Loop De Loop - Rainbow

Loop De Loop is a bi-monthly competition, this months theme is Rainbow. This is because Loopdeloop is teaming up with Minus 18 and it is in honour of the International day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT). The submission requirements are: It must be made by you, It must suit the month's theme, It must be engaging, It must be submitted under one of the specified formats, It must not contain any pornographic material, incite hatred or include defamatory or discriminating content and finally It has to loop. Submission closes at 11:30pm on the 18th May 2014.

Dreamworks Short Stories Review

Dreamworks have created a series of short stories, using popular characters from their feature length films. One of them, Scared Shrekless is set during Halloween. Shrek challenges his friends to stay at Lord Farquaads abandoned castle for the night. Before entering the castle Donkey challenges the other characters to scare each other by seeing who can tell the scariest story. This was my personal favourite from the series of shorts. The writers made references to actual horror movies such as Psycho and the Exorcist. I liked the fact that they made references to these iconic horror movies as it shows they know the horror genre well. Showing them in this animated form rather than the realistic one was a nice touch. However this can be seen as controversial by some parents. Should the parents know the origins of these references they may be uncomfortable exposing their children to it. This is entirely possible given how timeless these movies are. Regardless these were, in my opinion, the best parts of the short. I am a massive fan of horror movies and was really surprised these two interests overlapped as they are so different. Although obviously they made it more comical in order to appeal to the right audience, children. Shown by their use of popular children's characters. I was extremely impressed with the voice acting work from Dean Edwards, who plays the role of Donkey. During the entire 24 minutes run-time I never suspect that Eddie Murphy was no longer playing the role. I only realised once I began looking into it.

I would recommend watching all the short stories as they tell you more about the characters, expanding the fiction. They gain attention by using popular characters that have already had commercial success and found a fan base. Fans love to see new things/episodes from there favourite characters. Other shorts focus on stories based on films like Megamind, Madagascar, Monster vs Aliens and many more. I found these episodes when looking through Netflix and thought they were brilliant.

Nightmare Before Christmas.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is about the main ruler of Halloween Town 'Jack Skellington' who starts to lose his way and he decides to go to Christmas Town, he then takes inspiration from Christmas town, with the decorations etc. He then ends up stealing all the Christmas presents from Christmas town and leaves his own presents that he believe they will like much better. He put Santa Claus in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for little girls and boys, although Jack Skellington believes he is doing a good thing he soon realises he was wrong.  This movie is a lot like the story of the Grinch however I believe Nightmare Before Christmas is done better as the story helps you to connect more to the protagonist (Jack Skellington). I prefer Nightmare Before Christmas rather than the Grinch because of the variety of the characters. As much as you do get a back story of the Grinch, I personally prefer the more dark theme of the Nightmare Before Christmas. Each character of the Nightmare Before Christmas have there own individual characteristics, such as none of the characters have the exact same look they all have something different that represents each personality. I love the massive difference between each world (Christmas Town and Halloween Town), the main difference is the bright colours used in Christmas Town compared to the dark, dull colours used in Halloween Town. However Tim Burton has still managed to keep the style flowing through each town. The animation is absolutely astounding, it is so smooth each joint must have been thought about carefully and appropriately for the movements needed. I would recommend this film but not only for the imaginative characters but also for the really catchy music used, the music really goes with the theme of the film and helps the audience connect with the characters more as you get to learn more about each character through the songs they sing. The music helps to set the scene e.g dramatic music for when something dramatic is coming.  

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