Unit 33 Assignment 1

Principals of Animation

Arcs and Gravity are the main principals in Animation. Arcs are the shapes that your arms and legs make every time they move. Arcs are used within animation to make figurines and objects to make them seem more human like and alive. The principal of gravity is if an object is going to fall in an animation, it falls as if you were to drop something on the floor and follows the principal of gravity. But sometimes these principals can be broken, arcs may only be used in arms and not legs and visa versa, and the principal of gravity can be broken because an object could pause for a reaction, before gravity takes over.

Time is a key principal of animation because the more frames you use the smoother and better quality the animation will be, and the less frames you use can make it jerky and amateur looking and can make the objects/figurines look less life like. Persistence of vision is an illusion principal where the human eye is tricked into thinking it can see an animation such as a flip book.

Overlapping is another principal which is when a characters arms and legs are moving at the same time they can move at different rate. The principal of anticipation is a principal where if a character goes to jump, it has to bend its knees in anticipation of the jump because for a human, it's physically impossible to jump without bending your knees. Finally secondary actions are important in animation as well as the main action because it gives a scene more life and character, it helps the audience to understand a story better and brings more detail to the story but at the same time they don't take away the focus from the main action. 

Phenakisttoscope 1832

Zoetrope 1833

Kinetoscope 1889

Ray Harryhousen 1920

Object: Lucky Strike Cigarette Advert : Created by the Cigarette Company in 1948. 

Target Audience: Adults and cigarette smokers, cigarettes are only available to 18+.

Puppet: Hansel and Gretel : Opera Story - Created by RKO Radio Pictures in 1954. Target Audience of Adults because of the opera elements and children because Hansel and Gretel is a fairytale story often told to children.

Aardman Animations 1972

Claymation:Tim Burton's Vincent : Created by Tim Burton in 1982. Target Audience: Older children / young teens because its about a young boy and it has props of children's toys but it's for older children because it has elements of horror.

Claymation: Wallace and Grommet - Created by Nick Park of Aardman Animations in 1989.

Target Audience: children, teenagers and possibly young adults because it has elements of comedy and because it is animated children and young teenagers will like it. 

Live Action: Food - Created by Jans Svankmajer in 1992. Target Audience: Adults, mainly male because the characters are both men and adults because children may find it scary because of the elements of surrealism.  

Claymation: Bob the Builder - Created by Keith Chapman in 1998.

Target Audience: Children under 10, mainly boys because there's a lot of male characters and there are stereo typical boy elements such as tractors, diggers and the main character is a male builder. 

Copy of modern stop motion 2000s

Objects: Western Spagetti - Created by PES in 2008 Target audience : Older teenagers and adults because its about cooking, its surrealism might not be understood by children.

Lee Hardcastle 2010

Live action: Real Life Mario Kart - Created by Olivier Bolduc et Simon Lachapelle in 2012.

Target Audience: gaming fans and teenagers because mario kart is a very popular game and is a racing game which would appeal to that age range. 

Live action: Train : Drive by music video - Created by Alona Korakin in 2013.

Target Audience: Train fans and people under the age of 30 because the song is modern.

Analysis of Three Stop Motion Animations

Lucky Strike Cigarette Advert - 1948

It does not use the principal of arcs at all as they used the cigarettes being advertised but didn't give them limbs or faces, (0:42)

 but you still know that the cigarettes are meant to be people because of the voice over man who is describing the 'people' square dancing and the setting of the barn also suggest that the cigarettes are meant to be people. People could find this funny because of the surrealism.

But what the advert does have is persistence of vision. The advert flows really well which shows that more frames were used to add to the realism of the cigarettes dancing. They move so smoothly that it looks like thy have a life of their own.

Wallace and Gromit - 1989

The principal of gravity was definitely used in this claymation because there's a scene where Wallace goes down a shoot and there is no hesitation before gravity takes it toll. (2:01)

This makes the animation more realistic but also fantasy for the viewers because it will make viewers want to shoot out of their own beds and at their kitchen table.

The dog Gromit shows the use of overlaps as he can walk, turn his head and move his ears at the same time but at different rates.(3:32)

This is effective because Gromit being able to move his ears at the same time as his face gives us more of an idea of how he is feeling which we can tell is confused and then he becomes alert when his ears move.

Train: Drive By Music Video - 2013

There are a lot of secondary actions in this live action animation as the girl is sitting in busy streets and other public places where you can see passers by (0:04)

dogs and cars which is relative to the lyrics in the song which talks about different places in america and about driving.

The principal of time in this live action animation appears to be jerky and not smooth but this is effective because the girl holding the lyrics has to be in time with the song and therefore it actually looks good when you're watching it. 

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