TA K E 1: TH E LITTLE MER M AID
(left) The Little Mermaid Original theatrical poster
THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “The Little Mermaid (Disney)” redirects here. For the franchise, see The Little Mermaid (franchise). The Little Mermaid Directed by Produced by Written by
Ron Clements John Musker John Musker Howard Ashman Ron Clements John Musker
Based on “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen Starring Rene Auberjonois Christopher Daniel Barnes Jodi Benson Pat Carroll Buddy Hackett Jason Marin Kenneth Mars Samuel E. Wright Music by Alan Menken Studio Walt Disney Feature Animation Silver Screen Partners Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures Buena Vista Distribution Release date(s) November 14, 1989 Running time 85 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $40 million[1] Box office $211,343,479[2] The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures,
the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the 28th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, and the first of the Disney Renaissance. During its initial release, The Little Mermaid earned $84 million in North American box office revenue,[3] and has to date earned $211 million in total lifetime gross.[2] After the success of the 1988 Disney/ Amblin film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid is given credit for breathing life back into the art of animated feature films after a string of critical or commercial failures that dated back to the early 1980s. It also marked the start of the era known as the Disney Renaissance. A stage adaptation of the film with a book by Doug Wright[4] and additional songs by Alan Menken and new lyricist Glenn Slater opened in Denver in July 2007 and began performances on Broadway January 10, 2008.[5][6]
CONTENTS 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Story development 3.2 Animation 3.3 Music 4 Release 4.1 Home media 5 Reception 5.1 Box office 5.2 Critical reception 5.3 Accolades 5.4 Controversy 6 See also 7 References 8 External links
PLOT Ariel, a sixteen-year-old mermaid princess, is dissatisfied with life under the sea and curious about the human world. With her best fish
friend Flounder, Ariel collects human artifacts and goes to the surface of the ocean to visit Scuttle the seagull, who offers very inaccurate knowledge of human culture.
Ariel & Flounder at the Surface consulting with Scuttle over the ‘dinglehopper’ (above) Ariel rescuing Eric from the shipwreck (right)
It’s A Dinglehopper! She constantly ignores the warnings of her father, King Triton and adviser, Sebastian that contact between merpeople and humans is forbidden, longing to join the human world and become a human herself. One night, Ariel, Flounder and an unwilling Sebastian travel to the ocean surface to watch a celebration for the birthday of Prince Eric on a ship, with whom Ariel falls in love. In an ensuing storm the ship is destroyed and Ariel saves the unconscious Eric from drowning. Ariel sings to him, but quickly leaves as soon as he regains consciousness to avoid being discovered. Fascinated by the memory of her voice, Eric vows to find who saved and sung to him and Ariel vows to find a way to join him and his world. Noticing a change in Ariel’s behavior, Triton questions Sebastian about her behavior and learns of her love for Eric. Triton furiously confronts Ariel in her grotto, where she and Flounder store human artifacts, and destroys the objects with his trident in a blind rage. After Triton leaves, a pair of eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, convince Ariel to visit Ursula the sea witch in order to be with Eric.
Ariel is then given human legs and taken to the surface by Flounder and Sebastian. Eric finds Ariel on the beach and takes her to his castle, unaware that she is the one who had
saved him earlier, assuming her to be a mute shipwreck survivor. Ariel spends time with Eric, and at the end of the second day, they almost kiss but are thwarted by Flotsam and Jetsam. Angered at their narrow escape, Ursula takes the disguise of a beautiful young woman named “Vanessa” and appears onshore singing with Ariel’s voice. Eric recognizes the song and, in her disguise, Ursula casts a hypnotic enchantment on Eric to make him forget about Ariel.
Ursula makes a deal with Ariel totransformherintoahumanfor threedaysinexchangeforAriel’s voice,whichUrsulaputsinanautilus shell. Withinthesethreedays,Ariel mustreceivethe‘kissoftruelove’ fromEric;otherwise,shewill transformbackintoamermaid andbelongtoUrsulaforever.
The next day, Ariel finds out that Eric will be married to the disguised Ursula. Scuttle discovers that Vanessa is Ursula in disguise, and informs Ariel who immediately goes after the wedding barge. Sebastian informs Triton, and Scuttle disrupts the wedding with the help of various animals. In the chaos, the nautilus shell around Ursula’s neck is broken, restoring Ariel’s voice and breaking Ursula’s enchantment over Eric. Realizing that Ariel was the girl who saved his life, Eric rushes to kiss her, but the sun sets and Ariel transforms back into a mermaid. Ursula reverts to her true form and kidnaps Ariel. Triton confronts Ursula and demands Ariel’s release, but the deal is inviolable. At Ursula’s urging, he agrees to take Ariel’s place as Ursula’s prisoner. Ariel is released as Triton transforms into a polyp and loses his authority over Atlantica. Ursula declares herself the new ruler and a struggle ensues in which Ursula accidentally kills Flotsam and Jetsam. In her rage, Ursula uses the trident to grow to monstrous proportions. Ariel and Eric reconcile on the surface just before Ursula grows past and towers the two. She then gains full control of the entire ocean, creating a storm with a maelstrom and shipwrecks — one of which Eric commandeers. As Ursula attempts to destroy a trapped Ariel in the maelstrom, Eric turns the wheel hard to port and runs Ursula through the abdomen with the ship’s splintered bowsprit, mortally wounding her. After her death, Ursula’s power breaks, causing Triton and all the other polyps in Ursula’s garden to revert back into their original forms. Later, after seeing that Ariel
truly loves
Eric, Triton willingly changes her from a mermaid into a human. An unspecified amount of time later, Ariel and Eric have their wedding on a ship and depart. Prince Eric by Christopher Daniel Barnes Ursula, by Pat Carroll Sebastian, by Samuel E. Wright Flounder, by Jason Marin King Triton, by Kenneth Mars Scuttle, by Buddy Hackett Grimsby, by Ben Wright Flotsam and Jetsam, by Paddi Edwards Carlotta the maid, by Edie McClurg Ariel’s Sisters, by Kimmy Robertson and Caroline Vasicek Harold the Seahorse, by Will Ryan Max the Sheepdog, vocal effects by Frank Welker Chef Louis, voiced by top-billed Rene Auberjonois
Notable voice actors who provided additional voices include Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Nancy Cartwright and Hamilton Camp.
CAST Main article: Characters from Disney’s The Little Mermaid Princess Ariel voiced by Jodi Benson: Benson, who was predominantly a stage actress when she was cast,, was the choice to voice Ariel because the directors felt “it was really important to have the same person doing the singing and speaking voice”. Co-director Ron Clements stated that Benson’s voice had “sweetness” and “youthfulness” that was unique.[7]
PRODUCTION STORY DEVELOPMENT The Little Mermaid was originally planned as part of one of Walt Disney’s earliest feature films, a proposed package film featuring vignettes of Hans Christian Anderson tales.[8] Development started soon after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the late 1930s, but was put on hold due to various circumstances. In 1985, The Great Mouse Detective codirector Ron Clements discovered a collection of Andersen’s fairy tales while browsing a bookstore. He presented a two-page draft of a movie based on “The Little Mermaid” to CEO Michael Eisner and Walt Disney Studios
chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg at a “gong show” idea suggestion meeting. Eisner and Katzenberg passed the project over, because at that time the studio was in development on a sequel to their live-action mermaid comedy Splash (1984) and felt The Little Mermaid would be too similar a project.[9] The next day, however, Walt Disney Studios chairman Katzenberg greenlit the idea for possible development, along with Oliver & Company. While in production in the 1980s, the staff found, by chance, original story and visual development work done by Kay Nielsen for Disney’s proposed 1930s Anderson feature. [8] Many of the changes made by the staff in the 1930s to Hans Christian Andersen’s original story were coincidentally the same as the changes made by Disney writers in the 1980s.[9] That year, Clements and Great Mouse Detective co-director John Musker expanded the two-page idea into a 20-page rough script, eliminating the role of the mermaid’s grandmother and expanding the roles of the Merman King and the sea witch. However, the film’s plans were momentarily shelved as Disney focused its attention on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Oliver & Company as more immediate releases. In 1987, songwriter Howard Ashman became involved with the writing and development of Mermaid after he was asked to contribute a song to Oliver & Company. He proposed changing the minor character Clar ence, the English-butler crab, to a Jamaican Rastafarian crab and shifting the music style throughout the film to reflect this. At the same time, Katzenberg, Clements, Musker, and Ashman revised the story format to make Mermaid a musical with a Broadway-style story structure, with the song sequences serving as the tentpoles of the film.[8] Ashman and composer Alan Menken, both noted for their work as the writers of the successful Off-Broadway stage musical Little Shop of Horrors,[10] teamed up to compose the entire
song score. In 1988, with Oliver out of the way, Mermaid was slated as the next major Disney release.
