Unit 11 Animation Brief 1

Animation

Brief

 For the first task I was given a scenario in which I was placed in the Tower Hamlets Marketing Department, their I was asked to write a blog for prospective students who were interested in media especially animation. The blog would have to be engaging and informative on the development in animation, the uses for it and its techniques.

Animation Devices and Technologies

Phenakistoscope

The phenakistocope was one of the first commercially used devices used to view animation. It was invented by Belgian Joseph Plateau in 1832. The device consisted of a spinning cardboard disk which created the illusion of movement when viewed in a mirror.



The Zoetrope

The Zoetrope is a vintage toy originally created in the 1830s. The toy is an animation device. The device works by creating the illusion of movement, The Zoetrope consists of a drum with slit cut in the side. On the inside of the cylinder is a sequence of 9 still images. the cylinder is then spun and the person using the product would then look through the slits onto he other side and see what looks to be like movement. This would be because as the images move very fast the illusion of movement  created. Unlike the Phenakistocsope, when viewing the zoetrope you would view it through the narrow gaps on the outside.

Here is an example of The Zoetrope device.

Reference- http://zoetrope.org/zoetrope-history

Cinematograph

The Cinematograph is a device created by the Lumiere Brothers, The device was competing with inventor Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope device. The device was created in early 1895 and on March 19th 1985 the brothers recorded footage using their newly patented device for the first time. The Cinematograph consisted of a camera, printer and also projector. Unlike Thomas Edison's device, The Cinematograph allowed a big audience to be able to view the footage all at the same time as it could project what it recorded onto a screen. It was also not electric like Edison's. The device had to be operated manually and was 16 lbs. Unlike the other devices listed the Cinematograph was the only device to be able to project its recordings in a large size for a large audience to be able to view

Here is an example of The Cinematograph

Reference- http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4410221/Cinematograph-records-1st-footage--March-19--1895

Developments in Technology

The first time CGI animation was used in the production The Hummingbird in 1967. It had pre programmed picture of a hummingbird and then the early computer created 30,000 images of the animation. It was after this that the technology had become slightly more developed and CGI technology was used in Disney's Tron in 1982. the movie consisted of many 3D CGI effects and a famous scene which include vehicles in the movie called light cycles, these vehicles leave a trade of light as they are ridden and the traces were created using CGI animation. The scene then became one of the most famous CGI scenes in the history of animation. A few years even after this was created the technology developed even more. This time in 1995 with Pixar's movie Toy Story. Toy Story was the first ever fully 3D CGI animated feature film ever created. The technology worked so that every character would require its own motion control, each shot had to be rendered separately. The success of Toy Story set a standard within the world of animated cartoons and many more feature films like Toy Story were created with 3D CGI technology for example A Bug's Life in 1998, Monsters Inc in in 2001 and Finding Nemo in 2003. With the success of 3D CGI animation 2D animated feature films  were not created as much. 

   (Tron-1982)                                                  (Toy Story-1995)                       
                                                                                                             (The Humming bird 1967)

                                                                                                

How Animation Works

Persistence of Vision

Persistence of vision is a reference to when the retina remembers an image for almost a split second straight after it has viewed an image and then enhances animation as it creates the illusion of movement. When images are viewed in a sequence in which they are very close together and moving very fast. The theory suggests that since the human eye can only process 10-12 images per second and we only see the gaps and skips for one fifteenth of a second we just replace the gap with the next image and then the illusion of movement and continuity has been created. 

Reference- https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/explore-animation/1/steps/59151

Beta Movement

The Beta Movement also known as Phi Phenomena is an illusion created in which two or more images are read by the brain and surmised motion is the created. This theory believes that it is not the eyes that help create the illusion of movement rather the brain. In order for The Beta Movement to work two or more images must be placed correctly so that when the images are shown one after the other. We will be focused on the newest image being show and our brain will fill in the gaps with the illusion that movement has taken place.

