My Ideas of an Animation

My idea for an animation is to make it the old fashion way by using pen and paper, that way nothing can go wrong on the computer, I wouldn't be able to loose any work while saving it.

I love how Disney's animators draw their characters, sure they take a very long time to produce an animated film, but it takes an endless amount of time trying to put a personality into a character and then inject it intoa drawing, either way Walt Disney really is a genius for doing animation during the year 1937 until the day on his deathbed.

Disney's animation keeps on going, even after his death, from 1937 until the year 2010, it would make Disney's animation studios at least 76 years old.

So I would like to do my animation like they use to do it during the year 1937, their way of doing animation back then was so simpler and very well drawn then that on computers.

My character for my own animation will be of a fox who outwits a foxhound dog during a fox hunt, this fox is a cheeky little lad with a cunning mind, he puts a kick me sign on the dog's back and when the dog turns round, the fox runs off and someone kicks the dog, then the fox hops on the dog's back and takes a bow.

That's going to be my animation, sure it won't be as complex as Disney's animation, but it still has some comedy in it.

Last Minute Research on Disney:

Disney use to do a lot of reusing from their previous productions into their new productions like Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's dance scene being recreated into a dance scene from Robin Hood.

Sleeping Beauty when Princess Aurora danced with Prince Philip, that was reused in Beauty and the Beast where Belle and the prince danced together.

Also in Jungle Book where Mowgli gets licked by his wolf brothers, that scene was reused in another production, Sword in the Stone where a young boy named Arthur gets licked to death by two Great Danes.

Mowgli walking on a huge log was also reused for Winnie the Pooh when Christopher Robin walks on a huge log with his friend, Pooh Bear.

Another reuse scene in Jungle Book when an Elephant blows it's trunk to someone squashed it and made a funny noise, the same happened in Robin Hood.

Disney also had to reuse characters, for example Baloo from Jungle Book, he was reused in Robin Hood's big friend, Little John.

Another scene where Christopher Robin throws a stone into the revine was also reused when Mowgli throws a stone into the revine.

The Lion King is a different story because it was copied by Osamu Tezuka's japanese production, Kimba the White Lion, hopefully Disney had purchased the rights of turning Tezuka's production into a completely different movie,otherwise it would've been done illegally.

Robin Hood's dance scene was obivously reused for the Aristocats when Duchess danced with

O'Malley the Alley Cat to the jazz beat.

Writing a Report

What is animation:
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D and
3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement, this theory was discovered by Paul Wells and his Quote was "A working definition of animation is that it is a film made frame by frame, providing an illusion of movement which has not been directly recorded in the conventional sense,".

What that means is that it takes a lot of hard work, patience and faithful devotion to drawing the charcters, scenes, props, special effects and have plenty of clear, loud voices to act out the characters, animation isn't like your everyday ordinary filming in the BBC or in Hollywood, animation is a distinctive art of drawing and creating illusions of movement, it may take a long time, but it will be worth it for you and for the audience who are prepared to watch your hard work.

Findings: I've tried Flash Animation by using stop motion and computer generated circulations of a blue ball going around an overal shape line, I've tried Flipbooks by flipping one page to another, therefore creating an illusion of a picture moving. I've also tried the Bird and Cage technique, it was the easiest because using a piece of cardboard, two pieces of string while there's a picture on each side and twisting it makes an illusion that there is a bird inside a cage and finally I've studied animation in real life by watching an advert of Hula Hoops and saw how they move, that too was stop motion by hand.

Colclusion: I feel that the type of animation I would like to make for my final piece would be Fantasia, because Fantasia is a classical musical film being played in several different pieces of music, even though it was a failure, it was still the most inspiring piece of animation one could ever see, maybe it was a flop because the 1940s wasn't really a great time for the film to be released, there was a World War going on back then, it wasn't like 101 Dalmatians that was released in the year 1960, now that timeline was the best time to be released, perhaps Fantasia should've been created and released a few years after the war.

flash animation, bird and cage, flipbook.

Flash Animation:
I found flash difficult to use.
End result was effective.
Started with a blue ball on the screen.
found it difficult because it was very technical.
Wouldn't choose to use it in the future.

Bird and Cage:
It was easy, simple and enjoyable.
I used cardboard and string.
You twist it and pull the two images to merge together.
The bird was upside down.
It was an illusion as it was spinning fast.
I would use it again.

Flipbook:
It's very easy and simple.
I liked it a lot.
Quite an effective way of showing movement.
Images are put onto paper, and flipped so the images switch quickly from one to the next, giving the impression of animation.

