Friday 14 October 2011
The history of Animation (Pre 1900 - Present)
Animation; The rapid display of a sequence of images of 2D or 3D modle positions in order to create the illusion of movement.
To start, in 1834 the modern zoetrop was invented by William George Horner. The device consisted of a large spinning wheel with slits cut into it. The zoetrope would be spun round and when looking through the slots cut into it's side you perceive the still images to be moving.The outside was blank but on the inside you could see the different frames of an animation, due to the size of the zoetrope the animation wasn't long at all and looped as it was spun round meaning the design on the inside would need to seamlessly end and start again. The limitations of the zoetrope was the amount of frames you could have and so wasn't useful for created anything that didn't need to last one to two seconds.
Jumping forward Lasislaw Starewicz created a thirteen minute piece called "The cameraman's revenge". Lasislaw took dead bugs including various types of Beatles and Dragonflies, and created a stop motion film using a miniature set. Stop motion is where you have your character or object and take a picture of it. You then repeat this process but slightly move the object before each picture, the smaller the movements and the more frames the smoother the animation will be. The pictures are then made into a film and played, creating the illusion that the object is moving by itself. The process of stop motion is always long and tedious even with a computer, although Lasislaw did not have this luxury. The cameraman's revenge was produced by the Khanzhonkov company in Russia, and was released in 1912.
In the 1910's animated films started to go big, there was more interest from the public and more demand for artists. Winsor McCay made a five minute short called "Gertie the dinosaur". Like Lasislaw he used stop motion but in a slightly different way. On paper he would draw out Gertie and her surroundings then on another sheet, trace the picture but slightly change Gertie or her surroundings. As with "The cameraman's revenge" the thousands of pictures are turned into a film, more drawings equate to a smoother animation. What makes Winsor's film different is that at the end of the animation he overlays frames for a live action film he shot, creating a blend of animation and real life film. This would be the first time live action and animation has come together, and would lay the foundation for Disney's "Alice's Wonderland"
In 1923 Walt Disney released "Alice's wonderland" a much improved version of Wnsor McCay's combination of live action and hand drawn animation. The cartoon features a small girl named Alice whom is visiting Disney and she gets to see how cartoons are made. She then gets to visit a cartoon world, this is done by filming the people, and then overlaying animation on top. This gives the opposite effect to what McCay had produced with Gertie. Disney's other triumph was in 1928 with the iconic "Steam boat Willie" a seven minute black and white cartoon showing Mickey mouse preforming multiple amusing duties aboard a steamboat. This was Mickey Mouse's first appearance and the cartoon was one of the first to use sound, this was a big break through.
Moving onto the 1930s this was a time of great depression in America, many companies went bankcrup and artists had a hard time finding jobs. Disney pulled through and managed to make "The old mill" released in 1937, it focused not on a cartoon like style of the "Steam boat Willie" but on a more realistic style in both drawing and animation. The film also includes depth of field, camera zoom, realism and effects animation (Such as rain).
By the 1940's Disney and Warner Brothers were the world leaders in animation. On November 1st 1940 Disney released "Fantasia" which due to WWII did horribly at the box office, making matters worse was the fact that Walt Disney spent four times his budget on the film, making the overall spendings on the film $2.28 million, this made Disney bankcrupt. To compensate for the loss Disney was forced to take out a government contract for 32 animated shorts of anti-Nazi propaganda between 1941 and 1945. An example of this would be "Education for death" (released January 15th, 1943) which details the life of a child born while under Hitler's rule and at the same time daemonises the Nazi establishment.
1950 saw the rise of television in the UK, the animated films had to step up their game to compete with televised cartoons such as Loony Tunes. Disney released Cinderella (March 4th, 1950), Alice in Wonderland (July 28th (USA) July 26th (UK) 1951) and Peter Pan (February 5th, 1953). Another innovation in the world of animation was 2D Vector graphics, allowing animations to create smooth shapes and lines for their characters. Since the rise of television in the 50's the 1960's saw a explosion of televised cartoons such as The Flitstones (1960) Tom and Jerry (1960) Top cat (1961) The Jetsons (1962) The pink panther (1963) Scooby Doo (1969). So by this time animation was very widespread and cheap.
