Multiplane camera - Urb Irwek

The multiplane camera was invented by urb irwek and is a special motion picture camera used in the traditional animation process. It that allows you to move a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another, this creates a three-dimensional effect.

Parts of the artwork layers are left transparent, to allow other layers to be seen behind them. The movements are calculated and photographed frame-by-frame, with the result being an illusion of depth by having several layers of artwork moving at different speeds - the further away from the camera, the slower the speed. This technique was used by Lotte Reiniger who is know as a pioneer of silhouette animation, and also one of my favorite animators of all time. 

Alot of clever techniques could be used with the multiplane camera, and was later used by Walt Disney in his animations. An example of this is when the background and foreground are moved in opposite directions, this creates an effect of rotation. Walt Disney did this in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs where the evil Queen drinks her potion, and the surroundings appear to spin around her.

looking at flames

I looked at other peoples attempt to animate a flame in order to try and get the movement right. The flame above is different to how i want as i wanted to animate a lighter being sparked and the movement here is to crazy, like a lot of wind is blowing at it. research




Here i looked at how to get the shape and colours right on a flame, also how to do it using photo shop, although its very different to the one im using now. i new i would be drawing it mostly but wanted to still see how to get the colours within, how the blue is at the bottom where the most heat comes from. although in future knowing about the noise effect tool will come in handy when i get my head around my computer animated techniques in my work.

Pixars early days

Pixar technically began in 1979 but where known as the Graphics Group at the computer division of Lucasfilm, untill 1986 with funding by co-founder Steve Jobs, allowing pixar to go solo as a company. When part of Lucasfilm they created The Adventures of André & Wally B which was there first short film. It used complex flexible characters, hand-painted textures, and motion blur, which was still at the time ground breaking animation technology. 



When pixar first started around 44 people were employed under steve jobs. The short film, Luxo Jr by John Lasseter’s directorial debut, at Los Angeles-area theaters in November 1986. Luxo Jr. was the first three-dimensional computer animated film to be nominated for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar. Pioneering the dimensional animations we know today, helping the creation of toy story. 

In 1995 Toy Story was released as the world’s first computer animated feature film, which brought pizar and its skills to the limelight opening a new route into animation. In order to create Toy story with Disney they brought to there final meeting an idea for a half-hour television special called A Tin Toy Christmas. They decided a television program would be a sensible way to gain experience before attempting a feature film, and to show there capability. After alot of negotiation between disney and the rights they would hold on the film and its sequels an agreement to produce a feature film based on Tin Toy but under the name Toy Story was agreed and production began soon thereafter.

Peludópolis - Quirino Cristiani

Peludopolis was released in 1931 by Quirino Crisstiani in Argentina who created the worlds first feature length animated film along with the first feature length animation to use synchronised sound. the only copies of both these films were lost in a fire, but a short scene was reconstructed in 1983. He is also the first person to create animation solely using cardboard cutouts as opposed to other forms of animation like the use of cells. 

Peludopolis was the story of President Yrigoyen's corrupt government and it gets overthrown by a military coup.

A never before seen interview with Cristiani, filmed in Italy was discovered of when he visited the land of his birth after living in Argentina for 81 years. It is the only interview on camera with him in.

after finding this footage it led to the discovery of 2 shorts that were rediscovered during the making of this film: a satirical sketch from 1919 and an amazing “Making-of Peludópolis” from 1931.

Alice Comedies - Walt Disney

The Alice comedies were created in the 1920's by walt disney as a short series of animated cartoons. In the series was little girl named alice, which was live action and she interacted, and played with an animated cat named julius. Alice and the cat then go on adventures in an animated world. 

The series starts with alice going into a cartoon studio, where the cartoons from the pages have come to life, and are jumping around the pages interacting with each other and the people who apparently animated them. Alice then dreams about these characters. At the time the animation seemed funny and child friendly, although alot of the content would be seen as very controversial if watched today. For example In Alice and the Dog Catcher she is the leader of a club called the Klix Klax Klub, where the kids in the club wear paper bags over there heads with their faces painted on them over their heads. these characters seemed to resemble members of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was originally produced by Disneys forst company named Laugh-o-Grams but distributed by Disney after Laugh-o-Grams went bankrupt. It is one of the first examples Disneys work, and without this we may not see or know the disney we love and recognise today. 

Gertie The Dinosaur - Winsor McCay

Gertie the dinosaur was created in 1915 by an american animator named Winsor McCay. Winsor McCay is known as an early pioneer of animation, and also one of the first animators to use cells. Gertie was one oh his first and most well known animations, where he used a mix of live action, allowing the character to appear to interact with the audience while demands were being ask of it by McCay himself. He also animated two films prior to this which were little nemo and the story of mosquito.

McCay self financed and animated 10 films between the years 1911 and 1921. The idea behind Gertie the dinosaur was to bring her to life, offering her an apple and making it appear asif thrown at her from the audience. At the time this was release it was seen as very advanced and clever animation techniques which captured its audiences. He also had the help of John Fitzsimmons, who helped in tracing each of the backgrounds onto rice paper and then mounting them on cardboard. Ten thousand frames were apparently used in the process. 

McCay pioneered the "McCay Split System" of inbetweening, in which the main poses or positions were drawn first, and the frames inbetween to create the smooth movement drawn after.

Emile Cohl - Fantasmagoria

Fantasmagoria was first projected in 1908 in Paris and is one of the first example of traditional animation (hand drawn). The animation is mostly made through stick figures, with a clown as a main character. 



Before this animation was shown, animation mostly focused on creating movement rather then thinking about a narrative. This animation lasts for almost two minuets and is of a clown character having an adventure, and getting up to all sorts of things, reacting with other characters and variety of morphing objects within the short animation. Although unlike later animations, it is very constant with its speed as timings to creating things like suspense has not been explore much at this point it is still an amazing example for the time it was created.

