Media-Frozen and Myth

The Techniques Involved in Creating Animation Films

The techniques involved in creating animation films are lengthy and diverse. It often takes more than a year to construct a story line for a decent animation film, with the design process alternating between fresh versions of planning and actual performance. Anime stories are built on a variety of planning approaches, including the creation of graphics and the application of traditional talents such as painting and storytelling. Making animated films involves three major steps.

Pre-Production Phase

Initially, there is the pre-production phase, which deals with the core premise that will be developed into a whole plot.

Production Story

Second, the production story entails putting the parameters developed in the first step to use. These include arrangement, modeling, lighting, rigging, and the animation. It is at the production level where the three dimensions that the artists had previously drawn on paper are produced.

Post-Production Process

Lastly, the post-production process involves compositing, editing the sound, and editing the video.

The ideas about animation films are developed gradually using an iterative process that tries to value the work done by others. The people involved, that is, the actors to producers, act as a team by collaborating in making the animation film a success. The collaboration comes especially from the process of designing which involves the exchange of routine between the artist who creates different images and the designers. Frozen is a fairy tale animation that is inspired by The Snow Queen from the 1900s. Different reading will be used to shed light on Frozen and compare and contrast the movie with other animations such as Cinderella.

The Animation Story of Frozen

The animation story begins with ice harvesters who are cutting blocks of ice from a lake. They are chanting as they work. The chants indicate how ice is powerful and can be beautiful and hazardous. This is seen in the plot of the story where the dangerous part is indicated in the frozen hearts while the impressive part is seen at the end of the story.

The ice blocks are then loaded on their sleds as they take off. A young boy, Kristoff, is working along the ice harvesters and is accompanied by his reindeer, Sven. The two are trying to mimic what the ice harvesters are doing by cutting one block of ice and placing it in a child’s sled and follow the adults. The Northern Lights fill the sky, and the story moves to the stave castle, which is located on the shore of the Scandinavian narrow inlet with cliffs.

During that night, Princess Elsa of Arendelle was soundly sleeping when the younger sister, Anna, woke her up. She wanted Elsa to play with her but refused until she mentioned building a snowman. Elsa wakes up eventually, and together they went to the ballroom.

She was born with the power to manipulate ice, and she used this to entertain her younger sister. She makes snow crystals with her hands since Anna urged, and then she shoots them into the air. It explodes releasing snow on their heads. She then covers the floor with ice to improve the snow playground, and they created a snowman and named it Olaf, who loves warm hugs. This is contra indicatory since warmth makes snow to melt. The girls play cheerfully with Olaf and skating in the ice. Anna started to jump from one snowy heap to the next and asked her sister to use her magic power to take her higher. Eventually, Elsa was not able to keep pace with Anna’s leap, she slipped tried to cushion Anna’s fall but accidentally hit her in the face. Anna helplessly lied on the floor, and several strands of her hair turned white. Their parents, King Agdar and Queen Idun rushed after hearing Elsa’s screams, where they found Anna was cold when touched. They rode roses in speed towards the mountains.

The royal family was desperately seeking help towards mountains, and as they passed Kristoff, who was dragged on his sled by Sven. He was curious that one of the royal horses is leaving behind ice trails amid summer. Kristoff and Sven then follow the trails of ice to a clear land that only has moss. From afar, Kristoff notices that Adgar is talking to one of the moss for help. Later on, the entire moss in the clearing roll around the royal family and the moss revealed themselves as trolls. Kristoff and Sven are astonished as they watch behind the rock troll named Bulda, who adopts them after Sven licked her. Grand Pabbie, who led the trolls, emerged and asked the King whether Elsa was cursed or born with her powers. He then points out that Anna was lucky she was hit in the head and not in her heart. This is because a hit in the heart would have proved to be fatal. He gives advice to the family not to permit Elsa to exercise her power near Anna and alters Anna’s memories to make her forget about Elsa’s powers. He did not, however, erase the fun times they had and the incident about the ice she only remembered it as an ordinary day in winter. He then warns Elsa that there will be growth in her powers and will be risky if she does not learn to control them. He also warns that if this were to happen, fear would be Elsa’s greatest enemy.

