Unit 33 - Stop Moton Animation

There are 12 principles of stop motion animation and they are as follows:

1 - Squash and Stretch

2 - Anticipation

3 - Follow-Through and Overlapping Action

4 - Arcs

5 - Ease-In and Ease-Out

6 - Timing

7 - Secondary Action

8 - Exaggeration

9 - Staging

10 - Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose

11 - Solid Drawing

12 - Appeal



Squash and stretch is one of the most important principles and this gives the sense of flexibility and weight to drawn objects. This principle applies to mainly clay or plasticine animation this can be used with puppet and other objects but only if the right material is used and manipulated properly. The concept of this principle is when a rubber ball hits the floor it will squash and when it bounces back of the ground it will stretch. Furthermore when animating an object animators found that the object mush keep the same mass otherwise it just wouldn't look right.



Anticipation this is one of the biggest problems in stop motion animation the reason for this is that it is often hard to tell what’s going on because all the things seem to happen at the same time and the characters seem to do things for no reason. The purpose of anticipation is to prepare the audience for an action and to also make the action more realistic.



Follow-through and overlapping action is the counter measure to anticipation. This occurs after the action and is the direct physical action. Follow through is when for example if a man was to throw a ball then after the ball had left his hand his arm would still continue the arc a little more. Overlapping action applies primarily to drawn animation and this is where the artist will draw the main action first and then will do a second layer and add the movement of the hair and clothes as the action is carried out. 



Arcs are what everything in nature tends to move by this is because the jointed nature of the skeleton and gravity. The skeleton is a system of jointed forms and every one of your joints moves in an arc. The gravity part is when you throw for example a ball in the air it will arc up to the highest point and then arc down because of the force of gravity.



Ease-in and ease-out refers to the tendency that things have to start and stop moving gradually. For example a man running he would not start at his top speed he would start slow and gradually work his way up to his top speed.



Timing is one of the most crucial elements. This can be broken down into two categories and these are physical timing and theatrical timing, physical timing is the actual motions required to perform the action and the theatrical timing is the pauses and the emphases put in to make it more dramatic.



Secondary action is the action that does not apply directly to the main action but adds more purpose to that particular action. For example if someone is about to eat a sandwich and as they lift it into their mouth they lick their lips this is a secondary action as it is an action that does not apply directly to the main action but adds a sense of reason.

Exaggeration depends largely on what type of animation you are doing for example a more realistic comic the exaggeration will be kept to a minimum where as a more comical animation can be exaggerated as much as you want. Exaggeration adds emphasis to a certain movement to draw the viewers’ attention.

Staging is not directly linked to animation, it is a directors tool used in film making. Staging is an aspect of cinematography, which is the art of using camera angles, movement, lighting etc. and this, is used to direct the viewer’s eye.



Straight ahead action and Pose-to-Pose, straight ahead action is cell animation and this is where you have to start at the beginning of a shot and progress through it straight ahead from one shot to the next. Pose-to-pose is key frame animation and this is where the main animator will draw the main frames the 'key frames' and then assistant animators will fill in the middle bits.



Solid drawing is the principle that means you have to take into consideration the three dimensional space giving the characters volume and weight. In this principle the animator has to be a skilled draughtsman and have to understand three dimensional shapes, anatomy, balance, light, weight etc. 



Appeal can mean different things to different people for example some people find rotting bodies appealing whereas on the other hand people can find flowers and bright colours appealing. A character that is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic; villains or monsters can be appealing the main thing is that the audience feels the character is real. 



Pioneers of stop-motion animation

Joseph Plateau

Joseph Plateau was a Belgian physicist and was the first person to create/demonstrate the illusion of the moving image. Joseph done this by using 2 counter rotating discs one with each picture having small differences and the other with regularly place slits in them. Joseph called this invention the Phenakitoscope.

William Horner was a British mathematician. William was responsible for the invention of the zoetrope in 1834. The zoetrope produces the illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.

