Mini Episode Idea - Bed + Remus + Laptop = Disaster

Remus sneaks under the duvet. You see a little bump moving towards Bob who is in bed with his laptop on his legs. Swift eye movements show that Bob acknowledges that its Remus. The bump moves closer but stays still next to Bobs legs. Suddenly the bump flies forward going under the laptop and making it fly off the bed! Its on the floor with the screen now black and lying in a bad way. Bob looks horrified. Remus now has his head poking out looks at Bob with a big grin and rolls on his back still looking at Bob and rolls about. Bob rolls his eyes and 'Uhhhs'


I could make it more obvious that he wants his tummy rubbed by making Remus point at Bob and then scratch his tummy but this might make it look like he wants food not a tummy rub.

Mini Episode Idea - Fetch

Another one :) Mainly because this just happened. Blood still leaking out of my finger and all!


Sitting wiggling a straw. Remus comes running and tries to attack the straw. Claw catches hand. Bob shakes hand and sucks the cut. He then wiggles the straw and throws it shouting fetch. Remus runs after it and picks it up. Bob is patting his legs saying come back. Remus looks at the camera, points a backturned thumb at Bob and gives a look as if to say 'yeah right, why would i give you the straw back'and attacks it away from Bob so he can't get it back.

POSSIBLE BEGINNING
Remus walking by trees. Sees a man playing Fetch with his dog. Looks confused, shakes his head and carries on.

Mini Episode Idea - Stairs & Bathroom Door

Below is an idea for a mini episode. It happened this morning well not exactly... I've obviously exagerated in places to make it funnier.


Bob walks up the stairs. Suddenly a paw appears over the edge and then a head with ears back. Remus suddenly attacks his head and shoots back hidden. Bob looks shocked and looks around. Slowy carries on. It suddenly happens again but Bob sees and Remus shoots back but Bob goes to grab him. Remujavascript:void(0)s turns on his back and bites and scratches his hand. he pulls back and tells him off.
Bob carries on into the bathroom. Having to pick Remus up to put him out.

(Various ideas of how it could continue are below)

IDEA 1
Remus cries and attacks the door, climbs the frame, jabbing paws under. Once door opens he looks in and then walks off.

IDEA 2
Bob has to fight Remus over closing the door as he either puts his paw or tail in the way making bob have to push him out with his foot or Remus pushing the door or attacking Bobs hand.

IDEA 3
Remus keeps sneaking back in in various ways. Runs in when turn to go back in. Jumps on Bobs back.

Remus the Cat as mini episodes

On Monday one of my lecturers, John Kelly suggested that I do lots of short animations like little episodes. I imagined this similar to the short happenings in the Simon's Cat Book and each being set in a different place. ie. Lounge, Kitchen, Bathroom, Garden.

I like this idea and might actually go along with it. Seen as Remus does something that is funny or could be made funny everyday! It also means I can carry on making as many animations about him as I want and make it like a mini series.

Just bought Simon's Cat The Book!

I was just in Sainsburys and saw it so had to buy it! About time really. It is brilliant its like short comic book strips but not. You have to see it to get what I mean but what it says on it. 'Everyone has a cat like Simon's Cat' is true and that is what has made it such a success. My aim is to stick to this idea, that my cat will be like every other cat with their quirky ways and funny actions.

I am also considering writing to Simon Toefield to let him know what I am doing and asking for any advice.

Cat movement images

I found this image that show frame by frame images of a cat walking and then jumping. Im sure it will come in handy.

CAT RULES........ Rules for Cats to Live By...

This is a page as a joke towards cats. Basically it is a bunch of rules based on things cats do. Such as doors aren't allowed to be closed and must accompany people to the bathroom.

Its great as it is true and I have had cats all my live and they have done all that's in the list.

http://www.frostymoon.co.uk/15.html

Plan for the week

1. Have a final character design for Remus finished by Thursday.

2. Do a short hand-drawn animation test of Remus.

3. Get other peoples stories of funny things their cat/s have done and post them onto my blog.

Feliway Advert

John Kelly told me about this advert. Think it shows that I've been researching cats too much with the fact that I knew what he meant when he said it was a plug in thing for cats.

