Alice in Wonderland review

Having missed this film at the cinemas I was thrilled to be able to buy it on DVD/Blu-ray combo, (the great thing about Blu-ray being that most people I know don't have it yet so they can't come over and ask to borrow my DVDs! hahahahaha!) I even went out of my way to get the blah blah exclusive, (sorry Amazon, your still my number one choice as blah blah customer service sucks!) which included a pack or Alice in Wonderland Cards! Anyway I sat down to watch my blu-ray version on the PS3, expecting to be blown away with Tim Burtoness and Johnny Depp-Boham Carterness as in Sweeney Todd, (which is frickin awesome by the way) but it just fell flat and didn't happen. :(

The only thing reminiscent of Tim Burton in this movie is of course his wife, (Carter) and best bud Depp and of course the overall visual style is very Tim Burton, but the story-line? well that was a different matter, I had the feeling that some Disney executives wrote it and then just got Burton to add his flair and name to it to make sure it sold, I mean as soon as this "Jabberwocky" came into it, I was thinking, "what the hell?" the Caterpillar wasn't as flamboyant as the cartoon version and therefore not as memorable or engaging, although I loved the voicing and felt he was a good choice, (I don't know his name but I knew his voice straight away as being the gothic looking teacher guy from Happy Potter), The Red Queen, (Carter) was brilliant, I felt she stood out the most and the humor she injected into the role was perfect, I loved her character and felt she even out-did Mr Depp, which is a definite first. Depp who I love don't get me wrong, was good, but I felt he should have been a bit more nutty and whacky like the Cartoon character was, instead he came off as being more of a mentally disturbed patient on the run or something, indeed I felt sorry for him and wanted to reach out and touch him at times where he seemed to be a lost little boy, I didn't quite understand why his accent kept changing from his usual to a scottish accent? maybe he was trying to depict a schizophrenic? I don't really know, but it didn't quite "fit" for me, I would have liked a bit more development or background knowledge as to why he was the way he was, or maybe I am just searching a bit too deep for a light hearted family flick?
I didn't feel this need for explanation with the red queen however, maybe it is because his character hinted at things but never fully explained them whereas her character was less complex.
The two "fatboys" played by little britains Lucas something or other were great and he was "perfect" for the role, I would have liked to see more of his little britain zaniness brought to the role though.
The white queen drove me mad! In fact I don't even want to watch the film again just for her part, the way she moved around with her hands in the iar drove me mad, and I didn't see the point of her? I would rather have just seen a remake of the cartoon actually and not this sequel attempt although other reviewers have said the opposite, I think a remake would have been alot better, with all the known characters and plot-lines, it would have been exciting to watch and think: "Oh this is the bit where she...." or: "gosh I remember this bit where the hedgehog does this" etc etc.
And the crochet game would have been fun to watch had it been implemented into the film a bit more...
I liked alot about the film, I liked the visual style, the effects were excellent and not one bit jarring as they are in alot of CGI heavy films, I wish it had flowed more and fit together that little bit better, it's a shame cause you can't shake the feeling that executives were thinking about how much money they could make on alice in wonderland merchandise, (the original cartoon which was £6.99 has now gone up to £25.99!) I'd watch it if you are a Burton/Depp and Boham-Carter fan, but if not then I doubt you will get much from it- unless you are just in awe of the special effects and forget about story-line, character development etc as alot of people tend to do these days, then watch if for the effects if you must! but for story, plot, narrative and character development? I'm afraid it simply fails miserably and doesn't make much sense.

I would get the cartoon or some of Burtons other stuff instead whilst waiting for the price of this to drop to £4.99 or less, cause all your doing is putting money into the Disney fat cats wallets, they don't care about entertaining you or bringing a much loved disney cartoon to life! they just want money to buy fancier cars whilst we sit and waste 2 hours with this, don't get me wrong I love Tim Burton films, Johnny Depp and even Burtons wife, and I never thought I'd give a Burton film a negative review, I just don't feel this is a "true" Burton feature. Try nightmare before christmas, corpse bride, sweeney tood and edward scissorhands instead. but do watch this if like me you have seen every other Burton film and need something new, but I wouldn't pay out the current price tag if I could turn back time, I'd wait, it's not worth the £17.99 I paid for it at all. (And I never say that! I am one who often pays out alot for films, they cost millions to make so owning them for £20 isn't a big deal for me if it's a good film and worth it!)

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots from the final level design.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots from my little big planet video, these shots are from the practice stage that I made the first time around.

