The Mouth Says It All
Mar. 31st, 2004 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
woodwardiocom-When you're doing animation instead of live action, some things are much easier. If you want your hero to morph into a giant walrus, who then blows up a planet by shooting well-done steaks from its eyes, it's easier to do it as animation.
-Some things are harder. Like, mouth movements. Synchronizing voices with animated mouths is a royal pain, even if you're just doing open-and-close movements, and not complex articulation that actually resembles reality. So, in a lot of animation, they go to every effort to hide people's mouths, or keep them out of frame.
-Which brings us to "Casshan"/Casshern (thanks, Scott/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sunspiral).
-This was originally a 1970s anime series. Note the hero's distinctive mask, which covers his mouth. This is very common in superheroic SF anime.
-So, now they're doing a live-action movie based on that series, called Casshern. The trailer looks spectacular, though the fact that I can only understand one word in fifty probably helps. The hero's costume, of course, is completely different, except for the general color . . . and the bit that covers his mouth.
-If you're as big a geek as I am, this is very very interesting.
-In both American and Japanese fandom, we can be quite grumbly when people change our icons. And, the part of the Japanese population which counts as "fandom" is a larger perecentage of the population, and considerably less ostracized. When something jumps from one medium to another in Japan, controversy over the changes can be quite heated.
-So, what have they done in moving from "Casshan" to Casshern? Obviously, they couldn't keep the whole costume. So they kept the one bit that is most distinctly part of the animated sensibility, and willingly gave up their biggest advantage as a live-action production. They kept the hero's mouth covered. It's frickin' brilliant.
-Addendum: The Casshern trailer also contains what I am certain is an homage to the splendid Cruise-Morton two-shot from Minority Report -- what is fast becoming known as a "Spielberg two-shot", since he pretty much invented it there and then. I have no comment on this except to point it out for film buffs.
-Some things are harder. Like, mouth movements. Synchronizing voices with animated mouths is a royal pain, even if you're just doing open-and-close movements, and not complex articulation that actually resembles reality. So, in a lot of animation, they go to every effort to hide people's mouths, or keep them out of frame.
-Which brings us to "Casshan"/Casshern (thanks, Scott/
sunspiral).-This was originally a 1970s anime series. Note the hero's distinctive mask, which covers his mouth. This is very common in superheroic SF anime.
-So, now they're doing a live-action movie based on that series, called Casshern. The trailer looks spectacular, though the fact that I can only understand one word in fifty probably helps. The hero's costume, of course, is completely different, except for the general color . . . and the bit that covers his mouth.
-If you're as big a geek as I am, this is very very interesting.
-In both American and Japanese fandom, we can be quite grumbly when people change our icons. And, the part of the Japanese population which counts as "fandom" is a larger perecentage of the population, and considerably less ostracized. When something jumps from one medium to another in Japan, controversy over the changes can be quite heated.
-So, what have they done in moving from "Casshan" to Casshern? Obviously, they couldn't keep the whole costume. So they kept the one bit that is most distinctly part of the animated sensibility, and willingly gave up their biggest advantage as a live-action production. They kept the hero's mouth covered. It's frickin' brilliant.
-Addendum: The Casshern trailer also contains what I am certain is an homage to the splendid Cruise-Morton two-shot from Minority Report -- what is fast becoming known as a "Spielberg two-shot", since he pretty much invented it there and then. I have no comment on this except to point it out for film buffs.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-31 04:27 pm (UTC)cartoon festival
Date: 2004-03-31 05:50 pm (UTC)http://www.bso.org/
Re: cartoon festival
Date: 2004-03-31 09:17 pm (UTC)-Yah, I applied for it a while back. But thanks!
two thoughts
Date: 2004-04-01 07:42 am (UTC)The other Spielberg-ian shot which I love spotting is the "up and over crane shot" which I first saw in "Close Encounters" when Dreyfuss & Melinda Dillon climb the embankment to see Devil's Tower, and the camera, on a crane, rises above them to see what they see. He even did a mini-version of this shot in "Hook", when Robin Williams arrives too late to his son's soccer game.
----nathaniel