Short Film vs Feature Film

 

After watching both the feature length film and the short film versions of 9, I've been able to notice some big differences between the two. The obvious ones being that the story is more drawn out and explained and the feature film has voice acting. These are obvious changes that would come with having more resources working on the film. Although they are seemingly surface level changes, they can lead to other changes. For example, the characters are easier to get attached to with the voice acting. I expressed during my look into the short film that I wasn't very invested in the chase scenes due to not being invested in the characters. While the characters' voices aren't the sole reasons for this, it plays a role. Speaking of characters, there are a lot more in the feature film than in the short. In the short, we only see 9; 5,presumably; and the robot dog for most of its runtime. This made it all more confusing when we saw more characters exit from the device that 9 opens at the end. In the feature film, we see a lot more characters. We see 9, 5, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, the twins, the dog, and an even bigger villain. Other than having more characters to develop and get the audience attached to, the increase in character roster also allowed the film to explain why those characters were inside the device from the short. 

The short doesn't do many things better than the film. The only thing I could think of is that the short didn't overuse the trope where a character is almost killed before the enemy is distracted by something else. This, however, is mostly due to the short having a shorter runtime and, in turn, less opportunities to do so. It's not surprising to say that the feature film did a lot of things better than the short. It's almost unfair to compare the two, actually. However, it is nice to see how far the story has come in the 4 years between the short and the film's releases. In the end, both were done really well in their own ways and can both be commended by its animation work. 

Research 9, the Feature Film

 

The short film 9 is an animated story about a goggled creature with the number 9 on its back that was turned into a full length film 4 years after the original short film's release. The full length film holds the same setting as the short film, a post apocalyptic Earth, but goes a lot more into depth with its story. When watching the short film, I wasn't sure as to what was going on. That was because nothing was properly explained in the short before it moved on to the next conflict. The film does a better job at this, most likely due to having a longer run time. The story that the film expands on is not only more fleshed out, but it is also intriguing. The story and characters were all written well and went well with the amazing animation work. The only time that I remembered that the film wasn't stop motion was during scenes where humans would appear. The sound design was also really well done. There were sound clues that would hint toward what would happen next or would come from something that happened in the background, even if the viewer wasn't meant to pay attention to it. 

Despite the positives of the writing and presentation of the film, there were still some problems with both. For example, the action scenes got stale after a certain point in the movie. This was because the film has a tendency of saving characters from danger by having a distraction take place. There are multiple instances where this would happen and it got to a point where I expected it to happen more times than not. Although it wasn't much of a problem, it took me a while to see the characters act in ways that were human. Don't get me wrong, I'm not gatekeeping being a human, it was just weird seeing 9 clutch his injured arm as if it were bleeding. It's a little bit weirder to think that later on in the story, one of the characters fails to realize that their hand is broken before they see it. Plus, how come some of the characters are noticeably older than others? I'd assume inorganic creatures such as these wouldn't age in similar ways to humans, but I could be wrong. 

All in all, the film was an enjoyable experience and definitely holds up 19 years after its release. I've praised the animation of both the short and the feature film and that isn't just to fill in the minimum sentence count, the films genuinely look amazing. 

Research 9, the short

 The short film 9 is an animated story about a goggled creature with the number 9 on its back. Its story is told quickly, as the short only lasts 7 minutes. Thanks to its run time, we are presented with the beginning, middle, and end without much time in between to grasp the story or what's going on. For me, the suspense falls flat as I haven't had enough time to get invested in the characters enough for me to worry for them. Right at the beginning of the short, we meet and witness the end of a creature of 9's species. They could possibly be 9's mentor, or possibly just a friend, we don't learn enough before they are killed off by a monster robot dog of equal mystery. Before their death, they hand 9 a lightbulb, a battery, a wire, and an object that the audience doesn't know what it is or does. After witnessing the death of their friend, 9 runs away from the robot that killed his friend. This is where the tension that the audience is supposed to be feeling falls flat due to the characters being improperly introduced. We have a clear antagonists, sure, but we also have no idea why this thing is hunting down 9 and its species. 

