Afordances of Animation

The Afordances of animation is a term referring to the fact that you can create exactly what you want with animation because you can draw it unlike in cinematography where you would have to pay lots for special effects.

For example in the clip from the video game Grand theft auto (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SX1eYn4TOg) you see a car blowing up compared to in Skyfall when the house explodes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3N5ByTnIM) The cost to perform all the CGI and special effects in Skyfall would be monstrous compared to the animation used to make the explosions in Grand theft auto this highlights the theory of the Afordances of Animation.   

The 12 principles of animation

The 12 principles of animation 

Squash and Stretch

Squash and Stretch is used to give weight and flexibility to a drawn object. This principle can be used for comic effect when the principle is exaggerated.

Anticipation

Anticipation is used so the audience is aware something is about to happen on the screen.

Staging

Staging is to concentrate the audience’s attention to what is most important in the scene occurring. This can be done in multiple ways such as; angle and position of the camera; placement of a character in the frame and the use of shadow and light

Straight ahead action and pose to pose

The principle references how the animation is drawn.”Straight ahead action" means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, while "pose to pose" involves starting with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the intervals later."Straight ahead action" creates a more fluid, dynamic illusion of movement, and is better for producing realistic action sequences. On the other hand, it is hard to maintain proportions, and to create exact, convincing poses along the way. "Pose to pose" works better for dramatic or emotional scenes, where composition and relation to the surroundings are of greater importance. A combination of the two techniques is often used.

Follow through and overlapping action

This principle helps make movement look realistic and helps the audience believe the character abides by the law of physics. Follow through means that certain parts of a body should continue moving after the character has stopped and the parts should keep moving beyond the point where the character stopped to be "pulled back" 

Slow in and slow out

 

Slow in slow out is about how to make an animation look realistic. If it has more drawings near the beginning and end of an action, emphasizing the extreme poses, and fewer in the middle. This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects, like the bouncing ball.

Arcs

Arcs help realism in animation. Arcs allow movement to look real, for example limb moving can be obtained by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory. The exception is mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines.

Secondary action

 

Adding a second action makes it look more realistic. For example a lot of people walk swinging their arms this is made by secondary action.

Timing

Timing is important for working out  a characters mood, emotion and reaction. The term timing refers to how many drawings or frames there are for a certain action.

Exaggeration

Exaggeration is useful in cartoons because it makes them look more surreal and therefore more interesting to watch. The level of exaggeration will depend on what motivates the artist and what message he/she feels the audience should take from it.

Solid drawing

The term Solid drawing means the draughtsmen has to take in to consideration the three dimensional space, volume, weight when drawing the image.

Appeal

Appeal is all about how interesting a character is so that the audience will be captivated

The important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting. There are many tricks so the audience like the characters Baby like faces, for instance, are very popular in this respect.

Notes on Contemporary Animators/Animations

Hanna Barbera

Hanna Barbera productions were founded in 1957 by William Hannah and Joseph Barbera.The first of the studios successful cartoons was Huckleberry Hound show in 1958 which later got sponsored of Kellog's. The studios became vastly popular and went on to create some extremely famous cartoons such as:The smurfs, Scooby-Doo,The Flintstones and Yogi Bear.The style of cartoon used has influenced other cartoons for example Family guy and The Simpsons. When Turner broadcasting system bought the company both William Hanna and Joseph Barbera served as mentors and looked over the creative input.

Warner Brothers

The Warner Brothers founders consist of brothers Albert,Harry,Sam and Jack Warner.The Warner Brothers studios was the first major film studio in the world.The use of Cel animation is present in the majority of their creations.The company mainly focusing on commercial animations.

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is a Film director,Animator and Manga artist.He belived that 'Traditional is better' hense why he hand draws his animations.His main insperation was the tale of the white serpant (1958).Hayao Miyazaki worked at Tooi animations in 1963 and created a legacy of iconic films since such as : My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited away.

  

Matt Groening

Matt Groening is a screenwriter,animator,author,producer and voice actor.He moved to LA in 1977 to pursue a job in writing.After a while he got a job at the Los Angeles Reader delivering newspapers,he showed his cartoons to the editor who liked them so much he gave him a spot in the newspaper.Since then Matt Groening has gone on to create some highly successful cartoons such as The Simpsons,Futurerama and Olive,The other reindeer.

  

Trey Parker/Matt Stone

Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Actors,Animators and Screen Writers) are most famous for their controversial creation of South Park South Park is the Third longest running animated series behind The Simpsons and Arthur. The work of Trey Parker and Matt Stone was heavily influenced by The Monty Python.

Monty Python

The Monty Python consists of Graham Chapmen,Eric Idle, John Cleese,Micheal Palin and Terry Jones.They are part of a Low budget comedy group that first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty Five episodes were aired over four series.The series provoked them making television series,stage shows,films,albums and books.The groups influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles influence on music.

Yellow Submarine

The Yellow Submarine animation was created by Bob Balser and Jack Stokes with the idea that it would increase the popularity of the Beatles.The inspiration of the Yellow Submarine was Strawberry fields forever.The animation has a major psychedelic vibe to it to connote the Beatles music at the time. 

