Research: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a mariner who has returned from a torturous sea voyage.

The Mariner stops a man who is on his way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross (symbolizing the Christian soul) appears and leads them out of the Antarctic; despite the ship's crew praising the albatross, the Mariner shoots it. The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross had brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears, thus making themselves accomplices in the Mariner's crime. However, the death of the albatross arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

The sailors change their minds again, this time blaming the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. They force the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck as a symbol of his guilt.

Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the Life-in-Death (a beautiful but deathly-pale woman) who play dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members, while Life-in-Death wins the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.

One by one, all of the crew members are killed, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the dead crew. The Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them. As he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially absolved. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland, having seen the approaching ship, come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a dinghy. When they pull the Mariner from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes insane and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil. As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth and tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets.

After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".

Research: Tim Burton's Animations

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a 2005 stop-motion-animation fantasy musical film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. It is set in a fictional village in Europe, during the Victorian era. Johnny Depp led an all-star cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter (for whom the project was specially created) voiced Emily, the title character. Corpse Bride is the third stop-motion feature-film produced by Tim Burton (not including his short film Vincent), the first two being The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.

James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. The film begins with normal live-action for the first twenty minutes, but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York City (although the mutated insect characters remained in stop-motion form). Selick had originally planned for James to be a real actor through the entire film, then later considered doing the whole film in stop-motion, but ultimately settled on doing entirely live-action and entirely stop-motion sequences due to costs.

Research: My Ghost Ship

I intend to have the Ghost ship belonging to Death and Life-In-Death leap out of the sea and approach the Mariner's ship; this is COMPLETELY inaccurate to the poem, however, I do feel that an effect like this would improve the cinematic feel of my animation, and make it more exciting! After all, a ship leaping from the waves is far more intimidating than having it drift slowly towards you on the tide!

This is one film scene which inspired my decision: The Flying Dutchman Attack from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.



Another scene which inspired me was, oddly enough, not about a ship, but a shark! The way robo-shark jumps out of the water to attack the peach really adds to the excitement of the scene! Unfortunately, the actual footage of the shark jumping out of the sea is not available on youtube, so instead, I have found a picture depicting the scene in question; a brief glimse of the jump is also in the trailer (0.51 onwards) which I have uploaded in an earlier post.

Research: Films Which Inspired My Animation

The AMAZING James and the Giant Peach (1996)



The brilliant Corpse Bride (2005)

The 1992 short film The Sandman, which youtube has refused to allow me to embed! Finally, the 2006 stop-motion animation "Peter and the Wolf" which uses only musical soundtrack - much like I intend to do!

Individual Characters

Young Mariner:

Ancient Mariner:

Death:

Finally! a Life-In-Death who I am happy with! Compare her to how she looked earlier; NO COMPARISON!!! I think I finally achieved a woman who is beautiful but slightly deranged, as opposed to grotesque!

And the happy couple together:

My Ancient Mariner

Here I am pleased to post my four COMPLETE principal characters for my stop motion animation.

They were photographed using a green screen; I then used photoshop to remove the background an superimpose a ship deck.

I hope you like them!

Lady GaGa - Alejandro

This is my chosen piece of media to analyse - Lady GaGa's Alejandro.

The music video was inspired by Gaga's love for her gay friends and admiration of gay love. Within the video, Gaga dances with a group of soldiers in a cabaret which is interspersed with scenes of Gaga as a nun swallowing a rosary and near-naked men holding machine guns.

The video was highly controversial, with critics complimenting its idea and dark nature while the Catholic League attacked Gaga for appearing to use blasphemy despite Klein (the director) dismissing the idea and claiming that the scene in question (the swallowing of Rosary beads) was Gaga's "desire to take in the Holy".

Synopsis:

A portion of the video is dedicated to the Broadway musical Cabaret. The video begins with soldiers sleeping in a cabaret with a close-up of a soldier passed out in fishnet stockings and heels as another lone soldier stares into the distance. The scene then cuts to male dancers performing elaborate choreography while marching forward. As the intro of the song begins, Gaga is shown leading a funeral procession, carrying the Sacred Heart on a pillow. When the lyrics begin, she sits on a throne wearing an elaborate headpiece and binocular-like eyepieces, with a smoking pipe in her hand, watching her dancers perform a rigorous routine in the snow. Gaga is then seen as the character Sally Bowles from Cabaret, dancing and simulating sex acts with three men on a stage with twin beds surrounded by spotlights, all wearing nothing but underwear, intercut with shots of Gaga lying on a larger bed dressed in a red latex nun outfit. She subsequently appears dressed in a white hooded robe, reminiscent of Joan of Arc, with her dancers, interspersed with a shot of her as the nun, consuming a set of rosary beads. After this, Gaga and her dancers are shown in a sequence in black-and-white in their military uniforms performing a tribute dedicated to the late choreographer Bob Fosse, who won an Academy Award for his direction of the film version of Cabaret. Gaga is seen in a blonde bob and a similar outfit to one of Liza Minnelli's performance costumes. The video moves to a scene of her wearing a bra equipped with AR-15 assault rifle barrels and her dancers performing another dance routine. She is then shown in the empty club, scenes of war breaking out flash by, and the lone soldier appears again. Going back to the Joan of Arc scene, she struggles with her dancers and disrobes. The video ends with her dressed as the nun, the film burning away from her face outwards. GaGa explained that the video was, "about a woman's desire to resurrect a dead love and who can not face the brutality of her present situation. The pain of living without your true love."

Like Judas, "Alejandro" directly references several other forms of culture and media. Some of these include:

The Night Porter:

Caberet:

And many portrayals of Joan of Arc:

Furthermore, GaGa's image at the beginning of the video bears a striking resemblance to Eva Perron:

GaGa's use of symbolism is back! The sacred heart makes an appearance at the start of the video:

The scene which sparked such controversy was where GaGa swallows a set of Rosary Beads:

Opinions are divided as to what this is meant to symbolise. One opinion claims that it reflects GaGa's desire to "take in holiness" while another claims that it is a metaphor for religion forcing its way down people's throats (with restrictions on homosexuality etc.)

This is one of my favorite videos by Lady GaGa, and I really appreciate the symbolism and metaphors she has illustrated in this piece!