Arianny Gallardo

Arianny Gallardo- W13

Studio Ghibli’s work often has themes about conflicts between man and the natural world. Pick one of the films they produced and explain how this theme is integrated into the story. Which characters represent the natural world? How is the conflict shown? Is it resolved?

One Studio Ghibli film that shows the conflict between humans and nature is Princess Mononoke. Lady Eboshi represents humans trying to expand and use natural resources, while San and the forest spirits represent nature fighting to survive; and the conflict is shown through battles between Iron Town and the forest creatures. It’s not fully resolved, but by the end, there’s hope that both sides can find a way to live together.

Arianny Gallardo W10

Journal Entry – Week 10

What is today’s most popular (in term of audience) Japanese animated TV show in the US? What genre does it belong to? What is the general storyline? On what platform is it distributed? Why do you think it resonates with American audiences? Is it as popular in Japan?

Right now, one of the most popular Japanese animated shows in the U.S. is Jujutsu Kaisen. It’s a shonen anime about a high school student named Yuji who gets pulled into a world of curses and sorcerers after swallowing a cursed object. You can watch it on platforms like Crunchyroll and Hulu. Many American viewers are attracted to its mix of strong storytelling, emotional stakes, and visually stunning action scenes. It’s also a major hit in Japan, but streaming and social media have helped it go viral even more in the U.S.

Arianny Gallardo Presentation outline

Journal Entry – Week 11 (long paper outline)

The Amazing World of Gumball Presentation Outline

The Amazing World of Gumball is a British-American animated series created by Ben Bocquelet for Cartoon Network. The story centers around Gumball Watterson, a sarcastic and energetic blue cat, and his sweet yet goofy adoptive brother Darwin, a goldfish who grew legs. Together, they go through tons of funny, random, and sometimes chaotic situations in the fictional town of Elmore. The show is full of different characters, all with weird but fun personalities. It’s honestly one of the things that makes the show so fun to watch. The tone of the show is mostly humorous and light-hearted, but sometimes it does touch on more emotional or serious themes in clever ways. The animation is wild since it combines 2D hand-drawn styles, CGI, photos, puppets, and even real-life footage. And the sound design matches the energy perfectly, from exaggerated cartoon sound effects to subtle moments in emotional scenes.

Ben Bocquelet created the show while working for Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe in London around 2007, and it officially premiered in 2011. What’s really interesting is that the idea came from a bunch of rejected characters Ben had made for advertising projects. Instead of throwing them away, he used them to build this mixed-up world. Ben was born on June 28 1980 in Paris, France. Ben studied animation at EMCA, a well-known animation school in France. Before Gumball, he worked at Studio AKA(a studio that is known for its high-quality animation for commercials, TV, and short films) in London, and Boquelet was mostly on commercial animations, which helped him develop his style and experience. He originally pitched Gumball as a show about rejected cartoon characters going to school, but Cartoon Network thought that idea was too dark. So he changed it into a fun family show using those same characters.

Gumball is super unique when it comes to how it looks. It mixes so many different animation techniques all in one show and it’s honestly kind of chaotic in the best way. The creators used Adobe Flash (now Animate), Maya for 3D, After Effects, and even Photoshop to blend real-life photos into the backgrounds. So, one scene might have a 2D character talking to a 3D character on a real photo of a street. It sounds messy, but they made it work really well. The show was animated mostly in London with a large team behind it, not just Ben. There were animators, storyboard artists, editors, designers, and voice actors all working together. I’ll be showing a short video clip that gives a quick look at how the characters go from sketches to finished animations. Seeing the team work together helped me realize just how complex animation is behind the scenes. Other shows produced at Cartoon Network’s UK studio during this period include several spinoffs and the development of shows like Adventure Time and Regular Show.

The show officially ended in 2019 after six seasons. Ben Bocquelet, the creator, had actually said back in 2016 that he was planning to leave the show. He felt like it was time to move on and try new things, especially after working on Gumball for so many years, so he decided to take a break. Even though the last episode ended on a cliffhanger, it wasn’t supposed to be the end. Ben had plans for a movie to give the show a proper ending. That movie is now in the works, and there’s also a new season coming, which is exciting because it means he came back to continue the story.

However, It got critical praise and won several awards, including BAFTAs, which are basically like the British version of the Emmys. It was commercially successful and gained a big fanbase around the world. It didn’t just stay a TV show, it expanded to merchandise, games, and even talks of a movie. What’s cool is how it pushed the limits of what a cartoon could look like and how many different influences it could include. Actually, Gumball ended up inspiring other animated shows too. For example, the mix of animation styles and fast-paced, meme-style humor can be seen in newer shows like The Owl House, Teen Titans Go!, and Amphibia. These shows also blend goofy, internet-style jokes with deeper emotional moments, kind of like Gumball did. Right now, the show is available to stream on Max (formerly HBO Max), Hulu, Disney+ , Amazon Prime and YouTube.

Personally, I’ve always found The Amazing World of Gumball to be such a creative and unique show. What drew my attention the most is how it mixes so many different animation styles, from 2D to 3D, even live-action and somehow makes it all blend together perfectly. It’s fun, unpredictable, and super imaginative. The humor is really clever too; it’s not just for kids, a lot of the jokes are smart or based on internet culture, which I appreciate more now that I’m older. Working on this presentation made me realize how much work actually goes into a show like this. It’s not just one person drawing characters, there’s a whole team behind the scenes doing voice acting, storyboarding, animating, editing, and more. I also really respect the creator, Ben Bocquelet, for turning something as random as rejected ad characters into a show that ended up winning awards and inspiring a lot of people. Overall, I think Gumball deserves a lot of credit for pushing boundaries in animation. It’s not afraid to be weird, emotional, or real, and that’s what makes it so special to me, and my reason for its influences on me to be the way I am nowadays.

