Throughout years, stop motion has been available and created
for telling stories, truths educating and entertaining. There are many ways to
present animation and ways of using it, from this, it will be a simple way to
understand the different ways it can be used and presented.
Purpose
Educate
There are a lot of ways to educate people, a lot of them
work harder than others to put messages across, this is because many people who
like to watch educational videos that are presented in an animated way are
children and they wouldn’t want lists of information, rather characters and an
engaging story that by the end of it, would have learned something. There are
far more TV shows than films that try to create an animation for this purpose;
however there are companies such as Pixar that follow the line of entertainment
yet teaches people young and old something that they never knew before, for
example, their first film, Toy Story, has a group of toys that come alive but
one goes missing and the other must bring him back, this film seems simple but
it teaches children about abandonment, progress, reckless cruelty and
friendship, films made by this studio deals large educational lessons for
people of all ages making them a better person by the end. Moving onto shows,
as there are far more of them than films that educate is something like Dora
the explorer, a far more childish show than adult show, but it does teach
children to read maps, new words in a different language and problem solving,
shows like this teaches people about simplistic education, more to the side of
education than entertainment and has people interact, having them repeat words
and phrases, teaching them not only lessons after the showing, but also during.
Entertain
All shows attempt to do this, you must provide a fun
experience for the viewer if not educational, or else what is the point? Shows
that can entertain succeed far greater than the films and TV that doesn’t. This
reason for animation must provide an escape for the viewer, and as stress can
follow people through life and problematic occurrences happen through life,
entertainment must be provided towards all ages, animated films have provided
entertainment since its existence, popular movies that have been released from
a studio such as Dream Works, BBC, Pixar, Warner Brothers, Disney etc. A very
popular and long living programme that is drawn animation is ‘Looney Tunes’
this show is built up of the premise of expectation and the breaking of that
expectation. It is a simplistic show, but very entertaining show that provides
a space, no matter what age you are, language is rarely used, so a language
barrier is hardly shown, it can provide entertainment for all ages and
languages, a perfect way of giving entertainment for everyone with a breakneck
pace, keeping concentration, not creating boredom.
Inform
Most people that want to be informed of the world would
probably want to know by the time they become late teenagers, this can also be
applied for animated information, a show that comes to mind that provides
informative, relevant information for that time would be South Park, they have
been able to tackle many instances of history and are able to tackle topics
that happen straight away as they make a show before its due air date a week
prior, keeping an in the moment catch up of what is going on without having to
check the news for the information, this show is great for information and
entertainment, more adult entertainment, and can be easily proven as they are
already on their 22nd season and show no stopping. Programs or films
that can provide informative means in an animation is usually telling stories
of present day or large historical instances.
Uses and Audience
Feature films are made to entertain most of all and provides
escape with dilemmas in the film. A film such as ‘how to train your dragon’
provides entertainment and is made targeting towards children at eight and
above, feature films provides a way of entertaining visual story telling. Other
feature films that provide animation in them is Jason and the Argonauts, this
way made far before the other example but does the same job, this film however
adds real taken footage as well as animation, combining them to try and make it
look realistic as possible rather than creating its own world, this proves that
there are many reasons to create an animated film, the audience for ‘Jason
and…’ is all ages preferable twelve and above as it contains action that may
not be suitable for children and frightening images, the film has provided
entertainment that would have taken a large amount of time to create. There are
many positives to creating a feature film, people who work hard on the project,
if goes well and all aspects of the film is don to a great standard, you have a
film that will be remembered for large amounts of years, take 2001 A Space
Odyssey as an example, a film just celebrating its 50th year since
release with all seats filled in cinemas to celebrate, a 1968 Kubrick film that
still captivates after hundreds of viewings. If it goes well with critics and
audiences and brings large amounts of people, you are guaranteed you money back
and a profit from the film. However, there are some negatives to this way of
showing, it can take years to decades for one film if done right, a lot of hard
work from many people meaning large payments, losing money, if the film goes
badly with people, they and the studios will remember that. It can take a very
long time Harryhausen stating
stating "we usually took six months to lay our pictures out". This proves that its not a few days task to create animaiton for a feature film, but if done right, money, offers and applause will be given to the film.
Advertising is a simple, quick and easy way of creating a way of informing people about the new or re-released products or services from the company. An example of animation used in an advert was when the muppets had been involved with an advert released by Warburtons, it is a short but memorable advert having the ability to separate themselves from other adverts as they have a recognisable feature and a often used product. The benefits of advertising is to sum up the new products with an ability of using a small amount of money and takes little amount time to create drawbacks to this is that it can become costly depending on what you’re making, another drawback is that the money would be coming out of the companies pocket, making no profit from the advert itself.
