Animation Assignment

2D Animation

2D Animation from 1930 to 1990

The early 2D Animation films began with every frame being individually drawn out and painted, so most animations were only short films in the early 20th century. As years went by, new techniques developed to speed up the process.

Snow white and seven dwarfs

Snow white was released in 1937 after 4 years of production. It was the the first feature length cel-animated film to be made in motion picture history. It required more than 1,500,000 individual pen-and-ink drawings and water-color paintings. Walt Disney was persistent on the film being made despite the many that thought it wasn't possible. He had to mortgage his house to help finance the film's production, which eventually ran up a total cost of $1,488,422.74, which was a lot for a feature film in 1937. The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937, and was released nationwide on February 4, 1938. Internationally it earned $8 million during its initial release and was briefly the highest grossing film of its time. 

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins was released it 1964 and is an American musical fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney. Although Mary Poppins is live action film, there are scenes which include animated characters. The main characters stay real but everything around them is 2D animation. This is because they have jumped into the chalk drawings on the pavement and it reminds us that they aren't in the real world. P.L. Travers, the writer of the books which the film is inspired by originally refused to allow any animation in the film at all but Disney overruled her, citing contract stipulations that he had final say on the finished print.

Lord of the Rings

This version of Lord of the rings was released 1978 and made by Ralph Bakshi. This film was made by filming actors and tracing around the clips of the actors to get the correct movement. However many people complained that the hobbits looked too cute and that the film wasn't finished. 

Animation in our lifetime (1990's to Present)

From the 1990's animation began to become made through more digital programs such as Flash or other programs. This makes animation easier and quicker to be created as the technology used could help design and run the animations.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is a cartoon show for adults because of its rude humour. The first episode of the Simpsons aired in 1989, created by Matt Groening for the Fox Network. It then turned to digital animation in 1995. It is still on TV quite frequently as a very popular show. The Simpsons also has its own movie which was out in 2007.

Adventure Time

Adventure time is a Flash made program made by Pendleton Ward. It is TV program, made for kids but has became increasingly popular amongst teenagers. It first aired in 2010. The program is based on a pair of friends, Twelve year old Finn and Jake The Dog. Together they go on adventures and battle evil that comes in the form of the ice king. 

Spirited Away

Spirited away is a Japanese anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. production began in 2000 with a budget of $19 million. During production, Miyazaki had cut out several parts of the story as he realised realized the film would be over three hours long. It became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing about $330 million worldwide. 

 

Where is Animation used?

TV Programs

The main area of TV which uses animation is kids TV which whole TV channels such as 'Cartoon Network' that prominently show cartoons such as Adventure Time. There are also shows for adults such as Family Guy. However cartoons are more popular amongst kids because the characters can be made in a silly nature and desinged with bright colors which children like to watch. 

For example Billy and Mandy is a kids cartoon show which uses bright colors and simple animated characters which can be morphed and made to be entertaining to children.

Advertisement

Animation is used in many adverts because it looks nice or it can easily get a point across in a way which is appealing to the public. 

For example, Bupa used a very simple 2D animation for their adverts to convey a scenario in which anyone could be in to allow the audience to easily understand why they might chose to use Bupa's services.

Games

Many games consist of interactive cartoons and 2D animations which users can play as and interact with. For Example Moshi Monsters is an online game designed for children. It uses interactive 2D animation to allow children to create their own character and explore an online world.

Feature Films

There have been many full length feature films which consist of 2D animation. There are animated films for all ages, however, many 2D animation films have been children's films because characters can be made entertaining for children and plesent to look at, talking animals and magical/fantasy elements are popular amongst children and this is easily portrayed through 2D animation. 

The Last 2D animated film by Walt Disney animation studios was 'The Princess and the Frog' released in 2009, Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker and produced by Peter Del Vecho and John Lasseter. It is based on the novel by E. D. Baker. They wanted to abandon the former trend of CGI style animation for The Princess and the Frog. Lasseter felt that traditional 2D animation created more character believability. 

Music videos

Few music videos are fully animated but some may add subtle animations or CGI effects. This is done because it's entertaining to watch and it allows unrealistic things to happen it the story of the music video. 

In Mika's 'Lollipop' the entire music video is animated with bright colours. It looks very abstract and fun with lots of different things going on to tell the story and runs with the song. It was released in November 2007 and was directed by Mika's sister. It is a parody of Little Red Riding Hood. The music video was originally set to contain a drawn version of Mika singing, but plans were scrapped.

Development of 2D Animation

Animation Devices 

kids.britannica.com

Zoetrope
A zoetrope is a device creates the illusion of motion. When spinning the zeotropes cylinder and looking through one of the vertical slits you can see a series of images one after the other moving quickly to make it look like the image is moving.

The basic drum-like form of the zoetrope was created in 1833 by British mathematician William George Horner, this included the viewing slits between the pictures, he called this the 'daedaleum'. However it wasn't popular until the 1860s. William F. Lincoln designed his own version of this and called it the 'zoetrope'. 

                (Source: www.ideafixa.com)

Phenakistoscope

The Phenakistoscope was invented by Joseph Plateau in 1841. It was animation device which consisted of a spinning disk of images with consecutive images which one after the other created the illusion of movement. Each image was separated by a viewing slit. The spinning disk is attached to a mirror vertically opposite by a handle. When a person looked through the moving slits and spun the disk the reflection in the mirror would display the moving images.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/)

www.eduhacker.net

Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope was designed for watching films through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device but only one person at a time could watch it. It created an illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. U.S. inventor Thomas Edison first described the concept of the device but it was developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892.

Mutoscope
The Mutoscope was patented in late 1894, by Herman Casler and was an early motion picture device. Similar to the Kinetoscope only one person at a time could view a film through this device. To use the machine you would insert a coin and turn the handle on the side which would cause the pictures inside the device to flick from one to another. The frame rate varied from 16 - 18 FPS. this created the illusion of movement. 

Animation Pioneers 

Certain individuals have also contributed to the development of animation. 

George Melies

Melies was making and showing his own films at his own stage show. In 1896 Melies made the discovery of the jump cut by accident. He then used his new discovery in a lot of his work, such as 'The Haunted Castle' in 1896,  by using the Jump cut to create people disappearing and reappearing on screen. He also developed editing devices such as: Fade in and Fade out, Overlapping Dissolves and Stop Motion Photography.

Melies was developing the idea of narrative and storytelling through his work, this was because of his theatre background. However they were all shot from the same angle and the audience would watch them as though they were watching something in the theatre. He never moved the camera.

Melies added animation to his films through his stop motion photography. One of his films was called, 'l'oeuf du sorcier' (The Prolific Egg) in which he performs a series of magic tricks with an egg. He uses animation by editing each frame to create the illusion that he turns the egg into a human head and the head then duplicates and transforms.

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay was the to make a film that included scenes of complete animation. In his film 'Little Nemo', the beginning of his film was acted out and then towards the end the characters present a film which was prominently animated.  The animation included bright colors the characters morphing into different shapes and sizes. It was made by drawing individual frames.  

Lotte Reiniger

Lotte Reiniger became interested in Chinese art of silhouette puppetry as child and built her own puppet theatre which she would use to put on shows for her family and friends. She later enrolled in Paul Wegeners acting group, at the Theatre of Max Reinhardt, as she attended is lecture which led into her fascination with animation. From there she began making silhouette portraits of some of the actors around her. She also make title cards for Wegener's films and many of her silhouettes featured in his films.

In 1923, Louis Hagen approached Reiniger, asking her to do a feature-length animated film. This was completed in 1926 and was made using cut out silhouettes. The film was called The Adventures of Prince Achmed, one of the first animated feature films. There is a debate whether the first animated feature film was created by Lotte Reiniger or Walt Disney. Her feature film came out before Disney's first however people argued that it used silhouettes and not cartoons. 