Naughty Remus Story idea

Remus goes to the end of the sofa and pads his feet to jump. He jumps on mirror thinking there is a shelf or ledge but it is just a frame. He ends up going splat into the mirror and falling to the floor. He gets up and acts like nothing happened like a cat does. He could then wash himself or just walk off all proud until Bob(guy characters name at the mo) looks away and then Remus carries on being naughty. Also, When he jumped the cat nip that was on the top of the mirror could fall and land in his toy box!

This little idea has comedy = the thinking the mirror has a shelf and going splat. The cat owners joke = acting like nothing happened when cat embarressed itself. It also has a way of the cat nip sensibly ending up in the toybox because who would put a thin plastic bag of it in a cats toy box!

Image is example from 'Simon's Cat - Let me In' of cat splatting. Although Remus would be doing it to a mirror so you would only really see his back. Would also test my perspectives :s

Remus the Naughty Cat/Bengal Storyboard

Not sure on the title yet. I kind of think Bengal sounds better than Cat but not everyone has heard of Bengals but know what a cat is... Guess I could call it 'Remus the Naughty Bengal cat' but that sounds awful to me. Oh 'Remus the Cat' or 'The Naughty Cat' or even 'The Naughty Cat, Remus'. Doesn't really matter at the moment any way.

This is the first page of my thumbnails for the Naughty Cat story. I'm not overly impressed with quite a few of the angles and will have to get some advice on good angles and views. Never really been taught it so will be very helpful.

I also think that I will be sticking with this idea or slightly changing it to be set in a Fish Shop. I will write a short script with the fish shop as a setting to see how I feel first though.

I also found that I prefer to draw guys than girls probably because most of my friends are guys so I can think how they move and act more than a girl. Yes I know I am a girl and should know from that but who watches them self or really thinks how they sit on a sofa or throw a toy, and could draw that accurately! That's why once I have a final story, plan and storyboard I will ask a friend to be my character in the animation. I plan to film him doing the actions so I know it looks right. Just like they did for the old Disney films ;) Walt supposedly preferred doing it this as well. Can't remember the quote I read but I will find it and post it on here when I do.

Oh and excuse my thumbnails, they aren't meant to be the neatest or tidiest things in the world.

Little Red Riding Hood Storyboard

I'm slowly going off this idea as I really want to do something that will make people laugh. Making this first page of storyboard thumbnails for it made me really realise this.

Some more work from my sketchbook

Interview with Gini a Pixar Animator

What’s a typical day like for you?
During film production, the animators get together every morning in a small screening room with the director in what’s called “dailies.” It’s a chance for the director to see where we’re at in the shots that have been assigned to us, and for the animators to find out if they’re going in the right direction. It’s also a chance to become inspired by the other animators’ work. The director is looking at whether a shot is feeling the way it should, and the action is doing what it should. After that, I start working. Sometimes I call other animators in to get feedback on my work. We also have walkthroughs when the director comes around to see what we’ve worked on during the day.

How are shots assigned to you?
Sometimes we get one or two shots, or a sequence of five to seven shots. The supervising animators usually assign a shot by matching the kind of animation called for in the shot with an animator’s strengths. But sometimes we’ll be allowed to select what shots we want to animate, and our choice might be motivated by the type of shot: action, slow-moving, emotional moments, or just by a particular character. Then there are the shots that the director wants assigned to a particular animator.

And what do you start with?
The way it usually works is after a movie has been scripted and storyboarded and approved, they make layouts of the shots. The shot contains the sound, models and props that are needed for the acting. You have the storyboards as a guide to what needs to happen in a scene.

