Animations
We have our very own animator that will be using this space to talk all things horror in the world of animation! You can follow Stephen on Twitter @SALmations
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Directed by Henry Selick
Produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi
I was actually really excited when I was asked to write this review, because this animation is one of my favourites of all. If you have seen the animation before, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen it, then why not?
The animation was created using stop-motion animation and using puppets which were made by armature (Ball and Sockets or hinges). The storyline behind The Nightmare Before
Christmas is Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween town wants a
change from Halloween (even though Halloween is great) and goes walking and
comes across a set of trees each with different symbols on them and he
accidentally stumbles into Christmas Town (which is equally as great). Now Jack
thinks he could do the same as what he has seen in Christmas Town and that is when it just goes mental, Jack gets all the children scared with what presents he leaves behind.
Now the animation is also compiled of songs and a pretty awesome soundtrack, which comes from the talented composer, lyricist and long time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman. Elfman was the one who produced the soundtrack and wrote some of the lyrics for the animated film. The animated film started life as a poem that Tim Burton wrote while working at Disney, Burton also created drawings and a treatment for it. It took over three years to make the animation itself using 230 sets and 100s of puppet characters. They did the
animation using 24 frames per second, which basically means they had to take
24 pictures for 1 second which from my experience's working in animation, it can take
quite a long time and patience to produce just a minute of animation.
Now with this been a sort of horror animation, I knew I had to review this
animation. Now some people would say that it is not actually a scary/horror
animation because the film doesn’t really make you jump or leave you in suspense, but
that’s not all what it needs to be about, for example, Nightmare Before Christmas
has horror aspects in it, because it is looking into fantasy and is looking into the
Halloween aspect of it. It also features a number of creatures such Oogie Boogie, Swamp Monster and Mummies as well as other night terrors, so it does have the horror genre in it even if it is animation.
When you watch animations in general, you should also watch the
‘Making of’ because then you can get a sense of what they went through to
get to the final outcome, its what I do and because I am working to becoming an
animator, I find it really useful. So what can I say to you that will convince
you to watch this, if you haven’t yet or if you have, to watch it again? Well if
you are a Tim Burton fan heres a quote from the ‘Making of’ that Tim Burton said
“ It’s like making a Live-Action movie in slow motion” and if you have watched
other films by Tim Burton such as Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow, Batman and
Edward Scissorhand, then you will know the style in which Nightmare Before
Christmas was created. I would say that this is one of the best animations
that I could recommend to you and other similar ones like Corpse Bride and
9. That is what I think overall and if you haven’t bought it yet then go and get
it and watch it now.
I would give this a rating of 5/5 (Unmissable)
Stephen Longbottom
Directed by Henry Selick
Produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi
I was actually really excited when I was asked to write this review, because this animation is one of my favourites of all. If you have seen the animation before, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen it, then why not?
The animation was created using stop-motion animation and using puppets which were made by armature (Ball and Sockets or hinges). The storyline behind The Nightmare Before
Christmas is Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween town wants a
change from Halloween (even though Halloween is great) and goes walking and
comes across a set of trees each with different symbols on them and he
accidentally stumbles into Christmas Town (which is equally as great). Now Jack
thinks he could do the same as what he has seen in Christmas Town and that is when it just goes mental, Jack gets all the children scared with what presents he leaves behind.
Now the animation is also compiled of songs and a pretty awesome soundtrack, which comes from the talented composer, lyricist and long time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman. Elfman was the one who produced the soundtrack and wrote some of the lyrics for the animated film. The animated film started life as a poem that Tim Burton wrote while working at Disney, Burton also created drawings and a treatment for it. It took over three years to make the animation itself using 230 sets and 100s of puppet characters. They did the
animation using 24 frames per second, which basically means they had to take
24 pictures for 1 second which from my experience's working in animation, it can take
quite a long time and patience to produce just a minute of animation.
