Task 2- Purpose

Task 2- Purpose

Education:

Animation opens gateways to education by making it enjoyable for children as it is proven they will pay more attention to what’s going on if they enjoy it.

It also offers new and exciting ways to present education and ideas a create endless possibilities when it comes to teaching. Animation is also used to show real world demonstrations which make things easier to comprehend.

Entertainment:

This refers to animation the is used to entertain an audience. It aims to give an audience pleasure and delight and succeeds by holding the attention and interest of the audience. Animation succeeds as it is used to represent things that don’t exist into the real life which adds levels of fiction to a motion picture.

The most known use of animation for entertainment are the Disney films like Moana or The Little Mermaid which are traditionally created for children.

Inform:

The goals these animations are to make an audience aware of modern day developments around the world. The information can be about many things; examples of topics would be Global Warming or politics.

A famous example of political animations was Jan Svankmajer who’s animations would give a strong political opinion of the communist reform in the Czech Republic at the time which would mainly be negative. The prime example of this is his 1971 film the Jabberwocky. 
However these animations are mainly used in advertisements to inform an audience about a product. These would usually produce a message for their product as well as capturing an audiences attention using colorful animations so an audience would pay attention to their product. A fairly recent example of this would be the Vimtoads advert made for the soft drink company Vimto. The Advert was primarily animated by the animation company Aardman Animations who are responsible for creating icons such as Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.

Assignment 1- Contemporary

Contemporary

Tim Burton

Tim Burton is an American film director who utilised modern day animation to create cult classics like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. He started his career by attending California Institute of the Arts where after he graduated began working for Disney as an animator. He worked on the film The Fox and the Hound to start off his career but it was 1982s’ Vincent which put Burton into the spotlight as the film received several awards. His first full-length film that he animated was Frankenweenie in 1984 but it wasn’t released as it was deemed too inappropriate for children. He directed his first film in 1985 after Paul Reubens sought Burton out to direct Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and ended up being a huge success. He then took a 3 year break from film making as he wasn’t interested by any of the scripts presented to him. That was until he was presented with the script for Beetlejuice in 1988. Other film successes include Batman in 1989 and TheNightmare Before Christmas. The list of successful Tim Burton films is so big that he will surely leave a legacy as one of the most influential film makers of all time.

Tim Burton’s audience is typically 15-30-year-old males as he often portrays a dark tone in his films with the colours and styles which allow a gritty atmosphere into his films. Most of his films carry a dark nature with them. However, this is only an assumption since Burton makes his films available to anyone but typically aged 12 and above. Tim Burtons Models often share the same design as most of them have a slender character with large eyes, pale faces and a long neck which gives his films a trademark when it comes to his stop motion animations. When it comes to the Box Office Tim Burton is one of many Animators/Directors to regularly make millions of dollars in his films with films like Frankenweenie which has overall made $35,000,000 since its release.
Tim Burtons characters have a dark design for the most part as a variety of his characters are undead in his films. It is common for these characters to have pale white faces with a mainly black costumes. For example Jack Skellington is a skeleton who lives in Halloween town. His character design reflects the atmosphere and narrative of the setting of the film. Another famous example is Frankenweenie which is a dog brought back to life as the movie is a parody based around Frankenstein. The movie is entirely black and white so the character has a design to fit the coloring of the film. They are made primarily with armatures.

Nick Park

Nick Park is an English animator, writer and director best known for creating Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit. He joined AardmanAnimations in 1986 who at the time was striving to reinvent the art of claymation and later worked on Peter Gabriel’s music video titledSledgehammer which is widely considered to be one of the best music videos of all time. His films such as A grand day out and his multiple Wallace and Gromit films were nominated for awards. Due to this he was able to Co-direct his first film in 2001 known as Chicken Run and was distributed by Dreamworks studios, a partnership which was soon to end in 2005 due to creative differences.
However Nick Parks characters are friendly with traditionally bright colors in their design. This reflects their friendly nature and makes it more visually appealing for children who are Aardmans primary target audience. Aswell as this, most of his characters are animals to engage the audience more. Talking and sentient animals are a common trope among children films to help engage a child audience. Unlike Tim Burton, his models are made with claymation.

Assignment 1 (Developers)

Development

Developers:

Although they did not create types of moving image, these developers were able to build on these foundations which allowed them to evolve moving image and are crucial to the success of films nowadays.

An example of a developer is Willis O’Brien. He was an American motion picture special effects and stop motion pioneer. It was often said that he was responsible for the best images seen in cinema and that his legacy will continue through generations. He was solely responsible for films like King Kong vs Godzilla and The Beast of Hollow Mountain. He started by making models which he would later animate with the help of a local newsreel camera man and later got commissioned to make his first film known as The Dinosaur and the Missing Link: A Prehistoric Tragedy which was shown in 1915 with a mere budget of $5,000. He was commended for his work by Thomas Edison who then hired him to animate a series of short films. He then started to experiment with his films and succeeded by creating the first stop motion movies that combined live actors with stop motion models in 1917.

In his early career he made his models out of clay but as time went he started to hire people that would specialise in making models that were made of a metal armature with an outer rubber skin. These models also had a pump inside them to create the illusion of breathing. These techniques would still continue today with films like Early Man and Chicken Run.

However, his most notable film was King Kong in 1933 where he was offered an Oscar. The film was a huge success, succeeding any of his previous work. The model made was 18 inches tall and he built on previous techniques like the Dunning process and the Williams process which used wider screens and specific colors to incorporate live action actors into the stop motion. These techniques would later evolve into the blue screen.

