Rhythm, Silence, Mah and Mahnahmahnah!

First year animator Michelle has an interesting commentry and excellent clip (Roger Ebert on Grave Of the Fireflies) on her student blog. The discussion and part of the video critique is about what may be called animating silence but Michelle describes as breathing space: a shot placed between key scenes, giving the viewer visual "thinking"/absorption time to process the information. Jim Henson's Mahnahmahnah gets a mention in the discussion.

2 comments:

Alonso said...

really interesting, thanks for the tip :)
I love the silence in Ghibli stuff, it's one of the things that makes it stand out as not american movies which are always go go go.

Frank said...

Hey Alonso, Glad you liked it. I think Michelle did a nice job picking up a subject of conversation and creating an excellent commentry.

The "silence" was an important concept covered in the film making masterclass at Gobelins. The French seem to treat it with due respect as well.