Illustrated Essay Introduction: I am interested in comic and graphic movies in films. The reason I chose this idea is because I like their style of cartoons used like Kill Bill and Sin City and I am going to explain how this is used in film. I am going to explain in depth of animators and the works on animation between Sin City (2005) and Kill Bill vol 1 (2003). I will also explain about their techniques and their influences that helped them to create their own style. I hope that I will use their work to influence my movie this year by following their techniques and use some of my style of manga. The work on the animator of Kill Bill s anime fighting sequence Katsuji Morishita (Born in 1972) was the animator for the anime fighting sequence of Kill Bill (2003). I found this interesting because I am interested in how anime is used in realist films as well as looking at his influences in animation. I also like his style of manga used in the fight sequence from Kill Bill and the smoothness of the animation. His influences are mainly of, fictional futuristic films and novels such as Devilman (1973 and 1987), Brave Raideen (1978), Gordian Warrior (1979). Most of these are adaptions of the manga series which mostly contains action and violent scenes. Devilman (1973) is a Japanese manga series written and Illustrated by Go Nagai. The manga and later adapted to anime influenced Morishita to create his own works like the character s smooth transformation sequence from monster to human, the creatures design and the action. He loved the action and the exaggeration of the blood being spurted out from the characters during the fighting scenes of Devilman and other monsters. Go Nagai commented that Devilman was designed as part of an anti- war work. Brave Raideen (1978) is a super robot anime which inspired Morishita due to the plot of the story and the super tech like designs for characters and machines. He d also loved the way humans and machines can be combined together in a story and the transformation from robot to a vehicle similar to transformers. The title is named after Raideen Tameemon, who was a sumo wrestler and was the first work of animation director, Yoshiyuki Tomino who is best known as the creator of the Gundam series. Gordian Warrior (1979) is a popular anime series which had also inspired Morishita too. This is because of the fighting scenes which contain futuristic guns, rays etc. He was inspired by the action and the plot of the story as well as the character designs for them.
Animation sequence for chapter 3 of Kill Bill- vol 1 Morishita s style of animation heavily depicts violence, through dark, fictional characters. Some of the scenes in his animation are melodramatics at times, for example in the animation sequence in Kill Bill, a lot of blood spurts out which splatters on most of the walls. Most of animations are hand drawn and the use of digital technology was kept to a minimum unless for special effects like Kill Bill. These people had influenced Morishita till today, which helped him create animation works like Reideen, Guardian of the Spirit, Sisters of Wellber, Blood: The Last Vampire, Le Chevalier D'Eon and most notably, Kill Bill: vol 1. For my film, I hope to use the manga techniques and the characters done in the style of Morishita. Morishita s Guardian of the Spirit. The characters are shogun ancient warriors. Morishita s Reideen, all characters are fictional and set in futuristic earth.
The work on Frank Miller and his influences Frank Miller, (born January 27, 1957) was the animator and was one of the producers and directors for the film, Sin City. An American comic book artist and writer who is best known for his dark, film noir- style comic book stories and graphic novels such as Daredevil, Batman, 300 (2007) and more recently, The Spirit (2008) and many more. I found this interesting because I am interested in how he connects and uses cartoons and comics into realist films and uses them in a different style as well as his influences. I also liked his technique of a live action film done in a comic book style and would like to use him as one of my influences to help me create my own film done in his style. His influences mostly have elements similar to Marvel comic books style, which includes: Will Eisner, Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang, Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, Alex Toth, Frank Frazetta, Joe Kubert, Jordi Bernet, Johnny Craig, Milton Caniff, Wally Wood, Hugo Pratt, Frank Robbins, William Gaines, José Antonio Muñoz and James Kochalka. As for his animation, his influences are from Fleischer Studios, who created animations such as Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman and many more. Miller s influences from Marvel artists such as works from Alex Toth, who does animation designs for cartoons like, for this example a character design for Super Ghost. Joe Kubert, who also does character designs for DC comics like Hawkman and Sg.t Rock. In this example, we can see that the violence and action is well captured and created. James Kochalka is a comic book artist and writer who s famous for his surreal and realism blending together in his works. His works reflects on the world around him like real- life characters as his wife, children, cat, friends and colleagues. He helped create designs for B Hugo Pratt, an Italian comic book creator was Miller s influences in creating comic book art. Pratt was well known for his combination of storytelling and historical facts. He created characters for action comic books like his character, Asso di Picche, Ace of Spades.
