My Written Document

Persistence of vision is a theory which states that the human eye retains an image for a fraction of a
second, which creates a subtle illusion of what is happening now and what happened a fraction of a
second ago.













This theory states that its not as simple as light passing through a lens, the actual brain has to put
together the visual data and construct a picture which is the end product you see.


Stop Frame Animation

Stop frame animation is an animation that is taken one frame at a time, and utilizes physical
movement to move between each frame. When you play the sequence in rapid succession it
creates a sequence of images which create a stop frame animation.

The basic instructions for making this animation is taking a photograph of the object and
moving or changing it slightly so that when you put all the images together it creates a short
sequence.


There are many different styles of stop animation:






Claymation

A Claymation is a form of stop animation that uses clay to create models and backgrounds and
when the finishing product is finished it will end up looking like this.



Puppet Animation

Puppet animation is a technique that uses puppets to create an animation. This technique has
many similarities to a Claymation but instead of making the characters while you shoot the
characters and the set are already made which saves time when filming.




Cut-Out Animation

Cut out animation is a technique of producing animations using characters made of paper,
cardboard or using photographs.







Pixilation
Pixilation is the most difficult style to produce, it features live actors who change their
movement in each frame, and they have to be good at doing fluent movement and be able to
hold facial expression while multiple frames are being taken.



Frame Rate

When filming movies and motion pictures they are normally formed of still images
photographed every second. Through doing this movies create a sense of illusion by having
them play in rapid succession to make them appear as if they are moving.
Frame rate is measured in (FPS) which stands for frames per second and having more frames
taken per second makes the motion more accurate and look more professional.




Movement of models Armatures

When using a sculpture utilizing armatures can help make the sculptures stay in shape because
they are made of a heavy aluminium wire which is stiff but can be shaped and bent without
much force. The main figure is fixed to a base which is normally made of wood. The reason why
this is used mainly in stop motion animation is because the figures can hold poses for a longer
period of time which can help with if you leave the figure for a period of time you know that it
will keep its shape.

Pioneers

Eadward Muybridge

Eadward Muybridge was an English photographer who was very
skilled in the category of moving images where he would take still images and
piece them together to make a short film. He was known for making the film based
on a bet to see whether when a racehorse is running does it have a point where
all four of its legs are off the ground, so he set up a series of cameras that
where connected to tripwire so that when the horse triggered the tripwire the
cameras would go off. What Muybridge did was borrow the animated illusion from
moving image toys and combined it with the capacity of projection from the magic
lantern. He then adapted pictures from his motion photography and created a
device which for the first time could project sequences of rapid movement in
formed by the camera onto the screen. The Zoepraxiscope therefore represents a
moment in the history of moving image a fixes the missing link between slide
projection and cinema.

The Lumiere Brothers
The Lumiere brothers Auguste and Louis were two brothers from
Lyon in France. They worked in their fathers factory which specialised in
Photography, after having some inspiration from fellow photographers they
Created a camera of their own called a cinematograph, which was a machine that
Had features of the magic lantern so being able to display pictures.
They produced a film that was 50 seconds long using a camera attached to
A tripod, in the film it showed all of the workers in the factory leaving and
Maybe being picked up in a wagon or walking. By early 1895, the brothers had
invented their own device which combined a camera with a printer and a projector and called it the Cinematograph. The
cinematographe was much smaller than
Edisons kinetograph and had to be hand cranked for it to work. The Lumiere
brothers used a frame speed of 16 frames per second, much slower than Edisons
48 Frames per second this meant that less film was used and also the clatter
And grinding associated with Edisons device was reduced.
Willis OBrien

Willis OBrien was an artist whos speciality was special effects. he
pioneered a technique of stop motion animation and was the man behind
the 1993 classic Movie King Kong. OBrien was a former newspaper
cartoonist and sculptor before and made many short films in 1914. He
also animated dinosaurs in Arthur Conan Doyles Movie The Lost
World (1925) and his work for King Kong was considered as a classic
example of stop motion photography. He was awarded the first-ever
Oscar for his skills in special effects for his animation in the 1949 Film
Mighty Joe Young. Other classic films were The Last Days in Pompeii
(1935) and The Black Scorpion (1957).

Jan vankmajer
Jan vankmajer was an internationally acclaimed Animator from the Czech Republic. His work
was described as surreal because he made use of different types of animation. Things like live
action, cut out animation, stop motion, Claymation and also puppet animation. Throughout his
career he has made short films but also full length films as well.
The work he has produced stays within his Czech traditions which includes fairy tales and
puppet theatres. His work was often described as strange, dark and disturbing but also has a dark
sense of humour so its not so serious. However the government banned him from creating films
in 1972 from making films and the rest of his films were suppressed because of their content.
His best known film was Alice (1988) which became a Cult Classic.



Tim Burton
Tim Burton is known as one of the most famous and well respected men
in the filming industry. From a young age he attended the California
Institute of the arts, studying animation and was later partnered with
Disney. Although he had to follow Disneys guidelines he was also
given some freedom and made his own personal projects such as his six
minute black and white film Vincent (1982) and then later his 27 minute
Frankenweenie (1984) which was described as unsuitable for children.

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations also known as Aardman Studios is a
British Animation studio which is based in the UK. the studio is
well known for creating films using Stop motion and
Claymation techniques. Some of their greatest creation are
characters like Morph and Wallace and Grommet.
Aardman Animations was founded in 1972 by David Sproxton
and Peter Lord, in 1976 they created one of their most popular
clay character Morph who was made entirely of clay and later
was made into a 26 part five minute series named The Amazing
Adventures of Morph which was screened in 1981.

TV Animation
A Classic example of TV animation are shows like SpongeBob Square pants, Looney Tunes and
also The Simpsons.

Channel indents
A Channel indent is an advert that is specific to that channel so that when you see it before a TV
show starts you can immediately tell what channel you are on.

Cinema
Cinema animation are animated films that are specifically released in cinema. Walt
Disney was the first to come about of making cinema animations for children classic
example would be Robin Hood and later on American film producers such as Willis
OBrien Started using cinema animation such as his award winning film King Kong
which was made for adult audiences Giving Cinema animation and wider type of target
audience. Now Cinema Animation is massive and now incorporates both and adult and
child age range.

Advertising

The Craven dale adverts would be a prime example for animation advertisement as
the stop motion for most of their adverts which gives it a comedy effect.

Music Video

A classic example of music animation was made by white stripes which
is named about a girl.