Thursday, 16 June 2011

Animation - evaluation of my work - call of duty black ops

for my real life animation i worked with gary fletcher. the animation was called call of duty black ops claymore kill. the animation i did was using the technique of stop motion. in the animation i used objects that were figures. the story line to the animation was that one figure put down a claymore down and killed another figure who walked other it. the characters we made were dressed in uniforms which we printed off and cut out to fit the figures. the props the characters had were guns and were made from cardboard and fitted the figures well. we added quite a few effects to the animation which created a good effect. one effect which i felt worked well was the explosion effect for when the figure stepped on the clay more. this was good because it was timed well. another thing which i think worked well was the plot of the animation. i thought the animation's plot was simple and easy to follow. the purpose of of the animation was to entertain and the target audience was to people who play call of duty.


Although the animation had good qualities i feel that there are many improvements that could be made. one improvement would be the smoothness of animation. the reason for this is because there was a lot of effects it slowed down the animation its self and it didn't create the effect we was wanting. also when we did our audience feedback form a lot of the audience didn't think the plot was clear so that would also be a improvement i would make. also i felt like the length could of been improved as the animation was over too quick.


the set design for the animation was simple and basic. it consisted of a background which showed the map from the game. i felt this worked well because it was similar to what the game is like and kept in touch with the original roots of call of duty through the background.


looking back on my animation i feel that i could of changed the plot to make it clearer to the audience. also i would of maybe not done as many effects we did, i think that this would make the animation more fluid and much smoother.




Animation - time line






Phenakitoscope -1831

The phenakitoscope was an early animation device, the predecessor of the zoetrope . It was invented in 1831 by the  Joseph Plateau.The phenakistoscope use a spinning disc attached vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames of the animation


Zoetrope - 1834 

The modern zoetrope was produced in 1834 by William George Horner. The device is a cylinder with vertical slits around the sides. Around the inside edge of the cylinder there are a series of pictures on the opposite side to the slits. As the cylinder is spun, the user then looks through the slits to view the illusion of motion. this was one of the earliest animation devices made and lead to several other devices being made.


Flip book -1868

The first flip book was patented in 1868 by John Barnes Linnet. Flip books were yet another development that brought us closer to modern animation. Like the Zoetrope, the Flip Book creates the illusion of motion. A set of sequential pictures flipped at a high speed creates this effect.



Praxinoscope - 1869
The praxinoscope was invented by Charles-'Emile Reynaud and was a improved version of the zoetrope. the improvement on zoetrope was instead of looking through slits on the side, you looked through small mirrors one the side of the device. he device was similar to the zoetrope with a strip of animation in the middle to be viewed.


first moving animation - 1906
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is a silent cartoon by J. Stuart Blackton released in 1906. It features a cartoonist drawing faces on a chalkboard, and the faces coming to life. It is generally regarded as the first animated film.It features movements as where a dog jumps through a hoop, a scene which actually uses cutout animation made to look like chalk outlines. The film moves at 20 frames per second.


first animation with a character - 1914
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 American animated short film by Winsor McCay. Although not the first animated film, as is sometimes thought, it was the first cartoon to feature a character with an appealing personality.



first animation with synchronized- 1928
the first animation with synchronized sound was Steam boat willie. this particular animation was created by Walt disney and later went on to the creation of the character mickey mouse.

first colour animation - 1932
flowers and trees was the first animation with colour was made in 1932. the animation was produced by walt disney and was deemed a success at the time. this animation lead to more and more animations being made in colour.



first colour animated film - 1937
snow white and the seven dwarfs was the first colour animated film. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full color, the first to be produced by Walt Disney. it was deemed a classic and is still watched in modern day times.



first animated film to be shot in CGI- 1996
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. the film was deemed a success and paved the way for more and more animated films to be made in CGI alone. CGI seemed more popular than other animation techniques.

first animated film to win a oscar - 2001 
Sherk won a oscar for the best animated film in 2001. this was the first year the category was introduced to the oscars.

first animated film to be  shot in 3D - 2005 
the first animated film to be shot entirely in 3D was chicken little. it was a successful film at the box office and this lead to a increase in children's films being made in 3D.



