Fire in Cardboard City

     Fire in Cardboard City is a 2017 stop motion animated short by New Zealander Phil Brough. This short has won numerous awards and has been invited to screen at top film festivals, and for good reason. It’s unique in concept, well executed, and so, so, funny!

Fire in Cardboard City Trailer

     I have long been a big fan of Nick Parks and other claymation artists, but Phil Brough gives us a new twist on stop motion art by using cardboard as his medium. It’s hard to imagine the work that went into the construction of the elaborate city scenes, vehicles and characters, even before the labor-intensive film production work could begin. The decision to use cardboard is obvious based on the title, but how he transforms a 2D material into 3D action is astounding.

     The film uses modern film cinematics to great effect, with zooming and panning, extreme angles and forced perspective to enhance mood. I wonder if there was a sort of rotoscoping going on to create, in cardboard, the action in the car scenes including roll over crashes. There’s almost a sense that the creators are making a parody of typical Hollywood car crash scenes and disaster movies. 

     

     The sound editing is perfectly set up to give life to the cardboard world. Not only do sounds like helicopter rotors, roaring fire, and screeching tires make Cardboard City seem real, there’s a well-done music overlay to ramp up the emotion. In addition, the fire effects are just so spot on. In the scene of the skyscraper burning, the flames reach out individual windows, with plenty of smokes, sparks, and occasional explosions to get the full experience of the disaster.

     The sort of child-like execution of the art almost hides the sophistication of the animation and production technique. But this juxtaposition of the seemingly crude art and the clever use of it to tell the story makes it all the more humorous. It’s particularly appropriate, when (spoiler alert) the film breaks the fourth wall. While the film is extraordinarily amazing as a piece of animation, what makes it perhaps most compelling is that the story is beyond funny, in concept and in innumerable little details, like this one:

     “Jim’s stupid bombs and fireworks shop” is one of many little reminders showing how ridiculous it is to live in such a highly combustible city. The hapless inhabitants do their cardboard best to deal with the horror, but they are sadly at the mercy of wicked Phil Brough and the other Kiwis on his team.

Fire in Cardboard City (Full Short- about 9 minutes)

Guldies' Stop Motion

Stop motion is an intricate form of frame by frame animation that involves the manipulation of materials across a sequence of photos compiled to form an animated scene. Guldies' video below shows a miniature cottage environment using all sorts of supplies like clay, foam, wood, and fishing lures to name a few. Watch the animation through first, and I'll point out a few examples of the principles and tricks incorporated.

The first thing I'd like to note is the use of sound to emphasize the actions shown. Including sfx noises like the chopping wood or the clinking of the plate add credibility and help the viewer better grasp what is happening. The creator also made a point to shake the camera a bit with each hit on the tree to exaggerate the action. It makes the scene much more readable.

Around 0:50, we see the axe prepare to chop the wood. Guldies first establishes the weight of the axe by propping it against the trunk before going to swing. This also makes use of anticipation so we understand what they are about to do. Guldies explains in their behind the scenes video that in order to provide the illusion of weight, they took advantage of timing and drag. They took small steps between frames where the ax is inching off the tree stump, and bigger changes as the ax fell. In moving the ax, they moved the handle first and allowed the axe head to follow.

At 1:19, we see the water pull up and splash around in its bucket. This is a rather exaggerated response to add interest to the scene. As shown in a separate video, Guldies added an artificial sway to the bucket and molded very large movements in the water.

I particularly admire their attention to detail throughout this piece. They made sure to include little things that slipped my eye the first time such as wood chips flying away from he tree as it was chopped down, the little embers floating about the fire, and the movement of the miscellaneous food on the plate as the fish was stabbed and dropped back on as bones.

I encourage you to watch the video again with an eye for more examples and an appreciation for the little details and decisions made throughout. Also, feel free to check out the behind the scenes videos linked above or their channel for more stop motion examples.

Spider-Man Into the Spider verse

                Spider-man into the spider-verse is not only a visually  

stimulating and entertaining movie for all movies goers but also a great resource for animators to see the twelve principles of animation in action. For example Squash and Stretch is used on Spider-Ham a lot to give him a super cartoony feel while the other more human character stay rigged most the time. 

           This scene right here is a great example of using" Anticipation" in tandem with "Follow Through and overlapping action".

Its also using "Anticipation" in two different ways. We anticipate the punch and secondly the way the car just flys back is almost reverse Anticipation, we expect it to maybe stop but the joke made way more funny by it subverting our expectations. 

                 Another thing worth pointing out is the frame rate of this movie. Where most CGI movies are animated on the 1s, this movies was animated mostly on the twos. The thinking behind this was not only to give it an original look but to show case the amazing art work that was put into this movie. Animating on the 2s allows us the viewers alit more time with the image almost as if it were a frame in a comic book. 

The Twelve of Animation as Illustrated by Alan Becker

I would write about this resource and why I am sharing it and how it is good and useful.