Assignment - Stop motion animation

Assignment - Stop motion animation

Lets start with the basics

Persistence of vision

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

This animation is the work of Aardman Studios ( http://www.aardman.com  )

Pixilation

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.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Reiniger