Animation - Target Audience

Animation when it was first started appealed to mainly children to young teenagers. there was many cartoons produced for children and hardly any for adults. the animations had bright colours that appealed to children and often had story lines which was simple and easy to understand. a example of a cartoon with these qualities is Ed, Edd n Eddy. this particular television show used bright colours and simple story lines which appealed to children. however because anything can be created in animation, there are certain cartoon and animations which appeal to adults. these animations often include story lines which are not suitable for children and often could include sexual references. a example of a adult cartoon is family guy, this is a cartoon was not suitable for children. however adult cartoon has the same qualities as a children's cartoon a example is the bright colours often used.
family guy 


Ed Edd and Eddy


Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Animation - techniques of animation - puppets

Puppets was once very popular in animation. it is one the simplest of techniques used animation and does not need to use a large budget to make. the story lines of animation with puppets in usually appeals to children however the story-lines could appeal to anyone. although animations with puppets are not used as much as they once were, they are still popular with some audiences. some animations which uses puppets include Thunderbirds, the nightmare before christmas, the wombles and mary and max.

A nightmare before christmas puppet

thunderbirds





Animation - techniques of animation - 3D

3d film has increased in quality since they first began in the 1950s. the popularity of 3D films increased in the late 2000's and was made for all genres including animation.  the first feature film which was made in entirely 3D was chicken little the film. this was very successful over all as a film making 300 million. arguably films which use 3D are more popular because of that certain technique. other animated 3D films which were very successful include Bolt, coraline, Despicable me and how to train your dragon all of which was shot in 3D and were very successful at the box office.

A 3d camera 


coraline 
bolt 





first ever 3d animated film

Animation- techniques of animation - CGI animation

Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images  by using computer graphics. it is a very popular technique and  style of animation today, with more and more animated films being shot in CGI throughout the film. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics, although 2D computer graphic are still used for stylistic and faster real-time renderingsComputer animation is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion techniques used in traditional animation with 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. the first animated film that was shot in CGI was Toy story and this feature film was shot in entirely CGI. this paved way for other animated films to use this technique. it became very popular in the years to come with more and more of animation companies deciding to make their films in CGI as this showed animation at its best compared to other techniques. some successful films include Antz, up, jung fu panda and ice age. in modern day animation CGI is the most popular technique and although there are still a few films produced each year which use other techniques, CGI has proved most popular with the audience. 
A CGI film Up


A CGI film Antz


A CGI film Kung fu panda




Tuesday, 14 June 2011

animation- techniques of animation - cut out

Cutout animation is a technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. cutout animation was one of the earliest techniques of animations and is also one of the simplest to do. the cutout animations are usually made by a computer with hand drawn images being scanned in at times. this technique is not as popular as other techniques and is not used as much in modern day animation. examples of cutout animations is in the television series Charlie and lola and south park. 


charlie and lola



south park

Animation- Techniques of animation - stop motion

Stop motion animation is a technique that makes real objects move by moving them slightly each frame rate. this gives the illusion that the objects are moving on their own and brings life to the objects. this technique was first used in 1897 with the animation the humpy dumpty circus, which a toy circus of animal and people comes to life. stop motion usually uses clay objects because there easy to move into shape. this became known as claymation and became a very popular technique in stop motion. as animation progressed so did stop motion. the quality of the stop motion improved greatly and so did the length of the animation. animation companies then did more and more stop motion films and became more successful as people became more familiar with this technique of animation. a example of a successful television series/ film which used only stop motion animation and claymation was Wallace and Gromit. this was the first major successful stop motion animation in england and spanned several series and also a film ( the curse of the were rabbit) which made 26 million pounds at the box office. other successful stop motion films include Chicken run and fantastic mr fox both of which where successful. however stop motion is not as popular as other techniques in animation.
chicken run

