Created by Dan Povenmire & Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Phineas and Ferb is a show about what kids can do with summer. I think it's inspiring the idea of kids needing to get out and play, because every day they build something new and crazy, and if kids had half of that motivation, we would need "get up and play" commercials. I could honestly watch this show for hours, especially because there's a cute little musical number in each episode. Characters in the show are made up of simple geometric shapes like rectangles, circles and triangle, because they're supposed to be easy for kids to try and draw on their own, and they make sure that each character has a recognizable silhouette.
Over the weekend I was finally able to see probably one of
the greatest animations Disney has put out in recent years, Zootopia! And while
it is a rockin’ children’s film it is also very culturally relevant and people
of all ages have most definitely enjoyed it. I mean went to see this film in
theaters about last week and the theater was nearly full. Zootopia has most
definitely rekindled my love for watching not only animations but movies in
general. Although Zootopia is most definitely a movie for children, there are
some jokes that are thrown in there for it’s probably not so intended older
audience. Zootopia is more than just a children's movie that is about how any
“animal” can be what it wants to be when it grows up but goes into the deeper
relations with other “animals” that aren’t like you. The Predator vs. Prey
dynamic is a main story element and the way that it is deal with in a way that
shows not all Predators are evil at heart but also not all Prey are always
innocent. This film shows a a wide range of characters that could easily be
from the everyday life and because of this it is easily one of the most
relatable Disney Animations to date.
Paperman is an Oscar Winning Disney short, directed by John Kahrs.
The story of animation is both charming and heartwarming, however it is the thought behind the animations that makes this short interesting.
Arriving at Disney, Khars talks about his appreciation for the hand drawings that go into the brainstorming of animations. He points out the "expressive" marks and the "simplicity" of the drawings that make these drawings unique.
This inspired Khars to try and find a way to incorporate the drawings from the preproduction of Paperman into the CG effects that would later become the animation. CG and photorealistic animations seemed to make up the majority of content being produced nowadays. Kahrs tried to imagine an animation that could be different. Paper man carries the drawings along with the CG effects, to create a beautiful and refreshingly different film.
I'm not sure if anyone's posted about this yet, but I was watching Jimmy Fallon last night and Jon Favreau was on it, talking about new Jungle Book movie, which he is the director of. The movie is the third live action adaptation of The Jungle Book, and there is only a few live action actors on the film, while the rest are voice actors for the computer generated animals. I imagine that this would be difficult for the actors as well as time consuming for the animators but the animation looks very mature and captivating and as a lover of the Jungle Book, I'll definitely be seeing this movie.
Meet the Robinsons is a computer-animated science fiction Disney comedy. It's a family-friendly movie about an orphan who finds his home and family in the future. It is very loosely based off a book by William Joyce called A Day with Wilbur Robinson. It probably still is one of my favourite movies because it's just heart-warming and well done. It sends a positive message to "keep moving forward." The animation is fun and vibrant and the scenes in the future are quirky and white-based as most futuristic things, making the future look like a pretty fun place in general. It has everything from robots to dinosaurs to singing frogs. Its's a very cute movie and I'd recommend watching it.
One of my favourite Disney films and TV shows was definitely Lilo & Stitch. It was cute and heartfelt and gave lessons about finding a place in the world. The animators/designers of the show chose to use watercolor painted backgrounds for Lilo & Stitch, as opposed to a more traditional technique called "gouache." Watercolors have been used in the past on Disney animation shorts as well as some features like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but it has been abandoned within the past few decades mostly because there have been less complicated techniques (such as gouache). The character designs were based around Chris Sanders' personal drawing style and the film's extraterrestrial elements, such as the spaceships, were designed to resemble sea life.
A few months ago I had the pleasure of going to the traveling Pixar Exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston. These types of exhibits are very hands on and interactive. While it may have been a little more technical than the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings traveling exhibits, as a film student take 3D and animation classes, it was awesome. Each station that was set up demonstrated some aspect of animation, whether it be lighting, hair, working in 3D space, etc. There were simplified versions of the programs we use such as Maya, Cinema 4D, After Effects and more, to help kids interact in similar ways as animators do, with their favorite Pixar characters. One example of these exhibits was a computer screen with various lighting options such as intensity, color, and more. When the options are changed, there was a small, physical scene that is affected by all these changes. The exhibit was awesome and felt like walking into a physical manifestation of my 3D animation class. I highly recommend the exhibit if it comes to a museum near you.
