Hotel Rwanda - For livia

Do you consider the ending of 'Hotel Rwanda' is realistic, or is it too happy? Has 'Hotel Rwanda' been 'Hollywoodized?'

The 2004 film ‘Hotel Rwanda’ directed by Terry George focuses on the cold truths and its disturbing account of the genocide. The film achieves the ability to simultaneously shock viewers. In order to produce the film, joint collective efforts were made by Hollywood companies such as United Artists and Lions Gate Films. It was made an independent film which means that initially it was only released in some theatres. The film successfully won awards including Academy Award nominations for best actor, best supporting actress and best Original screenplay.

In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place. During the course of the 100 days that this shocking incident occurred, at least 800,000 people were killed In Rwanda and other countries did nothing to stop it. Belgian occupants established the entire social separation of the Rwandan people that helped provoke the massacre and added more shame to the situation. What’s more is that whilst the rest of the world was debating the difference between ‘genocide’ and the ‘acts of genocide’, innocent lives were being put in danger and the Rwandan people were dying for no reason.

Paul Rusesabaina (Don Cheadle) has played in many Hollywood films as a leading role such as the film ‘2012’ which was released in early 2010. His character in Hotel Rwanda is the manager of the ‘Sabena Hotel des Mille Collines and he is part of the Hutu. However his wife, Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) is Tutsi. This obviously causes controversy with the Hutu extremists. As the political situation in the country worsens, Paul and his family witness friends, family and neighbours being killed in the terrifying ethnic violence. In order to rescue these people Paul asks for favours from people with influence so that his family were kept safe. He bribed them with money and alcohol.

As the civil war erupted, Rwandan Army officers threatened Paul and his neighbours however he barely negotiates and brings everyone back to the hotel. Word gets out and more refugees come to the hotel from the exploited United Nations camp, the Red Cross and the orphanages. Paul has now been put under so much responsibility to take care of these people, being the source of strength to his family whilst also continuing the appearance of a functioning high-class hotel.

The UN Peacekeeping forces are led by Canadian Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte -who has played in other leading Hollywood films such as 48 hours with co-star Eddie Murphy) was powerless to take assertive action towards the Interhamwe because they are outlawed to intervene in the genocide. Then the foreign Nationals are evacuated, but the Rwandans are left behind. I remember during this point in the film I became quite teary and I captured the emotions of the characters. When the UN forces try to evacuate a group of refugees, which included Paul’s family they were turned back. Just as I was beginning to think that all hope was gone and the film was about to have an unhappy ending, Paul pleads with the Rwandan Army General for some help but the bribes no longer worked. Paul refuses to give up, so he did something risky and blackmails the General with threats of being strained as a war criminal. Success! As the family and hotel refugees are finally able to leave the hotel and travel through retreating crowds of refugees and militia to reach safety behind the Tutsi rebel lines.

Do I think Hotel Rwanda is ‘Too Happy’? I would say no because I did shed a few tears in some parts of the film even though I am extremely soppy when it comes to films like this anyway! However it also made me feel good towards the end that the people in Rwanda were rescued by a man with not too much power. As the film was based on a true story that occurred in 1994 I was oblivious to any of this happening as I had only just been born that year. Whilst writing this review I stated that ‘at least 800,000 people were killed In Rwanda and other countries did nothing to stop it’. Whilst my family was celebrating my birth and other families were celebrating the birth of their child, there was a civil war going on that killed over 800,000 innocent lives.

Hollywood is known as a sunny, glossy, plastic and Upper Class City. However the films defer depending on the Genre. Hotel Rwanda being a drama film fit its genre perfectly. So do I think that ‘Hotel Rwanda’ been ‘Hollywoodized’? I would say that it was a great film, with exceptional A List Actors and Actresses’ and high-quality effects so in that way it was perfectly hollywoodized. The producers chose Don Cheadle as the lead role and he played it perfectly, they could have picked more of a well known actor or one who has a body of a supermodel but they obviously picked the one that fit the role perfectly, and there was no mistake made there.

Clay animation

How is Clay Motion created? - Well, you create your characters with clay and place them in position and in the background that you want. You then shoot an image of that and make a tiny adjustment and then..... shot an image of that & so on... :). Usually claymation runs at about 10-12 frames per second instead of the more usual 24 frames per second used in films.

