Animation-IDD blog

Name:
Location: Connecticut, United States

I am an Interactive Digital Design student at Quinnipiac University. I am also minoring in Screenwriting.

Monday, October 25, 2004

President Animation

I'm sure that you have already watched this animation parody about the Presidential election this year, but I just thought this Presidential Animation was quite funny! The song that was turned into a parody was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Since we are working on animations to poems, I thought that this little political gesture was appropriate considering it has the lyrics of the new song written as it sings.
Anyway, the first thing I noticed that is pretty obvious to anyone who was watching is the way that John Kerry and President Bush were portrayed. They had real picture faces and hands and their bodies were just cartoon-like. (This also went for the rest of the governmental people in the animation.) The bitmap faces were altered so that the lower jaw could move up and down to make it appear that they were singing the lyrics. They also did some adjustments to the eyebrows, it appears, and also body movement with hands and arms so that the singing looked a little more life-like rather than just a mouth moving up and down.
By adding the jokes about each of the candidates and animating them made the jokes even more funny and is obvious that it's just for entertainment purposes only. One of the jokes was about how Kerry's opinion changes. The animated Bush says "Any way the wind blows, that's the way John Kerry goes." During this part, Kerry's face on a chicken is shown on top of a weathervane pointing one way and then the other. Also, there was a part where Bush says, "My brother Jeb has some ballots put aside for me," and his brother was holding a ballot box winking and tapping a ballot box. Like these examples, there are many other animated jokes that were put into the animation.
I believe that the main focus of this animation is the faces of the people in the animation because that is mostly what is the most detailed. The bodies are simple, the background is simple, even the lyrics that are written aren't very attention grabbing. They seem to just be there so that the viewer is aware of what the candidates are singing. The backgrounds are mostly pictures that are faded or don't have a lot of color in them so that the characters are the main focus of the animation. The creators didn't want the background to distract the attention of the viewer but wanted them to understand the locations that were being presented.
Overall, I basically put this up because it's been the funniest animation that I have come across so far and I want other people to watch it too. It is very well done and entertaining because all of the voters America are familiar with the side jokes about President Bush and John Kerry. I definitely recommend checking out this animation!