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Both incredible films with a lot of similarities but a large amount of differences as well. The first major difference I noticed was how quickly Pixar engage the audience with the characters. Within the first ten minutes of Up me and friends were welling up completely unaware the film would be sad in the slightest. I thought the pace I became connected to the main character was extraordinary! Sony weren’t too far behind and as the characters developed in the film you grew to genuinely care about them. Hoping to go into this field of work myself, I am worried about how to make my characters this engaging to an audience and am hoping to learn this over the coming years.
The levels of detail in both the films are totally different. I think that Pixar were paying particular attention to specific details in the characters and the environment whereas Sony concentrated on the unusual shapes of people’s bodies and the world around them. When I watched Up I was amazed at the intricate stitching detail on clothing and how I could almost see individual strands of hair. Also as the adventure in the film developed and the characters were away from home for a longer time I noticed how they added stubble to the old man’s face! This kind of detail wasn’t apparent in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. However, watching the film I struggled to see any similar characters. They were all different shapes, sizes, proportions, etc. It was obvious they had paid more attention to this than to intricate detail. I really liked the artistic way they had used shapes to create characters look so unrealistic yet believable as people. You can tell from looking at them they wouldn’t be able to function in their proportions, but in the film are moving just as a human would do and it’s completely believable.
Another thing I noticed was how weather played quite a key role in each of the films. Obviously Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was about the weather but in both films the weather is used to portray emotion. Different types of weather cause trouble in the films bringing suspense and worry for the characters survival. The colours used reflect this anxiousness the characters are feeling. While, on the other hand, when a good event in the film happens the colours and weather highlight how great this thing is and the joyous emotion the character is feeling.
I would recommend both these films to everyone. They’re clever, funny and entertaining (even my mum enjoyed Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs). The stories are completely ridiculous but that’s the point! Animation enables things to happen which can’t in real life and I really like how these kinds of films really utilise this ability and hopefully I will in my work.
