Research 9: Feature Film

Overall, the movie 9 was an amazing production considering the idea for the movie was chosen out of a film festival and not "professionally" planned out. However when compared to the short, the plot of the feature was not directly apparent. I was impressed with how Shane Acker expanded on the gloomy, animated film with no dialogue, into something that was an hour and 10 minutes long. He introduced multiple new characters that were friendly with the protagonist. Their names were all numbers, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 etc. In addition, a new antagonist was selected. Unlike the short, the "predator" was not the main antagonist. Instead, the antagonist was a robot, that acted similar to a human brain, that controlled a robot factory and was engineered by the same engineer who created 9.Throughout the plotline of the feature film, there was much more character development than the short. As stated prior, there was previously only 2 protagonists in the short. However, with the addition, of new characters the dynamics changed significantly. Despite this reality, the character that I saw the most development was 1. In the beginning of the feature, 1 appeared to be a smug leader, who ruled for the good of himself. It was made apparent that he was the one who directed 2 to "scout" which ultimately led to his demise. Contrastingly, towards the end of the feature, I found 1 to be slightly humbled by the situation at hand. He had lost his body guard 8, had his sanctuary burned down, and had many near death encounters. There was many characters that developed throughout the story, this was just the most prominent to me.

In addition to the new character development, I found the sound additions made to the feature greatly benefited the overall production. The feature made us of intense yet spooky sound tracks, loud and explosive sound effects, and real dialogue just to name a few. Additionally, the world simulated in the production appeared to have diegetic sound. This is a testimonial to the production quality of the film, as the animated world almost simulated an entirely real world of its own, which in itself it amazing.

Overall, this film was extremely action-filled and intense. The well developed plot line, in a relatively short duration for a production film really made the film worth while. While the film did not exactly convey the same emotions to me the short had, I thought the overall production was amazing. The ability for the producer to simulate a real world scenario in an animated film is certainty amazing. This film is definitely a testament to the power of producers, no matter how big or small, and their backgrounds.