Monday, September 1, 2014

Cartoons and Film Clips

One of the first common aspect between all the videos is that they're all overly dramatic. The cartoons contain disproportionate characters performing unrealistic actions, while the film clips contain real people getting into unlikely situations. One cartoon shows a car taking a U-turn on its own and driving off a cliff; two characters have a full on conversation as they plunge to their death. The other cartoon shows Dudley Do-Right walking through a wall to report to his father in a timely manner, and the girl he likes kissing his horse romantically. A film clip shows a woman being chained to railroad tracks and a train stopping just in time to break the chains, but not kill her. The other film clip contains men killing each other with guns, and throwing their hands in the air before they dramatically fall to the ground and die.

All the videos also seem to have a similarity in plot and characters. They all have powerful women, whether they are stuck on train tracks or not, who are unharmed and many times making demands. Dudley's crush repeatedly rejects him; Sheik's wife kills him; the woman in The Bullwinkle Show yells at her husband or boyfriend before they plunge to their death. They also have a very simple plot line where there's an obvious exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and (maybe) resolution. Most of the time, the resolution is a happy ending where the bad guys lose or the good guys at least remain unharmed.

In addition, the cartoons have animated characters that have very expressive facial expressions to convey the emotions they are feeling, like a human's face would. However, they are much more dramatic. Teardrops are larger, a smile fills up a character's face, eyebrows move all over the forehead to point out a few examples. While they're faces are more expressive, their body language is less expressive. They have very rigid body movements, and much less often than a human in a film clip would. The overly expressive facial expressions make up for the lack of body movements in a cartoon.

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