#characteressay

[ihopeitruinsrocknroll]

azula’s character is just so fascinating to me— her and katara are essentially two sides of the same coin. both of them are the younger prodigy sister, with two brothers that are considerably less prodigious. they have elements that directly oppose each other, especially since they both learned a dangerous subset of bending from a manipulative authority/familial figure in their life who wanted to benefit from it.

the differences between their characters (other than the obvious) are their upbringings and their personalities that were shaped from them. azula had a very very abusive and dangerous childhood, meaning mainly emotional and mental manipulation (and depending on how u view it, physical too).

she grew up being “perfect”, to the point where she would have rather stabbed someone than be seen as weak to her father. this, and how other people reacted to this (her father encouraged it and her mother was scared of it) shaped her character into the blade it was in the show. her father encouraging her cruelty, the one type of kindness she recieved was definitely not helped when her mother called her a “monster” and chose zuko over her everytime. (seriously, while i understand that she saw ozai in her, she really didn’t have to make it that obvious that she was scared/hated her. it’s not her fault that azula didn’t wake up in the night and thought that her mother only visited zuko before leaving though, that’s just the miscommunication trope) we see her have a mental breakdown, seeing her mother in the mirror when there was no one, sending away loyal staff after being so paranoid it hurt her. ultimately, this leads to her downfall, where she meets her counterpart and her brother.

on the other hand, katara was raised as an equal to sokka, knowing that she was special but never better she didn’t suppress her powers or boast about them, but just saw them as a part of herself and not a weapon. her waterbending at the very start was introduced by sokka saying “weird water stuff” or something similar, and her arguing that it was “waterbending”, something that she was proud of as a part of her culture.

her tribe appreciates her, she’s needed a lot in ways that azula wasn’t. she acts as a mother to a lot of people, and is essentially the “last hope” for the water tribe where azula is the “new hope” for the fire nation’s expansionist beliefs. they both represented completely different things to their people, and this is especially evident in their parents

ozai and ursa either praise or scorn azula for being cruel, liking either her or zuko more, which made azula choose a side early on, whereas hakoda and kya seemed to have loved both sokka and katara equally.

katara grows at such a rate that she rivals the avatar—she beats a master with barely any training, she manages to win against soldiers with far more experience on their belt. this level of growth isn’t just because she was gifted or had a motivation to learn, it was also because she was pushed to be aang’s waterbending master. (pirate scroll episode especially showed her desperation to be better than aang, to not be outstripped by her own student)

even though she was talented and very motivated to win against the fire nation, she shouldn’t have won against a girl who was trained from birth to be the best of the best, a ruthless weapon who took down a city by herself. so basically, the question of the day is why did katara win?

one, her friends. this isn’t to say some friendship is magic bs, because she had friends who taught her. she had an open mind and learned from different cultures, she wasn’t rigid and didn’t stick to just one nation’s discipline. without any formal training other than those weeks with pakku, she had to adapt and make her own style, which allowed for more fast thinking and adaptability.

two, she had a reason to win. while you can certainly argue that azula had a reason to win too, meaning becoming fire lord, azula also thought that her father would definitely win, meaning that it wouldn’t have technically been the end of the world for her to fight against two people that she thought she could win against. (this is kinda handwavey, since azula wasn’t really in her right mind to think that up but humor me) either way, katara had a LOT on her plate that day. her job was to get azula to give zuko the throne, or else the invasion would fail. and when zuko went down? well, any illusion that azula didn’t want to kill her own brother went up in a poof. she basically thought: hmm, well, zuko’s my friend, and azula just nearly killed him. so no holding back or honor agni kai things THAT I SAID NO TO IN THE FIRST PLACE, i need to get back and heal him, so i need to get azula down fast. and she did, whereas azula didn’t have as much of the drive that katara had that day.

three, katara had a stable emotional base. her friends didn’t abandon her or anything, she had a loving family (albeit with an absent dad and dead mom) and while she was under constant stress from the war, she still had friends and people she could talk to. her qi wasn’t as unstable as azula’s, who was basically having a qi deviation (probably didn’t help that ty lee blocked them too) her clear mind helped her think of a way to subdue her, but azula didn’t really think at all. i think honestly azula’s schizophrenia was either realllyyy prominent in the last agni kai, or she had a deviation in her energy (if those exist in the show).

basically, katara is a nicer azula who didn’t grow up traumatised asf and that’s very interesting to me :)

[hspencer1]

Character Essay Research 8

Here are some quotes about Chicken Run from the book ‘Cracking Animation’ by Peter Lord and Brian Sibley. All of these are sourced from the second edition of the book.

