Animation Film of Madagascar - Essay Example

of the of the Lecturer and Number Submitted Animation Film of Madagascar Madagascar is an American computer-animated film, and it is categorized under comedy movies. The film was released in 2005 and the producers are DreamWorks animation. In May 27, 2005, the movie was released in the movie theaters. It is always a tedious process making an animated movie. The directors and producers work with storyboard artistes and writers for two years developing and going through twelve storylines hence gradually fleshing out the movie. SFGate states that “Penguins Madagascar” was first hashed out in early 2000s and only became popular in 2010. According to most producers and directors, it takes 3-5 years to come up with a well-furnished animated film. The first step in the making process of an animated movie is writing a script. Concept is the key factor in this step. In the script, writers, producers and directors mix their original ideas with ideas inspired by a wide range of sources that include comic strips and children’s book. A script is then written once the writers, producers and directors settle on an idea. The second phase is passing the already made script to the storyboard artistes. Storyboard artistes imagine how the words in the script would translate into pictures and actions by making a series of sketches in the form of a comic book with an aim of not only telling the story but also bringing the story to life. The drawings are then digitally photographed and strung together to create a story reel (a flipbook that allows you to see how drawings flow together) upon the approval of the producers and directors of Madagascar concerning the series of sketches. The story reel is then combined with temporary sound, music and dialogue and the producers and directors work with this combination for about eighteen months. The next step is planning the look of the Madagascar film, which is done by the department of visual development. The visual development department develops the overall artistic technique to each succession, tone, style and color. This stage also marks the designing of everything ranging from the key characters to the smallest of props by employing multiple paintings, blueprints, sculptures, drawings and models. The end product at this stage is the design of characters and a fantasy world to tell the story, courtesy of development artistes. The features of Madagascar film are produced in stereoscopic 3D.This new visual format offers an outstanding experience that is similar to the color advent and later, sound in the history of cinema. This advanced technology has psyched the producers and the directors of Madagascar elevate the journey of their movie making into the future and beyond. The next step under filmmaking process is the process of stereoscopic filmmaking that needs changes to the CGI filmmaking traditional techniques by introducing stunning and new technical as well as creative opportunities (Plunkett 19). The stereoscopic process translates the director’s creative vision into an immersive visual environment by bringing together all aspects of the Madagascar producer’s, DreamWorks from the story development and visual style to layout to the final render. The stereoscopic process used in the Madagascar film allows the camera to interact with the characters and the space around the characters thus allowing the artistes to tell stories in creative and new ways, which engages the audience further. The Madagascar filmmaking studio has utilized the development of new technology and techniques to expand the boundaries of stereoscopic filmmaking processes. After drawing the storyboard, designing the characters and sets, finding voices of the characters and starting to record their lines is the next step. Casting in animation is completely different from casting in action film. Unlike action film that stresses on how an actor/actress looks like, animated movie, in this case Madagascar film is more concerned with what an actor sounds like. In simple terms, in animation films, ear casting rather than eye casting is used. Recording of the actors is done before commencing the animation process. This is achieved by videotaping the actors when they are performing their roles, and this assists in providing reference for the next production phases. The next phase is modeling and rigging. Here, modelers construct a digital model, similar to a clay model inside the computer by using production design, which is culled down from multiple drawings. First, the modelers start with a wire frame sculpture known as amateur in order to break down the design into a workable geometry and allow the rigging of the figure. Figure rigging gives the animator the ability to move 3-D figure in whatever way necessary as far as acquiring the preferred articulation, is concerned. Addition of basic surfaces is then done after setting up the armature. This digital marionette or simplified “puppet inside a box” is what is used in the next step. Modeling is the next phase in the filmmaking process, in this phase; modelers produce “physical” objects in the film’s virtual world. The artists of modeling collaborate with the department of Arts to sculpt the environments and the characters digitally thus realizing the design concepts as palpable 3D forms. The modelers start with a wire frame sculpture known as amateur in order to break down the design into a workable geometry and allow the rigging of the figure. Figure rigging gives the animator the ability to move 3-D figure in whatever way necessary as far as acquiring the preferred articulation is concerned. The rigging process