Pixilation

Pixilation

Pixilation is a form of stop motion where live actors are used in an animated film. The actors pose repeatedly whilst one or more frames are being taking, only slightly changing their pose each time. The actor is almost a puppet. The technique is often used to blend the actors in with animated characters. The technique was earliest known in 1908 el ‘hotel electrico’. Here is a clip from the film where there are live actors in the film but also objects being moved around.

The technique is simple simply move the objects or actors slightly in front of a camera, shooting one frame at a time. Then you simply play the images in a sequence, playing the frames at a fast rate to give the illusion of movement. Here is another example by Yuval and Merav Nathan called ‘Her morning elegance’.

This type of stop motion animation was there from the beginning of animation history. Animator Norman McLaren made a short film ‘neighbours’, he was very experimental when it came to animation. Here is a clip showing how Norman McLaren made people fly without any of the fancy software used now.

Before computers were involved with the improvement of animation, pixilation was 3D whereas a bit later on drawings were used an example of where drawings were used is ‘the snowman’ in 1982. However when you see real people flying not drawings the audience are more amazed, which was one of the first examples of animated special effects.

Stings

MTV Stings
 

There are five different stings in the video link below, they are all different MTV stings however, they are all quite similar. 3 of the stings are quite similar because they all contain animated characters doing dance routines to the music that is playing in the background. This relates to the programme because the channel is a music channel. The other two stings in the video are also of different little animated characters singing; this is also relevant to the channel because the music videos that feature on the programme contain a lot of singing and dancing. The colours used in all of the stings are very bright and colourful, making them eye catching, I feel that these colours relate to the target audience, who are generally teenagers and young adults, because teenagers don’t like bland colours, and bright colours attract the target audiences attention.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmSVTPHHIw

BBC3 Stings

This particular sting for bbc 3 relates to the channel, there is no particular colour theme for bbc 3. Plain colours have been used for the background, this makes the orange colours stand out, so you are focused on the bright orange characters spread out in front of the big 3d wording three. You are focused on the song that the characters are singing ‘three is a magic number’. I like this sting because it is creative and different, from all of the three stings I have watched it is like they are suggesting that three is a separate world; possible suggesting that it is different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z34XUDTz0GQ&feature=related

E4 Stings

E4 Stings

Sting One

From looking at this ident, the creator has used an everyday scene of a living room, which everyone can relate to. Then the TV turns on possibly showing E4 and strange things start happening in the living room. I think that this suggesting that when E4 comes on everything comes to life, for example trees start growing out of the floors and the room turns mostly purple and white which are the colours of the E4 logo, which relates the programme to the specific ident. I like this advert because it is original and different although I feel it has the hidden message that when E4 comes on everything comes to life. Although others may find the ident random and confusing as to why some of the objects are featured in this ident.

http://www.youtube.com/user/e4idents#p/u/14/hOw4i-UB8Lw

Sting Two

This ident has been created with the game pacman in mind. Pacman is a traditional but very popular game, so it grabs the audience’s attention as they can relate to the ident. Once again the colours of the E4 logo is used throughout the ident to show the relation to the e4 channel. I like the way the pacman layout is the e4 logo which you soon discover is the shape of the top of the building that the game is taking place on. So the entire ident shows the e4 logo throughout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIUerczEhJM&NR=1

Sting Three

This particular sting is relevant to a certain thing that happens on e4 which is the Monday movie night, I like the way the animation in the sting is relevant to what e4 are promoting, for example when you think of a cinema or watching a movie, most people immediately think of popcorn. The colours are consistent throughout the sting, the colours are mostly purple and white except for the popcorn. Although others may feel that the sting is basic and obvious, compared to the other two stings above which i feel are more creative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc2IIXZw068&NR=1

Silhouette Animation

Silhouette Animation

Silhouette animation is a very simple and effective type of stop motion animation. Silhouette animation is when characters are only visible as black silhouettes; this is usually created by clever backlighting and cardboard cut outs.

Here is an example of a still image taken from a silhouette animated film. The characters don't have an ernormous amount of detail as their facial and body features are not shown, just the outline of the characters are shown.

