For my final blog specimens two posts that had to do with the animation process. (though it was hard to choose because I felt I had some other really good posts) I think that these are my best because it shows how much I have learned from the beginning of the semester about animation.
The first one is the Multiplane Camera. I really found this process interesting because I had always wondered how cartoons and movies were able to produce depth within the cartoon. I didn’t really change anything in this post.
The second post that I have chosen is the Model Sheets. I found this interesting because throughout the book “Of Mice and Magic” each chapter included model sheets. When researching the topic I realized that model sheets are somewhat outdated and new methods have been produced. I thought this post was good already, I did not change anything.
Thanks for the great semester, I enjoyed class and blogging for the first time.
When reading and flipping through the book required for History 389 “Of Mice and Magic,” by Leonard Maltin, there was a reoccurring theme in each chapter. Within each chapter there were model sheets of various characters by different animators. I wanted to further my knowledge about the use and purpose for these model sheets. Model Sheets allow animators to view the size and appearance of each character and allow continuity throughout the animation process. As I looked into why these model sheets are so important one must remember I am not a professional just a novice at animation processes.
Model sheets are used for just about everything, the size, appearance, clothing, hands (such as the picture to the left), and for a variety of other reasons. Not only do animators for feature-length films use the model sheets for characters, so do television series and comic book animators. These sheets help the animators get the same proportions; time after time especially when several artists are helping produce one product. When using the squash and stretch principle the front view and side view are going to be different, so these sheets are important to have as a reference when making movies etc. It’s important to learn the construction and be able to see fluid movements to understand how the character moves and behaves.
Newer animation has done away with the model sheets and uses maquettes a 3D model to help the animators picture how the character will look and behave in 3D. This serves the same purpose but gives the animator the ability to actually spin the character around and see visually in 3D what the character looks like opposed to the model sheets. Overall I think that it is the opinion of the animator which method they use, both give the animator the ability to produce the same character and qualities over and over again.
Since the television was created there were cartoons. The average American watches around four hours of t.v. everyday, and around nine years of their lifetime in front of the t.v. (The SourceBook for Teaching Science). When growing up there are children’s cartoons to keep them entertained. Not only do these cartoons keep children entertained they also influence their way of thought and actions. These two cartoons teach children different things, one about washing your hands and the other about the dentist.
Obviously cartoons play a major role in children growing up today, as mentioned above an average American watches around four hours of t.v. a day. Cartoons can influence children either in a positive or a negative way, but which type is it? I believe that it is a gray area, as shown by the two short cartoon clips above.
The second cartoon shows animals using the potty and going to a water fall to wash their hands. But the cat does not participate. All of the other animals look in disgust and the cat gives in and washes his hands. This shows young children that washing your hands after using the bathroom is good. The first cartoon is an example of teaching young children to be afraid of the dentist. This is bad because if you teach children at a young age that the dentist is scary and will hurt you, they will carry that with them their whole life. They will cringe at the thought of the dentist.
A study shows that violence in cartoons will increase violent behavior. That one hour of violent television will increase their aggression by 3x in a child(suite101.com). So if violent t.v. can increase aggression then so can cartoons about washing hands and scary dentists. Cartoons do influence children shown by many studies, because of this I think that children’s cartoons should be highly monitored not only by the broadcaster but by parents too. Cartoons can influence children in a good way, like to wash your hands, but also make them learn to be scared of something that they necessarily wouldn’t have been if not learning it from television.
Produced in 1997, Geri’s Game created by Pixar, is one of my favorites. This short was released shortly after Toy Story being Pixar’s first short animation with the use of a human main character. A fun fact, Geri (the old man in the short) was actually used during Toy Story 2 as the repairman that fixed Woody’s ripped arm (Wikipedia). The techniques that made this short great were the use of shadows and secondary animation used on the chess pieces. Being Pixar’s first short using a human character I think that they did an exceptional job with the human characteristics given to Geri.
Throughout the entire short animation the shadowing techniques look amazing. When ever Geri moved his hand or a chess piece the shadows would move with it. I felt that this made the short seem more realistic and believable. Even in the background one can notice the shade underneath the trees and guess around what time a day this is taking place. In real life when it’s getting around dusk a person has a shadow along with objects, without this effect Geri would be less realistic. The lighting makes it perfect for Pixar to show off their knowledge of shadowing and help them make their new character seem more life-like. Overall I think that the shadowing used in this short really push it into the next level for this time period.
The other thing that I found really interesting is the secondary animation. I noticed this especially when Geri was switching sides of the table from ‘white Geri’ (white chess pieces) to ‘black Geri’ (black chess pieces). Objects that are touched by Geri move. The most obvious example is when ‘white Geri’ pretends to have a heart attack and falls down. When ‘white Geri’ falls, the chess board and the chess pieces all move. If this didn’t happen and all the pieces stayed static, then the animation would fall short.
