Here is a video i made of my doing a flick book with a stick man cartwheeling.
Im not to sure how successful the animation has been you get the gist of what a flick book animation can do but it also gets increasingly more difficult to flick through as it get towards the end as pages begin to be skipped.
Nick park the creator of Wallace and Gromit was a graduate from Sheffield Hallam art school. He first came up with the characters whilst in art school, and came up with his first idea for the film "a grand day out". Gromit was originally a cat before being redesigned to a dog, as it would be be easier to work with a larger reaction in clay. The original script for "a grand day out " got changed as some of the characters restricted what was possible with clay.
Here are some of the original sketches and ideas by Nick Park for the animation "The Wrong Trousers"
The next step in this process is to write up the story board for the animation. this is planned out by, drawing one storyboard picture for one event in the film. If one shot represents 2 or 3 shot they draw each event out onto the story board. Once the story board has been pieced together the designers pin up the story board onto the wall so they can see how the film will flow. This helps the design to understand the story and know which scene fits in where.
After the story board comes the designing and creation of the characters. Here is how they designed and created Shaun the Sheep, step by step.
First the make the legs for Shaun by twisting aluminum wires by pining them with pliers at one end and fitting them in a drill at the other to twist them. Next they add steel discs to the bottom of the feet to add balance and support for the model.
Second step the head is made from "fast cast" resin and hole are drilled in for the attachment of the eyes and ears . The eyes are white glass beads and the pupils are painted on with enamel paint.
The Third step is to cover the metal structure with Plastazote, which is a hard foam type material. Next the body and tail are covered with a small layer of foam,finally the wrap the structure in fr fabric to give a realistic yet surreal version of a sheap.
Finally here is the final scenes from Wallace and Gromit "The Wrong Trousers"
LORD, peter & SIBLEY, Brian (2010). Cracking Animation. London: Thames & Hudson. p20-21.
One of the first people to try and recreate motion in images was a photographer called Eadweard Muybridge. In 1872 he produced a series of images of a man riding a horse. The images helped capture what is impossible to see with a human eye.
before this point animation had been restricted to inventions such as;
Thaumatrope: this is a piece of card with an image draw on both sides with string at either side, when twisted fast the images seem to blend together.
Praxinoscope: This is a drum with images on the inside of the drum being reflected by mirrors in the centre of the drum to give the illusion of movement.
Zoetrope: Invented by William George Horner. The views look through slots cut into the side of the drum which is spun round quickly and a continuous strip of images is arranged inside the drum. The speed the drum is at blurs the slots into one viewing window and helped give motion to static images.
LORD, peter & SIBLEY, Brian (2010). Cracking Animation. London: Thames & Hudson. p20-21.
Here is 2 pages from the book Cracking animation by Peter Lord & Brian Sibley. Here they are explaining all the different types of motion animation inventions prior to Eadweard Muybridge's 1872 photo sequence of the horse. (CLICK PAGE IMAGES TO ENLARGE TO READ)
Here I have draw my character for my cell animation. I chose a none complex design as i didnt want to make cell animation to complex at this stage. It also helped to keep the character simple so he looks the same in every scene though out.
Here Is a preposed scene for my call animation. The original script was the rabbit will walk down the road, and the sponge gets up and shoots the rabbit. But i decided this is to complex at this stage as I've never done cell animation before.
Next I developed by character from a front view to a side on view as I needed to be able to draw the rabbit playing basket balls.
Here are the first 6 frames of the cell animation this running at 12 frames per seconds would give a total of 0.5 seconds worth of footage. Cell animation works by drawing your character in one frame, then in the next move the character on a bit in a new frame, then move it on again in the third frame and so on. This gives the the illusion of movement when played at a high speed in a sequence.
This is My finished cell animation. It consists of 24 frames running at 12 frames per second, so the animation last for 2 seconds.