ANIMATION More money and resources were dedicated to Mermaid than any other Disney animated film in decades.[8] Aside from its main animation facility in Glendale, California, Disney opened a satellite feature animation facility during the production of Mermaid in Lake Buena Vista, Florida (near Orlando, Florida), within Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World.[11] Opening in 1989, the Disney-MGM facility’s first projects were to produce an entire Roger Rabbit cartoon short, Roller Coaster Rabbit, and to contribute ink and paint support to Mermaid. [11]
Mermaid’s supervising animators included Glen Keane and Mark Henn on Ariel, Duncan Marjoribanks on Sebastian, Andreas Deja on King Triton, and Ruben Aquino on Ursula.[8] Originally, Keane had been asked to work on Ursula, as he had established a reputation for drawing large, powerful figures, such as the bear in The Fox and the Hound and Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective. Keane, however, was assigned as one of the two lead artists on the petite Ariel and oversaw the “Part of Your World” musical number. He jokingly stated that his wife looks exactly like Ariel “without the fins.”[12] The character’s body type and personality were based upon
that of Alyssa Milano,[8] then starring on TV’s Who’s the Boss? and the effect of her hair underwater was based on footage of Sally Ride when she was in space.[8]
Effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film
ThedesignofthevilainousUrsulatheSeaWitch was based upon drag performer Divine.[8]
Pat Carroll was not Clements and Musker’s first choice to voice Ursula; the original script had been written with Bea Arthur of the Disney-owned TV series The Golden Girls in mind.[13] After Arthur turned the part down, actresses such as Nancy Marchand, Nancy Wilson[disambiguation needed ], Roseanne, Charlotte Rae, and Elaine Stritch were considered for the part.[13] Stritch was eventually cast as Ursula, but clashed with Howard Ashman’s style of music production and was replaced by Carroll.[13] Another first for recent years was the filming of live actors and actresses for motion
reference material for the animators, a practice used frequently for many of the Disney animated features produced under Walt Disney’s supervision. Broadway actress Jodi Benson was chosen to play Ariel, and Sherri Lynn Stoner, a former member of Los Angeles’ Groundlings improvisation comedy group, acted out Ariel’s key scenes.[9] The underwater setting required the most special effects animation for a Disney animated feature since Fantasia in 1940. Effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film, in addition to the use of other processes such as airbrushing, backlighting, superimposition, and some computer animation. The artistic manpower needed for Mermaid required Disney to farm out most of the underwater bubble effects animation in the film to Pacific Rim Productions, a China-based firm with production facilities in Beijing.[8] The Little Mermaid was the last Disney feature film to use the traditional handpainted cel method of animation. Disney’s next film, The Rescuers Down Under, used a digital method of coloring and combining scanned drawings developed for Disney by Pixar called CAPS (Computer Animation Production System), which would eliminate the need for cels, the multiplane camera, and many of the optical effects used for the last time in Mermaid.[8] A CAPS prototype was used experimentally on a few scenes in Mermaid, and one shot produced using CAPS—the penultimate shot in the film, of Ariel and Eric’s wedding ship sailing away under a rainbow— appears in the finished film.[8]
Computer-generated imagery was used to create some of the wrecked ships in the final battle, a staircase behind a shot of Ariel in Eric’s castle, and the carriage Eric and Ariel are riding in when she bounces it over a ravine. These objects were animated using 3D wireframe models, which were plotted as line art to cels and painted traditionally.[8]
MUSIC Main article: The Little Mermaid (soundtrack) The Little Mermaid was considered by some as “the film that brought Broadway into cartoons”.[14] Alan Menken wrote the Academy Award winning score, and collaborated with Howard Ashman on the songs.
SONGS “Fathoms Below” – Sailors “Daughters of Triton” – Triton’s Daughters “Part of Your World” – Ariel “Part of Your World (Reprise)” – Ariel “Under the Sea” – Sebastian and Sea Creatures “Poor Unfortunate Souls” – Ursula “Les Poissons” – Chef Louis “Kiss the Girl” – Sebastian and Chorus “Vanessa’s Song” – Vanessa/Ursula* “Part of Your World (Finale)” – Chorus *Note: “Vanessa’s Song” is not included on any official Disney soundtrack of The Little Mermaid. It is a reprise of “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.
RELEASE The film was originally released on November 14, 1989, followed by a November 17, 1997 reissue. After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney announced a 3D re-release of The Little Mermaid scheduled forr September 13, 2013.[15] The film was also screened out of
competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. [16]
HOME MEDIA In a then atypical and controversial move for a new Disney animated film, The Little Mermaid was released as part of the Walt Disney Classics line of VHS and Laserdisc home video releases in May 1990, eight months after the release of the film.[10][17]
Before Mermaid, only a select number of Disney’s catalog animated films had been released to home video, as the company was afraid of upsetting its profitable practice of theatrically reissuing each film every seven years.[10] Mermaid became that year’s topselling title on home video, with over 10 million units sold (including 7 million in its first month).[18] This success led future Disney films to be released soon after the end of their theatrical runs, rather than delayed for several years. [10] Following Mermaid’s 1997 re-release in theaters, a new VHS version of the film was released in March 1998 as part of the Masterpiece Collection and included a bonus music video of Jodi Benson singing
“Part of Your World” during the end credits, replacing “Under the Sea” as the end credit song.[19] The VHS sold 13 million units and ranked as the third best-selling video of the year.[20][21] The Little Mermaid was released in a Limited Issue “bare-bones” DVD in 1999, with a standard video transfer and no substantial features.[22] The film was re-released on DVD on October 3, 2006, as part of the Walt Disney Platinum Editions line of classic Walt Disney animated features.[23] Deleted scenes and several in-depth documentaries were included, as well as an Academy Awardnominated short film intended for the shelved Fantasia 2006, The Little Match Girl.[24]
The DVD sold 1.6 million units on its first day of release,[25] and over 4 million units during its first week, making it the biggest animated DVD debut for October. By year’s end, the DVD had sold about 7 million units and was one of the year’s top ten selling DVDs.[26] The Platinum Edition DVD was released as part of a “Little Mermaid Trilogy” boxed set on December 16, 2008.[27] The Platinum
Edition of the movie, along with its sequels, went on moratorium in January 2009. The film is set to be re-released as part of the Walt Disney Diamond Editions line.[28]
BOX OFFICE Early in the production of The Little Mermaid, Jeffrey Katzenberg cautioned Ron Clements, John Musker, and their staff, reminding them that since Mermaid was a “girl’s film”, it would make less money at the box office than Oliver & Company, which had been Disney’s biggest animated box office success in a decade.[9][10] However, by the time the film was closer to completion, Katzenberg was convinced Mermaid would be a hit and the first animated feature to earn more than $100 million and become a “blockbuster” film.[9][10] During its original 1989 theatrical release, Mermaid earned $84,355,863 at the North American box office,[2] falling just short of Katzenberg’s expectations but earning 64% more than Oliver.[10] The Little Mermaid was reissued in theaters on November 17, 1997, on the same day as Anastasia, a Don Bluth animated feature for Fox Animation Studios. The reissue brought $27,187,616 in additional gross.[2] The film also drew $99.8 million in box office earnings outside of the United States and Canada between both releases, resulting in
a total international box office figure of $211 million. [2] CRITICAL RECEPTION The Little Mermaid received positive reviews and on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews collected, the film has an overall approval rating of 90% based on various reviews collected since its 1989 release.[29]
Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, was enthusiastic about the film and wrote that, “The Little Mermaid is a jolly and inventive animated fantasy—a movie that’s so creative and so much fun it deserves comparison with the best Disney work of the past.” Ebert also commented positively on the character of Ariel, stating, “... Ariel is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously, instead of hanging around passively while the fates decide her destiny.”[30] The staff of TV Guide wrote a positive review,
praising the film’s return to the traditional Disney musical as well as the film’s animation. Yet they also wrote that the film is detracted by the juvenile humor and the human characters’ eyes. While still giving a positive review, they stated that the film “can’t compare to the real Disney classics (which appealed equally to both kids and adults).”[31] The staff of Variety praised the film for its cast of characters, Ursula in particular, as well as its animation. Stating that the animation “proves lush and fluid, augmented by the use of shadow and light as elements like fire, sun and water illuminate the characters.” Also praised was the musical collaboration between Howard Ashman and Alan Menken “whose songs frequently begin slowly but build in cleverness and intensity.”[32] Todd Gilchrist of IGN wrote a positive review of the film, stating that the film is “an almost perfect achievement.” Gilchrist also praised how the film revived interest in animation as it was released at a time when interest in animation was at a lull.[33] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote a mixed review of the film, referring to it as a “likably unspectacular
adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic.” Hinson went on to write that the film is average even at its highest points. He wrote that while there is nothing wrong with the film, it would be difficult for children to identify with Ariel and that the characters seemed bland. Hinson concluded his review saying that the film is “accomplished but uninspiring, The Little Mermaid has enough to please any kid. All that’s missing is the magic.” [34] Empire gave a positive review of the film, stating that “[The Little Mermaid is] a charmer of a movie, boasting all the ingredients that make a Disney experience something to treasure yet free of all the politically correct, formulaic elements that have bogged down the more recent productions.”[35] In April 2008 – almost 20 years after the film’s initial release in 1989 – Yahoo! users voted “The Little Mermaid” as #14 on the top 30 animated films of all time. Later, when Yahoo! updated the list in June of the same year, the film remained on the list but dropped six slots to end at #20. (Only three other traditionally animated Disney animated filmsAladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, respectively- scored above it in the poll even after the update.)[36][dead link] In 2011, Richard Corliss of TIME Magazine named it one of “The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films”.[37] The Little Mermaid, Disney’s first animated fairy tale since Sleeping Beauty (1959),[9] is an important film in animation history for many reasons. Chief among these are its re-establishment of animation as a profitable venture for The Walt Disney Company,[10] as the company’s theme parks, television productions, and live-action features had overshadowed the animated output since the 1950s. [10] Mermaid was the second film, following Oliver and Company, produced after Disney began expanding its animated output following its successful live action/animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and became Disney’s first animated major box office and critical hit since The Rescuers in 1977.[10] Walt Disney Feature Animation was further expanded as a result of Mermaid and increasingly successful
