The Iron Giant (1999) is a classic animated film with many themes: Individuality, friendship, and man-versus-nature. But one looms in the background that isn’t as explicit. You see it subtly mentioned in dialogues and in newspaper headlines. You see it in the manner in which authorities overreact. And, you see it in the classroom projection: fear, propaganda, and paranoia.
These three themes are what this partner projected focused on. We wanted to take elements from the movie and recontextualize them into a propaganda film reel that appeared it was from the 50’s—echoing the fears of the Red Scare, nuclear armageddon, and sensational news people were exposed to.
The project was divided by medium: My project partner, Colin, would design 2D, printed, and micro elements, while I focused on 3D, video, and macro elements. We agreed that the Giant should be the main focal point, so I began with 3D modeling him in Blender using as many reference shots and turnarounds as I could find.
I ended up adding 4 additional shots. The rotating shot of the Giant in his Superman pose in the junkyard communicated the cult of personality theme mentioned prior. I did a close-up of the legs marching to create tension and to provide contrast in scale from the previous shot, going from macro to micro. I chose to do a close-up of his face, relating to a commonality I saw in propaganda videos of people looking off in the distance. Lastly, I added a shot with planes flying overhead after Colin mentioned that he discovered that during wartime, planes would deploy thousands of flyers via RISO printers inside open-door aircraft, which relates to his use of RISO in his flyers and newsprints, so I decided to communicate that relationship through animation. After I was done with all the shots, I noticed the Giant looked flat, since he was untextured except for glowing eyes and a metallic flat texture, so I ended up revisiting each shot and applying a worn metal normal map over him.\
When I was done, I compiled all the shots into After Effects and began the editing process. Based on the feedback we got, Colin and I agreed that the footage should gradually deteriorate, relating to the theme of paranoia. I added a countdown sequence, which would be the anchor of the video, signifying where it began, since I planned for the footage to rewind to the beginning. Every time it would rewind, it would get more distorted. I would flash brief headlines on screen from time to time, relating to Colin’s printed work and adding a layer of dimensionality. I used a variety of effects on top of adjustment layers, such as fractal noise and Gaussian blurs, to create grainy footage. I made sure to end the video on the 00:10:4 second mark after it rewound for the last time, since October 4th was the launch of Sputnik, a prominent event of paranoia referenced throughout the film and in Colin’s work.