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.

1988 The Simpsons and Who Framed Roger Rabbit

The Simpson family debuted in short animated cartoons on the Tracey Ullman Show for three seasons before being spun off into their own half an hour series.

These shorts, also called Bumpers, aired before and after advert breaks during the first and second seasons of the show.

They did not appear in the fourth or the final season as they had their own half hour TV series by then.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Steven Spielburg and based on Gary K. Wolf's novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?.

Walt Disney Pictures purchased the rights from Gary K. Wolf and made his novel into the most amazing films up to date, the budget was $50 million dollars, which was too expensive for Walt Disney.

But the budget went down to $29.9 million dollars when Who Framed Roger Rabbit was given the Greenlit.

This film has everything in it, cartoon characters working in the real world and real people putting up with cartoon, Disney toons and Warner Brother toons come together to toontown, but this film involves a cartoon called Roger Rabbit and a detective called Eddie, played by Bob Hoskin.

There's plenty of gags, car chases, laughs, cartoon props, Acme stuff and a chemical that can kill cartoons, this cartoon earned an interest in the Golden Age of American Animation.

The audience for the Simpsons and Who Framed Roger Rabbit would be for young adults and teenagers.
The important history would be that the Simpsons early animation will one day be a smash hit and Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a historical event where cartoons and people live together in two worlds, the real world and the cartoon world.
The technique being used for Who Framed Roger Rabbit was split scene photography, photographing a real life scene and put a drawing of a cartoon character into the photo.
The technologyis still split scene photography.

1984 Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicca of the valley of the wind is a 1984 post-apocalyptic japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, it's the first japanese animated film ever to be made and shown all around the world.

Nausicca was produced with animators hired for the one film and paid per frame.

The audience would be Japanese/American viewers with a sense of adventure in faraway places in unknown lands.

The important history is that this was the very first animation ever to be created by Studio Ghibli.

The technique is fast shots and the fast motion of 2-D giant insects.

The technology used is all been done by hand, they drew the animation by hand.

1982 The Flight of Dragons

The Flight of Dragons is a classic cartoon, which everyone watches when they are a kid, it shows great fantasy with dragons and knights, thje music was great especially the opening song, which was really powerful.

Dragons, have always been a myth obviously, but the cartoon really gives it a magical feeling, with such interesting characters along the way, not to mention villians.

A man called Dickenson was transported back in time to help destroy an evil sorcerer called Ommadon. who voices as James Earl Jones, the evil sorcerers can only be destroyed by Physics because science is more powerful than magic, it's a fantastic cartoon and story, which captures the imagination of every child wgho watches it.

The audience would be young adults and teenagers, anyone who is a Fantasy Fiction fan.

The important history to this animation would be to tell us that science will win over magic.

The technique being used is like Ivor the Engine, using stop motion.

The technology being used was low tech.

1953 Duck Amuck

Duck Amuck was a Warner Brother's production of a pompous character called Daffy Duck, the

co-star of Bugs Bunny, in this episode Duck Amuck, it shows us how an animator does his or her job by drawing in background and the characters, although Daffy Duck was criticizing everything the animator was doing.

According to Chuck Jones, the creator of Bugs Bunny and all of his friends, this film demostrates a character with a recognizable personality, it was soon found out that the animator was in fact Bugs Bunny.

The audience for this animation would for children who find Daffy Duck extermely hilarious.
The important history of it is how it was created, using an animated animator to do all the techniques in creating animation and anoyying Daffy Duck at the same time.

The audience would be younger audiences who are interested in the wacky world of Warner Brother's Looney Tunes.

The Importance of this history would be how an animator works on drawing his or her creation and making it come to life.

The technique used was drawing, long range close ups and short range close ups.

The technology being used was Multiplane cameras, using quick sketches and quick painting to give the cartoon that comedy look .

1940 Fantasia and Pinocchio; both flop.

Both Pinocchio and Fantasia were both unsucessful because Mr Walt Disney was displeased with them, he called for a halt on Pinocchio midway into it's production so that the concept could be rethought and the characters redesinged, Pinocchio wasn't really a financial susscess because it costed Walt Disney $2.289 million dollars.

As for Fantasia, well Walt Disney had intended for Fantasia to be more then just a film, it was to be an event, special program books were prepared for the film, featuring production artwork and photography, the film, sorry to say. holds a 98 percent rating on rotten tomatoes, most critics admire the films greatly, but there are some who have taken a more negative view, but there was some good news for Walt Disney and his crew that were involved with Fantasia, they've won certificates for the use of sound in motion pictures throughout the production of the film.

The audience would be the same, for children and adults alike for both films.
The important history would be that both films were both disasters and ended up as failures to meet with audience's approval.
The technique was used for Fantasia by using fantasound, using different sound effects and speical effects from orchastras.
Technology use is the same as snow white and the Seven Dwarfs, by using Multiplane Cameras.