A side note: the box that the chess pieces are dropped into says “Pixar Shorts” I just thought that was a cute little aspect added….
The latest and greatest from DreamWorks has just emerged with the release of How to Train Your Dragon. The new 3D Animation How to Train Your Dragon was directed by Chris Sanders who was recently picked up by DreamWorks after being let go from Disney. Sanders is known for his work in Disney like The Lion King and The Beauty and the Beast. After leaving, Sanders took on the task of finishing a 3D film for DreamWorks in just a 14 month period, based on a child’s novel called How to Train Your Dragon. Even though How to Train Your Dragon is a great movie with its use of 3D animation and great story line, I feel that the story behind the movieis just as captivating.
Chris Sanders is known for his work in Lilo & Stitch and was recently dropped from Disney because of his style of animation in the preproduction of Bolt. But not to be dismayed Sanders was picked up for the final 14 months of production for the movie How to Train Your Dragon (the film had already been in production for 3 years) with well-known actors such as “McLovin” and Gerard Butler for characters. Sanders mentioned to the Washington Post that “The fun thing is, you’re working very hard for people not to notice the 3-D.” Sanders and others on the project closely looked at Coraline when finding the right time to place the 3D effects. He was also told that you could not have 3D scenes in the dark, which is something they experimented with.
When making 3D movies you use a special camera that records the images from two perspectives, then the special 3D glasses help provide the illusion of dimension. There are different techniques to making this effect, a couple of them; Anaglyph (red and blue glasses), polarization systems, and the Eclipse method. This movie is available in 3D or IMAX 3D. The difference between the two is that in the IMAX they corrected the mathematical 3D rendition which improved the eye fatigue and pain felt after the movie. How to Train Your Dragon was one of the first 3D movies to use the new Technicolor 35mm 3D system. More movies are using the 3D techniques causing theaters to try to convert to digital, increasing the ticket prices, while some theaters are getting low-cost adapter kits. Though I don’t know a lot about how 3D animation works I hope I provided some insight to what went on behind the scenes of How to Train Your Dragon. I would also like to say that I hope the future will still have a place for 2D animated movies.
I find it safe to say the majority of people on this earth enjoy music of any kind. I think that people relate really well to music and can even affect our mood. Each song tells its own story and helps people relate to different situations in life. I don’t know if anyone remembers the UPular Remix clip (from the movie UP) from I believe the first week of school, but it entailed an upbeat and cheerful tone. The clip I have chosen is kind of similar to the one from UP, but is different in the way that instead of using sounds from within the movie to make a song, this clip uses a song and puts 2 movies together. This new clip someone made their own music video with clips from The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan to “Life After You” from Daughtry.
In this video, someone spliced together the movies TheLittle Mermaid and Peter Pan to form a music video. The song “Life After You,” by Daughtry is about loving another person and without them your life would be really bland. I think that the animator used sections of The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan together in a way it was able to tell an alternative story then their original plot lines. I think that the animator of this video succeeded in its purpose to make a music video that included Ariel and Peter, but there were some parts of the video that were put together kind of rough. Also, Peter was very pixilated in some parts during the video.
This video succeeded in the object to tell the story of the song. There are some points I would like to point out. Around 1:00 into the video it shows a “fight” between Ariel and Peter. I think that especially because it was about treasure hunting it was believable because it is something that both Ariel and Peter have done. Some negative points that I would like to point out is around 0:50 Peter looks very pixilated which was kind of a reoccurring problem, and around 3:00 in you can actually see Eric in the background (a character that was not meant to be included). My point is that although there were some technical mistakes I think the animator achieved the goal of using two different movies with different plot lines, and pulled them together for a central theme. Even though it was a little rough at times I really enjoyed watching the video and it evoked the feelings the song was ment to evoke.
In class a couple weeks ago Professor Petrik talked a little about the multiplane camera, but I wanted to see for myself the differences between Ub Iwerks multiplane camera and Walt Disney’s. Though serving the same purpose both of the multiplane camera’s were very different in their construction and cost. Though Ub Iwerks and Disney’s cameras were different in style and cost, they served the same purpose in advancing the technology of animation by adding layers.
Ub Iwerk’s multiplane camera was made out of the rear end of a Chevrolet, he dismantled the pieces and made a multiplane camera out of the parts in 1933. Though this was less expensive than other models of this time, it worked well. Iwerks used three or four different backdrops behind the main character. As an example, Tarzan swinging in the forest with layers of foliage and jungle behind him, (Maltin,196). An example of actual animation from the multiplane camera is a cartoon named Willie Whopper (Air Race, 1933),
Walt Disney also made a multiplane camera around 1939, though was much more expensive. Although the camera cost thousands of dollars, Disney’s camera could move vertically as well as horizontally. This made it possible to move in and out of scenes. “This made Disney’s camera more versatile, if more troublesome, to operate,” (Maltin, 196). The picture below show’s one of Disney’s multiplane cameras. One of the first uses of the multiplane camera was in the making of Snow White and Disney used the camera through animations like Peter Pan to the last use in The Little Mermaid.