Another man credited to developing animation further was Ray Harryhausen. He was a visual effects creator who was responsible for films like Clash of The Titans and The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad. He is said to have personified motion picture special effects and first debut with George Pal on films like Monster From the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953. He imbued visual strength to motion picture special effects. The things he created were unseen before compared to any other technician.

He started off by researching techniques from men like Willis O’Brien to understand all he could about stop motion photography. He later landed a job working with O’Brien after his work on some films using military film. After being funded by Warner Brothers he was able to come up with a new technique called “split-screen” which allowed him to insert his creatures into real world locations which allowed the industry to evolve as a whole. In 1958 he worked on The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad which was his first film completely shot in color. His work was often very time consuming as he preferred to work on his stop motion sequences alone.

One final developer credited to evolving the industry is Jan Svankmajer who was a Czech film maker whose work has inspired modern day animators such as Terry Gilliam and the Brothers Quay. He was responsible for films like Alice and Greedy Guts. Though he was not commercially successful due to his work being banned by the Czech authorities, his work was often regarded as revolutionary due to the creativeness and political imagery of his films.He began making short films in 1964 and continued for 20 years until he was finally given the opportunity to make a feature film based on Alice in Wonderland called Alice.

Assignment 1- Development

Development

Pioneers:

Without these early pioneers of moving image, we would not be able to achieve the animation techniques of modern day like CGI.

Pioneers like William Horner are massively significant to the development of animation with the development of his iconic Zoetrope in 1834 which allowed major progression in the animation industry. The Zoetrope was an animation device that produce the illusion of movement by displaying numerous images that show progressive motion. It works by having a wheel with drawings inside so that when it is spun the images start to show movement. The Zoetrope is heavily reliant on the persistence of vision and the phi phenomenon. The Zoetrope has 24 frames in the wheel which when spun allows the animation to be 48 frames per second. 

Another animator who contributed heavily to the evolution of animation was Joseph Plateau who invented The Phenakistiscope in 1932. He was a Belgian Physician who researched the human eye. The Phenakistiscope was a spindle viewer which consisted of 2 disks which span in the same directions of each other. Joseph Plateau also relied on the persistence of vision to make his device work. 

However, in 1895 history was made when Auguste Lumiere and Louis Lumiere shot a motion picture with their invention the Cinematographe which was a combination of a camera and projector. It had a mechanism through which film was moved through the camera and was hand cranked. The modern term of cinema was derived from this early invention. Later on, in 1907 they would later invent the Autochrome colour photography plate. They are responsible for early films like The Arrival of a Train and Demolition d’un mur. Their films were important as they mainly focused on everyday life rather than building a narrative.

Assignment 1

Task 1 Techniques

Animation techniques today like CGI would not be possible without these early techniques used in the early 19^th Century. Films like Shrek or Madagascar would be impossible without the installment of these early pioneers’ discoveries. Back then, before we had the technology we have today these techniques were often considered spectacular in the way the created moving image and heavily relied on creating visual illusions to bring them to life.

Persistence of vision:

Created by uses of optical illusions. The human brain subconsciously stores images for approximately 1/25^th of a second which depended on the brightness of the image. So when slightly different images are shown in quick succession the mind recognises it as fluid movement. Visual persistence occurs because of the chemical representation of an image that forms in the eye takes time to fade away. This process gives us time to interpret what it is we are seeing. If a series of images arrives at the eye in rapid enough succession, each will overlap slightly with the previous one.

Famous examples of this is the Phi Phenomenon and The Beta Movement which were both discovered by Max Wertheimer in 1912. The Phi Phenomenon is used to create the illusion of motion between images that progressively differ. The brain will fill the gaps between the images with movement. TV transmission is an example of The Phi Phenomenon. 

The Beta Movement is also an optical illusion that uses static images to create fluid motion but only occurs when the frame rate is greater than 10-12 frames per second.

Due to the advancements of technology techniques like The Phi Phenomenon were eventually able to evolve into Stop Frame animation.

Stop Frame:

Stop frame animation is composed of numerous pictures played quickly to create the illusion of movement. This normally consists of inanimate objects being moved between frames so when played back it appears as if they are moving. This often brings these objects to life on screen and allows more creativity with video production. It is also used to lower the cost of a production but it is often more time consuming to make. The first use of it was used in the film TheHumpty Dumpty Circus in 1898 by J. Stuart Blackton.  An animator would have to make it 24 frames per second and would have to create a separate audio track for the animation. 

Types of stop frame animation include Puppet animation and Claymation. Puppet animation involves using puppets to interact with the environment around them. The puppets themselves have an armature to keep them still on set. Examples of Puppet animation are Fantastic Mr Fox and The Empire Strikes                                                                          Back. 

Claymation uses clay moulded figures in a stop motion animation. Similarly to Puppet animation, the figures have a armature or wire inside them which allow their stature to be manipulated and pose the figures. Examples of this includes Wallace and Gromit and Early Man. 

Because of these advancements, animators would now have to consider things such as frame rates.

Frame Rates:

The amount of frames per second. The human eye could only process moving image for about 1/25^th of a second, so when creating a piece of moving image animators would have to make their products at a minimum of 24 frames per second to make sure their work was fluid in motion. This has been the case since 1927 set by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Editors.

However, in modern day cinema films like The Hobbit run at a smooth 48 frames per second because of things like IMAX cinema and to make their film more visually appealing. It is usually the case that higher frames per second leads to smoother movement. With our advancements in technology it is said that the number of frames per second will only increase when it comes to film making. Without the concern for frame rate cinema would be less visually satisfying for viewers to watch.

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