Questionnaires

Ive made a few questionnaires that im handing out to people in school and outside to get a wide range.

Questions:
1. Do you enjoy watching animated films?
Yes No Sometimes

2. Which Animation Studio/s do you prefer?

Pixar DreamWorks Aardman No preference other

Why is this?

3. What do you look for in an animated film?


4. What would you say is the better Studio, Pixar or DreamWorks?

5. What do you like about this Studio’s films?

6. Do you have a favourite Pixar or DreamWorks film? If so what is it and why do you like it?

Research time

Last week was the hunting stage to skim through empire, sight and sound and other film books/magazines to find articles on Pixar, Dreamworks, The Incredibles and anything else i might find useful. Ive photocopied the pages of interest and im going to post them on...

Sources:
ANIMATED FILMS By James Clarke.
Virgin Books Ltd
2004

The LA Times Patrick Goldstein
Pixar's Secret Ingredient? Quality.
July 1 2008

SIGHT AND SOUND
March 2000

Empire

Focus film- The Incrdibles

Helen: Now it's perfectly normal...
Violet: [interrupting] Normal? What do *you* know about normal? What does *anyone* in *this* family know about normal?
Helen: Now wait a minute, young lady...
Violet: We act normal, mom! I want to *be* normal! The only normal one is Jack-Jack, and he's not even toilet trained!

Ive chosen The Incredibles as my chosen film because of the charcter development and interaction.
This film surrounds the "human world" unlike most pixar films which look at insects, toys, robots etc. It follws the Parrs, a five member superhero family tring to adopt civilian identities and live a "normal life" in the suberbs. Bob Parr, formally known as Mr Incredible was forced to retreat from superhero duties to work for an insurance company. Bob miserable at his job, still finds a way to help citizens by finding loopholes etc but it wasnt filling his superhero abilities so he went back to be a crime fighter.
Helen Parr (Elastigirl),Bobs wife, setted down in suberbia with their three kids Violet, Dash, and baby Jack-Jack. The family behave and conform to a typical family which makes them relatable to audiences; Violet is a shy insecure teenage girl who cannot talk to her her crush, Dash the annoying younger brother who gets into a trouble with the principal,Bob is stuck in a dead end job wanting something more, and Helen the curvy housewife and mother. Even at dinner they find a way of irritating on another.
" "

[ clip of dinner table scene]
Their powers, super and family orientated, are put to the test when teaming up to fight the villian Syndrome! These superheroes are not immortal and have to deal with real world day to day problems. They are not like the supers from comics or cartoons. They are real people who wont get back up and save the day, they can die.
Minor characters in Pixar Films always have an impact on audiences.
Bob's friend and co-superhero Frozone (Samuel L Jackson),Costume Designer Edna Mode (Brad Bird)and also a young boy on a bike who although only makes two appearances in the film, is a funny and memorable.

Are Pixar and Dreamworks too similar?

A BUGS LIFE (Nov 1998) / ANTZ (Oct 1998)
Similarities:Small ant trying to make a big difference for his colony, falls in love with the princess ant, battle to save the day. I think these two films have the most in common compared to these other examples.
Differences: Z's romantic interest with Princess Bala plays a bigger part in the movie compares to Flik and Atta in Bugs life. Flik and co charcters have a more cuddly appeal (child-friendly and marketable).

FINDING NEMO( May 2003)/ A SHARKS TALE (Oct 2004)
Similarities:Little fish in the big see, battling scary sharks who are in fact friendly.
Differences: Marvin(nemo) raises awareness in the community to find his son.Oscar(sharks tale)raises awareness to advance his own reputation.

RATATOUILLE (Jun 2007)/ FLUSHED AWAY(Nov 2006)
Similarities:Rats who lose their home on land and end up in the sewers
Differences: Remy has a passion for gourmet french food. No love interest.

MONSTERS INC (Nov 2001)/ SHREK (May 2001)
Similarities: Scary monsters who are soft on the inside, save the girl, both have entertaining sidekicks.
Differences: Shrek is in the style of a fairytale with multiple exhisting characters. The monsters are doing their daily job in a different realm.

Shrek Investiagtion

I personally believe that Shrek (2001)is the film that gained the closet success and qualities of a Pixar film. Shrek "helped establish Dreamworks as a prime competitor to Pixar in the field of feature film animation."
The Main character, Shrek, was an ogre who is in no way perfect and feared by villagers and fairytale creatures.Similarly to Pixar, the main charcter isnt a perfect character, and do not fit into their homeworld, but somehow they are realatable. (like Flik from bugs life, Walle the robot etc)
I think that Dreamworks tend to concentrate on the overall visual look of the film and effects used, whereas Pixar needs and has a solid story first and then apply their technical magic!
It's important to note that Shrek wasn't an original idea founded from Dreamworks writers, but a children's book Shrek! by William Steig, suggesting that the films success derived from someone elses story. The book was handed to Dreamworks co-founder Jefferey Katzenberg by Lizzie Macdonald co-head of Dreamworks. The Story stood out to Katzenberg because its an aytpical Fairytale. There were no dashing princes, singing animals or virtuous princesses, but a large Scottish ugly ogre. Katzenberg saw "irrevernce, humour,and a wonderful heart." He knew this Ogre would appeal to audiences, children and adults.