How do you begin animating?
We begin by blocking out, which is when we roughly put in the key poses to tell the story of what’s happening in the shot. So at this point we’re not doing much facial expression or dialogue. Sometimes the director will tell you it’s not feeling the way he wants it to, and you go back. Or you might have one of those days where he says, “keep going.” An animator always likes to hear that! We go back and work more on it-that’s called IP (in progress). We put in more acting. More details. Some lip dialogue. You show the director this IP version, where you have a pretty good sense what it’s going to look like toward the end. He might say, “It looks great-keep going.” Or he might say, “We’re losing something here.” Animators show the shot again close to final, where everything is mouthed out, and the details of the face are there. It’s one last chance for director to make changes. Once a shot is finaled it gets a render check and then it goes to lighting and shading.

How do you animate characters in the computer?
The characters are built on the computer as models. These models are then given avars. Avars are the controls assigned to each part of the model. There’s avars in the face, the limbs, etc. We use these avars as a puppeteer would use the strings on a puppet to get the desired movement. The movement of each avar on a character model gets recorded on the computer in distance and time. Adjustments are made accordingly until we are satisfied with the motion of the model.

How long does it take to animate a shot?
There’s a formula the animation team uses. Generally, an animator will average about a hundred frames a week (that’s 4 seconds of actual screen time). But it also depends on how many characters are in a shot. They also take into consideration the difficulty of the shot. If it’s a character interacting with a prop-where he might be pushing or holding things-or special effects are involved, it might take longer.

It sounds fast-paced.
We try to be creative but also work within the schedule of the shot. A shot sheet says how many frames a shot has and how much time you have to work on it. It’s important to work within the schedule allotted because the shot usually has to go through other aspects of film production, such as special effects, lighting and shading. In order for us to be able to put our movie out in time, we have to allow for time in each aspect of the production process but sometimes there are technical difficulties that happen that we can’t anticipate.

What do you do to put yourself in the mindset of your characters?
More often than not, the nice thing about animation is we get to animate characters we’re drawn to. We film ourselves acting a scene, but sometimes that’s not enough. The team has a list of films that were used as reference when the script was written, which helps us get the feel of the characters. Animators also tend to be people-watchers. The stranger the person, the more we’re hooked. We pull from that when we animate. It’s not unusual for animators to be talking in the hallway and one of them is saying, “There was this guy at the park and he did the weirdest thing...” We’re fascinated by what motivates peoples’ little ticks. There are a lot of interesting, unusual nuances that we’re able to take in from real life for characters we might animate in the future.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
Being able to animate a character and convey that the character is alive, truly thinking and driven by something. In real life, you meet people and know they have a history you don’t necessarily know about. An animator has to be able to convey this with a character. That it existed beyond this movie and is driven by many things. That’s the biggest challenge. That’s the core of what I get caught up in. It’s easy to do the more difficult action, but when it comes to true acting-that this character is alive and breathing and thinking and has a past-that’s the most challenging.

What sequences are you most proud of?
Whatever I’m most proud of is always my biggest downfall. I always think, “Ugh, it could have been better.” Mostly recently, I’d say it was probably the cave sequence in The Incredibles, when Helen gets down with the kids and tells them they need to use their powers to save themselves after years of her telling them not to use their powers. She loses it and then gains control and nurtures them. It was a meaty scene as far as acting goes. There was a lot going on there-a duality of emotions. One was internal and one external; trying to act one way while feeling something else. To convey that through animation is difficult. I went back and forth on that with the director, Brad Bird. It was the sequence I was most proud of, but I feel like it was my weakest. You do your best, but sometimes you’re still not satisfied with it.

There seem to be very few female animators in the industry-do you find that to be the case?
It’s true. In ratio, we’re still not as many as there are men, but nowadays I see more and more women in the field. I remember someone advising me that it was “such a man’s world, you have to elbow your way in.” But for me, what got me through was that I wanted to animate and keep learning. My experience at Pixar was that if you do good work, you are recognized. I haven’t had to elbow my way into anything here. All I want is to animate. I suck in as much as possible, and we have a good collaborative environment here. What they care most about is that you have a solid art background.