comes before animation but after modeling. In this step, character TD, commonly referred to as the riggers; evaluate the statute of the CG that comes from the department of modeling. They also determine how these characters must move, and not only where the muscles, bones and fats would be under the skin but also how funny and realistic these characters would be in the film. To make the character bend and deform like a living creature, a wide range of mathematical operations and joints are used all over the face, hair, body and the character’s clothing. To summarize, rigging collaborates with the animation to design to build an in-depth set of controls as far as the character is concerned, therefore, enabling animation to not only pose each part of this modern puppet but also bring the modern puppet to life. The next step is Layout. There are two distinct phases in layout, and this includes Rough Layout and Final Layout. Rough Layout involves artists recreating and interpreting the manually drawn 2-D storyboard panels in a 3-D CG environment, thereby, helping the artist evaluate the initial placement of 3D camera and motion together with the first character’s pass of staging and blocking. Rough Layout develops the film’s cinematography by working with rough versions of characters effects, environments and lighting. The Final Layout artists capture the shots and substitute the characters and environment that are rough with the final approved assets. They also offer the set dressing. However, the final layout artists should only do this upon the director’s approval concerning the rough layout. All these performances enable the animators of the character to add the concluding performances to the shots as well as allowing the start of all remaining processes of production. The last step in this phase involves the application of tweaks and any excess camera polishing for the new operations by the Final Layout, which is accomplished upon finishing the animation of shots. After completing the layouts, character animation is introduced. However, before bringing the characters top life in the computer, the animators ensure that the sequence is working as expected with the layout. The animators articulate plenty of controls that were developed in the course of character-rigging phase in order to bring every character to life as well as synchronizing the characters with the voice performance. The characters should resemble themselves at the end of this face but not close since the scene is not yet finished. Surfacing comes in to solve the mystery of characters, modeling, environments and props, which leaves everything grey and flat. The surfacing artists add the textures and colors to these elements thus making the surfaces to appear shiny and smooth like glass, gritty and bumpy like dirt, and soft and fuzzy like wool among others. Some instances require characters to be customized for a particular shot, for instance, making a character appear to be covered in mud or dripping wet. The department of surfacing may also be required to grow fields on the grass and, or groom hairstyles, or even paint footprints into a snow bank. Surfacing artists then work closely with lighting to create the last appearances of the assets of the film upon set dressing the every environment. Effects come in after the setting of camera moves and the animation of characters. Unlike a live-action movie where it is difficult to photograph things like waves at the beach, leaves blowing in the wind or footprints on the sand among others, such simple things are all animated and designed by effect artists in computer animation. This simply implies that the element is moving rather than acting, a style referred to as effects. The next step is lighting where the lighting artists “paint” with light by using a computer, therefore, bringing the final look, color and illumination to the film. Lighting integrates the surfaces, animation, trees, grass, crowd, water and effects hence making them work together. To achieve this, lighting creates illumination for the scene as well as supporting the story through the creation of atmosphere and mood. Moreover, lighting makes the audience look exactly when and where the narrator wants them to look by leading the eyes of the viewers to the vital elements of the frame. The next step is Sound FX 1, classified under Sound Design, which ensures creation and recording of sound effects. Sound design also features Foley and ambience that produce the layers and texture of sound thus enriching the story. The role of Foley artists is to develop sound effects that are particular to each film, for instance, door closing and opening, clothes rustling, glass breaking and footsteps. Sound FX 2, under Music Scoring follows Sound FX 1. In Sound FX 2, the composer writers the music, which can enhance and heighten the story beats of the animated films. Through the music, audience can follow the emotional moments and the action occurring within the storyline. The final step is the Final Mix, categorized under Echo. This step, emphasizes on assembling the music, dialogue and sound effects on the sound mixing stage. Final Mix also adds equalization, perspective, audio levels and treatments such as the sound of TV or Radio, echo, delay of public access among others, as tracks and mixed into the final translation of the film. Madagascar, the computer-animated film whose producer is DreamWorks Animation, features the voices of Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer and Ben Stiller. Other voices featured in this movie are Sacha Baron Cohen, Andy Ritcher and Cedric the Entertainer. November 7 2008, saw the