Work cited

Lightbox. “Ben Bocquelet, Creator of The Amazing World of Gumball – Lightbox Interview.” YouTube, uploaded by Channel Frederator, 7 Oct. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swxzs2NRpDI. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.

Cartoon Network UK. “The Amazing World of Gumball | Animation Breakdown | Cartoon Network.” YouTube, 17 Aug. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9bFXKOJKvk. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.

Cartoon Network UK. “Behind the Scenes | The Amazing World of Gumball | Cartoon Network.” YouTube, 9 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=u72JmdAyjKc. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.

Wikipedia contributors. “The Amazing World of Gumball.” Wikipedia, 17 Apr. 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_World_of_Gumball#Reception. Accessed 17 Apr. 2025.

Zahed, Ramin. “Gumball Begins Reign of Color.” Animation Magazine, 29 May 2011, https://www.animationmagazine.net/2011/05/gumball-begins-reign-of-color/. Accessed 8 April. 2025

Arianny Gallardo-w8

Journal Entry - Week 8

The Czech government refused to distribute Jiří Trnka’ s short film “The Hand” (1965). Why do you think the film was seen as subversive by the communist government at the time?

I think the Czech government didn’t like The Hand because it was basically calling them out. The big hand in the film forces the artist to make things he doesn’t want to, which feels like a metaphor for how the government tried to control artists and what they could create. It was a quiet way of pushing back against censorship, so the government probably saw it as a threat and didn’t want people to see it.

Arianny Gallardo-W7

Journal Entry - Week 7

The Private Snafu series was designed to instruct GIs in military techniques and behaviors. How do you think Private Snafu – Fighting Tools uses humor to get the point across? Does it use voice, drawing, movement or story? How?

The short film make it seems like it uses humor with silly animation, clumsy mistakes, and a sarcastic narrator. Snafu’s weapons don’t work because he doesn’t take care of them, and the animation makes his failures look ridiculous. The narrator jokes about his mistakes, making the lesson easy to understand. It’s a fun way to remind soldiers to take care of their gear.

Arianny Gallardo-W5

Journal Entry - Week 5

View the clip of Snow White meeting the seven dwarfs again. Though each of the seven dwarfs are drawn and animated in a similar manner, there are important differences that tell us something about each of their personalities. Pick two of the dwarfs and show how they are distinguished from each other by the way they move, how they are drawn, their voices and any other means used to show their character.

Grumpy and Dopey are easy to differentiate by how they move and behave. Grumpy walks securely, he crosses his arms, and makes an angry face a lot, showing he is serious and stubborn. His voice is rough and deep, making him sound annoyed. Dopey moves in a funny, clumsy way, often falling or making big gestures. He doesn’t talk, but his big eyes and silly smile make him look playful and innocent. These details show their different personalities.

Arianny Gallardo – W3

Journal Entry - Week 3

We have seen that many early animated films, particularly in the US, were based on print comics. Why do you think that is? What was there about comics that would make them an appropriate subject for film?

Early American animated films were often based on print comics for a few reasons. I think it’s because comics were already popular, so turning them into animation was a smart way to reach an even bigger audience. Also, since animation was a new and exciting medium at the time, it gave creators a fresh way to tell stories. This success later led to longer animated films and helped make animation a worldwide art form.

Arianny Gallardo W2 -prompt 2

Journal Entry - Week 2

There are several of other forms to express the oral storytelling, the common ones are the poem storytelling and the fairy tales, and I’ll mainly focus on fairy tales. The fairy stories are stories based on the magical, unrealistic and supernatural components. However, by asking for “experience or participation,” I would interpret it as being part of a play or performance, so the answer would be yes. I used to do ballet and have performed in some plays, which were The Nutcracker and a fantastical one that was created by my ballet school. In my performance, there was barely oral participation, but this made me realize that the movements, expressions and music, was already expressing by itself. The way I felt when I used to participate in those performances was like stepping into another world for the reason that I used to see the settings of the performance, I used to see the costumes that advanced ballerinas were wearing, and it felt like a fantasy. Five out of seven days per week, four hours after school that I was attending to the rehearsals, and with a preparation of six months. This means that I spent most of my time there, living in an imaginary world. Lastly, the most exciting part was the last few weeks of the rehearsals before the actual performance because that’s where we started to go to the theater and wearing our costumes as well.

Arianny Gallardo – about me/intro

Journal Entry - Week 1

I am majoring Motion graphics and Animation, being the clear reason of why I’m into this class. Animation is not really wanted I want to focus on since I am leaning more towards the game development path. The reason why I’m focusing on animation or game development is since I’m young, I’ve been always wished to create and express my creativity into an artistic way for the reason that I got influenced by shows I used to watch, such as The Amazing World of Gumball, Adventure Time and Totally Spies!; as well, watched some Japanese shows that were my biggest inspirations, Kill La Kill, Saiki K, Aggretsuko, Norogami, Assassination Classroom and Soul Eater. These shows are based on the comedy and the randomness, which called my attention and inspired me more. I always felt passionate about illustrating unrealistic anime-like characters. I used to spend all day creating one-shot comics about myriads of topics, but this doesn’t mean I am good at it, yet. Lastly, my main goal in life or aspiration it is to first of all, master my artistic skills, method and studies by graduating from school in order for me to achieve successfully projects and artworks that I am wiling them to get recognized around the world and be the inspirations for other artists.