By the 1980s the animation world started playing around with 3D, it was used in video games which competed for entertainment with Films. Although 3D was new and expensive and was limited by simple computers, software and people whom have been trained in that field of expertise. 3D was also practised in the 70's aswell as shown by Pixar's 3D hand and face demonstration which would lay the foundation for all the video games and 3D animation to come in the 80's.
In the 90's 3D animation went big, the introduction of High tech Apple computers and Asian workers making 3D easier and less expensive. 2D on the other hand was getting much more expensive as it had to go bigger and better in order to keep up with the ever improving 3D animations. It was in 1995 that Pixar released Toy Story on a budget on $30 million which made well over $300 million at the box office, showing how much money there was in 3D feature length films. Since Toy story Pixar have released 11 more feature length 3D films and have four more currently in production. Their highest grossing film was Toy Story 3 making over $1 Billion at the box office beating the highest grossing 2D film (1994's The Lion king) which only made over $800 million at the box office. Showing the money in 3D films.
Finally in 2007 Flash CS3 was introduced to the Adobe suite, Flash is a program primary used for animation but you can also make menus and buttons too. Flash uses simple frame by frame animation and tweens to create smooth movement. The graphics used in the program are 2D vector so the images size can be increased or decreased and there will be no pixillation. This software being publically available lead to everyone getting the chance to animate without doing many tedious paper drawings. Also Maya was released in 1998 and was bought by Autodesk in 2005, Maya dominates the 3D market as it is the leading software for 3D animation and modelling.
As you can see animation has gone from simple devices like the zoetrobe to stop motion to animated cartoons and then onto 3D. Hopefully this has given an inside view into the animation evolution of animation throughout history and a look at it's defining moments.
To start, in 1834 the modern zoetrop was invented by William George Horner. The device consisted of a large spinning wheel with slits cut into it. The zoetrope would be spun round and when looking through the slots cut into it's side you perceive the still images to be moving.The outside was blank but on the inside you could see the different frames of an animation, due to the size of the zoetrope the animation wasn't long at all and looped as it was spun round meaning the design on the inside would need to seamlessly end and start again. The limitations of the zoetrope was the amount of frames you could have and so wasn't useful for created anything that didn't need to last one to two seconds.
Jumping forward Lasislaw Starewicz created a thirteen minute piece called "The cameraman's revenge". Lasislaw took dead bugs including various types of Beatles and Dragonflies, and created a stop motion film using a miniature set. Stop motion is where you have your character or object and take a picture of it. You then repeat this process but slightly move the object before each picture, the smaller the movements and the more frames the smoother the animation will be. The pictures are then made into a film and played, creating the illusion that the object is moving by itself. The process of stop motion is always long and tedious even with a computer, although Lasislaw did not have this luxury. The cameraman's revenge was produced by the Khanzhonkov company in Russia, and was released in 1912.
In the 1910's animated films started to go big, there was more interest from the public and more demand for artists. Winsor McCay made a five minute short called "Gertie the dinosaur". Like Lasislaw he used stop motion but in a slightly different way. On paper he would draw out Gertie and her surroundings then on another sheet, trace the picture but slightly change Gertie or her surroundings. As with "The cameraman's revenge" the thousands of pictures are turned into a film, more drawings equate to a smoother animation. What makes Winsor's film different is that at the end of the animation he overlays frames for a live action film he shot, creating a blend of animation and real life film. This would be the first time live action and animation has come together, and would lay the foundation for Disney's "Alice's Wonderland"
In 1923 Walt Disney released "Alice's wonderland" a much improved version of Wnsor McCay's combination of live action and hand drawn animation. The cartoon features a small girl named Alice whom is visiting Disney and she gets to see how cartoons are made. She then gets to visit a cartoon world, this is done by filming the people, and then overlaying animation on top. This gives the opposite effect to what McCay had produced with Gertie. Disney's other triumph was in 1928 with the iconic "Steam boat Willie" a seven minute black and white cartoon showing Mickey mouse preforming multiple amusing duties aboard a steamboat. This was Mickey Mouse's first appearance and the cartoon was one of the first to use sound, this was a big break through.