follow-ups—Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994). The staff increased from 300 members in 1988 to 2,200 in 1999 spread across three studios in Burbank, California, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.[11] This period of Disney’s animation history is sometimes referred to as the
“Disney Renaissance” In addition, Mermaid signaled the reestablishment of the musical film format as a standard for Disney animated films. The majority of Disney’s most popular animated films from the 1930s on had been musicals, though by the 1970s and 1980s the role of music had been de-emphasized in the films.[9] 1988’s Oliver and Company had served as a test of sorts to the success of the musical format before Disney committed to the Broadway-style structure of The Little Mermaid.[9]
ACCOLADES In January 1990, The Little Mermaid earned three Academy Award nominations, making it the first Disney animated film to earn an Academy Award nomination since The Rescuers in 1977. The film won two of the awards, for Best Song (“Under the Sea”) and Best Score. The film also earned four Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture—Comedy or Musical, and won the awards for Best Song (“Under the Sea”) and Best Score.[38] In addition to the box office and critical success of the film itself, the Mermaid soundtrack album earned two awards at the 33rd Grammy Awards in 1991 the Grammy Award for
Best Album for Children and Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.[39] Bolstered by the film’s success and the soundtrack’s Oscars, Golden Globes and Grammy Awards, was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1990 for shipments of two million copies of the soundtrack album, an unheard of feat for an animated film at the time.[40] To date, the soundtrack has been certified six times platinum.[40] The Little Mermaid won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score as well as Best Song for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s “Under the Sea”, sung by Samuel E. Wright in a memorable scene. Another song from the film, “Kiss the Girl,” was nominated but lost to “Under the Sea.” The film also won two Golden Globes for Best Original Score as well Best Original Song for “Under the Sea.” It was also nominated in two other categories, Best Motion Picture and another Best Original Song. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman also won a Grammy Award in 1991 for “Under the Sea.” American Film Institute Lists AFI’s 100 Years...100 Passions—Nominated[41] AFI’s 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: Ursula—Nominated Villain[42] AFI’s 100 Years...100 Songs: Under the Sea—Nominated[43] AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals—Nominated[44] AFI’s 10 Top 10—Nominated Animated Film[45]
TA K E 2 : A N I M AT I O N
ANIMATION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Animation (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011)
3.5 Other techniques and approaches 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links [edit]Etymology From Latin animātiō, “the act of bringing to life”; from animō (“to animate” or “give life to”) + -ātiō (“the act of”).
EARLY EXAMPLES
The bouncing ball animation (above) consists of these six frames. This animation moves at 10 frames per second.
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods.
CONTENTS 1 Etymology 2 Early examples 3 Techniques 3.1 Traditional animation 3.2 Stop motion 3.3 Computer animation 3.3.1 2D animation 3.3.2 3D animation 3.3.2.1 Terms 3.4 Other animation techniques
Main article: History of animation Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion. A 5,000 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. [1] However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.[2] A Chinese zoetrope-type device had been invented in 180 AD.[3] The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, and the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 19th century. These devices produced the appearance of movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography. There is no single person who can be considered the “creator” of film animation, as there were several people working on projects which could be considered animation at about the same time. Georges Méliès was a creator of specialeffect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change
something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years. The earliest surviving stop-motion advertising film was an English short by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called Matches: An Appeal (1899). Developed for the Bryant and May Matchsticks company, it involved stop-motion animation of wired-together matches writing a patriotic call to action on a blackboard. J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American film-maker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to film-making by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them
Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl, 1908
The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton’s “lightning artist” routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès’ early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator. Another French artist, Émile Cohl, began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. This makes Fantasmagorie the first animated film created using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation. Following the successes of Blackton and
Cohl, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One such artist was Winsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, who created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper; which invariably required backgrounds and characters to be redrawn and animated. Among McCay’s most noted films are Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918). The production of animated short films, typically referred to as “cartoons”, became an industry of its own during the 1910s, and cartoon shorts were produced to be shown in movie theaters. The most successful early animation producer was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade. El Apóstol (Spanish: “The Apostle”) was a 1917 Argentine animated film utilizing cutout animation, and the world’s first animated feature film.[citation needed]
TECHNIQUES TRADITIONAL ANIMATION Main article: Traditional animation Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators’ drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera. The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the
21st century. Today, animators’ drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The “look” of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators’ work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term “tradigital” to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology. Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), and Les Triplettes de Belleville (France, 2003). Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more ‘cartoony’ styles of those produced by the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007). Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated
content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons). Rotoscoping is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors’ outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (USA, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981). Live-action/animation is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples would include Who Framed Roger Rabbit (USA, 1988), Space Jam (USA, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (USA, 2002).
STOP MOTION
steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiří Trnka and the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present). Puppetoon, created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppet-animated films which typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet.
Clay animation
A stop-motion animation of a moving coin
Main article: Stop motion Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation. Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and
Clay animation, or Plasticine animation often abbreviated as claymation, uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside of them, similar to the related puppet animation (below), that can be manipulated in order to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated works include The Gumby Show (US, 1957–1967) Morph shorts (UK, 1977–2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan Švankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialogue (Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films include Wallace
& Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain. Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving 2-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam’s animated sequences from Monty Python’s Flying Circus (UK, 1969–1974); Fantastic Planet (France/ Czechoslovakia, 1973) ; Tale of Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the TV series (and sometimes in episodes) of South Park (US, 1997).
A clay animation scene from a Finnish television commercial
Silhouette animation is a variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Weimar Republic, 1926) and Princes et princesses (France, 2000). Model animation refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects, and split screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films such Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and the work of Willis O’Brien on films such as King Kong (1933 film).
Go motion is a variant of model animation which uses various techniques to
create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop-motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effects scenes for the film The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Another example is the dragon named Vermithrax from Dragonslayer (1981 film). Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion animation, as opposed to specially created items. Graphic animation uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc.) which are sometimes manipulated frame-by-frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stop-motion camera is moved to create on-screen action. Brickfilm A sub genre of object animation involving using LEGO or other similar brick toys in order to make an animation. These have had a recent boost in popularity with the advent of video sharing sites like YouTube, and the availability of cheap cameras, and animation software. Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other such effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts.
COMPUTER ANIMATION Main article: Computer animation Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. This animation takes less time than previous traditional animation.
2D ANIMATION 2D animation figures are created and/ or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of, interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolated rotoscoping. 2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.
3D ANIMATION 3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. In order to manipulate a mesh, it is given a digital skeletal structure that can be used to control the mesh. This process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (ex. gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of motion capture to name but a few, these techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics. Well-made 3D animations can be difficult to distinguish from live action and are commonly used as visual effects for recent movies. Toy Story (1995, USA) is the first feature-length film to be created and rendered entirely using 3D graphics.
TERMS Photo realistic animation, is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life. Using advanced rendering that makes detailed skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc. to mimic real life. Examples include Up (2009, USA), Kung-Fu Panda (2008, USA), Ice Age (2002, USA). Cel-shaded animation, is used to mimic traditional animation using CG software. Shading looked stark and less blending colors.
