Andy's Comment

Andy did try and comment on my blog last week but I’d somehow blocked him from doing that, so here is his comment and my response:

Andy: “Fantasia is a flawed film, but I'm glad you've begun to appreciate some of the technical mastery of the animators in that studio. I'd be interested on your thoughts of how you progressed in your understanding of animation in the two tasks you did on Tuesday. Svankmajer is a fascinating animator. If you like the darkness of his films you may also enjoy the Quay Brothers. Some good thoughts in your blog, keep it up.”

Right… the two tasks last week where my fist proper attempt at 2D animation, everything I have done up to this point has been 3D, so I was a bit daunted by it. However, I have had a quick flick through Richard William’s The Animator’s Survival Kit so I had a rough idea of what I was doing. In the first task, with the heavy character, I put a lot of work into the anticipation of the jump and was reasonably happy with the result, although I did loose the proportions of the figure a bit. The jump was not very good as it just seemed that the character was gliding through the air and the fall was too slow. I was able to correct the fall by editing out some of the drawings. With the landing I had similar problems as I did with the anticipation; where the figure became too distorted.

For the second task I tried to correct the problems with the jump by adjusting the arc and using fewer drawings, this did improve things but I still don’t feel that there right and I messed up the vibrations in the board; instead of moving with the character during the anticipation it just started vibrating when they jumped.

This week I had the advantage of having seen Fantasia and have tried to use much more subtle ‘stretch and squash’. It’s hard to gauge at this point how effectively I have done this as the animation is still a work in progress; but there are some bits that I am quite happy with as well as other bits that I am not too pleased with and I am begging to get the feeling that I might have been a bit over ambitious with this task. If I can I will try and scan some frames from it tomorrow.

I did some research on the Quay brothers last year, I have not had a chance to look at any of their work this week but I remember liking a lot of their work and being impressed by the their lighting techniques, especially in Nocturna Articificialia (1979), couldn’t find this on the internet but there are some interesting interviews. I will hopefully get a chance to pop into the library at some point to see if I can find some of their films.

Continuing From Yesturday

Continuing from where I left off yesterday but moving on from Fantasia. I have started to really get into the idea of showing movement in animation; have just ordered Timing for Animation. Quite liked the rotoscoping that was used in Fleischer’s Betty Boop’s Snow White, I thought that it achieved a really fluid and natural movement, which I suppose it would considering it was taken from real life. Not sure what opportunities I will have to experiment with something like this, although I imagine its not hard to film something and then put it into a computer programme.

I also liked the animation in the Svankmajer piece, Jabberwocky is not one of my favourites in terms of something to watch but I think that the animation is excellent. Two of my favourites are Dimensions of a Dialogue and Picnic With Weismann (1969). In both of these I like the sinister feel as well as the way that Svankmajer anthropomorphises everyday objects and makes them believable characters. The clay work in Dimensions of a Dialogue is also really good.

Fantasia

Just got back from the studio, still a bit spaced out after watching Fantasia, and thought I would do this. Never really been a Disney fan; find most of the films too soppy but over the last week or so I have gained more of an appreciation for the technical aspect of the films especially after watching Fantasia and attempting to do the animation yesterday. I definitely want to look further into the work of Art Babbit and Preston Blair; I thought the scene with the hippo dancing had a really good sense of weight as well as how well the animation was synced with the soundtrack throughout the entire film. Other scenes from the film that I liked where the way that the reflection of the flowers in the water where captured and how their movement resembled dancers. I especially liked the varying textures, such as the glossy quality of the snowflakes and the contrast between the lava and the water in the dinosaur bit. Got more stuff I want to say on this but a bit rushed at the moment so will try and do it tomorrow.

Motion Studies

Got lots of stuff to work on after motion studies yesterday:

need to start using more confident lines as more drawings are looking a bit hesitent and overworked - might try some more contour drawings to develop this
also want to practice doing some 360 turnarounds - got a feeling that my flatmates may have to be roped into posing for that.

Testing

Just testing that this works and to give general update of whats going on

still reading Eisenstein's 'The Film Sense' a bit confusing in places but i'm getting some useful info out of it
trying to develop my sketches for motion studies; moving away from my character and focusing more on movement and experimenting with differant materials