Week 6 - Essay Ideas

In today's lesson we were given a revised lesson brief and began to look at what subject we would be writing our essay about.

In pairs we help0ed each other brain storm. My ideas were:

• How far has 2D animation developed/ changed since it was first created? - I prefer 2D more than 3D so i wanted to look into an area i liked and enjoyed and see the evolution of 2D and how far it has come from being drawn on cells.
• Has 3D taken over 2D animation? - It interested me that there is so much more 3D around now and i wanted to see the difference between them.
• How far has technology influenced the animation industry? - We live in a 21st century were machines and technology are used for everything, i thought it would be good to look at how it is affecting the animation industry.
• Why do we still have 2D animation today?

Week 6 - Chosen Essay Topic and Breakdown

My chosen Essay title is - How far has technology influenced the animation industry?

Looking at :

• Studios and how they have changed from 2D to 3D 
• Impact of CGI on animation and audiences views
• Visual effects

Week 6 - Lip Syncing and Language

In today's lesson we began by looking at lip syncing.

We watched 'Your Face' by Bill Plympton. 
and 'The do-it-yourself cartoon kit' - clip by Bob GodfreyBoth have different types of lip syncing but the voice belongs to a character which we as the audience can link.

We then watched some of 'Percepolis' we watched it firstly in French the original language, then we watched the dubbed version in English. As a class we discussed how the language affected it and then individually we wrote a paragraph explaining which version we preferred and why. I have watched many films dubbed and in the original language with subtitles and i always prefer the original version better. This is the same for Percepolis, i felt the french version was much better as it had more emotion in it. Although i couldn't understand all of it because of the language barrier i could figure out what was going on from the way they saying words, the music and overall sound.

Week 5 - The Zoetrope

It is a pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

There are also 3D version that work in a similar way.

Week 5 - Harvard Referencing

For this module we have to write and essay and a bibliography in Harvard referencing style. To learn how to do it we booked a workshop as a class in the library. The workshop discussed why we needed to reference and ran through the different types of things you could reference and how it should be done and look. We also got a handbook which we can use to refresh ourselves.
I was extremely helpful and interesting and will help me greatly when it comes to referencing in my essay.

Week 5 - Hitchcock

In this lesson we looked at how affective editing is and how if you use different techniques you can create something amazing. For this we focused on Hitchcock, looking at his film 'Psycho' first. I was amazed to find out that in a 45 second clip you could find 60+ shots. The fast paced edits help create fear, shock and horror for the audience.We discussed how everything needs to work together to create the perfect shot/scene/film, from music and sound effects to camera angles and editing.

Hitchcock explain cutting

This video was very interesting as it helped me to understand when to cut and how different cuts can make you have different outcomes.

Natural Born Killers - i love Mallory

Although this scene and the topic it is showing is serious, it is a good scene to study as it shows how music can be used to change the genre of the scene. Instead of it being shocking, the music used in this scene gives a comic feel too. This is also true with the acting, they act in a comic way and so the topic comes across less distressing.

Homework:
For next wee we have to look at the old 1950's PSA/ Social adverts like the adverts for: family meals, cleaning and hygiene and edit it/them together to create a different story (i.e. changing the genre).

Week 5 - The 12 Principles of Animation

This week we looked at the 12 Principles of Animation. The second project we have to do in this lesson is to create an animation to one the three soundtracks we have been given in this weeks lesson. So it was good to learn the principles of animations because if we don't use all the principles our animations might not work as well.

1. Timing and Spacing - More drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster.
2. Anticipation - Prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to do (e.g starting to jump). This is useful for real action, if you want a more comic effect you wouldn't use it.
3. Straight Ahead / Pose to Pose - Straight ahead starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing until the end. This is useful for spontaneous scenes. Pose to pose is more planned with key frames. Everything is controlled better this way.
4. Arcs - Actions follow an arc, especially the human form and animals. Arcs make the animation more realistic, natural and have better flow.
5. Follow through and Overlapping Action - Follow through is when the main body of the character stops and all the other parts catch up (e.g dress, long hair, long tail). Nothing stops all at once, they follow a path of action. Overlapping is when the character changes direction but the other parts carry forward. A few frames later they will catch up (drag).
6. Staging - Pose/ action should communicate clearly to the audience the attitudes, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story. Different use of shots along with camera angles helps to tell the story.
7. Slow Ins and Outs (Eases) - More drawings of beginning of pose, few in the middle, more at the end. Fewer drawings makes the action faster, more drawings make the action slower.
8. Secondary Action - Adds to the main action, supplementing/ reinforcing the main action. All actions should work together to support one another.
9. Exaggeration - Exaggeration in a walk or and eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal.
10. Squash and Stretch - Gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves, is useful for dialogue and facial expressions.
11. Solid Drawing - Drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation.
12. Appeal - All characters should have appeal. Like a form of story telling, the animation has to appeal to the mind as well as the eye.

For our next lesson we were instructed to come up with some initial ideas for an animation, after listening the soundtracks.