Animation
has gone through a large amount of stages to be where it is today, without many
people adding their contribution, it may not be where it is today, this task is
a simple way to understand of some of the techniques and the people who have
made contributions to what animation has become through the early stages for
its creation of moving images.
Techniques
Persistence
of vision
The
persistence of vision refers to the phenomenon that once you have seen an image
for around a split second and goes away, you mind would still be able to
imagine the picture. If you were to use a Thaumatrope, which would be something
where somebody would draw on both sides of a piece of paper two different
images, so if you were to draw a bird on one side and a cage in another and
spin the paper, it would create the illusion of the bird being inside the cage.
Throughout early years in animation and film, people had assumed that it was
that technique which was what people were doing, instead of creating a sequence
of pictures and connect run them in order. As early films had white and black
points of nothing in the film, people had thought that was where other images
would be.
Stop Frame
Stop framing
is the technique where in animation, you would set up a physical object(s) and
taking a picture of it, then you would move it slightly to another area and
take another picture, when you do this enough times, you would collect a list
of images, when you connect them and run them through a projector or video, it
would seem like movement instead of a collection of still images, each image
would last a frame or two, this technique can still be used today and during
1997 the show South park had used this technique for the cheapest way, however
this can take an extreme amount of time to do.
Frame Rate
It refers to the amount of frames, a still image, per second, if you were to pause a film, you would be paused at a specific frame of the second of the film, usually a film would consist of 24-25 frames per second, with TV standards being 30fps (frames per second). The more amount of frames per second means that it would be harder to create for animation, harder to edit but does make the film look smoother in movement. Frames have existed for as long as films has been around, the frame contains the still image and without frame rates you would just be watching a still image rather than a bunch per second to create the illusion of moving image.
It refers to the amount of frames, a still image, per second, if you were to pause a film, you would be paused at a specific frame of the second of the film, usually a film would consist of 24-25 frames per second, with TV standards being 30fps (frames per second). The more amount of frames per second means that it would be harder to create for animation, harder to edit but does make the film look smoother in movement. Frames have existed for as long as films has been around, the frame contains the still image and without frame rates you would just be watching a still image rather than a bunch per second to create the illusion of moving image.
Pioneers
Joseph
Plateau (Phenakistoscope)
Emile
Raynaud (Praxinoscope)
Creating the invention, the Praxinoscope, had been created during the 19th
century, the Praxinoscope contained 12 frames of images slightly different than
the other, the same kind of way the Phenakistoscope was, instead the images
faced inwards and in the centre of the wheel an amount of mirrors, this way the
mirrors can reach into a camera and when it goes through the lenses inside the
camera, it can be projected onto a screen/ flat surface. Emile Reynaud had made
seven short films from 1892-1896, his most famous short films was called Pauvre
Pierrot (1892) it’s about two lovers an Pierrot comes into the room and starts
singing and the two of them scare him away, during the 1800’s when film was
just introduced to the world, it wasn’t used as
storytelling convention that it is today and more of a way of people to
fool around with the new technology and test capabilities, hence why there is a
shortage of storytelling in the film, the story is shot as an animation and was
one of the first of its kind to be shown in film form. The film was originally
15 minutes long but today has been restored with 5 minutes’ length. The film is
shot simplistically with one background and only the 3 characters moving.
George Pal
An American animator/ director; he had been involved within the sci-fi,
horror genre, he was mostly known for contribution to the films: The time
machine (1960), The war of the worlds (1953) and When worlds collide (1951), he
has made many other films from 1934-1964 collecting contribution credit from
large amounts of films, his most popular three films are still held to high
praise and had won many awards during their releases. George Pal is one of the
most known pioneers that used models and stop motion in film while including
raw footage, he would make the film and then add all of the models and have
them effect the world. War of the Worlds had been created with the help of
Shepperton Studios, and from that point, the studio had received huge
popularity and had become one of the best film based studios in England.
Academy Film Archives has been trying to preserve George Pal’s films, when
George Pal had died at 72, he was working on a film called The Voyage to the
Berg which has never been finished.
