Finished essay and bibliography

How has Adam Elliot’s used colour in his 2003 short film ‘Harvey Krumpet’ and his 2009 full length film ‘Mary and Max’?

Adam Elliot is an Australian animator born in 1972, and has received over 100 awards, including an Academy Award for his 2003 film ‘Harvey Krumpet’. (IMDB, 2017) Elliot has said that ‘so much animation is cluttered with colour and movement’ (Australian Film Commission, 2004), and consequently both films have a minimalist quality. Elliot is known for coining the term ‘clayography’, a combination of ‘clay’ and ‘biography’. Both ‘Harvey Krumpet’ and ‘Mary and Max’ have a similar biographical tone, the stories over shadowed by an omnipresent narrator. ‘Harvey Krumpet’ follows the story of its eponymous character from birth to the end of his life in a home for Alzheimer’s patients; it is a bitter sweet story that explores the idea of life, death, and seizing opportunity while you can.

‘Harvey Krumpet’ was Elliot’s first venture into colour, as all previous work had been in black and white. It is also when he was able to extend the length of his animation, his first three films being 5 minutes and ‘Harvey Krumpet’ extended to 23 minutes. Elliot has said that he ‘let’s the characters tell him how long their story should be’ (i8Media, 2009), which allowed ‘Harvey Krumpet’ to explore the use of colour and character with more depth and detail than before. Elliot said in an interview that ‘all our lives are full of contradictions and absurdity from one time or another’ (Australian Film Commission, 2004). This shows in his use of colour, it has moments of absurdity (for instance in his dream sequence as seen above) that resonates with the confusion that the character is feeling. In the final 5 minutes of the film Harvey is in a retirement home for Alzheimer’s patients, rain hitting the window as the narrator poignantly says ‘time drizzled on’ (fig. 1). The colours are red and yellow but have been worn down with time, making them dirty and grey. The room is dimly lit, suggesting the light is fading from their lives as they slowly loose themselves.

We then have a fade transition from Harvey’s face with his eyes moving in a confused state (fig. 4) to him smiling and happy (fig. 5). The sound changes from a monotonous clock ringing and the rain hitting the widow, to a happy, humorous song, ‘God is better than football’. The colours used for this sequence are brighter and bluer, with flashing bulbs and a light, ethereal background (fig. 2 and 3). Although it is happy, the absurdity of it reminds us that it is just a dream, and Harvey will soon be back to his life of darkness.

Six years after the release and subsequent acclaim of ‘Harvey Krumpet’, Elliot created ‘Mary and Max’. This follows the lives of two pen pals, Mary is a young girl, and Max a 45-year-old man with Asperger’s. It discusses the themes of love, life, sexuality and growing old. In an interview Elliot said, ‘When I was starting out the equipment we needed cost hundreds of thousands of dollars’ (i8Media, 2009). After the success of his previous films the budget for ‘Mary and Max’ was much larger. I think this can be seen when watching the film, it is much more polished and cinematic. It is also his first film that explores two characters in great detail, ‘it is still biographical but it’s really about two lead characters’ (ACMI, 2015). This gives a more obvious opportunity to explore the contrast between two colours.

Elliot has said ‘I really wanted to use colour as a device in this film a lot more than I had in my previous films. I quickly worked out that if there are these two worlds we should really separate them by colour and of course New York is a very concrete place, a grey world. Australia in the 70s to me was very brown’ (Buckmaster. L, 2009). We are first introduced to Mary, one of our protagonists. We begin with a birds’ eye view shot, zooming in to a sign that give us a sense of geography and context (fig. 6). The colours are yellow, dusty and muted, a sense of heat and drought. We are then shown a series of objects, such as lawn ornaments and letter boxes, that decorate the dry, yellow gardens of the towns citizens. These are significant in showing the downfall of a once prosperous town, there is a sprinkler system, although there is a no water (fig. 8), and a bin full of litter even though we are told it is a ‘tidy town’ (fig. 9). Elliot has said, ‘We wanted to make Australia dehydrated, like a nicotine stain’ (Buckmaster. L, 2009). I think this an interesting choice of words, as Mary’s mother is constantly seen with a cigarette in her mouth. It suggests Mary’s world is tainted by her mother, a theme that continues throughout the film. The camera then zooms onto Mary’s face framed by a window (fig. 7), an indication that we are entering Mary’s life. The strong, straight lines of the window around Mary suggest she is trapped, she is looking out at the world without being able to participate.