The chase scene was done well. The animation is fluid, which it has been all throughout the short. I appreciated the use of the characters' size and how it was integrated into the chase scene. I was disappointed by the appearance of the cliché of cornering the protagonist on a ledge. The ending only left more questions to be asked. Doing so opened this short film to the opportunity of becoming a full film. The universe has already been set up, all that's left to do is to expand upon it and to explain it to the audience. Learning that this short film was made a relatively small crew is impressive. The film is very well done, to the point where one would guess that it took a lot of money and crew to animate. For what it is, the short is good and it's animation alone is notable. 

What genre is MY film going to be?

 From the three genres I had to pick from, I thought that my film would be able to fit into any of them. After looking into them some more, I've realized that some of them may not be the best fit for the plot of my film after all. I've been able to eliminate surrealist fiction from the possible genres list. This is because, all though any film can have their own style, I don't think anything I could do would fit into this genre well. Left with just psychological horror and horror drama as my remaining genres, I've also decided not to do a horror drama either. The idea for a film doesn't fit very well with the films I looked into. Now I've been left with just the psychological horror genre, which I feel fairly confident is a good fit for my film. I think this gives me a good opportunity to add more confusion into the film. For example, having things happen that may just be hallucinations or something of that nature. I feel as if I'll be able to take a lot of inspiration from this genre. 

Some ideas I have for this movie are going to need other people to help, unless I'm able to make Rube Goldberg machines for every practical effect I want to add. Ever since I've thought of this film, I've always wanted to have a shot of the door to the room opening on its own and having my character look back at it. I believe that this could be a good way to foreshadow how the film is going to end. By having my character hesitate to investigate the door, it'll be a contrast to the end of the movie where he'll leave his room hurriedly. Other than that, I will need to come up with other events that can take place. I want to emphasize that the main character's time alone has started to drive him crazy. To accomplish this, I'll also need to show that he's been on his own for a while. A few ideas I've come up with would be to involve my family in this and use them to show what living with this character entails. That'll come later though, for now I've got my genre decided. I will keep thinking of ideas until the time to storyboard arrives though.

Genre Research: Reading a Lot of Stuff About Horror

 The idea that I plan on going with can be classified as three different genres: a psychological horror, a horror drama, or a surrealist fiction. Just like last year, I've been tasked with research genres to see what is common within them. Similarly to last year, I'll conduct my research by looking into different movies to see what they all share. Unlike last year, however, I won't be describing each movie I looked into. This time, I'll just point out the common tropes.

The first genre I looked into was psychological thriller. Psychological thrillers normally aims to scare the audience with atmosphere instead of jumpscares or creepy villains. Directors John Madden and Peter Hutchins agree that psychological horrors are at their best when they focus on tension and anxiety instead of fright. To me, this meant dim lighting and subtle movements in the background. However, when I looked into different psychological horror films, I was surprised to see that the colors were mostly normal. While some movies, Joker(2019) to be specific, had a decreased saturation, the coloration in general still looked normal. The anxiety and uneasiness that I expected from this genre came from the actors and the scenes that they were put into.

The second genre I looked into was horror drama. A horror drama, or horror film, is a film that seeks to instill fear into its audience. From what I saw during my research, this genre achieves this by having disturbing scenes and imagery. The antagonists of these films were monsters in more ways than one. In some films, the antagonist is human and torments the protagonist as well as the others around them. In other films, the antagonist is actually a monster and when they are, they are usually grotesque or hard to look at. I've noticed the camera work is different in these films. The camera looks up at the antagonist, possibly to make it seem like they are bigger and a threat.

The third genre I looked into was surrealist fiction. From what I've seen, I don't think surrealist films aim to do anything in general. A surrealist film can aim to tell a story or, if it wants, it could just be weird for the sake of it. This genre seems to be the most freeform of the three I've looked into. The whole time I was watching clips and snippets of films, I never fully understood what was going on.