In this assignment, students are required to compare two movies from either a romantic comedy or an animation genre.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: MUHAMMAD HAZIQ BIN HJ ZARIFUL
STUDENT ID NO: 0314131
FILMS SELECTED: DESPICABLE ME & PARANORMAN
WORD COUNT: 950
ENGLISH 2 (ENGL 0205)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION DATE: 5TH DECEMBER 2013

2. There are a lot of movies produced in the past few years, as movies have turned
into a big form of entertainment due to the hour-long film & also the big silver
screen. Precedently, when the movies are created, they are made for live-action
film only, but in the last few decades, animated motion pictures have reached
from the television to the movie screen, as movie budget would be less costly
while computer software have been invented to make animation more
uncomplicated. Nevertheless, there is still a thick line of difference that separates
the various movies animated today. These types of differences can be in the
form of their studios, genre & animation. Such movies that can illustrate a huge
diversity I'm animated films are DespicaleMe &Paranorman.
To begin with, different films would, of course, be made by different people, who
work for different studios & companies. Despicable Me for instance, is made by
illumination studios, a branch from Universal pictures. As a result of Universal
having more investments on other works such as TV shows, Parks and Resorts
& other animation films, Universal is a more rich company & thus provides a
bigger movie budget to the film. Consequently, due to the power & popularity it
has, Universal pictures have the capability to hire highly rated experienced
writers, animators and voice actors with their expensive offers to the celebrities.
The voice actors they hire for the film are even famous A-listed stars such as
Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Steve Carrell& more. On the other hand,
Paranorman is made by a newer & inexperienced studio in the industry, Laika
studios, which only made 2 movies so far. For the reason that Laika studios don't
have a larger power, popularity & fortune, as they have made only a single but
successful movie before Paranorman, the studio had to use a lower budget, thus,
hire unpopular, inexperienced writers, animators & voice actors to abstain from
drastically dropping the budget. As claimed by ‘The-numbers.com’, Paranorman
has $10 million lower on budget compared to Despicable Me [1]. The difference
would also impact the audience, as more people would watch a film made by a
bigger studio.

3. Second of all, a frequent contrast from movies nowadays is the genre in movies.
Genres are categories of movies that consist of romance, comedy, action, etc.,
that shows what the movie is basically about or shows what style it will be
throughout the film. According to IMBd[2], Despicable Me is a family & comedy
movie. These genres mean the movie relies on humor to make audience burst
into laughter as entertainment, while also sticking to being a bonding movie with
morals & life lessons that doesn't focus on a target audience so that the whole
family can enjoy viewing it together. The family genre also means the film has
rules not to let the storyline, language or even the actions made by characters
(such as blood violence) to be too unfitting for families. Conversely, Paranorman
has a comedy, horror & fiction genre. Unlike Despicable Me, Paranorman has a
narrower demographic, for the obvious reason that it has a horror genre, with
zombies, witches & the supernatural filling the storyline of the movie. Although it
has comedy like Despicable Me, the humor used in the movie is targeted towards
an older audience, with sex jokes & inappropriate scenes, which deemed the film
ill-fitted for families and kids.
Furthermore, while both movies are classified as animated films, both have
different ways of making a fictional character appear on the silver screen.
Animated films actually have various types of animation techniques such as 2D
animation, digital 3D animation, drawn-on-film animation & clay animation. For
the Despicable Me movie, it is created as Computer animated 3D. With newer &
convenient software sprouting to the newer generations of entertainment,
computer animated 3D has turned into a more common and sought-after
approach of animating films. In this technique, characters are crafted in the
virtual space of a computer & are even motioned there as well. As previously
stated, the higher power of the studios that animated Despicable Me have given
up-to-date software to the studios & due to the software used, the movement of
3D characters in films such as Despicable Me are precise & accurate. In
contrast, the animation used on Paranorman is 'stop-motion animation'. This type
of animation technique needs workers to make real-world dolls made of clay

4. since clay would give the characters movable joints for the movements in the
movie. The characters would be pictured in a pose, their joints would be moved
after that, and would again be pictured, then when these pictures are sequenced
together, it would look as if they are moving on their own. This type of animation
requires a large amount of work, however, the budget used wouldn't be too
costly, as it only needs clay, a camera & colleagues to help out.
To conclude with, animated movies have differences because there are different
people who admire different storylines or genres, teens, girls, boys, children &
adults would be divided in the cinemas watching different movies. However, I
personally think this is a wrong way of marketing movies; Disney for example has
made movies loved by people in every walk in life, regardless of age or gender &
doesn't stick to a single demographic. Walt Disney addressed it best & I quote,
“You’re dead if you only aim for kids, adults are only kids grown up
anyway."Movies such as Aladdin, Lion King, Despicable Me was made with great
animation, life lessons contained in the film & most importantly, gave a family
bonding that gave an extra advantage to the existence of movies.

5. Refrences:
[1] The-numbers.com
The Numbers - Movie Budgets
In-text: (The-numbers.com, 2013)
Bibliography: The-numbers.com (2013). The Numbers - Movie Budgets. [online]
Retrieved from: http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/budgets/all [Accessed: 5 Dec
2013].
[2] IMDb
Despicable Me (2010)
In-text: (IMDb, 2013)
Bibliography: IMDb (2013). Despicable Me (2010). [online] Retrieved from:
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1323594/ [Accessed: 5 Dec 2013].
[3]Webopedia
stop motion animation
In-text: (Webopedia, 2013)
Bibliography: Webopedia (2013). stop motion animation. [online] Retrieved
from: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/stop_motion_animation.html
[Accessed: 5 Dec 2013].
[4] Arena Animation
Types Of Animation
In-text: (Arena Animation, 2013)
Bibliography: Arena Animation (2013). Types Of Animation. [online] Retrieved
from: http://www.arena-multimedia.com/blog/index.php/animation-techniques/
[Accessed: 5 Dec 2013].