The video below is a clay animation film for a sports advertisement for 'Buffalo Bills' which is an american Football team.
In the future i would definitely want to achieve something similar to this. The creators used clay to create every single one of the props which i can imagine would have been very time consuming to make and then film.

The first clay animation film was 1933's film 'King Kong' The fight scene between the giant ape and a tyrannosaurus rex was achieved using claymation, or stop-motion, animation techniques.
The most famous exponent of these films nowadays is Nick Park of Aardman Animation, the creator of the infamous Wallace and Gromit characters.

Heres an example of clay animation that me and some classmates created in one of our lessons!
There are a lot of differences in comparison from the film i created and the film that in the above video. No, we did make all of our props out of clay and we only had 2 characters that move unlike the other video where most of the props moved! even the plant! (Which were fully made out of clay ^^). The buffalo bills commercial also used better sound effects and they added much more detail to their characters and props to make it look a bit more realistic.
It was pretty hard to tell that the objects were made by clay in the first video and you have had to have a real eye for the different types of animation techniques to be able to tell that it was a clay animation.

Pixillation animation

Pixelation animation also known as stop motion animation / stop-action or frame by frame. Is an animation technique which can make a physically manipulated object look as if it is moved on its own. It is created by taking photographs frame by frame of a changing situation and when played back in order creates an animation. Altering the frames per second in which the photographs are played can create a different affect, decreasing will slow down the animation where as increasing it will speed the animation up.

Drawn Animation?!

Yes theres another type of animation!

Drawn animation is one of the tradionally known types of animation and the oldest. In a traditionally old cartoon, each character was indeed drawn by hand (long). As we are now living in the 21st century, where monsters such as MACbook's and ipads live; drawn animation has become less common because we have computers now ^^ so we use 'computer animation' for example... the simpsons uses computer animation.

Here we have two example's of drawn animation drawn by yours truely..

Disney use a lot of drawn animation and they were also one of the first cartoon animators

Object animation?!

So what is object animation you ask?!
well its another form of animation that involves animated movements of an actual object that has not been drawn. For example, a clock, toys or dolls. The objects must not be 'malleable' which means it is not cabable of being shaped of formed like clay is.
Animation is a very time consuming process and is an expensive one. Most animation for movies and TV is done in animation studios. The animation field has existed since 1950s when film production or video production was done by individuals or independent studios

Here is a video called 'The Deep' by a famous animation artists who calls themselves 'EATpes'




Theres no hesitation in saying that 'the deep' is a much more professional animation than the one you are about to see. YES they created a bright and colourful animation that includes sound and looks ten times better than ours. However, you have to give us the benefit of the doubt here... we're amateurs, & to come up with a simple idea like ours didnt need much thought because the equipment and inspiration was around us in the classroom. So we used everyday classroom materials such as chairs, pens and the infamous whiteboard.
Here is the example of a Fun Object animation that me and my media class achieved in one of our lessons! It took us just over 2 hours to film and it required tons of patience and team work.


ENJOY!! :D

Cut out Animation..

.. is one of the oldest forms of animation and in pre computer days, probably the easiest to create. As its name implies, cut- out animation involves moving cut-out shapes in small steps and taking a picture at each stage, this is a lot less work than having to draw every single frame of the animation.

Me and Ibtisam cut out several images from magazines and newspapers that were not relevent to eachother. We then used these cut outs to create a stop motion animation. For example, Ibtisam cut out a babys head and put it on a mans half naked body! the animation was of the baby eating a cake and towards the end we gradually spelt 'mmm' :).


Here is an example of Cut out animation... Me and Ibtisams work will soon me uploaded.





I do not take credit for this work!! its just an example :). Me and Ibtisams will be uploaded soon.

The Zoetropes & Phi phenomenon?!

The zoetrope is by far the best know of the "persistence of vision" toys. Invented in the early 19th century, the name is now applied to almost any drum shaped motion toy. The zoetrope is a drum with a series of slits on the upper half. A strip with the same number of images is place in the lower half of the drum. When the drum spins the slits act as shutters to show the images one at a time. Each of the images shows a slightly different part of the movement and they blend into a smooth motion.

Phi Phenomenon