Moving onto the 1930s this was a time of great depression in America, many companies went bankcrup and artists had a hard time finding jobs. Disney pulled through and managed to make "The old mill" released in 1937, it focused not on a cartoon like style of the "Steam boat Willie" but on a more realistic style in both drawing and animation. The film also includes depth of field, camera zoom, realism and effects animation (Such as rain).
By the 1940's Disney and Warner Brothers were the world leaders in animation. On November 1st 1940 Disney released "Fantasia" which due to WWII did horribly at the box office, making matters worse was the fact that Walt Disney spent four times his budget on the film, making the overall spendings on the film $2.28 million, this made Disney bankcrupt. To compensate for the loss Disney was forced to take out a government contract for 32 animated shorts of anti-Nazi propaganda between 1941 and 1945. An example of this would be "Education for death" (released January 15th, 1943) which details the life of a child born while under Hitler's rule and at the same time daemonises the Nazi establishment.
1950 saw the rise of television in the UK, the animated films had to step up their game to compete with televised cartoons such as Loony Tunes. Disney released Cinderella (March 4th, 1950), Alice in Wonderland (July 28th (USA) July 26th (UK) 1951) and Peter Pan (February 5th, 1953). Another innovation in the world of animation was 2D Vector graphics, allowing animations to create smooth shapes and lines for their characters. Since the rise of television in the 50's the 1960's saw a explosion of televised cartoons such as The Flitstones (1960) Tom and Jerry (1960) Top cat (1961) The Jetsons (1962) The pink panther (1963) Scooby Doo (1969). So by this time animation was very widespread and cheap.
By the 1980s the animation world started playing around with 3D, it was used in video games which competed for entertainment with Films. Although 3D was new and expensive and was limited by simple computers, software and people whom have been trained in that field of expertise. 3D was also practised in the 70's aswell as shown by Pixar's 3D hand and face demonstration which would lay the foundation for all the video games and 3D animation to come in the 80's.
In the 90's 3D animation went big, the introduction of High tech Apple computers and Asian workers making 3D easier and less expensive. 2D on the other hand was getting much more expensive as it had to go bigger and better in order to keep up with the ever improving 3D animations. It was in 1995 that Pixar released Toy Story on a budget on $30 million which made well over $300 million at the box office, showing how much money there was in 3D feature length films. Since Toy story Pixar have released 11 more feature length 3D films and have four more currently in production. Their highest grossing film was Toy Story 3 making over $1 Billion at the box office beating the highest grossing 2D film (1994's The Lion king) which only made over $800 million at the box office. Showing the money in 3D films.
Finally in 2007 Flash CS3 was introduced to the Adobe suite, Flash is a program primary used for animation but you can also make menus and buttons too. Flash uses simple frame by frame animation and tweens to create smooth movement. The graphics used in the program are 2D vector so the images size can be increased or decreased and there will be no pixillation. This software being publically available lead to everyone getting the chance to animate without doing many tedious paper drawings. Also Maya was released in 1998 and was bought by Autodesk in 2005, Maya dominates the 3D market as it is the leading software for 3D animation and modelling.
As you can see animation has gone from simple devices like the zoetrobe to stop motion to animated cartoons and then onto 3D. Hopefully this has given an inside view into the animation evolution of animation throughout history and a look at it's defining moments.
