Prince of Egypt

In the spirit of Passover, I watched the award-winning animated film The Prince of Egypt, a Dreamworks production released in 1998. The premise of the film is in Ancient Egyptian time when Hebrews were enslaved under Pharoah's rule. The story follows the biblical figure Moses, a Hebrew who is adopted as an Egyptian prince when the Pharaoh Seti orders all the Hebrew male babies to be executed. According the the book of Exodus, baby Moses's mother places him in a basket and sends him down the Nile River in the hopes that a non-Hebrew family will find and take care of him. In the film, Pharoah's wife adopts Moses, who then becomes a brother to older Rameses, who is next in line to be Pharaoh. Fast-forward to when they are adults, Moses learns that he is a Hebrew and defends one of the slaves while they are whipped, and accidentally kills a guard.
He flees Egypt to Midian, where God "speaks" to him via a burning bush, telling him to return to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves. He does so and Rameses refuses, so he unleashes ten plagues on all of Egypt. Rameses refuses every time until after the last plague, death of the first born. He angrily tells Moses they can all go, and that is when Moses and all the Hebrews cross the Red Sea. Rameses changes his mind and chases after them with the guards but the Red Sea crashes down on them. The film ends with them making it to the Holy Land, getting the commandments, and celebrating! Overall, the movie is pretty accurate to the biblical story of Exodus, and does not stray too far to make the story interesting.

Moses marrying Tzipporah, his wife.

Animation is only half of what goes into this film- the film so high quality because the actors' voices fit the characters so well. It features a star-studded cast of talented actors such as Val Kilmer (Moses/God), Ralph Fiennes (Rameses, who becomes Pharaoh) Michelle Pfeiffer (Tzipporah, a Midian woman whom Moses marries) and Sandra Bullock (Miriam, Moses' sister). Other prominent actors include Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short.

Prince of Egypt is wonderful for a variety of reasons. There are a number of really lovely songs, including "When You Believe", which earned the movie an Oscar for best original song.

I also really enjoy this film because it is overall very artistic; each frame is very detailed and colorful!

Moses' mother places him in a basket to be sent down the nile while Aaron and Miriam look on in the background. Very nice depth of field, and nice use of colors.

Pharaoh reprimands Moses and Rameses. The large statue head is a reflection of Pharaoh's extreme power over Egypt.

Interesting frame composition; Moses leading the Hebrews through the two statues symbolizes his pride for being a Hebrew coming between his relationship with his brother Rameses.

The scene where Moses sends the plagues onto Egypt is especially good; the lighting is very dramatic, and there is a lot of screen area movement that shows the entire landscape. The song is also very ominous and scary, so the element of sound really enhances the fear depicted in the scene. This scene is where Pharaoh's stubbornness is shown most because his people are suffering so but he won't let the Hebrew slaves go. It is a turning point in the film, and very effective. Watch the clip below to see what I mean!

Prince of Egypt is streaming on Netflix, check it out!

Hollywood and the Animated Movie

Once upon a time, Disney Animation was the only studio making blockbuster animated features. Today, animation is perhaps the most crowded of all the film genres in Hollywood. Disney Animation never used to have any competition, but in recent years Disney has been overshadowed by it's sister studio Pixar and other studios like Dreamworks Animation.

With so many studios producing so many animated films which studios and films are able to stand out, if any?

To start, we will start with the once dominant Disney Animation. Up until very recently Disney has been struggling. Ever since the end of the "Disney Renaissance" in the 90s, which includes the studio's films from The Little Mermaid (1989) to Tarzan (1999), Disney has struggled to maintain it's top dog status in the animation industry. For a while, that spot was taken by Pixar. However in the last few years it appears that DisneyAnimation may be making a come back.

Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero 6. Have all been well received by both fans and critics alike. Many are calling this new era of Disney films the "Disney Revival" or simply a return to form for the studio. I would have to agree with this sentiment. The Disney films between the Renaissance period and these more recent films, such as Chicken Little and Home on the Range, seem to be missing the classic feel that most of it's successful films have. They were focused more of flash and flare than on the emotional stories, which the studio is famous for. These newest films are a return to form in that the stories one again focus on the emotional relationships between friends and family, and I think this has made all the difference in getting audiences to connect with them. If Disney continues on this streak they may very well have another Renaissance on their hands. I think that Disney, although it will probably never be as dominant as it once was, is still one of the few studios that stands apart from others in terms of it's style, storytelling, and over all quality animation.

