This piece has to be one of my biggest inspirations for my work. I first saw this at the Bradford Animation Festival in 2010 and was immediately struck by the simplicity of the piece. Although I know the amount of work that goes into making something like this I can appreciate how clever Ben Cady has been in the production of his graduation film. It shows that there doesn't need to be lots of detail and really complicated techniques used, but shows how no dialogue can be implemented to compliment such a genius idea. The fact is it just wouldn't have worked if it had been in any style or had any more detail in it, as this would distract from the idea and would mean that the audience would not follow what was happening. Added: 24/03/2014
This is another piece that I feel I have been inspired by. Although it is not animation I find it a highly inspiring short film. This is because once again it is a simple idea. The farmer goes out and locks his daughter in as he wants to keep the farm hands away from her. It is a story that is told once again without dialogue and is very powerful in what it achieves. My main reason for being inspired by this though is the twist revealed at the end. The film makers could very easily have concluded this piece with the girl going back inside and smiling at the farm hand, this would let the audience know that something else would happen between the two. However, because of the twist at the end of the film, you realise that the farmer had a very good reason for wanting to keep his daughter locked up.
This is the reason why I love the 'Grass of Parnassus', because it tells a story and you would be quite happy for it to end nicely all flowers and tweeting birds, but because it has the twist you remember it for that something that you didn't expect to happen. Added 24/03/2014.
Pingu for me is another example of what makes a good animation. It shows that through the stop motion animation an international audience can be reached because understanding is not dependent on the dialogue but on the visuals. This a technique that has been used time after time in many animations and live action clips, one of the most famous being Mr Bean. Rowan Atkinson has stated that with the character being 'mute' that the best place to showcase his new character was with a foreign speaking audience to see if the humour could bridge the gap and be universally understood. After all if you are doing comedy in its simplest purest form then you don't need dialogue to be able to laugh at what is happening on screen. Added 24/03/2014.
There has been criticism of Seth MacFarlane's (creator of Family Guy) technique, http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/analyzing-the-animation-of-seth-macfarlane-7429.html, stating that there is too little animation actually happening. But I believe that this doesn't matter. The point of Radio is to tell a story through words, and the point of TV is to tell a story through a combination of both words and images (or clips). However, the difference between Radio and TV is that TV is not dependent on both words and images. It can survive on just images (clips) on its own. For as long as the audience can see what is happening they can follow the story. This is after all story telling in its most original form, 'cave paintings' showed events happening through images but not words. I think that the biggest criticism of Seth MacFarlane is one made more of jealousy than of his work, because he has been successful where others who may have more movement haven't. This isn't anything to do with the animation technique but more to do with he fact that Seth has been able to find the gap in the market for his story telling and he has exploited this. Most people will criticise if they don't like something, but if they had come up with the idea first then the wouldn't be as critical. They would enjoy their success and dismiss the criticism. Added 24/03/2014.
Stuff below added in academic year 2012/2013
I find this inspirational for what I am doing as you get humour from unexpected places which is what I am trying to go for. That humour of making the audience think that something is going to happen and then make something else happen instead. This is very much what I intend to achieve with my animation. You will see something happen or about to happen, and may even think that you know what is about to happen. I will be however adding something slightly different into the animations though so although you may guess parts of what is going to occur you will not be able to guess everything that is about to happen.
Update - with the new ideas being implemented this unexpected humour is going to come from the zombie alone and not external influence.
I particularly like when the character Shaun is being attacked by the Zombie and that rather than helping his friend Ed goes to get a camera to take a picture, and then to add to this humour both Shaun and the zombie look at the camera when Ed is ready to take the picture. This is once again a perfect example of what I hoping to achieve with Animated Zombies. In the sense that you can see something is going to occur but you can never be truly sure what this is that is going to happen.
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