There is then a fade to black to indicate we are moving somewhere else, and a parallel birds eye shot of New York (fig. 10). We again zoom in on our main character’s face, framed by a window (fig. 11). This immediate parallel indicates the similarities between the two characters’ situation. The only clear deviation from the yellow or grey colour palette is the minimal use of red (fig. 12). It appears on both our lead characters and objects that our important to the story, ‘we used spot red as a device to make all those little objects that Mary and Max send each other more potent, more significant’ (Buckmaster. L, 2009). In colour theory red has many different meanings, but I think in this case it could represent friendship, kinship and love. Elliot himself compared it to the girl in red coat in ‘Schindlers List’, in this context it is a symbol of innocence (Spark notes, 2015).

Both of these films use the contrast between two worlds to highlight the normality or strangeness of the other, whether it is Harvey’s dream sequence or the difference between yellow/grey and red. I think the difference comes in the execution, ‘Mary and Max’ feels as if Elliot has really found his style and audience, whereas in ‘Harvey Krumpet’ he is still working out the kinks. I think these two films show how colour can be used subtly but to huge effect.

 

Bibliography

ACMI, 2015. Mary and Max: The Exhibition- interview with Adam Elliot. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUVzPaBANkw&t=400s (Accessed 26/11/2017)

Australian film commission, 2004. Adam Elliot Writer/Director Harvey Krumpet. Available from: http://afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au/newsandevents/afcnews/converse/elliot/newspage_93.aspx (Accessed 29/11/2017)

Buckmaster. L, 2009. Interview with Adam Elliot, writer/director/designer of Mary and Max. Available from: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/04/10/q-a-with-mary-and-max-writerdirectordesigner-adam-elliot/ (Accessed 29/11/17)

Harvey Krumpet, 2003. Animated film. Directed by Adam ELLIOT. Australia: Melodrama Pictures.

i8Media, 2009. Adam Elliot Talks About animation. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibW9Cd6okM&feature=youtu.be (Accessed 25/11/2017)

IMDB, 2017. Adam Elliot Biography. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0254178/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm (Accessed 25/11/2017)

Mary and Max, 2009. Animated film. Directed by Adam ELLIOT. Australia: Melodrama Pictures.

Spark notes, 2015. Schindler’s List Themes, Motifs and Symbols. Available from: http://www.sparknotes.com/film/schindlerslist/themes.html (Accessed 28/11/17)

 

 

 

 

Analysing Mary and Max for essay

Six years after the release and subsequent acclaim of ‘Harvey Krumpet’, Elliot created ‘Mary and Max’. In an interview Elliot says ‘When I was starting out the equipment we needed cost hundreds of thousands of dollars’ (1), but after the success of his previous films the budget for ‘Mary and Max’ was much bigger. I think this can be seen when watching the film, it is much more polished. It is also his first film that explores two characters in great detail, ‘it is still a biographical but it’s really about two lead characters’ (2).

 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibW9Cd6okM&feature=youtu.be
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUVzPaBANkw&t=400s

First draft introduction for essay

How has Adam Elliot’s use of colour changed from his 2003 short film ‘Harvey Krumpet’ to his 2009 full length film ‘Mary and Max’?

Adam Elliot is an Australian animator born in 1972, and has received over 100 awards, including an Academy Award for his 2003 film ‘Harvey Krumpet’. (1) Elliot has said that ‘so much animation is cluttered with colour and movement’ (2), and consequently both films have a minimalist quality. Elliot is known for coining the term ‘clayography’, a combination of ‘clay’ and ‘biography’. Both ‘Harvey Krumpet’ and ‘Mary and Max’ have a similar biographical tone, the stories over shadowed by an omnipresent narrator.