Here is some info
Zoetropes are an awesome older form of animation we learned about in my animation class a few years ago. If you don't know, they are a circular device with each frame of an animated movement drawn around the circle. You then look through a viewing window and as the zoetrope spins, it appears to be moving. Here is an example of an older zoetrope. Zoetropes are a great physical example of all the frames of an animation, as well as the variety in the types of animation. Pixar designed an amazing and complex 3D zoetrope. It has traveled the world to places like England, Scotland, South Korea, Finland, and many more at various exhibitions. I would love to see one of these in person. Check out this video to see it and hear how it works:
One of my favorite animated movies has always been The Nightmare Before Christmas which is a stop motion Disney film. In typical Tim Burton fashion, it is a creepy, cynical, and humorous film that has it's quirky songs and lines throughout the film. The film is extremely impressive because it was filmed in 24 frames per second which means every character was moved 24 times per second in every scene, which made just one minute of the film take a whole week to make. The three years that went into creating The Nightmare Before Christmas was well worth it. The beautiful animation has created for some iconic still photos and characters that people still rave about to this day.
There are probably over 60 characters in this movie, which makes it more impressive that the animators had to use the technique of stop motion with them for three years straight (and there was only 4 of them!!! what!!!!!) Overall, this movie is amazing watch, but even more fun to research and look into. Stop motion is something that has always intrigued me, and I believe that this movie might be what started that interest.
Coming into this Motion Graphics and Animation class, I can confidently say I know nothing about animating. I've never used After Effects or Maya before, but I plan on being able to improve my skills throughout the next few months of the year. Animated movies have always been a very important part of my life, especially Pixar and Disney movies, and I have always found animators to be some of the most talented people. When I was in London, I had an internship at Objective Productions, where one part of it was finding facts about different animated movies, including Shrek, Frozen and Bambi. It was interesting to view the commentary on how they created Frozen, a very recent Disney film to how they animated Bambi, the first Disney film ever created. The content that I viewed showed me the evolution of cartoon animation and how everything used to be drawn by hand while now everything is digitally animated and it can take days just to animate a characters hair! Overall, animation is something that I really admire, and I am excited to become more knowledgeable on how to create certain things for all of the projects that we are going to do in class.
Here is the link to the Frozen documentary I watched:
I have been a fan of animation for as long as I can remember. My parents were the first to notice my passion in it and suggest I look further into animating. This is when I took a drawing class where one of the projects was to create a charcoal animation; ie destructive animation where you erase and redrawn your frame every time. So far I haven't been able to devote a great deal of time to actual animating, but in my spare time all I do is watch and analyze animated films.
While animation has gone through many phases, many pioneered by Walt Disney and his company, the type of animation that interests me the most is stop - motion animation. Many beloved films are produced through stop - motion including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Coraline.
Stop - motion animation is the process where an animator will move the figure by a small amount, take a picture, and repeat. When all of the photos are put together the figure now has the appearance of fluid motion. One of the best examples of this is The Nightmare Before Christmas with dance numbers and multiple characters in each scene. Even though most of the scenes were shot at 12fps, there are two exceptions.
My favorite studio, and a studio that only does stop - motion productions, is studio Laika. Laika is responsible for the stop - motion films of Coraline, ParaNorman, and their upcoming project Kubo and the Two Strings, just to name a few. Studio Laika has 10 years of experience producing stop - motion films, with several Academy Award nominations. Laika has put out stop - motion films that never cease to amaze me. From color dynamics in Coraline to the incredibly accurate representation of bullying in ParaNorman, Laika has been using stop - motion animation to create incredible pieces of art for 10 years, and I can't wait to see what their next 10 hold.
Many of my friends claim that stop - motion animation is weird or disturbing for them but that's almost the reason why I like it. It's physical objects that are manipulated into giving the appearance of smooth motion, and I think that's fascinating. Hopefully with Kubo coming out in August and Anomalisa already out in theaters, people will be more open to stop - motion animation come to understand and respect the incredible amount of work that goes into these beautiful films.