King Adgar and the Queen took measures into their own hands based on everything the leader of the trolls advised them. The castle was out of reach for many people, and the number of staff was significantly reduced. The young girls were also not allowed to leave the castle. The two sisters were not allowed to play together, and since Anna had no memory of the ordeal, she always questioned why this was happening. She would repeatedly go to Elsa’s room and entice her to play with her by asking if she would be interested in making a snowman. Anna’s life becomes dull but normal while Elsa’s power grew stronger by the day. Her father advised her always to wear gloves to be able to have control over her powers. She was also told to hide her feelings since emotions had a negative impact on her powers. A decade later, King Adgar and Queen Idun died after their ship capsized in a storm. This rendered the girls orphans, and after the burial, Anna seeks consolation from her sister, but Elsa refused to talk to her even though she was sad because of their situation.

Three years later, Elsa turned 21, and the castle was ready to crown her as the queen. Notable people around Europe came to visit, including the Duke of Weselton, whose aim is to steal all the profits of Arendelle. Elsa is worried about leaving her state of isolation to receive the guests. When she ordered the gates to be opened, Anna rushed outside and ran to the city. As she was walking, she collided with Prince Han’s horse and ended up falling in a rowboat. He introduced himself as the Prince of the Southern Isles, and he was around because of Elsa’s coronation. Anna was angered by Han’s behavior but was smitten the moment he apologized and looked at him. She runs off once the church bells are heard. Elsa is still worried when she was still in the ceremony. The bishop requested Elsa to remove her gloves prior to the presentation of her orbs and scepter. She turned to the crowd but got scared when she noticed the golden orb was starting to frost. She put her gloves hurriedly back and returned the orb and scepter to the bishop.

Kai introduced Elsa and Anna to the multitude, and Anna was so delighted to interact with her sister after so many years of separation. Her confidence was boosted and continued with her conversation after seeing Elsa is happy and not too conserved and serious. Their interaction was then interrupted after Kai introduced the Duke to them. The Duke is a significant trading partner but also a joker. Elsa declines his request to dance gracefully but Anna volunteered, and they danced humorously. Elsa laughs quietly after seeing her innocent sister’s dance skills. Anna then was curious as she saw her sister’s expression after a long time. She returned to her elder sister and began a conversation about how well things turned out and wished that things were the same as they were the night they last played together. Elsa agreed, but her smile faded as the memories of the night came back to her and declined Anna’s wishes without explaining why. Anna then goes dancing with Hans and later snuck to spend the evening together. They realized that there was a mutual attraction between them. The two spent the whole evening romantically dancing and bonding. Han realized that Anna was in need of having someone special but her sister was shutting her off when they were younger. He empathized with her and promised never to shut her out, unlike her sister did, and when Anna heard this, she was overjoyed.

After completing their tour, Hans proposed marriage to Anna, and she agreed. They went together back to the castle to ask for blessings from Elsa, but she refused. She was against marrying someone who she did not know as that would expose her powers to the multitude. Anna, too, was not aware of her sister’s abilities, but as Elsa asked her to talk in private, she refused to say that whatever she wanted to say to her she can say it in front of Hans. Elsa ordered the guards to close the gates as the party was over. Elsa violently swept her left hand, and sharp icicles appeared around her. The room was taken aback, and when Elsa noticed this, she ran away from the room and vanished into the forest. The Duke of Weselton insisted that Elsa’s curse should be stopped, but Anna was against it. She opted to seek her sister and talk to her because it was her fault since she pushed her too much. Hans was left in charge of the castle as Anna headed to the woods riding a horse while the Duke and his men were also looking for Elsa.

