I have made my own stop motion animation and I have uploaded my animation into canvas and sent people the link to my animation and to the questionnaire that they needed to answer. I have collected a total of eight responses and feedback that I can use and analyse.
First of all I would like to give my own response to my questionnaire (my answers will be more in depth than others could have given)
What do you think of the quality of the animation?
I thought that my animation was of good quality, the camera was always in focus and the movement of the camera was okay for the most part. One of the things that has annoyed me was that there was a mark on the lens all through shooting the animation and this has obviously shown up in the final video.
What did you think of the audio in my animation?
I needed to use royalty free music for this animation so this was a drawback, I think that the song i settled on was good in regards to working well with the animation but I didn't like the song on its own.
What did you think of the editing in my animation?
I thought that the editing of the animation was good, there was a smooth transition from the title to the animation and it i not too fast either. However I think the ending is bad because of the way that the music ends so abruptly and then the credits roll up the screen.
What did you think of the story line of my animation?
I think that the story was not clear until the very end of the animation and because of this i felt like this was a bad story, I could have made the story line clearer if I had shown the rubbish and searched for a bin in the beginning of the animation.
Do you think that my animation was good enough at cineworld?
I do not think that the animation is good enough to be shown on its own, however with some other animations i think that it is good enough to be shown.
Here is a look at the feedback that I have received.
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 4
Question 5
I think that overall the response was positive and, I am happy with the feedback that i have been given because it has allowed me to look at what my positive and negative points are and in the future I can make those changes to my work. I think to improve my production I would have needed to make the story line more clear as well as making sure the lens was clean. I could have also chosen some more appealing music. I will not be changing my animation based on this feedback but I will certainly apply it to my next animation.
My main idea is to do some form of pixilation consisting of me walking to Cineworld from College, I think this will be an interesting concept as walking is an everyday thing for billions of people. So my idea was to put a spin on walking walking and only take photos of me where my feet are together so it looks like I am floating along the path. I will then play some music in the background to accompany the visuals.
I got the concept from a Youtube video that I watched.
This was an interesting idea and I had not seen a video like this before, I knew that for my first attempt I wouldn't be able to create an animation to this standard but I wanted to use people for my animation. This is where my idea of a pixilation came from.
If I couldn't do that idea then my other idea was to do some form of time lapse, this would consist of me placing different pills like paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen. This would be an interesting concept as billions of people take pills for medication everyday and once they enter your body you have no idea what they do. I will then accompany the visuals with some background music.
I got this concept from a Youtube video that I watched
I know that I wouldn't be able to make a video of this quality as it is a superb video, I had not seen a video like this before so it really inspired my to make a great video like this one.
What I did
This is my pixilation
I quickly realised that this process takes a while, you need to stand in one place until a photo is taken then you need to move just one step until the photo is taken again. Then when you move out of shot you need to re position the camera into a good location that will work well wit your pixilation. On top of all of this you get funny looks off people because they lack the creative spirit needed to do this
I needed a location that was close to my college so I thought the college itself would be a good location for me, I settled on walking to a bin to put in some rubbish that I had found in my pocket. I had planned on making my animation 25 fps so I needed about 750 images taken. I had my friend Kieran Atkins to take take the images for me and when we had got to the bin we had only managed to take 350 images. We wet back into college on put the images into premier pro, the pixilation was too fast and you couldn't tell what was happening in the animation. So Kieran helped me and changed the frame rate down to 12fps. This has made the animation over between 15 seconds and a minute and that was the time frame tat the animation needed to fit in.
Overall I think that for my first animation this was good, I know that there are things that can be improved on and in my next animation I will work on those things and try to make a better animation.
Persistence of vision ( or POV ) refers to the optical illusion where multiple images are blended into a moving picture in the brain, this is how modern films and television work to this day. Cameras take lots of images and then play those images back to you, the minimum frame rate ( the number of images ( frames ) played back per second ) is 12 frames per second ( fps ). This is the lowest frame rate that most people can look out and POV still occurs, any lower than this and the images just look like singe pictures. However, the professional standard for animation and video in the UK is 25 fps and the professional standard in America is 29.97 fps.
The man who 'discovered' animation was called Muybridge, he was trying to prove a theory. He hypothesised that when a horse runs all four of its legs leave the ground at some point, this would be the start of animation coming to life. To prove his theory, Muybridge set up cameras at intervals of a few feet per camera and when the horse ran by it would set off the cameras. When he played the footage back he realised that not only was his theory correct, but it looked like the horse was running.
This is what he saw
Early Animation Devices
After this, people stared to realize that you can start to make animation devices such as the Zoetrope, this was a wheel on a handle that the user twisted around. The idea of this was the Zoetrope had images printed along the inside of the wheel with a slit on the outside corresponding to each image.
This is an example of a Zoetrope
This next device is called a Thaumatrope, this is a device that tricks the brain into thinking that an two separate images are one. It does this by having two images on a disk ( on on each side ) and then twisting string or elastic, thus spinning the disk creating the illusion of the images merging together.
This is an example of a Thaumatrope
This next device is called a Phenakistoscope, this was a disk that would spin ( like a Lazy Susan ) and you looked at this from above. The images on the disk would appear to be moving as one image.
This is an example of a Phenakistoscope
This next animation device is called a Kinetoscope, Inside an outer casing there was a reel lots of pictures on, a handle was cranked and the images were viewed at speed. Some of these devices even had sound.
This is an example of a Kinetoscope
The next device, a Mutoscope, worked in the same way as the Kinetoscope but did not have sound.