Silhouette animation can also be a very time consuming as a lot of silhouette animation is hand drawn, each drawing is only changed slightly, then a picture is taken of each drawing and they are put together. On average an hours worth of drawing would only be about 3-4 seconds of footage.

The earliest film made using silhouette animation was 'The sporting mice' which was made 1909 by a british filmmaker Charles Armstrong. The film was about a group of mice.

Here is an example of a short story made by using silhouette animation:

From looking at this particular animation you can see that the characters and teh backgrounds were hand drawn and then the animals were separate drawings and were moved around slightly, with a lot of still images being taken. You can see that detail within the outline of the characters isn't key because they are not shown, whereas the outline is the key to making a great and detailed silhouette animation.

Object Animation

Object Animation

Object animation is another form of stop motion animation, it involves an animation being created by using non-drawn objects such as toys and dolls. It’s quite similar to clay animation only the characters and the backgrounds and not fully malleable, they are also not designed to look like recognizable charcaters.

The reasons for object animation being different to model and puppet animation are due to that in object animation the characters are not recognizable as they use objects like Lego and playmobil. Whereas in puppet and model animation the characters are recognizable.

However object animation is often used with puppet animation, for example, you can animate a train moving, but sometimes to create an animation with more depth, there is often an animated character.

The use of animated objects in TV shows and film has been used since the early days of the cinema.

The technique is very similar to other forms of stop motion, the dolls or toys are moved slightly each time, and then a still picture is taken to capture the little movements that the objects are making, the images are then put together and they are played quickly to give the effect that the toys or dolls are in motion.

As you can see the expressions on the dolls faces cannot be changed when the character is speaking, due to the fact that the dolls are not as malleable as clay or other forms of stop motion. Object animation is still used today, mostly on kid’s programs including cartoon network and other baby shows including toy bears and lego.

Cut-out Animation

Cut-out Animation


Cut-out animation is another form of stop motion animation, it is one of the oldest forms of animation, and was one of the easiest to create. Cut- out animation involves having characters cut into different sections, for example the head, body, arms and legs would all be different shapes, because having them in different shapes makes it easier to change the character for example if you wanted them to wave to somebody, you wouldn’t have to draw the character fully again. Not just the characters are cut outs but also the backgrounds are made from materials such as cardboard, fabric and sometimes photographs.
The technique is very similar to clay animation only cut out animation is 2D, but it still involves moving the characters and the background slightly and taking still images, then placing them together, with a minimum of 10 frames per second to create the illusion of motion. An example of traditional cut out animation is the first ever episode of ‘South Park’.

However due to technology, cut-out animation is produced using computers. Scanned images and vector graphics have taken over the traditional paper cut-outs. The image is a lot clearer with animations created on the computer, as you will see in the next video, which is a recent episode of ‘South Park’, you will clearly see the improvements made in cut-out animation.

 In the recent episode's the writing is computerised not hand drawn, like the first episode of 'South Park'. Other features that are noticable are the colours are more bold and solid, but the most noticable feature is that the image and sound are much more clearer than the traditional way of cut-out animation.

Clay Animation

 Clay Animation


Clay animation is one form of stop motion animation. It’s a very traditional way of creating an animation, it involves taking a series of still pictures of the figures, then putting the pictures together and playing the frames back at a rate of 10-12 frames per second to create the illusion of movement. The characters and sometimes the background are made of a malleable substance such as clay, so the figures are easy to change. The procress involved is very time consuming and thought provoking.

The technique is very simple, each figure is usually made of clay around a armature, so that the figures stay strong but can also easily change shape when played with. The technique involves the figures being placed around a background, the figures are constantly moved slightly by hand, after each movement a still picture is taken. This is repeated around 64,800 times for a full length 90 minute film, very time consuming, but the technique is successful. One popular animated film created by clay animation is ‘Wallace and Gromit’.

From looking at this clip, you can see that the figures and the most of the background is made from a malleable substance, however even if you watch the clip closely, you can’t tell that the film has been made using stop motion because the human mind processes the series of still images as motion, making the objects and figures look like they are moving.