Speaking of which, what’s your background?
For college, my parents sent me back to the Philippines to study. My dad was a banker and wanted me to take commerce. I told him no, that I had to be an artist. So we agreed on advertising, which I studied at the University of Santo Tomas. After graduating I went into advertising for about five years in Guam. It was great, because I was a big fish in a small pond. I was able to work with big clients, like Nestle, that I would never have been able to work with at my age here in the United States. After a while I burnt out and wanted to go back to school. There was a course in computer animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. For our thesis we had to make a short animated film and then send it out to the companies you wanted to work for. I sent mine to Blue Sky, Disney, Pixar and PDI. I actually got job offers from Blue Sky and PDI. Pixar was the last one to call me, but told me they couldn’t do the interview me for a whole month. I had to take a big leap of faith when PDI and Blue Sky said they didn’t know if they could wait that long. But I knew if was going to learn anything, it’d be at Pixar.

When did you know you wanted to be an animator?
Well, it’s funny, because I can tell you when I knew I didn’t want to be an animator. In college I took a side subject called 2-D animation. I’ve always been more of an illustrator, putting everything into one image. In this 2-D class I had to do all these images. I remember hating the assignments-it was too many drawings! For the longest time I wasn’t drawn to it, but I knew I loved watching animation as a kid.

So what changed your mind?
When I discovered 3-D animation and realized the computer can do the in-between drawings. But you’re still wrestling with the computer to do exactly what you want it to do. Mainly, that one pose that should tell you what is happening in that moment. And that goes back to my love of detail-that one image that tells a story.

http://www.pixar.com/artistscorner/gini/interview.html

Pixar have a blog!

I can't believe I hadn't known about it before! I'm going to have to read it all :D

http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/

Idea twisted!

I can't decide which idea to go with :( I love my orginial idea of a remake of Simon's Cat but with Remus as the character and I wouldn't mind changing it to be the same idea but set in a Fish Shop, which is going back to 'The Fish Shop Cat' idea.
Then I went and had the Red Riding Hood idea. I'm a bit less keen on that idea but it could have a better story. I guess it depends how I wrote and animated them both.

Lil' Red Riding Hood Lyrics

Owoooooooo
Who's that I see walkin' in these woods
Why, it's Little Red Riding Hood
Hey there Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are looking good
You're everything a big bad wolf could want
Listen to me

Little Red Riding Hood
I don't think little big girls should
Go walking in these spooky old woods alone
Owoooooooo

What big eyes you have
The kind of eyes that drive wolves mad
So just to see that you don't get chased
I think I ought to walk with you for a ways

What full lips you have
They're sure to lure someone bad
So until you get to grandma's place
I think you ought to walk with me and be safe

I'm gonna keep my sheep suit on
Until I'm sure that you've been shown
That I can be trusted walking with you alone
Owoooooooo

Little Red Riding Hood
I'd like to hold you if I could
But you might think I'm a big bad wolf so I won't
Owoooooooo!

What a big heart I have-the better to love you with
Little Red Riding Hood
Even bad wolves can be good
I'll try to be satisfied just to walk close by your side
Maybe you'll see things my way before we get to grandma's place

Hey there Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are looking good
You're everything that a big bad wolf could want
Owoooooooo
I mean baaaaaa
Baaa


http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/sam_the_sham_and_the_pharaohs/lil_red_riding_hood.html

Simon's Cat by Simon Tofield - Great video about it!

Brilliant video by Simon Tofield.
He talks about the insperation, the style, how he does it, the soundtrack, ideas, the book and new characters. There is even a quick sketchbook flip too! Would love to slow that bit down to have a look :D

Quote could also be taken from this video.

BBC News - Simon's Cat is an internet phenomenon

"Simon's Cat is the most watched video ever on YouTube with over 45 million hits. Creator Simon Tofield talks to us about the inspiration behind his quirky cartoon cat."

Really interesting interview and definitly can get some quotes from this for my dissertation. A lot of good advice from Simon Tofield to help me with my animated short and the questions asked are helpful too.