My story is of earth sending out radio waves from satellites which travel through space to far off galaxies trying to find life. The radio waves read a UFO in one galaxy and is read and converted into number codes. The UFO travels to earth to find life o a new planet after thinking it too was alone. After visiting Earth he flies back to his galaxy to tell of his adventure but when he returns the radio waves had disappeared and he couldnt find his way back. the earth Satellites try to send them the radio waves back but it just travels through empty space again.
The animation will last 30 seconds long at 12 frames per second. I will use stop motion techniques to produce it. The media it will be made from will be wither coloured card or Rayograms.
scene 1 is of a Satellite sending out radio waves lasting 1 second long.
Scenes 2+3 last for 4 seconds with the radio waves in space pulsing and waving lasting for 4 Seconds.
Scenes 4+5 are of the UFO in a far off galaxy receiving the radio waves and reading them in numbers raining and flying around through the galaxy scenes last for 5 Seconds.
Scenes 6+7+8 is of the UFO's journey through space to earth lasting 7 Seconds.
Scenes 9+10 is of UFO flying in and out of the earth up and round as well lasting for 5 seconds.
Scene 11 UFO travles back through space to galaxy to tell of his adventure scene is 3 seconds long.
Scene 12 UFO gets back to its galaxy to tell of his journey but there or no long radio waves there any more. scene lasts 2 seconds
Scene 13 Earths satellite sending signals again into space lasting 2 seconds.
Scene 14 Earths radio waves in space not being received by any one again lasting 1 seconds and is the final frame in the 30 second animation.
Rayograms is the term used for a photographic image created without using a camera. This works by placing objects onto photographic paper and exposing them to light. Depending on how how opaque the object is depends on how many shade you get on the photo. The areas that are white receive no light the areas black got full light and then tone grey areas get tone depending on how much time in the light they receive.
Here is a stop motion video using Rayograms by american artist called Man Ray. He is best known for his unique photograms which he made after himself as he became a pioneer in this line of work.
The video is called "Le Retour a La Raison" and was produced in 1923
Here are my own attempt at making Rayograms in the dark photography room my self. I used mostly images printed on acetate so i could use images that tired into my sci-fi concept for my own animation.
Here this Rayogram a layer of numbers and the covered with a acetate sheet with a pokey dot pattern on it which i the exposed at intervals of 2 seconds and kept on moving the pokey dot sheet to different heights and positions.
Here again I used a sheet of numbers which I then covered with an image of a galaxy swirl around it to give an idea radio waves reaching other galaxies.
Here I used a sheet of numbers in a complex formation looking like its raining down this was inspired after seeing the image of the WOW Signals.
Here I have used an image of a satellite dish as it thought it tied into my them of being lost and trying to make contact with what's out there.
Here I used the same image but again used the pokey dot sheet to cover it and held it about the image at a certain height. I feel this gives a wavy effect on the image maybe looking like radio waves.
Here is an image of a UFO possibly on its journey from the galaxy it has just left.
Here was an experiment with a 5 Not I think it looks really good how you can see the hologram in the middle and the queens head on the next side.
I have really enjoyed the workshop on stop motion and really like some of the images I was able to make. And would consider using some of these techniques to make my final animation.
Michel Gondry Is a French born director who started by directing music videos for Bjork, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Beck, Radiohead, and also The White Stripes. He has so made feature films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and also produced commercial work for such companies as;Adidas, Air France, BMW, Coca-Cola, Fiat, levi's , nike and Polaroid Cameras. Gondry was also the pioneer of the "bullet time" technique which always thing that would normally be unrecordable slow motion and there for recordable such as a gun shot fire..He produced two Music videos for The White Stripes both times using Stop Motion techniques. here are 2 short videos on how he created the videos for;
"Fell in Love WIth a Girl" & "Hardest Button to Button"
In the "Fell In love With a girl" video i thought i was very clever how he used actually Stop Motion lego bricks and digital animation by changing films in to digital lego pixels.
Also In the "Hardest Button to Button" video I though how he explained how he times his Stop Motion to the music where he added and removed items was very clever.
