Types of Animation For animation seen on film

Types of Animation

For animation seen on film, images should be viewed at more than sixteen images per second to avoid the flicker of the projector becoming distracting. The convention for film is twenty four frames per second (or f. p. s. ). Television in the USA is thirty f. p. s.

A film's smallest unit is a FRAME, FRAME which is like a still photograph. Several frames make up SHOTS in films. Shots make up SCENES Scenes make up SEQUENCES Sequences make up a FILM

There are four basic techniques used in animation. These are: v. Drawn animation v. Cut-out animation v. Model animation or stop motion animation v. Computer animation or computer generated imagery (CGI)

Drawn Animation

Cel animation (or ‘ 2 d’ or ‘drawn’) Photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper -to create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animator’s drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film.

This image shows how two transparent cels, each with a different character drawn on them, and an opaque background are photographed together to form the composite image.

Full animation High-quality animated films, which use detailed drawings and movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from realistically designed works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio, to the more "cartoony" styles of those produced by the Warner Bros animation studio.

The Iron Giant Warner Bros. (1999)

Limited animation Less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Most of Japanese animation (anime) anime consists of adapted techniques of limited animation.

Rotoscoping Animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings.

Drawing of the original rotoscope. The artist is drawing on a transparent easel, onto which the movie projector at the right is throwing an image of a single film frame.

These stills of Winona Ryder show technology turns people into cartoonish versions of themselves.

Drawn Animation Pros- It looks great! Cons- It takes a very long time to film from start to finish and is expensive needing many animators to complete the work.

Cut-out Animation

Cut-out animation Produced by moving 2 -dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth.

An animator manipulates cut-out paper puppets tracked in real time to control an animation.

Silhouette animation A variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes.

When backlit, cut-out animation becomes simplified dark (black) images and is referred to as silhouette animation. It was used by German animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger for The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the oldest-surviving feature-length animated film.

Graphic animation Uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc. ) which are manipulated frame-by-frame to create movement.

A newspaper print character

Cut-out Animation Pros - It is very quick and easy to do. Cons - It is difficult to have more than one or two cut-outs moving at the same time. Cut-out animation appears to move in a very stiff and awkward way.

Model Animation or Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion (or frame-by-frame) The object is moved by small amounts between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames are played as a continuous sequence. There are many different types of stopmotion animation, usually named after the type of media used to create the animation:

A stop motion animation of a moving Canadian penny.

Clay animation (or Plasticine animation) Figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside of them that can be manipulated in order to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay,

Chicken Run (2000)

Model animation Motion animation created to interact with actors and settings.

King Kong (1933)

Puppet animation Involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

An armature Trumpton’s Windy Miller.

Model animation or stop motion animation Pros - Models can be used over and over again and copies made of them to shoot different scenes at the same time so that the filming takes less time. Cons - This type of animation needs a lot of time and hard work. The makers of 'James and the Giant Peach' were only able to complete 45 seconds of stop-motion animation a week - 10 seconds a day. This was because each puppet had so many joints that needed moving for each frame the centipede alone had 72!

Computer Generated Animation (Computer Generated Imagery – CGI)

2 D animation Figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2 D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2 D vector graphics.

3 D animation Digital models manipulated by an animator. Images can be scanned into the computer using digital photography or made within the computer itself. Human characters can be built from clay whilst sets and furnishings are modelled using design systems similar to architects drawings. In order to manipulate a mesh, it is given a digital armature This process is called rigging

These models are scanned into the computer as wire-frame models which are gradually built up into a coloured and textured form which will finally be recorded onto film. The wire-frame model (left) was made on a computer before being built up into the character (right).

Digital humans: motion capture Making a realistic human body motion is hard. Solution? Cover person with white or retroreflective targets like ping pong balls

Andy Serkis as "Gollum“ in Lord of the Rings

Computer animation or Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) Pros - Computers are becoming cheaper and easier to use than traditional animation. The computer animated film Toy Story cost $30 million to make and used 110 animators. The Lion King using drawn animation cost $45 million to make and used 800 animators. Cons – Some viewers complain CGI characters lack charisma.