with how live action and animation are two separate things. It is not impossible for animation to completely simulate the real but it can look very realistic. It can be photo realistic or provide learning models. It’s also gotten to look more real over the years.

I can really see this in Final Fantasy. I played Final Fantasy VII that came out in 1997. The graphics are not very good. The characters look box like, have defined polygons, no facial expressions, and there is not any voice acting. However, a game now such as Final Fantasy XIII looks amazing. The characters are so life like and the backgrounds are so in depth and stunning. I can also think of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which I saw in theaters. I think it was the first movie to have realistic computer generated characters.

Here’s a link that compares the opening of Final Fantasy VII to what it would look like now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVAs5B-BMB8

Magen Thornhill
Animation for Adults: Blog 12

I really liked the look of the puppet animation. The use of puppets as in the Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Coraline give the films a surreal feeling. They appear darker and a bit more shocking than if they would have been made with live action or 2D animation. The background and the characters also have a distinct look and look more in-depth. Their faces are distorted and certain attributes are pointed out such as eyes. However this gives them a more individual and real look or even a scarier look. Even the short with the dog puppet looked more realistic to me.

I’ve never seen Wallace and Gromit since I don’t watch that much clay animation but it was a lot better than I was expecting. I want to watch the rest of the series now. The reading mostly dealt with audience and spectatorship. I don’t remember watching too many adult related shows when I was a kid except for Ren and Stimpy. I really don’t think I was interested in them but I did like more in depth story lines.

Except for anime I really don’t watch them much now either. I never really got into to South Park, Family Guy, or the Boondocks. I’ll watch them if they’re on but I don’t go out of my way to watch them. I do like the Oblongs though and Robot Chicken. Robot Chicken also uses stop animation, animating dolls. It makes fun of a lot things such as Harry Potter and My Little Pony.

Here’s a link with Apocalypse Pony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrJ9DA8w3I4

Overall I think this is a really interesting subject and I’m really looking forward to class on Monday.

Blog 11: 100 years of Puppet and Claymation

Magen Thornhill
Blog 11: 100 years of Puppet and Claymation

This weeks reading was about stop motion and pixilation. Both are very time consuming. The reading talks about all the detail that goes into a frame. I’ve have an idea on how much work is involved from my own stop motion animation and that was only a few seconds. The use of clay must be especially difficult since it’s so easy to move the wrong way or leave a thumbprint. I really like the use of puppets in stop animation. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and Coraline all felt very surreal. They had their own look which really added to the feeling of the story. The plots are very in depth and the scenery changes naturally with attention to detail. Stop motion and puppets are also used a lot in kid’s shows.

Pixilation is amazing since it involves real actors. I don’t know how someone would be able to keep so still or hold an exact pose for an undetermined amount of time. Pixilation is more common than I thought. I don’t think I’ve paid that much attention to it before but now that I think about I can recall examples from commercials and TV. I would really like to see some more feature length stop motion in theaters since it’s so in depth and it’s an experience to watch.

This isn’t stop animation but it’s still done with puppets and I thought the creators did a very good with this so I wanted to point it out.

Harry Potter and The Mysterious Ticking Noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

I really liked the section on anime. I’ve watched Ghost in the Shell when they had the TV series on Cartoon Network but I’ve never watched the movie all the way through. It reminded me a lot of Blade Runner since I just saw it in film theory. I’ve also seen all of Neon Genesis, including the two movies and Cowboy Bebop. Neon Genesis was just strange and all the characters had psychological problems. Half the time I wasn’t even sure what was going on in the series. I still loved it and I can definitely see why it would be revolutionary.