Friday 7 October 2011
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Gaming Idents
Mototstorm: Apocalypse
This ident is an introduction to movies on FIVE being sponsored by Playstation 3's "Mototstom Apocalypse". The animation in the ident is short and sweet but packed with features. It opens by showing a customized "Motorstorm Apocalypse" movie clip board, the board has yellow and black stripes but also is on fire. This would show the audience the game is dangerous and the fire could also communicate that the game features a lot of action, to back up this point there are a lot of sparks flying around the screen. In the background we can see red shipping container in the background, red also representing danger along with a metal fence giving the audience a sense of breaking out. The camera effect is quite shaky which is what you would expect from a racing game. The clipboard effect is a constant theme throughout PS3's campaign on FIVE and is also used for "Little big planet 2" and "Killzone 3".
Killzone 3
Like the ident above "killzone" is sponsoring movies on FIVE. It continues the theme set by the "Motorstrom: Apocalypse" ident. With the same set up as before with the clipboard, the "Killzone 3" modle features a chainsaw on the board which could relate to an in game feature. This would give the viewer an idea of an element in the game before they have seen any gameplay. The clipboard it's self is very run down and made of rusty metal, this would reflect the world the game is based in. plus the board has some bullet holes in it indercating it is an action game, most likley a first person shooter. The background is very dark and doesn't reveal much but it does fit in with the grudge type clipboard and helps set the overall tine of the game.
LittleBig planet 2
Carrying on with the movies theme, this is "Playstation 3's LittleBig planet 2" The game's name isn't mentioned until the very end but showing the iconic "Sack boy" character right at the start the audience will instantly recognise game this ident is about. In the background you can see a director's chair, stage lights and wires running across the ground interacting that this is set in a film studio. Again carrying over the movies theme. The ident is also humorous due to the "nobody puts sack boy in the corner" joke and Sack boy sticking his tongue out as the camera zooms in. The narrator for the ident is Stephan Fry who has a very recognisable voice and is also featured as a voice in the game. Overall I think this is a good ident as it's short, simple, has a fitting famous narrator and is comical.
BBC2's future Zoetrope (2007)
Aired in 2007 this is an animation of a classic Zoetrope with the slit as the two from BBC2's logo. I led this ident for a few reasons. Firstly there's a slight twist to it, it would appear that you were flying through an interesting future city with huge buildings, elevated trains and flying cars but once the camera pulls back you can see it's simply a series of pictures on the Zoetrope. The ident is interesting due to the visual element of the future city but also if you've never seen a Zoetrope before you now have a rough idea of how they work. The music that accompanies it sound quite sci-fi as it includes lots of digital sounds like the swoosh of the spaceships but there is also a layer of drums for a bigger impact. i feel this is a good ident because it includes the channel's logo, it's clever, it has a twist and the music is fitting.
Channel 4 (1982)
Channel 4's 1982 ident is using 3D animation, this would have been something new back in the 80's and you can tell they were making a big deal out of it. This ident was also followed by many of the same type, but with a different animation. You can see that Channel 4 wanted to ,push the 3D idea. The ident starts off as a still image and then a drum roll comes in to build suspense, the logo then explodes to the sound of trumpets and rotates in 3D space swinging by very close to the screen so the logo is in your face. (Showing off the 3D). Another way the logo is in your face is by being very colourful with a black background making the colours stand out more. Overall I think this is a good ident because the music lines up well with the animation and it uses the 3D well.
Tron: Legacy, Walt Disney Pictures (2010)
In this ident the classic Disney castle has been given a Tron makeover. The twilight, calmly lit castle, background fireworks and prestige landscape have all gone. They have been replaced with sterile black metallic flooring, a cloudy stormy sky and the castle is now lit with blue holographic lights. The once warm look of the Disney logo is now cold and harsh which fits perfectly into the digital world that is Tron: legacy. Since the last Tron was released in the 80's and this is being played before the Tron: legacy movie this is giving the indirection that this is more serious and grown up, that the Tron world has moved on since the 80's. Overall I feel this is a very good ident as it has taken an iconic logo and giving it a very modern ominous look.