Click here to see the Simon's Cat interview

Little Red Riding Hood Animations

more about "Little Red Riding Hood: As Told by Ro...", posted with vodpod
I'm not a fan of the animation but I like the idea of using Roald Dahl's version as I'm a big fan of his, I love the rhyming especially.

more about "Simsala Grimm Little Red Riding Hood ...", posted with vodpod
This is one of my favourite of the examples I found. I've never heard of the Simsala Grimm Animations but the style and humour is the kind I like and would be interested in doing. Although I would prefer to just have the story of Red Riding Hood and not have characters that are like narrators in this animation.




Click to see Red Riding Hood Video

I love how the animation looks, the voice over and the sinister feel and twist they put on it although its a bit too odd and off track for me.




Click here for Old Disney Little Red Riding Hood Animated Cartoon

I love Disney but this animation was just a bit too unstructured and crazy for my liking although I do like some things they did such as Grandma being on the duvet. The voices are quite annoying too.




Little Red Riding Hood - Kung Fu - The best bloopers are a click away

I like how Red Riding Hood fights back. With my idea being a cat as lil red and a dog as the wolf I can imagine it being quite a fun idea if I did roughly the same idea. I hate the commentary though.





This made me laugh but it is a bit odd and i think a bit stretched out. I don't think I would do anything like this as I would like to stick to the story.

more about "Little Red Riding Hood as told in the...", posted with vodpod
This is quite an interesting twist and is interesting but no where near what I am planning or would like to do.




On youtube there are lots of videos people have made with the song by 'Bowling for Soup - Lil Red Riding Hood' This one was the one I thought had the best editing and is actually quite a good match and tribute. It gave me the idea that I could make my animation based on this song. It's not too long and if I got the cutting right it could turn out good. My only problems so far is that if I did this I might not be able to enter it in any competitions and would have to get permission to use the song.



This is another video with the song over the top and is Betty Boop footage from "Dizzy Red Riding Hood" (1931). This song is by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs (1966) though. Bowling for Soup did a remake.

Plan for this week

1. Work on character design of Remus.
For help print images of him in different poses and do guides to get his rough shape.

2. Look at other animations of Little Red Riding Hood.
Do any have characters as animals instead of people (excluding the wolf)?

3. Come up with 3 different rough scripts for my 3 favourite ideas (Remus the Naughty Bengal, The Fish Shop Cat and Little Red Riding Hood parody).
Show these to people to see which they think is the best idea/story. Remember to let them know any problems that any of my ideas may have such as it could be difficult to make under 1.30mins or if the script needs changing and its just a rough idea of the story.

4. Print out my blog for presentation of Research and Development.
Probably just stick with normal print out. No fancy colours or anything. Although I could possibly print out any Cat stuff on say Yellow paper and any animation research on errr Blue paper and anything else on Green paper. Oh and make a cover page and include my name, course, Research and Development and my blog address. Also create a first page explaining about writing all my research on my blog and also how I use it to show my development.etc. Basically an intro.

Story Idea - Anthropomorphism version of 'Red Riding Hood'

I've been dreaming about new stories for my animated short. Forgotten a few purly because my notebook was downstairs and by the time i got there the dream had gone. I hate when that happens.
Any way, one that I remember and thought was an interesting idea was a anthropomorphism version of a Fairy Tale such as 'Red Riding Hood'. Instead of the girl it could be a kitten and the granny could be an old cat, the wolf could stay a wolf or change to be a dog. I imagined it in a very Ghibli kind of style.
An idea I came up with later with the fairy tale story in mind was making it into a modern version or like in a modern cats life type of way, kind of reminds me of Tom Kitten from the Beatrix Potter books.
My idea is that the kitten catches a mouse or his/her mum gives the kitten a mouse and tells the kitten to take it to its grannys garden/house. Off the kitten goes and could meet challenges or other animals on the way.
The bit with the gran and the wolf would happen but it may have to be a clothed type of anthropomorphism because of the dog/wolf dressing as the granny to trick red riding hood. Unless I can come up with a good way of twisting it without clothes. Maybe the dog could have the same colour fur as granny and just pin his big ears so they look smaller and point up and maybe curl his tail because the granny's does... something like that. Any way, as far as I can think the story pretty much carries on and finishes as the original.

The only problem I have with this is the fact that fairy tales have been done over and over. I like the idea of oringinality or a twist of an original thats not been done before. If I found out that nothing like my idea has been done then I would be happier about doing it as my animation.

Simon's Cat Book

Tofield's creations have reached a wide audience over the last few months, drawing more than 20m hits on YouTube and winning a number of awards, including Best Comedy at the British Animation Awards and YouTube's Blockbuster Award. The animations – simple line drawings in black and white - depict the ever-hungry Simon's Cat in various attempts to get his owner to feed him.

Canongate editorial director Nick Davies said: "The humour is refreshingly innocent which gives the characters the broadest possible appeal. I think we have a major new comic creation here—something to rival The Bunny Suicides, Purple Ronnie, and maybe even one day, Wallace and Gromit."

The first book has been published in hardback and the second book will be published for Christmas 2010.

The Bookseller reports that agents have already started talking to a number of film, television and merchandising companies about the Simon's Cat brand.

http://www.yourcat.co.uk/Simon-s-Cat-cartoons/Simon-s-Cat-to-feature-in-books.html

The insperation for Simon's Cat is...

37-year-old Simon Tofield, from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, has won praise from cat lovers worldwide with three short animated films, Cat Man Do, Let Me in and TV Dinner, with Cat Man Do picking up the best comedy award at the 2008 British Animation Awards.

In the films, a loving, but frequently exasperated cat owner watches while his cat demands to be fed, let in and groomed.

In Let Me In, the cat is desperate to come indoors while in TV Dinners, his feline resorts to increasingly concerted measures to gain his owner's attention. Finally, in Cat Man Do, he goes to extreme lengths to wake up his owner – much to the amusement of the viewer!

Simon, who works for London-based Animation Studio Tandem Films, explains that the films are based on three of his cats, all moggies.

“Jess is a tiny seven-year-old cat, who I bought from an ad in the paper, in Clapham Common. Maisie is a gi-normous five-year-old rescue cat, while Hugh is a one-and-half-year-old cat from Cats Protection.

“It all started when I wanted to set myself an new animation project last year and one day, I had Hugh climbing all over me and I thought: ‘That’s perfect!”

Simon's actual cat!


Hugh goes on to be the main inspiration in the films, though the action on the sofa in TV dinner is mostly taken from Jess.

“I think it’s so popular, as the cat mannerisms result in well-observed comedy. People enjoy identifying with them and are reminded about their own cats and their own quirky behaviour.”

And for die-hard fans of the series, there’s good news as Simon is already planning more clips featuring the hapless cat owner. “I’m looking for new scenarios for future films and the garden is something I’m considering, as well as feeding time!”

http://www.yourcat.co.uk/Simon-s-Cat-cartoons/Simon-s-Cat-is-revealed.html

Quotes

“By associating with good and evil persons a man acquires the virtues and vices which they possess, even as the wind blowing over different places takes along good and bad odors.”

http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/authors/the_panchatantra_quotes.html
(accessed on 4/11/09 at 7.48pm)



"Most scholars since the time of the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) have agreed that the tendency to anthropomorphize hinders the understanding of the world, but it is deep-seated and persistent."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/27536/anthropomorphism
(accessed on 4/11/09 at 7.55pm)

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Blog

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has an official production blog! AWESOME!

They post inside scoop on the day to day goings on directly from the fine folks who make the Cartoon Network series. It shows and hopefully will continue to show things that you won't see anywhere else including, production designs, board pages, sketches and doodles, etc. The link to the blog is below.

http://fosterstv.blogspot.com/

Behind-the-scenes clip of The Princess and the Frog

Cartoon Brew TV, offer an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip, courtesy of the Walt Disney Company, from their forthcoming hand-drawn feature, The Princess and the Frog.

In the video, supervising animator Bruce Smith (Bebe’s Kids, The Proud Family) discusses the character of Dr. Facilier, the villain of the film, and how voice actor Keith David influences the animators work and the character’s performance. David is shown performing and being directed by John Musker and Ron Clements. There are also some brief bits of pencil tests and color footage that hasn’t appeared anywhere else on the web.