Developers
Willis
O’Brien
Throughout
his life he had always gravitated towards being a cartoonist, during his teen
years and later in his life a sculptor, this would become key parts to his
films and what makes his projects so iconic. He would create human and animal
sculptures, practicing this craft only getting better at it. Willis had the
idea of applying molded rubber on the outer layer of his sculptors, this way
he could give a style and character to his creations and a good amount of
movement and stability to them. Once he released films such as King Kong (1933)
it had become a ground-breaking and iconic film, it was something that people
had never seen before. To this day his work is still talked about, he has also
contributed his work into other films such as ‘The Beast of Hollow Mountain’
(1956) and ‘The Lost World’ (1925). He
had made a great contribution to the development of stop motion animation.
However, in current day, when compared to effects with computer graphics or
other animated with real effects, such as 2005 King Kong, it becomes obvious
that the effects that were appreciated at the time seem dated and wouldn’t be
able to hold up to the standards of today’s time. His films had been able to
tell stories that have been repeated by Spielberg and Peter Jackson, proving
that he wouldn’t fall into putting animation onto the screen for no reason and
he would try to impact the story and most of the screen time. The animations
would interact with the real world creating the illusion that it there is actually
a 500 ft gorilla swatting planes out of the sky, when you have the animation
contribute to the world it becomes much more believable, Willis O’Brien’s work
during the time created such an impact that most people consider him the best
at the time with people still discovering and appreciating his work, as much as
it is dated today, he brought animation effects into film in a big way, creating imitators of his work for decades since. Today there have been other creators that has used sculptors in the same approach, such as, a recent example was the 2015 film 'Shaun the Sheep', where the entire film was made with sculptors and used the approach of stop motion animation complex stage sets and character formations, slowly moving body parts at a time, going frame by frame to create an animation that would be as seamless as possible, the same approach Willis had used throughout his career.
Ray
Harryhausen
R.
Harryhausen has become one of the most recognizable names in developing visual
effects of film, while on his first film he worked with George Pal he certainly
became his own. Harryhausen had been able to revolutionize the realism of real
and animation coming together. Everything in his films felt real and they still
do today, he had fine detail to his work. He was able to capture the power of
the effects that nobody had been able to since and many fail to recreate, to
call him the master of visual effects is an understatement with effects from
his films during 1970’s and 80’s still being able to hold up, nothing felt as
so real at the time with animation and is still appreciated today for what a
technical marvel it was and is. With color coming into film he was able to
make effects seem more real than what George Pal could do at the time, while
with George Pal you could separate belief between people and monsters, with Ry
Harryhausen there wasn’t a difference, and everything seemed to just exist. His
work still has the ability to capture attention and seem realistic today. Ray
had brought back classic monsters into relevance with dinosaurs, Minotaur's and
cyclops’s making appearances into his film, with the amount of detail having to
be worked into his figures for months as they would need to be increased in
size when adding it into the film it would seem like the hard work of millions
to capture the effects he could pull off with each film. With the battle of seeming seamless, filmmakers today have tried to make the quickest work possible and yet still seem as realistic as what Ray had achieved throughout his career; introduce CGI, Computer generated effects have revolutionized what we could see, yet still keeps the basis of trying to seam realistic and still keeping the approach of small details at a time, a lot of films use CGI today, from large blockbuster films such as 'Transformers' to smaller films such as 'Pans Labyrinth' that uses a mix of CGI and practical effects, it is clear that Ray Harryhausen had impacted large amounts of filmmakers to try harder and get better and realistic results.
