Infuential Animators

Influential Animators

Walt Disney

Walter E Disney was an American Entrepreneur in animation and film. Disney was an Animator, Cartoonist, Director, Producer, Screenwriter and Voice Actor.

Undoubtedly Walt Disney was the most famous and successful animator from the golden age of American animation 1937-41, Walt Disney Animation Studios. Walt Disney started his animated career animating adverts before creating his own business with his brother Roy. Walt Disney Studios, their first major feat in animation was Steamboat Willie, this film was the first animated feature film with synchronised sound; this meant the movement and talking of characters was linked with the sound.  He then further went onto creating a film series in the name of Silly Symphonies; this was a short animated series, which he created himself with some well-known characters such as Mickey Mouse etc.

He then went onto create another called The Old Mill 1937, this was another Silly Symphonies cartoon animation. This animation was then further a testing ground for the animation technique once they had established the multiplane camera. The multiplane camera is used for a traditional animation process, which moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various distances and various speeds.

 After he created this he went onto creating the first ever full-length animated coloured feature film, which was Snow White; this then made the film successful due to the animation and the colour within one whole film. They used a process called rotoscoping in order for the characters look much more realistic. Rotoscoping consists of monitoring human movements then tracing them into their animation, this then gives the impression of realism. Pinocchio and Fantasia shortly followed in the theatres in 1940. Fantasia was the first film to used stereophonic sound; this creates the illusion of sound then being heard from different directions not just one.

Aside from Disney producing films, they also created amusement parks in the name of Disneyland. Which then further went to various ones being created within different places of the World such as Paris, America etc. Princess and The Frog was then the last Disney drawn performance before CGI was used for almost every animated film. After the release of this in 2009 everything else was then computerized. There was then much more films further then created by Disney to make his name much more recognized such as Finding Nemo.

Hanna Barbera

Hanna Barbera was an American Animator Company, it was also known as H-B enterprises and also H-B Production Company. This animation studio dominated America Television animation for nearly 4 decades in the mid-to-late 20^th century. Two men formed this production company who were also former MGM creators. The former animation directors, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, creators of Tom and Jerry formed this in 1957. By creating this is earned them 7 Oscars between the time period of 1943-1953 but the producer Fred Quimby got all the statuettes despite not having a creative input in the show.

They started out on their own after MGM closed its cartoon studio in 1957, from the time period of 1957-1955 Hanna Barbera became the most high profile name within the TV field and produced prime time week day and Saturday Morning for 3 major established TV Networks in the USA. Over the years Hanna Barbera produced many successful shows including The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs amongst others. They earned 8 Emmy’s, a Golden Globe and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The company had to bring in smaller TV Budgets which meant the quality of the animation suffered due to the budgets being cut to a cerain amount compared to other productions. The usual flicker fusion threshold people use 12fps and dil
ms  runs at 24 frames per second  but Dinsey prided them on at 18fps which provided a smooth animation style. When they were at MGM the pair were funded $35,000 for 7 minutes of Tom and Jerry but the TV networks were only paying $3,000 for 5 minutes of the cartoon. This is then a tenth of the budget they were funded at the beginning, this then forced their quality down and they then had to adapt to a limited animation style with just a simple plain frame, this then led them to re-using backgrounds across all the episodes.

As they had smaller TV budgets the characters were then often broke up into a handful of levels so that only a few parts of the body would be animated. Mainly the ones in which they needed such as their eyes, mouths and arms. The remaining of the figure would stay on a held animation cel. This then further allowed a typical 10 minute short to be done with only 1,200 drawings instead of the usual 26,000 which is a large shortage.

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations, Ltd., Also known as Aardman Studios or simply as Aardman is a British animation studio based in Bristol. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques particularly those featuring Plasicine characters such as Wallace and Gromit. It entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away 2006.

Aardman was founded in 1972 as a low-budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton who wanted to realize their dream of producing animated motion pictures. Their partnership provided animation sequences for the BBC series for deaf children, which were called Vision on. After creating a segment called Greeblies 1975, which they used clay animation became what was the inspiration for creating Morph.

