Animation In Live Action Movies Film Studies Essay

Live action animation movies are the movies in which CG characters interact with live-action character/environment which will be interlinked and will be playing their respective role in the movies. The first live action animation movie was ‘ Gertie the Dinosaur ‘ by Winsor McCay. This started in the silent film era. Unlike the common belief, mickey mouse was not Disney’s 1st success .With ‘Alice comedies ‘ Disney has hit success which worked on the concept of incorporating animation in live action environment. Disney has also tried various movies using Donal duck.

Classic example of a live action animation movie was Space Jam where the real life character(micheal jordan) accidentally enters a toon world and joins the Looney toons characters in a basketball match. Another record breaking live action animation movie was Who framed Roger Rabbit which was based on a novel written by Gary wolf.

Combining real life character with CG character was not an easy job. It took much time to interlink and to get a realistic effect with CG character in a live action environment. Live action animations in earlier stage was done in different ways. Animated characters and real life characters have been positioned precisely to get better output using an optical printer or an aerial image animation cameras and the negatives would be printed twice on the same release print.

Alice in Wonderland CG characters like rabbit, butterflies , rabbit and real life characters were done with much complicated methods. The interacting of both CG character and real life character were done that much good that normal people cant find which one is cg chracter and which one is normal character. To animate a action sequence of kicking a ball by real life character and it is falling somewhere that can not been seen by our naked eye. For that sequence 1st we have to shoot the person who is kicking the ball with action then with the help of softwares we will place that ball where ever we want. It is extermely difficult and biggest challenge to get that realistic feel.

Advanced special effects were used in interaction of animated characters and real life chracter to make the film more realistic in the movie Who framed Roger Rabbit. No other live action animation movies were able to achieve successful stories like who framed roger rabbit. Who framed roger rabbit was the movie happened during 1988,but present software technology and features make the movie more realistic.

India is still far from perfection when it comes to animation in live action. All the live action animated projects tries and uses animation to the fullest but we are just not there yet. One of the examples of animation in live action in Indian films would be Taare Zameen par by Aamir Khan. 1.2 billion is expected to reach india by 2010 though animation industry . India has a massive growth of 27% rise since 2008. Principles of classical animation was trained to indian people by Disney Studios aniamtor Clair weeks during the period of industry evolution in 1950.

King Kong, the legendary giant gorilla is one of the most famous and iconic characters in the history of motion pictures developed by the Hollywood film industry. He would be the first ape who fell love with the beauty. The whole world stunned by watching the god of Skull island fought with the Tyrannosaurus Rex and and Pterodactyl to save the life of the beauty.

King Kong is a character created by Merian C Cooper and later released as a stunning special effects movie in 1933, which gross a huge amount from the box office at the time of the great depression. The story is about a gigantic gorilla named Kong and how he is involved with the young lady Ann Darrow. The film was directed by Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack. This film is notable for Wills O Brien’s stop motion animation. Technically this film was a revolution and it helps to make 1930’s as the golden era of motion pictures.

A nine year old boy, living in the Pukerua Bay town of New Zealand bust in to tears when Kong slipped off the Empire State Building. When he was 12, he tried to recreate the film by using his parents super-8 camera and a model of Kong made of wire and rubber, but eventually gave up on the project. Inspired by this film he become a film director. This boy is none other than the Academy award winner peter Jackson. In 2005 he had fulfilled his dream by making the remake of the 1933’s King Kong. It was full of ground breaking visual effects and CGI animation and won three academy awards including for best visual effects.

Both the films used advanced technologies of that time and had influenced the future films. The old King Kong movie was a milestone in special effects and sop motion animation, in place the new King Kong movie was all about visual effects and computer generated animation. In this paper, I will first describe King Kong(1933) and King Kong(2005), then I will point out similarities and differences between the two films, and finally I will discuss how both of these film influence the future.

About King Kong 1933

Origin of the concept

Merien C Cooper was searching for a natural drama type story for his next film after done his works Grass (1925), Chang (1927) and The Four Feathers (1929) successfully for the Paramount pictures. He had an interest in exotic animals and he observed a lot about animals while the location shooting in Africa for Paramount picture’s The Four Feathers. He inspired by the film The Lost World, an adaptation of Conan Doyle’s novel, which told a story of a modern day journey to a remote Amazonian plateau where living dinosaurs still roam. While reading the book The Dragon Lizards of Komodo he thought about making a fictional natural drama film. Komodo is about Dragons which were caught by humans and brought to city. Later they

caught some diseases and dead. Instead of dragons Cooper thought about gorilla and he decided to bring his gorilla in to New York City. He want to kill his gorilla in a tragic way more than any kind of diseases. Even his previous films was huge success the exhibitors still complained that the film would have done better if it had a love story. So Cooper included a lady into this concept. In 1931, Cooper was offered a job by Radio Keith Orphium’ picture’s as executive assistant to the vice president of production, David O Selznick. Upon arriving at RKO Cooper immediately started a new film project The Most Dangerous Game. To direct this picture he hired his friend and former partner Ernest Shoedsack. Same time RKO had canceled on big budget project Creation. The crew had been working for one year for the project. Cooper was really impressed with the special effects, especially the stop motion animation created for the film by an Irishman Willis O Brien. Cooper thought that it might be possible to bring his gorilla story in to screen in an economical manner, instead of costly and lengthy location trip, by using this stop motion technique. Cooper had discussed his concept with O Brien. O Brien painted a portrait of an explorer and a woman being attacked by a gorilla. In order to make it more dramatic O Brien increased the size of the gorilla in to ten foot. Cooper had not yet decided the size of his character. O Brien’s painting impressed Cooper to

consider increasing the size of ape in to 20 foot. Cooper reworked on his concept to focus on the adventures of a 20- foot tall ape. The models of large dinosaurs and jungle sets had been made for creation. Cooper thought it would decrease the production expense if they use these models and sets. Cooper thought increasing size of the gorilla would increase the possibilities for mayhem it could create in the New York city.

Knowing all this excitement require an equally exiting end, Cooper began to looking for a spectacular way to end his story. The idea came to him was to have the gorilla climb to the top of a tall building and battle with many airplanes before it was finally gunned down. Cooper want his gorilla climb the tallest building of that time, the Empire State Building. Cooper discussed his idea with the RKO board but except Selznick nobody liked it. They thought the idea was far too weired and the film would be much too expensive to make , especially in the time of great depression. Cooper and O Brien had made ten concept art and they shoot two sequences in order to present to the board. They had shoot the log seen in which Kong was shaking a log which placed between a cliff while some sailors were trying to cross the log. For this they used the set and actors of The Most Dangerous Game, which were shooting in the same time. They had also used a finished seen of Creation in which a dinosaur was hunting a sailor. After seeing this clips, board of RKO approved the project and set budget