In the woods, Anna met Kristoff, who helped her search for her sister. Amidst their way, Anna mentions her engagement to Hans, and Kristoff is dumbfounded at how stupid she can be to agree to marry someone she just met. He asked questions about Hans to prove how little Anna knows about her fiancé. They are attacked by the wolves, and they both can chase them even after Kristoff was reluctant about Ann’s help. The sled later fell off the cliff, and Anna promised to replace it once they find Elsa. They met a snowman named Olaf, and when he said his name and added that he liked warm hugs, Anna remembered the snowman they used to make with Elsa when they were little girls. He took them to Elsa’s palace and said he would love to know how summer feels. Elsa is startled when she learns that she froze everything in the kingdom, and Anna is troubled when she learned that her sister cannot control her powers. Anna pleads with Elsa to go back so that they can solve everything together, but Elsa got angry and threw an icy chill, a portion of which hit Anna in her heart. Kristoff, Olaf, and Anna are chased from the ice castle by a giant snow creature named a creature that was created by Elsa. Kristoff later learned that Anna’s hair was turning white and took her to his family, a group of rock trolls, in fear that she might be injured. This time, Grand Pabbie was not able to help Anna, and he concluded that an act of true love was the only possible thing that would heal Anna’s frozen heart.

Anna asked Kristoff to take her to Arendelle as Hans was the only person who would help her. On arrival at the castle, Anna asked Hans to kiss her to cure her frozen heart. As he leaned to kiss her, he said that he does not love her and he only wanted a royal family where he could marry, and since Elsa was unreachable, he had to work on Anna’s naivety. She was locked in a room where Olaf found her and realized that she was in love with Kristoff. They managed to escape from the room, but Olaf was swept away by the wind. Anna made her way calling out to Kristoff even after she noticed her hands were freezing. Later on, Hans lied to Elsa that her magic had killed Anna, and this made her devastated. As the air was clearing, Kristoff was able to see Anna and rushed towards her. He tells her that Hans was about to stab Elsa, and she ran towards them. Luckily, she was able to move in front of Hans’s dagger and turned into ice. This shuttered Hans’s dagger. When Elsa saw that her sister had turned into ice, she hugged her and broke down. A few minutes later, her body changed its form, and she began to be normal again. Saving her sister was an act of true love, and she broke her spell.

Comparison with Cinderella

The overall message of the two is love. In Cinderella, love is depicted on true love between two people of different genders. In Frozen, the theme of true love is demonstrated by the two sisters. Another difference is the timing of the movies. Cinderella was created in 1950 while Frozen was created in 2013. There is an improvement regarding technology and equipment that has enabled animators to create more clear visuals and sound, thus improving the quality of animations.

In comparison, in both Frozen and Cinderella, the main characters are orphans since their parents died. In Frozen, King Adgar and Queen Idun died when their boats capsized in a storm. This made Elsa and Anna orphans. In Cinderella, the movie starts with her mother dead. Her father later died a natural death, leaving her with her evil stepmother. In both movies, there is an aspect of magic. In Cinderella, Cinderella is transformed by a witch in such a way that she won’t be recognized at the party in the castle. In Frozen, Elsa was born with magical powers. Another comparison is that both main characters are expected to be responsible. In Frozen, Elsa is expected to take over the throne when she turned 21, while Cinderella takes care of her stepsisters and does all the house chores. In both movies, the characters can converse with animals.

References

Disney, R., & Scollon, B. (2013). Frozen. Random House Children’s Books.

Fowkes, K. (2010). The Fantasy Film. John Wiley & Sons.

Lang, A. (2012). Cinderella and Other Stories from “The Blue Fairy Book”. Courier Corporation.

Lynskey, D. (2014, May 13). Frozen-mania: how Elsa, Anna and Olaf conquered the world. The guardian .

Zipes, J. (1993). Fairy Tale as Myth/myth as Fairy Tale. University Press of Kentucky.