Friday, 9 July 2010
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Vincent by Tim Burton
Tim Burton is well-known for his dark films such as ‘Beetlejuice’ and ‘Edward Scissorhands’. He is also famed for his quirky-themed films, for example, ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’.
In total he has created 18 films and has remade the film ‘Frankenweenie’ which is one of his earlier creations. Some of the films he has made include; ‘Batman’, ‘Sleepy hollow’, ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Corpse Bride’.
He created ‘Vincent’ because Disney Studios (where he was employed at the time) were not satisfied by his work. They decided to give Tim $60,000 to produce an adaption of a poem. ‘Vincent’ was produced by Rich Heinrichs, Tim Burton’s friend at Disney and was narrated by Vincent Price, Tim’s hero. After he had created ‘Vincent’ he was sacked from Disney because this was not the type of film they produce, therefore Tim’s expertise was not needed.
‘Vincent’ is about a seven year old boy, called Vincent, who wants to be just like Vincent Price. It shows how his life is and how he imagines it could be.
Throughout the animation there are many gothic and depressing scenes, for example near the end of the animation he thinks he is going mad. The scary atmosphere is added to by Vincent Price’s deep voice and the horrifying music which is played. Although it is deranged and surreal there is an element of comedy injected into the animation through how the characters look; Vincent’s sister is very short with a spherical head and mad hair, Vincent’s aunt continuously pats him on the head while he is thinking about dipping her in wax.
This film is themed around Identity and being who you want to be, this is shown through many various lines of speech; “For a boy his age he’s considerate and nice, but he wants to be just like Vincent Price”, “He doesn’t mind living with his sister, dog and cats, though he’d rather share a home with spiders and bats.”.
It is also themed around Childhood and the over imagination of a young boy; He reads about a man’s wife being buried alive and ‘believes’ that his own wife has been buried alive, even though he is only seven and doesn’t have a wife.
There are also many other themes such as insanity, solitude and abandonment which are commonly found in most of his films.
I thought that it was very well made. It was scary and the narrator’s voice was well chosen because it ‘set the scene’ well. The scenes at the end were very powerful because of all of the images that they used. One member of the audience said; “it may be short, but it is very effective, creative and overall brilliant.” another member said; “I saw it and I liked it a lot. The poem was just plain beautiful in the trademark voice of Vincent Price and the animation was very ad hoc”.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Final animation!
Friday, 11 June 2010
test animation
Friday, 28 May 2010
Zoetrope animation
I created the zoetrope animation by getting a long piece of paper which fitted into the zoetrope when it was made into a circle, it was divided up into boxes of equal size. I drew a simple picture in the first box, then moved it slightly before i drew it in the second box. When I reached the end of the strip i made sure it came back to the same starting point.
This animation worked well but you can't really see the words because they come and go too quickly, i could fix this by leaving out the words or using a bigger zoetrope so i have more boxes to draw in.
Claymation experiment - afro wars
This animation is a claymation; it is created by taking a picture of a clay character, moving the character slightly and taking another picture and repeating this process. I worked with Lauren and Chloe, i took the pictures and made two of the characters.
This animation is okay but where the sellotape is used to make the character jump it doesn't look very good because you can see the sellotape really clearly. I could improve this by using a different way for the character to jump down. It is good at the end where the character suddenly comes in but it could be longer becduase there isn't really a story to it.
websites used:
- www.youtube.com
Whiteboard experiment - seed
Whiteboard animation is created by drawing an image on a whiteboard, taking a picture, slightly changing the image and taking another picture. This process is repeated until the animation is finished. On this animation i worked with Chloe. I drew the image while Chloe took the pictures. I was trying to learn how to make this type of animation and the key elements that will be needed to make it good. I developed the skill of redrawing the same image in a different place and creating a simple image to use for this type of animation.
Compared to the other animations i have made the images aren't very smooth and they change alot from frame to frame. I would say this animation is quite good because it is smooth, but the images change too much and the lighting keeps getting lighter and darker. I have learnt to keep the flash on because that keeps the lighting the same throughout the whole animation. I would improve this by using more fromes because it is short and very repetative.
websites used:
- www.youtube.com
Pixilation experiment - tennis
This animation uses pixilation; this is made by taking a picture of a person and then moving them slightly and taking another picture and after repeating this process and putting all of the images together you get a video of the movement. I worked with Lauren, Ellie, Ashley and Chloe. I took all of the pictures while everyone else were the characters in the animation. By making this animation we were trying to learn about how pixilation works and how to create this type of animation. I learnt that it is very important to keep the camera still and which settings are best to use on the camera for this type of animation.
Compared to other animations i have made this is very jerky although it does contain different speeds which were created by moving the people larger spaces in between taking each picture. I would say this animation is good because it is smooth, the camera doesn't move too much although there isn't much depth or meaning to the animation. From this animation i can learn that you need to know exactly what is going to happen in the animation before you start otherwise you will need to retake it again and again because you will get some parts wrong. I would improve this animation by making sure nothing was moving in the background because the movement makes the animation look more jerky.
websites used:
- www.youtube.com
Friday, 30 April 2010
A Short Love Story in Stop Motion by Carlos Lascano
A Short Love Story in Stop Motion is about a daydream of a little girls life: she is sitting in school drawing a picture of a house and then she daydreams about living in that house with her husband, they have a baby and in the end they are old and looking at a picture of their son with his girlfriend, this is when the daydream ends and she is back sitting in school drawing a picture of a house.
It uses mixed digital and real tools, muted colours, a mixture of 2D drawn, clay, video and computer animation. Carlos uses green screens and puts the backgrounds on afterwards and all of the models have a wood and aluminium frame with a porcelain head.