1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 american animated feature film based on the Brother's Grimm fairy tales Snow White, it was the first cel-animated feature in motion picture history, the development began in the year 1934, and in June 1934, Walt Disney announced the production of first feature in to the New York Times.

All the employees at Disney Studio thought that doing an animated feature film was insane because they thought it wouldn't be a success, even Walt's wife thought so too, but how wrong they all were because it soon became the film that started Disney's road to making more animated films.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is and will always be the most memorable film forever and ever more.

The audience would be for children and adults alike because it's a fairy tale that has been going on since the Brothers Grimm written it down.
The important history is the film that had started Disney's claim to fame as feature animated films.
The technique being used was doing it frame by frame and painting it very carefully without even making a mistake.
The technology being used was a multiplane camera, using one layer on top of the other while building it to meet with the director's approval.

1928 Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse

Steamboat Willie is an animated cartoon released on November the 28th 1928, it stars Walt Disney's most famous cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, this cartoon is the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, next to Plane Crazy and the Gallopin' Gaucho.

It was the most famous cartoon ever to be written and directed by Walt Disney himself, and Ub Iwerks, but Mickey Mouse won't be enough for the Disney Studio to go on so Walt Disney had to give Mickey Mouse a rest and go onto something more challenging, animated feature films.

The audience would be for children who are into Walt Disney's very first characters, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.

The imporant history would be how Mickey Mouse had shaped Walt Disney's expanding kingdom of magic, it was Mickey Mouse who started it all.

The technique for this animation was black and white and full of rubbed out pencil lines.

The technology was using pecial, paper, black ink and framing each drawn pictureof mickey and minnie.

1906 Blackton

J Stuart Blackton, also known as James Stuart Blackton, use to be an American Producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techiniques of stop-motion and drawn Animation.

In 1906, Blackton directed Humourous Phases of Funny Faces, which uses stop-motion as well as stick puppetry to produce a series of effects.

After Blackton's hand draws two faces on a chalkboard, they appear to come to life and engage in antics.

The audience would be adults because it's stick people that make funny faces and do humourous phases, it's not for children.
The important history would be how J Stuart Blackton used chalk people for animation becuase doing animation with chalk and on a chalk board would be very hard.
The technique being used was puppetry and hand drawing faces on chalk stick people.

The technology being used was stop motion and drawn animation.

1831 Phenakistoscope

The Phennakistoscope was an early animation device, then predecessor of the Zoetrope. I was invented in the year 1832 by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon Von Stampfer.

One variant of the Phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames of the animation; around it's circumference was a series of radial slits.

The audience for this type of animation would be rich people like the Emperor of China.
The important history of this animation is very wonderful because it was created in Ancient China.
The technique was spinning it while looking at it in slots.

The technology was very old becuase back then China was considered to be advanced.

c16/17 Flip Books

A Flip Book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next so that when the pages turn rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change.
Flips Books are a primitive form of animation, like motion pictures, they rely on persistence of vision to create an illusion that continuous motion is being seen rather than a series of discontinuous images being exchanged in
succession.
The audience of this type of animation would be adults in the 16th centuary, but soon it was used for children in the 19th centuary.
The imporant history of flipbooks would be how to was being made, drawing one picture, then another and so on until you get a few pages, but the characters would be moving.

The technique would be to carefully draw the pictures and draw the character from one place to another.
There was no technilogy used, it's been done in a primitive way because it was the 16th centuary.

c16 Bird and Cage

Dr John Ayrton Paris problably invented the Bird and Cage trick, also known as, the Thaumatrope in the year 1825.

It may also have been invented by Sir John Herschel, Charles Babbage, or any of a handful of others, but Paris is usually considered the originator.

This is the simplest of all these devises to build. Cut out a round disc from a piece of fairly thick white board, size is not crictical, punch two holes at two sides of the round disc and thread some string in the holes, afterwards you illustrate it with a bird on one side and the cage on the other side, but the cage must be drawn upside down, that's where the illusion comes in.

The audience of this animation is mainly children from the victorian era.
It's importanrt because it can show a wonderful illusion by flipping it around so that you would see the bird is really inside a cage.
A technique was used by using two pieces of string and threading them in two little holes beside each side of the circle.
There was no technology used, it was primitive back then and simple to do.

c2000bc Egyptian Burial Mural

An Egyptian Mural, approximately 4000 years old, shows people walking with their donkeys to market, even though they seem the same to a series of animation drawings, there was no way of viewing the images in motion.

However, it does dedicate the artist's intention of depicting motion.

The Audience of this piece of animation would be the Egypitian Pharohs who would like to have paintings like these in their tombs.

It's important because it tells us what the paintings are doing on a slab of wall.

There were no techniques used because the Egypitians didn't think about using techniques.

The Egypitians used hammers, chizzels and piant to create animated hieroglyphics.