Tag: animation

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Assignment for Thursday, 10.15.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, October 15, our unit on Medea and Jason continues. Please do the following.

VIEWING

Streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit. Here is another opportunity to you to revisit the work of Ray Harryhausen — Harryhausen, at the height of his powers; you, with far more experience in approaching myth on screen.

ANALYSIS

Eiger and Raker will continue our Analysis series. Their sequence selection is in the comments.

READING

  • Blanshard, Alastair J. L. and Kim Shahabudin. 2011. “Myth and the Fantastic: Jason and the Argonauts.” Classics on Screen: Ancient Greece and Rome on Film. Chapter 6, 125–145. Bristol Classical Press.

Blanshard and Shahabudin, as they usually do, provide not only important context for today’s viewing but also its reception in later screen texts.

  • “Speed and Length of the Shot” &”Special Effects.” LAM Chapter 6, pp. 223–230.

These sections from Looking at Movies have not a little bearing on Jason and the Argonauts, which is both nearly 60 years old and an FX extravaganza.

SEQUENCES

  • Gross, Padala.

Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.

Recommendations should contain the following:

  • A brief description of the sequence.
  • Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
  • A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.

DC

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Assignment for Thursday, 10.08.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, October 8, our unit on Heracles/Hercules comes to an end. Please do the following.

VIEWING

Streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit.

And I do mean optional. This is a video version of a lecture/paper I’ve been working on for a while now. Some of you saw a version of it at a Classics banquet last year. Here I’m trying to draw comparisons between animation and the ancient epic convention of ekphrasis. If nothing else, let it illustrate some possibilities for developing a paper topic.

READING

  • Blanshard, Alastair J. L. and Kim Shahabudin. 2011. “The Disney Version: Hercules.” Classics on Screen: Ancient Greece and Rome on Film. Chapter 9, 194–215. Bristol Classical Press.

Blanshard and Shahabudin situate Disney’s animated romp against the peplum traditions established decades earlier.

  • “The Musical” &”Evolution and Transformation of Genre.” LAM Chapter 3, pp. 100–5.

It’s time to check in again with Looking at Movies, since in today’s screen text we have not only a mythological film set in the ancient world but also a musical, per Disney practice. This reading will help us think about genre conventions as well as ways of transcending genre.

SEQUENCES

  • Graubart, Huntley, Raker.

Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.

Recommendations should contain the following:

  • A brief description of the sequence.
  • Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
  • A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.

DC

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Assignment for Thursday, 09.10.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, September 10, we continue our unit on Perseus on screen. Please do the following.

VIEWING

  • Clash of the Titans (Louis Leterrier, 2010)

The film is streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit. You might contemplate how this remake responds to the original from the standpoint of narrative, theme, and/or technology.

READING

  • Curley, Dan. 2015. “Divine Animation: Clash of the Titans (1981).” In Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith E. Safran, ed. Classical Myth on Screen, 207–17. Palgrave-Macmillan.

Since I’ll be evaluating your writing this semester, it’s only fair that you evaluate some of mine. See what, if anything, my take on animation in the original Clash and its remake lends to your appreciation of either film.

  • Tomasso, Vincent. 2015. “The Twilight of Olympus: Deicide and the End of the Greek Gods.” In Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith E. Safran, ed. Classical Myth on Screen, 147–57. Palgrave-Macmillan.

Tomasso’s essay (from the same volume) will get us further along in our ongoing discussion of how modern media wrangles with Greek deities and their immortality. Value added: Tomasso surveys a variety of screen texts from the 1960s onward.

SEQUENCES

  • Bernstein, Knepper, Whatley.

Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.

Recommendations should contain the following:

  • A brief description of the sequence.
  • Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
  • A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.

DC

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Assignment for Thursday, 09.03.20

Dear Cinemythologists,

On Thursday, September 3, we begin our unit on Perseus on screen. Please do the following.

VIEWING

The film is streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit.

READING

  • “What about Animation?” LAM Chapter 3 (“Types of Movies”), pp. 106–9.

This section will both gather up our thread about animation from our viewing of Mythopolis last Thursday and provide further context for Harryhausen’s special effects in Clash ’81. It’s up to you whether you want to read these pages before you watch the movie, or afterward.

  • “In the Lap of the Gods,” aka Ray Harryhausen’s memoir, An Animated Life, Chapter 11 (Billboard Books, 2004).

Read this memoir after you watch the movie (not before). Clash ’81 was Harryhausen’s last film, so the chapter not only details the behind-the-scenes work on that project, but also caps his career. As you read, reflect on how you feel about the movie with this memoir in mind, as opposed to how you felt while watching it. I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say about that.

SEQUENCES

  • Cullors, Rosenblum, Savage.

Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.

Recommendations should contain the following:

  • A brief description of the sequence.
  • Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
  • A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.

DC

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