unit 33 assignment 1

principles of animation

The most known principles of animation were developed by the "old men of Walt Disney" ; frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson during the 1930's. the principles came as a result of reflection about their practiced and through Disney's desire to make a way of animation that appeared more realistic in terms of how things move and how that movement might be used to express character and personality. some of those principles are:
squash and stretch :This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions.
it is used in all forms of characters in animation from bouncing a ball to the body weight of a person walking.
Anticipation: This movement prepares the audiences for a major action the character is about to perform, such as stating to run, jump as exchange expression. a dancer does not just leap off the floor. a backwards motion accures before the forward action is executed.
Staging: A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the storyline. the effective use of long, medium or a close up shot aswell as camera angles also helps telling the story. also staging directs the audience's attention to the story or idea being told, care must also be to0 key in background design so it isn't obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation.

there are other principles such as: follow through and overlapping action which accures when the main body of the character stops but all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing or a long tail. other principles are slow out and slow in, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing and appeal. a;; principles are there to make the final animation a great artistic and better product in every single way.
HISTORY

Stop motion animation has been around for a long time, almost as long as traditional film-making. Originally stop motion involved animating objects which included the animated movement of any "non-drawn" objects such as toys, blocks or any rigid inanimate object you care to mention. This was quickly followed by cel animation. And then animators experimented with clay animation and puppet animation which is what you may be familiar with in Wallace and Gromit and so forth.  

Some early examples of stop motion films and techniques can be seen in the "The Humpty Dumpty Circus" (1898) and in "Fun in a Bakery Shop" (1902). In 1907 "The Haunted Hotel" was a very successful movie with the cinema audience of the time. In 1912 one of the first clay animation movies using stop motion was released to great critical acclaim. It was called "Modelling Extraordinary" In 1916, the first woman animator, Helena Smith Dayton, began experimenting with clay stop motion. She released her first film in 1917, Romeo and Juliet. December of 1916, brought the first of Willie Hopkin's 54 episodes of "Miracles in Mud" to the big screen

Stop-motion has changed a lot since the early 20th century. In fact, stop-motion is rarely used anymore, only in children's TV shows. 
With the development of digital 3D animation, animating a 3D character in a film has become much easier and faster, which is favoured by the industry. 3D animation allows unreal characters to seem to be alive.


Here are different types, animators and technologies of stop motion:

The phenakistoscope

The phenakistoscope made is 1832

Zoetrope
Zoetrope made in 1833-1834

The praxinoscope
the praxinoscope made in 1877

Willis H. O'brien
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oORGuJfAaO9E8QXawJfwb-M6B0SkFRNeaOn897o7FBI/edit?usp=sharing

kinetoscope
Kinetoscope developed in 1889

Ray harryhausen 1920
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BGCqJQpRvG4y6SkkNwJOUPzOAELeeFzPbOBFhAOvd24/edit?usp=sharing

King kong(1933)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOMKnhN7ABsDirected by merian c. Cooper
Targetted audience: young adults and adults due to the violence and the fact that it could be scary to younger audience.

jan svankmajor
jan svankmajor began making his short films in 1964

lee hardcastle
lee hardcastle born in 1985

Wallace and gromit direct by nick park in 1989
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJDhmlMQT60
Targeted audience: children from and teenagers, its humour and charm are appealing to kids from the age of 3 up to 12 or even more.

Modern technology in stop motion 1993
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c4h65UcU-pxTQio14Iic7bJ9hSn-vavSWd8d_HKGhl4/edit?usp=sharing

Gumby (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2MdacVPVik
Produced by Warner vision inch
Trageted audience: children of a young age 1 to 5

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Paranormal(2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgwSpajMw3s
Produced by focus features
Targetted audiences: children from the age of 5 and young teenagers, the narrative and setting of the story is mainly aimed at teenagers and kids due to the main characters age and the fact that he goes school.

the pirates in an adventure with scientist 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho08smK_zSc
produced by Aardman animation in partnership with sony pictures animation
directed by peter lord
audience: children 3+ and 12+, the reason is because its a good enjoyable stop motion thats enjoyable to children and also young teenagers because of its humour.

owl city- fireflies stopmotion video 2010

directed by andrew r Jones
Targeted audience :pop music fans , general public
mostly teenager and younger kids from 12+ because they are the main audience for pop music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkAVQfS8ZEw

twitter animation improvisation 2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C068fLwk9Aw
created by jelle vandan
targeted audience 12+ , young people use twitter alot along with other social networks but so do adults so the video is aimed at teenagers and adults.

paranorman

The targeted audience for paranormal is children and teenagers, but adult can enjoy watching it too. it is an adventure and comedy animation. paranorman uses the animation principles to create different effects on the audience. it mostly uses the principle of gravity, at the 26th second of the clip the main character norman gets pushed and falls to the ground, their use of the gravity principle has an effect of the audience as it gives the animation a realism and showcases the danger of being pushed. the bully pushes norman and he falls, the audience relate to that and it feels more real because a certain kid in the audience that has experience with bullies instantly relates to that more than he would if norman got pushed and floated in the air like a ballon, that is the effect of the gravity principle. another principle the use is secondary action.