A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly was directed by Richard Linklater in 2006. The film is an animated science fiction thriller. It was created by filming digitally then animated over by using a Rotoscope.The use of the Rotoscope creates a very distinctive style to the film which sets it apart from other animated films.It took 500 hours to produce just 1 minute of animation.The film stars Keanu Reeves,Robert Downey JR,Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder.

Gorillaz 

The Gorilliaz are an English band that first formed in 1998.The band consists of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.The band has 4 animated persona's.To create the characters Cell shading animation is used and high frame rate to make sure the animation is smooth and clear to give it a more realistic style. The Gorillaz were the first band to create an animated music video and influenced other bands such as the Arctic Monkeys and The young Folks.

Persistance of vision

Persistence of vision is when an afterimage imprints in your retina for one twentieth of a second giving the illusion that the light is still shining. 

For example when a light is shone in the eye for a brief amount of time the light will appear as a bright spot.The bright spot will appear to remain in sight when the light has been taken away. This is possible because of the persistence of vision. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGnpKz7zvY

Walt Disney presentation

The Thaumatrope

A Thaumatrope is a disk with a picture on each side and attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of vision. Persistence of vision is when the retina retains an image for a brief split-second after the image was actually seen, and lends itself to animation by fostering the illusion of motion when we view images in closely-timed sequence to one another. We don't notice the fractional skips between images because that persistence fills in the momentary gap to make the motion seem seamless. Thaumatropes are recognised as important antecedents of cinematography and in particular of animation




Here is the Thaumatrope I have made myself I watched the tutorial below on YouTube to help me :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzFiuswzIa4

http://animation.about.com/od/glossaryofterms/g/pervision_def.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatrope

http://www.aranpa.com/thaumatrope.htm

Pioneers of animation

                                                                  Pioneers of animation

  

Joseph Plateau (1801-1883) was a Belgian physicist. He was inspired by the work of Faraday and Roget and developed their ideas further to create the Phenakistoscope. He drew multiple progressive images onto counter rotating disks to give the impression that the images were moving. When spun and viewed in a mirror the impression of movement was given. To prevent the images from blurring together he added splits in the card so the image appeared to be a single moving picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plateau

                             

     Click here to watch a Phenakistoscope in motion

William Horner (1786-1837), a British mathematician, was another animation pioneer who created the Zoetrope in 1834. The Zoetrope was far more practical because more than one person could view the images at a time. The Zoetrope was in the shape of a drum with an open top with hand drawn sequenced pictures on a strip of paper placed in the inner bottom of the drum. The slots are cut at equal distances around the outside of the drum. to create an illusion of motion the drum is spun so the images are moving. The Zoetrope is an improvement on the Phenakistoscope (No mirror was needed and allowed several people to view at once).

Click here to watch a Zoetrope in motion

                                                                                                                       http://earlycinema.com/

  

Charles-Émile Reynaud (1844-1918) was a French inventor, responsible for the first projected animated cartoons. He invented the Praxinoscope, patented in 1877, it was an adaptation of the Zoetrope. Instead of narrow viewing slits it used a prism of mirrors to reflect  and create clearer images, resulting in perfect animation without the loss in luminosity in movement. He then went on to adapt this device so that the animations could be projected, replacing the opaque drawings with transparent drawings meaning that light could be shone through them.This light was then reflected by the mirror prism and focused onto a screen through a lens.

In 1872 Reynaud developed his idea further to become theatrical entertainment. He devised a way of painting a series of pictures on small glass plates which were then joined together in a single flexible strip. The animated characters were then projected onto a screen from behind. This effect was successful but very jerky and slow and because hand drawn his films could not easily be reproduced.  Known as Reynaud theatre optique it was a very early version of cinema, all that was lacking was the addition of photography.

Eadward Muybridge( 1830-1904)(known as the father of motion) was an important British photographer who secured at least two British patents for his inventions. His large photographs of Yosemite Valley made him world famous. Having sparked considerable scientific interest, Eadweard took his work to the University of Pennslyvania. Developing a new multi-lens camera, he produced a celebrated high-speed study into the movement of both animals and humans, published in eleven volumes as Animal Locomotion: An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movement (1887). His Zoopraxiscope (considered the first movie projector), was a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip used in cinematography. He influenced visual artists and the developing fields of scientific and industrial photography.The Zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion. The stop-motion images were initially painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second series of discs, made in 1892–94, used outline drawings printed onto the discs photographically, then colored by hand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoopraxiscope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

http://goo.gl/Bo16Jo

Thomas Edison(1847-1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the Phonograph (the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound), the motion picture camera(a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film), and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

 The Lumière brothers(Auguste 1862- 1954,Louis:  1864-1948)(were the first film makers in history. They patented the Cinematograph, which was far more practical than the Kinetoscope because more than one person could view at a time, much like current cinema. The brothers thought that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers because of this, their role in the history of film was very brief. They turned their attentions to colour photography and in 1903 they patented a colour photography process, the "Autochrome Lumière", launched on the market in 1907.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fratelli_Lumiere.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/kinetoscope/