‘Harvey Krumpet’ was Elliot’s first venture into colour, as all previous work had been in black and white. It is also when he was able to extend the length of his animation, his first three films being 5 minutes and ‘Harvey Krumpet’ extended to 23 minutes. Elliot has said that he ‘let’s the characters tell him how long their story should be’ (3), which allowed ‘Harvey Krumpet’ to explore the use of colour and character with more depth and detail than before. Elliot said in an interview that ‘all our lives are full of contradictions and absurdity from one time or another’ (2). This shows in his use of colour, it has moments of absurdity (for instance in his dream sequence as seen above) that resonates with the confusion that the character is feeling. In the final 5 minutes of the film Harvey is in a retirement home for Alzheimers patients, rain hitting the window as the narrator poignantly says ‘time drizzled on’. The colours are red and yellow but have been worn down with time, making them dirty and grey. The room is dimly lit, suggesting the light is fading from their lives as they slowly loose themselves.

We then have a fade transition from Harvey’s face with his eyes moving in a confused state to him smiling and happy. The sound changes from a monotonous clock ringing and the rain hitting the widow, to a happy, humorous song, ‘God is better than football’. The colours used for this sequence are brighter and bluer, with flashing bulbs and a light, etherial background. Although it is happy, the absurdity of it reminds us that it is just a dream, and Harvey will soon be back to his life of darkness.

 

1. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0254178/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
2. http://afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au/newsandevents/afcnews/converse/elliot/newspage_93.aspx
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibW9Cd6okM&feature=youtu.be

Sources about Harvey Krumpet

Instead of looking at Elliots film uncle I think I would like to instead compare to Harvey Krumpet, as this is the first film that incorporated colour, the latter was in black and white. I think this will give me more of a comparison to make with Mary and Max.

http://afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au/newsandevents/afcnews/converse/elliot/newspage_93.aspx

SR: There is an interesting, and perhaps one could term a ‘very Adam Elliot’, balance of light and dark elements in Harvie Krumpet that is also apparent in your earlier work.  It is a very funny film and yet there are Nazi invasions, death, suicide and lightning strikes.  How would you describe your own sensibility – ironic, absurdist – and how does this relate to the positioning of your omniscient narrator?

AE: No-one’s life is completely fabulous, full of laughs and good fortune. Nor is even the most tragic life void of even the tiniest moment of humour. Life is, of course, a mix of highs and lows, some get more, others get less. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what quantities of each we get. We can only hope for the best and struggle on. I try and make my characters as real as possible and so naturally I present their journeys as a mix of comedy and tragedy; humour and pathos. All our lives are full of contradictions and absurdity from one time or another. Why should my little blobs of plasticine be any different?  Why can’t I create a plasticine character that is thalidomide? So many animated characters lack depth and emotional dimension.

SR: All your films are like single character portraits.  What interests you in concentrating on one character so intensely and yet counterbalancing with a narrator?

AE: I am a practicing minimalist and my favourite word is simplicity. It is my mantra and I had it written on a mirror in my studio when we shot Harvie. So much animation is cluttered with colour and movement. I think many animators are showing off their skills and in a way we have to experience their visual masturbations. The problem with short films is that they are so short! You don’t have much time to develop a multitude of characters and so I think it is much more sensible to concentrate on just one and cram as much information about their psyche as you can. You have to hook your audience in as quickly as possible and get them to know your character so they can empathise. A narrator is also a great aid and device to help detail your character as quickly and as eloquently as possible.  Keep it simple and keep it focused.

 

More sources about Mary and Max and it’s use of colour

To start with I found an interesting blog post that has made some interesting points about the colour used, (http://filmtank.org/forum/forum/film-development/films/1458-mary-and-max-adam-elliot-2009-representation-through-color-and-lack-thereof)

“First and foremost, I am intrigued as to the significance of the use of color within Mary and Max. The juxtaposition of Mary’s sepia toned world with the desaturated greyness of Max’s life in New York City seems to reflect the audience’s presupposition that a forty-year-old man and a little girl aged eight would have little to nothing in common. The stark contrast within the use of color signifies the extent to which Mary and Max are worlds apart. Through the omniscient narration as well as the letters sent to and fro, the audience comes to learn that Mary and Max relate on a variety of levels. Not only do Mary and Max adore the Noblets and chocolate, both are portrayed as not fully understanding the indifferent world.