There’s nothing to beat the excitement of showing your work to hundreds of people in a cinema. p. 13

A cast of strong, memorable characterisations: from the plucky Ginger, leader of the rebel chickens.... to the sinister Mrs Tweedy, gripped by a vision of saving her failing farm by switching from egg production to the manufacture of chicken pies. - p. 62

The scope of the film, ranging from the comic and absurd to the moving and dramatic, showed Aardman as a capable of sustaining and advancing character emotions. - p. 63

The [Mrs Tweedy] puppet was placed on elevated rigging to make her loom over the assembled chickens she is leering at - p. 175

Lord, P. and Sibley, B. (2004) Cracking animation: the Aardman book of 3-D animation. (2nd ed.) London: Thames & Hudson.

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I also found an interesting blog review on a blog titled The Entertainment Junkie in a series of posts called ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’, which analyses the story of Chicken Run from an alternate angle.

It flips the conventions of the genre it's paying loving tribute to ... there's a strong feminist bent to the film's first two acts.

All of the chickens are female, and their only purpose is to reproduce. This unexpected angle gives the film more depth, and at least for a while it transforms into a kid-friendly allegory for femininity in a patriarchal society, with Mrs. Tweedy taking on the role of oppressor (despite her name, she is not granted any feminine attributes in terms of costume or demeanor).

It is interesting how the blog post describes Mrs Tweedy’s role in the film from a feminist perspective, in that she oppresses other female characters to show her power.

http://imthecautionarywhale.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/hit-me-with-your-best-shot-chicken-run.html

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Character Research 7

I listened to this interview with Nick Park about his career in stop motion. However, it mainly focused on Wallace and Gromit, as well as the bigger events at Aardman, such as the fire at the studio in 2005.

I went back to the Chicken Run DVD and watched some of the featurettes on it, namely ‘Fowl Play: The Making of Chicken Run’ and ‘Chickens Go In, Pies Come Out’.

Fowl Play was very similar to the Hatching the Movie book that I had previously researched into, as both featured seemingly the same interviews and quotes I had already taken note of.

Chickens Go In has a quote which I found was particularly interesting which was a description of the Pie Machine by Nick Park

“The Death Star of Chicken Run”

 This is an interesting comparison with the machine from Star Wars, which means Mrs Tweedy can be compared to Darth Vader as the person who spearheads the machine. It also puts her in the position of the clear villain with this comparison.

The Director’s Commentary, however, proved to be more useful, and provided some useful insight behind the production.

“We edited it all, for all our sake, to the Great Escape theme” – Peter Lord on the opening montage

“The worst we ever showed was the shadow of this axe being raised” – Nick Park on the execution

“Every frame of that axe was important” - Peter Lord on the axe, in order not to make the viewers feel sick, they had to deliberate how much to show and how much to not show.

“We wrote that in so many different ways to explain her motives, that she’s sick of egg farming” - Peter Lord on Mrs Tweedy’s motive

“This farmhouse belonged to his grandparents but fell on hard times … this dingy run down house.” - Peter Lord on the Tweedy’s backstory and description of the far

“We as English people are unhappy about this powerful emotion ginger is expressing… we were shy about Ginger saying what she felt so obviously.” - Peter Lord on Ginger’s motivations

“Mrs Tweedy becomes a real camp commandant, where her rubber wellington boots suddenly seem like Nazi jackboots” - Peter Lord on Mrs Tweedy’s entrence to measure Babs

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Character Essay 6

What does Mrs Tweedy represent

-  Imprisonment: to the chickens, she and Mr Tweedy are the main forces of their imprisonment. “NO CHICKEN ESCAPES FROM TWEEDY’S FARM”

- The future: the pie machine is her initiative, she talks about it as if it’s her baby (her actions include admiring her reflection in the saws and rubbing it lovingly, match this with a quote about the two contrasting desings of machines and their builders: The Chickens and their Plane, and Tweedy and her Pie Machines)

- Death: She executes one of the characters within the first ten minutes.

- Greed: “Melisha Tweedy will be poor no longer”, her core characterisation is based on the desire for riches.

What is her role and function and how is that shown?

- She is the main antagonist. This is shown through lighting, her acting and the way she’s filmed

- The farm is Mr Tweedy’s but she runs the farm. She’s the head. She orders and demands Mr Tweedy. She is the one who has the chicken pie plan, and she doesn’t even allow him credit. (“Just… Mrs?” “Woman’s touch, makes the public comfortable” – the exact opposite of what she does to people)

Why did they make Chicken Run, what was happening when they did?

