Stop Motion and Little People

Back in the day, my mom worked at Fisher Price. Part of her work involved the production of Little People videos, which were moral-heavy videos featuring your favorite Little People characters and created in stop-motion. My mom worked mostly as an editor during preproduction, where she would go through the storyboards and animatics checking for continuity. A lot of times, she would bring her work home, where my brother and I would participate in continuity-hunting. We would go through the animatics and point out anything that confused us or didn’t make sense to us, offering a kid’s point of view for a video geared to kids. My mom would take pages and pages of notes on these episodes that rarely hit 10 minutes. I remember it being really cool to see the final product a few weeks later—the transition from animatics to full animation was pretty impressive.

These two YouTube videos are a culmination of a few episodes found on one VHS. Upon watching them as a not-child, I recognize they’re a bit silly, but still enjoyable:

Also upon watching these videos again, I was impressed by some of the “up in the air” shots—flying, jumping, etc. I didn’t really know how those types of shots were done, as we obviously cannot see a rig of sorts. I then found a video on Motiongrapher called Plasticine Rhythm by Andy Martin that features a making of video that briefly explains how these shots can be attained. Once explained, it gives me hope for doing stop motion in the future:

http://motionographer.com/2014/05/16/plasticine-rhythm/

http://vimeo.com/94688752

'Six Feet Under' Title Sequence

I was recently brainstorming for my final animation project and wanted to look into the creative process. I wanted to see what goes into making a title from nothing but still creating something that centers around a main idea. I watched the 'Six Feet Under' sequence for inspiration and it lead to storyboarding and looking into artist Danny Yount's work. He explains his creative process and how planning ahead is key to animation and creating titles. Each shot must capture the mood of the show and stand alone as a beautiful composition. We talked about composition and framing but storyboarding and coming up with alternatives and backup plans are necessary when creating a title sequence. The sequence refrains from using actors and the ambiguity of the characters and emotional shots create a sense of sorrow and darkness. The font and titles are simple but the composition of the shots is amazing and truly draws the audience in to the main theme of the show in a dark yet beautiful way.

WATCH YOUNT'S TALK BELOW

BRAVEST WARRIORS

So if you don't already know, I am a huge Pendleton Ward fan. If you already knew though, I am still a huge Pendleton Ward fan. I have seen every single episode of the ever popular Cartoon Network show "Adventure Time" and when he backed the kickstarter of LA Game Space by creating a video and tee shirt, I funded the program because (aside from it being a fantastic and wonderful idea) I wanted that tee. Anyways, Mr. Ward recently came out with a new show through Frederator Studios' adult production label Cartoon Hangover simply called "Bravest Warriors." The show features four teenage heroes-for-hire as they warp through the universe saving adorable aliens and their worlds by using the power of their emotions. Below is the fourth episode which features some 3D animation of a flying space-bus crashing onto the marvelous city of Mars.

Something I think is really great about the show is that whenever they release a new episode they also release a "behind the scenes" video, featuring the voice actors acting and some of the animation process, and an animatic storyboard. This is a fantastic way of not just drawing in viewers but giving them more of a personal relationship with the show and how its made. Below are those bonus videos for this episode.

This may not be completely related to this blog but I feel that motion animation is still animation, making cartoons just as serious. This episode was released on Thursday December 6th and there is a new episode every Thursday so keep your eyes peeled for the newest episode coming out today.

Motion Graphics inspiration

I found a site called Motionspire.com, which provides a showcase of videos that you can look at to get inspiration. You can search the videos by category or date, and even click on the links that will send you to the creative site.

One of the sites I was led to is called Prologue. This company specializes in visual effects and design animation. They have done a bunch of animations for different commercials, films, and television series. You can search their site and see everything that they have been involved in, but even cooler, they show you graphics that essentially show a "storyboard" of their video. One of the ones they have is American Horror Story.

Check out these sites because they could be very helpful when looking for further inspiration in the future.

Pixar Animation

Whenever I think of animation, the first company that comes to mind is Pixar Animation Studios. Movies like Toy Story and Bug's Life are intertwined in my childhood memories. Not too long ago when I was on stumbleupon.com I ended up on the section of the Pixar website "How we Do It" which breaks down the steps in the creative process. I found it to be really interesting to see both how the animation process is both similar and different from the way non-animated films are made. While both begin with a story idea being pitched, a treatment being written and a storyboard being drawn, the following steps involve voice talent being recorded, and reels being created. After this videotape is made the art department establishes the visual look and feel of the film, models are sculpted and articulated, sets are dressed, shots are laid out and animated, sets and characters are shaded and lighting is added to make the total look complete. The final steps entail the computer data being rendered and final touches being added.

Here's where the breakdown of the Pixar animation process can be found:
http://www.pixar.com/howwedoit/index.html

A friend also sent me a link to a parody of the animation that begins all Disney-Pixar films. I thought it was pretty cool to see how twisted and dark a person could make such a light-hearted opening. Here's the video: