Screenings

In In the Realms of the Unreal  most of the scenes are comprised of the drawings and illustrations of Henry Darger himself.  The film has been comprised of these still 2-D illustrations that begin to come to life. The figures begin moving their arms and blinking their eyes, as if they are interacting with the viewer. Some of the scenes seem to be a visual collage comprised of photographs, drawings and vector images. There is an interesting contrast between the innocence and antiquity of these illustrations with the modern concept of motion graphics. The scenes remind me of pages in a coloring book or illustrations in books meant for small children. The film pans slowly over the illustrations, and many of the animated elements are hard to catch. There is a calmness and subtlety to the way in which the motion is being introduced to the 2-D medium.  

The Kid Stays in the Picture is similar to the previous film in that it uses previously shot imagery and adds animation on top of that. In this film photographs are mostly being used, as well as stills from movies that Robert Evan's directed. The manipulation of the photographs is done by adding what appears to be vector animation. One example was a photograph of a man smoking a cigarette. Animation of an ignition and orange burning tip of the cigarette was added as well as an overlay of smoke. Some of the stills themselves have been altered. The people will be cut out and reoriented in the scene. There is a lot more type seen in this film. There are lots of newspaper stories that get shown as a collage of information. There is also a lot of panning from side to side and zooming in and out.  

In the Ken Burns films, all of the imagery is still. The way that he manipulates the stills is to chose how the audience is able to view them. He slowly pans across the images so that you can see all of the detail. He then zooms out so that you can see the whole thing. Photos transition with a soft fade into the next. Though all of the imagery is still, he evokes a lot of motion through his cinematic techniques.