Shaun Tan Essay
Shaun Tan (1974)
-Conceptual Framework-
Artist
Shaun Tan grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth situated in Western Australia. As a young boy he was always known as the “good drawer” at school which, in a way, made him forget about being the shortest kid in every class. In 1995, he graduated from the University of Western Australia with joint honours in English Literature and Fine Arts and is now working full time as a freelance author and artist in Melbourne. Shaun started sketching and painting pictures for science fiction and horror stories in small-press magazines as a teenager. He has also previously worked as a theatre designer and as a concept artist for the films ‘Horton Hears a Who’ and Pixar’s WALL-E and directed the academy award winning short film ‘The …show more content…
Lost Thing’ with Passion Pictures Australia. Later in 2011, Shaun received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, honouring his contribution to international children’s literature.
Artwork
All of Shaun Tan’s artworks as an illustrator are based either directly or indirectly upon direct observation from life and spends as much time as possible producing singular paintings, often semi-abstracted and are almost always drawn from things most familiar to him such as landscapes, objects or people. Famous, well known artworks include paintings like ‘Footpath, Fifth Avenue’, ‘Pelican Preening’, ‘Mount Lawley Rooftop’, ‘Dad and me’, ‘Simon And Guinness’ and many more.
Shaun Tan also specialised, particularly, in animation art.
This requires time, patience and a lot of skill. Some of Shaun’s famous works in animation include; ‘The Lost Thing (2010), The Red Tree (2011), The Arrival (2011) and Aqua sapiens (2005). The Animation I will be focusing on today however is The Lost Thing, a very successful short film by Shaun Tan. The short animation is 15 minutes long using CGI (computer generated imagery) with 2D hand painted elements, and was completed in April 2010, and has been screened at various film festivals, with a DVD release by Madman in late 2010. The story line of the animation is a young boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature while out collecting bottle-tops at a beach (as Shaun loved to do as a boy). Having guessed that it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but the problem is met with indifference by everyone else, who barely notice its presence. Each is unhelpful in their own way; strangers, friends, parents are all unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to day-to-day life. In spite of his better judgement, the boy feels sorry for this hapless creature, and attempts to find out where it
belongs.
The making of the humorous film was along complex process but in the end proved to be a very successful project, attracting audiences of all ages. Since its release at various film festivals and as a DVD distributed by Madman Entertainment, The Lost Thing has been fortunate to win many awards, including:
* AFI award, Australian Film Industry Award. * Annecy Crystal, Annecy Film Festival, France. * Best Short Film, Melbourne international Film Festival. * Best Australian Film at Flickerfest short film festival, Sydney. * Yoram Gross Animation Award, Sydney International Film Festival.
Audience
Some of Shaun Tan’s artworks have no particular meaning and are more on the personal side of Shaun Tan. Others had meaning and reflected greatly on the world he lived in, either physically or mentally. Shaun Tan’s short film animation ‘The Lost Thing’ was more on the personal, fun and creative side of Shaun. The humorous animation, was aimed and attracted at all age groups and was very successful in doing so. Being very popular around the world, the short film gained many awards such as the ones listed above and became an international success, entertaining audiences everywhere.
Bibliography
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Thing#2010_film * http://www.shauntan.net/film1.html * http://www.shauntan.net/film1.html * http://www.shauntan.net/about.html
-Conceptual Framework-
Artist
Shaun Tan grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth situated in Western Australia. As a young boy he was always known as the “good drawer” at school which, in a way, made him forget about being the shortest kid in every class. In 1995, he graduated from the University of Western Australia with joint honours in English Literature and Fine Arts and is now working full time as a freelance author and artist in Melbourne. Shaun started sketching and painting pictures for science fiction and horror stories in small-press magazines as a teenager. He has also previously worked as a theatre designer and as a concept artist for the films ‘Horton Hears a Who’ and Pixar’s WALL-E and directed the academy award winning short film ‘The …show more content…
Lost Thing’ with Passion Pictures Australia. Later in 2011, Shaun received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, honouring his contribution to international children’s literature.
Artwork
All of Shaun Tan’s artworks as an illustrator are based either directly or indirectly upon direct observation from life and spends as much time as possible producing singular paintings, often semi-abstracted and are almost always drawn from things most familiar to him such as landscapes, objects or people. Famous, well known artworks include paintings like ‘Footpath, Fifth Avenue’, ‘Pelican Preening’, ‘Mount Lawley Rooftop’, ‘Dad and me’, ‘Simon And Guinness’ and many more.
Shaun Tan also specialised, particularly, in animation art.
This requires time, patience and a lot of skill. Some of Shaun’s famous works in animation include; ‘The Lost Thing (2010), The Red Tree (2011), The Arrival (2011) and Aqua sapiens (2005). The Animation I will be focusing on today however is The Lost Thing, a very successful short film by Shaun Tan. The short animation is 15 minutes long using CGI (computer generated imagery) with 2D hand painted elements, and was completed in April 2010, and has been screened at various film festivals, with a DVD release by Madman in late 2010. The story line of the animation is a young boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature while out collecting bottle-tops at a beach (as Shaun loved to do as a boy). Having guessed that it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but the problem is met with indifference by everyone else, who barely notice its presence. Each is unhelpful in their own way; strangers, friends, parents are all unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to day-to-day life. In spite of his better judgement, the boy feels sorry for this hapless creature, and attempts to find out where it
belongs.
The making of the humorous film was along complex process but in the end proved to be a very successful project, attracting audiences of all ages. Since its release at various film festivals and as a DVD distributed by Madman Entertainment, The Lost Thing has been fortunate to win many awards, including:
* AFI award, Australian Film Industry Award. * Annecy Crystal, Annecy Film Festival, France. * Best Short Film, Melbourne international Film Festival. * Best Australian Film at Flickerfest short film festival, Sydney. * Yoram Gross Animation Award, Sydney International Film Festival.
Audience
Some of Shaun Tan’s artworks have no particular meaning and are more on the personal side of Shaun Tan. Others had meaning and reflected greatly on the world he lived in, either physically or mentally. Shaun Tan’s short film animation ‘The Lost Thing’ was more on the personal, fun and creative side of Shaun. The humorous animation, was aimed and attracted at all age groups and was very successful in doing so. Being very popular around the world, the short film gained many awards such as the ones listed above and became an international success, entertaining audiences everywhere.
Bibliography
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Thing#2010_film * http://www.shauntan.net/film1.html * http://www.shauntan.net/film1.html * http://www.shauntan.net/about.html