Reference- http://mesosyn.com/mental8-14.html

Frame Rates

To be able to view the illusion of movement the viewer would have to be shown many different images moving rapidly, one after the other. When it comes to animation for television, the animation is generally created at 24 to 30 frames per second. You will be able to perceive the illusion of movement at 16 frames per second however, if the animation is created at anything below 12 frames per second than the animation comes out quite messy and all over the place, the gaps in between images become noticeable and the illusion of movement is lost 

Reference- http://aframe.com/blog/2013/07/a-beginners-guide-to-frame-rates/

Key Animators

Walter Disney-Pre Digital Era

When it comes to Walt Disney most people associate him with animation more specifically classic hand drawn 2D animation and that is because Walt Disney was one of the most innovative animators. Some of the things he is most famous for creating is the character Mickey Mouse, The first fully animated feature Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and The animated musical Fantasia. In 1919 after returning back from France Walt pursued a career as a newspaper artist. His brother was able to help him get a job with The Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio. Once their Walt met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwwerks. From thier Walt went on to work at the Kansas City AD Company. Once their Walt began experimenting with cameras and hand drawn cell animation. He then decided to create his own animation buissness. Walt hired his Fred Harmon once he created his company and they then made a deal with a local cinema to show their productions which they called Laugh O Grams. The animations had become so popular that Walt was able to acquire his own studio. their they created seven minute fairy tales and these fairy tales consisted of both 2D animation and live action acting and they were called Alice in Cartoonland however, the studio had become bankrupt and Disney was forced to file for bankruptcy. After this Walt and his brother  put together their money and moved to Hollywood, Iwerks also ended up relocating to Hollywood and then the three created the Disney Brother's Studio. Their first deal involved them distributing their Alice cartoons. They created this deal with New York distributor Margaret Winkler. They created another character called Oswald the Rabbit and were ale to contract the short at $1,500 each. A few years later Disney discovered that Winkler and her husband had stolen the rights to Oswald The Disney brothers created a new character that they called Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse was featured in quite a few animations and one of them was Steamboat Willie, this animation was created around the time sound found its way into film and the cartoon instantly became popular. In 1929 Disney created Silly Symphonies along with it came new characters Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. The show became one of the most famous shows and Flowers and Trees was the first oneto be created in colour and to win an Oscar. In 1937 Disney created Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs which was actually the first ever fully 2D animated movie ever made. The film won eight Oscars. After this Disney created a string of animated features such as Pinnochio (1949), Fantasia(1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942). Even Today The Disney Studio have a big influence as they have joined with Pixar. With the release of the Pixar movie Ratatoulie Pixar came the companies first 2D had drawn short film called "Your Friend The Rat" many different styles were incorporated into this short film but mainly traditional animation methods.

Reference- http://www.slashfilm.com/pixar-does-2d-aniamtion/

Reference- http://www.biography.com/people/walt-disney-9275533#commercial-success

John Lasseter- Post Digital Era

John Lasseter is an american animator who helped take animation to a new level and set a standard for the world of animation. John is known for creating Pixar Studios and is said to have as much influence in animation in the digital era as Walt Disney did in the Pre Digital era. During his post secondary education Lassetar studied at Pepperdine University however, He soon decided to follow his passion for animation and enrolled at California Institute of The Arts newly created animation course. He studied the art alongside Tim Burton and Brad Bird. After finishing university John quickly found work as a low level animator at The Walt Disney Feature Animation Studio, their he workedon projects such as 1981's The Fox and the Hound and 1983's Mickey's Christmas Carol. Lasseter decided to pitch an idea to pitch a heavy CGI animated adaption of Where the Wild Things Are as he was very enthusiastic about the field of new computer animation. The project never took place and Lasseter then found himself looking fired and looking for a new job. John, alongside some of his other friends in the computer industry computer generated animated short film for George Lucas's company Lucasfilm. The animate short was two minutes long and was called The Adventures Of Andre and Wally B. The animated short really displayed the potential computers had in the field of animation. After this Steve Jobs actually bought the company and called it Pixar. For the next several years Lasseter worked on many new 3D aimated shorts such as 1986's Luxo Jr and the Oscar winning movie Tin Toy. John had started working on what would be the first ever fully 3D animated feature film ever. The film was released in 1995 and was called Toy Story,the movie became hugely successful and won the golden globe for Best Motion Picture. Lasseter's 3D movie set a standard for new animated movies. In 2006 Lasseter re joined the company that fired him and became the Chief Creative Officer of both Pxar and Disney after Disney bought Pixar. Today Lasseter has full control over the animated movies released by Disney. Some of his most well known production would have to be Toy Story (1995), a movie that follows the story of a group of toys and the adventure they have when no humans are looking, Finding Nemo (2003), Which follows the story of a clownfish who has lost his son and goes on a journey to find him, Frozen (2013), a movie which follows the story of two princessesand the adventue one goes onto help the other. More recently The Good Dinosaur (2015) the movie that takes place in a world were an asteroid missed earth in turn not making the dinosaurs extinct. It follows the journey of a young dinosar and his pet. To date John Lasseter and Pixar have released sixteen movies and have five still being created.

