Manchester Animation festival : Day 3 - BIG RED TURTLE

But , before we go into that, I should probably discuss the other things that has happened throughout the day . First was a full viewing of the old classic 1981 Clash of the Titans (using the original reel that from the British Films archive). It features the last works of reovolutionary stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen. To be honest , I never knew of him nor his work before the viewing , partly because I was born way to late to get some decent exposure on that , but just from pop culture knowledge , I've came across his work in Jason and the Argonauts , which is the scene of the warrior battling multiple skeletons . It came as quite a surprise to learn the fact that he was the first to combine animation with live actors on film , which effectively kickstarted the modern visual-effect dominated-film industry that includes pretty much everything from Star wars to Lord of the Rings to Transformers that we've taken for granted for so long ( to think that it is an animator that started that is quite inspiring actually). Of course by today standard, the quality of the animation itself can not compare, (and so is the acting ) , but nonetheless it is an good film. As an awesome bonus though , we got to see the actual Medusa models that were used in the film , and it was actually quite stunning with lots of intricate little details that due to the lighting were missing from the films, such as the scale patterns on her body or the little strands of hair behind her neck. The scale came as quite a surprise to as I thought it would be smaller.

    

Along side the viewing , I got a personal interview with Mr Paul Wells who helped me elaborate further the different genres of animation ( which ties in with my current Context of practice essay).  Its really interesting to hear from the author whose work had played such a major role in my studies, and even more interesting to hear he confessed that he would like to re-write his works in more simpler and easy-to -understand term, but that wouldn't sit well with the publisher. He helped me with my main request of explaining what the formal genre of animation is , with an answer that is short , straight-forward and very comprehensible : it is when animation ask the question " what is it that animation can do , that live action can not", such as telling a fairy tale, animation can bring in magic , can animate talking animals, that is something that real life can't . Its qualities like those that forms the bases of the formal genre. Without a doubt , having a clearer image of this would significantly improve my understanding and is yet another source of reference for my current and future essays.

And with that , I have to get to the main part of the they , the preview of "The Red turtle". With staff members for Studio Ghibli essentially kickstarting and participating in it , including art directer Isao Takahata, that reason alone was enough to draw me in , and I was not disappointed with it. But safe to say ,credit is where credit's due, the staff of studio Canal and all the other French and Belgian studios did an amzing job , created a beautiful piece of work, perhaps not reaching the level of details of Ghibli yet but nonetheless quite an achievement. Director Michael Dudok de Wit had shown such dedication to his craft by producing much of the storyboard by himself, close the ways of Miyazaki. As an animated feature with no dialog , The Red turtle truely relies on the visual aspect of animation to deliver its emotions , and it indeed succeed in this aspect. The colours used on the background are composed perfectly so that it would fit the emotional state of the scene and of the character, while still retain a sense of realism and natural quality , such as , the use of blue and black during stages of sadness, lost or despair, or the use of the raging red hues of sunset to emphasise anger in the character. Speaking of which , the production team has done so much in bringing out the humanity and character of the backgrounds. Most of the time , we see nature takes the center stage of the scenes ( where most compositions have the casts really small compared to the scenery around them). This create a true sense of scale and push the fact the the main character is truly lost to the vastness of nature. But not only that , we see nature playing the role of a character , interacting with the cast ( the bloody crabs ) and even becoming the antagonist in the final stages of the movie (the tsunami). At the begining of the movie , there is a short clip of director de Wit talking about the inspiration for this movie , among it is his fascination with nature and the tale of Robinson Crusoe. He didn't want a situation like in Robinson , where man dominates nature and its hardship , but instead focuses on the power and beauty of nature , where man relies on and are driven by it. Of course , I'm not saying that I fully understand the meaning he's trying to convey through the plot of the movie ( the having a fictional relationship with a turtle part really went over my head ) , but what he has succeeded in is telling an interesting story and conveying emotion effectively. Once again, this is thanks to the hard  work of the animation team, creating such fluid and human-like motions that is subtle yet really relatable to our real-life self ( throwing a rock out of frustration or cuddling behind your love ones ) .
Proper thumbs up to them , to Michael and to Ghibli for kickstarting such an amazing project.