Pixar, which has long been a fan favorite studio for many years,  seems to have stumbled a bit in recent years. Ever since it's first film Toy Story, Pixar had been consistent in producing quality, original animation. However, recently the studio has been releasing more squeals than new content, and the sequels have been lack luster at best. There is the legend that the founders of Pixar came up with all the ideas of all their films in one day and have been using only these ideas (aside from the squeals) over all these years. Is it possible that the studio is finally running out of those ideas?

I don't think anyone will disagree with me when I say that Cars 2 was absolutely awful. Monsters University wasn't quite as disastrous, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the first installment. Brave, while beautifully animated received mix reviews. Pixar's upcoming film Inside Out is an new franchisee for the studio. It will be interesting to see if they can redeem themselves and do their once flawless filmography justice with this new content.

Moving on to a Non-Disney studio, we have DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks is arguably, and easily so, the only other animation studio currently that has as much brand recognition as Disney Animation and Pixar. DreamWorks has been extremely successful in recent years, with many popular franchisees including Shrek, How to Train York Dragon, and Madagascar.

Most of DreamWorks recent films have been well received by critics. Mr. Peabody & Sherman, received generally good reviews, while How to Train Your Dragon 2 received excellent ones. The studio has two upcoming films. Penguins of Madagascar is another installment in their already popular Madagascar franchisee, while Home is a completely new film. Home was originally supposed to be released this month, but has been pushed back until March, switching it with Penguins of Madagascar. It begs the question of whether or not there are problems with the production and if Home will be up to par with recent studio standards. 

 But these three studios aren't the only players in the field.

         

Illumination Entertainment has had huge success with their Despicable Me franchisee, while Blue Sky studios has long been successful with their Ice Age films and now their Rio franchisee. Animal Logic has had recent success with The Lego Movie, and is also known for the popular Happy Feet films. Sony Animation is probably at the back of the pack, their only big success has been the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies, but they have several films in the works now- including the cringe worthy Angry Birds.

With so many different contenders it's a wonder that the animation industry doesn't cannibalize itself. It may very well be on the way to doing so. As a fan of animation I can't help wishing that more of the studios would focus less on producing so many films, and instead focus on making the ones they do produce as high quality as possible. Unlikely that will happen, as this is Hollywood we are talking about, but come on a girl can dream.

Netflix the New Media Titan
      Its the recent phenomenon that captured America by storm, it is what 95% of college students are doing right now, and it is why children under the age of 4 are going to ask “what television was for” when they grow up, it is Netflix. 

         This new fad is a company that provides subscribers a platform for on demand Internet streaming for movies and television shows. It also has the much less used DVD mail rental service, all for less than ten dollars a month. Forbes listed it as 30^th in its most innovative companies list. According to Wikipedia the company was established in 1999 and approximately ten years later it had ten million subscribers and offered over one hundred thousand titles. Then by 2013 is more than tripled its amount of subscribers.

      

      Netflix didn’t stop there; I suppose the company got tiered of just being the medium to films and television programming. That is why in March of 2011 Netflix began producing its own original content to be premiered strictly off of Netflix. Netflix now streams a plethora of “Netflix originals” as well as rebooting and continuing other series, which it bought the rights to such as:

• ·      House of Cards
• ·      Arrested Development
• ·      Hemlock grove
• ·      Orange is the New Black
• ·      Lilyhammer
• ·      Knights of Sidonia
• ·      Love
• ·      Derek

      Netflix is also planning to team up with larger studios such as DreamWorks Animation and Disney to release new series based off of existing shows or franchises. Netflix was nominated for and won a Golden Globe award for its original series “House of Cards” and just this year its original document “The Square” was nominated for an academy award. 

Pixar has long been a source of animated entertainment, which has most likely shaped all of us in some way or another. Dreamworks and Pixar both are renowned for some of the best animation of humans, and other characters ranging from robots, insects, every type of animal imaginable, even mythological creatures.

When I was still in high school, debating whether or not to choose a major in animation or live action, I looked a lot at the similarities and differences between live action film and animation. While animation is now entirely digital and created from computers, whereas live action is shot using real people on a set/location, there are some similarities.

Live action is frequently used in animated films, where someone hooked up to a motion tracking system performs the actions of the character, and the motions are recorded and used to create the motions of the character. On the other hand, animation is frequently used in live action movies to create the backdrops and special effects that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.

Through both styles, the same basic concepts are held constant, where every shot is thoroughly thought through, every line and every motion is carefully planned by teams and teams of crew members.

But besides making some deep concepts more "kid friendly," what is the purpose of choosing animation over live action? Because as far as I've noticed, almost all animated films (except stop-motion shorts) are comedies. Any thoughts?