Reference- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114709/awards

Reference- http://movies.about.com/od/animatedmovies/a/john-lasseter-bio.htm

How Animation is Used across Different Media 

Sectors

I have listed some different types of animation according to the sector, I have covered how they were used and I put down some examples I like.

Moving Image

Animation is used in many different ways when it comes to moving images often you will find it used in Disney pixar movies for example Toy Story but you can also find it in movies that have live action acting in them for example Marvels The Avengers Age of Ultron (2015). The character Ultron is made from 3D animation technology. When it comes to 3D animation it is all done through the use of computers.For 3D animated movies such as all the Pixar's movies  Animators use a special animation software and create characters, they start with the skeleton of a character and then create the outside of a character. They create the skeleton so that way the characters are able to manipulate easily, they do this so that they can later use the character kind of like puppets and have them move the way they would like. After this step animators can create a world for these characters to live in. They start this off by building props for the worlds for example they may build a sofa or trees they then start to create the rest of the world like the sky, roads and trees. When it comes to actually creating the movie the animators then place the characters in the world they have created, and start to animate, it is very similar to stop motion as they maneuver the characters slowly for example if a there is a scene in which a character is waving its hand for 3 seconds they will move the hand only slight distances apart frame to frame over the course of approximately 72 frames so that they have a smooth motion of a hand waving. If the animator does not know exactly how a character might move in a specific scene then they may actually record themselves acting out the scene and use the recording as a reference for their animation.

Reference-Pixar's The incredibles- Bonus Feature content- Top Secret Files on The Supes

Reference-Pixar's The Incredibles- Bonus Feature content- "The Making of The Incredibles"

Reference-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qGlL3J1ZKQ

Reference-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cecx5HVtUDY

Music Videos

The music video for Kanye Wests song Good Life ft T-pain mixed live action acting with rotoscoping. The way in which this video was created would be by opening up the video, which would not consist of any animation just the live action into a software a software that would be able to create rotoscoped animation, Photoshop is a software that can do this, once the video was opened up the frame rate per second setting might have been adjusted and changed and after this step the black and white filter  was probably applied, this filter turns the video to black and white. After the filter was applied the timeline indicator would have been taken and placed onto the first frame of the video, using a tool, in this case it was probably the paint tool, the part of the scene that was supposed to be animated would have been drawn over completely. For example in the first image below, which is a scene from Kanye Wests music video Good Life ft- T-pain the part of the video that was rotoscoped was everything within the frame prop Kanye West was holding in his hands. Frame by frame each frame in the video they wanted to have rotoscoped would have been painted over in the software. Kanye's music video for his song heartless consists of fully rotoscoped animation. In this music video it is not just part of the live action footage that is recorded rather everything within all of the scenes.

Kanye Wests music video- Good Life ft-Tpain         Kanye Wests music video- Heartless

Video-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKEjpTzB0Q 

Gaming

When it comes to video games quite a few video games create animated cut scenes so that gamers are able to understand he story of the video game.The way in which they create them is by creating 2D hand drawn animation the same way they would for television and they then apply them to a video game, When a person has completed a level, the cut scene is displayed  An example of this would be the Bandai Namco Game Dragon Ball Heroes. 2D animated cut scenes were created for the game. 2D animation is done by creating a sequence of picture at a specific frame rate, for 2D animation 24-30 frames per second meaning for every second of animation 24-30 images would be drawn. Each of the scenes is drawn by an animator. A colorist then takes the images and colours them. After this step each image is placed in the correct part of the sequence.

Reference- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdzjqOuO_Ig

Cutscene-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC_gDQNIf3s&nohtml5=False

Television

When it comes to television many companies have a logo and many of those logos are  incorporated into commercials or television programs generally at the end of a program so people are aware of the company that created the production. Some companies have an animated version of their logos and these are the logos we most often see on television.They create these animations using certain softwares that would allow them to animate logos. An example would have to be Nintendo's Ds commercial in which they open up with an animation of the logo.

Commercial- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCIPk5QqHyU&nohtml5=False

Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is a technique in which a video containing live action footage is used.The video is taken and then the frames drawn over using a software, one of the softwares that would be able to do that would be Photoshop. It opens up the videos at a certain frame rate the editor would then just need to simply select the fames they wanted and draw over them.

Hand Drawn Animation

Hand drawn animation is a traditional form of animation as it is a bit more tedious than 3D animation. However for anime productions like Dragon Ball hand drawn animation is required for their cut scenes and television shows as that is the way the look and feel of Dragon Ball. This is a technique in which each scene is drawn frame by frame. Each part of the production is done in stages for example there are animators. background designers and colourists.