By way of depriving both Mount Waverly and New York City of vivid color and saturation, Mary and Max calls attention to the infrequent appearances of red. Although I first noticed that certain items related to modifying one’s appearance/adorning the body are consistently red in color (Mary’s Mother’s lips, Mary’s barrette, Max’s pompom), this understanding of the use of red is problematized by other instances (fire reflected in the eyes, for example). What do you think that Mary and Max is trying to achieve through the use of red as a cinematic device?

Interestingly, the objects sent from one protagonist to the other retain their color regardless of the surrounding color palate, or lack thereof. In this way, I believe that Mary and Max is attempting to visually represent the extent to which both Mary and Max consider their correspondence to be refreshing, or a break from the daily monotony and overbearing dreariness of their separate existences. Through the personal insight, existential questions and intimate anecdotes put forth within the letters, Mary and Max give a part of themselves to the other. For example, the pompom given to Max by Mary is demonstrative of the lasting impression or effect that Mary is leaving on Max’s existence.

Other elements I found to be particularly provocative:

Theme of death (Mary’s grandfather, the Henry’s, Mary’s Mother and Father, Ivy, Mary’s suicide attempt, Max’s Mother, Max himself, Max’s manslaughter charge)
Phallic references (image of Max on the moon, the Noblets)
Sexual elements (how babies are born, condoms, dogs playing piggy back, “homophobia,” Damien in love with male pen pal)
Mary and Max’s understanding of the world vs how the world really is
Juxtaposition of comedic vs tragic elements
Absurdities/quirkiness (did anyone else notice how many times the camera is focused on Max’s butt?)”

I also found an interview where Adam Elliot discusses the use of colour in Mary and Max  (https://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2009/04/10/q-a-with-mary-and-max-writerdirectordesigner-adam-elliot/)

“My ideas are really…not Hollywood. They’re much more European, I suppose.”

“I really wanted to use colour as a device in this film a lot more than I had in my previous films. I quickly worked out that if there are these two worlds we should really separate them by colour and of course New York is a very concrete place, a gray world. Australia in the 70s to me was very brown…We wanted to make Australia dehydrated, like a nicotine stain – that was the colour palette we decided on. We used spot red as a device to make all those little objects that Mary and Max send each other more potent, more significant. A little bit like what Spielberg did in Schindler’s List with that little girl in the red dress. It might come across as a bit pretentious but I thought well, no one else is doing this in animation. Most animation is all colour and movement. Every colour of the rainbow, all vibrant, and again we wanted to do something a bit different. It really suits the characters’ moods as well.”

“On Mary and Max I didn’t actually do any of the animation. I employed six animators to do it for us. We had a huge crew: a support crew, a DOP and a huge lighting department. Each animator roughly did five seconds per day. So about 25 seconds a day was done; about two and a half minutes a week. That’s why the shoot took 57 weeks. It was a huge logistic nightmare to make this film. They worked out if I had have animated it, it would have taken 225 years (laughing) so I didn’t have a choice. And, to be honest, I don’t enjoy actually animating. I much prefer to design all the characters and write the script and the actual moving of the puppet is something I find extremely tedious. I would be happy to never do it again.”

An article about Mary and Max the exhibition in Australia https://2015.acmi.net.au/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/2010/mary-and-max-the-exhibition/

 

 

Creative use of colour in film

http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/20-great-movies-that-make-masterful-use-of-color/3/

https://www.spielcreative.com/blog/the-psychology-of-colour-in-your-animation/

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/pixar-supercut-will-remind-you-how-important-color-storytelling

http://blog.animationmentor.com/lighting-and-color-in-animation-films/

https://www.awn.com/animationworld/advanced-art-stop-motion-animation-digital-cinematography-part-1

To inform my essay I have looked at a few films that use colour in an interesting way. One that has always interested me is Amelie (2001). The colour in the film almost becomes a character of it’s own, the use of green used sparingly but to pin point key moments. “The director opts for a sort of golden ambiance married with deep, carefully chosen colors. The world of the film thus looks realistic enough, though in an antique sort of way, but also has an unreal “once upon a time” layer covering the realism”

Adam Elliot Interviews

I would like to write my essay on the work of Adam Elliot, a personal favourite animator of mine. As a starting point I have compiled some point from various interviews to hear what Elliot says about his own films. This could give me a good starting point for my essay. I have highlighted areas that I could quote in my essay.