PPD2 contact list

Red star 3D,
electric works,
Sheffield,
S1 2BJ
contact: 0114 2866232
Jobs@redstar3D.com

Red star are based in sheffield in the UK and they produce animation for TV commercials, CGI effects and graphics. They have done a few adverts on the TV such as the mazuma mobile adverts and some adverts for macdonalds.

There is also a mixed media company called Trunk in London who seem interesting, they work with a large group of artists to create visual imagery and animations.

contact: info@trunk.me.uk or 02071936131

Plasticmilk
26 church street
hampton
middlesex,
TW12 2EG

contact David Raitt 02089416652
www.plasticmilk.co.uk
design and animation studios creating entertainment and informative television from medical videos to broadcast entertainment.

RJDM Animations
based in Northhamptonshire, york studios.
Specialize in Idents, 2D, 3D animation and design, TV and cinema commercials, film titles and credits.
www.RJDM.com

Contact Ricky O'Donnell on: 01604 743222

Blue Zoo productions are based in London, Euston road and produce award winning 2D and 3D animation, graphics and design for webistes to TV commercials.
www.blue-zoo.co.uk

Contact: Tom Box on 02074344111

the animation works are an animation studio based in norfolk and they offer content for TV, film, web, interactive and print services. They also use motion capture and stereoscopic 3D.

Contact Chris Holt, chris.holt@theanimationworks.com


Capricorn digital and Carnival figures are both London based animation firms who specialize in animation, picture imaging, flash animation, commercials, title sequences, web and broadcast.

Contact details:
Carnival figures, Alex Dawson 07930547629
Capricorn Digital, Ryan Lazarus 02082029594

Daylight moving image are based in Manchester and they specialize in video production, motion graphics and animation.
Contact Matt Smith
72 Tib street
Northern quarter
Manchester
M4 1LG
tel: 0161 8399088

Elm road studios in Bristol, specialize in stop frame motion which is interesting.
The man in charge is called Mike Waubdy, contact tel: 01179232324

Final major project evaluation

Having decided to create something for children to warn them of safety in the real and virtual worlds I started by having a few chats with the head-teacher of my local school, who liked my ideas and felt that something "interactive" would be more beneficial than simply making a movie for kids to watch.
I did intend on making a flash based animation, either with or without some interactive options, and my daughter was set to do a voice over for me reading out either a story or a poem devised by myself, however due to unforeseen circumstances this could not be arranged and so I had to think of another way to get the narrative into my story.
I did not want my idea to be hampered by my inadequate drawing skills and lack of interactive knowledge inn flash, so set out to look at other ways of producing the story that I wanted to create.
I thought about working with some of my peers and perhaps asking them to create characters for me, I even tamed up with another peer for a day who was working on characters and planned on creating a narrative around their ideas but this would have been changing my original brief too much so decided to go back to what I had and stick with that.
So it took me a while to get my head around this, despite it being my own brief, I was having doubts about whether this was what I really wanted to do or not, a relative had died recently and al I could think about was death, something I have been preoccupied with in past projects, and I really wanted to use this energy to create a new brief, however time was running out and my brief had already been submitted.
I don't quite know where the idea to use little big planet came from, I was playing it one day, and decided to look at some of the online levels members of the community have created and uploaded, and was amazed at the potential in it for me to be able to realize my ideas without having to worry too much about visual presentation and drawing skills, or lack of!
Don't get me wrong I am not putting myself down, I know I can doodle pretty good and anyone can draw if they put their mind to it, it's just one of those things I have found very difficult at times, especially when it comes to drawing anything other than characters which is all I ever draw.
Anyway I never thought I would be able to do anything on little big planet, thinking it would be far too hard, and shuddering at the memories I have of second life and maya I turned my console off and returned to fretting about how I was going to do this with all that I have going on in my life at this moment in time.
Luckily for me a friend who had never even used little big planet before saw how down I was about it, and decided to have a go at creating something just to see how easy or hard it was, and within a few seconds they had made a small building with some windows in it and showed it to me, I was gobsmacked at how easy it was, it was nothing like second life or maya! I did not need mathematical or 3D skills, all I needed was my imagination and an idea, which I had, so from there on I felt very positive about getting this done and couldn't believe I hadn't tried it out sooner.
I have now created an entire level based around my ideas and characters for this project and am very pleased with it and think it is a vast improvement over some of my more recent projects.
To begin with I just went in with a few ideas not thinking much about how each scene would fall into the next, I also didn't realize that there was a gauge meter to the left that decided how much more you could put into a level or that the levels has a pre-set size! I just assumed they went on and on till you stopped creating!
I realized this halfway through and decided to just use this as an experimental attempt and so I continued putting in a few things that didn't really work but just to practice and see what I could do with it.
I then decided to start over, building the characters and buildings again from scratch, but this time making them look better and adding or taking away details where needed. For example, some of the events seemed to last a bit too long on my practice level, thus taking up too much room and loosing their meaning in favor of lengthy walkthroughs and unnecessary obstacles.

