Animation legend Walt Disney once said, “Animation offers a medium of storytelling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world.” This quote rings especially true with Disney-Pixar’s Up. Pete Docter, the director of Up, is able to use multiple tactics to display human emotions throughout the film including music and silence, lighting and colors, and 3-D filming. The efficacy of these tactics will be further analyzed to see if their use yields value to the production as a whole.
The melodious instrumentals that accompany Up have the ability to plunge the audience deeper into the fantastic animated environment. The composer of the soundtrack for Up, Michael Giacchino, does a spectacular job of complementing music with the feelings of characters. The first scene of the film takes place in the 1930s when Carl (Ed Asner) is a young boy admiring his daring hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), adventurer of Paradise Falls, at the local theater. Giacchino accompanies this scene with a wonderfully nostalgic adventure theme that illuminates the raw feeling of excitement felt by Carl, which critic David Denby describes as a “gee-whiz appreciation of exotic adventure . . . .” After leaving the theater Carl meets childhood Ellie (Elie Docter); this is where the theme song to Up is introduced. This main theme serves as a base song that is manipulated throughout the movie. Giacchino says, “What I ended up doing was doing this very simple waltz that grows and twists and turns through the whole course of the film. As Carl goes on this adventure, everything just changes, [and] the music changes with him and his character as he develops and he grows.” Many scenes in...
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... of the greatest animated films of all time.
Works Cited
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In society today, we are conditioned to believe certain sets of ideals. We use these ideals to interact and get along with the other people we surround ourselves with. These ideals are often the societal norms that form common ground amongst individuals. However, living life based off these basic and unchanging beliefs is not beneficial to humanity, nor does it make life any easier to live. In fact, holding on to the most accepted beliefs holds back society as a whole. Judith Halberstam, in her essay “Animating Revolt and Revolting Animation” challenges these societal norms through the analysis of animated movies and, in doing so, carves a path for a new way of thinking.
Sullivan, Barbara. "Introduction to The Awakening." In The Awakening, ed. Barbara Sullivan. New York: Signet, 1976.
Sullivan, Barbara. "Introduction to The Awakening." In The Awakening, ed. Barbara Sullivan. New York: Signet, 1976.
Updike, John. "A&P." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.1026-1030.
... Through “A&P”, John Updike has told of a coming revolution, where the establishments of authority will have to defend each and every rule and regulation that they have put in place. He tells of a revolution where this young generation will break sex from its palace of sanctity. Every single idea that was present in American society that led to the sex driven, often naïve, free spiritedness of the sixties to present day are present in John Updike’s “A&P”.
The first animated movie produced by Pixar, a famous space ranger named Buzz Light-year said, “To infinity and beyond!” and that is exactly where Pixar has taken the animation industry. The success of Pixar is duly noted worldwide and they remain a leader in the animation industry. The company reeled in more than 100 awards and nominations for their work on animated films, commercials, and technical contributions to the animation industry. The trials and triumphs of this company have earned it its spot as one of the leading animation companies in the entertainment industry today. With all this success it is hard to think it was almost over before it ever began. Pixar’s history of trials and triumphs starts with a group of men and their ideas that would revolutionize the entertainment industry.
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Communication is everywhere. We, as interactive human beings, spend the majority of our time corresponding with others to satisfy our physical, identity, social, and practical needs (Adler, Rodman, & Sevigny, 2011). Often, this is consciously done; we search our minds for the accurate linguistic means to express our experiences, and use them to communicate with those around us. However, communication is not as straightforward and effortless as we may believe. It is, in fact, often unintentional, with 65% of it occurring as a result of non-verbal cues (Matsumoto, Shibata, Seiji, Mori, & Shioe, 2010). As mentioned by Marta Dynel (2011) in a study done on nonverbal communication, “Non verbal signs and signals ... are prevalent practically in all social encounters, which entail at least two individuals, who need not even talk or consciously interact otherwise”. Examples exist in all mediums, including in the animated film ‘Up’, where one scene depicts transactional communication between a male and female character, all expressed nonverbally . The nonverbal communication in this scene, along with various other communication constructs, will be discussed.
Adler, Ronald B., and Neil Towne. Looking Out, Looking In. USA: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1999.
...successful collaboration of sound, colour, camera positioning and lighting are instrumental in portraying these themes. The techniques used heighten the suspense, drama and mood of each scene and enhance the film in order to convey to the spectator the intended messages.
As an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.
Animators show emotion in their depiction of both the character and the setting to create a great animation. Pixar films focus on masculinity, calling it the “Post Princess Models of Gender” era. The general theme is that the alpha male is disempowered by conflict and is emasculated. Then, the alpha mal...