Elliot talking about animation in Australia (2009)

2:33 ‘When I was starting out the equipment we needed cost hundreds of thousands of dollars so it was really quite limiting to who could be an animator but now all you needs a digital camera a couple hundred dollars download some software and the computer’

3:05 ‘I think the most rewarding part of being an animator is of course when the films finished and supplement the big screen and the audience is laughing or being moved or being affected in some way, but it’s also the process when I was making my last film (Mary and Max) I was almost disappointed when it got to the end of the making process’

3:53 ‘There’s something about especially 3d animation that I find really magical and enticing‘

Adam Elliot discussing Mary and Max (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUVzPaBANkw&t=400s

1:18 ‘When they (the audience) see an Adam Elliott film what they’re seeing is 100% made in camera in a traditional manner and at every prop set and character that they see has been handcrafted well there’s a few reasons I choose stop-motion animation over CGI and the main reason is because I like using my hands’

2:33′ At the end of the day it’s the story that’s the most important thing with all my films. I’ve always said that I’ve never been obsessed by their length because my films are biographies, I always let the characters tell me how long their stories should be. My first four films were all shorts the first was uncle then cousin then brother and they are all roughly about five minutes in length. They each took about a year to make and after I’d made those three I thought well I feel like I want to explore a biography that’s a bit longer, a bit more challenging. So that’s when we decided to pursue Harvey crumpet and Harvey ended up telling us that his story should be about 23 minutes which was a perfect commercial half hour for SBS television. You know it always focused on one character and I thought well it’s time  we decided to make Mary and Max. It is still a biographical but it’s really about two lead characters’

4:02 ‘Animation for some reason that’s over 100 minutes becomes a bit becomes a bit intolerable I think you once you’ve suspended your disbelief for that amount of time in animation it doesn’t work so most animated features are generally under a hundred minutes’

4:36 ‘Once the storyboard and the script are what we call locked off we then move into a very intense pre-production stage  that took about six to eight months and that’s where we really planned the aesthetic to the film how detailed we could go with the sets and props and really worked out all the logistics’

Elliot discussing his first film Uncle (2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOaAIwWSu2w

0:00 ‘I knew from from day one that I wanted uncle to really the full of poignancy and that’s very hard to do with little clay characters not only did the audience have to suspend their disbelief but they have to believe these little blobs of clay are real people so that when they die the audience empathizes’

0:30 ‘I’m glad that uncle was a film that I had the courage to make in a different manner to the way animated shorts were being made at the time so I certainly think your first film should also be your bravest film and the one in which you take a lot of risks because often down the track you don’t get the chances to take those risks’

Ideas for Essay

After speaking to Mhari I think I would like to look at Adam Elliot and compare one of his first films to his most recent film ‘Mary and Max’ (2009). His films have progressed from short, student films into full length cinematic animations. I would like to look at this progression, if it is for the better, and what has changed along this process. One of the main things to consider is the budget, allowing for better cameras and equipment. Elliot has won as oscar for ‘Harvey Krumpet’ (2003). This allows him to work with some of the best people in industry.

The use of colour remains the same throughout his work, giving his animations a very distinct quality. You immediately know who is the animator, and his specific style of storytelling. I think it would be interesting to compare ‘Mary and Max’ to his first film, ‘Uncle’ (1996). This is was where Elliot’s style began to emerge, and I would look at how it became what it is today.

My next step will be to rewatch the films, and if I can try and find a directors commentary. I will also research further into the background of the animator and both films, and what happened in between the two to get to where he is now.

