Blog Assignment #6

ESSAY:

            The first image is a still from season five of South Park. South Park is an animated comedy on Comedy Central. The content of the image is one of the main characters, Eric Cartman celebrating his victory over his enemy Scott Tenorman. The shows humor comes in large part due to the crude animation of the characters. The animation uses bright colors to keep the mood upbeat at all times and very little shading or depth is added to the characters. This is to keep the image as simple and basic as possible allowing for distinct facial expressions and character reactions. The movements are choppy and quick. There is very little overlapping in the images, as everything is 2D and as simple as possible at all times. The focus is centered on the faces, which is why they are the lightest color on the screen and the heads are abnormally large in comparison with the rest of the characters bodies.

            The second still is taken from the show DragonBallZ. This is an action adventure anime television show.  As you can see there is much more detail to this image than on South Park. That is because the show has much more story and character development. The plot is much darker and there is a lot more emotion than in South Park. This is illustrated by the darker colors and contrasts between them. There is much more shading to show the muscularity and the characters are drawn to a realistic scale.  There is more overlapping of images and excess details such as blood and wrinkles in the clothing to portray movement and action. DragonBallZ animation uses narrow, slitter eyes and facial expressions to symbolize the darker emotions and convey the characters anger. The movement is often parallel and the fight scenes are often repetitious.  This allows for the animators to take more time on each image but still have enough content to fill the duration of the show.  Overall, the amount of detail that goes in to DragonBallZ is immensely greater than that of South Park, and that all has to do with the type of show and the emotional content that each contains.