So in the final level I decided to keep things short and sweet and added a disappearing character at regular intervals to warn children about the dangers they were about to face in the game.
I was going to throw in some statistics about knife crime and fires etc but after searching for hours on the net for up to date information I gave up and decided that primary school children did not need to know that, that statistics might only scare them too much, plus things like that will only go in and out one ear with children, they are much more visual and throwing numbers at them would have been meaningless.
If I had thought of this earlier it might have been a useful tool to have as a caption at the bottom of the screen, but as it stands I am happy with the game as it is.
I am not sure however if I should leave this as a game or record it onto a disc as a short animation, I think leaving it as a game would be better although am a bit concerned that there may not be enough gameplay activities to make for an interesting game.

I really enjoyed creating on little big planet and am definitely going to use this again to create games and stories with a view to learning more techniques and creating some more advanced and professional gameplay tactics.

Essay to accompany final major project

How the advancement of technology has altered narrative structure in popular videogames. By Kelly Cantrell.


In this essay I am going to talk about the rise of digital media and its effect on popular videogames, with particular reference to their narrative structures. As there are so many genres and sub genres of games, I will be attempting to focus on the first person action adventure game.
After all amongst the many gaming genres, such as online social gaming, simulation and shooter games, I would say that the first person action adventure game, (and indeed 3rd person also) has the largest and most obvious connection to narrative structures as an underlying core element within the game play.
Naturally however there will be mention of games that fall into 2 or more different genres, for example the tomb-raider franchise is most likely to be classed as a platform/strategy game, however there are also elements of it that fall into the RPG, (role playing game) and action adventure genres as well.
Before jumping to some obvious titles such as this year’s “Heavy rain” for the playstation 3, I would like to go back a bit and start with some earlier titles worthy of mention for their story-driven play, whether good or bad.
Delving into the “horror survival” sub-genre is an absolute must if we are talking about narrative driven gaming phenomena, and the immediate title to come to mind would be “Silent hill”,.
Konami’s first instalment of Silent hill began in 1999 on the playstation one and then went on to spawn another 5 sequels, a prequel, box office movie, and a remake of the first game has now appeared, 11 years after the original release.
Thus demonstrating the games narrative appeal and replay value as a franchise.
As technology advances, games are becoming more playable featuring easier controls, advanced graphical capability and better camera dynamics, thus games are reaching a wider audience and are quickly becoming the worlds number one form of entertainment, now rivalling the Hollywood movie industry with sales reaching over 300, million US dollars.
Initially game-movie tie ins were brought out as secondary sources of profit and went hand in hand with t-shirts, lunch boxes and other forms of movie paraphernalia, now however games are being produced in conjunction with movies in order to gain maximum profit, the same actors, character designers and modellers are now working on both the film and the game to produce a double package that can be released at the same time to achieve maximum sales and coverage.
Also fading away are the cheap cash in attempts of mediocre games being produced after a film with broken narratives and shoddy game play.
But what is it about a game narrative in particular that prevents it from being a smash hit movie? Look at the Tomb raider and mortal combat movies for example, each failing on different levels, then there are the silent hill and resident evil movie spin off’s, both are relatively good but are lacking considerably in the storytelling department, only silent hill can be saved because it so well retains the original feel and atmosphere from the games.
As for this years prince of Persia staring Jake Gyllenhaal I am not going to hold my breath but we’ll see, just using a white American for the starring role has made me weary enough of it, I think it will suffer from the usual “Hollywood movie” conventions of action over plot and too much lacing of patriotic heroism.
One reason for this failure to translate gaming narratives to the big screen could be that gaming narratives also rely on the player’s involvement and interaction with the game itself, gamers typically play a game for several weeks before finish, whereas movie watchers digest the whole thing in a matter of 2 hours, sometimes less.
Gamers actually “become” the character of the story, controlling their actions and movements and also the narrative itself to a degree, or at least that’s what game developers want you to think, but as long as the gamer has this feeling of control within the game, the goal has been met, whatever the non playing onlooker perceives is irrelevant.
Technology has allowed gaming narratives to be played with, altered and toyed with in a way that although achievable on other story telling platforms, does not quite reach the height’s it does on the gaming console.
