Cell based animation

Cell based animation

 

Walt Disney is one of the most well known men to ever have lived. Walt Disney created many films and animations that he is still known for today. His first production was a series named 'Alice Comedies' In this there was a young girl actor and an animated cat which went on adventures together. Walt Disney then tried to create a completely animated TV series named 'Oswald The Lucky Rabbit' in 1927. In about a year the contract for this was terminated and therefore Walt had to think of a new idea. This triggered the arrival of Mickey Mouse who later became the face of Disney. It wasn't until 1937 when Disney released his first animated feature film. 'Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs'. This was one of the first animated feature films to use sound as it was a musical. It achieved major success and earned around $8,000,000 internationally from it's first release. This spurred on Disney to continue making animated feature films and therefore has achieved what it has today being one of the biggest companies in the world.

Scooby Doo was made in 1969. The Scooby Doo franchise consists of multiple different programs and a few of it's own films. The shows generally consist of a group of kids and their dog travelling in a van and solving mysteries involving monsters and ghosts. The cartoon has survived so long as every so often they will re-release a new program that is slightly different from the one before and will appeal more to the current generation.

 

  

One of the most well known cartoons made is Wacky Races. The show only created episodes for two years from 1968-1970 however it did create 2 spin off shows. The show was based on different races in the US which included 11 different race cars manned by either 1 or 2 characters. The characters all had cars which matched their personality. The most popular characters were Dick Dastardly and Muttley. These were the trouble makers of the show and managed to get their own program, "Dick Dastardly and Muttley in their flying machines". Another popular character was Penelope Pitstop. This character also got a spin off show, "The perils of Penelope Pitstop".

An animation which turned digital was The Simpsons. The first episode aired in 1989. It was created by Matt Groening for the Fox Network. It is generally aimed at an adult audience. The first episode which was made digitally was aired in 1995. Since then their have been many more seasons and even a movie which was shown in 2007. This is a clip from The Simpsons Movie. In the film, we see the town of Springfield become trapped in a huge Dome due to the Mishaps of Homer. The family must then attempt to save their town and friends.

A recent cartoon which is no longer being created is 'Foster's home for imaginary friends'. This cartoon was first aired in 2004 and played it's last episode in 2009. It was a show about a big house which was home to creatures that children had imagined in their head. One of the characters was an 8 year old boy named 'Mac' and he had his imaginary friend 'Bloo'. Together they made friends with the rest of the imaginary friends and get up to all sorts together. The show was based on building friendships and showing children the importance of friends.

 

Model based animation

Model Based Animation

Model based is a form of stop motion animation that is made by using different 3D objects and moving them to a sequence. The models are commonly made from materials like clay and plasticine. These are the most popular materials to use for this form of animation because they can be easily moulded into different shapes. This makes them useful as you can make them look realistic which is good for telling a story. Model based animations are made the same way as most other stop motion animations, a picture is taken every time the model is moved to give the illusion of movement. Most Model based animations are aimed at a younger audience. This is because the models are often made from childish objects such as toys and children are also fond of the plasticine as it resembles play-doh. Most older audiences would not be interested in watching an animation made with toys however like most other forms of stop motion, some model based animations can have adult themes.

This video is a clip from the animation, 'Wallace and Gromit'. This is a model based animation created by a British company called 'Aardman'. Over time it has generated 4 short films and one feature length film. The series is created with plasticine and when it first started out it was made entirely by just modelling clay, moving it and taking a picture after each movement. This is an extremely long process as it takes around 24 frames (pictures) to make a second of film and only an average of 30 frames can get completed in a day meaning just over 1 second of film is made a day. Their feature length film took around 15 months in total to complete. Some of the effects in the feature length film were created on a computer because it would be impossible to create them just through stop motion.

This is another model based animation. This is a video created by a youtuber called 'Forestfire101'. He specialises in creating stop motion lego films. This clip in particular is based on a lego Harry Potter collection. His videos are not like most other lego stop motion as they are targeted at an older audience. This is because they have a lot of adult themes involved in it's comedy. These videos will be created the same way as the other stop motion videos however they will use a computers technology to make the figures mouths move and look more realistic. These videos are very popular on youtube and get almost a million views on each video.

This is a video of my own model based animation. It shows 3 figures made from different coloured clay. The figures each have google eyes attached to them to help develop their characters as this shows that they are creatures. I used a Hue webcam to take a picture of the clay every time I moved it. The pictures would come up on the program istopMotion 3 where I could edit them.