Examples include, Skyland (2007, France), Appleseed (2007, Japan), The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002, Japan) Motion capture, is used when live action actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express (2004, USA), Beowulf (2007, USA), A Christmas Carol (2009, USA), The Adventures of Tintin (2011, USA) 2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.
OTHER ANIMATION TECHNIQUES Drawn on film animation: a technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, for example by Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage. Paint-on-glass animation: a technique for making animated films by manipulating slow drying oil paints on sheets of glass, for example by Aleksandr Petrov. Erasure animation: a technique using tradition 2D medium, photographed over time as the artist manipulates the image. For example, William Kentridge is famous for his charcoal erasure films, and Piotr Dumała for his auteur technique of animating scratches on plaster. Pinscreen animation: makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with
a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with traditional cel animation.
Sand animation: sand is moved around on a back- or frontlighted piece of glass to create each frame for an animated film. This creates an interesting effect when animated because of the light contrast. Flip book: A flip book (sometimes, especially in British English, called a flick book) is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, but may appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books.
TA K E 3 : O PT I C A L I L LU S I O N
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about visual perception. For the Time Requiem album, see Optical Illusion (album).
An optical illusion. The square A is exactly the same shade of
CONTENTS 1 Physiological illusions 2 Cognitive illusions 3 Explanation of cognitive illusions 3.1 Perceptual organization 3.2 Depth and motion perception 3.3 Colour and brightness constancies 3.4 Object consistencies 3.5 Future perception 4 Illusions 5 Artists 6 Cognitive processes hypothesis 7 Gallery 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links
PHYSIOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS
gray as square B. See checker shadow illusion.
An optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. There are three main types:
literal optical ilusions that create images that are different from the objects that make them, physiological ones that are the effects on the eyes and brain of excessive stimulation of a specific type (brightness, colour, size, position, tilt, movement), and cognitive ilusions, the result of unconscious inferences.
A scintillating grid illusion. Shape, position, colour, and 3D contrast converge to produce the illusion of black dots at the intersections.
Physiological illusions, such as the afterimages following bright lights, or adapting stimuli of excessively longer alternating patterns (contingent perceptual aftereffect), are presumed to be the effects on the eyes or brain of excessive stimulation or interaction with contextual or competing stimuli of a specific type— brightness, colour, position, tile, size, movement, etc. The theory is that a stimulus follows its individual dedicated neural path in the early stages of visual processing, and that intense or repetitive activity in that or interaction with active adjoining channels cause a physiological imbalance that alters perception. The Hermann grid illusion and Mach bands are
two illusions that are best explained using a biological approach. Lateral inhibition, where in the receptive field of the retina light and dark receptors compete with one another to become active, has been used to explain why we see bands of increased brightness at the edge of a colour difference when viewing Mach bands. Once a receptor is active it inhibits adjacent receptors. This inhibition creates contrast, highlighting edges. In the Hermann grid illusion the gray spots appear at the intersection because of the inhibitory response which occurs as a result of the increased dark surround.[1] Lateral inhibition has also been used to explain the Hermann grid illusion, but this has been disproved.[citation needed] More recent “empirical” approaches to optical illusions have had some success in explaining optical phenomena with which theories based on lateral inhibition have struggled (e.g. Howe et al. 2005[2]).
COGNITIVE ILLUSIONS
PERCEPTUALORGANIZATION
Reversible figures and vase
Fictions are when a figure is perceived even though it is not in the stimulus.
Cognitive ilusions are assumed to arise by interaction with assumptions about the world, leading to “UNCONSCIOUS INFERENCES” an idea first suggested in the 19th century by Hermann Helmholtz. Cognitive illusions are commonly divided into ambiguous illusions, distorting illusions, paradox illusions, or fiction illusions. Ambiguous illusions are pictures or objects that elicit a perceptual ‘switch’ between the alternative interpretations. The Necker cube is a well known example; another instance is the Rubin vase. Distorting or geometrical-optical ilusions are characterized by distortions of size, length, position or curvature. A striking example is the Café wall ilusion. Other examples is the famous Müller-Lyer ilusion and Ponzo ilusion. Paradox ilusions are generated by objects that are paradoxical or impossible, such as the Penrose triangle or impossible staircases seen, for example, in M. C. Escher’s Ascending and Descending and Waterfall. The triangle is an ilusion dependent on a cognitive misunderstanding that adjacent edges must join.
Duck-Rabbit illusion
To make sense of the world it is necessary to organize incoming sensations into information which is meaningful.
Gestalt psychologists believe one way this is done is by perceiving individual sensory stimuli as a meaningful whole.[3] Gestalt organization can be used to explain many illusions including the DuckRabbit illusion where the image as a whole switches back and forth from being a duck
then being a rabbit and why in the figureground illusion the figure and ground are reversible.
Kanizsa triangle
In addition, Gestalt theory can be used to explain the illusory contours in the Kanizsa Triangle. A floating white triangle, which does not exist, is seen. The brain has a need to see familiar simple objects and has a tendency to create a “whole” image from individual elements.[3] Gestalt means “form” or “shape” in German. However, another explanation of the Kanizsa Triangle is based in evolutionary psychology and the fact that in order to survive it was important to see form and edges. The use of perceptual organization to create meaning out of stimuli is the principle behind other well-known illusions including impossible objects. Our brain makes sense of shapes and symbols putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, formulating that which isn’t there to that which is believable.
DEPTH & MOTION PERCEPTION Illusions can be based on an individual’s ability to see in three dimensions even though the image hitting the retina is only two dimensional. The Ponzo illusion is an example of an illusion which uses monocular cues of depth perception to fool the eye. In the Ponzo illusion the converging parallel lines tell the brain that the image higher in the visual field is farther away therefore the brain perceives the image to be larger, although the two images hitting
the retina are the same size.
Ponzo illusion
The Optical illusion seen in a diorama/false perspective also exploits assumptions based on monocular cues of depth perception. The M. C. Escher painting Waterfall exploits rules of depth and proximity and our understanding of the physical world to create an illusion. Like depth perception, motion perception is responsible for a number of sensory illusions. Film animation is based on the illusion that the brain perceives a series of slightly varied images produced in rapid succession as a moving picture. Likewise, when we are moving, as we would be while riding in a vehicle, stable surrounding objects may appear to move.
We may also perceive a large object, like an airplane, to move more slowly than smaller objects, like a car, although the larger object is actually moving faster. The Phi phenomenon is yet another example of how the brain perceives motion, which is most often created by blinking lights in close succession.
Simultaneous Contrast Illusion. The background is a colour gradient and progresses from dark grey to light grey. The horizontal bar appears to progress from light grey to dark grey, but is in fact just one colour.
COLOUR & BRIGHTNESS CONSTANCIES
In this illusion (above), the coloured regions appear rather different, roughly orange and brown. In fact they are the same colour, and in identical immediate surrounds, but the brain changes its assumption about colour due to the global interpretation of the surrounding image. Also, the white tiles that are shadowed are the same colour as the grey tiles outside
the shadow. Perceptual constancies are sources of illusions. Colour constancy and brightness constancy are responsible for the fact that a familiar object will appear the same colour regardless of the amount of or colour of light reflecting from it. An illusion of colour or contrast difference can be created when the luminosity or colour of the area surrounding an unfamiliar object is changed. The contrast of the object will appear darker against a black field that reflects less light compared to a white field even though the object itself did not change in colour. Similarly, the eye will compensate for colour contrast depending on the colour cast of the surrounding area.
OBJECT CONSISTENCIES Just as it perceives colour and brightness constancies, the brain has the ability to understand familiar objects as having a consistent shape or size. For example a door is perceived as rectangle regardless of how
the image may change on the retina as the door is opened and closed. Unfamiliar objects, however, do not always follow the rules of shape constancy and may change when the perspective is changed. The Shepard illusion of the changing table[4] is an example of an illusion based on distortions in shape constancy.
FUTURE PERCEPTION Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York has a more imaginative take on optical illusions, saying that they are due to a neural lag which most humans experience while awake. When light hits the retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Scientists have known of the lag, yet they have debated how humans compensate, with some proposing that our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay. Changizi asserts that the human visual system has evolved to compensate for neural delays by generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. This foresight enables humans to react to events in the present, enabling humans to perform reflexive acts like catching a fly ball and to maneuver smoothly through a crowd.[5] Illusions occur when our brains attempt to perceive the future, and those perceptions don’t match reality. For example, an illusion called the Hering illusion looks like bicycle spokes around a central point, with vertical lines on either side of this central, so-called vanishing point. The illusion tricks us into thinking we are moving forward, and thus, switches on our future-seeing abilities. Since we aren’t actually moving and the figure is static, we misperceive the straight lines as curved ones. Changizi said:
like this elicit in us premonitions of the near future. The converging lines toward a vanishing point (the spokes) are cues that trick our brains into thinking we are moving forward—as we would in the real world, where the door frame (a pair of vertical lines) seems to bow out as we move through it—and we try to perceive what that world will look like in the next instant.”[5] ILLUSIONS
An optical illusion. The two circles seem to move when the viewer’s head is moving forwards and backwards while look-
“Evolution has seen to it that geometric drawings
ing at the black dot.
