Animal Magic

Task 1A: View and Analyse Techniques and Storylines

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Sleeping Beauty - 1959

Jason and the Argonauts - 1963

Suzy Snowflake - 1951

The Lost World - 1925

Aladdin - 1992

Monsters Inc. - 2001

Creature Comforts - 1989 / 2000

Zoetrope - Is one of several pre-cinema animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion.

Inventor - The basic drum-like form of the zoetrope was created in 1833 or 1834 by British mathematician William George Horner.

How it works - The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

Kinetiscope - The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device.

Inventor – The invention of kinetoscope is credited to Thomas A. Edison and William Dickson

How it works - a strip of film was passed rapidly between a lens and an electric light bulb while the viewer peered through a peephole. Behind the peephole was a spinning wheel with a narrow slit that acted as a shutter, permitting a momentary view of each of the 46 frames passing in front of the shutter every second. The result was a lifelike representation of persons and objects in motion

Praxinoscope - The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope.

Inventor - It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud.

How it works - Using a drum design which revolved, as with the Zoetrope, the images were viewed reflected in a prism of mirrors which rose from the centre of the drum. Each mirror as it passed flashed a clear image opposed to it. The result was perfect animation without the loss of luminosity in movement which was experienced with the Zoetrope.

Phenakistoscope - The phenakistoscope uses the persistence of motion principle to create an illusion of motion.

Inventor - Invention of fully working Phenakistoscope in credited to Joseph Plateau.

How it works - The phenakistoscope consisted of two discs mounted on the same axis. The first disc had slots around the edge, and the second contained drawings of successive action, drawn around the disc in concentric circles. Unlike Faraday's Wheel, whose pair of discs spun in opposite directions, a phenakistoscope's discs spin together in the same direction. When viewed in a mirror through the first disc's slots, the pictures on the second disc will appear to move.

Genre, Theme and Audience

Genre of my animation will be comedy / informative because it’s aimed at kids (U category). I will keep in a style of a cartoon, with moving background over static image because I feel it would help viewers to concentrate more on the message. I decided to talk over the animation about some of simple facts about the earth. The scripts goes as following:

Koala - Oh! Hey! How are you doing? I’m Koala bear and I would like to introduce my friend Piggie.

Piggie - Hello there! In todays episode we are going to tell you some fun facts about earth.

Koala - Did you know that the earth is the only planet that has liquid water on it’s surface?

Piggie - Oh yes and because of this, from a distance, Earth would be the brightest of the planets. This is because sunlight is reflected off the planet's water.

Koala - Oh really? That’s very interesting, but did you know that the earth is almost five billion years old?

Piggie - Koala, you know some very interesting facts about our earth. Do you know when was the first photo of Earth taken from space?

Koala - Yes, it was before December, 1968, people really had no idea what the Earth looked like from space until they saw the first photo.

Piggie - Wow, that’s amazing! Thank you for this facts Koala.

Koala - Wow, our work is koality.

Animation Characters Concept

I have done a research on other peoples work and I came up with my own characters.

https://uk.pinterest.com/karabiowski/animal-balloons-project/

Those are concept characters for my "Animal Magic" animation. I have been inspired by my previous animation which was balloon based yet this time they have been modified. I have included more facial features to give them that animal look.

Then I had a go at roughly making my characters using Adobe Illustrator. The results didn't have to be perfect as it was only a draft but at this stage I knew sticking with balloons will create a nice effect.

Finally I have developed 4 characters which will be used in making my final production, they have been created using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

After making and polishing my characters I decided to locate my animation in space. I have used tracing techniques in Adobe Illustrator to achieve "cartoonish" effect so it falls into U category animation. I am very impressed with my work so far.

Initial location ideas.

Further location ideas.

Evaluation

The theme of my project is animal magic, my personal interpretation

The theme of my project is animal magic. First idea that came to my head was a “Balloon Town” which is self-explanatory. It was based in a town full of balloons which had their own characteristics and purpose. Then I came up with my final idea which is very similar to “Balloon Town” but instead of creating a balloon town I have created globe and put 4 characters around it. A koala bear, tiger, pig and chicken. I got inspired by a circular graph I saw on Facebook a while ago which had facts and figures represented on its timeline. So I thought why not make an animation like this which will represent animals life. The only reference material I looked at was my previous animation which also was made using balloon figures, but this time I combined both balloons and animals and I think it worked great.

I have developed a variety of skills when using computer programs like Adobe After Effects or Adobe Illustrator. I did it by watching YouTube tutorials which I have linked on my Pinterest account. I also made a lot of progress by experimenting with tools by myself and I surely will “show it off” while producing very final stage of my animation.

There are 2 main aspects of this project that I will try to develop further in my own time. The first and main one is developing entirely new idea from scratch and second but not least is making it to very high standard.

Animation

I have done my animation using Adobe Master Collection, it involved programs such as: Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro and Audition. Took around 3 hours to make and another 20 minutes to render. That's the best animation I made so far. I hopefully will use experience gained through making it in my future productions, especially "stars" which are right behind the earth.