800-1000 words movie

Intro

This essay will provide a detailed analysis on the movie Paranorman. The idea of this exercise is to better my understanding on creating stop motion animations and making them as realistic as possible. Hopefully this will benefit my own project that will be presented at the end of this unit. During this essay we shall look at the target audience, audience eye appeal, fluid animation, jumping frames, realistic movement, character movements in background, what was used for backgrounds, the animation technique, effects on audience, camera shots & movements, music and sound. Finally I shall summaries some of my ideas and restate some of the main points that were listed.

The movie

Name- Paranorman

Age range- 15+

Genre- Comedy, horror, animated

Animation- Stop Motion

Budget- $60, 000, 000

Box office- $107, 139, 399

Directors- Chris Butler & Sam Fell

Plot- a young boy named Norman is shunned by everyone in his town, because of his weird ability to see ghosts. Of course no one believes he can see ghosts, aside from one individual, until his gift is required to save the town from the witches curse.

Target audience

Upon first glance the movie appears as if it is made for young children, however there are a number of aspects that would suggest otherwise. As stated in articles such as ITMS the graphic nature can be considered a little bit eccentric for young children i.e. a ghost dog cut in half.   

In addition to this there is also the issue of narrative. A lot of the time the narrative can be considered as complex and vial when addressing children. There are a number of examples of this i.e. near the beginning of the movie when Norman’s mother asks what he was watching he replies with “sex and violence”. I would assume the movie is more targeted at a slightly more mature audience such as a 14-15+age ratio.

Audience appeal

The characters were molded very well and maintained consistency in their look throughout the entire movie. This applies to the characters height, facial features, hairstyles etc.  There also other aspects that made the movie more appealing to the audience. These are:

·      The Background- the backgrounds were kept consistent and were well designed. Small trinkets and objects were placed in order to add the effect of realism making the movie seem more authentic.

·      Fluid animation- the animation is extremely smooth. There are no jumps in frames and the characters portrayed visual emotions that normal people would do in real life i.e. hang gestures, eye rolling etc.     

·      Realistic movement- the action and reaction of every person and object are very realistic and were all done elegantly and with precisian. They played by the idea of every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A good example of this is when Norman took out the trash and slammed the door shut behind him. The door did not just close the blinds shook and moved with the force of the door closing. There is also the fact that not a single movement jumped a frame even once.

Characters

While I have mentioned the characters consistency there are other effects that have been used to add to the realism of the characters and location. These are:

·      Background movements- the characters were never static even when they were not the cent

er of attention. There would always be some minor movements for the other characters i.e. looking around, picking their nose, texting, sipping hot chocolate etc.  

·      Character realism- the attention paid to minor things such as clothes and skin detail were heavily looked at examples of, which show themselves throughout the entire movie. The drama teachers fat folds would swing, character facial expressions would show their mood etc. 

Camera angles

The uses of camera angles were what you would normally see in a regular film production. The characters motions were consistent with the change in perspective and the editing pace would set the mood for each scene, which is very difficult to achieve with stop motion. Of course the range of shots were quite wide. There would be back and forth cutting between conversing characters, wide shots to close ups, switching between close ups etc. the most complex camera technique was the panning. Panning in a stop motion is very difficult to accomplish. Personally I would have panned in editing.

Background

These were very complex models that contributed heavily to the movie. Often in the movie the background would set the tone for the audience. A good example could be when Norman goes to read a book to the witch in the forest. The mood is set by the dark forest and provides an eerie atmosphere for the audience. Although it is not really a background I think mentioning the car models is an important part of how the movie pushed realism onto the audience. The features inside the car and the cars parked along the road during the zombie raid etc.

Animation technique and audience effects

The animation technique itself is very straightforward and simple, however creating a good production piece, while using this method is very difficult. There are a number of things to look out for as well as a number of issues to deal with during. Firstly the frames have to be smooth, jumping frames cause frustration and irritation for the audience. The recreation of a scene from different angles is a frustrating task that can cause the animator to make mistakes.

The biggest task is immersing the audience in each scene. Manipulating the audience to feel a certain way for each scene. This is achieved by editing pace, lighting, relating to the character etc.

Conclusion

The use of camera angles and fluidity of the animation are very important to the production of the movie. In order to make things easier for our production we have decided to use Lego to make the still shots easier to take preventing the characters from moving out of place during the take. The background can be used to set the mood and mainly does so via location and lighting. In terms of movement there is very little. We plan on using scenes were there are very few civilians and random people in them in order to minimize the attention needed for detail. In the end I learned the pre-planning for your stop motion i.e. shot list, script etc. make things much easier when trying to achieve the overall goal.



Harvard referencing site- https://www.refme.com/home#/export
The references bellow.

DreadCentral (2012) ParaNorman (2012): Production: Behind The Scenes, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJNK_VGOPss (Accessed: 13 March 2015).

Eguia, E. (2015) Art of Paranorman, Art of paranorman. Pinterest. Available at: https://uk.pinterest.com/bixorama/art-of-paranorman/ (Accessed: 12 March 2015).

FastCompany (2012) ParaNorman, Behind The Scenes, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UAfgzAb84A (Accessed: 13 March 2015).

MIKEANDLOR (2013) Is ParaNorman suitable for children?, ITMS. Available at: http://isthismoviesuitable.com/2013/08/04/paranorman/ (Accessed: 12 March 2015).

Soon, M. C. (2012) Paranorman Behind The Scenes - Making Norman (2012) Animation Movie HD, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGnBT0J5jCs (Accessed: 13 March 2015).

Unknown (no date) ‘ParaNorman Quotes - “There”s nothing wrong with being scared, Norman.’’, Paranorman Quotes. Available at: http://www.moviequotesandmore.com/paranorman-quotes.html (Accessed: 12 March 2015).