Animation Self Evaluation

For my final project I had to a stop motion animation either with drawings, clay or paper cut outs. After researching all three types extensively I chose clay as even though it’s the most awkward it would provide the best outcome for what I wanted to do as it’s the only one that occupies a three dimensional space.

Unlike the previous animations I had done this one had to be planned out thoroughly with a storyboard, which helped a lot because going in I already knew what shots to do and how ones to frame them.  However I completely misjudged the time that this would take especially make the set and character as that took the longest, also some more preparation would have been at good idea as I found something’s I had wanted to do weren't possible either because of technical limitations or lack of experience and its clear some shots are missing that are meant to be there.

The biggest improvement I would like to make is making the characters bigger for smoother movement as right now they are quite stiff and shuffle instead of walking because their legs are too short. Also the sound isn't that great as there were barely any stock sounds that I could find so I had to mostly use ones I had recorded myself and because of that they are also quiet.

This project has really provided me with a lot experience that I could apply the next time I do something similar, and I would have to say my greatest strength was being able to adapt and go around or solve the numerous problems that arose throughout production.  

Pre-Production - Story synopsis

Final Animation Story Synopsis

Title: Clod.

Run-time:  approximately 1 minute.

Story: “Clod” is a top secret gene experiment and consists of dozens of different animal DNA in hopes to create a formula for the perfect chewing gum. It is generally of a docile nature but the vigorous and cruel tests that’s have been run on him have taken their toll as one scientist is about to find out when he wakes up the beast early from its slumber.  

Pre-Production - The characters and props.

Pre-Production - Storyboard

Final Animation - Clod

Drawn Animation Evaluation

Drawn animation is one, if not the most popular type of animation especially in the early days. The main reason for this is that is fairly cheap in comparison to claymation for instance as you only need some pens and paper, and you don’t need an expensive set because you can just draw it. Also it can be about anything you can think and the laws of physics don’t apply so you can make things happen that you couldn’t with other types of animation.
 It does however have some draw backs as well like being extremely time consuming especially if it very detailed because each frame has to be drawn separately, and so you could end up using thousands of pieces of paper if you want to make a long animation. The process of animating can be very tedious too as you have to make sure each frame lines up with the last and have to be careful not to nudge it out of place, even more so is you are dealing with little cut out pieces. It would probably be best to colour it in on the computer so that all the colours and shades remain the same not like when you colour by hand especially with pens and the shading is different every time; with this you also run more risk of leaving small areas uncoloured.

Cut Out Animation Evaluation

Cut out animation – technique for producing animations using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. Three TV shows and movies that use this form of animation are:
1) South Park.
2) Terry Gilliam's Do It Yourself Animation Show.
3) Angela Anaconda.
To create your own cut out animation you must first get a sufficient amount of source material like magazines, newspaper, card and photographs. Then you cut out anything that corresponds to the story you want to tell, maybe even segment the individual characters and objects for ease of movement. Finally you act out and record it by using still photographs and moving everything on set ever so slightly so that it looks fluid when played back, this is known as stop motion animation.

The strengths of this technique are that anyone without any real talent such as drawing can produce something of quality as everything you use is just cut out images. It is also probably the cheapest and least time consuming method of stop motion animation; because the resources needed are extremely abundant and everything comes ready-made you just to animate it.

This type of animation does have some severe draw backs, one of the most major being that the figures being used are fixed so that if you want lots of movement from one figure a lot of parts would be required to make it and matching ones can be hard to find. This leads to the problem of ruing your animation by accidently nudging a piece out of place and paper is hard to get back to exactly the same spot. Lots of individual parts will drag out the production process as moving all of them so slightly can be very time consuming. Finally you are limited to a two dimensional space and this diminishes your options for movement and distance can’t really be portrayed.

For the animation we did in class we had to base it around the theme of the Vox Pops we did for an earlier project, mine was gay rights. The original idea was to use clips from it to play over the animation however after I had completed it I couldn’t get a hold of the clips, so to give it some context I instead played ‘I want to break free’ by Queen. My animation could have been greatly improved if I had paid more attention to the set as the monitor of the computer can be seen throughout and on occasion a cut out that I’m not using is in shot. Furthermore it could have worked better if I had given it some form of story instead of just random animation. Although I am quite proud of how smoothly it all moves.

Claymation Animation Self Evaluation

Claymation – one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay.
To create a Claymation animation you will fist need to make the character or “morph”. To do this you must take some Plasticine (preferably all the same colour) and form a ball with it, then roll the ball into a cylinder this will be the torso, this also warms it up so that it becomes easier to mould. Next round off the top thus forming the head, it is important to note here that the entire body has to be made from a single piece as attaching the limbs will make it unsteady and liable to unwanted decapitation. For the arms stretch out the clay about three quarters of the way up on either side, be sure they are of good length but not so thin that they will break, then flatten the ends to make hands and separate a thumb. Finally to make the legs split the bottom of the torso and elongate the two parts and form the feet making sure that the soles are flat and that the morph is balanced. Do this for however may characters you want your animation to have. For the set you will need a flat well lit surface, and feel free to decorate it with real world objects, with which the morphs can interact with.

Three TV shows and movies that use Claymation are:
1) Pengu.
2) Wallace and Gromit.
3) The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The strengths of this technique are that the characters are free to move around in a three dimensional space and can interact with objects. They can also be and shape and size you want and movement can be represented smoothly because the Plasticine is usually stiff enough to stay in place when moved even slightly.

Claymation does have some draw backs to, like Plasticine becoming soft and uncontrollable if it gets too warm because of lighting or being moved too much. Getting your character to be balanced can also be a challenge especially if they are humanoid and/or holding something.

 The Claymation animation I did was about two morphs playing tug of war. The biggest problem in this was the Plasticine rope which kept breaking so a lot of time was wasted fixing it and redoing some shots. Furthermore the lighting wasn’t very good and varied quite a lot, also I often ran out of stage as the workspace was fairly small so the morphs often go off screen. I am quite proud of the sound effects and editing though, if it’s not being a bit over the top but that’s sort of the point. The thing that I would like to change the most is in some of the more complicated shots a hand or two may be partly seen which breaks the immersion, so I would like to go back and re-film those sections.

50 Animated Shows and Films.

1) Pengu. 2) Wallace and Gromit. 3) Nightmare before Christmas. 4) Simpsons. 5) Futurama. 6) South Park. 7) Ice Age. 8) Up. 9) Megamind. 10) Family Guy. 11) Naruto. 12) Bleach. 13) Fullmetal Alchemist. 14) Looney Tunes. 15) Transformers. 16) Watership Down. 17) Adventure Time. 18) Morph. 19) Postman Pat. 20) Deathnote. 21) Star Wars: The Clone Wars. 22) American Dad. 23) Power Puff Girls. 24) Bevis and Butthead. 25) Robot Chicken. 26) Scooby Doo. 27) Tom and Jerry. 28) Spirited away. 29) Fantastic Mr Fox. 30) Flushed Away. 31) Coraline. 32) Toy Story. 33) Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? 34) Cars. 35) Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. 36) The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy. 37) Ben 10. 38) Pokémon. 39) Yu-gi-oh. 40) The Lord of the Rings. 41) Madagascar. 42) Shrek. 43) Finding Nemo. 44) Monsters Inc. 45) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 46) Soul Eater. 47) Claymore. 48) Danger Mouse. 49) Ed, Edd and Eddy. 50) Wall-E.

Morph Animation

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