Jan Švankmajer
Jan S. had studied at the Institute of Industrial Arts during the 1950’s and soon became a theater director, quickly moving onto film making with animation/ Visual effects. Jan has contributed to very bizarre foreign film making, and something that doesn’t fit to mainstream audience and is very underappreciated for his work. He has a very specific way of using animation more precisely stop motion with real world people and objects. Jan S. would use specific ways characters would walk and interact with the world according to the character, with a film like Alice, most of the time animators would try to make as close to a replicate miniature size of the actor as accurate as they can, or if they had to use a doll, they would stay away from close ups or anything to slide the audiences belief for the effects. However, this is what sets him apart of the crowd, he has been able to develop his own way of using unrealistic and unconvincing objects to fit with the world, so instead of having the animation try to mimic realistic frame movement, as much as he has, he instead uses stop motion of real people just to blur the lines of realism on things that are in fact real, an effect that becomes obvious during the film ‘Alice’ (1988). Having to make the effects seem real is way too much work, but he tries to make it as convincing as possible but within the film ‘Alice’ he uses a close up on a look alike doll of the actor we see previously and with his style so out of the ordinary, it just becomes convincing in a bizarre way. When you watch his films, they don’t look realistic, but it doesn’t seem to matter, but when he uses dolls to represent dolls moving, or paintings moving in a book it looks real because that’s what he did and that is what it is. His style could be compared with people such as Monty Python, you don’t believe that the animation exists, but his style is so out of the ordinary and made to not look realistic, you just have a new appreciation for this style of visual effects. Jan has made other films such as Greedy Guts and Lesson Faust, some of his early work easily grounding him in his own style of visual effects. His films hold up because he does the complete opposite as George Pal and Ray Harryhausen, he makes a world that you buy into in a weird way, he is still taking on projects today, with an opportunity to make better work he is a developer that’s still going strong in the industry.
Contemporary
Tim Burton
Tim Burton
is one of the most famous directors making marks with films like Batman, Edward
Scissorhands and other large successful films. But there is a part in his work
that involves animation, weather that be recreating Gotham city, making an
alien species in ‘mars attacks!’, or making fully animated films such as
‘Corpse Bride’ and ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ he is a working director today
and is still announcing new projects. His films such as ‘Corpse Bride’ which is
fully animated stop motion film is still an impressive film released in 2005, a
film that cost 40 million dollars to make with only making back 53 million in
the U.S gross, it had become a success worldwide bringing in 117 million
dollars; Corpse Bride is still a film watched by many today, this shows that
many people enjoy Burtons work and has his own kind of fan base that watches anything
he releases when he can make things like Batman and Beetlejuice and still be
able to make stop motion animated films that is still able to become an initial
success. with impressive effects and obvious work and care put into the film as
well as his other animated work. He is a respectful and successful filmmaker.
As a contemporary animator he hasn’t really developed the animation filmmaking
process as much as many before him has, instead he contributes to the art by
widening the amount of entertainment and accessibility to the art he can, he
has been able to tackle large challenges with a good crew and can provide
entertaining content, that will probably still hold respect and relevancy for
years to come. Tim Burton has added to the pile of animations used in films and
I can respect what he does, if it cant be achieved in real form, he will
animate what he want to show instead, many directors would call computer
graphics teams and that would be the end of it with a pleasing finished effect,
but instead he uses resources to capture the effect with real sources and
therefore becomes more believable, because its actually there, this becomes
notable with his 1988 film Beetlejuice. If there isn’t a Gotham city for his
batman movie, he will build the set from scratch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6IPeC5xcmo , its large efforts like this that
makes his films more enjoyable and can appreciate the work put into his film
and animated films.
Nick Parks
Born in
England, he had become a producer and writer for classic animation such as
‘Chicken run’ and ‘Wallace and Gromit’, classic English animations with a
recognisable and unique design to them. With recent releases of curse of the
were-rabbit in 2005 and a close shave in 1995, they seemed to leave a print on
todays animation as they have become widely known as a household name. The
curse of the were- rabbit having a budget of 20 million dollars, it had been
able to bring in a large sum of 192 million dollars, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312004/?ref_=nm_knf_i1 proving that it was heavily watched
at the time of its cinema release, when viewing the behind the scenes footage
of the animations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLVSEVQlXPA it is clear to understand the work
put into the film, how long it would take to set up a scene of a buildings
exterior that would last around 2 minutes in the film can take months to film
and moths to prepare. It is this kind of pain staking work put into the films
that give this style of animation such fluidity and doesn’t seem to linger on
frames as much as Tim Burtons work or George Pals work would. This sets a high
expectation for the studio Nick Parks that they have created themselves that
pressures them into not failing, as they have a very large audience that they
are dependent on for the film’s success. It sure shows the work put into the
film pays off with large recognition and respect for the large fanbase that
Nick Parks and the crew of the film have been able to acquire over the years.
Bibliography
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