wallace and gromit




fantastic mr fox

Animation- persistence of vision

Persistence of vision is a theory that a strip of still images in any order can be given the effect of animation if viewed by the human eye at a certain rate. this gives the effect that the image is still there for a split second after it has gone and therefore gives the illusion of animation moving. this principle of animation applies to all animated moving images whether it is from a simple device like for example a zoetrope or a fully animated film like Toy Story. the same rule is applied to all of animation and every type of animation techniques for example stop motion and cut out animations. persistence of vision was not created by any one. instead it was discovered by very early optical illusional toys which showed the theory was correct and accurate.

Animation - pioneers- 'Emile Reynaud

Emile reynaud created the praxinoscope in the year 1877. the praxinoscope was a major improvement on the zoetrope. the improvement was that the narrow viewing slits were replaced with mirrors so that the animations could been seen more clearly and gave a better effect. the way the animation device worked was that  it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. Emile reynaud also created the first public animation that was seen by many people. this was important to animation because it lead to more and more public animations, and got the public interested in animation with this device and also the animation films he created.
praxinoscope


Emile Reynaud 





Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Animation- pioneers-Joseph plateau

Joseph platue created the phenkistscope. the phenkistscope was created in 1832. the way he created the effect of animation was by using counter rotating disks with repeating drawn images in small increases of motion on one and regularly spaced slits in the other. this gave the illusion of movement on the device and was regarded as one of the earliest animations. however most of the animations on the device had no colour and wasn't very complex.
Joseph Plateau

phenkitascope 

Animation - pioneers- William Horner

William Horner was another animation pioneer, who created the zoetrope. He created the zoetrope in the year 1834.A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession. It was basically a improvement on the phenkitascope. it lead to the praxinoscope being made and also lead to animation being viewed simpler. this made animation easier to be seen because it had small slits on the side where the person could look inside and it would give a better effect than a phenkitascope.  the designs on the zoetrope vary from animals to football players, and is still used today.

a zoetrope


William Horner
A modern day Zoetrope

Animation- pioneers- Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge created the Zoopraxiscope in 1879. the reason why he created the device was to settle a argument that a horse all four legs off the floor at the same time when it runs. Muybridge did this by setting up several cameras that took a picture when the horse ran past this showed that muybridge was right. this lead to the invention of the phenkitascope which was made in 1893, although it had been created earlier, Muybridge made it easy to view and created simpler designs. such designs were people dancing and kissing. this lead to basically all of animation because it was how moving images was displayed.

a phenkitascope
Eadweard Muybridge

A  zoopraxiscope 

Animation -Companies-Walt Disney

There are several successful animation companies, one example is Disney. it was founded in october 1923 and was one of the first animation companies, and paved the way for more animation companies. when disney first started to make animations there was no sound or color in any of them. one of the first short films they made was Alice in Wonderland, this has become a well known and successful film since its release. in 1928 Walt disney created Mickey mouse, this became one of the most successful characters in animation and also stared in the first animated film with sound which was named Steam Boat willie. in 1935 disney produced the first color animation with Flowers and trees, this showed that disney was improving the quality of its animations. In the 1940's Disney produced several successful films and started to produce them more regularly some in the same year. some examples of films created in the 1940's are :Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi, all are still popular in modern animation. in the 1960's Disney created Disney world as well as producing 5 or 6 films per year. this made Disney very successful and gave them enough money to spend more and more money on their animations. in modern day animation disney produces fewer films per year however most films that gets produced has a large budget and does very successful at the box office and on a whole. a example of this is tangled which went back to the original story line of a princess.

pinocchio
Walt disney logo


The first colour animation produced by Disney flowers and trees.


Mickey mouse


Dumbo

Disney world
Tangled