Formal Film Studies #2: Animation Studios

I decided to do my formal film studies on different animation studios since one of my favorite genres is animation. The animation studies that i decided to compare was Pixar, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures. The movies that i decided to watch from each studio was Brave, The Croods, and Hotel Transylvania. The cinematic style of each one of these movies are all very different. In the Pixar movie Brave, the editing they did on the movie was a lot complex than The Croods and Hotel Transylvania. You were able to tell because when you were watching the film the animation didnt look like cartoon animation but as if it was real life. Throughout the movie i kept on forgetting that it was an animation that i was watching. The editing in the Dreamworks movie The Croods, was not as amazing as it was in Brave but it did have some moments where editing was very important and they did a good job of showing it. In the Sony Pictures movie Hotel Transylvania, it didn’t have a lot of editing and the style of the film was more of a cartoon.  

In the industry of Hollywood, Pixar is known for having a lot of special effects and editing in their animation movies. This means that Pixar is one of the most popular animation studies out of Pixar, Dreamworks, and Sony Pictures. Some similarities that all these movies have are that they all have an over-all message at the end of each movie. In Brave the moral of the story was that you shouldn’t try to mess up your fate because you can make mistakes that you might not be able to forget. In the movie The Croods the over-all message was that family is the most important thing in life and that no matter what they will always be there for you. In Hotel Transylvania the big message was that you need to trust your kids that when they grow up that the parent needs to learn how to let go and have their kids learn from their mistakes. In the movie Brave some particular shots where I was able to tell how well the editing was in this movie was when she about to throw a bow and arrow and the camera is zoomed up close to her face and you are able to notice all the little details that in this image. This image also shows how they used particular shots to make the moment more intense. In the movie The Croods in a specific scene it showed them walking through a forest and it shows a long shot camera angle to show all the editing in the frame. It shows again how specific they were when drawing this scene. This camera angle also is significant because if they did a close up towards the family, the audience wouldn’t be able to appreciate all the specific details in this shot. In the movie Hotel Transylvania a key scene where you are able to tell that the editing isn’t as specific as it is in the Pixar and Dreamworks film is when the human boy walks into the monsters hotel and everyone thinks he is Frankenstein and the only one that knows he isn’t a monster is Dracula. It shows a close up of all the monsters facial expressions.

My most important discovery of all three of these films was that Pixar films are more dramatic and people are able to relate to their movies. I also discovered that Dreamworks films are more made for more child-based audiences. And finally I discovered that Sony Pictures films are more goofy and silly films. On rotten tomatoes I searched all the percentages that critics gave these three movies. “Brave got 78%, The Croods got 70%, and Hotel Transylvania got 45%” (Rotten Tomatoes). This shows that pixar films are more liked then all the other animation studies like Dreamworks and Sony Animations.