In case your wallets aren't crying from buying all your textbooks this semester, there are a couple of not-quite-textbooks that I definitely recommend checking out if you can get your hands on them. If you're at all interested in the work and techniques of hand-drawn animation, these are must-haves. The first one in question is The Nine Old Men by Andreas Deja - an animator who has contributed work to a wide variety of the Disney films' villains - which chronicles the stories of the nine biggest Disney animators and what work they contributed to what films. Don't worry, there are plenty of pictures; this book features loads of storyboard artwork and sketches of keyframes from some of their iconic animation sequences. Quite an interesting read for people looking for inspiration of what to draw and how to make their drawings come to life.
The second book to add to your shopping list is The Animator's Survival Kit, written by Richard Williams, the director of animation for the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This entry goes more in depth on the tutorials for the fundamentals of hand-drawn animation; it includes the essential stuff like bouncing balls, walk cycles and body physics, but it also includes do's and don'ts of how to animate dialogue, the methods of visualizing the the sequence of anticipation-action-reaction, and a general workflow of this style of animation. There's also some great examples of how to animate four-legged animals realistically, tips on directing a project, and other cool sequences that can make for some fun drawing exercises. Not to mention all the text looks like it was hand-written (it probably was, it's the source of this book's charm).
So if you're ever looking to make the next Disney or Warner Bros. animation film, grab a lot of paper and pencils, an animation lightbox from PPECS, and these two books and you'll be well on your way.
So none of us are blind, we are all aware that Disney movies are not the most pc movies out there. But we instead like to ignore that because we all can't criticize the films that we grew up to know and love. Well I recently watched a video about sexism, strength, and dominance in Disney films and I found it pretty interesting. It's things you never really think about while you are watching the films but once you are aware of it, you start to get mad. One of them is dominance and how the climatic scene is always two males fighting each other for either a female, or for the top dominate spot. But if you want to know more you should check out the video:
October 16, 2015 marked the 92th anniversary of Walt Disney Pictures and in order to celebrate Disney released a new video to showcase all of their movies throughout the years. The video contains clips from Disney classics such as Cinderella, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, etc. just to name a few. The celebration video is set to Thomas Bergensen's "Starchild," which is a great choice because the music and video go along perfectly in sync. I personally thought the video was very well done and did a great job of showing Disney fans how Disney has progressed over the years and how many classics they really have. Disney has so many great movies and I love how this video really reminds you of all the classics and brings me back to my childhood, growing up watching Disney movies such as Mulan and The Lion King. Enjoy!
Disney veteran animator Glen Keane recently stepped into the world of virtual reality animation and says freedom is the main takeaway. Keane has been working for Disney for 38 years, with his most famous work being 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Aladdin', and has mainly used pen and paper to create his animations. Keane voiced several struggles with pen and paper, his biggest not being able to actually step into the paper and make the 2D go away. He has always wanted to be completely immersed in 3D, not the pen and paper 2D. So when The Future of StoryTelling, an organization that aims to explore how storytelling is changing in the digital age, wanted Keane to try virtual reality animation, he couldn't say no.
Keane ended up loving the experience and finally got his wish of virtually being able to step in his paper and create real-life animations and designs of Disney characters. He was finally able to draw the characters as he sees them in his head. The actual video of Keane drawing is pretty cool to watch, it was amazing to see how he creates these animations and make them come to life. To read more about the article click here.
The Lion King is probably my favorite Disney animated movie that isn't a Pixar movie. This is a movie that I grew up with (I was born in 1994, aka the year it was released, so I am as old as this movie (WOW)) and it is a beautiful story and fantastic animation! They really did a fantastic job of making each character, each animal, come to life!
I was searching online for some BTS of some animated movies, and I came across this one for the Lion King and their creative processes. I thought this was really cool to see the different methods that they used, from study real animals in the studio to study the voice actors movements and facial expressions to add emotion to the characters, or even just simply walking around impersonating how the animator thinks that particular character they are drawing would move and behave. It was also interesting how each character was designated to a single animator (or some times a pair). But come together in the end to make a masterpiece!
Definitely check out the Lion King BTS video here:
Steamboat Willie is a 1928 American animated
short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Disney’s Steamboat Willie is a landmark in the history of animation. It was the first animated film with fully
synchronized sound and it was the first cartoon to
feature a fully post-produced soundtrack. Disney was able to combine
technology with handcraftsmanship, naturalism with abstraction, which proved
him to be a great artist over time. The audience’s appeal for Steamboat Willie
was so strong, that two weeks after its premiere, it was re-released it at the
largest theater in the world, New York’s Roxy.