- First of a promised five movie contract with Dreamworks, first idea finished.

- Nick Park once worked in a chicken packing factory.

Historical and cultural references

- Set in the 1950s, Made in the 1990s, Released 2000

- ‘Edwina’ the chicken was named after Edwinda Currie, a Politian who claimed that all the eggs in Britain had been infected with salmonella. Edwinda herself lays no eggs and heads for the chop.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_2519000/2519451.stm

- Female protag VS. Female antag., the film also passes the Bechdel Test. Gives examples of good female roles and bad female roles.

- First human villain in a major Aardman production. Most of the villains were animals (Feathers McGraw) or robots (Preston, the Space Oven)

SEMIOTICS

- She has her hair in a bun, pulls back her entire face/expression

- Low set brow, permanent frown, pointed eyebrows

- Menacing grin

- Taller than the hunched, round and doddering Mr Tweedy. Pointer. She is the brains of the marriage. Threatening (also makes for a visual contrast and shows who is actually in charge)

- Wears a purple dress, contrasts against the oranges/yellows/browns of the farm and the chickens. Still an element of stereotypical femininity,

- Wears red gloves when handling the chickens for roll call (red is associated with danger)

- Her eyelids are blue, implying she uses make-up. Trying to bring high standards to the run down farm (her desire is to get money and no longer be poor)

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Character Essay 5

A deeper look at how Mrs Tweedy is presented through Chicken Run

Mrs Tweedy’s Introduction

Door swings open, the night is bathed in light. Ginger’s guardian angel?

Big build up, shots of characters reacting to her presence? Bunty raises her arm to feel her neck, foreshadowing how Mrs Tweedy is a threat. The dogs cower in her presence.

Pan up from floor. The reveal is that she’s wearing pink fluffy slippers and a frilly night gown.

The music builds up during the pan, makes the presence of the pink-clad Tweedy seem threatening when she looks the opposite. Subverts expectations.

Stop at a low angle looking up, she’s above the other characters on the doorsteps and above the viewer, making her threatening.

She’s lit from behind, keeping most of her face in the shadows. We can tell she is frowning down at them.

Mr Tweedy is then presented in a corner of a shot, hunched over, making it clear who has the power. She promptly slams the door in his face.

Mr Tweedy’s ‘loving smile’ to Mrs Tweedy turns into an angry frown. He’s putting on falsities because he’s scared of her.

MR TWEEDY: “Now let that be a lesson to the lot of you. No chicken escapes from Tweedy’s Farm.”

During the intro credits montage, we see the farm process; she’s counting eggs and profits in respects to that. Still in the shadows, shaking her head as the profits chart line drops further. Hints towards her core desire and determination (money) and what she comes to represent (greed)

Parallel between Hero and Shadow 1:

Ginger and Mrs Tweedy are both etching numbers onto a chart while contemplating wanting more in life. Ginger wants freedom, Mrs Tweedy wants money. Similar angles.

The Threat of Mrs Tweedy

Mrs Tweedy’s boots appear before the rest of her. Always introduced from the feet. Walks from right of screen to left, this suggests antagonism (from Cinematic Storytelling)

Her wellington boots are like Nazi officer boots – mundane made menacing through semantics. Heavy and purpose filled stamp,

Low angles and lit from behind is a common element for Mrs Tweedy. The way she is filmed make her antagonism clear. Smiles as she picks a chicken for the chop.

She wears red gloves to kill Edwina, a colour symbolic of danger.

We are shown her hoisting the ax in silhouette. We don’t see the impact, but we hear the impact.  All the chickens react in resigned shock, this is a regular thing for her to do. The whole ‘roll call’ is also something she does often, given how regimented it is. Shows how utterly in control of the farm she is.

Roger Ebert, in his review of the movie, describes this sequence to open the review, and also helps provide an opinion on what sort of character Mrs Tweedy is:

Mrs. Tweedy isn't fooling. Despite her twee British name ... she means business. Early in "Chicken Run," she singles out a chicken who hasn't been laying its daily egg and condemns it to a chopping block. Since this is an animated film, we expect a joke and a close escape. Not a chance. The chicken gets its head chopped off, the other chickens hear the sickening thud of the ax--and later, in case there's the slightest shred of doubt about what happened, we see chicken bones.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/chicken-run-2000

She also doesn’t say a word during the sequence, making her less human than the talking chickens, and also brings her actions to the forefront. It also makes her more of a symbol than a character here, symbolic of death and entrapment.