Charles-Emile Reynaud

Charles-Emile Reynaud was a French science teacher. In 1877 Charles created the Praxinoscope. The Praxinoscope was an animation device and like he zoetrope it used a series of pictures placed in a rotating cylinder.

Edward Muybridge was known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used a multiple cameras to capture motion. In 1879 Edward created the zoopraxiscope which was considered as the first movie projector.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was an American inventor / scientist. Edison created the Kinetoscope in 1888. This invention was an early motion picture exhibition device. This device was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet.

Louis and Auguste Lumiere were born in France and had a massive impact on film even today. The brothers held their first screening of a projected motion picture in 1895. The Lumiere brothers hold the title of the first cinematographers.

George Pal was an American animation and film maker. George was responsible for the creation of the puppetoons which were a series of animated puppet films in Europe in the 1930's and they are memorable for their use of replacement animation.

Developer of Stop Motion Animation

Willis O'Brien was an Irish American Pioneer. Willis was a motion picture special effects artist and specialized in stop motion animation. Before Willis began working in film he done various other things including being a cartoon artist for the San Francisco Daily News and a professional marble sculptor. Willis was hired by the Edison Company to produce several short films that had a pre-historic theme to them, the most notable one being The Dinosaur and the Missing Link.

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen is an American Film Producer and a special effects creator; he also created a brand of stop motion model animation often referred to as Dynamation. One of his most famous pieces of work was his animation on Mighty Joe Young (with pioneer Willis O'Brien). Another is for his work on his first colour film Jason and the Argonauts, featuring the famous sword fight against 7 skeleton warriors.

Jan Švankmajer is a Czechoslovakia surreal artist and filmmaker. Jan is known for his surreal animations, which have had a great influence on other artists such as Tim Burton.

The Brother Quay are American twin brothers and are influential stop-motion animators. Most of the brother’s animations featured puppets made of doll parts and other organic materials. Often these puppets are partially disassembled in a dark atmosphere.

Tim Burton is an American film producer and director as well as a writer and artist. Burton is famous for his dark themed movies such as Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns.

Aardman Animations also known as Aardman Studios, is an award winning British animation studio based in Bristol. The studio is known for its stop-motion clay animation, in particular for the plasticine characters in Wallace and Gromit. Furthermore it successfully entered the computer animation with Flushed Away in 2006. 

Forms and Genres Of Animation

T.V Animation

T.V Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of 2D or 3D images, artwork or model positions in order to create the illusion of a moving image. This is an optical illusion of motion due to the persistence of the human vision. An example of 21st century TV Animation is the cartoon series Family Guy.

Channel Idents are a short clip usually at the start and at the end of a programme that identifies the channel, also these idents can be between adverts. An example of a channel ident is the one of channel for where the camera moves and the buildings make a '4'.

Cinema

Cinema is the use of digital technology to project motion pictures. These motion pictures are projected onto a big screen using a digital projector. An example of animation in cinema would be the Aardman animations Wallace and Gromit.

Advertising is used to try to persuade the audience. Animation is often used in advertising; these pictures are often hand drawn. By using animated characters the advertising company can have a certain appeal that a human advert would be able to achieve. An example of this form of animation would be the ‘Evian’ advert.

Music Videos are a video that is accompanied by a piece of music and the video is made for that track. Modern music videos are used to promote marketing by promoting the sale of recordings. An example of animated music video would be ‘Clint Eastwood by The Gorillaz’.



Computer Game



Computer Games are an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface, which then generates visual feedback on a video device. The input device used to manipulate and control the game is called a game controller, and these controllers vary from different platforms.

Mobile Phones are an electronic device and are used to make calls around the world. Mobile phones can make and receive telephone calls from the public telephone network, which includes other mobiles and fixed land line phones. Most modern mobile phones support many additional services such as Bluetooth, internet, games and text message.



Website



Websites are a collection of different web pages each containing different pictures and videos and other digital assets. A web page is a document that is written in plain text; a web page may incorporate other webpages but must have suitable mark-up anchors.