Disney's Multiplane Camera
Though Disney and Iwerk’s cameras were different in cost and construction, they served the same purpose. It allowed animations to have different moving parts in the foreground and the background. It enabled the animators to photograph through layers of drawings to create the illusion of three dimensions. An example that Wikipedia gives is the scene in Snow White when the queen drinks the potion and her surroundings spin. Here is a link to the scene when this happens…YouTube video…
The first blog that I have chosen for my midterm is my Post #3 “There are 101 Dalmatians,” which used the Xerox process made popular by Disney when making 101 Dalmatians. I did not revise anything on this post.
The second blog that I am using for my midterm is my Special Post “The Tale of Despereaux,” where I talked about the importance of the use of color in the movie. The colors moved from Golds and Reds to Blacks and Browns, in order to show the mood change in the storyline. Revision: I moved some things around, moved the photo, added some more information, and reworded some paragraphs.
The animated short Fallen is about the stages of grief. The scene opens up with an asteroid falling to earth from space. I think that Fallen is a great representation of the stages of grief, and the realism of the background and characteristics of the meteor help portray this. The meteor is representing a person learning that death is imminent and starts through the grieving process. I also really liked how the meteor had very similar characteristics to the ones that would fall towards Earth in real life.
The stages of grief include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You can see all of these features of grief during this short. The asteroid starts out in space and enters Earth’s atmosphere (turning into a meteor) then gains facial features and arms, he looks at his hands as like he cannot imagine what is happening to him. He sees the water beneath himself and recognizes his death and tries to slow his decent. He covers his eyes and holds himself tight because of the depression and recognition there is nothing he can do to stop death from happening. When the music starts to play it shows the meteor’s acceptance to his certain death and he enjoys the last few seconds in his life.
I think the animation in this short is really impressive. Around 3:07 into the animation it shows the sky, ocean, and the meteor. I think that the waves and the sunset look like something that you would actually see. But as soon as he gets into the water I think that other than the bubbles you couldn’t really tell that he was sinking down into the depths of the ocean. The other thing that I really liked about this is the steam and smoke that comes off the meteor the entire time is very consistent with the meteor’s movements. This is a picture that I found online that I thought looks similar to what the one in the short animation. So I think the animators did a good job making the meteor look very similar to the real thing all while giving it an expressive personality.
The Tale of Despereaux is about a mouse who unlike the other mice is very brave. When other mice were faced with danger they cowered and hid, while Despereaux faced it head on. Despereaux went on a nobel quest for the Princess of the castle and saved the day. I feel that without the change in color from light to dark the story would fall short and the severity of the town’s situation would not be realized. The use of Renaissance colors (golds, reds, blue, and magenta) help the storyline show the town’s prosperity but when the Queen dies the whole town becomes dark, the artists showed this by referencing the Dark ages and the lack of color.
A quote from the Art Director, Olivier Adam, said in an interview from a website called Animated Views, “I started to study closely the Flemish painting…but this time in a more analytic way: how was the design in this time, the architecture, the painting composition, the color palette as well as the lights. Developing different concepts, I always tried to base these one on the work of artists of (mostly) the Renaissance.” This quote explains how Olivier Adams purposely used the Renaissance color pallets to reflect a certain atmosphere. During the beginning of the movie there were lots of reds, golds, magenta, and blues, this reflects a Renaissance setting when the town was in its prosperous stage. Also Olivier used many paintings from the Renaissance to drawl reference, like the painting below by the artist Bruegel, which Olivier referenced when designing the set of The Tale of Despereaux.
After the Queen dies the setting reverts to dark colors, gray, black and browns. This is important to the viewer because it shows the severity of the situation. This did exactly what Oliver wanted to do. He Made the town reflect a happy time by using the colors of the Renaissance, then by referring back to the dark ages by using blacks and browns he was able to show how the town went into a period of darkness.
Overall I feel that Olivier was very creative when using the different colors to help the viewers understand the situation the city was going through. The colors of the Renaissance being golds, reds, and magentas showed the good times in the city. The Dark Ages are known for their dark colors which shows the town’s disparity. Especially since this movie was targeted toward children it is very important that the movie showed the dramatic color change to help the viewers understand the feelings felt by the characters.
The Tale of Despereaux is a film made out of 4 books. The main plot about Despereaux is confused with the multiple subplotsthat the directors put in. There were also a lot of minor mistakes like when Despereaux was lowered into the tunnel he was attached by a red string, but when he got to the bottom the string was gone. To me the one thing that stood out to me through the minor mishaps and confusing subplots was the remarkable color changes that go with the colors of that time period.
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