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sTOP-MOTION ANIMATION
What is animation?
Animation is the process of making an inanimate object appear to move. It's the term we use to describe a film or clip that is deliberately made one frame at a time by manipulating drawings, models, puppets or computer generated imagery. Every time we watch an animated film, we are in fact seeing many individual pictures or 'frames' (typically 24, 25 or 30) per second; each frame shaped, drawn or somehow set up slightly different from the last. These tiny moments in time appear to move due to 'persistence of vision', an optical effect where we see a stream of movement.
What are the different types of animation?
There are 3 different types of animation. These are:
- Hand-drawn animation
- Stop-motion/claymotion animation
- Computer generated animation
What does genre mean?
Genre can be described as the different categories of film, or the overall atmosphere of a film. Common examples are: horror, science-fiction, romance and comedy.
What is 'form'?
Form is simply the way something is presented; for example, an animation could be in the form of a film, an advert, a channel insert or a documentary.
Where do you see animation?
Animation can be shown to us on TV, in the cinema or on the internet, to name a few. Other ways not involved in the media aspect of this question could be on a Phenakistoscope or a Zeotrope.
Animation is the process of making an inanimate object appear to move. It's the term we use to describe a film or clip that is deliberately made one frame at a time by manipulating drawings, models, puppets or computer generated imagery. Every time we watch an animated film, we are in fact seeing many individual pictures or 'frames' (typically 24, 25 or 30) per second; each frame shaped, drawn or somehow set up slightly different from the last. These tiny moments in time appear to move due to 'persistence of vision', an optical effect where we see a stream of movement.
What are the different types of animation?
There are 3 different types of animation. These are:
- Hand-drawn animation
- Stop-motion/claymotion animation
- Computer generated animation
What does genre mean?
Genre can be described as the different categories of film, or the overall atmosphere of a film. Common examples are: horror, science-fiction, romance and comedy.
What is 'form'?
Form is simply the way something is presented; for example, an animation could be in the form of a film, an advert, a channel insert or a documentary.
Where do you see animation?
Animation can be shown to us on TV, in the cinema or on the internet, to name a few. Other ways not involved in the media aspect of this question could be on a Phenakistoscope or a Zeotrope.
Mini Stop-MOtion film
In order to create this animation a classmate and I rolled blutack into balls and staged a movement sequence reminiscent to that of a mother duck with her ducklings. Each blutack ball decreased in size - to make it look like a 'mummy' blutack with three 'baby' blutacks - and we manipulated them across a gap between two tables. It was important that we keep the camera still and in the same location - if we had not, the animation would have had unwanted depth and would have appeared jerky as the camera moved all over the place. Although we could have strategically moved the camera as if it were following a route - like a real film-camera - we decided it would look better from a fixed perspective and would also be simpler. We invented the story as we went along - taking the photos only took us about ten minutes so this was easy - and thought of new ideas as they came to us, such as the way the balls squished together in order to form a 'bridge' across the gap. Because this was a small task it was okay for us to think of the story quickly like this, however in future animations I will focus at greater length on working out a proper storyboard of events in the film because pre-production will allow us more time to work out any kinks and make sure the animation is as good as possible. In one frame my arm is in the photo - a result of a lapse in attention to detail on our part - however it is almost unnoticeable since one's attention is focused on the blutack. In future animations we will be careful not to encounter problems with continuity such as these, because although it was slight, it still affects the ability of the viewer to enjoy the suspension of disbelief that comes with watching films.