Floor tiles at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. The pattern creates an illusion of three-dimensional boxes.
Artists who have worked with optical illusions include M. C. Escher, Bridget Riley, Salvador Dalí, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Marcel Duchamp, Oscar Reutersvärd, Victor Vasarely and Charles Allan Gilbert. Contemporary artists who have experimented with illusions include Octavio Ocampo, Dick Termes, Shigeo Fukuda, Patrick Hughes, István Orosz, Rob Gonsalves, Gianni A. Sarcone, Ben Heine and Akiyoshi Kitaoka. Optical illusion is also used in film by the technique of forced perspective.
COGNITIVE PROCESS HYPOTHESIS The hypothesis claims that visual ilusions occur because the neural circuitry in our visual system evolves, by neural learning, to a system that makes very efficient interpretations of usual 3D scenes based in the emergence of simplified models in our brain that speed up the interpretation process but give rise to optical ilusions in unusual situations. In this sense, the cognitive processes hypothesis can be considered a framework for an understanding of optical ilusions as the signature of the empirical statistical way vision has evolved to solve the inverse problem.[6] Research indicates that 3D vision capabilities emerge and are learned jointly with the planning of movements. After a long process of learning, an internal representation of the world emerges that is well adjusted to the perceived data coming from closer objects. The representation of distant objects
near the horizon is less “adequate”. In fact, it is not only the Moon that seems larger when we perceive it near the horizon. In a photo of a distant scene, all distant objects are perceived as smaller than when we observe them directly using our vision. The retinal image is the main source driving vision but what we see is a “virtual” 3D representation of the scene in front of us. We don’t see a physical image of the world; we see objects, and the physical world is not itself separated into objects. We see it according to the way our brain organizes it. The names, colours, usual shapes and other information about the things we see pop up instantaneously from our neural circuitry and influence the representation of the scene. We “see” the most relevant information about the elements of the best 3D image that our neural networks can produce. The ilusions arise when the “judgments” implied in the unconscious analysis of the scene are in conflict with reasoned considerations about it.
SEE ALSO Alice in Wonderland syndrome Auditory illusion Barberpole illusion (Barber’s pole) Camouflage Contingent perceptual aftereffect Contour rivalry Depth perception Emmert’s law Entoptic phenomenon Forced perspective Geometrical-optical illusions Gestalt psychology Gravity hill Hybrid image Infinity edge pool Kinetic depth effect Mirage Multistable Perception Op Art Trompe l’oeil Visual space Closed-eye hallucination / Closed-eye visualization Image burn-in / Afterimage / ghost image
TA K E 4 : P E R S I ST E N C E OF VISION
PERSISTENCE OF VISION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the theory on human vision. For other uses, see Persistence of vision (disambiguation). Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second on the retina.
The myth of persistence of vision is the mistaken belief that human perception of motion (brain centered) is the result of persistence of vision (eye centred). The myth was debunked in 1912 by Wertheimer[1] but persists in many citations in many classic and modern film-theory texts. [2][3][4] A more plausible theory to explain motion perception (at least on a descriptive level) are two distinct perceptual illusions: phi phenomenon and beta movement. A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of this phenomenon.[5] Although psychologists and physiologists have rejected the relevance of this theory to film viewership, film academics and theorists generally have not. Some scientists nowadays consider the entire theory a myth.[6] In contrasting persistence of vision theory with phi phenomena, a critical part of understanding that emerges with these visual perception phenomena is that the eye is not a camera. In other words vision is not as simple
as light registering on a medium, since the brain has to make sense of the visual data the eye provides and construct a coherent picture of reality. Joseph Anderson and Barbara Fisher argue that the phi phenomena privileges a more constructionist approach to the cinema (David Bordwell, NoĂŤl Carroll, Kirsten Thompson), whereas the persistence of vision privileges a realist approach (AndrĂŠ Bazin, Christian Metz, Jean-Louis Baudry).[6] The discovery of persistence of vision is attributed to the Roman poet Lucretius, although he only mentions it in connection with images seen in a dream.[7] In the modern era, some stroboscopic experiments performed by Peter Mark Roget in 1824 were also cited as the basis for the theory.[8]
CONTENTS 1 Film systems 2 Computer monitors 3 Cartoon animation 4 Printed media 5 Persistence Of Vision Displays 6 See also 7 Notes and references 8 External links
FILM SYSTEMS Persistence of vision is still the accepted term for this phenomenon in the realm of cinema history and theory. In the early days of film innovation, it was scientifically determined that a frame rate of less than 16 frames per second (frame/s) caused the mind to see flashing images. Audiences still interpret motion at rates as low as ten frames per second or slower (as in a flipbook), but the flicker caused by the shutter of a film projector is distracting below the 16-frame threshold. Modern theatrical film runs at 24 frames a second. This is the case for both physical film and digital cinema systems. It is important to distinguish between the frame rate and the flicker rate, which are not necessarily the same. In physical film systems,
it is necessary to pull down the film frame, and this pulling-down needs to be obscured by a shutter to avoid the appearance of blurring; therefore, there needs to be at least one flicker per frame in film. To reduce the appearance of flicker, virtually all modern projector shutters are designed to add additional flicker periods, typically doubling the flicker rate to 48 Hz (single-bladed shutters make two rotations per frame – doublebladed shutters make one rotation per frame), which is less visible. (Some three-bladed projector shutters even triple it to 72 Hz.) In digital film systems, the scan rate may be decoupled from the image update rate. In some systems, such as the Digital Light Processing (DLP) system, there is no flying spot or raster scan at all, so there is no flicker other than that generated by the temporal aliasing of the film image capture. The new film system MaxiVision 48 films at 48 frames per second, which, according to film critic Roger Ebert, offers even a strobeless tracking shot past picket fences. The lack of strobe (as opposed to flicker) is due to the higher sampling rate of the camera relative to the speed of movement of the image across the film plane. This ultra-smooth imaging is called High motion. It is critical for sports and motion simulation, but unpopular for drama.
COMPUTER MONITORS Aside from some configurations used until the early 1990s[citation needed], computer monitors do not use interlacing. They may sometimes be seen to flicker, often in a brightly lit room, and at close viewing distances. The latter effect is due to the greater likelihood that part of the screen will occupy the viewer’s peripheral vision, where sensitivity to flickering is greater. Generally, a refresh rate of 85 Hz or above (as found in most modern CRT monitors) is sufficient to minimize flicker at close viewing distances, and all recent computer monitors are capable of at least that rate. Flat-panel liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors do not suffer from flicker even if their refresh rate is 60 Hz or even lower.
This is because LCD pixels open to allow a continuous stream of light to pass through until instructed by the video signal to produce a darker color (see also ghosting). CRTs by comparison create a momentary burst of light each time the electron beam strikes a particular point on the CRT.[9]
CARTOON ANIMATION See also: key frame
This animated cartoon of a galloping horse is displayed at 12 drawings per second, and the fast motion is on the edge of being objectionably jerky. In drawn animation, moving characters are often shot “on twos”, that is to say, one drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating “on ones”, as “twos” are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production cost. Animation for most “Saturday morning cartoons” is produced as cheaply as possible, and is most often shot on “threes”, or even “fours”, i.e. three or four frames per drawing. This translates to only 8 or 6 drawings per second, respectively.[citation needed]
PRINTED MEDIA Flip books use this principle. If the book is flipped at a fast enough speed, the illusion of smooth motion is created.
PERSISTENCE OF VISION DISPLAYS A class of display device described as “POV” is one that composes an image by displaying one spatial portion at a time in rapid succession (for example, one column of pixels every few milliseconds). A 2 dimensional POV display is often accomplished by means of rapidly moving a single row of LEDs along a linear or circular path. The effect is that the image is perceived as a whole by the viewer as long as the entire path is completed during the visual persistence time of the human eye. A further effect is often to give the illusion of the image floating in mid-air. A 3 dimensional POV display is often constructed using a 2D grid of LEDs which is swept or rotated through a volume. POV display devices can be used in combination with long camera exposures to produce light writing. Thaumatrope Phenakistoscope Zoetrope
SEE ALSO Flicker fusion threshold Light writing, a physical animation technique that has the appearance of persistence of vision.