From then she went on to make many animated films, most of which were Silhouette animations. These were made by using backlights and cardboard cut outs to make  the characters and objects appear as black silhouettes. Her method made her films become extremely popular after 'Prince Achmed' premiered and was very successful in her time. 

(Source: en.wikipedia.org)

Walt Disney

Walt Disney was a prominent figure within the American animation industry, well known for his contributions to entertainment in the film industry during the 20th century. Walt and his brother Roy O. Disney co-founded The Walt Disney Company.

Before making the first full cel animated feature film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', Walt Disney also made cartoon shorts featuring today's well known character, Mickey Mouse (Who Walt Disney Voiced) and friends. 

This is one of the mickey mouse cartoons 'Get a horse' in which Walt Disney also voiced Mickey Mouse.

The Walt Disney Company is still very popular today amongst all ages. Despite announcing that their last 2D animated film would be 'The Princess and the Frog' (made in 2009). They still have many 2D animated TV programs such as 'Phineas and Ferb'. 

Animation Techniques

When using Adobe Flash I have learnt some techniques on how to animate graphics in various ways. 

Classic Tween
The classic tween is used to move a graphic from one place to another.

I used Adobe Flash professional to create my first shape tween.
First I created a new File action script 3.0 in Flash CS6 which opened up a blank stage. In the Property window I made sure my frame rate was set to 25 FPS (Frames per second) and had a stage size of 550pixels by 400pixels.

I then inserted the rocket graphic into the library and converted it to a symbol to allow it to be animated.

On frame one I placed the rocket just out side of the stage on the left and then set a key frame on 75 and on this frame I dragged the rocket to the opposite side of the stage. 

I then highlighted the frames and added a classic tween which then means the rocket would move from the left to the right of the stage.

Once finished I exported my moving rocket as an animated gif and this was the result

 Shape Tween

The Shape tween allows me to morph a shape into another shape.

I used Adobe Flash professional to create my first shape tween.
First I created a new File action script 3.0 in Flash CS6

In the Property window I made sure my frame rate was set to 25 FPS (Frames per second) and had a stage size of 550pixels by 400pixels.

To create my first shape I selected the polygon tool>Ellipse tool from the Toolbar and drew an Ellipse onto the stage.

On my timeline I then selected a key frame of 100, this is so the distortion takes place over a few seconds. 

I used the subselection Tool to allow me to select the points of the shape which I want to distort.

 I pulled at the anchor points on the shape to distort it.

On my time line I used the highlighted my frames and selected Shape Tween to make it move from one keyframe to the other smoothly.

I then exported my animation as a Gif, this is a moving image which can be used on the web.

Rotate and Scale

Using Adobe Flash professional, I created this moving image of increasing scale and rotation.
I opened a new file action script 3.0 in Flash to open a blank stage.
I set my frame rate to 25fps and the stage size to 600 pixels by 550 pixels
I saved my image of the eye and imported it into the library.
Then I dragged it onto the stage and converted the image to a symbol as a graphic to allow me to move the image and change the scale.

Because my image was too big to begin with, I reduced the scale of the image in frame 1 to 40 pixels by 40 pixels

 

I then selected a key frame of 100 on the time line, this is so I allow time for my image to change.

On scale 100, I enlarged the eye to fill the stage and also rotated the image at 180 degrees

I used the right mouse button to apply a classic Tween, this is so it can move from one key frame to another.

I then saved my movie as a .fla file and exported my movie as an animated gif

Another animation which I made was done by drawing a graphic on flash with the paint brush tool. I then copied and pasted the image onto another frame but changed the position of the cats tail. I repeated this for a third image.

I then played the three frames consecutively on the time-line.

I then saved it as an animated gif. This is my final animation of the cat with the moving tail:

My Animation

For my next project I have decided that I am going to animate a more complex moving cat because this way i can use the techniques that I have been taught and also possibly add sound to my animation. I want to make it quite a cute animation to make it appealing to watch and use simple shapes which can easily be morphed and manipulated.