" The other part of Katzenberg's idea was equally challenging : using CG technoglogy to transform Shrek from the static world of the page into a hihjly relaistic 3-D world that onlycomputer generated animation was capable of producing "The Story itself was sort of a fractured fairy tale." says Katzenberg.
"Yet as impressive as CG aniamtion was at the time, it was still a relatively new art form. It had significant limitations, including a rather sterile "CG look" to settings and backgrounds, as well as human characters of limited mobility or expressiveness. Pixar's Toy Story , considered by many at PDI/Dreamworks to be the new Snow White of CG aniamtion, exploited these limitations brilliantly, with its relatively simple toy characters set against a visuallly striking, but bleak, suburban environment. "

"But there was something deeper to shrek as a character that the creators were still struggling with "I think the hardest part was how do you make a big,gree,stinky, ogre somebody an audience can fall in love with." In the end, these movies if they work , connect with the audience because they're allegories. The challlenge here was to create a charcter how enough dimension and complexity, so that we recognise that Shrek's journey is, in fact all our journeys...I'm fond of saying theres a little ogre in all of us, whether we want to admit it or not."

-Shrek From the Swamp To The Screen- John Hopkins.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-goldstein1-2008jul01,0,2430755.story
- Patrick Goldstein


"Its films are often populated with dark, pessimistic themes, but they still somehow feel spiritually engaging and uplifting."

"Pixar's artistry has earned our trust."

"When I talk to rival studio executives, they scoff. Come on, they say -- Warner has to have three movies in the summer and two at Christmas. Of course, they're not all going to be good. Pixar only has to make one movie a year. Fair enough. Maybe making one movie a year is easier. But does that really explain why Pixar's one movie is better than all of Fox's 20 movies? Or 18 of Sony's or Paramount's films? But I think the other studios are embarrassed because Pixar's amazing track record stands as a rebuke to a system that is dominated by mindless test marketing and arid group think."

"In the world of features, the budgets are so high that people get nervous about experimenting. In a short, you can see what works and what doesn't and hammer it out. It has allowed our filmmakers to gain experience, both as animators and as storytellers, but without the pressure of a $150-million feature looming over their head."- John Lasseter

Pixar Insures that they have a strong Storyline before they go ahead making the film thus ensuring that they arnt wasting money while simultaniously, creating a well structured heart warming film for everyone to enjoy. If their early storyboards havn't got the "Pixar Magic" the idea can be set a side to carry on and improve or to scrap it completely.

links

These are some links to help with my research

http://www.codebot.org/articles/default.asp?doc=9355

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d9c80ad5c1.jpg

http://www.pixar.com/featurefilms/incredibles/tale.html

http://www.pixarplanet.com/

Pixar Vs Dreamworks !

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/04/02/lol-pixar-vs-dreamworks/

This link Shows one person's view of Pixar vs Dreamworks in a few drawings and words. I thought it was actaully quite funny as im backing PIXAR! In the form of a webcomcomic, One part shows talks about Pixars ideas, and the other part runs through dreamworks ideas( summed up in about 3 sentances )It also raises the theory Dreamworks use the same facial expression for their characters and they give a few examples to back this up.














The online forum enables the public to have their say, backing either Pixar or Dreamworks, not having a prefence to either one, or not liking the Animation studios at all etc :


[Lance_HBomb] "I think Dreamwork's best work WAS Prince of Egypt. And it's sad, considering it was their first work."


[super_aj ]"I agree completely. Pixar seens to make movies that feel like timeless stories that will still be relevant in 20 years, where as dreamworks is all about pop cultrure references that will be out of date in 5 years or less."


[Slurpee123abc]"Madagascar is the second most demanded movie of ALL movies on Verizon movies. Pixar does not even have a movie in the top ten. Beat THAT!!! Ya Pixar is great, but Dreamworks is more adventurous. Dreamworks makes films that are MUCH more crazy than Pixar. Sometimes they are worse. But sometimes they are really good."

The Statment that i agree with and it most similar to my line of arguement is this comment:

[Weyland_Yutani ]"This is the primary failure of Dreamworks. Instead of letting the jokes come through the story and characters, they manufacture them like a stand-up comedian. That humor will always fall flat with me in an animated film. For all its success, Shrek pointed the ship in a direction and they have never been able to put it back. For as good as KF Panda turned out, they still couldn't let go of that stuff. I still wish they animated the whole thing like the first few minutes. It was beautiful.."


Ive discovered that the overall opinion on dreamworks vs Pixar Battle is that Dreamworks tends to concentrate on pop references,sponsership and celebrity voices; Its for entertainment value. Whereas Pixar concentrate more deeply on the story and putting all their efforts into the charcaters, rather than depending on high tech technology.

The Start...

AREA OF INVESTIGATION:

Institution PIXAR

What makes Pixar films so distinctive to other animation studios?

FOCUS FILM: The Incredibles (2004 Pixar/Walt Disney D/r: Brad Bird)

SUPPORTED FILMS: Finding Nemo( 2003 Pixar/Walt Disney D/r: Andrew Stanton)

Shrek ( Dreamworks 2001 D/r:Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson)

Key Characters:

The Incredibles:

Bob Parr(Mr Incredible) Over weight, tired of his job, juggling being a Father and a Superhero.



Helen Parr- Curvy figure, juggling housework and the kids.


Violet Parr- Insecure shy teenage girl. Crush on the most popular guy at school. Has an annoying young brother.

Finding Nemo

Marlin- Single Dad, Overprotective.

Nemo- Under-developed fin

Dory- Short term memory loss, instantly likable, optimistic.

Key Scenes:
Dinner Scene, teaser trailer

Resources:

Finding Nemo DVD- Behind the scenes

The Incredibles DVD- Special features

Empire- Pixar article

Internet groups

People for interviews

Small Scale Research Question

What makes Pixar films so distinctive compared to Dreamworks?