Aardman also created the title sequence for The Great Egg Race and then supplied animation for the multiple awards winning video of Peter Gabriel’s song “sledgehammer” they also produced the music video for the song “my baby just cares for me” by Nina Simone. They then later went onto produce a number of shorts for Channel 4 including the conversation pieces series, these five shorts worked in the same area as the animated conversation pieces but they were more sophisticated.

December 1997, Aardman and Dream Works announced that their companies were teaming up to co-finance and distribute chicken run. Before the release of Flushed Away Aardman announced his termination, as he would not be extending his contract, he felt that their productions being put together didn’t fit what he wanted. But he then later went onto sign a contract with Sony picture entertainment to co-produce and distribute feature films.

In 2009, Nintendo announced that Aardman would make twelve short films using only flipnote studio from Nintendo DSI. The first films were posted on flipnote’s hatena web service provider. The first film was called the sandwich Twins and was released on 16 september 2009. The remaining eleven films were released on a weekly basis until Christmas.

Contemporary use of Animation

Contemporary use of animation

Film

Animation is used widely in the film industry with many companies producing animated films, the most famous being Disney, Animation in the film industry can come in many forms, hand drawn frame by frame, the second frame slightly different from the previous to give the illusion of movement most companies work at 24 frames per second. This is called stop motion as it is filmed one frame at a time. Animation in film originated using this technique most famously with Disney’s Steam Boat Willie and later Snow White. Both these films are catered for the younger audience though anyone could watch if they have a childish mind, I would expect the Target audience age to be around 4-12, Snow White being a fairy tale had been written with children in mind with cute animals and using simple words making it easy to follow. Snow white was a first in two aspects firstly it was the first animation to be projected in colour using a process called Technicolor a prisms was located inform of the lens refracting the colours on screen, the second first was that Walt Disney used a process called roto-scoping to model Snow White, this is where an actress acts out the scene which will be animated. Her movement are recorded then traced to be animated this will achieve a more realistic movement in the film compared to free drawing the characters. Also the film used a muliplane camera, this is the process of using multiple layers of glass which sections of the animations is drawn, this process allows the animation to have depth and a 3D effect.  Currently Animated films use CGI computer generated imagery, this process eliminates hand draw animation instead the process is done on a computer, Warner Brother Pictures released Polar Express an animated adventure film where they travel to the north pole, the target audience is aged around 6-12 as most children still believe in santa but is suitable for all ages with its friendly looking animations and easy to follow story makes it suitable for this age group, to create the realistic movement Warner Brothers used a similar technique to Roto-scoping the actor wears a motion capture suit which has hundreds of sensors which are captured using 10 cameras, this information if processed to create a stick man on a computer which records the movement, after skins can be applied to make the character in  the animation. Scenes and other objects can be animated in a similar way or created from scratch this process can take as long as the conventional technique.   

Music video

The Killers- Miss Atomic Bomb blends stop motion animation with live action to create a unique music video, the hand drawn vector animation is very simple and effective using the block colours in the animation, the target audience will be fans of the killers as well as stop motion animators as the two mediums blend really well,  a younger audience would primarily watch this as it’s a current band aged around 15-25, the animation would have been created frame by frame with each frame slightly different to give the illusion of movement.

Home and Dry- Ghosts are dancing used Houdini 3D animation programme to create a unique music video with the animation comprising of scribbled lines to form a face, this was achieved by motion capture recording the lead singers face from two angles, the effects was then created in 2D but using 3D vector lighting was able to bring the animation to life, I would expect the target audience to be teenagers to young adults with an interest in art-rock or animation using Houdini.   Due to the type of song/band and the skill it takes to create the animation.