release of a sequel Madagascar titled Escape 2 Africa while in June 8 2012, the third film of Madagascar with the title Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted was released. On May 18 2018, a fourth film, branded Madagascar 4 is set to be released. Madagascar film features plenty of characters; the key characters in Madagascar are Alex the lion, The Fosses and the Phil and Mason the Chimpanzee amongst others. The directors of Madagascar film are Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath while Mireille Soria, Mark Burton and Billy Frolick are the producers. Additionally, the writers of Madagascar are Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell while Hans Zimmer and Clare De Chenu are the music producers. Mark A. Hester and H. Lee Peterson did the editing of this stunning movie. Consequently, DreamWorks Animation SKG and the Pacific Data images get the credits for being the studios that produced Madagascar film. The distributed by DreamWorks Pictures, and was first allowed in the US in May 25, 2005 while in Japan it was released in August 13, 2005. English is the language used in Madagascar film, whose running time is eight-six minutes. The film whose budget cost $78 million fetched a gross revenue of $532,680,671. Additionally, Ben Stiller plays the role of Alex, the lion who is an outstanding performer with a tender side. Chris Rock undertakes the role of Marty the Zebra. According to McGrath, Marty thinks life is precious and enjoyable outside the zoo, so the needed Marty’s character to be energetic, making them settle at Chris Rock. David Schwimmer plays the role of Melman the giraffe. Melman is a hypochondriac, and he is afraid of pathogens, hence McGrath settled on the voice of Schwimmer on the grounds that it was exemplary neat. Jada Pinkett Smith plays the role of Gloria, an hippopotamus who is confident, strong but sweet. McGrath claims that the voice of Pinkett Smith has all these traits prompting them to choose her. Sacha Baron Cohen plays the role of King Julien, a ring-tailed lemur who is also the king of lemurs according to Madagascar. Cedric the Entertainer plays the role of Maurice the aye-aye who is royal advisor of king Julien and Andy Ritcher the role of Mort the mouse Lemur. Madagascar film has given Mort in a naïve and childlike manner making him adorable. In addition, Tom McGrath is the Skipper who is the Penguin’s leader. McGrath is also the co-director and the co-writer of Madagascar film and he initially gave out his voice to the temporary tracks after the death of Robert Stack. McGrath, who initially approached Stack for Skipper’s voice, was unfortunate when Stack died before the start of the animation production. Chris Miller, on other hand, plays the role of Kowalski the penguin who maintains the right hand of Skipper while Jeffrey Katzenberg undertakes the role of Rico the Penguin, a silent and smart penguin who solely expresses himself through squeals and grunts. The film producer, Mireille Soria comments on the uncredited role of Katzenberg pointing out at the irony brought due to this character’s behavior; Rico does not talk making his trait be Dadaistic. Christopher Knights plays the role of a lowly and eager penguin known as Private. Knights is also the co-editor of Madagascar film. Conrad Vernon undertakes the role of Mason while the film has unvoiced Phil. Tom McGrath and Fred Tatasciore both play the role of Fossa and Elisa Gabrielli exists as Nana. Bob Saget represents the Zoo animal, David Cowgill represents the Police Horse and Stepehen Apostolina represents a police officer. Madagascar film revolves around four friends: Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman. Marty who was celebrating his tenth birthday, escapes from the Zoo and his friends also break free from the Central Park Zoo in an attempt of getting him. The four friends, alongside Mason and his silent friend, Phil and the penguins finally find themselves at the Grand Central Station, where they are promptly dashed away when Alex tries to communicate with humans, only for humans to mistake this communication as an aggression. The zoo is under pressure from the activists of animal-rights is pushed to ship the animals through sea to a wildlife preserve in Kenya. However, the penguins, who escape from their enclosure, take over the ship with intentions of taking it to Antarctica thus making their antics on the bridge to cause crates having Melman, Marty, Alex and Gloria be washed ashore on Madagascar after falling off the boat. The four friends eventually groups. Madagascar film seems to be having a number of goofs, Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are seen on the Lexington Avenue and the 59th Street on a subway platform when they take a subway moving from Central Park to Grand Central Terminal, which is correct. However, the signs indicate that the platform belongs for trains 4, 5 and 6, which is false since trains 4 and 5 are express trains that only make stopovers at express platforms below BMT Broadway Line’s platform and the local platforms. Despite the mixed response due to criticism, Madagascar brought commercial success to the people involved. During the onset of its launch Madagascar film fetched $47,224,594 with an average of $11,431 from theaters tallying to 4,131 hence making it number three film of the weekend after The Longest Yard and Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. However, on the following week, Madagascar film managed to claim the first position in the United States box office fetching a gross income of $28,110,235. The film finally fetched $193,595,521 in the U.S and $339,085,150 in the foreign locations. Currently, the film is ninth position as far grossing income in DreamWorks animated feature is concerned. Computer animation is the process of using computer graphics to generate animated images. This includes creation of both static and moving images and is also referred to as computer generated imagery. The animation may be intended for the computer itself but most of the time it is intended for animating a process or film. Computer animation in the modern day employs three dimension (3D) graphics although two dimension (2D) computer graphics are also used for animations with low bandwidth and therefore faster and real time rendering. 