Character Design

Norman nesbit

88year old man who likes long walks in the park and feeding the ducks. He has asmall chicken coop and enjoys tending to his garden regularly.

history of animation

This is a video of the thaumatropes we made in class on Monday the 1st of October.

A thaumatrope is a toy that was primarily used in (date), its works by having two separate images either side of a piece of card, when spun at the right speed the brain puts the two images together by predicting the next image; this is known as the persistence of vision.

The persistence of vision is where you are shown a sequence of separate images repeatedly, after a while your brain knows what the next image will be and starts to predict it making the next image and combines the two, making it seem that it is only one image.

Originally it was believed that it was down to your eyes retaining the image but now we know it was down to the brain.

My example was of a fish and on the opposite side there was a fish bowl, when spun it seemed as if the fish was inside of the fish bowl.  There are other designs you can make opposed to layering the two images onto of each other, for example when spun you could have two images appear to be next to each other like the amazing Pac Man thaumatrope in the video

Stop frame animation

Stop frame animation is a technique used by animators which involves taking an image of an object, each image being slightly different from the last by having the object move a tiny amount, when the images are put together and sped up to the rate of 12 frames per second object appears to move

The phenakitoscope- Joseph Plateau

The phenakitoscope is a device that has two discs on the same axis, the first discs have slots, that the second small drawings 

When the discs are spun the drawing appear to move, this is thought to be one of the earliest forms of stop frame animation.

This device was invented by a Belgian man named Joseph Plateau, after having inspiration from the faraday wheel.

William Herner- Zoetrope

A zoetrope is another early example of an animation device, it consists of images on the inside of a revolving drum, the drum has slits in which you look through shown below:

When the drum is spun on its axis the images within the drum give the impression they are moving when looking through the slits.

It was invented by a man named William George Horner and he originally called it the “daedalum”

Edward Mybridge

Edward mybridge was a british photographer, he was one of the pioneers in early motion picture projection and motion through photography. He was particularly however for his landscape photography work.

He was hired for his expertise in motion and photography, to research if all of a horses hooves could be off the ground all at once when in mid gallop. It took mybridge years though as you can see from the image below he managed to prove the theory by rigging a race track with a dozen cameras attached to strings.

Emile Raynaud- praxinoscope  

The praxinoscope was invented in 1877 it works similarly to the zoetrope, the big difference bring that in the centre of the drum is mirrors reflecting the images, making it easier to view. ( picture below)

                                 

This device was invented by Emile Reynaud as a toy for the children. He was the first to show cartoon films on a public screen.

Edison- Kinetoscope

The kinetoscope was a very early device used for viewing motion pictures, one person at a time would look through whats called a “peephole” viewer on the top of the box. It works when a film is ran through a light shining through the film reel.

It was invented by Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the light bulb and many other creations, it was one of the very first known devices to demonstrate moving pictures to the public.

The Lumiere brothers

Louis and auguste lumiere (the lumiere brothers) were well known well for inventing the cinematography which was an early form of film camera that also doubled up as a projector, people referred to this as animating pictures. One of their most famous films was that of some workers coming out of a factory in 1898

George Pal

George Pal was famous for his early forms of animations that he created in the 1940’s called puppetoons, a series of small wooden puppets, in each frame the puppet would be changed slightly so when sped up gave the however they use clay instead of wood. He was also well known for the use of animation sequence in films he directed; one of the most famous of which being the 1959 movie “time machine.”

Willis O’brien

Willis O’brien was a pioneer in the early special effects and stop motion animation. One of the most famous of which being the 1933 film king kong  .

He also worked with other famous animators such as Ray Harry-Hausen on the film ”mighty joe young” (1949)

Ray Harry-Hausen

Ray Harry-hausen is known for creating the brand of stop motion model animation. One of his most famous projects was the formentioned “mighty joe young” with another animator Willis O’brien.

Another of his famous works in animation was in the film “Jason and the Argonauts” where he brought to life skeletons and giant statues using stop motion animation.

Jan Svankmajer

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech filmmaker who was known for his surreal animations such as the “jabberwocky”

The Brothers Quay

Stephen and Timothy Quay are identical twins who both work together forming their own studios “koninck studios”, working on animations and films such as the award winning “chairs.”

Tim Burton

Tim Burton is famous for his gothic style films of which being “nightmare before Christmas” and “the corpse bride”, which were stop motion clay motion films.

His most recent film to be released is also an animation “frankenweenie”.

Aardman animations

Aardman animation is a company that create and produce animation films, the most famous of which are “Wallace and gromit” and the television show “creature comforts”.

Their first projects were short clips between shows featuring a character called morph, a small clay man that would interact with art utensils.

They also created their first computer animated film “flushed away” when partnering with ‘dream works’ in 2006.

Cinema (animated films)

Early cinema was considered animation, manipulating the speed of pictures shown. Animation as we know it today has many forms, ‘stop motion’ taking pictures of objects, in each picture the object is manipulated slightly, when sped up appears as if the object is in motion.

TV animation

Animation on television is mainly used in childrens tv, known as cartoons, looney toons, owned by warner bros are umongst some of the many animation programmes I watched as a child. Animations are also created for adults aswell with programmes like ‘family guy’, ‘american dad’ and ‘south park’. Using animation means that they are not limited in what they can physically do.

Channel idents

Channel idents are short clips used to promote a television channel in the advert breaks. Animation is commonly used to make the ident more quirky and contains the channel logo while announcer imforming you on any upcoming shows.

Animated music videos

Animation is occasionally used in music videos, some being completely animated, the most videos accompany tracks by ‘Gorillaz’, ‘feel good’ for example. Other videos have both live action footage with animation, such as the famous ‘take on me’ video by ‘Aha’. Or alternatively using stop motion a lesser known video ‘sewn’ by the feeling.

-         Stop motion animation is occasionally used on websites mainly to promote or advertise. Some websites can encourage animation by holding competitions. Other websites may use animation to help illustrate a story for younger audiences.

-         Stop motion animation in mobile phones is becoming more popular with the use of apps having games and many other features literally at your fingertips. On mobile apps some also help inexperienced and budding filmmakers become animators by allowing them to simply animate pictures or drawings on their phones. 

thaumatropes

This is a video of the thaumatropes we made in class on Monday the 1st of October.

A thaumatrope is a toy that was primarily used in (date), its works by having two separate images either side of a piece of card, when spun at the right speed the brain puts the two images together by predicting the next image; this is known as the persistence of vision.

The persistence of vision is where you are shown a sequence of separate images repeatedly, after a while your brain knows what the next image will be and starts to predict it making the next image and combines the two, making it seem that it is only one image.

Originally it was believed that it was down to your eyes retaining the image but now we know it was down to the brain.

My example was of a fish and on the opposite side there was a fish bowl, when spun it seemed as if the fish was inside of the fish bowl.  There are other designs you can make opposed to layering the two images onto of each other, for example when spun you could have two images appear to be next to each other like the amazing Pac Man thaumatrope in the video