At the thirteenth second , norman's father is in the middle of talking whiles fixing the light. as he speaks, his legs are balancing him on the ladder, his left hand is fixing the lamp and his right hand is  holding an object and making gestures as he talks. the effect of secondary action humanise the character and adds realism to the animation. as humans we multitask a lot; we drink coffee whiles reading a gossip text from our lousy friend, talk not only with our mouths but with our arms, hands, facial expression which sometimes makes us look crazy and in need of a mental checkup but its human nature, those particular secondary action to norma's father's character added realism and humanised him so the audience can not only relate but also have the illusion that he is real.



owl city-fireflies fan made stopmotion video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkAVQfS8ZEw

the fan-made owl city video for their hit single "fireflies"uses both real people and objects in their stopmotion. in terms of the principles of animation, the makers of the video get brave and bold by breaking the principles of animation at the 30th second by making the character walk in an unnatural way. rather than following the arc principle, the character appears to be sliding everywhere as her way of walking, its effect on the audience is that it challenges them but also grabs and draws their attention in the minute they see the unnatural walk of the character.

The video does follow the secondary action principle at the 12th second as she holds the board with the magical eye, she also moves her arm and head. it's effect on the audience is that it brings back the realism to the character after having lost it by her unusual way of walking.
After breaking the arc rule by the character's walk, the video decides to follow it as the third minute and 34th second when she has a drink and her arm movement isn't unnatural. this of course that has a positive effect on the audience because not only does it add realism to the effect and humanise her even more which makes her more relatable to the audience.
the very noticeable animation principle in this video is the principle of time, the makers of the video didn't use a lot of frames per second so the video looks jumpy, its effect on the audience is that it makes it clear to them that this is in fact a stopmotion video.


twitter animation improvisation 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C068fLwk9Aw


the twitter animation improvisation uses the time animation principle very effectively by using a lot of frames per minute which makes the video appear much more smoother, it has a positive effect on the audience as they feel impressed by it. the video uses sound to create anticipation in the audience; at the 37th second , the soundtrack changes to identify danger and also reveal the characteristics of the sun glasses in the video which is the antagonist of the story, the music played before the glasses appear gives the impression to the audience that the sun glasses are the antagonist of the story.

the development of stopmotion specific from your timeline like king komg =cc

over the years the quality of stop motion has changed dramatically and amazingly. the cinematography behind stop motion in terms of quality and visuals has improved a lot thanks to the development in equipment such as; high definition cameras and more advanced stop motion software  such as I stop motion.
one of the biggest improvements is in the movements of the characters. when stop motion was still new in the early years, the movements of characters weren't smooth or impressive at all, they were rather jumpy and shaky. when you watch the earliest episodes of Wallace and gormit from 1989 or the original king Kong from 1933, each movement from the characters doesn't flow smoothly, but in 2012's stop motion film, paranorman, you can notice some improvements. the makers of the stop motion have noticed that adding more frames to each second would improve the smoothness of character movements and that discovery became a game changer.

the improvement of set design has improved a lot of the years, once again notice in Wallace and gormit at the second and minute and 30th second the lack or realism in the set. but over the years the sets have gotten much more realistic and better in terms of quality. during paranorman at the 30th second the set design is incredibly impressive and looks much more realistic because of its quality in both design and cinematography.
one of the advantages todays directors have is the use of green screen, they can computerise their sets and make everything looks magical and much more realistic which is one advantage the older stop motion never had.

the movements of the characters have improved, the movements of the characters in 2012' paranormal are much more smother than the movements of 1933's king kong and the mean tyrex.
during paranorman at the 23th second, the family of Norman are talking and you can tell that they're movements from their mouths, facial expression and other secondary action are more much smother and flows better than in king kong during the fight at the 19th second as him and the Terex are having a wrestling match.

Other than the movements of characters , the set and character designs have improved impressively over the years. comparing the 1989 Wallace and Gormit to their latest episode from 2014, you see alot of improvement not only in the miser e scene but also character sculpture. At the second minute and 34th second of one of the latest Wallace and gormit episodes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NKLjm2qoU0 as they sit on the dinner table, the set design is realistic and the characters have a great appearance compared to the 1989 episode where the set designs of every scene aren't realistic or creative and the characters don't look as professional as they do in this time period.


genre, style and audience

claymation has always typically been or children with shows such as shaun the sheep ,Fifi and the flowertots and wallace and gormit. but thanks to youtube a lot of fan made videos created by fans of stop motion have taken over and both their genre and target audience varies more than ever before.
famous youtuber Lee Hardcastle known for his remake of famous scenes from movies has claymation videos such as a good clay to die hard which is an action video and its targeted audience is a much higher audience than children. claymation that was typically known to be for children is now for all types of audiences and genres. other genres such as fantasies are better used with some elements of a green screen and added video effects simply because the development in technology. stop motions such as paranorman are great examples of the use of visual effects in a stop motion film, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlK99b8OQU4, notice at the 14th second the beautiful visuals that were created by visual effects, this has a great effect on the audience because it modernise the video whitch adds more relevance to it and makes it more enjoyable.

Another style of stop motion is live action. live action is quite the fascinating style simply because the freedom that comes with it, the director can literally flap his wings and not be afraid to fly with it because it isn't restricted to any type of audience. no one can guarantee when this freedom will last but stop motion makers sure are enjoying it whiles it lasts. videos such as bella, smart tech and  owl city fireflies (fanmade video) are all live action stop motion but they all have different types of audiences; children, adults, teenagers, and the advantages of the directors is they don't feel restricted to any of those targeted audience or even breaking a stereotype by picking a certain audience over the other. long live live action stop motion.




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