Task 2

Animation Techniques how they progressed

Animation has really picked up over the years. The way they are progressed is that they
normally use clay or plasticine. Normal film run would be at 24 frames per second, which
means 24 photos per second of film. For example, if you were to make a 1 minute professional
animation, it would take 42,200 photos. You will need to acquire a camera and a tri-pod,
because without the tri-pod keeping the camera in the exact same position, the animation will
look jerky and the photos will be at a slight different angle, and if this happens with a couple of
shots, it can ruin the professional animation.
The technique Wallis and Gromit creators used were getting professional designers to mold the
characters and then got a team of photographers with specialized equipment to use stop frame
animation. After the hundreds and thousands of photos taken, you will need to get them all on
an editing software to create your motion movie/video. To do this you need to put 24 photos
into 1 seconds worth to get the best result.

Persistence of vision
Persistence of vision is to do with how the brain works to receive the data the human eye sees,
in front of him. It is caused by a form of memory and if an item such as a pencil is waved up and
down in a fast motion, it looks like the item is doubled because the human eye memorizes the
past in a very small amount of time before seeing the present. It persists approximately one
twenty-fifth of a second on the retina. In a different explanation, the retention of a visual image
is used after a short period of time after the removal of the image or stimulus, and is the
illusion of movement when viewing motion pictures.

Stop-Frame
Stop frame is a large variety of images taken to create an animation. The animation can consist
of any type of object, and is supposed to move ever so slightly in every photo frame, which
when compressed all together and is shortened or sped up, it will look like the object is moving
by itself, which creates the animation. Examples of animation is Wallis and Gromit which is a
revolutionary animation which took the creators a long time to create the episodes and the
Wallis and Gromit film.

Frame rates
Frame rates are the rate at which each frame is in an animation. It can vary from one till how
many frames you would like to do. The industry standers in 24 frames per second, any less than
24 it will be jump and you will be unable to use slow motion. If you take more than 24 frames
per second you will be able to slow the video down, like the slow motion guys on YouTube. For
example, the slow motion guys on YouTube slow down their videos to a massive 5000 frames
per second, which shows high quality detail of how things look in slow motion. The slow motion
guys come up with creative things that inspire their audiences, a simple balloon filled with
water and being shot by a gun is revolutionary. The ultra-slow motion cameras show the detail
on how a balloon is popped when it is full of water, and when this happens, you can see the
water in the shape of a balloon just before it falls which is amazing.

To make animation look the part and show what what it is, you need to think through preproduction and what you are going to create, especially with stop motion, your frame rate is
what gives us that illusion of movement, frame rate can also be known as a frame frequency
and frames per second, at which an image produces images called frames, so for example if you
would of taken 2000 photos of physical object moving and applied this and used frames per
second, it would look like it is actually moving on its own, which gives us the illusion which gives
it realism and this is very good especially for childrens shows.

Movements of models
Movement of models is all due to the large amount of photos taken by the camera, the more

photos there are, the smoother and realistic the finished video will be. The development of
movement from models is due to the features on the particular model being changed and
moved in a certain form in the scene depending on what you intend the feature on the model
to do. An important technique of animation is probably the biggest one used now in animation,
which we have seen in many massive animation productions such as Wallace and Gromit. Stop
motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on
its own, the object is moved slightly in small stages and when this next very small move is
made, another photograph frame is taken. It is photographed by a camera or other device and
put into frames creating illusion of movement. The perfect example of this is the Wallace and
Gromit which is one of the biggest animation ever made, and it took such a long time to make.
Movement of models is what gives us that illusion of movement, but you have to be very
careful with the movement. If you were making a stop motion animation, and you have all your
objects you wish to use, each object you will have to be slightly move over and over again while
taking pictures but its very important that you slightly move it and dont do it too much
otherwise the movement of the model will look really unrealistic.

An example of stop motion animation in action.

Pioneers
Lumire brothers They are known to be the first filmmakers in history. They patented the
cinematograph. They held a screening of projected motion in pictures in 1985 and it was a
public screening of films. Each of their film was 17 meters long which when hand cranked
through their projector it ran at approximately 50 seconds. They used their cinematographe
device for their film in that year. The cinematographe device is a three in one device that could
record, develop, and project motion pictures, and this was invented by the Lumiere brothers.
Edward Muybridge He was an English photographer who was known for taking a series of
photographs of a horse in rapid succession which was then put into a stop motion projection.
He was very important for pioneering work in photographic studies of motion. His work
persisted of persistence of vision as we see many photographs played with a lot of frequency,
so then it looks like it is moving. Edward Muybridge was very well known for his method of
taking so many pictures so quickly to capture the movement of a horse at its full speed.
Developers
Willis Harold OBrien an American motion picture special effects and stop motion animation
pioneer. He left home at the age at 11 and had a high interest in dinosaurs. He developed
something from the past, a dinosaur model and a caveman which he animated with an
assistance. It was so impressive that after a San Francisco exhibitor watched his 90 second

video test, Willis was commissioned OBrien to make his first film for him. He used stop motion
and animation models to create his films, such as The Ghost of Slumber Mountain, and the Lost
World. He was also behind the creation of the 1933 King Kong movie, and was the first person
to make animation a big success in the industry. He turned animation and stop motion to the
next level, by turning a model into a mainstream film, which was why King Kong was a huge
success and revolutionary to the public. This would certainly attract the type of audiences that
are into the animation and stop motion.
Ray Harryhausen Ray was an American visual effects creator, writer and producer. For many
years Ray had an idea that he would get animated characters or models to actually interact
with real life actors and have them inserted directly into the action. He projected a live action
image onto a rear screen in front of which was placed the animation table with the model. After
he placed a glass sheet in front of both. After Ray made and submitted his budget for the
special effects for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1952, he then wanted to come up with
more creative ideas for further animation, so he experimented using the method he used. Rays
first animation and actors film was a huge amazement to the public, it must have been a
revolution to see an animated character in the real world with real actors, this technique was a
huge success as it looked realistic and this changed the film industry all together.

Contemporary work
Tim Burton He is an American film director, producer, artist, writer and poet. He was also a
stop motion producer and his antiques in his Nightmare before Christmas film was different to
other types of animation. He designed the animation stage, with a scarier Halloween town
fantasy world filled with citizens such as deformed monsters and ghosts. During his early
career his Stalk of The Celery Monster got the attention of Walt Disney Productions animation
department which he then got an animation apprenticeship at the studio. He produces scary
stop motion animations and is well known for this type of genre in animation which was a lot
different to any other stop motion animators at the time which is why his name stood out.
Fodhla Cronin OReilly + Tim Reckard is an Irish film producer. She is very well known for her
Head Over Heels film that was a puppet stop motion animation and because it was such a
striking and unique animation, it won the best animated short film in 2013. This specific 10
minute film was directed by Timothy Reckard, but Fodhla had worked with him to produce the
film. Tim Reckard did several practice exercises before starting, and making his film. To make
the film it took both of them a total of 15 months, 3-4 of those months was just creating the
workshop script for the short film, but this was mainly Tims job. It took both of them 5-6
months of practicing and coming up with more ideas for what they were going to do in their
short 10 minute film, then a further 5 months just to animate and finish the stop motion film
Head Over Heels. The budget was classified as very slow, as it was a student film, it costed
them 7,000 to produce.

The target audience for Tim Reckards movies are for those who like scarier movies, he targets
the Halloween, a holiday that is very common in America and the United Kingdom. He should
get a high amount of sales during the Halloween holidays and just before it.