3D animation involves the use of 3D computer graphics which normally represents geometric data in a three dimensional models mostly a Cartesian plane for calculations and 2D images rendering. 3D computer graphics heavily relies on the same algorithms as the 2D graphics mostly in the final rendered display. However, the distinction between the two technologies is that 3D animations are occasionally blur. In spite of that, the two technologies are can usually co-exist symbiotically where 3D may use 2D rendering methods while 2D uses 3D techniques to achieve such effects as lighting. In the creation of the 3D animations, the artist can model an object on the computer using 3D modelling software. Real objects from the physical world can also be scanned and animated in the computer. Another method of creating a 3D object is by visual simulation. The models are formed form the vertices of polygons whose structure determines the overall suitability and integrity of the animation. After the creation of the model, the images are placed in a scene where the relationships between the size, location and motion are defined. The methods used includes motion capture, inverse kinematics and key framing. These methods are usually used as a combination in order to produce a high quality animation. The final step in the process in the rendering where light transport simulating converts the models into photo realistic images. This is done by specifying how much light is transported from one object or surface to another as well as how the surfaces interact with light. This is usually carried out using 3D computer graphics software. 3D projections are used to change the scenes into a more appropriate form for better rendering mostly displaying the 3D image in two dimensions. Therefore for a simple animation such as a short cartoon to a complex project such as a full length animated film, three dimensional animation is a very complicated work of art that takes investment of time and skill for proper execution. History of 3D Animation The animation technology was introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1912 who revolutionized the animation industry long before his introduction of poisonous aerosols in the personal hygiene industry. Hitler produced an eight seconds 240 frame animation after nine years of hard work in a studio he created in his mother’s basement. The film was known as the Toy Story. It is the frustrations in his work that led him to change carriers and become a leader of the Nazi party in 1921. Steve jobs in his visit to Germany in 1986 came across Hitler’s studio plus the eight second- animation and bought the enterprise. He took it with him to the United States and also acquired Pixar from Lucas G. H. Steve hired a team of programmers who worked on faster ways of creating 3D animations using a computer. The programmers made short animations and completed their first major project dubbed Hitler’s Toy Story in 1995 which became a record breaking seller movie at the box office. This turned out to be the ground breaking film of the many fully computer animated movies. Although computer generated imagery (CGI) has been in use since early 1980s, it was not extensively used before the release of the Toy Story in 1995 by Pixar. The most complex processes at that time included character modelling, lighting and facial animations. The challenge now is the creation of photorealistic human characters as many animated films use anthropomorphic animal characters such as Bolt and Madagascar. DreamWorks Animation Inc. This is an American animation studio based in California whose main objectives is to create animated films and television programs and incorporated in October 1994. The founders of the company were J. Katzenberg, a former Disney executive, S. Spielberg who is a director and producer and D. Geffen who was a music executive. In January 2006, DreamWorks Animations sold their distribution partner DreamWorks SKG to Paramount Pictures and entered into an agreement that stated that Paramount Pictures will distribute 13 animation films by DWA or until December, 2012. The company was publicly traded in October 2004 headed by Katzenberg while Spielberg and Geffen remained in the board of directors as consultants. Their most prominent projects includes How to Train Your Dragon, Monsters vs. Aliens and Madagascar. The company started to release all its animation films in stereoscopic 3 dimensions from 2007 and in conjunction with Intel, they developed a new 3D animation technology known as InTru3D. In an attempt to diversify and expand, DWA signed a five year deal with 20th Century Fox to distribute its animations films both in the local and international markets with The Croods being the first animation to be distributed by the company. DreamWorks Animations has continued to diversify by creating new internal divisions such as television production, overseas theme parks and the most important being the consumer products. Madagascar This is computer fabricated film produced by Americas DWA directed by Eric Darnel and Tom McGrath and directed by Mireille Soria. It was released to the movie theatres on 27th May, 2005. It revolves around the life of four Central Park Zoo animals who have spent most of their lives in captivity. The animals are unexpectedly returned to Africa by ship which unfortunately wrecked in the island of Madagascar. The film features prominent voices in the entertainment industry including the voices of Andy Richter, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jada P. Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen and Cedric the Entertainer. A continuation follow up of the film dubbed “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” was released in November 2008 while the third in the series called “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” was supplied in June 2012. Madagascar 4 is the title of the fourth film in the series set to be release at a date in 2018. Synopsis Madagascar follows the adventures of four animals who are great friends. The buddies are the Giraffe (Schwimmer), Gloria the Hippo (Pinkett Smith), Alex the Lion (Stiller) and Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock). The penguins fills the head of the Zebra with wild talks and he decides to leave the zoo to discover the life beyond the walls of the New York’s Central Park Zoo. Marty is closely followed by his three close friends, the Gloria, Alex and Melham so as to convince him to return to the zoo. Unfortunately the game rangers from the NYC caught up with them and returned them to the zoo. However, the animal’s rights activists comes to their rescue and they are boarded a ship en route to Africa their native land. While on board, the rebellious penguins decides to take control but this results in a ship wreck and the four confused and frightened friends find themselves on the shore of the island of Madagascar. Shortly after landing in Madagascar the four hunger stricken friends embarks on a mission to search for food which only takes a tragic turn when Alex the lion started to envision Marty the Zebra as a sumptuous steak. Production Process Bringing out a story using an animation is a collaborative and creative process that begins with the idea development mostly brainstorming in groups. The following step is the creation of the characters where the main and supporting characters are chosen and their most significant personalities and appearances conceptualized. The characters are then put down with a pen and paper. Here the main features are brought out and the moods that appears when the characters sre on the screen brought out using different colours. From there the actual animation commences using the relevance software. Figure 1 below illustrates the animation process. Figure 1: Animation production process Characters in Madagascar The creation of the four essential characters in Madagascar were designed to look like cartoon and the inspiration was from the children’s picture books from the 1950s. The design of the characters was to blend with the environment in the real zoo setting. The simple design ensured that the characters maintained their shape irrespective of the crazy positions they are stretched into. This also added a comic dimension to the character as well as the retro 2D style of the film. The four man characters are based on four basic geometric shapes; Alex an inverted triangle, Marty a cylinder, Melman a stick and Gloria a circle as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: The four characters and their geometric shape representing each character. The feature of each of the actors is communicated by their visual design. The mane and posture of Alex portrays his self-confidence, the upbeat personality of Marty is communicated by his huge mouth and expressive eyes, the phobic character of Melman is shown by his skinny and large facial features while the full figure of Gloria depicts her full strength and stability. Environment Creation The three films takes us around the world in terms of environmental aspect. From the encloses of the New York’s central park zoo to the hectic New York City, from the unique shores and jungles of Madagascar to the unique African jungles and a journey across Europe with a travelling cirrus. All these locations have unique style and colour. The environment of New York Central Park Zoo was based on the actual zoo in the 1960s. The layout allowed for a more classical arrangement of the buildings and provide a more concrete and enclosed location of the animals. The numerous artist drawings of the jungle by the French artist Henri Rousseau inspired the Madagascan jungle. He made an artistic impression of the jungle form the eyes of a child by inclusion of multiple colours, flowers and fruits. Creating the entire African continent while still maintaining the childlike qualities in the environment was one of the biggest challenges in the second film called Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. However the team undertaken a reconnaissance on the African continent and settled on the making the gold, yellow, orange and the sky more conspicuous than in the first movie. In the third film in the combined series, the largest part encompasses very different worlds of New York City’s Central Park Zoo, the Madagascan and African jungles as well as the travelling European Circus. Each of the locations had a unique style, colour and physical effects. Work Cited Plunkett, Jack W. Plunketts Almanac of Middle Market Companies 2012: Middle Market Research, Statistics & Leading Companies. Houston: Plunkett Research, 2011. Internet resource. Read More