Advertising is a simple, quick and easy way of creating a way of informing people about the new or re-released products or services from the company. An example of animation used in an advert was when the muppets had been involved with an advert released by Warburtons, it is a short but memorable advert having the ability to separate themselves from other adverts as they have a recognisable feature and a often used product. The benefits of advertising is to sum up the new products with an ability of using a small amount of money and takes little amount time to create drawbacks to this is that it can become costly depending on what you’re making, another drawback is that the money would be coming out of the companies pocket, making no profit from the advert itself.
Computer
games has the ability of providing mostly entertainment and sometimes
education. Computer games creates an escape with a necessary interaction
between the player and the game involving involvement with the audience. As all
games are computer generated and has people working on graphics, it can be
considered an animation as it isn’t usually live action and rather tries to
imitate real life with realistic graphics, a game such as Red Dead Redemption
provides entertainment for the player and education from the times its was set,
it informs the audience of what used to happen at the times and what society
was like during 1905 of the southern end of North America. Many games have been
able to gain more money from the people buying than it takes to make the game.
There are benefits to making a computer game, you can make an interactive based
form of media having people taking long time involvement into the project with
an established brand, you can bring in a large sum of money from one game.
There are however many drawbacks to making a computer game and that is there
must be a large involvement with the game, people may try to break or cheat the
game ruining it for others such as a multiplayer based platform. Big amounts of
money must be put into the game needing to set the game at a high amount of
money for purchase, but people may be put off by the price so that reduces a
positive amount of income, many things are at stake such as time and money into
the use of animation for this sort of way, but if done well and noticed from
many people, you can bring in more money than you would with something such as
a feature film, depending on the price set for the computer game, large scale games such as a
Rockstar game would be priced around £50 but a large amount of money to put
into it, you just have to have realistic expectations for the project and the
amount of people that will pay for and play for, affecting the audience
attitude to the game.
Techniques and formats
Claymation is an animation that involves people molding and
caring pieces of clay, usually wet during the creation of the object and is
made into a desired shape with a addition objects such as buttons and once
waited for dry you take a picture of it, then you can re mold it for the
pieces you want to move for the next frame which is preferred than the later
which is remaking the mold, which may be necessary if changing its color or
scale of the object. A film such as ‘Coraline’ uses Claymation animation as a
way for its storytelling, Claymation adds a certain way of animation and proves
that work has been put into them, when seen in detail, you can find finger
prints in places proving that it was sculpted with people, although taking you
out of the story, but admiring the work put into it. Wallace and Gromit is also
made from play and it shown to add a cartoony appearance to the short films.
This takes little time and effort compared to other works of animation if you
keep one sculptor for one thing such as one Wallace and one Gromit, making them
isn’t entirely tricky but many things can go wrong such as parts breaking away
and the mold becoming noticeably changed taking audiences out of the film
experience.
Found objects is probably the easiest way of animating, it
needs no screen involvement from people or changing or creating things, you
just take an object such as a lamp and move it slightly through each frame 12
times per second (1 hot lingering for two or more frames). This style of
animation is good for a simplistic way of introduction to animation on a
practical level, you traditionally would work harder with larger objects when
making a feature length film with a story and characters in a found object
animation, but it is usually used for small projects such as small promotional
adverts or video projects that you want to make in a day. You would then
probably go onto showing friends and family and that is where the audience
would start and end, it’s a simple way of animation but still a way for people
to get into it in the easiest less time-consuming way.
Cut out animation is like found objects but way harder, you
first must draw a rough design of the object, places and people, you usually
make separate legs, arms etc to match the movement of a leg or an arm. As it is
a cut out animation, it would be shot from a bird view of the flat pieces of
card/paper. Shows such as South park had made its first episode as a cut out
animation, and although quickly moving onto computer graphic design, they keep
the cut-out design of the show. This process is very time consuming if you’re
making a 10-20-minute project, you shoot it as a found object way (12 shots per
second). Although what you make is dependent of what you can make, it can
become very hard to replicate the same arm 12 times in a slightly different
way. Cut out animation is like a combination of Claymation and found objects,
you cut instead of carving and you shoot it at a 1 shot per 2 frame basis for
traditional quick movement for animation.
Task 2 bibliography
Joe can you add the clips to match up with your written elements. This will allow you to use the clips to help describe the points you are making. Some greater discussion of the contemporary practitioners and their use of models how they communicate to different audiences who those audiences are. How do the early pioneers inventions help todays animators? Well done on the bibliography this will certainly save time at the end.
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