2005 Corpse Bride and Curse of the Were Rabbit

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is an Academy Award-nominated 2005 stop-motion-animation fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. It is based loosely on a 19th century Russian Jewish folktale version of an older Jewish story and set in a fictional Victorian era village in Britian.

The film was nominated in the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but was bested by Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is a 2005 British stop motion animated film, the first feature-lengthWallace and Gromit film. It was produced by DreamWorksAnimation and Aardman Animation, and released by DreamWorks Pictures.

The film followed eccentric inventor Wallace (still voiced by Peter Sallis) and his intelligent but silent dog, Gromit, as they come to the rescue of the residents of a village which is being plagued by a mutated rabbit before the annual vegetable competition.

It was a critical and commercial success, and won a number of film awards including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

The audience would be horror film lovers andpeople who are big fans of Tim Burton, as for Wallace and Gromit, the audience would be young teenagers and young children.

The important history is that both films are summer blockbusters and the Corpse Bride is the purest of a director's vision of recent years gone by, Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit won many awards, such as the Empire Awards, Bodil Awards, 33rd Annie Award, 78th Academy Award and the British Comedy Award.

The technique for Corpse Bride is freeze motion and stop motion, a bit of puppetry and clay animation.

The technology is computer generated with screen editing and plenty of emotion added to the scenes.

2001 Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film views a sullen ten-year-old girl in the middle of her family's move to a new town (presumably the countryside) and her adventures in a world of spirits and monsters.

The film received many awards, including the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Anmated Feature, the film also won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and is among the top ten in the BFI List of the 50 films you should see by the ge of 14.

Spirited Away overtook Titanic in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history.

The audience would be Japanese viewers with a sense of fantasy and about what resides in the spirit world, Japanese are big on spirits and monsters.
The important history of this animation is that it became the highest grossing picture in Japanese history.
The technique being used is unlike any of the others that Hayao Miyazaki had made, this one had realistic presision and traditional drawings.
The technology being used is the same as the first Japanese film, except for it has realistic 2-D presision.

1995 Toy Story

Toy Story is an American 3-D animated film featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the film went on to earn over $192 million dollars around Canada and the United States, it also went on to earn more than $356 million dollars worldwide.

By July 1991, Disney and Pixar signed an agreement to work on a film, based on a television special Tin Toy Christmas and the charcters, the deal gave Pixar a three-film deal, as well as ten percent of the film's profits.

The audience for this animation would be younger children who believe that toys can come to life.
The history would be that Toy Story is the only Pixar film ever to be a success.
The technique is all done by 3-D and some scenes had fade aways.
The techology was all been done by computers, now that it has come to the computer age.

1989 Wallace and Gromit and the Simpsons

The Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the FOX Broadcasting Company. It's the most popular animated cartoon comedy ever to be created by the Fox Broadcasting Company, Homer is by far the most stupidiest character in all of the Simpson shows because he doesn't have a brain and he insults any celebrity that he meets, the Simpsons had won dozens of awards, twenty six Annie Awards and a Peabody Award.

Wallace and Gromit are the main clay animation characters in a series consisting of four British animated short films and a feature length film by Nick Park and Aardman Animations, they are filmed by stop motion clay animation with metal armatures.

Wallace is the absent minded, cheese loving inventor, just like Disney's short film, the Absent Minded Professor. Gromit is the intelligent dog that lives with Wallace in Wigan, Lancashire, Peter Sallis voices as Wallace, but Gromit uses body language.

Wallace and Gromit are so popular that they've been in every adventure like The Grand Dayout, The Wrong Trousers, a Close Shave, the Curse of the Were Rabbit and the latest one up to date, a Matter of Loaf and Death, in fact they appeared in 2009 Children In Need as a short when Wallace attempted to ride a motor bike over a bunch of haystacks, but he missed and crashed, in the end he and Gromit just picked yp the phone and dialed in to donate money to Children In Need.

The audience for the Simpsons are all American and English alike, as for Wallace and Gromit, it's mainly for English people.

The important history would be that the Simpsons had made it's field day, they've won plenty of awards, including 25 Primetime Emmy Awards, 26 Annie Awards, 1 Peabody Award and is considers to be the century's best television series.

The technique being used for Wallace and Gromit is clay animation, using strings and using stop motion in every shot.

The technology being used for Wallace and Gromit is metal skeletons, puppet strings andplenty of lighting to capture every shot and every moment.