Stop Motion Animation Assignment
I have been asked to create ideas for a piece of stop motion animation which is going to be completed by students and then be shown onto a big local cinema screen, this is from digital graphics to video and stop motion.
Cel Based Animation
Cel based animation is a traditional form of animation used in the productions of cartoons and short films / animated movies where each frame of the scene is drawn by hand. A full length feature film produced using cel animation would often require a million or more drawings. An example of cel based animation is shown below, it is an animated film called Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs created by Disney, an example of a scene of the movie is shown below which is the transformation from a woman to an old witch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMU8qT1bJA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMU8qT1bJA8
Cut Out Animation
Cut Out animation is a technique for producing stop-animations by using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. An example of Cut Out animation is below, its a paper cut out animation piece where paper has been cut into shapes for example a sun and clouds which are then coloured in to make it look realistic.
Another example of cut out animation is South Park as you can see below, it is an animated TV series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, The characters in South Park and the props and backgrounds are all a cut out animation piece.
Model Based Animation
As you can see below is a short video animation piece which I have just created, I have created this by using modelling clay to create a character. I used iStopMotion 3 to complete the task I was given, my animation was 17 seconds long as you can see. I completed this task by taking single images per every shot, each shot was 1 second long therefore there is a lot of shots in this short animation, this can be compared to big movies and TV series like Shaun The Sheep and Wallace and Gromit where there must be thousands of shots. This is how modelling clay can be used to create animation. At around 9 seconds in I selected all of it then copied and pasted then reversed it which added another part to the short animation. The camera I used is called HueHD, a clever camera which is very flexible making it a lot easier for the animation to be filmed.
Another example of modelling animation has been created by Ryan Marr, he used the same technique as I did however his animation was longer than mine therefore there are many more shots.
Another example of modelling animation has been created by Ryan Marr, he used the same technique as I did however his animation was longer than mine therefore there are many more shots.
Below is a link to a short animation, myself, Jared and Ryan created, it is from cut out things from random magazines. I enjoyed doing this excercise as it was something very different to the other types of animation, however it was a little bit more difficult thinking of ideas to create a short story from the magazines. I maybe tempted to attempt this type of animation in the future however I have not yet decided. For this excercise as it was a practice we thought we'd make the storyline comical which is why Leonardo Di Caprio is being born by a random model with a body lotion as his body.
Pixilation
The video below is an example of Stop Motion Animation me and Ryan Marr completed, the animation was based on pixilation which is to do with people. The size for our short 15 second movie was 960 x 540 px, being 12 frames per second making 174 frames. The way we did this we used was iStopMotion 3 with the use of ' Onion Skin ' which is where you get to see where about's you left off due to the image you took before hand then being transparent. MP4 files are compressed down to a good size so its easier and quicker to upload as well as it being HD.
Below is a link to a professional example of Pixilation animation from Joe Weller, a famous celebrity YouTuber, due to it being made by a real animation company they use many features to make sure the audience look at it and think its very good, one of the features they use is the branches they use as ski's to ski down the muddy hill.
Another example of Pixilation animation is the video below where a man is using Stop Motion Animation to get a haircut, the programme and features he has used make it look impossible to do. He also then reverts it which makes it look even better!
Time Lapse
Below is a link to a YouTube video showing a house being built in a time lapse format, this video shows a house being built in 7 minutes which actually took them 6 months to build. Time lapse is something different compared to all the other techniques of animation, it can even have background music on such as if it was a time lapse of a city from morning to night. An example of a time lapse could be taking a picture of a flower every hour for a week then viewing the footage back and seeing what has changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOY3gVV_KRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOY3gVV_KRE
Persistence of Vision
Persistence of vision can be justified as an optical illusion for the human brain where it can take lots of still images and put it into a film and it looks as though that thing/person is moving etc. The lowest rate for persistence of vision to work is 12 frames per second, anything under this the brain can make out it is looking at still images. Professional companies will use 25 frames per second for animation and video, this means they spend much more time and effort into their pieces. In the USA the standard is 29.97 frames per second meaning its more than the professional standards of the UK.
The link above is about a man ( Eadweard Muybridge ) who wondered when he raced his horse if all 4 legs came off the ground at one given time , to check to see if this was the case he lined up many cameras and as the horse went passed the cameras they took pictures of it. As you can see below Eadweard Muybridge found out that his horses legs did come off the ground all at the same time.
Early Animation Devices
There were many different animation devices before what we use today, one of these devices was called the Zoetrope, this was a piece of equipment where you would draw around 20 images around it and then spin it, one example could be horses galloping, of course this is only what your brain thinks however it is actually still images. The link below is an example of around 20 drawn horses all very similar however different being spun around making it look like the horses are running.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBg6dAE3mI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBg6dAE3mI0
Another example is the Kinetoscope, this was invented by Thomas Edison, this piece of equipment at the time was a very clever idea, it was used by lots of film in a device with headphones. This was a series of film which could tell a story / play. The example below was one of the first ever films which was created.
Another example of an early animation device was a Mutoscope, this was also a device which you could watch a play / short film on, the way it worked was there would be pictures in a device and which you would run your thumb over, telling your brain it was moving however they were just still images. As you can see from the link below, it looks as though it is moving.
Finally there was the Thaumatrope which was 2 pictures on each side of a circular piece of paper, this was then turned at a fast pace which made your brain they were together, below is a link of a bird and a cage looking like they're together.
Pioneers of early animations
George Melies
George Melies was a French illusionist and film maker/director and was famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of the cinema. He was born in Paris, France December the 8th 1861 and died January 21st, 1938 ( Aged 76 ). He was known for his involvement in The Voyage Across the Impossible, A Trip To The Moon, The 400 Tricks of the Devil and The Devilish Tenant, however he was involved in many more short films. 2 of these short film links are below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo
Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay was a writer, producer and director, he was born September 26th, 1871 and died aged only 62 on July 26th 1934. He was mainly known for Little Nemo which was a short animation TV series and Gertie the Dinosaur. Winsor McCay was exceptionally talented in animating and the way he coloured in every part of the story. The animation was the piece of a 10 minute short film entitled "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics". Winsor McCay set a very high standard with this piece of animation and therefore had a big impact on animation. The link below shows a short TV series about Little Nemo.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW71mSedJuU
Lotte Reiniger
Lotte Reiniger was born on the 2nd of June, 1899 as Charlotte Reiniger. She was a Director for animation projects and a writer. She is known for her work on ' The Adventures Of Prince Achmed ' and ' The HPO '. When Lotte Reiniger started doing animations she got very successful, it meant she could go to the institute for cultural research which was an experimental animation and short film studio. This was where she met her spouse, Carl Koch. She made six short films whilst she was there, all produced and photographed by her husband, some of these films even had special effects for there time - this being a silhouette falcon for a dream sequence for the film ' The Nibelungs '. As you can see below there is a link to a silhouette feature in "Däumelinchen".
Finally Lotte Reiniger was a big animator back in her time, she was a specialist in silhouette animation with her husband, as you can see above is an example of her work, the cut out animation is superb, it must have took her a very long time to get perfect.This animation piece was made in 1935.
The information from this blog hopefully develops ideas for a piece of stop motion animation and how different parts of them can be explored and explained.
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