Time lapse

Time lapse

A time lapse is an animation created by a series of images. The images are automatically taken through a timer and when all the pictures are taken they are sped up into a video to make a time lapse. A time lapse animation is usually made to film things that would usually take a long time and make it shorter. They can show people how something can progress without them having to watch the actual thing for hours. Time lapse can also be used to tell a story however this is would not be very affective as they generally go too fast to tell a story, this is why they generally are used to get one point across.

This is a time lapse video. It shows a man drawing a bag of M&M's. He takes a picture every couple of seconds from a birds eye view of the picture. The video lasts around 3 minutes yet the actual drawing will have taken around an hour. This video is one of many. There are a lot of other videos that are similar as they show someone drawing something different. These videos are popular because people will take interest in the persons talent and they can also be watched as tutorials.

This is another time lapse video .The video is 14 years in 4 minutes. It shows a girls life from a baby to 14 years old. A picture will have been taken once every few days for 14 years. This is a one of a kind video which is proved to be very popular. It is the only one of it's kind as the timescale needed to create it is extremely long however the end product is interesting to everyone.

This video is of a homeless army veteran. In the video he is given a complete makeover which includes his outfit and hair. The camera takes a picture around every 2 seconds and through it we see him gradually change in appearance. The actual makeover will have taken around about an hour to complete. This video is for all audiences and many people can watch it as inspiration to show how you can change. There are similar videos to this that show how people can change their look as this is something that interests a lot of people. It is done as a time lapse animation because the makeover process is generally a long one and it would be too boring to watch it go on for an hour or so,

cut out animation

Cut out animation

A Cut out is a form of animation that creates stories by using paper or card cut outs. Each moving object in the animation will be a different paper cut out. The animation works by taking a picture and then moving the different parts to move how you want. Common uses of cut outs is to create characters. A character will be made by cutting out each body part. This way you can move each body part and make it look as though the character is moving. 

This is our animation. We made this by taking newspapers and magazines and cutting out images that we thought would look good in our animation. We then moved each image a tiny bit at a time to make them move. Our background is also a cut out image which we took from a newspaper. The difference with this is we stuck blue tac on the back of it so it didn't move out of place when we were moving the other cut outs.

This clip is of the TV show South Park. South Park's first episode was made in 1997 using cut outs and stop motion technology. It took around 3 months until the episode was finished. Nowadays, it is helped a long using digital animation. The south park episodes will have used a lot more cut outs so they can make their characters do more actions. An example is they will have their eyes and their pupils as cut outs so they can make their characters look around. South Park has become an immensely popular franchise with 18 seasons a feature film and even their own video game which all started out with just a few cut out paper characters.

This animation is made by Lotte Reiniger. The animation was made in 1926. It was one of the first animations created and was made entirely using cut out paper characters that were made to look like silhouettes. Reiniger made feature films using only paper cut outs. The process for this will have taken an extremely long time as the paper can only be moved ever so slightly in between shots to make it look realistic and get a good end product.

Pixelation animation

Pixilation animation

Pixelation animation is a stop motion animation which is made using people. It is made in the same way that the other stop motion techniques are however it is most commonly made using real settings as well as people rather than fake sets and and objects. The People will have to move slightly between each shot which would make the whole production harder to complete as it is harder to keep a person or another living thing completely still. Pixelation animations generally do not contain other living things as it would be too hard to get them to move exactly as you want them too.

This is a pixilation animation that I was involved in making. To make this we used a hue webcam to take pictures of ourselves. We took around 5 pictures each and on each picture we changed our facial expression. This meant when it was played it showed the person in the centre of the screen pull 5 different faces in less than a second and then the person would change and the next person would do the same. The whole video lasts around 6 seconds even though we had to take 5 pictures for each person.

In this video we see a boy being chased by another boy. Throughout the video they come together and battle in different environments that relate to other animations such as "Mario". To add in the animation, the creator will have had to insert the images to each shot. If the animation was made by taking lots of pictures then the animated objects would have to be adding to each picture for as long as the animator wants it in the production.

This is another pixelation animation. In this animation we see a man acting out his daydream. In his daydream he pursues all different kinds of adventures. including running away from a boulder. This animation is done by making the man lie on the grass and make objects move past him. By taking the pictures from a birds eye view it looks like the man is stood up and when an object goes past it looks as though it around him. This video was created in 2012.

This pixelation video shows a couple going on an adventure together. They travel through all different environments including the ocean and riding in a hot air balloon. They have made this animation by making the pair lay down on a laminate floor and have created objects using basic materials. Like the last video, they take pictures of them from a birds eye view and making them move between each picture taken. This video was uploaded in 2011.