Television

The majority of animations on TV is usually aimed at children, such as Mickey Mouse club house and Scooby doo these animations are aimed at very young children aged around 3-8  with the aim of learning and fun in one programme, take the Mickey Mouse Club House the animation uses simple language to gain the largest and youngest audience so everyone can understand, It also used very bold colours to gain and grasp the attention of their target audience, the animated program are very short in length as small children have a little attention span. The aim of the program is to help children learn basic language as well as communication skills before they attend playgroups or nursery. Mickey Mouse Club House uses CGI to animate the program as its easy to replicate characters in different positions and quick to animate a full episode, Scooby Doo originally was hand drawn but has turned to computed as well.

There is also Adult cartoons on TV, American Dad, Simpsons, The Cleveland show and family guy these animations have an older target audience which is reflected in the stories of the animated programs, usually they are comedy based with adult humour and swearing in it, I would expect the target audience to be teenager to young adults usually.

Advertising

Change for life is an animation promoting healthy eating in the for of Claymation, the advertisement follows a family in changing their diet for good teaching us the benefits of healthy eating, the animation is aimed at a family audience of all ages but I believe they are targeting a younger audience as well, teenagers with the aim of teaching healthy life skills and foods at a young age. The animation is created by stop motion the process films one frame at a time, to achieve this the clay figures will have been moved slightly from the previous frame, IstopMotion is a program they could have us to record this animation as it keeps an overlay of the previous frame making it have realistic movement. 

Metro- Dumbs ways to Die is a stop motion animation in the style of hand drawn showing the audience small sketches of ways to die, resulting in hazards using train lines, the aim of the advert it to inform the public of hazards on the railway, the target audience would be children to teenagers as the animation uses bold block colours with cute monsters to appeal to the younger age, the length of the animation being short prevents children loosing attention. 

Digital and mobile

Assassins Creed is an animated game series for console and computer, they use predominantly CGI with small cut scenes being live action. As the title suggests the game is aimed at an older audience and has a rating on 18+ on the box. The original games created the characters from scratch animating every movement ect.  But from Assassins Creed Brotherhood they used a new technique similar to Roto-scoping in hand drawn animation. The actor wears a motion capture suit which has hundreds of sensors which are captured using 10 cameras, this information if processed to create a stick man on a computer which records the movement, after skins can be applied to make the character in the animation. This way makes the animation as realistic as possible.

History of Animation

Proposal 3D Clay Animation

Unit
Andrew Clements 12/02/2014

The Product I will create will use the process of  Claymation Animation. The animation will be called Signed as it will promote a deaf charity. The story of the animation will show two hands signing with a voice over track reading the message singed on screen. I would expect the audience to be 12+ as they will have the understanding to follow the animation and message I will try to convey. The age rating of the animation will be U as all ages can watch. As the animation will be an advert it will last around 30 seconds. explaining what the charity can do for the children, I would use a camera tripod set up taking single frames of the animation, after completion using an editing software life final cut to animate the single frames

Walt Disney Animations

Proposal 2D Animation

Unit
Andrew Clements 07/02/2014

The product I'm going to create is a 2D stop motion/rotoscoping animation on the themes of sport and exercising  with the title similar to Sam's Adventure, keeping it simple for all ages to understand. I will attempt to use rotoscoping in the animation the use of real objects or people in the stop motion.If this is un successful I will use cut out animation instead. I would expect the animation to appeal to all ages due to the Idea of everyone can achieve their goals  Like how children use their imagination. with the use of sport will appeal to the older audience showing that everyone is capable of achieving and makes them learn life skills for their children, . I will intend to make the animation around 30 seconds like most adverts. The Idea of the animation is to follow a child learning new skills in an area of sport. for example dribling skills or learning how to pass a football I believe the age rating of the advert to be U/PG as the advert is catered for the younger audience as well.

Here is a Dancing mannequin animation using stop motion techniques. firstly we needed to find a suitable dance song to animate too sourced from youtube. After setting up the camera and tripod, connecting to the computer we listened to the song to find points where we can sync certain dance moves to. Using the program Istopmotion to capture the images we started to move the mannequins frame by frame, by double clicking we were able to get the 24 frames per second standard used in the majority of frames. completing the animation we moved to video to final cut where the music was added.