This is an example a Mutoscope
Cel Based Animation
Cel ( short for celluloid ) based animation is the traditional and is one of the older forms of animation. In cel based animation the animator/artist draws each frame out by hand and then these drawings are played back at a rapid pace ( minimum of 12 fps ) to create the illusion of a moving images. This type of animation takes a long time to do and there have even been full length feature films made this way, this means that there will be hundreds of thousands of drawings to make a film.
There are some examples of this type of animation below
This is a clip from a movie called Pinocchio (1940). The movie is about a puppet that wants to become a real boy.
This is a clip from a movie called Dumbo (1941). This clip was when the main character, Dumbo, gets drunk and starts hallucinating.
Cut Out Animation
http://ryanmarrsnew.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/cutout-my-animation.htm ( my animation is on here )
This is an example of a cut out animation, in order to make this we needed to think of a character design. As this was just an example of cut out animation we thought we would be comical and make the character from a collage of things cut out from a magazine. As you can see, we had 1 head, 2 different arms, a lotion bottle for a body and the legs were the only matching thing. This is the basic idea of how to make a cut out animation. All you need to do after this is thing of a plot and print out a background and you have an animation. Then you photograph the movements ( on average 12 fps ) and this makes an animation. The way this works is that when the images are played back, Persistence of Vision comes into play and you see the images as one single moving image.
Below is an example of cut out animation
This is an animation called Coco.
Model Based Animation
Model based animation is used by making models, usually these are made using plasticine enriched with Linseed oil. This is used because it is easy to work with and the models can be manipulated as and when required and the oil helps them to not dry out. So with this type of animation you can make a model and then you take a photo of the model every time you move it. The slower you move the model, the better your overall animation will look. Again you need a minimum of 12 fps playback speed so that Persistence of Vision comes into effect.
This is an image of the model that I used in my animation
http://ryanmarrsnew.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/bob-my-animation.html ( my animation is on here )
Below is a professional animation. This is an animation called Pib and Pog
Pixilation is a type of animation where it uses people on camera, it works in the same way as other animation. You take a photo every time you move a little bit and then all of these images played back ( at 12fps minimum ) looks like one moving image.
Look here for these animations - http://ryanmarrsnew.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/stop-motion-animation.html
This is a stop motion animation that I made with Ryan Boston, this type of animation is called Pixilation, the default size of the animation was 960x540 px on the programme we used ( iStopMotion 3 ) so we left that unchanged. We made a 15 second long animation and we shot at 12 frames per second, that's a total of 174 total frames. While making the animation, after each frame taken there was a transparent image left on the screen. This is called an onion skin, the idea behind this is to allow you to frame your shot if needed.
The other Animation on there - This is a really good example of Pixilation, I think that this animation is good because it looks very smooth. This would have been very hard to do as the animation is about 'An Amazing Haircut' so the amount of time this would have taken is unbelievable.
Time based Animation
Time based Animation is where images/video will be taken over a certain amount of time to create the illusion of something happening or being created in a short time. The type usually associated with this type of animation is Time lapse.
This is an example of a time lapse
Here are some examples of Early Animators
Georges Méliès
Some examples of his work are;
Le Voyage Dans la Lun (A Trip to the Moon);
The Astronomer's Dream;
The Haunted Castle
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, known as Georges Méliès 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) ,was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularising such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour. He was also the first filmmaker to use storyboards. His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.
Winsor McCay
Some examples of his work are;
Little Nemo;
Girtie the Dinosaur;
How a Mosquito Operates
Zenas Winsor McCay (September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. From a young age, McCay was a quick, prolific, and technically dextrous artist. He started his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1905, his signature strip Little Nemo in Slumberland debuted, a fantasy strip in an Art Nouveau style, about a young boy and his adventurous dreams. The strip demonstrated McCay's strong graphic sense and mastery of color and linear perspective. McCay experimented with the formal elements of the comic strip page, arranging and sizing panels to increase impact and enhance the narrative. McCay also produced numerous detailed editorial cartoons and was a popular performer of chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit.
Lotte Reiniger
Some examples of his work are; Cinderella (Aschenputtel); The Magic Horse; Papageno
Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Reiniger made more than 40 films over her career, all using her invention. Her best known films are The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) – the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, preceding Walt Disney's feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) by over ten years – and Papageno (1935), featuring music by Mozart. Reiniger is also noted for devising a predecessor to the first multi-plane camera.
This model was made using modelling plasticine enriched with Linseed oil, this helps the plasticine to not dry out and to be worked with more frequently.
This is a model that would be used for an animation, here are some professional animations below
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, known as Georges Méliès 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) ,was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularising such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour. He was also the first filmmaker to use storyboards. His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films, though their approach is closer to fantasy.
Winsor McCay
Some examples of his work are;
Little Nemo;
Girtie the Dinosaur;
How a Mosquito Operates
Zenas Winsor McCay (September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. From a young age, McCay was a quick, prolific, and technically dextrous artist. He started his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1905, his signature strip Little Nemo in Slumberland debuted, a fantasy strip in an Art Nouveau style, about a young boy and his adventurous dreams. The strip demonstrated McCay's strong graphic sense and mastery of color and linear perspective. McCay experimented with the formal elements of the comic strip page, arranging and sizing panels to increase impact and enhance the narrative. McCay also produced numerous detailed editorial cartoons and was a popular performer of chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit.
Lotte Reiniger
Some examples of his work are; Cinderella (Aschenputtel); The Magic Horse; Papageno
Charlotte "Lotte" Reiniger (2 June 1899 – 19 June 1981) was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation. Reiniger made more than 40 films over her career, all using her invention. Her best known films are The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) – the oldest surviving feature-length animated film, preceding Walt Disney's feature-length Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) by over ten years – and Papageno (1935), featuring music by Mozart. Reiniger is also noted for devising a predecessor to the first multi-plane camera.
Georges 