NOTES AND REFERENCES ^ Wertheimer, 1912. Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung. Zeitschrift für Psychologie 61, pp. 161–265 ^ Bazin, André (1967) What is Cinema?, Vol. I, Trans. Hugh Gray, Berkeley: University of California Press
^ Cook, David A. (2004) A History of Narrative Film. New York, W. W. Norton & Company. ^ Metz, Christian (1991) Film Language: A Semiotics of The Cinema, trans. Michael Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ^ Coltheart M. “The persistences of vision.” Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1980 Jul 8;290(1038):57– 69. PMID 6106242. ^ a b Anderson, Joseph; Anderson, Barbara (1993). “The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited”. Journal of Film and Video 45 (1): 3–12. Archived from the original on 2008-05-26. ^ Herbert, S. (2000). A history of pre-cinema. London. Routledge. p 121 ^ Maltby, R. (2004). Hollywood cinema. [Oxford]: Blackwell Publishing. p 420 ^ Contemporary LCD Monitor Parameters: Objective and Subjective Analysis (page 3) [edit]
TA K E 5 : P E R C E PT I O N O F MOT I O N
MOTION PERCEPTION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The dorsal stream (green) and ventral stream (purple) are shown. They originate from a common source in visual cortex. The dorsal stream is responsible for detection of location and motion. Motion perception is the process of inferring the speed and direction of elements in a scene based on visual, vestibular and proprioceptive inputs. Although this process appears straightforward to most observers, it has proven to be a difficult problem from a computational perspective, and extraordinarily difficult to explain in terms of neural processing. Motion perception is studied by many disciplines, including psychology (i.e. visual perception), neurology, neurophysiology, engineering, and computer science.
CONTENTS 1 Neuropsychology 2 First-order motion perception 3 Second-order motion perception 4 Motion integration 4.1 The aperture problem 5 Motion in depth 6 See also 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Labs specialising in motion research
NEUROPSYCHOLOGY The inability to perceive motion is called akinetopsia and it may be caused by a lesion to cortical area V5 in the extrastriate cortex. Neuropsychological studies of a patient who could not see motion, seeing the world in a series of static “frames� instead, suggested that visual area V5 in humans is homologous to motion processing area MT in primates.[1][2]
FIRST-ORDER MOTION PERCEPTION
Example of Beta movement, often confused with phi phenomenon, in which a succession of still images gives the illusion of a moving ball.[3] First-order motion perception refers to the perception of the motion of an object that differs in luminance from its background, such as a black bug crawling across a white page. This sort of motion can be detected by a relatively simple motion sensor designed to detect a change in luminance at one point on the retina and correlate it with a change in luminance at a neighbouring point on the retina after a delay. Sensors that work this way have been referred to as Hassenstein-Reichardt detectors after the scientists Bernhard Hassenstein, behaviour analyses and Werner Reichardt, who first modelled them.[4] motionenergy sensors,[5] or Elaborated Reichardt Detectors.[6] These sensors detect motion by spatio-temporal correlation and are plausible models for how the visual system may detect motion. There is still considerable debate regarding the exact nature of this process. First-order motion sensors suffer from the aperture problem, which means that they can detect motion only perpendicular to
the orientation of the contour that is moving. Further processing is required to disambiguate true global motion direction.[7]
SECOND-ORDER MOTION PERCEPTION Second-order motion is motion in which the moving contour is defined by contrast, texture, flicker or some other quality that does not result in an increase in luminance or motion energy in the Fourier spectrum of the stimulus. [8][9] There is much evidence to suggest that early processing of first- and second-order motion is carried out by separate pathways. [10] Second-order mechanisms have poorer temporal resolution and are low-pass in terms of the range of spatial frequencies to which they respond. Second-order motion produces a weaker motion aftereffect unless tested with dynamically flickering stimuli.[11] First and second-order signals appear to be fully combined at the level of Area V5/MT of the visual system.
MOTION INTEGRATION Having extracted motion signals (first- or second-order) from the retinal image, the visual system must integrate those individual local motion signals at various parts of the visual field into a 2-dimensional or global representation of moving objects and surfaces.
THE APERTURE PROBLEM The aperture problem. The grating appears to be moving down and to the right, perpendicular to the orientation of the bars. But it could be moving in many other directions, such as only down, or only to the right. It is impossible to determine unless the ends of the bars become visible in the aperture. Each neuron in the visual system is sensitive to visual input in a small part of the visual field, as if each neuron is looking at the visual field through a small window or aperture. The
motion direction of a contour is ambiguous, because the motion component parallel to the line cannot be inferred based on the visual input. This means that a variety of contours of different orientations moving at different speeds can cause identical responses in a motion sensitive neuron in the visual system. Individual neurons early in the visual system (V1) respond to motion that occurs locally within their receptive field. Because each local motion-detecting neuron will suffer from the aperture problem, the estimates from many neurons need to be integrated into a global motion estimate. This appears to occur in Area MT/V5 in the human visual cortex. The same problem is found in mathematical optical flow estimation techniques. See also Barber’s pole and the barberpole illusion.
MOTION IN DEPTH As in other aspects of vision, the observer’s visual input is generally insufficient to determine the true nature of stimulus sources, in this case their velocity in the real world. In monocular vision for example, the visual input will be a 2D projection of a 3D scene. The motion cues present in the 2D projection will by default be insufficient to reconstruct the motion present in the 3D scene. Put differently, many 3D scenes will be compatible with a single 2D projection. The problem of motion estimation generalizes to binocular vision when we consider occlusion or motion perception at relatively large distances, where binocular disparity is a poor cue to depth. This fundamental difficulty is referred to as the inverse problem.
SEE ALSO Persistence of vision Phi phenomenon Pulfrich effect Strobe light Stroboscopic effect Visual cortex Visual perception
TA K E 6 : ST R O B O S CO P E & E D G E RTO N
Harold “Doc” Edgerton Pole Vaulter
STROBOSCOPE From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A strobe light flashing at the proper period can appear to freeze or reverse cyclical motion A stroboscope, also known as a strobe, is an instrument used to make a cyclically moving object appear to be slow-moving, or stationary. The principle is used for the study of rotating, reciprocating, oscillating or vibrating objects. Machine parts and vibrating strings are common examples. Intense flashing/pulsing light of various frequencies can trigger epileptic seizures in people who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.
CONTENTS 1 Types of stroboscopes 1.1 Mechanical 1.2 Electronic 2 History 3 Applications 4 Other effects 5 See also 6 References 7 External links
TYPES OF STROBOSCOPES A bouncing ball captured with a stroboscopic flash at 25 images per second.
MECHANICAL In its simplest mechanical form, a rotating cylinder (or bowl with a raised edge) with evenly-spaced holes or slots is placed in the line of sight between the observer and the
moving object. The observer looks through the holes/slots on the near and far side at the same time, with the slots/holes moving in opposite directions. When the holes/slots are aligned on opposite sides, the object is visible to the observer. Alternately, a single moving hole or slot can be used with a fixed/stationary hole or slot. The stationary hole or slot limits the light to a single viewing path and reduces glare from light passing through other parts of the moving hole/slot. Viewing through a single line of holes/slots does not work, since the holes/slots appear to just sweep across the object without a strobe effect. The rotational speed is adjusted so that it becomes synchronised with the movement of the observed system, which seems to slow and stop.
electronics, but are being replaced by LEDs in most low-intensity strobe applications. Xenon flash lamps are used for mediumand-high intensity strobe applications. Sufficiently rapid or bright flashing may require active cooling such as forced-air or water cooling to prevent the xenon flash lamp from melting.
HISTORY
1540 Strobolume, a professional grade stroboscope produced by General Radio
The illusion is caused by temporal aliasing, commonly known as the stroboscopic effect. ELECTRONIC In electronic versions, the perforated disc is replaced by a lamp capable of emitting brief and rapid flashes of light. Typically a gas-discharge or solid-state lamp is used, because they are capable of emitting light nearly instantly when power is applied, and extinguishing just as fast when the power is removed. By comparison, incandescent lamps have a brief warm-up when energized, followed by a cool-down period when power is removed. These delays result in smearing and blurring of detail of objects partially illuminated during the warm-up and cool-down periods. The frequency of the flash is adjusted so that it is an equal to, or a unit fraction of the object’s cyclic speed, at which point the object is seen to be either stationary or moving slowly backward or forward, depending on the flash frequency. Neon lamps or light emitting diodes are commonly used for low-intensity strobe applications, Neon lamps were more common before the development of solid-state
Close-up view of the 1540 Strobolume control box
Joseph Plateau of Belgium is generally credited with the invention of the stroboscope in 1832, when he used a disc with radial slits which he turned while viewing images on a separate rotating wheel. Plateau called his device the “Phenakistoscope”. There was a simultaneous and independent invention of the device by the Austrian Simon von Stampfer, which he named the “Stroboscope”, and it is his term which is used today. The etymology is from the Greek
words στρόβος - strobos, meaning “whirlpool” and σκοπεῖν - skopein, meaning “to look at”. As well as having important applications for scientific research, the earliest inventions received immediate popular success as methods for producing moving pictures, and the principle was used for numerous toys. Other early pioneers employed rotating mirrors, or vibrating mirrors known as mirror galvanometers. In 1917, French engineer Etienne Oehmichen patented the first electric stroboscope,[1] building at the same time a camera capable of shooting 1,000 frames per second. The electronic strobe light stroboscope was invented in 1931, when Harold Eugene Edgerton (“Doc” Edgerton) employed a flashing lamp to study machine parts in motion.[2] General Radio Corporation then went on to productize this invention in the form of their “Strobotach”.