Mrs Tweedy’s Plan

MRS TWEEDY: “Stupid worthless creatures. I’m sick and tired of making minuscule profits.”

She grins at the thought of being rich, that’s her drive, much like how Ginger’s drive is freedom

MRS TWEEDY: “I may finally have found a way to make us some real money around here”

She rolls her pamphlet up and wrings it, as if it’s Mr Tweedy’s neck.

Mr Tweedy is shaking in fear of his wife’s anger. Throughout the film she inflicts a lot of violence onto Mr Tweedy: slapping his hand, hitting with pies, kicking, hitting with clipboards, insulting him. Even though it’s later revealed to have been his family’s farm, she has taken that power from him.

The wedding photo of the Tweedys is on the table, shows backstory. Mrs Tweedy is sneering while husband is smiling. She’s wasn’t happy of marrying into a failing farm from the beginning.

MRS TWEEDY (to Mr Tweedy): “They're chickens, you dolt. Apart from you, they're the most stupid creatures on this planet. They don't plot, they don't scheme, and they are not organized.” 

MRS TWEEDY (to Rocky’s Ringleader): He’s valuable, you say?

RINGLEADER: Sure.

MRS TWEEDY (to Mr Tweedy): Get the torch.

Mrs Tweedy only enters the chicken farm for roll call and to find Rocky, both times which concern money.

Her body language while talking to the Ringleader is an attempt at pleasant. Trying to get on the Ringmaster’s good side. She’s hiding her true hatred for the farm and for chickens in general.

The Pie Machine

MR TWEEDY: What... what... what's all this, then?

MRS TWEEDY: This is our future, Mr. Tweedy. No more wasting time with petty egg collecting and minuscule profits.

MR TWEEDY: No more eggs? But we've always been egg farmers. Me father, and his father, and all their fathers, they was all...

MRS TWEEDY: Poor. Worthless. Nothings. But all that is about to change. This will take Tweedy's farm out of the Dark Ages and into full-scale automated production. Melisha Tweedy will be poor no longer.

She didn’t consult Mr Tweedy on the matter, hence why he is so confused as to what the machine should be used for.

MELISHA TWEEDY – her name sounds like ‘malicious’, evil through and through

She gradually gets more involved with the farm as her plan develops. The threat increases.

When the chickens start to feed on the extra rations, she squeezes Mr Tweedy’s bottom, she’s in control of him in many ways, happy with him doing her bidding without asking many questions.

Parallel between Hero and Shadow 2:

Ginger and Mrs Tweedy both get close enough to touch their goals and rub them longingly. They both talk about their desired future wistfully, even using similar wording.

GINGER: There's a better place out there, somewhere beyond that hill, and it has wide open places, and lots of trees... and grass. Can you imagine that? Cool, green grass.

MRS TWEEDY: [calmly] Imagine! In less than a fortnight, every grocer's in the county will be stocked with box upon box of Mrs Tweedy's homemade chicken pies.

MR TWEEDY: Just "Mrs"?

MRS TWEEDY: Woman's touch. Makes the public feel more comfortable.

 “Woman’s touch. Makes the public feel more comfortable” - she’s the exact opposite of that but is using her sex/gender to sell and illusion to the public.

 -

When the Pie Machines is fixed, she slams the doors to the barn open and lightening flashes in the background. Typical movie convention to symbolise something evil has arrived (through pathetic fallacy). Also used in the horror genre (such as in Frankenstein), making her seem unnatural and evil.

Parallel between Hero and Shadow 3:

Both ascend/descend towards each other with sharp object held between teeth. For once, Mrs Tweedy is shot in a low angle, the power balance has shifted as Ginger is the one with the power now.

Mrs Tweedy’s dialogue ends while she she snarls and growls during the final action sequence. She’s turning into a monster/animal, more so than the civilized chickens.

“There’s a cling-on Captain!” - Star Trek reference/pun based on the Klingons, who are a race of warrior monstrous aliens. Could Mrs Tweedy herself be a monster in that respect?

When she gets smacked in the face with the poster during the escape, the ‘ideal’ Tweedy mask (“Woman’s touch poster”) is ripped off revealing a snarling and growling beast. Humanity vs Lack of Humanity.

MR TWEEDY: “I told you they was organised.”

IRONY: The presumably dim Mr Tweedy didn’t underestimate the chickens, whereas the cold and calculating Mrs Tweedy did underestimate them, and was thwarted.

She’s humiliated covered in gravy and potentially crushed by a door. Her fate is ambiguous, we don’t know whether she lived to see another day and think about what she’s done. Either which way, the chickens have got their freedom but she hasn’t got money.

