Essay/Review on short film Jasper Morello

Written by Jodie Becker

ACM132 – Introduction to Animation

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello – The First Voyage

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005) is an Australian film directed and co-written by Anthony Lucas. It is has a long list of awards and was nominated for an academy award.

This movie is classified in a genre that became popular in the 90’s known as Steampunk - A fiction genre set in Englands Victorian era, where steam power is the prominent technology in the 19th century. However this particular film is set in the year 1276 and gives a look at an alternate world for the human race. As it is a fantasy genre there are also many fictional technologies that are not based on history, the past and present become mixed together to create all new machines. There are floating islands, iron airships and strange creatures that make up the curious world of this film.

The story follows the character Jasper Morello, a disgraced navigator who is haunted by a fatal mistake he made on his last expedition. He nervously sets out on a new voyage but vows it will be his last before he and his wife can settle down and start a family. Their home city, Gothia is currently being ravaged by a Plague and in their travels they are accompanied by a scientist searching for a cure. Jasper worries about his wife back home when he notices she is sick over a video-phone conversation. When the ship is thrown off course, they discover an abandoned ship they are forced to use when their own becomes damaged. Flying in uncharted air, the crew discovers a monster that holds a cure for the disease. Jasper is torn between the need to bring the cure to his wife and sacrificing the lives of his ship-mates.

All of the characters in this film are silhouettes. This animation style has its origins from wayang, the Indonesian shadow puppets which have been around for 300 years. The film is overall very dark and gothic due to the monochrome scheme that is also common in other silhouette films. Color has been used sparingly and only highlights the more dramatic details such as the illness that kills people that appears as a bright orange lava substance.

Traditionally silhouette animation was made using stop motion techniques, the first full length film made with this method was The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) by Lotte Reiniger. However traditional cel animation is easily able to imitate the style. The anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997) shows example of this modern version of the technique frequently. It is most likely that The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello has been made using cel or computers for the 2D animated characters.

The backgrounds in the film are made from a combination of found objects and CGI rendering. Many objects are also silhouettes but there is enough of a balance between detailed objects and the black silhouettes that they all work together harmoniously.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello was enjoyable to watch for both its uncommon use of animation styles and curious plot line. It’s actually rather creepy and is definitely not a story for small children as it deals with darker sides of humanity, violence and death. The plot keeps you wondering how this story is going to end. When it did come to an end I was a little disappointed because the story was left open and I personally like things to be wrapped up. But I discovered that this film is part of a series containing 4 episodes (voyages). I was left wanting more, so I will seek out the other episodes and continue to follow the adventures of Jasper Morello.

Bibliography

Wikipedia, Silhouette Animation, Wikipedia, retrieved 5th August 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette_animation>

 Sandall, S, Anthony Lucas on The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, Amazon, retrieved 4th August 2009, <http://readersvoice.com/interviews/2006/January/230/>

Madman Entertainment, Gothia Gazette, Madman Entertainment, retrieved 21st July 2009, <http://www.jaspermorello.com>

Wikipedia, The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, Wikipedia, retrieved 1st August 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Geographic_Explorations_of_Jasper_Morello>

Foster, M,  Animated Shorts - The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper , Google, retrieved 6th August 2009, <http://www.fosteronfilm.com/shorts/jaspermorello.htm>

Tutorial Link : How to digital paint grass in Photoshop

After an introduction, the tutorial starts about 3 minutes, 30 seconds into the video. It teaches you how to set up your brushes to paint strokes with gradients that layer nicely into one another. I will definitely have to try this out! ~ http://vimeo.com/78183651

State Library of Victoria - A history of books

Early last year (2013) I went on a walk by myself through the city after running some errands. It was a nice day, so I brought my camera with me and decided to go wherever was interesting. Among other things, I ended up finding a little free exhibition in the State Library about old types of books.

Full photoset here ~
http://unikorn.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Melbourne-30th-Jan-2013

Elsa has mutant powers XD

Hilarious little animation!

Blood Moon Eclipse

There was an eclipse this evening, causing the moon to have a red color. I enhanced it a little in post.

I experimented with longer exposures to get more of a glow, came out pretty cool.

3D Animated version of the Card Captor Sakura opening.

Beautiful fan creation of a 3D animation version of the Card Captor Sakura opening! The amount of work put into this to get the timing, models and colors right would have been painstaking. Amazing work by Tomo.

Nendoroid More PJ's!

1/125 @ f10 400ISO

I got the Nendoroid More Pajamas set! It's very cute to put your nendo's in PJ's! Seeing if you can match up all the colors is fun. I have 12 Nendoroids at the moment, so there will be a bit of swapping around for more pictures. Although I do have 3 versions of Miku and 2 versions of Kaito. XD

I shot this in front of a bright sunny window. So I had to adjust the lighting a bit in post processing as the figures were a little dark for my lighting. I could have used flash to brighten them up but I wanted the soft natural lighting.

ACM138 Animation - Autodesk Maya - Water Temple

Deakin University was a good place to do my Graphic Design degree because it had flexibility with elective subjects. Which meant I could explore other things I was interested in studying. I took a few subjects from the Animation section and learnt a little bit about using Maya - a 3D animation program. I was very noob at it because Animation was not my major but I had fun making things.

The major assignment for the first subject was to build a room and then have a camera pan through it. So while people built bedrooms and lounge rooms, I decided to make a water temple and try to emulate bloom effects.

I will have to see if I can track down the actual video that panned through this room, I'm not sure if I managed to back it up on my USB drive because the file was quite large. But here are the screenshots of it.

And here is the video!

ACM102 Comparitive Imaging - Assignment 5

This was a photography assignment from university. In the first part we were asked to create a series of alike things - a typology. I have a lot of keyrings, so I made a photo set of them! The second part of the assignment required us to create a rule which would mean we had to take a photo. Mine was I had to take a photo of everything I ate and I did that for 5 days. As you can see I'm naughty and eat a lot of junk. XD

Preying mantis

Yesterday I had a visitor, this praying mantis was sitting on my car bonnet! I noticed it when looking out the window and scurried off to grab my camera and a zoom lens. I probably looked strange still wearing my PJ's and pointing my camera at my car but you have to be quick to catch cool things like this!