Bridgette Goes to College

  Ollie the Octopus is a character I created over the summer for a project on the principles of animation. He is cute.  That is all. "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J. R. R. Tolkien

  I love reading. I always have. I find it is a way to escape from the here and now, experience something different, and learn . That is why literature is so important.   Miriam-Webster defines literature as “writings in prose or verse, especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” Many people see literature as something boring, or obsolete, but by this definition literature could even be a fanfiction that was published yesterday.   Maybe that’s taking it a bit too far.   Literature may at times be boring, but I doubt it will ever be obsolete, just as the human experience will not become obsolete (at least not until climate change kill us all, or we’ve colonized space and have evolved into a completely unrecognizable species). For as long as humans have existed we have experienced change, be it merely growing up, or the death of someone we love. Humans have all had emotions like love,...

I meant to blog over the summer, but did I? No. Are we surprised? Also, no. I had plans to blog about my book, The Eleventh, since I finally finished writing the final draft. By final draft I mean it was finally at a place where I could let someone read it. I think I need to find another beta reader for it, but beyond that I have no publishing plans. I don't honestly care if I ever publish because I'm writing for the most important audience: me. I may yet still blog about The Eleventh. That is for the future Bridgette to decide. Some blogging is required for the Contemporary World Literature class I'm currently taking, so I might post a few of those over here. In the meantime, enjoy this photograph of Legolas and Gimli on a tricycle. "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." J. R. R. Tolkien

I’m going to format this post a little differently today. Instead of paragraphs upon paragraphs of me prattling on, here is a list of some fun facts about the animation of How to Train Your Dragon! (1, 2, and 3!) I spent some time watching the bonus materials (behind the scenes etc) and commentaries for the three films, only...How to Train Your Dragon 2 has a disturbing lack of bonus content and no commentary by anyone whatsoever. At least, not on the disc I own. But I don’t suppose the average movie watcher honestly cares if a commentary is included on a disc.  So without further delay, here we go! ·        Every kind of complex animated element that exists in the movie happens within the very first scene of HTTYD. Fire, smoke, the ocean, every main and secondary character is introduced, there’s flying and catapults… ·        There were 4,000 controls for rigging the dragons, half of which were in the face. · ...

This post is taking a completely different direction than I expected.I had fully intended to write about the evolution of character styles in animation, as in the differences between characters throughout the decades like Felix the Cat, or Robin Hood – Zootopia, or human characters in Shrek VS Frozen. While I still think this is a fun idea, I either wasn’t using the right key words when researching or no one else thinks it’s as important or interesting as I do. So I decided to save you all the trauma of me prattling on endlessly with possibly unfounded opinions and just share a couple of videos instead. These are a couple of dark, quirky short films made by Zealous Creative on YouTube. I adore them and want to bring attention to them.   Plus also they’re stop-motion. Stop-motion is hard, painstaking work, of posing and positioning for hours on end for only 30 seconds of footage. Personally, it’s my favorite kind of animation. The people who do it, do it well, and becaus...

Today I wanted to talk a little further on the history of animation, specifically hybrid animation. By hybrid animation I mean 2D and 3D, not 2D and live action, or live action and other computer generated special effects, which, let’s face it are in 80% of movies now. I mean 3D objects in 2D environments and vice versa. Technology has been improving and advancing rapidly ever since the very first computer animation Vertigo in 1958. It was only 25 years later that these two mediums of animation were finally combined in a short test in 1983 titled Where the Wild Things Are. The first time hybrid animation was used in a film was two years after that in Disney’s 1985 The Black Cauldron. This surprised me, even though it shouldn’t because The Black Cauldron is such a strange movie that’s been left behind in the dusty back corners of the Disney vault that it just makes sense that it did something noteworthy and no one remembers. Although, you could debate on how noteworthy it ac...

I can’t remember if making themed blog posts is a class requirement or if I just decided it was a good idea on my own. Does it matter either way? I think not. Anyhow the class I’m taking this month covers 3D modeling and animation so buckle up. Today I wanted to, as briefly as I can, talk about the history of animation. Or a portion of it anyway. If I tried to cover all of it we’d be here for days. It is generally considered, at least by those who believe all the lies Disney tells, that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first ever feature length animated film. It’s not! “Blasphemy!” You cry in outrage. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in 1937, but the first feature length animated film predates it by exactly 20 years. In 1917 the film El Apostol was released in Argentina, made by Quirino Cristiani. It was 70 minutes in length, ran at 14 frames per second, and used cutout animation. Cutout animation is essentially stop-motion using flat pieces of mat...