For example I have read books in the past as a high school student in which the story changes based on your decisions at the end of a given chapter, the book would advice you which page to turn to depending on your choice, you would then turn to the said page and continue the story from the point of view that you had chosen.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen this in a movie, but I’m sure with the capabilities of DVD that there must have been an attempt to skip scenes in a movie, and move around the chapter layers of a disc as you would the book depending on the viewer’s choice? I have seen interactive games on DVD discs, and some very interesting DVD menu’s also that allow the viewer to take complete control of the character or situation on screen.
Or should I say control to the degree specified by the creator, so that regardless of which outcome you get it is still a result of the story tellers own desire to tell a story, no matter which angle you get it from it is still their story and you are not actually changing anything, you are just altering which ending or viewpoint you will ultimately end up with.
I find this to be a very fresh and innovative way of telling stories and find the gaming system to be one of the most dynamic and engaging systems in place today to tell a story with.
Take Heavy rain for a good example, for me, heavy rain was more of a story than a game, an interactive movie that allowed you to control characters thoughts, movements and choices to a degree set out by the developers and writers involved.
You are given a multitude of choices at any given time, some minor and some with larger consequences, the characters are very well fleshed out and you can even go as far as deciding if your character will get a shave or brush their teeth before going about their daily chores.
Of course the player feels they have control but everything that happens has already been carefully thought out and scripted so that no matter what you decide to do the conclusions are already in place. However to the gamer this does not necessarily matter, because they are getting a fresh gaming experience and a new way of inhaling narrative through game play.
I am not one to complete games on a regular basis, because I am a story-driven person I often loose interest in a game because of lack of a gripping narrative, for me it is not about how many head shots I can get or how many puzzles I can solve, but getting to the next instalment of the story and uncovering another piece to the puzzle and this is the reason I enjoyed heavy rain so much and would play it again and again, despite already knowing the outcome and the main “twist”.
Although heavy rain has come under a lot of fire from hardcore gamers who either get bored before the game kicks off due to lack of action in initial scenes, and some who have criticized the story claiming the creator is nothing more than “a wanabee film director with no talent” and “let’s hope he stays where he is”, the narrative has even been compared to the works of M.Knight Shamalan with similar negative responses.
Why the outrage? Well some gamers and movie buffs alike are claiming that the story is weak because you are allowed inside the characters heads, therefore you can see their thoughts at the press of a button, so when it turns out that the killer is a playable character gamers were outraged as throughout the game the “killer” thinks as though he is trying to fool the player into believing he is not the killer and is simply a concerned bystander.
Ok, I think with any movie and game a certain level of suspension of disbelief is required and also narratives should not have to explain every single little detail to you, some level of imagination is also required in many cases to make a good story, (hence the reason Japanese/Korean films are better than most American blockbusters) I mean, did it ever occur to “any” of these gamers that the main character was actually convincing himself that he did not do it? That it was the father’s faults for not saving their children? He is after all, only a deranged killer?
Some gamers felt it unreasonable to show this character, as being compassionate in some scenes, only to later find out he was the killer. Why is this so unreasonable? He is clearly not of sound mind, and clearly felt in his mind he was only searching for a good father, unlike the one he had, it was not his intention to kill the boys, he felt it was a necessary sacrifice in order to find something he felt strongly about. Of course I’m not saying he was right, only that people want these interactive games, they want this added control, and enjoy the experience on a whole new level, (even these “critics” have said they still enjoyed the dynamics of the game) so why then, can’t people be a little bit more open minded and willing to use their own imagination in the equation as well? If you want interactive, how about being a little more interactive with your mind for a start!
Another title set to be a big hit this year and also focussing on narrative but with a bit more freedom in game play and more of an action shooter experience is “Alan Wake” for the xbox 360 console.
Here you get to play a writer on vacation who discovers that one of his fictional characters has come alive in this small town and is seeking to wreck havoc on Alan wakes existence, this reminds me of Jonny Depps character in “secret window”, a movie about a writer who also is being terrorised by one of his fictional book characters. So although nothing new in terms of story, games like this are raising the bar for video game narrative standards and thanks to this we can only hope to see more and more tighter, deeper, interwoven stories coming out of next generation games that will rival if not take over movie standards and become the leading output for some of the most innovative writing yet to be seen.