I thought it was aesthetically pleasing and happy although the music made you sympathize with the little girl.
From this animation i will take his choice of music, the music suits how Carlos wants you to feel and doesn't clash with the animation.
websites used:
Books used:
-Animators Guide
-Cracking Animation
Friday, 19 March 2010
Harvie Krumpet
Harvie Krumpet is set in 1922 in Poland when a little boy (Harvie) is born, it is all about his life. It was made in 2003 and is 22 minutes long.
The characters in Harvie Krumpet are made using plasticine and cardboard, they are the size of wine bottles because Adam Elliot has a tick so the scale of his models are bigger to make it easier for him o make them without ruining them. All of his characters have a tick or another disorder so they are like the director. The sets are made of wood, some of the sets are; his house, his school and a boat.
The style of the animation is much like Adam Elliot's other animations. This is his signature style they have; bulgy eyes with bags under them, their ears are a funny shape and they stick out and their bodies are all out of proportion.
Harvie Krumpet is funny but also sad. for example when his parents die it is sad but then you find out they get frozen then they are naked and riding their bike.
I think it won the Oscar for best animated short in 2003 because of the unique style of the movement and different emotions it uses.
Other similar animations are: Vincent by Tim Burton, Mary and Max by Adam Elliot, Pingu by Otmar Gutmann and Food by Jan Švankmajer.
Sites used:
- www.wikipedia.org
-www.youtube.com
Books used:
-Cracking Animation
Friday, 5 March 2010
Monty Python animation
In Monty Python the animations are made by Terry Gilliam, he uses a technique called still image, stop motion. This technique doesn't need a computer, it is all done by hand. They use cutout still images, these images have been cut out of a magazine. It is made by taking a picture of an image made of cut outs and then moving them and taking another picture, when this is done over and over again and played in quick succession they appear to be moving. It can create a smooth or a jerky effect depending on how big the movements are between the pictures you take.
This animaiton is surreal and funny because of the images it uses. For example there are giant cats, giant hands, killer cars and the faces of all of the people are funny shapes. It is also funny because of what happens in the animation and the sounds that the different things make.
Sites used:
Books Used:
-The Animators Handbook
-Monty Pythons Animations
whiteboard animation
Whiteboard animation is created by drawing an image on a whiteboard, taking a picture, slightly changing the image and taking another picture. This process is repeated until the animation is finished. This piece also uses some live action of him drawing it.
It is funny because with the whiteboard you can create whatever image you like without limits. It can also be scary is the images have scary features.
They use this sound becuase it is very arcade game like, which ties in with the images.
Sites used:
- www.youtube.com
Nuca animation
At Norwich University College of the Arts we made this metamorphosis animation. First we were given a word and we had to draw that word, my object was an eye. Then we all rotated our pictures and let the person next to us copy them, i then got an apple. We then had our start and finish pictures. We used layout paper so we were able to see through the page, we placed our start and finish pictur
es on top of each other (using a peg bar to keep them in place) and drew a 'middle frame' which would be halfway in between the eye becoming the apple. After that we then had to draw the other frames, for this we placed our first picture on the peg bar and moved it a little bit towards the middle frame. We created lots of these until the first picture had become the last picture. After we had drawn all of the frames we went over them in pen so they stood out more. We then used a rostrum camera to take two pictures of each picture, we shot them in twos to make the film last longer. Because we had all used each others pictures and a 'finish' we could then morph the first picture all the way back round to the same picture again.
After that we made a zoetrope animation. We got a strip of 18 rectangles for us to draw in to create an animation. We were told that we had to create a simple design, we used the same technique of tracing over the original drawing but moving it slightly to create the illusion of movement. The design had to be simple because if it wasn't it would of been hard to draw the same thing each time. The first and the last frame had to be the same so that when the zoetrope was spinning it played the animation over and over again without a jump in the middle where the start and end frames were different. To make the movement clearer some people coloured them in so it stood out more, we also outlined it all in pen so that it was clearer.
Sites used:
- www.youtube.com
Friday, 5 February 2010
Pixilation
Pixilation can be scary and strange, but sometimes it can be funny.
The first animation we watched is called ‘Food’ by Jan Švankmajer.
A man goes into a room where there is a human vending machine that serves sausages, mustard, bread and a drink. Once the man has eaten the food he turns into the human vending machine and the original human vending machine becomes a person, he makes a tally mark on the wall amongst others and walks out. The whole thing then repeats itself when another person comes in.
It is made using two different types of animation; Pixilation and Claymation. It also uses some live action video. It uses long shots, medium shots, establishing shots and extreme close ups.
When I watched it, it made me feel disturbed, amused and confused. I liked the fact that it was different to anything else I had watched but I didn’t like it because it used a lot of disturbing actions.
The second animation we watched is called ‘Neighbours’ by Norman McLaren.
Two men are fighting over a flower which is in between both of their houses. They put a fence up but neither man thinks that the other man should have the flower. In the end the two men end up killing each other. The film is about peace and how you shouldn’t fight over insignificant things.
It is made using only one animation; Pixilation. I uses close ups, long shots and medium shots.
When I watched it I thought it was stupid and weird and it made me feel amused. I liked it because it was funny, especially when they appeared to be flying.
Some similarities are; they both use pixilation, they use some of the same type shots, they are both weird and strange because of the unnatural movements, they both use human actors and the actors have non human movements.
Some differences are; they make you feel differently because of the different styles, ‘Food’ uses Live action and claymation, ‘Food’ is Diegetic and ‘Neighbours’ is non diegetic.
I used the websites:
- www.google.com