Capoeira

INTRODUCTION

The present animation is entitled `Capoeira’, inspired by the Brazilian art form that combine elements of martial arts, sports and music, created in Brazil mainly by the descendants of African slaves estimated to be around the 17^th century.  Capoeira is characterized by quick and complex moves, using mainly the power of kicking and quick leg sweeps, with some ground and aerial acrobatics, knee strikes, take-downs, elbow strikes, punches and head-butts.  The name capoeira which referred to areas of low vegetation in the interior of Brazil is believed to originate from a now extinct Tupi language spoken by a coastal Brazilian Tupi people. 

The animation highlight a relationship between a student and a teacher. The end of the year has come where the student has learnt well the art moves of Capoeira a form of martial art the teacher has taught him throughout the year.  The teacher and the student have a final fighting duel, a demonstration fight  where the  student has to prove to the teacher that  he has mastered well the art of capoeira fighting and has to challenge his teacher in a duel.  The student makes every effort but at the end of the fight the teacher wins practically ‘legs’ free.   The music an important tool in Capoeira though the tune presented is not strictly form Capoeira music described later in the presentation, play an important tool to influence response to the animation.

CONTEXT

Regarding the characters:  The animation of Capoeira provided tremendous variety of materials that I could use to portray the moving image.  The main idea for the development of the two characters was that I wanted to keep them as simple as possible.  I also wanted them to be “cyborgs” that is, without eyes but with normal human body which contains mechanical or electrical device and whose abilities are greater than the abilities of normal humans (Also see under Research below). I also wanted them to be attractive in look and in staging. I got my character face idea by researching a lot of different cyborgs’ face styles.  For the hair I used dragon ball Z as the main reference. 

Clothing: The character clothing idea was obtained through researching Capoeira clothing style because I still wanted to keep my character as simple as possible even though they are human cyborgs.  Before making the final decision it was important that I carry out research on Chinese old and modern ninja clothing.

Location: The animation is located in a Chinese martial art palace training ground. The reason for choosing China instead of Brazil where capoeira is said to have originated was because I got an idea having my two characters in a different location from the game tekken. Tekken has several different players with different skills and in each fight the characters are in different locations no matter what kind of martial art skills they have. 

Martial art style: As  mentioned above, Capoeira is a physically and mentally challenging game of trickery and strategy, an energetic culture of music and dance, an intense aerobic and strength-building workout, and author of some of the most spectacular acrobatics in the world, complete with high-flying flips, airborne spinning kicks, intricate ground movements and more. 

Weapons: Researched was carried out on ninja and the capoeira weapons.  The idea was to use weapons for the animation but in the end I decided not to use them because again for keeping the animation simple and realistic; and also with the understanding that Capoeira fighter dancers today do not use weapons. 

Colour: Black and white colours were used for the character pants as a contrast.  For the background location environment blue or grey colour sky with mountainous background is used, giving the feeling of an isolated palace training grounds.  The inspiration comes from Capoeira fight and dance which is said to have developed in hiding and isolated Brazilian mountainous bushes.   The use of yellow, pink and grey on the buildings was to give them an outstanding and a  significant contrast with the sky background..