Edgerton later used very short flashes of light as a means of producing still photographs of fast-moving objects, such as bullets in flight. APPLICATIONS Stroboscopes play an important role in the study of stresses on machinery in motion, and in many other forms of research. Bright stroboscopes are able to overpower ambient lighting and make stop-motion effects
apparent without the need for dark ambient operating conditions. They are also used as measuring instruments for determining cyclic speed. As a timing light they are used to set the ignition timing of internal combustion engines. In medicine, stroboscopes are used to view the vocal cords for diagnosis of conditions that have produced dysphonia (hoarseness). The patient hums or speaks into a microphone which in turn activates the stroboscope at either the same or a slightly different frequency. The light source and a camera are positioned by endoscopy. Another application of the stroboscope can be seen on many gramophone turntables. The edge of the platter has marks at specific intervals so that when viewed under fluorescent lighting powered at mains frequency, provided the platter is rotating at the correct speed, the marks appear to be stationary. This will not work under incandescent lighting, as incandescent bulbs don’t strobe. For this reason, some turntables have a neon bulb next to the platter. Flashing lamp strobes are also adapted for pop use, as a lighting effect for discotheques and night clubs where they give the impression of dancing in slow motion. The strobe rate of these devices is typically not very precise or very fast, because the entertainment application does not usually require a high degree of performance.
OTHER EFFECTS Rapid flashing can give the illusion that white light is tinged with color, known as Fechner color. Within certain ranges, the apparent color can be controlled by the frequency of the flash, but it is an illusion generated in the mind of the observer and not a real color. The Benham’s top demonstrates the effect.
SEE ALSO Electrotachyscope
Flip book Phenakistoscope Praxinoscope Strobe light Strobe tuner Tachometer Thaumatrope Zoetrope
STROBOSCOPIC EFFECT From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Stroboscope. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2010. This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009)
The stroboscopic effect is a visual phenomenon caused by aliasing that occurs when continuous motion is represented by a series of short or instantaneous samples. It occurs when the view of a moving object is represented by a series of short samples as distinct from a continuous view, and the moving object is in rotational or other cyclic motion at a rate close to the sampling rate. It also accounts for the “wagon-wheel effect”, so called because in video or film, spoked wheels on horse-drawn wagons sometimes appear to be turning backwards. A strobe fountain, a stream of water droplets falling at regular intervals lit with a strobe light, is an example of the stroboscopic effect being applied to a cyclic motion that is not rotational. When viewed under normal light, this is a normal water fountain. When viewed under a strobe light with its frequency
tuned to the rate at which the droplets fall, the droplets appear to be suspended in mid-air. Adjusting the strobe frequency can make the droplets seemingly move slowly up or down.
CONTENTS 1 Explanation 1.1 Audio conversion from light patterns 2 Wagon-wheel effect 3 See also 4 External links
EXPLANATION Consider the stroboscope as used in mechanical analysis. This may be a “strobe light” that is fired at an adjustable rate. For example, an object is rotating at 60 revolutions per second: if it is viewed with a series of short flashes at 60 times per second, each flash illuminates the object at the same position in its rotational cycle, so it appears that the object is stationary. Furthermore, at a frequency of 60 flashes per second, persistence of vision smooths out the sequence of flashes so that the perceived image is continuous. If the same rotating object is viewed at 61 flashes per second, each flash will illuminate it at a slightly earlier part of its rotational cycle. Sixty-one flashes will occur before the object is seen in the same position again, and the series of images will be perceived as if it is rotating backwards once per minute. The same effect occurs if the object is viewed at 59 flashes per second, except that each flash illuminates it a little later in its rotational cycle and so, the object will seem to be slowly rotating forwards. In the case of motion pictures, action is captured as a rapid series of still images and the same stroboscopic effect can occur.
AUDIO CONVERSION FROM LIGHT PATTERNS
The stroboscopic effect also plays a role in audio playback. Compact discs rely on strobing reflections of the laser from the surface of the disc in order to be processed (it is also used for computer data). DVD and Blu-ray Disc have similar functions. The stroboscopic effects also plays a role for laser microphones.
WAGON-WHEEL EFFECT See main article: Wagon-wheel effect Motion-picture cameras conventionally film at 24 frames per second. Although the wheels of a vehicle are not likely to be turning at 24 revolutions per second (as that would be extremely fast), suppose each wheel has twelve spokes and rotates at only two revolutions per second. Filmed at 24 frames per second, the spokes in each frame will appear in exactly the same position. Hence, the wheel will be perceived to be stationary. In fact, each photographically captured spoke in any one position will be a different actual spoke in each successive frame, but since the spokes are close to identical in shape and color, no difference will be perceived.
If the wheel rotates a little more slowly than two revolutions per second, the position of the spokes is seen to fall a little further behind in each successive frame and therefore the wheel will seem to be turning backwards.
TA K E 7: H I STO RY O F A N I M AT I O N
HISTORY OF ANIMATION
EARLY ANIMATION
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PRECURSORS TO ANIMATION
This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia’s quality standards. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. (November 2007)
Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to show movement within those drawings. A series of drawings are linked together and usually photographed by a camera, or scanned into, or generated by a computer. The drawings have been slightly changed between individual frames, so that when they are played back in rapid succession (24 frames per second) there appears to be seamless movement within the drawings.
Five images sequence from a vase found in Iran.
Evidence of artistic interest in depicting figures in motion can be seen as early as the still drawings of Paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple sets of legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.[1] Other examples include a 5,200-year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-e Sukhteh and an ancient Egyptian mural. The Persian bowl has five images painted along the sides, showing phases of a goat leaping up to nip at a tree.[2][3] The Egyptian mural, found in the thomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, at the Beni Hassan cemetery. The paintings are approximately 4000 years old and show scenes of young soldiers being trained in wrestling and combat.[4]
CONTENTS 1 Early Animation 1.1 Precursors to Animation 2 Victorian parlor toys 2.1 Zoetrope (180 AD; 1834) 2.2 The magic lantern 2.3 Thaumatrope (1824) 2.4 Phenakistoscope (1831) 2.5 Flip book (1868) 2.6 Praxinoscope (1877) 3 The present 3.1 Traditional animation 3.2 Feature-length films 3.3 Stop motion 3.4 CGI animation 4 The future 4.1 CGI Animated humans 4.2 Cel-shaded animation 5 Asia
Egyptian burial chamber mural.
Seven drawings by Leonardo da Vinci (ca. 1510) extending over two folios in the Windsor Collection, Anatomical Studies of the Muscles of the Neck, Shoulder, Chest, and Arm, show detailed drawings of the upper body (with a less-detailed facial image), illustrating the changes as the torso turns from profile to frontal position and the forearm
extends. Even though all these early examples may appear similar to a series of animation drawings, the lack of equipment to show the images in motion means that these image series are precursors to animation and cannot be called animation in the modern sense. They do, however, indicate the artists’ intentions and interests in depicting motion.[edit]1http://edgerton-digital-collections. org/galleries/iconic/humans#
VICTORIAN PARLOR TOYS
Many of the early inventions designed to animate images were meant as novelties for private amusement of children or small par ties. Animation devices which fall into this category include the zoetrope, magic lantern, praxinoscope, thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, and flip book
ZOETROPE (180 AD; 1834) The zoetrope is a device which creates the image of a moving picture. The earliest[citation needed] elementary zoetrope was created in China around 180 AD by the prolific inventor Ting Huan (ä¸ çˇŠ). Made from translucent paper or mica panels, Huan hung the device over a lamp. The rising air turned vanes at the top from which hung the pictures painted on the panels would appear to move if the device is spun at the right speed.[5][6][7][8]
The modern zoetrope was produced in 1834 by William George Horner. The device is essentially a cylinder with vertical slits around the sides. Around the
inside edge of the cylinder there are a series of pictures on the opposite side to the slits. As the cylinder is spun, the user then looks through the slits to view the illusion of motion. The zoetrope is still being used in animation courses to illustrate early concepts of animation.
