Assignment 2 - Creating Our Own Animation

In this blog, I am going to be posting details about the animation i am creating, talking about what type I am doing and all the work and detail that goes into it. For my animation, i have decided to a type of model animation, using Clay. Examples of clay animation are;

Each of the videos above, are different examples of clay animation, all different and unique in their own way. What I like about Clay animation is, you can do absolutely anything with it, as long as you are able to make the required models.

Concept Ideas -
     
. A scene out of a favourite TV show (The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, Lucifer, The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow, Glee) Or, combine a scene from two of the shows, and recreate it as one scene in a animation
Example - Teen Wolf and The Vampire Diaries. Allison Argents death on Teen Wolf, combined with the collapse of the Other Side on The Vampire Diaries.
. Recreating a scene from a favourite movie, such as Harry Potter or The Fault In Our Stars
. Pingu combined with a death scene ?
. Original idea animation - Circus ? Superhero ?
. Original idea - A circus, in which a clown goes mad and begins to chase after the audience.
Background, of a circus ring, and multiple different models would be needed. Clown, ring master and multiple different audience members.              

Script -
Scene 1 - Normal circus scene, everything is  normal. Ring background with the outline of a audience surrounding the models. Circus music playing in the background.
Scene 2 - Ring master enters and greets the audience, sound of laughter edited into the background. He introduces the first act. Leaves the ring.
Scene 3 - Clown enters the ring. At first, everything goes fine and the crowd enjoys his performance . Then he messes up one of his tricks, and the crowds laughs at him, making the clown grow angry.
Scene 4 - Clown lashes out at the audience, threatening them. Audience members being to flee scared, clown chases after them angrily. Ring master tries to stop, gets punched and knocked tot he ground.
 Scene 5 - Clown stands alone in the now empty arena, bursting out into laughter. The laughter echo's throughout the tent

To Do Today - Get clay and start making the models.
Get materials to make background.

Done so far- I have found the background I am going to use for the animation. I am also searching for ideas for what to make my models look like. I am currently trying to print out the al different things i am going to use for my background, and print some examples out for when I begin to make my models.

Done this lesson - I have found the background and designs for the models in my animation, giving me a idea of how to make them.                                                                                    

.This is the image that I have decided to use as my background for the animation. It is a circus ring, that will give the idea that the entire audience has fled when the clown goes crazy.










This is the clown, that i have decided I am going to base my model off when it comes to making it. It could be easily changed to suit each different scene of the animation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 



















I am going to base the ring master off of this model, when it comes to designing my own models out of clay.

Time Lapse Animation

Time Lapse Animation - This is were, the camera is very rarely moved from one place. It is a serious of shots/images, taken over a certain time period, which could be hours or even days. It is focused on just one thing, and how that changes/evolves over the chosen time period.

Model Based Animation

This is a clay model animation, up to 10 seconds long. It is a sequence made up of multiple different frames, all taken one after another, having only adjusted the position of the models by a small amount each frame.

Tim burton is a film director and animator. He is know for animations such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and Coraline. His work is usually dark and gothic, but can vary at times. 

There is also Otmar Gutmann who is the creator of Pingu. It is a example of Clay stop start animation. It is a animation made specially for kids, and is not as dark as work from Tim Burton. 

Cel Based Animation

Cel based animation, is short for celluloid animation. Cel based animation, is the idea of using transparent sheets of material, such as plastic, drawing objects and parts of the cartoon on it for traditional hand drawn animation. This technique was used, as it reduced the amount of times a image had to be redrawn, it also enabled studios the ability to split up the production process more simply and more evenly.

Outlines of images are drawn on the front of cels, then on the back of the same sheet, colours are painted onto it. Once the images are done, they are laid over a static image background.

Earl Hurd, was the one who the patented the technique in 1914. (Earl Hurd, 14th September 1880 - 28th September 1940).

Many cartoon creators used the technique, and many still use it to this day, though some use computers to speed the process along. Disney, was one of the first people to use the technique, but stopped using in in the 1990's in favour of CAPS (Computer Animation Production System). Snow White, was one of the first disney films made using this technique, and altogether took up to three years to make. It is one of the many films, that makes Disney as popular as it is today.

The Simpsons cartoon, still uses this technique today, though they do use computers to speed up the process. In fact, a lot of the cartoons you see today still use these techniques, just with computers used in certain places.

Different Early Animators

                                                                    Georges Melies 
                                                          Born - December 8th 1861 
                                                           Died - January 21st 1938 

Georges Melies was a french illusionist and film director. He is well known, for leading in technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema. Two of his most famous films, are Trip To The Moon (Video above) and The Impossible Voyage.
During WW1, his studio was taken by the government to help with the war effort. All of his 100 fils, were taken and melted down into plastic to make shoes and other pieces of equipment, and with the his career started to take a major decline. He then went to live in France, making money by selling toys and sweets in a French train station, no longer a big deal in the public eye. Towards the end of the war, he started to become known once again and some copies of his films were found, but he still lost many of his creations and wasn't able to get them back.

                                                                   Winsor Mcay 
                                                      Born - September 26th 1869 
                                                           Died - July 26th 1934 

Winsor Mcay, was an American cartoonist and animator. Two of his most well know cartoons strips, are Little Nemo (Video Above) and Gertie The Dinosaur. He animated 10 films between 1911 and 1921, which he stated that he was very proud of. He worked under the name Silas, when he produced comic strips for Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, just due to contractual reasons. With his it worked, it inspired illusionists and and cartoonists for generations to come.

Lottie Reiniger

Born - June 2nd 1899 

Died June 19th 1981 

Lottie Reiniger was a German film and pioneer of silhouette animation. Lottie's best known films are The Adventures of Prince Achmed and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her work was very successful, and was said to be a predecessor of Walt Disney by a decade. Worked on several projects with Erica Walter White, a British poet, critic and musician, who wrote a book length essay on her work.  

Persistence Of Vision

Persistence Of Vision is, a version of the mind playing tricks on you. For example, a coin has two different images on either side of it, and when it is moved at a certain pace it looks like it is moving or coming together. The video above, is the a example of perfect of persistence of vision. Every single animation sequence that is made, uses persistence of vision. It is sequence, of moving objects/images, and not just a single still image or object. Slower then 7 seconds long, it would be seen as a still image. If it is faster then 30 seconds, then it would just be seen as a blur.

Persistence Of Vision

Persistence Of Vision is, a version of the mind playing tricks on you. For example, a coin has two different images on either side of it, and when it is moved at a certain pace it looks like it is moving or coming together. The video above, is the a example of perfect of persistence of vision. Every single animation sequence that is made, uses persistence of vision. It is sequence, of moving objects/images, and not just a single still image or object. Slower then 7 seconds long, it would be seen as a still image. If it is faster then 30 seconds, then it would just be seen as a blur.

Pixilation Animation

This technique is called Pixilation sequence, and is a type of animation made using people. It had 12 frames per second, for 10 seconds, equally a 120 frames in total. When this is played back, it looks like a moving movie sequence, instead of just a lot of picture taken at once of the same thing. the programme used contains Onion skin, which leaves the shadow of shot behind after it is taken. This allows you, to line up the next shot based off of this this shadow. I worked in a group with Jordan in order to create this small animation.

Animation Example

Wallace and Gromit is an example, of Stop Start Animation