Analysing camera shots in Animation

Wall-E 2008

Click to access Wall-E.pdf

The essay above points out the use of wide shots in the first 5 minuets of Wall-e. These are geography shots, but Wall-E slightly breaks the general rule of an establishing shot, because the film in mostly set in space. It begins with an extreme wide shot of a galaxy, setting the audience up for something space/sci-fi related. It gradually gets closer till we have a shot of earth but not as we know it, it is covered in fog and is an orange dust colour. It then slowly zooms over a city, buildings made of rubbish and the world collapsing. This sets up how small the earth is, and how small and perceivably insignificant our main character is on it. It shows that there is a big challenge up ahead. The change of scale and colour from the huge, bright expanse of space to the small, dull planet earth suggests something bigger than ourselves.

The music played over the top adds another important element, it is an old, upbeat song, and sings about ‘ A world outside our own’, suggesting the character is going to have to move outside of what he knows. It also references to later in the film, when Wall-E watches old films and romances. The upbeat nature juxtaposes what we are seeing visually, making us nostalgic for a world that has long gone, and we are left with a wasteland.

 

Robots 2005

http://www.animatedspirit.com/shot-analysis-robots/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358082/

I have started looking at the opening scene of Robots directed by Chris Wedge. It opens on a geography shot of the outside of a house, that is similar to what we know but slightly different. From this we can tell the film isn’t set in our modern world but in alternative one, and from the title of the world we assume they are robots. The lines are curved and the light is yellow in town, it seems peaceful and happy, an idilic family life. Although set in what would be a highly technological age, the tone makes it seem like a 1950’s Good Housekeeping magazine. This is achieved with the juxtaposition of the robot characters and the colour and style used.

Our main character then enters through a door in a mid shot which we can assume is the door to the house that was just established. He is framed by the door, and we can tell hat he is our main protagonist. The doorway shot is square like the character, showing he is strong and sturdy, whilst the wife is framed by the window which is circular. This again reflects her feminine shape, and perhaps suggests a stereotypical stay at home mum and working dad dynamic. There is a lot of focus on the characters faces, we have a close up of both wife and husband, their eyes looking lovingly at each other. We can tell they have a happy relationship. The wife says he has ‘just missed the delivery’, and we can see the van driving away though the window. The use of the window gives us further geography of the surrounding area. This a play on word, as we soon find out that the ‘delivery’ is a baby that has been delivered in a box.

The wife character then says ‘don’t worry, the fun part is making the baby’. A comedic ‘sexy’ jazz song is played to insinuate something else, when in reality they are literally making the baby out of robot parts. We then have lots of close up shots in a montage of them making the baby.

After this we are again shown a wide shot of the outside of the house, this time the colour has change to night time, insinuating the passage of time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bwLzGzkSFI

Looking at Genre

Genre: A style or category of art, music, or literature. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/genre

I chose to look at Period Drama’s, as this is not a genre that generally appeals to me, so I thought I would find out more about it. It is defined as ‘a television or film production set in a particular historical period and characterized by the use of costumes, sets, and props that are typical or evocative of the era.’ This is an interesting description when trying to define when a ‘historical period’ is, as technically the 1980’s was an historical period, but films set then are not straight away thought of as a period drama.

What makes a period drama is usually down to the costumes and being historical accurate to the past, but of course these widely differ depending on what period you are portraying. Quite often they are based on literature, but not always. For example, the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice set in 1797 would be a standard example of what a period drama is, but more specifically a historical period drama, as these are generally what people think of.

This concept has been toyed with, for example in 2016’s ‘Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies’. It still stays faithful to the time it is set, so is still a period drama, but also combines elements of the more modern trope of a zombie comedy-horror.

In contrast, 2016’s ‘Stranger Things’  is set in the past (1983) and has historical accurate sets, props and costume. Although overall it would probably be considers a fantasy/horror, it is still classed as a period drama as it as all of the correct elements.

The time a period drama is set can be very specific or quite general, for example set in the middle ages or victorian times. As an audience we get an idea of what the date is through the imagery used. Through this research I have found that what I thought of as a period drama is not entirely accurate, Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice are what I assumed it was, but this is more historical period drama. It covers a wide range of film and TV. Simply put it is a show or film that faithfully depicts a specific time period of the past.