Intimacy album

This album is about normal day life of gay people living in Japan. I love how Eiki Mori well recorded and expressed the melancholy inner feelings, the torment of these people by focusing on their expression, their body language, the scenes around them instead of focusing straightly on them, and how he can still keep a very gentle atmosphere for the photos. The poses of the character plus the colour theme creates a poetic feeling. And the way Eiki focused on the smallest detail of the subject in some photos somehow creates a "break" for the whole album, as if he's slowly leading the way for viewers to step into the inside world of these people- with their happiness, sadness, their bliss, their sentimental affection, all of their private emotions, showing up and changing in each moment, lively...

*Captures the moment

Makoto Shinkai's works resemble to studio Ghibli's (Hayao Mizaki's) works because of the depth in the plot and the emphasis on human's relationship towards each other and different aspects. However, Makoto Shinkai's works don't usually have happy ending. Both of their works always bring a very tender feeling but for Makoto Shinkai, the movies are all light-hearted at first sight, but it's actually darker than in the whole context.

Makoto Shinkai uses the human's thinking as the key to build and lead the story flow. The emotional twisted between a human being's thinking and reacion is portrayed gently but deeply. His works mainly deal with everyday-life matters (slice of life) and therefor the audiences feel easier to link themselves to the characters. His style of narrative resembles to Japanese's Haiku- describing the surroundings to highlight the main figure's emotion. It's slow enough to focus and consider into the slightest movement or changing of things and the characters, creates a "breath" throughout the whole movie and shows how beautiful every smallest movements could be.

I like his technique of creates the backgroud using series of still images of real objects with very little motion then edit them using computer graphics. However when it comes to the characters, they are all done by hand-drawn. The contrast between the flaty characters stand out agaisnt their surroundings creates a nice effect.

Article about him: http://www.tested.com/art/movies/442545-2d-animation-digital-era-interview-japanese-director-makoto-shinkai/

She and Her Cat is one of Makoto Shinkai's earliest works. The movie impressed me by the way he use a cat as the protagonist to illustrate the life of the owner.  The owner's face is always hidden, but the movie can still communicate to us her emotion through the cat's point of view and his dialog, as well as her body language in certain moments. I like how he use black and white for the whole movie- we aren't interupted by the surroundings but can only focus on the characters and their feelings.

This is a short animated movie I really like created by Kunio Katou. I like how he has successfully done such a challenge to create the nice movie with well communication without using any conversation throughout the whole movie.  What makes the film successful are an attractive plot and nice music that well fit with the mood of each sequences.

Another non-verbal-conversation short animated movie created by Michael Dudok de Wit. I like the way the movie is shown clearly hand-drawn with a fading colour scheme- creates a very nostalgic feeling. I also found that the repetition of the scenes is one of the key of visual narrative tehnique that make the plot become more haunting (somehow) and emotional.

A classical animation by Jan Svankmajer. I like the way he illustrate the idea of bourgeoisie and proletariat by using the image of the rich man and the poor man, and the image of the rich man eating the poor man is a metaphor of saying about the unfair of social position.

I am also inspired by the way he combine real human with plasticine and make the movie become abstract. 

A nice idea of spreading love and inspiration around. I'm interested in things that habour the "at ease" feelings so this speech very excites me. I love how meaningful things are done by simple actions that are easily forgotten (here, is using hand-written letter) because I feel like it can wake people up and let them "live" rather than "exist" in this complicated world. 

STUDIO 4°C

I found this talk is very inspiring as it gives out some factors that I think I could use for my animation ideas: It talks about how society's attitude could affect strongly to one's thinking. This leads to the situation when people start asking themselves "who am I?"- that's the identity. Everyone has their own identity, but not all knows who they are. The speech gives me inspiration about the connection between the individual and society, between the one we are and the one we create to cope with the people arround, and how hope is important in giving support.

For the whole speech, I was actually inspired by his words: “Children are amazingly adaptable. What would be grotesquely abnormal became my normality in the prisoner of war camps. It became routine for me to line up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. It became normal for me to go with my father to bathe in a mass shower. Being in a prison, a barbed-wire prison camp, became my normality.”

As a cartoon-maker, I have always wanted to understand more about children and how they think. As an animator, I want to create animation that also suitable for adults but the movie still keep the innocent viewpoint of a kid. There were thoughts I used to have when I was a kid, but then they disappear as I grow up. Kids are amazing as they can see through things, straightforward to the core of problems whereas adults sometimes let their eyes and mind be fooled by the surrounded factors. Takei’s words remind me of one of the abilities I (and other people) used to have but have been long forgotten. One of the reasons why adults hardly accept the life in prison is because of its difficulty, as we have become ambitious and craving for the luxury, while kids don’t need those things- as they know the things are impermanence and therefore they don't need them.

A beautiful movie from Carlos De Carvalho with high quality digital effect with good handle of movement and light. The colour scheme isn't too diversity- in fact, the limited colour scheme shows the intentionally selective intention of the artist. Each colour seems to be the symbol of each character, and  it helps the audience (me) have more distinction on the imprint of each character and focus more on the plot.

MAN is one of many animatied movies of Steve Cutts. Most of his stories have a harsh narrative as they reflect the reality- reveal the ugly truth of society.  There are satirical and irony tone in his works. The contrast between the cuteness drawing and the (sometimes) violent story telling is what makes his works successful, especially for grotesque/ creepypasta fan.

"The film tells the story of Chronos, the personification of time and the inability to realize his desire to love for a mortal. The scenes blend a series of surreal paintings of Dali with dancing and metamorphosis. The target production began in 1945, 58 years before its completion and was a collaboration between Walt Disney and the Spanish surrealist painter, Salvador Dalí. Salvador Dali and Walt Disney Destiny was produced by Dali and John Hench for 8 months between 1945 and 1946. Dali, at the time, Hench described as a "ghostly figure" who knew better than Dali or the secrets of the Disney film. For some time, the project remained a secret. The work of painter Salvador Dali was to prepare a six-minute sequence combining animation with live dancers and special effects for a movie in the same format of "Fantasia." Dali in the studio working on The Disney characters are fighting against time, the giant sundial that emerges from the great stone face of Jupiter and that determines the fate of all human novels. Dalí and Hench were creating a new animation technique, the cinematic equivalent of "paranoid critique" of Dali. Method inspired by the work of Freud on the subconscious and the inclusion of hidden and double images. 
Dalí said: "Entertainment highlights the art, its possibilities are endless." The plot of the film was described by. Dalí as "A magical display of the problem of life in the labyrinth of time." 
Walt Disney said it was "A simple story about a young girl in search of true love."

http://www.kinfables.com

Dong Ho woodcut painting is a line of Vietnamese folk painting originating in Dong Ho village. The style gives me inspiration for character design as it directly relates to Vietnam. The everyday life theme of the painting also helps me have more idea about tradtional Vietnamese games in the past.

Comic illustrated by Nguyen Thanh Phong. I found in this story the way of description and simulation the movement and thoughts of a kid. Besides, the story also deals with visual narrative in a way that it create an innocent atmosphere we only find in children.