I
chose to post this short film because it is great to see the progress overtime
and how much animation has improved and changed. I am sure most of you have
seen this film already. Enjoy!
Walt Disney was a huge fan of animated short films, as out of 22 of his Academy Awards, a majority were for the category of Best Animated Short Film. But after his death in 1966, the Walt Disney Studios took a long break, about 40 years, from short films, only producing a few every so often. However, all of that changed when Disney merged with Pixar in 2006, with Pixar taking the lead and filling the void of short animated films. With Pixar's help, Disney was back in business and have created some great short animated films over the past few years.
Wired.com ranked the Animated Shorts That Define Disney’s Success, coming to a list of nine short animated films. I personally enjoyed all of the films, but these were my favorite two:
1.) Feast (2014) (Wired.com's number three)
This was my personal favorite because how simple, yet great the idea was. Anyone with a dog knows how dogs love table food and how they will start to crave it over their own food. I personally have four dogs, and can see each of my dogs doing it. I thought the montage was put together very well, I thought the editing was great and on-point, and did a good job of showing the dog over the years in a quick and effective way. It was just a great short to watch.
2.) Paperman Trailer (2012) (Wired.com's number one)
I thought this was another great animation because of how well it was put together. The animation is again so simple, but really tells a great story. I loved how all the papers were used together and how they really added to the story. I also loved the black and white, in this digital age, black and white is rare to see and it is even more rare to see a black and white film done right. And this short animation is exactly that, a black and white film done right. It truly added to the story and just gave it an extra special quality.
My background in After Effects? At this point, slim. My experience with animation? Unless you count the endless hours spent watching and rewatching Pixar's Classics as a child--not extensive.
I open with this statement, not to demean myself, but to express my excitement in the journey ahead. I'm already impressed (and admittedly a bit overwhelmed) with some of the intricate and interesting posts of my peers. I hope to learn a lot from you in the coming weeks.
So what do I know about animation? The first time I recall watching an animated piece from a analytical perspective was in high school. We'd been discussing the basic elements of production--specifically related to short film--in a media class I was taking, when one afternoon my teacher began class with this:
(This is just the trailer)
Now, I assume many of you have seen Paperman. At the time, it was a fairly new piece and most people in my class were not familiar with it. I can still hear the collective "awe" we each sighed as the credits began to role. Even the toughest of stereotypical high school boys couldn't hide their enjoyment.
As I pondered what I might write about in this first post, I came across a list (found here) of the top animated shorts that "define Disney's success." As a friendly reminder of that day back in Mr. Zayatz's class, I was pleased to see Paperman ranked at #1. Having been in the back of my mind already, I figured that was enough a sign to write about it. Not only did Paperman win an Oscar in 2012, but it was also the first Disney animated short to win an Academy Award in 43 years.
What is it about this piece that people can't resist? It's storyline is simple, yes. And yet the animation, combined with incredible sound composition, takes the viewer on a romantic journey--dialogue not even needed! I think animation in general has a way of stretching the parameters of film. And that's why I'm so excited to explore all this class has to offer.
One thing that I really love about animation is the fact that you don't even have to include words to make a story. Some of my favorite animations are those where words are not included. It forces you as a viewer to really focus and watch what's going on and try to infer what's going on with just the information that the artist is giving you. For example, one of my favorite shorts is from last year called Feast:
It's a sweet love story told through a dog's life. In this short, only a total of two words were said: "Hey" and "Wait". Other than that, communication was told through barks and the visualization of the story. This short was created for young children and it just goes to show that not all good films need words for people to understand.
Created by Dan Povenmire & Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, Phineas and Ferb is a show about what kids can do with summer. I think it's inspiring the idea of kids needing to get out and play, because every day they build something new and crazy, and if kids had half of that motivation, we would need "get up and play" commercials. I could honestly watch this show for hours, especially because there's a cute little musical number in each episode. Characters in the show are made up of simple geometric shapes like rectangles, circles and triangle, because they're supposed to be easy for kids to try and draw on their own, and they make sure that each character has a recognizable silhouette.