After witnessing Disney abandon their hand-drawn films several years ago, and watching the rest of Hollywood consumed by CG, it’s incredibly exciting seeing classical character animation being produced on this scale. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. The Princess and the Frog marks the return of a beloved moviegoing tradition: the classic Disney fairy tale.

Below is the link to site where I found this.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/brewtv/princessandfrog.html

The Panchatantra tales

The Panchatantra tales are an one of India's most influential contributions to world literature and another example of anthropomorphism, the Panchatantra (also spelled Pañcatantra or Pañca-tantra) consists of five books of animal fables and magic tales (some 87 stories in all) that were compiled, in their current form, between the third and fifth centuries AD. It is believed that even then the stories were already ancient. The tales' self-proclaimed purpose is to educate the sons of royalty.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/panchatantra.html

Opposition to anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism has a varied application to religion and religious matters.
Certain religions and religious leaders throughout history have actually condemned it, for example Xenophanes, a Greek philosopher during 570–480 BC, said that God could not be limited by portrayals of anthropomorphism.

"The greatest god" resembles man "neither in form nor in mind."
Love to Know 1911 (2006)

Both Islam and Judaism reject physical portrayals of God; Judaism further rejected this antagonism to the idea after Christian’s claimed that Jesus Christ is the physical manifestation of God.

Many people believe that anthropomorphism can help people feel closer to God and do not see any harm in it. If God truly understands and loves us he will accept what helps us believe and cope with the theory of a mighty being watching over us.

Anthropomorphism is not just a religious debate but also a literary debate, for example in 1911, in China's Hunan province; Lewis Carroll's novel ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’ was banned. They believed that "animals should not use human language" and it "puts animals and human beings on the same level." GDFL (2009)

Later in the twentieth century George Orwell's novel Animal Farm used anthropomorphism to satirize Stalinism, as voiced by a pig in the famous passage below.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".


This is a good example of how using anthropomorphism of animals can help make much broader and complex political statements accessible and interesting to the general public. This is because people can relate to the animals and absorb the message easily whereas if the message were presented in another style they would not listen as intently.

The Looney Tunes

I've been looking at the Looney Tunes as they are and were a big influence for me. When I was young we used to always go to the Warner Brothers store and sit in a large model of Martin the Martian's spaceship as it contained a TV that played Looney Tune shorts. My mum would then wander off doing her shopping. I thought this was great as I didn't have to wander around town and got to watch Willie Coyote, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all the other greats! I was devastated when the store closed and I still wish it re-opened as it was my favourite store and quite possibly always will be.

Below is a quote I found that I find quite inspirational. It's funny how it also has a bit of a jibe towards Disney as 2 of their original animators wrote a book called 'The illusion of life'.


"A small child once said to me: 'You don't draw Bugs Bunny, you draw pictures of Bugs Bunny.' That's a very profound observation because it means he thinks that the characters are alive, which, as far as I'm concerned, is true. And, I feel the same way about animation ..... Animation isn't an illusion of life. It is life."

Chuck Jones

http://www.animationusa.com/resources/aboutwb.html


Looney Tune books to look at

I especially want to look at the last book as it even includes model sheets, background art and how they actually created and made the Looney Tunes! Only problem is, its not published any more so I will have to find a used copy. The cheapest I have found so far is just over £30!

* Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: Complete Illustrated Guide to Warner Brothers Cartoons
by Jerry Beck, Will Friedwald

* Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide
by Jerry Beck

*Animating the Looney Tunes Way (Looney Tunes Collection)
by Tony Cervone

Japanese anthropomorphized animals

I was searching the Internet for anthropomorphized animals in culture and came across this image from a Japanese magazine. I think they are either Mice or Rats. I love how they are wearing Kimono's and are all different sizes. It's a great example of the Japanese using anthropomorphism and is actually quite a nice image.


Found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/37217398@N02/3536158725/