CHRISTMAS SPECIAL BLOG DOUBLE BILL (OUAN402)

I watched "A Muppet's Christmas Carol", the greatest Christmas Film of all time. I almost hate to have to dissect and analyse it for this blog because it would ruin its sense of whimsy and mirth for me.

The bookkeepers and Bob Cratchit, pleading Scrooge for more coal in the Winter season.

From an animation perspective, the craftsmanship of the Muppets themselves is enough to love this movie. They're so iconic and their voices are so awesome! The creativity behind each of their designs boggles my mind because it's so revolutionary. Every animator dreams of making really iconic characters that stand the test of time. Kermit the Frog's design is a fantastic example of this, and it makes me wonder where Jim Henson found the inspiration for the completely new shapes and voices for his creations.

I could ask the same question about how Walt Disney derived this

from this

The sets are also worth mentioning. I love a good handmade set, and the rickety roofs of the victorian London syline and the snow-capped chimneys look so great and fit in so well with the design and the essence of the film. I appreciate them on an artistic level alone.

Also, the forced perspective looks great in some scenes.

Secondly, I watched "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" from 1964.

I also loved watching this film. For its time, the animation is quite okay. What I liked the most were the clever tricks that the filmmakers had to pull out of the bag to get certain effects right. For instance, whenever characters interact with water, the filmmakers made the water a sheet of blue plastic and added sugar grains to show disturbance on the surface.

Like when this yeti goes in the water

They also used cellophane and weird white feathery things to give the effect of splashing.

You can't make it out too well here, but you can sort of see the cellophane when they crash into this iceberg.

The only bad parts about the film were the voice acting, but there were a whole bunch of really interesting segments that kept my attention for the whole movie, like a yeti and a bunch of sad defective toys who live on a lonely island. The animation is mostly pretty good, but there's this one bit where two deer both walk out of a cave together and their shadows are projected on the wall.

And then the deer leave the cave and because of the way the lighting is angled, their shadows are still projected on the wall.

But then, in the very next frame the shadows vanish, as if the deer simply left the cave and then popped out of existence the moment they left the audience's field of vision.

That was annoying, but otherwise this is a cool movie. EVERYONE should watch it.