For my animation I animated pretty much on the fly. I knew I wanted a character falling, I just wasn't sure what the story would be. I did have the idea of Superman trying to fly, but I thought a cape would be too complex for my first stop motion attempt. Then as I started animating I realized how morbid I was making it, as I realized that this man was not going to be landing on his feet: he was going to plant face-first to his death.
The angel wings didn't help me as I tried to make a "happy ending".
My original video:
So then the only solution became to blow the poor guy up. Quick and painless.
Cloudy with a Chance of
Meatballs 2,
like every film, contains its own laws of physics. The difference between this
film compared to others, is that the physics in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is just plain crazy. It's safe
to say though— in its simplest terms— that the creators of the film made this
world this way all for the sake of the story. The physical world in Cloudy 2 is one that allows strange gravitational
pulls, buildings with impossible structures, and characters with seemingly
jelly insides as they move. But even though the filmmakers of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs2 constantly
break the rules of the real world, they do so in a consistent manner that makes
us suspend disbelief so that we as the audience buy into the story and world
they call "reality." First
off, let's discuss the balance and weight of some of the structures in Cloudy 2. At the beginning of the film
the citizens of Swallow Falls are relocated from their hometown to a sunny,
beautiful location known as SanFranJose. The design of this city is very
stylized, and though it mimics San Francisco's homes all crunched together on
hills and slopes, the film takes it to another level. The homes come together
in clumps and bunches, and they all are places very close together on hilltops are
almost vertical in their slopes. It seems as though only people with helicopters
can get to the top range of homes.
Then there's the design of LiveCorp's headquarters. This is
an enormous light bulb-shaped formation that is made entirely of glass. Structurally you would never see this in the
real world. The sheer weight of millions of glass panels being supported by a
thin column would topple before it was even finished. Nevertheless, it makes
for a cool design that mirrors the silhouette of its creator, Chester V.
And inside the LiveCorp's structure you find another
diabolical arrangement of impossibility. To get to the cubical on the lower
floors, one must travel in an elaborate pathway of tubes and tunnels of glass cylinders.
These "elevators" turn left and right, up and down, and would beat
one to a pulp if this were real. Sure the glass sides may create a lack of
friction, but it would still be an incredibly painful ride.
Another aspect of the film that works the boundaries between
realism and impossibility are the films gravitational pulls during sequences. One
such impossible scene is where Flint falls from a rock candy precipice. He
falls for approximately 6 seconds before hitting the water below him, though he
does get knocked out, he lives to tell the tale. Mythbusters once did a test where they compared falling on concrete
to falling on water. They dropped a pig from 600 feet onto a watery grave. This
drop took about 5 seconds before the pig hit the water. It's terminal velocity
reached 120 mph before it landed, giving it 7 skeletal fractures, including
that of the ribs and neck. Flint falls from about the same height, perhaps even
a little bit higher according to the time frame. He's lucky Cloudy 2 is just a kids movie, because
he should be dead.
Another
shot that defies gravity is one where we see a LiveCorp water fountain shoot
out water in the shape of a light bulb. The water follows a very particular,
robotic path of action instead of the natural parabolic arc in would in real
life. it's almost as if the water spouts are being guided in some strange way.
One scene that is actually quite accurate is the scene in which
Flint travels down the crazy elevator tubes and his soy latte escapes from his
cup due to zero gravity. This is actually possible, and the liquid in the shot is
staying in tact— as it's an object at rest wishing to stay at rest— is a very real
world scenario. Astronauts at the space station did tests like this, where they
worked with the physical properties of liquid in zero gravity, and the results
in Cloudy 2 are not far off.
As
with most animated films, broken bones and stretched muscles populate the majority
of the shots in Cloudy with a Chance of
Meatballs 2. I think the difference between this film and many others is
that it tries to take this concept to a whole new level. You see it 30 seconds
into the film with the introduction of Chester V, the film's antagonist. His
arms and fingers stretch and bend in ways that only a person with jelly insides
could move. And his weight is also very odd, as he can hold himself up with two
fingers effortlessly. This helps set the tone and world of the film and it
gives it a very unique and particular style.
Other shots that exemplify the stretched muscles of the
characters are when they all see the foodimals for the first time. Their facial
reactions and jaws drop further than any normal human, and again this just
further supports the story moment. There's even a part that shows some
characters slapping mosquitoast off of each other's faces. The stretch in the
fingers and squash of the jaws and cheek muscles indicate how far the animators
were able to push the poses and expressions of the characters they were working
with.
Though some scenes and sequences from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 work in the real world, a
majority of them do not. The story itself is crazy and requires the physics to
match it. The characters have to have a lack of bone structure, the buildings
need to be strange and improbable, and the weight of the world requires its own
gravity for each particular moment. But we as the audience buy the physics; we
accept it. And this is the beauty of cinema and the power of animation: a
character can bend their arms in 12 different places and an enormous structure
can be made entirely out of glass. We disembark from our own reality because Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is
grounded in its own world, and we follow every moment of it.
-obviously,
the reasoning behind it is all for the sake of story
-Thesis:
Even though the filmmakers constantly break the rules of the real world, they
do so in a consistent manner that makes us suspend disbelief so that we as the
audience buy into the story and world they call "reality."
Balance and Weight- Buildings with impossible structures
-the
Elevator tube at LiveCorp (0:11)
-SanFranJose
(0:08)
-LiveCorp's
giant glass lightbulb (0:09) (0:12)
Defying Gravity- Characters and Locations with crazy weight
and gravitational pulls
-Flint
falling from a rock candy precipice (1:04)
-LiveCorp's
light bulb-shaped water fountain (0:09)
-Coffee
floating in zero Gravity (0:11)
Broken Bones and Stretched Muscles- Characters with seemingly
jelly insides
-Chester
V's intro shot (0:01)
-The big surprise
of Food Animals (0:32)
-Slapping
off the maquitoasts (0:55)
Conclusion
-certain
scenes work in the real world, majority do not
My name is Youri Dekker, and I'm an animation/illustration major in my fifth year here at SJSU. I have a deep passion for character animation, storytelling, and films. I'm the president of the Shrunkenheadman Club for the 2013-2014 school year, and am enjoying every minute of it. I'll be entering my BFA year next year, with the hopes of eventually getting a job where I can have the opportunity to animate on a feature film. I like playing basketball and sleeping whenever I get the chance. I also like all sorts of food: lasagna, burritos, BBQ chicken wings, but most of all ice cream.
This is a film I directed a year ago called Roll, made in about 6 weeks time.
I still intend on going back and improving on it, but for now this is it.
Here's my Demo Reel for ANI 128B, one of my digital animation classes that I took last semester.