[hspencer1]

Character Essay 4

I decided to look into film conventions to see to compare the actions of Mrs Tweedy. These quotes are taken from a book called “Cinematic storytelling: the 100 most powerful film conventions every filmmaker must know.” by Jennifer Van Sijll, which I found very insightful.

Film Element: X-Axis (Horizontal)

Left to Right: As Westerners we read left-to-right. If you rented fifty studio-made movies, there’s a good chance that the ‘good guy’ will enter screen left every time. When the good guy moves left-to-right our eyes move comfortably. Subconsciously, we begin to make positive inferences.

Right to Left: Conversely, the antagonist usually enters from the right. Since our eyes aren’t used to moving from right-to-left, the antagonist’s entrance makes us uncomfortable...The subtle irritant directs the audiences to see the character negatively. pg4

This is present in Chicken Run, as during the first morning roll call of the film, Mrs Tweedy enters from the right of frame and moves across to the left. All of her we see in some shots is her big black wellington boots, which help further the negative inferences.

Film Element: Low-Angle

A low-angle shot occurs when the camera is placed below the subject and the camera is pointing up. This causes the subject to appear larger-than-life. It transfers power to the subject, making it appear to dominate objects beneath it. pg 162

Mrs Tweedy herself is constantly shot in low-angle, which helps establish her character as being controlling and dominating with power over Mr Tweedy, the Chickens and the viewer.

Van Sijll, J. (2005) Cinematic storytelling: the 100 most powerful film conventions every filmmaker must know. (2nd Edition), Los Angeles; Michael Wiese Productions

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Analysing Character Design and Semiotics

Semiotics: The study of meaning, making sense of and studying signs and symbols. Our brains are quick to analyse things to help us get a better understanding.

Sassure’s Theory of the Sign

Signs are made up of two components:

Signifier: the thing we see/fixed

Signified: the meaning we assign/mutable depending on variables such as culture

SHAPE

Circles: round, whole, friendly, approachable

Squares: stable and strong, solid, trustworthy, but also perhaps slow and stubborn

Triangles: sharp, pointed, dangerous or unstable.

Cast of Gravity Falls

Dipper and Mabel are small circles: innocence, children, optimistic

Soos is a large circle: bumbling, child-like, friendly

Grunkle Stan has a square shaped head and a triangular shoulders, both with curved corners: untrustworthy, a schemer, but can be relied on under pressure, good at heart, as he has a lot of curved corners on his core shapes.

Wendy is mostly squares: dependable, neutral, most stable member of cast

Bill Cypher is a triangle: he is the main villain, and is just a triangle shape, not to be trusted at all

COLOUR

Dull/muted or bright/vibrant? Colourful characters in a black and white world.

Colour is culturally dependent, colours have different meanings across the world.

CONTEXT

Everything is governed on the context, as anything can change. Time can often change the meaning of things.

MICRO CONTEXT: this is a smaller context in the confines of the piece, such as characters in relation to eachother and their world. For example, it is commonplace to design in opposition, such as choosing bright primary colours for hero characters and muted/restricted palettes for villain characters. These choices oppose to make loyalties clear.

STYLE

Realism, abstraction and symbolism

How does the design of a character fit the world they belong in?

STEREOTYPES AND BREAKING THE RULES

Crafty designers give designs nuances to hint at the true nature of a character.

This can include incorporating aspects of the narrative and putting them into the character design to show parts of the character’s backstories. Everything means something

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Character Essay 3

Looking behind the production of Chicken Run, more contextual facts.

This research was taken from a book co-written by Ray Harryhausen, who was a pioneer in the stop motion art form, and by Tony Dalton, who is a film historian.

“Aardman signed a picture deal with Steven Spielberg’s company Dreamworks in 1999 to produce five feature films. The first off the drawing board was Chicken Run (2001), which was perhaps a throwback to Park’s employment as a teenager in a chicken-packing factory.”

“The model designs are wonderfully stylized with the usual mouths (in this case beaks) broad and flat and with individualized crests to distinguish the characters.”

“The animation is, as always, smooth and believably fluid, even though there are occasionally some twenty or more models in a single scene. Gratifyingly, the film was an unqualified critical and commercial success.” - all from page 230

“Aardman Animations is without doubt the most original and most commercial animation studio in the world. Its output is extremely British though, perhaps surprisingly, this has not prevented the films it has produced from being commercial successes worldwide.” - page 231

Harryhausen, R. and Dalton, T. (2008) A century of model animation : from Méliès to Aardman. London: Aurum.