Traditional animation usually consists of drawing each frame onto separate paper, then later putting the images together in a sequence so when place creates a moving image. This animation was done the same way, and then each farm was shot onto negative film, which is why the animation is black and white. 700 drawings were used to to create Fantasmagotia which were then doubled up and animated on twos.

Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope is an improvement to the zeotrope.  It was invented in 1877 by Charles-emile Reynaud. It worked a similar way to the zeotrope in that it worked using a strip of images places inside a spinning cylinder, but instead of using slits it worked through the use of mirrors in the centre allowing the pictures to appear more still in there position as the wheel turned, as the viewer could look at the reflection in the mirror rather then through the narrow strips as they spun the wheel.

The Projecting Praxinoscope invented by the same man in 1889 is one of my favourite early forms of animation, as it allowed an audience to view the images on a wall or in a theatre meaning the illusion could be shared by a larger group of people. A longer roll of images could also be used meaning more of a story could be told, although the Photographic film projector was invented not long after meaning its success was short lived.

kineograph - Flip Books

Flip Books are a well know way of creating the illusion of movement, and a very accessible way of creating an animation at home. A flip book is a small book of images that gradually change throughout the pages, so when flicked through quickly enough create again a moving image and often a short story.

The Flipbook was invented around 1868 by John Barnes Linnett and originally called a kineograph. They were one of the first forms of animation to use a liner sequence of images rather then having to be spun like the zeotrope and Thaumatrope. 

Zoetrope

The Zoetrope, also known as the wheel of life was another optical toy invented around 1833 by William Horner. It is a cylinder with small slits at the top cut vertically, and a real of images down the bottom, or between the slits in a set sequence to show movement. When the Cylinder is spun, the same thing as the Thaumatrope occurs and the images seem to blur together creating an optical illusion of movement. 

Although the zeotrope we know today was invented in 1833, there is evidence that an earlier example of a zeotrope was invented in china around 180 AD by the inventor Ting Huan. Unlike the zeotrope we know, Ting Huans used translucent paper and was hung over a lamp, the air/heat rising from the lamp would then allow it to spin. Once spinning at the right speed the same effect would happen and the images would appear to move. 

Thaumatrope

The Thaumatrope is an optical allusion toy, invented in the victorian times by either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget. Both inventors often get credited for its creation.

It is usually made from a circular piece of card that has an image on each side, for example a bird on one side and a cage on the other. It has string at each side of the card that is twisted to allow the card to spin around quickly, and when spun displays the whole image, creating the illusion of the bird now being in its cage.

The reason we see both images in one is because of 'persistence of vision'. Persistance of vision in simple terms is the delay between what we see entering the eye and reaching the brain, leaving use to see both images at once and leaving a kind of indent of the previous image on the brain before the second one reaches a loving them to 'blur' or 'much' together.

Roobarb and Custard - When Custard Got Too Near The Bone

I love the style of roobarb and custard, although an old animation the way its done inspires my work a lot recently. I like the fact that a back drop is only used is absolutely necessary, nd alot is left to interpretation, also how a lot of frames are repeated, or 2 frames will be used to show movement in a still images so the whole thing flows. watching it helps me with ways of animating, ways to save time and get the message accross.

The way its coloured is also something i like, giving the characters bold, block colours against a white background. its also quite rough but making it very charming as an animation and adding to the story and the feel

the cramp twins

I had a look at the cramp twins s little when doing my final development work because i really enjoy the style of the characters along with there relationships in the program. 

Visually i love the design of the characters, how they use colours to help show there personalities, being very symbolic in a sense, and the way they all interact. the bold colours used especially captures my eye, with very little shading used and simple techniques when shading is needed to add shape to the characters.

As a child with this animation you simply see good and evil between the twins and other characters within the animation, but as an adult there are more complex relationships going on, using very real situations and over exaggerating them to make a comical aspect.

i want to look at using colour to help represent the characters, keeping them simple but hopefully effective, as i don't want to over complicate things, or take attention away from the story. 

Earth idea

I had decided at the point to do earth, I want to do a boy tripping up, possibly running after a ball, playing a game maybe or even just running home. i liked the idea of him tripping over a rock or a crack on the pavement, making him bash his knee on the floor, something we can all relate to as children. At first i wanted him to maybe get upset, or possibly just for a split second before he realises there is no one around to comfort him and just gets back up and keeps running. 

Although i think if i had worked at this idea it could have been nice, but i didn't go with it as i felt like i wanted to use fire or water

start of ideas and brain storming for elements brief

I started off with making lists, brain storming things i thought of when i thought about the elements. To start with i thought about simple ideas, the basic every day things you think about when thinking about each element. from my initial ideas, i planned to pick one or two that i could then expand on, making and twisting a story with the ideas, possibly linking a few together. 

I made a few simple sketches of ideas i had, trying to visualised what i could do with the elements. No matter how much i tried i couldn't think of fantasy like ideas, and constantly went back to human relationships so in the end decided i would stick with that. This made it a little easier as i had a base that  a person, or atleast something living would react to the element or there would be a consequence maybe relating to it. 

As i had done wind in a previous animation, i new i should probably pick another element to concentration on. One that kept coming up is fire and smoke, the way people smoke, like the cigarette and often use it as a social technique at first was something i was interested in exploring.

I worked on a few characters that were more animated, more alien like and so more comical then serious. 

My first idea using the idea of smoke and fire was with these characters, attempting to have a comical view on second hand smoking, about how it effects others and the selfish side of doing it.

I later went back to more human looking characters, mostly as my ideas were also constantly changing and twisting.