Marvel comics was one of Miller s influences where he too created comics of his own before turning them into film adaptions of the same name. This style is noticeable in Millers films such as Sin City, 300 and The Spirit. Sin City (2005) is a film based on the comic book, done in mostly in film noir which the theme is noticeably similar to the comics. Some colours were deliberately changed just to contrast with the film noir theme genre like the brightness and contrast. Examples of this are such as Miho s red and blue clothing, Goldie s red dress and blonde hair etc. The film is based on film noir and deliberately puts in contrasting colours as well as making the film in a comic book style. For example, the image on the right is made into a silhouette style but the colours are reversed making the scene looks like a negative to suit with the theme and deliberately filmed the couple off centre as well to make it look interesting. The image in the middle is grainy and the characters much darker than the background just to contrast from the two colours and also to create the busy, Smokey side of the city and as for the image on the right, it has been set to film noir style only to have the female character s love heart shaped bed and hair in colour to contrast with the theme. It was also deliberately filmed from a bird s eye view to show the whole scene from above. The Spirit (2008) is based on the newspaper- comic strip with the same name. It has almost the same elements of Sin City and like its comic strip counterpart, including the film noir genre along with contrasting colours particularly reds to make the film more effective. Again, the film is edited to look in the style of a comic book with contrasting colours, effective lighting and shadows to also suit in the genres of fantasy thriller and action. The similarities of the characters used in the comics and in the live action film done in the style of a comic book. The Film noir theme with contrasting colours is used throughout the film as seen in Samuel L. Jackson s character.
How animation is used in realist movies: Animation could be used in realism movies through computer animation, stop motion animation, CGI, rotoscoping and many more. The reality effects are shown visually like detailed characters, settings in strong detail, the use of lighting, naturalistic colours and the smoothness of the action of characters. This is made by looking at what inspires the artists such as looking at locations, objects, the study of the animal and the human body as well as the movement and the performance of these. A realist setting can depicts a character s state of mind or his feelings towards another character or the idea of space. Another reason is that how the animation resembles to everyday situations and events as well as trying to avoid happy endings which this term is sometimes known as an illusion of reality. Some animated films are done in 3d, to create this CGI is used and performers would have to act out the scene in order to create the movement and action, the characters are then made into animation. In most anime sequences, the setting tends to be more detailed than the characters. Sometimes, in animated realist movies, the action and movement and camera movement is exaggerated. This is because to depict the emotion and the dominance of that character and the action as well as letting the viewer know what just happened. This is to help make to animation look more effective and resembles slightly to the reality. Screenshots from Kill Bill s animation sequence, as you can see the action is exaggerated to show dominance of a character for example the movement of the blood on the bottom right image, the amount of blood on the face of the girl and on the walls in the middle left image. Canted camera angles in anime often depict strange twisted emotions of the character. Conclusion I find that Morishita and Miller are connected due to the subject of graphic and comic artists made in film through using animation and or live action films but made in a comic strip style. Miller and Morishita both worked on animation for violent sequences in animated or live action films therefore they connect well apart from their style of drawings. Morishita s style is more derived from Manga, the Japanese form of cartoon style while as Miller s derived from his experience from working with Marvel Comics. I am using these two people due to the different ways they ve used as a comic and graphics artist into a film but emphasize the film through the use of a comic book like style. I can see that these two people could influence my work by using realist animation movies. I am going to use animation and perhaps characters drawn and made in the style of Morishita s and the setting could be in film noir style similar to Millar s Sin City and The Spirit. I will also try to do this in a comic book style on the computer by using computer software that I have easy access to like Microsoft paint and Photoshop as I have learnt through tutorials and creating a short experiment. However, I may encounter problems whilst doing this, problems like having not enough time to draw the animation frame by frame, or over saving an existing file, or the software unexpectedly goes wrong. Though whilst making the animation I hope to less encounter these problems.