The age of stupid

15^th may 09

 

 

The age of stupid

 

The age of stupid is a film produced by John Battsek. The film is about a man (Pete Postlewaite) living in the devastated future (2005) he sits watching footage from the past (2008) as he stresses the fact “why didn’t we try stop climate change while we had the chance? The footage is about poverty, war and the environment that we live in and the effects that we are causing to our planet. The film follows the daily lives of several people as they are interviewed; as they tell us about their problems of how they are living.  One man Alvin Duvernay is devastated by the loss of his home due to the hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, his home and belongings have gone; the only thing that is left is 2 tree’s that stood in his garden.  That day he rescued 100 people at sea’s on his boat, which was an eye opener for Alvin as he saw a “taste of what was to come if we continue to take advantage of our most valuable resource. He says “with our use or misuse of resources from the last 100 years or so, I’d probably rename this age something like The age of ignorance, The age of stupid.

Two children Jamila and Adnan Bayyoud wait for their elder brother to return to them after he was badly burnt by the Americans and their father killed. The young boy tells us how “his father was the best man in Iraq, but the Americans killed him. If I see the Americans again I will kill them too” The children’s home is also destroyed, it happened on the second day of the war in Iraq.

We see the affects of our day to day living such as pollution from transports and how it isn’t necessarily needed such as transporting food that we already have here. We see the differences in life style from Jeh Wadia a man born in one of the richest family businesses in India to Layefa Malemi a wannabe medical student living in a village called Niger Delta, she lives with tiny amounts of water, no electricity etc she tells us “If I could live like an American, I wouldn’t want to die, I wouldn’t want to leave this earth”

 

 

Notes

·      The age of stupid came out the same time as the film “300” in 200?

·      The animators for the age of stupid also produced a BBC ad for the Euro football-using live action with hand painted art- (works well together)

·      For the explosions in the film, they experimented at the University by exploding milk in a tank; they also used this technique for the smoke but handed it to another animator so that he could add a cross stitch affect so that it blends in with the style of animation. Tests were then done on After effects to get a good idea of how it would look and giving them a better idea of the time line.

·      For the shot of London under water they took shots of London and water, then recorded a piece of poly floating on a lake; they then built the imagery adding the city to the imagery of the water. They added the video footage of the floating poly and added shadows and more imagery and effects to make the piece feel and look realistic and more alive.

·      Different medium used to make the film- live footage, CGI, After effects

·      Wanted to give it that montage feel

 

John

·      Freelance director/Teaching art at Middlesex University

·      Worked on the animation Charlie and Lola

·      Mainly doing commercial- Channel 4, animation scheme, Lava scheme-London film (won awards)

·      Re-produced the video for the band “U2”. They were given it to them and asked if they could change it by making the background more interesting. The video is very 60’s style as they were asked to do the animation in the style of Vivian Westwood; they were also influenced by other pop art. Live footage is used with the Cg background that’s been added by using the green screen

·      They sent an invite for the public to send their photographs if they wanted to appear in their film “the age of stupid”. They had a great response and were able to pick out the people that they thought were suitable for the film

·      A lot of research and references were used for the style of imagery and textures

·      Had a problem getting the copy write on the Aboriginal piece of the people; it was the only reference that they could find and in the end it was ok to use.

·      Most of the imagery is repeated, the people were duplicated, the same water and other parts of the animation were re-used (saves a lot of time)

·      Parts of the film are very Monty Python style

·      A lot of the work was done on After effects, some of the parts were very time consuming as there were a lot of imagery to move around and animate

·      The script was given to them and it took 4 attempts to alter it before it was finished (had to take a lot of the dialog off to fit into the time line)