Group Project, Popular Culture Online

1. FernGully
The Last Rainforest

2. Overview
 Report Compiled By:
Rachel Dailey, Nicole
Epperly, and Charlie Berry
 Rachel: Introduction, Video
Clip, Characters, Slideshow
 Nicole:
Theme, Storyline, Overview
, and Discussion
Questions
 Charlie: Historical and
Cultural Aspects, Animation
and Style

3. Introduction
Crysta, a young fairy, hasn’t ventured beyond the world of FernGully.
Living in the rainforest, Crysta was lead to believe that humans no
longer existed. It was legend that humans were driven away by the
evil Hexxus, the spirit of destruction and toxic to all nature. While
exploring, Crysta finds dead trees marked to be cut down and
throughout the film, Crysta’s goal is to save the trees and preserve
rainforest from the evil Hexxus.

4. Originally the stories were written by Diana Young. When turned into a
film, the screen play was written by Jim Cox. Director of the film was Bill
Kroyer.
Stars Featured in the Film include:
• Samantha Mathis
• Christian Slater
• Robin Williams

5. Technical Film and
Animations
• Film was made in April 1992
• It was made using Computer Animation
• The use of the computer animation reduced production time
• Traditional animation would have taken longer

6. FernGully: A Land of
Beauty
 In this film, the characters struggle to overcome the
worst possible thing that could come to their land:
industrialization.
 Along with industrialization comes pollution and a
dreadful slimy antagonist.
 Industrialization and pollution seemingly go hand in
hand, as this film outlines for us.

7. Characters
Crysta
Crysta is a mischievous young
fairy driven by curiosity. She
often finds herself in trouble
while trying to protect the
forest. Her character
represents hope and brings
light to all things dark.
Zak
A young human boy finds
himself working for a logging
company and then he meets
Crysta and his perception
changes. Rather than being
part of problem, he decides to
be part of the solution. He
symbolizes that it is never too
late to change.

8. Characters
Batty Koda
A bat that quickly befriends
Crysta in the film. His
character provides comic
relief throughout the film. His
sense of humor picks on the
humans and shows how
bizarre humans can be.
Hexxus
The main villain and
antagonist of the film. He is
the spirit of pollution and
destruction. He feeds off of
pollution such as slime,
sludge, and smoke. His goal
is to wipe out FernGully.

9. Storyline
 Fern Gully is a rainforest. Full of
life and diversity, the fairies help
aid growth and prosperity.

10. Storyline
 All is well in Fern Gully,
but in the distance a tree
leveler is hard at work
collecting lumber.
 Our friend Zak is hard at
work marking trees to be
cut down.

11. Storyline
 Little does he know that the
mysterious tree he is about to
mark is actually the prison of
a terrible creature: Hexxus.
 Consuming pollution to strive
and grow, Hexxus was a
nemesis to Fern Gully in the
past and was condemned to
his arboreal prison by the
magical leader Magi.

12. Storyline
 Through magical accident by main character Crysta,
Zak is turned to “fairy size” and learns all about the
fairy lifestyle.
 Because Zak marked the tree containing Hexxus to
be cut down, the leveler heads that way to do the
job.
 In an attempt to cut down the tree, Hexxus is
inadvertently released from his prison and begins to
consume the bouts of pollution coming from the
leveler.

13. Storyline
 In his time spent with the
fairies, Zak realizes that the
way he was promoting
deforestation was wrong.
 Learning of the new rise of
Hexxus, the fairies then
have to act quickly to stop
him in his tracks.
 Crysta is learning magic
from Magi and is sent forth
to do the task.

14. Storyline
 Thankfully fairy magic
prevails and is able to
stop the nemesis in his
tracks.
 Hexxus is again
condemned to a tree
prison and they all live in
peace and harmony once
again.

15. Video Clips
 Movie Trailer
 http://youtu.be/wf9BH-
zB2Ng
 The Entire Film
 http://www.veoh.com/watch
/v32996472nxNEb74r

16. Themes
 Industrialization and pollution is a very real
thing. It is known widely now that humans
virtually destroy environment in ways.
 There are many themes in this film, however
one of the most prominent ones is: Treat your
world how you would want to be treated.

17. Themes
 In the film, Zak carves with his knife into a tree.
Crysta, being a fairy, is very upset and questions why
he would do such a thing. She asks him: “Can’t you feel
it’s pain?” and places his hand over the wound on the
tree.
 If we treated the world like Crysta would, the natural
environment would thrive like it did before the time of
industrialization.

18. Cultural & Historical
Aspects
 The movie started as a
book by Diana Young.
The book was published
by Scholastic in the
United States

19. Cultural & Historical
Aspects
 Although the film includes fairies and magical creatures, it still has
historical and cultural context within the story.
 The story of Fern Gully is set in Australia around the area of mountains
with many legends and tales that the native people believe in. The book
and movie are located in the forests surround Mount Warning, which the
Aboriginal people believe to be sacred land. The Aboriginal people are
very in tune with their land and identify with the characteristics of the
surrounding animals, plants, terrain, and food sources. The Aboriginal
people believe in a balance of nature and humans, they also believe that
Spirits help maintain that balance and help relieve some of the human
impact in the environment.
 Early Settlers of Mount Warning destroyed the wildlife and animal habitat
of the surrounding areas.
 The government eventually noticed the damage taking place and
declared Mount Warning a national park.

20. Cultural & Historical
Aspects
 To think critically about the
film Ferngully, we connected
the film Princess Mononoke
using the interpretive method
to contrast the examples of
preserving the natural
environment.
 Princess Mononoke is set in
Japan's late Muromachi
Period (1336-1573); the film
focuses on the struggle
between the forest kami and
the humans who abuse the
forest's natural resources.

21. Cultural & Historical
Aspects
 Events unfold through the vantage of Ashitaka, an
Emishi prince and outsider to this world. Mono no ke
means spirit or supernatural thing—something
unspecifiable and therefore extraordinary, strange, to be
feared; just like someone who can be destroying natural
resources.
 In Ferngully, the story is set in the rain forest, Ferngully.
The film focuses on the Crysta, the fairy, and how she
tries to show humans that the forest is full of value and
that they shouldn’t demolish it. Each film compares and
contrasts the negatives of humans taking advantage of
natural resources.

22. Style and Animation
 The animation of Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest is not
strikingly different than other animations of the time and
even animations prior to the production.
 However, the creators of this film used some techniques
other than the typical techniques for the time, some of
the simpler parts of the animation started with ink and
paint. The animation at times was printed and painted to
get the fully ending effect
 A heavy reliance on computers was present during the
creation of this film. This was true for overall character
creation, movement animation (fairies flying, Batty flying)
as well as general movement.

23. Animation

24. Style and Animation
 The animators used a large amount of flying FX. There are
two types of flying FX that the animators used to produce the
best animation, Standard flying FX are from the waist down
when the characters are moving at a regular rate of speed
and acting while doing so, Glowball zooming, for example,
when Crysta is flying much faster than the background and
not acting. In the glowball zooming the FX cover the
character’s entire body.
 The flying FX consist of two elements the trail, and the
glowball sparkles (friendlies)
 The trail follow the fairies wherever they fly, and the “pixie
dust” and sparkles that follow and magnetically cling to the
fairy in flight.

25. We Can Learn
From This
Film…
In this day and age, it is easy
to forget what is outside of our
own “bubbles”. Crysta fights
for what she believes in and
never gives up on her morals.
Although you might not be
able to “save Fern Gully” so to
speak, you can make a
difference by simply recycling
water bottles instead of
throwing them in the garbage.
Nature is a delicate thing and
ultimately it will treat us how
we treat it.