MTV (80's)
For this ident MTV took one of (if not the most) defining moment in mankind's history and turned in into their own my having Niel Armstrong plant an animated MTV flag on the moon. From a technical point this is a good ident. The moon landing footage has already been made so all MTV needed to do was to edit the original footage. Another point, you can hear the iconic words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" and then you see the MTV logo, implying that MTV is a giant leap forward for mankind. Personally I don't like the ident, it seems half done like no much effort when into it, but then again that could just be because of the limitations of editing I the 80's.
DMC closing 2D ident
The DMC closing ident appears infront of films at the cinema. The advert includes lots of colours and vibrent pictures to create a very eye catching look, the ident will be shown on the big screen so having a very colourful and busy ident makes sense. The silhouettes there are famous faces from the film industry such as Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood, Daniel Craig and a James Bond movie poster. Another feature is the background pictures of people in the cinema this relates to it's audience as after all it's being shown in a cinema. At the end the layers of vibrent pictures the logo comes onto the screen in a flash of light and shows the official DCM, what DCM stands for (Digital Cinema Media) and the DCM logo but only for 3 seconds. I find that this is more for companies rather than the general public. Overall I find this a good ident because it's eye catching due to the good use of colour, it contains small easter eggs such as the famous actors and the music works well with it.
NBC "Living colour" ident
For this ident NBC put a big emphasis on colour as this was aired in the 1960s when colour TV was new NBC obviously wanted to make a big deal about it. The coloured feathers and white peacock stand out a lot on the black background, this was intentional. The ident includes all the colours of the rainbow not just a select few and what NBC wants to say is that their channel has all the colours and all the channels meaning they are the best Tv channel in America. A noticeable feature would be that there is no text in the ident, this is because the logo is already very recognised throughout America and the world so text is not required to explain the logo. In conclusion I think this is a good ident, it's visually good due to all the colours (Especially back in the 60s) and what I find to be the most important is that it's very simple. One logo and one voice over, simplicity at it's best.
This ident is an introduction to movies on FIVE being sponsored by Playstation 3's "Mototstom Apocalypse". The animation in the ident is short and sweet but packed with features. It opens by showing a customized "Motorstorm Apocalypse" movie clip board, the board has yellow and black stripes but also is on fire. This would show the audience the game is dangerous and the fire could also communicate that the game features a lot of action, to back up this point there are a lot of sparks flying around the screen. In the background we can see red shipping container in the background, red also representing danger along with a metal fence giving the audience a sense of breaking out. The camera effect is quite shaky which is what you would expect from a racing game. The clipboard effect is a constant theme throughout PS3's campaign on FIVE and is also used for "Little big planet 2" and "Killzone 3".
Killzone 3
Like the ident above "killzone" is sponsoring movies on FIVE. It continues the theme set by the "Motorstrom: Apocalypse" ident. With the same set up as before with the clipboard, the "Killzone 3" modle features a chainsaw on the board which could relate to an in game feature. This would give the viewer an idea of an element in the game before they have seen any gameplay. The clipboard it's self is very run down and made of rusty metal, this would reflect the world the game is based in. plus the board has some bullet holes in it indercating it is an action game, most likley a first person shooter. The background is very dark and doesn't reveal much but it does fit in with the grudge type clipboard and helps set the overall tine of the game.
LittleBig planet 2
Carrying on with the movies theme, this is "Playstation 3's LittleBig planet 2" The game's name isn't mentioned until the very end but showing the iconic "Sack boy" character right at the start the audience will instantly recognise game this ident is about. In the background you can see a director's chair, stage lights and wires running across the ground interacting that this is set in a film studio. Again carrying over the movies theme. The ident is also humorous due to the "nobody puts sack boy in the corner" joke and Sack boy sticking his tongue out as the camera zooms in. The narrator for the ident is Stephan Fry who has a very recognisable voice and is also featured as a voice in the game. Overall I think this is a good ident as it's short, simple, has a fitting famous narrator and is comical.
