Tekkon Kinkreet: Black & White

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfQjc2hs34Y&feature=related 

Tekkon Kinkreet is a Japanese anime film, directed by Michael Arias. The anime tells a story about a pair of orphaned street kids, called Black and White, are the centre of the fiction Treasure Town where is full of violence and terror; however, some people of gangland attempting to take over the city of Treasure Town, and the boys must save the soul of their beloved city. The theme of the anime is special, the meaning behind the story is also special. The anime film shows the two sides of things, black and white, mouse and cats, day and night, good and evil, there are full of contrast.

It is different from other anime film, it is special; the style is special, the color is special, and also the camera angle is special. The color schemes are based on the advertisements of 1950's and 1960's Japan, and has a feeling of nostalgic retro. It has its peculiar flavour of the graphic design, it is a lovely way to illustrate this small town. In the trailer, audiences could feel the compare of the two sides, using the color of black and white. The way that the camera shaking is special, it gets a great camera feeling when characters jumping, walking, and fighting.

In short, it is a brilliant Japanese anime film that I am keen on. It is an attractive film that is worth to enjoy and watching it again and again.

Film Title - Catch Me if You Can

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

Catch Me if You Can, the 2002 Steven Spielberg film. It tells a true-life story about a young man who conned his way through being a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer in the early 1960s when he was still a teenager. The animated opening title is really funny due to the animation style and color setting is also the type of 1960s. 

It is basically a vector animation, and this animation present elements of narration through simplicity in design, it consistently throughout the piece. The designer used some simple color to describe the story, it is one of the master works that use lines as a guide to the camera. With the changing of different scenes, the color series produce strong contrast, from blue to black, then orange, after that, green, red, purple, finally, coming back to the first scene. In addition, the music is very suitable for this opening title sequence, mysterious and humorous. 

The animation is a summarize of the film Catch Me if You Can. After watching it several times, people could find some interesting details in this animated opening titles. For example, producers were good at using lines to create characters' and staffs' name connect with some elements in the animation; also producers use lines to separate characters that are running and catching.

The animated opening tile is a really fun way to illustrate the whole story through simple, but stunning, imagery. The short animation is amazing as the same as the great film.

Hungry Beast - ZARA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UxRAhTJ1CM 

Hungry Beast is an Australian television program that produce a lot of animated documentaries around some specific issues or things all over the world. The program uses creativity way to make a documentary file. As the ZARA one as an example, it is based on the article, when the teller was reading, there would be some related words or pictures displaying on the screen, the camera switches the angles all the time, and finally forming three shapes related to ZARA. The form of animated documentary is interesting, and it is much easier way to make audiences understand the contents that the production team tend to tell.

This animated documentary uses several color to produce, black, white, yellow, and the background is white and grey, applying on gradient effect, making the contents much more outstanding. It has already told the general information about the ZARA.The feature of this animation is simple but not mediocre.

The editing of this animated documentary is very fluent, and using the special way to form the certain shapes at the end of the animation. The ZARA file is last 3:13, but the contents is abundant and clearly.

Some audiences love this show because it uses a different way to tell something that people do not know deeply. Also, it is special because people could not classify the type of the program due to the chaotic nature of the work. 

Coke Happiness Factory

http://www.psyop.tv/#psyop/new/projects/coke-happiness-factory 

Coca cola has issued an animated television commercial demonstrating the happiness of life behind the scenes in a Coke vending machine, called happiness factory. The Animation series for Coke Happiness Factory was developed at Psyop, New York.  This new animation transfers the fresh concept of Coca cola - "the coke side of life", taking viewers inside the fantastical world of Coke vending machine. Through this animated television commercial, Coca cola intends to produce a certain relation between Coke and the feeling of happiness. 

The design style of the animation is the same as its name, Coke Happiness Factory. It is full of happiness feeling, for example, the characters in the animation are featuring of happiness, the robots, the fluffies with red lip and snowmen. And finally, the bottle of Coke makes its way through a hero's parade and rolled it into the vending machine chute. Although the background is not colorful, just green, blue and white, the jubilant is invoked by characters and music.

The inside of Coke vending machine is comprised of three sections, firstly, the bottle is filled by a tube and fluffy creatures bounce to the filled bottle and kiss it with affection; secondly, the bottle is cooled by rapidly; lastly, the parade. The switch of camera is natural so that the three sections could be fluent and merited.

Above all, the Coca cola take advantage of the fantastical of inside the Coke vending machine to create the happiness feeling of Coke to promote the products. Music is fascinating and counting for the commercial.


"The iconic cola brand enjoyed a 3.6% boost in retail sales in 2008 and its best January sales this year, despite the increasingly gloomy economic news. Annual retail sales for Coca-Cola in the UK reached £514.5m by the end of 2008 - nearly a third of the overall cola sector, according to AC Nielsen data."(http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/13/coca-cola-happiness-factory)

Alarm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN83DfmH9Tw

Alarm is a 3D short animation created by an independent Korean animation team named MESAI. The animation told a story about a regular guy who is hard to wake up. In the whole animation, there are full of different alarms, every movement of the stillness is just followed by a bell. Alarm is almost penetrate through the 8:50, including all of the process, such as getting up, washing, having breakfast and so on. Some audiences would feel the story line is slow and boring. However, after watching this short animated film and think about it, most people could feel familiar with themselves and enjoy the entire experience immensely, because it is the common problem of modern people and everyone could be related to. It is the interesting point of the story concept.

In the animated film, the character is sleepy and lazy, mainly expressed with three aspects, the expression of the boy's eyes, the hair, and the details of his behavior. The designer sketched the character as it is hardly to keep his eyes open, messy hair, and he moves slowly and laziness. The character of this short animation could present the characteristics of the story directly. Also there is a point needed to mention is that the prime objects of the animation is stretched as it is real, such as the stereo equipment, the mobile phone, and so on. There are mainly four scenes, including bedroom, living room, bathroom and hall, it is wonderful that the light of each scene is planned elaborately. The design of animation is full of Korean style, it is beautiful soft lighting and rendering. So it is comfortable to look at this film.

Overall, it is a brilliant animation that is worth to look at and enjoy it. The concept is expansion from an usual matter, but the story line is strong, designers use a lot of details to make up the story. Also every detail of the animation improved that the design is great in every steps, modeling, texturing, animation and story. The editing of this animation is lively and fluent, making the animated film much more attractive.