Animation Survey

E4 E Sting Dope Sheet

E Sting Animation Storyboards

Past and Present Stop Motion Animation

Stop Motion Animation

3D animated television series started in the 60’s with programs like ‘The Magic Roundabout’ but they didn’t become popular until the 80’s when ‘Trap door’ and ‘Wallace & Gromit’ were created. Since then Stop motion animation has evolved from short 3-4 minute long television episodes to feature length films like ‘The Corpse Bride’ (Dir. Tim Burton) and ‘Chicken Run’ (Dir. Peter Lord and Nick Park).

Trap Door -

‘Trap door’ is a children’s TV series from 1984, it was created for entertainment purposes and is aimed at children aged four to eight. It was created using stop motion clay animation, which is basically taking multiple pictures of a clay figure or object whilst moving it a little bit at a time. When all the images have been taken they are cut/Edited together and when they are played in a sequence it looks like the clay figure is animated.

Whilst ‘Trap Door’ flowed almost seamlessly for its time and was simple yet entertaining the one weakness it had was the actual quality of the series (Picture and Sound) but this is less to do with the actual animation and more to do with the lack of technology at the time.

Wallace and Gromit -

‘Wallace and Gromit’ is a children’s television series that was created in 1989 by Aardman Animations and was for entertainment purposes aimed at children five to twelve, although over the years the audience of Wallace and Gromit has gotten larger as the fans who watched it when they were younger continued to watch it as they got older. It was created much the same way to ‘Trap door’ but due to the evolution of technology the stop motion process became more complex to create a much more seamless effect.

The Corpse Bride -

‘The Corpse Bride’ was the first feature length complete stop motion animation by Tim Burton, which was created in 2005. It has been created a lot like Wallace and Gromit due to evolution of technology Corpse Bride has a lot more detail than previous clay animation. One of its strengths is how much detail there is to the characters and sets as well as its seamlessness, as it draws the audience in, but one of its weaknesses would be the use of after effects.

Post it Animation -

Post it animation was created by a student when a deadline for his animation class was coming and he still didn’t know what he was going do, this animation is for both entertainment and educational purposes. This animation uses an actor and real objects (Post it notes) yet the process isn’t that different from the clay animations.

Stop Motion Animation Statment of Intent

Unit 33 Stop Motion Animation

Statement of intent

Task: Generate finished ideas for a 60 second stop motion animation, with original soundtrack. (You must consider your potential audience. You should submit: An appropriate treatment/script; a detailed and annotated storyboard with timings; All pre-production test material (visual and sound) and development work).
Candidate name: Katie Hamby	Theme: E Sting
Title of the Animation: Magic Hat
Story or plot of animation:
E Sting animation is 10 seconds long and it will revolve around an actor/tress. For the assignment the animation will have to be 60 seconds long and will be cut down to 10 seconds to be entered into the E Sting competition. It will start with my actress slowly spinning into shot, she will then continue to dance until the end where she will take the top hat off her head and pull objects (stuffed animals, lava lamp and a globe) out of it. She will also pull the E4logo from the hat and move it until it is right in front of the camera.
Reasons for selection of theme: (including inspiration from the work of others)
I Chose to make an E Sting instead of a Cannimation because I am an avid watcher of E4, and became inspired by previous E Sting competitions winners. An example being the stop motion/computer animated E Sting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_H1xKr-35M&feature=related  The E4 logo has to be in shot in order for the ident to be practical, so the audience can know what channel they are watching.
Target Audience:
The target audience for my animation is 13 to 19 years old, or the whole target audience for E4 which is 15 to 30 year olds. Estings are aimed at creative young adults (mid teens to early thirties), inspiring them to create short idents for E4.
Equipment needed:
Equipment I will need to create my animation; ·         Digital Camera ·         Tripod ·         Top Hat ·         Stuffed Animals ·         Globe ·         E4 logo
Techniques that will be used and how they will help convey the visual message:
E.g. framing, styles, zooms, depth of field etc; For my animation I will use two different shots; a long shot and a mid shot. A mid shot will be used when my actor is pulling objects and the E4 logo from the hat. A long shot will be used for the rest of the animation.
Ideas for sound track:
The soundtrack for my animation will consist of sounds like; ·         Instrumental Music
Risk and health and safety considerations:
Risk Assessment  attached to story board & dope sheet Risk: Accident (tripping over wire or tripod) – Solution: Look where you are walking and make sure all tripping hazards (wires) are safely out of the way. Risk: Burns due to lamp – Solution: Do not touch the bulb of the lamp.

E Sting Animation

10 second stopn motion E4 E Sting I created in my media class.



60 second stop motion animation in which my E Sting entry was taken from.

Zoetrope and Praxinoscope

Zoetrope and Praxinoscope

Purpose

The purpose of a Zoetrope was to entertain both adults and children in the 1800’s. Zoetrope’s and Praxinoscope’s are basically optical illusions, they spin so fast that the brain and the eyes can’t process it quick enough making it looks like the static pictures are a moving animation. They are the earliest forms of animation.

Resources/Techniques

As the Zoetrope was created before the advance in technology (Computers/Cameras) they were actually quite simply made with card (images), holes cut into it to look through and something to spin the Zoetrope round.

Qualities and Weaknesses

Although they had a lot of weaknesses, for example the lack of sound and technology, they do have some good qualities. They were very inventive for their time and were cheap & easy to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKEM5sYnOjE

Zoetrope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez_UJAafRMs

Praxinoscope