BBC2's future Zoetrope (2007)
Aired in 2007 this is an animation of a classic Zoetrope with the slit as the two from BBC2's logo. I led this ident for a few reasons. Firstly there's a slight twist to it, it would appear that you were flying through an interesting future city with huge buildings, elevated trains and flying cars but once the camera pulls back you can see it's simply a series of pictures on the Zoetrope. The ident is interesting due to the visual element of the future city but also if you've never seen a Zoetrope before you now have a rough idea of how they work. The music that accompanies it sound quite sci-fi as it includes lots of digital sounds like the swoosh of the spaceships but there is also a layer of drums for a bigger impact. i feel this is a good ident because it includes the channel's logo, it's clever, it has a twist and the music is fitting.
Channel 4 (1982)
Channel 4's 1982 ident is using 3D animation, this would have been something new back in the 80's and you can tell they were making a big deal out of it. This ident was also followed by many of the same type, but with a different animation. You can see that Channel 4 wanted to ,push the 3D idea. The ident starts off as a still image and then a drum roll comes in to build suspense, the logo then explodes to the sound of trumpets and rotates in 3D space swinging by very close to the screen so the logo is in your face. (Showing off the 3D). Another way the logo is in your face is by being very colourful with a black background making the colours stand out more. Overall I think this is a good ident because the music lines up well with the animation and it uses the 3D well.
Tron: Legacy, Walt Disney Pictures (2010)
In this ident the classic Disney castle has been given a Tron makeover. The twilight, calmly lit castle, background fireworks and prestige landscape have all gone. They have been replaced with sterile black metallic flooring, a cloudy stormy sky and the castle is now lit with blue holographic lights. The once warm look of the Disney logo is now cold and harsh which fits perfectly into the digital world that is Tron: legacy. Since the last Tron was released in the 80's and this is being played before the Tron: legacy movie this is giving the indirection that this is more serious and grown up, that the Tron world has moved on since the 80's. Overall I feel this is a very good ident as it has taken an iconic logo and giving it a very modern ominous look.
MTV (80's)
For this ident MTV took one of (if not the most) defining moment in mankind's history and turned in into their own my having Niel Armstrong plant an animated MTV flag on the moon. From a technical point this is a good ident. The moon landing footage has already been made so all MTV needed to do was to edit the original footage. Another point, you can hear the iconic words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" and then you see the MTV logo, implying that MTV is a giant leap forward for mankind. Personally I don't like the ident, it seems half done like no much effort when into it, but then again that could just be because of the limitations of editing I the 80's.
DMC closing 2D ident
The DMC closing ident appears infront of films at the cinema. The advert includes lots of colours and vibrent pictures to create a very eye catching look, the ident will be shown on the big screen so having a very colourful and busy ident makes sense. The silhouettes there are famous faces from the film industry such as Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood, Daniel Craig and a James Bond movie poster. Another feature is the background pictures of people in the cinema this relates to it's audience as after all it's being shown in a cinema. At the end the layers of vibrent pictures the logo comes onto the screen in a flash of light and shows the official DCM, what DCM stands for (Digital Cinema Media) and the DCM logo but only for 3 seconds. I find that this is more for companies rather than the general public. Overall I find this a good ident because it's eye catching due to the good use of colour, it contains small easter eggs such as the famous actors and the music works well with it.
NBC "Living colour" ident
For this ident NBC put a big emphasis on colour as this was aired in the 1960s when colour TV was new NBC obviously wanted to make a big deal about it. The coloured feathers and white peacock stand out a lot on the black background, this was intentional. The ident includes all the colours of the rainbow not just a select few and what NBC wants to say is that their channel has all the colours and all the channels meaning they are the best Tv channel in America. A noticeable feature would be that there is no text in the ident, this is because the logo is already very recognised throughout America and the world so text is not required to explain the logo. In conclusion I think this is a good ident, it's visually good due to all the colours (Especially back in the 60s) and what I find to be the most important is that it's very simple. One logo and one voice over, simplicity at it's best.
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