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My first project to exceed the half hour mark and essentially my first ever feature length film. It is no surprise that the film gained a certain hype and/or expectation after the upload of Jeopardy and its unique look that it brought to fan made YouTube videos at the time. I however didn't feel comfortable uploading the film in its original state. aside from the fact it occupied very bad narration and copyrighted music, the film was very slow moving and even the animation puts an emphasis on this point of it being a very lax looking film. I was 15 years old when I made this film and it certainly shows from the sound of my voice and the simplistic animation. Still working with the same camera as previous episodes and specials, as well as the sequel Jeopardy, which as an average JVC DV camcorder that was animated with a trusty remote control on small cassette looking tapes known as 'DV Tapes' or Digital Video. I personally find that this was the best way to begin making films because of the small sized camera that I was using as well as the advantage of having a wireless remote control that could activate the recording function between frames whilst the camera stayed still. This project did however use a significant amount of live action where I could get away with it; alas I have since used live action in both Jeopardy and Christmas Disaster to a minuscule extent. I of course would like to stress however that something within the film works well, maybe it's the narrative structure or even the sudden step into darker themes; whatever it is I gained the faith to restore the film and heighten the audio's narration and soundtrack to a royalty free cinematic scale instead of the soundtrack from films that would have used the music in a similar way. For those who haven't realised, this film has been heavily influenced by the 2000 feature film 'Thomas and the Magic Railroad'. I find that this film is one to never leave my heart and when I made this film I had in mind the successful conventions that were used from that film despite it being an incredibly reworked film customised for the purposes of the American audiences that became a box office flop. I however don't see the film being any worse than popular cinema today about vampires and wolves with acting that is far worse and narratives that indeed consist of dragged out battles between two kinds of creature. When comparing both films, the visual quality and hand crafted creativeness is nothing compared with the visual effects, most likely used with maya, and then rendered to suit the needs of teenage girls who are more in love with the cast's looks than the actual plot or the general performances from the cast. This is were the creative input of films are neglected for the sake of the ignorance of critics that simply look at the cast and their embarrasment in contrast with their former 'more adult' films they've been in rather than study the, emphasis here, 'Hand Made' animation and unique style that has won the hearts of people around the world. I simply cannot comprehend why Hollywood didn't trust Britt Allcroft in that respect as her success with Thomas was clear that she knew how to handle the way in which children consume the world of Sodor and the characters. |
