A War to End No Wars
Click on the image to watch the video ⇓
Questo corto di animazione mi ha lasciato incantata. Non solo il film in sé, che comunque è un vero gioiellino, ma anche la sua storia, il modo in cui è stato realizzato, il talento della sua creatrice. Non ho potuto non dedicargli un post. Sono sicura che lo amerete anche voi. Tra l’altro, questo servizio di BBC News ci offre l’occasione per vedere insieme anche qualche termine cinematografico in inglese, che può sempre tornare utile, no?
A War to End no Wars is a stop-motion animated short following the life of a British soldier, Tommy Atkins, during his time in the trenches of the First World War.
Inspired by her great-grandfather’s battlefield photos, Ruth Coggins built a set and model soldier and taught herself animation from scratch to make this poignant film.
She has always had a passion for animation and cartoons, but had no training in the industry and spent many years learning the craft as a hobby.
A War to End No Wars was shot in Ruth’s house in Cambridgeshire using a digital camera and it took 8 years (on and off) to complete, with each second of the three-and-a-half-minute film made up of 24 different frames with a tiny movement of the puppet in each shot.
The film has been screened at several film festivals worldwide and won the Best Animation category at the London Cinematic International Film Festival in April 2018.
Let’s take a look at some of the vocabulary used in the text and the video:
– stop-motion = a filming technique in which successive positions of objects are photographed to produce the appearance of movement
– short = a brief film
– soldier= a person who is in the military
– trench= a long, narrow area dug out of the ground that is used as protection for soldiers
– battlefield = the field or ground on which a battle is fought
– poignant= causing a strong feeling of sadness, touching
– craft = a job or activity that requires special skill
– frame = one of the successive pictures that constitute a film or video
– tiny= very small
– puppet = a usually small-scale figure of a human being or an animal moved by the hand or by rods, etc.
– shot = a photograph or a particular sequence of pictures in a film
Now let’s take a look at these very interesting idioms:
– from scratch= from the beginning or, in this particular case, from nothing
– on and off = intermittently, stopping and starting at intervals
– (to) dabble in something = (to) do something sporadically or as a hobby
A questo punto dovete assolutamente vedervi la versione integrale del film, che potete trovare sul sito di A War to End No Wars: https://youtu.be/4e9NLoALsxw?si=4Z7YteMEHmn9dhYZ.
Sul sito trovate anche tante curiosità su come questo corto è stato realizzato, sui materiali impiegati e molto altro ancora.
Poi fatemi sapere se vi è piaciuto, mi raccomando! j
