In 2011, Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, teamed up with Industrial Light and Magic to produce a super-special effects animation called Rango.
"Rango" is also the name of a chameleon, the protagonist of the film, and the story tells the story of "Rango" who eventually discovers himself and helps others because he becomes a hero by mistake. The whole film is full of strong American Western style.
The film was released worldwide in 2011 and won several awards in 2012, including the Best Animated Feature Award at the 84th Academy Awards and the Best Animated Film award at the 39th Annie Awards.
As the producer of Industrial Light and Magic, its special effects technology has long been at the forefront of the world. Since George Lucas founded the company in 1975 and produced special effects for the first Star Wars, Industrial Light and Magic has created many amazing CG and visual effects for hundreds of films.
It can be said that Industrial Light and Magic has ushered in a new era of film special effects. And what kind of animation and top special effects can be combined into, which is also an important reason why "Lango" has attracted a lot of attention from the outside world.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the production and design of Lango</h1>
Industrial Light and Magic successfully turned the Rango animation into a showmanship, and the precision of its graphics is strong.
For example, the realistic and delicate hair of the animal, the raised lines on the skin of the lizard, the scale texture of the rattlesnake, etc., make people feel that the real world and the animated characters have been perfectly integrated.
The soundtrack of "Lango" invited the famous film scorer Hans Zimmer. Hans Zimmer is very good at combining electronic synthesizers and traditional instrumental music, and has performed original soundtracks for films such as Rain man, The Lion King, and Gladiator.
In order to reflect the western style of "Lango", Hans Zimmer created an original western tune for the film. The sound of guitars, whistles, and tambourines create a strong western atmosphere, which complements the wilderness town in the movie.
In the dubbing of the characters, the famous actor Johnny Depp was invited to voice the protagonist of this chameleon in the movie. Depp's voice, which has a strong personal style characteristics, gives this character an inner breath of life.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the story and characters of Rango</h1>
The story of "Rango" is understood as an exploration of self-worth identity.
The story is about a chameleon "Rango" who is kept in a glass box and often fantasizes that he is a great hero. One day, it came to a small town on the western frontier by accident and killed an eagle by mistake. As a result, "Rango" was regarded as a hero by the townspeople. After pretending to be a hero in the town for a while, "Rango" discovers the truth that the mayor of the town is planning to store water and cause the town to be hungry and thirsty. Under the pressure of the situation, the original vain and selfish "Lango" finally stood up, helped the residents of the town, and smashed the plot of the mayor.
There are a lot of interesting characters created in the story. Of course, these characters, with the blessing of Industrial Light and Magic, finally presented a very realistic texture on the screen. Let's review some of the character designs with the setting diagram.
The protagonist, "Rango", is a green chameleon with protruding eyeballs. The skin and texture characteristics of the chameleon prototype are retained in appearance and exaggerated. Personality is positioned as vain and weak.
Rango
The heroine is a desert lizard. In the story, he inherits his father's farm and comes together with "Lango" for the farm's water supply. It is also because of its kindness that "Lango" was moved, and finally saved the whole town together.
The mayor of the town in the story is a desert gopher turtle. The film is contrary to the normal state of honesty and meekness of turtles, and the mayor is designed as the main villain of the movie. This design has a satirical feature of villains who have an appearance cover.
Mayor
The mayor of Guizhen is selfish in character, and unscrupulously stores all the water in the whole town for his own abuse, resulting in hunger and thirst and lack of water for everyone. In addition, he also raised a number of dog legs as his subordinates to maintain order in the town.
The mayor's men
The villain of the film, the rattlesnake, is designed to wear a cowboy hat and hang a clip on his body, and the unique tail of the rattlesnake is designed as a machine gun.
rattlesnake
These villains all follow through the typical Western elements and are ugly and powerful. It is a strong visual contrast with the thin chameleon of the protagonist "Rango".
In addition, there are many small town residents, who are also based on various animals in reality, and have done western wind and exaggerated treatment. Because there are many characters, we will not introduce them all here. Some of the design diagrams are as follows.
The film is also interspersed with an "owl band", and the 4 owls play and sing while telling the experience of "Rango" to advance the plot, which enhances the dramatic effect of the film.
Owls
Throughout the scene, the dry desert terrain, isolated towns and dilapidated bars in the film are all unique natural features of the western region. With such a strong style of western scenes, coupled with a group of residents dressed as western cowboys, a typical western style animation was born.
building
The film also makes interesting tributes to many movies. For example, "Lango" put the model's hand on his leg, then took it away, and then put it on again, which is the bridge section of "Song in the Rain". Another example is the "Soul of the West" mentioned many times in the film, which is also a tribute to Clint Eastwood in "Red Dead Redemption".
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the inner part of Lango</h1>
In Western genre films, cowboy heroism has always been the focus of shaping. However, in "Lango", the protagonist is a weak guy, so the meaning expressed turns to the exploration of the human heart - a connotation of finding oneself and knowing oneself.
Rango design drawings
Originally a weak chameleon, after experiencing various dangers, it finally became brave, daring to punish evil and become a hero, which is the spirit of Western films.
In fact, heroes also come out of ordinary people.
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