Now with this been a sort of horror animation, I knew I had to review this
animation. Now some people would say that it is not actually a scary/horror
animation because the film doesn’t really make you jump or leave you in suspense, but
that’s not all what it needs to be about, for example, Nightmare Before Christmas
has horror aspects in it, because it is looking into fantasy and is looking into the
Halloween aspect of it. It also features a number of creatures such Oogie Boogie, Swamp Monster and Mummies as well as other night terrors, so it does have the horror genre in it even if it is animation.
When you watch animations in general, you should also watch the
‘Making of’ because then you can get a sense of what they went through to
get to the final outcome, its what I do and because I am working to becoming an
animator, I find it really useful. So what can I say to you that will convince
you to watch this, if you haven’t yet or if you have, to watch it again? Well if
you are a Tim Burton fan heres a quote from the ‘Making of’ that Tim Burton said
“ It’s like making a Live-Action movie in slow motion” and if you have watched
other films by Tim Burton such as Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow, Batman and
Edward Scissorhand, then you will know the style in which Nightmare Before
Christmas was created. I would say that this is one of the best animations
that I could recommend to you and other similar ones like Corpse Bride and
9. That is what I think overall and if you haven’t bought it yet then go and get
it and watch it now.
I would give this a rating of 5/5 (Unmissable)
Stephen Longbottom
Resident Evil: Degeneration
Resident Evil: Degeneration, directed by Makoto Kamiya, is a animated feature film that fits perfectly into the Resident Evil world currently inhabited by the games and the live action films. First off, I can say that this is a good animation. I would say that there are a couple of differences from the animation to the live action Resident Evil movies that are out. Now with the animation, it is on for 1hr 32mins approx., so you can’t really produce a long plot to cover the full running time. So with that this animation gets into the action really quickly. Now with films, they do it so it takes a while for the main plot of it all to start up, but with this animation, it kicks off straight away and draws the viewer in. So with that I would have to say that the plot line of Resident Evil: Degeneration worked out really well. It starts off with Claire Redfield at the airport waiting for her aunt. Now during the time in the airport, you can see news reporters and people outside still talking about the effect of what happened at Racoon City seven years ago (Claire should know about it, she was there). So with the whole of this happening, they wouldn’t suspect that the virus has started up again and is making it way by plane with an infected passenger. Now, not only that, but there is an infected person in the airport also. Now this is where it all starts to get interesting. The virus is starting up again and it was about to get worse as there is an aeroplane hurdling towards the airport. Now with the zombie side of it all, you can still see the effect of them turning into zombies but you don’t get the feel of reality to them, like you would in “Dawn of the Dead”. I know it is an animation but it would of been nice to see the film makers add a little extra to the zombies to give them a realistic feel. Along with the zombies, there is also the added addition of the G-virus monster, with the big eyeball on his shoulder. Now when I saw that mutation, I thought that that felt more realistic and believable then the actual zombies themselves. Now I know that sounds a bit strange “how can the monster that mutated from the G-virus look better than the zombies mutated from the T-virus” Well to me that is what I believe. Now after watching the animation itself, I then went into watching the making of the animation; The Generation of Degeneration. Now with this superb added feature, the director and the producers talk about how they created this animation in an entirely new concept, I mean they did take aspects from Resident evil two such as involving Claire Redfield and Leon S.Kennedy. They did say that they tried to keep their personalities from the games and thought of how they would look after so many years from the game and kept similar characterisation of them. The whole of the animation was created in CGI and they did each of the scenes using live action, which involves having people in motion capture suits that are captured on screen and then they would be able to animate the character around that. They created most of the animation using the software Maya and effectively used the rigging and capturing actions to create the best movement and flow of the characters. I would overall put this as a great animation and would say that you should watch it. The only thing that let it down for me was the zombies did not look scary enough, they need to be more horrifying. If felt to me also like the cut scenes from a game of Resident Evil and I was expecting a mission to show up as they do in the game, but I would say it is a cracking animation and I would watch over and over again.
4/5
(Take a look on our Who Are We page for a detailed look at how we rate our films!)
Stephen Longbottom
4/5
(Take a look on our Who Are We page for a detailed look at how we rate our films!)
Stephen Longbottom