THE MAGIC LANTERN The magic lantern is the predecessor of the modern day projector. It consisted of a translucent oil painting and a simple lamp. When put together in a darkened room, the image would appear larger on a flat surface. Athanasius Kircher spoke about this originating from China in the 16th century.[citation needed] Some slides for the lanterns contained parts that could be mechanically actuated to present limited movement on the screen.
THAUMATROPE 1824 A thaumatrope was a simple toy used in the Victorian era. A thaumatrope is a small circular disk or card with two different pictures on each side that was attached to a piece of string or a pair of strings running through the centre. When the string is twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures appear to combine into a single image. The thaumatrope demonstrates the Phi phenomenon, the brain’s ability to persistently perceive an image. Its invention is variously credited[citation needed] to Charles Babbage, Peter Roget, or John Ayrton Paris, but Paris is known to have used one to illustrate the Phi phenomenon in 1824 to the
Royal College of Physicians.
PHENAKISTOSCOPE A phenakistoscope disc by Eadweard Muybridge (1893) (images to the right). The phenakistoscope was an early animation device, the predecessor of the zoetrope. It was invented in 1831 simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer. Phenakistoscope below showing three phases of motion and to the left, phases overlaid.
Many of the early inventions designed to animate images were meant as novelties for private amusement of children or small parties. FLIPBOOK The first flip book was patented in 1868 by John Barnes Linnet. Flip books were yet another development that brought us closer to modern animation. Like the Zoetrope, the Flip Book creates the ilusion of motion. A set of sequential pictures flipped at a high speed creates this effect. The Mutoscope (1894) is basically a flip book in a box with a crank handle to flip the pages.
THE PRAXINOSCOPE The praxinoscope, invented by French scientist Charles-Émile Reynaud, was a more sophisticated version of the zoetrope. It used the same basic mechanism of a strip of images placed on the inside of a spinning cylinder,
but instead of viewing it through slits, it was viewed in a series of small, stationary mirrors around the inside of the cylinder, so that the animation would stay in place, and provide a clearer image and better quality. Reynaud also developed a larger version of the praxinoscope that could be projected onto a screen, called the Théâtre Optique.
TA K E 8 : TR ADITIONAL A N I M AT I O N
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (April 2011) This article’s lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article’s key points. (February 2011) This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2009)
1.5 Layout 1.6 Animation 1.7 Pencil test 1.8 Backgrounds 1.9 Traditional ink-and-paint and camera 1.10 Digital ink and paint 1.11 Computers and digital video cameras 2 Techniques 2.1 Cels 2.2 Limited animation 2.3 “Shooting on twos” 2.4 Animation loops 2.5 Multiplane camera 2.6 Xerography 2.7 The APT process 2.8 Cel overlay 2.9 Computers and traditional animation 2.10 Rotoscoping 2.11 Live-action hybrids 2.12 Special effects animation 3 See also 4 References 5 External links
Traditional
PROCESS
TRADITIONAL ANIMATION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Digital ink” redirects here. For the display technology, see electronic paper.
animation, (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until the advent of computer animation. CONTENTS [HIDE] 1 Process 1.1 Storyboards 1.2 Voice recording 1.3 Animatic 1.4 Design and timing
STORYBOARDS Traditionally-animated productions, just like other forms of animation, usually begin life as a storyboard, which is a script of sorts written with images as well as words, similar to a g iant comic strip. The images allow the animation team to plan the flow of the plot and the composition of the imagery. The storyboard artists will have regular meetings with the director, and may have to redraw or “re-board” a sequence many times before it meets final approval.
VOICE RECORDING Before true animation begins, a preliminary soundtrack or “scratch track” is recorded, so that the animation may be more precisely synchronized to the soundtrack. Given the slow, methodical manner in which traditional animation is produced, it is almost always easier to synchronize animation to a preexisting soundtrack than it is to synchronize a soundtrack to pre-existing animation. A completed cartoon soundtrack will feature music, sound effects, and dialogue performed by voice actors. However, the scratch track used during animation typically contains only the voices, any vocal songs the characters must sing along to, and temporary musical score tracks; the final score and sound effects are added in post-production. In the case of most pre-1930 sound animated cartoons, the sound was post-synched; that is, the sound track was recorded after the film elements were finished by watching the film and performing the dialogue, music, and sound effects required. Some studios, most notably Fleischer Studios, continued to post-synch their cartoons through most of the 1930s, which allowed for the presence of the “muttered ad-libs” present in many Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop cartoons.
ANIMATIC Often, an animatic or story reel is made after the soundtrack is created, but before full animation begins.
An animatic typically consists of pictures of the storyboard synchronized with the soundtrack. This allows the animators and directors to work out any script and timing issues that may exist with the current storyboard. The storyboard and soundtrack are amended if necessary, and a new animatic may be created and reviewed with the director until the storyboard is perfected. Editing the film at the animatic stage prevents the animation of scenes that would be edited out of the film; as traditional animation is a very expensive and time-consuming process, creating scenes that will eventually be edited out of the completed cartoon is strictly avoided. In the mid 1970s, these were known as videomatics and used primarily for test commercial projects. Advertising agencies today employ the use of animatics to test their commercials before they are made into full up spots. Animatics use drawn artwork, with moving pieces (for example, an arm that reaches for a product, or a head that turns). Video storyboards are similar to animatics, but do not have moving pieces. Photomatics are another option when creating test spots, but instead of using drawn artwork, there is a shoot in which hundreds of digital photographs are taken. The large amount of images to choose from may make the process of creating a test commercial a bit easier, as opposed to creating an animatic, because changes to drawn art take time and money. Photomatics generally cost more than animatics, as they require a shoot and on-camera talent.
DESIGN & TIMING Once the animatic has been approved, it and the storyboards are sent to the design departments. Character designers prepare model sheets for all important characters
and props in the film. These model sheets will show how a character or object looks from a variety of angles with a variety of poses and expressions, so that all artists
working on the project can deliver consistent work. Sometimes, small statues known as maquettes may be produced, so that an animator can see what a character looks like in three dimensions. At the same time, the background stylists will do similar work for the settings and locations in the project, and the art directors and color stylists will determine the art style and color schemes to be used. While design is going on, the timing director (who in many cases will be the main director) takes the animatic and analyzes exactly what poses, drawings, and lip movements will be needed on what frames. An exposure sheet (or X-sheet for short) is created; this is a printed table that breaks down the action, dialogue, and sound frame-by-frame as a guide for the animators. If a film is based more strongly in music, a bar sheet may be prepared in addition to or instead of an X-sheet. Bar sheets show the relationship between the on-screen action, the dialogue, and the actual musical notation used in the score.
LAYOUT Layout begins after the designs are completed and approved by the director. The layout process is the same as the blocking out of shots by a cinematographer on a live-action film. It is here that the background layout artists determine the camera angles, camera paths, lighting, and shading of the scene. Character layout artists will determine the major poses for the characters in the scene, and will make a drawing to indicate
each pose. For short films, character layouts are often the responsibility of the director. The layout drawings and storyboards are then spliced, along with the audio and an animatic is formed (not to be confused by its predecessor the leica reel). The term “animatic” was originally coined by Disney animation studios.
ANIMATION Once the Animatic is finally approved by the director, animation begins. In the traditional animation process, animators will begin by drawing sequences of animation on sheets of transparent paper perforated to fit the peg bars in their desks, often using colored pencils, one picture or “frame” at a time. A peg bar is an animation tool that is used in traditional (cel) animation to keep the drawings in place. The pins in the peg bar match the holes in the paper. It is attached to the animation desk or light table depending on which is being used. A key animator or lead animator will draw the key drawings in a scene, using the character layouts as a guide. The key animator draws enough of the frames to get across the major points of the action; in a sequence of a character jumping across a gap, the key animator may draw a frame of the character as he is about to leap, two or more frames as the character is flying through the air, and the frame for the character landing on the other side of the gap. Timing is important for the animators drawing these frames; each frame must match exactly what is going on in the soundtrack at the moment the frame will appear, or else the discrepancy between sound and visual will be distracting to the audience. For example, in high-budget productions, extensive effort is given in making sure a speaking character’s mouth matches in shape the sound that character’s actor is producing as he or she speaks. While working on a scene, a key animator will usually prepare a pencil test of the scene. A pencil test is a preliminary version of the final animated scene; the pencil drawings are quickly photographed or scanned and synced
with the necessary soundtracks. This allows the animation to be reviewed and improved upon before passing the work on to his assistant animators, who will go add details and some of the missing frames in the scene. The work of the assistant animators is reviewed, pencil-tested, and corrected until the lead animator is ready to meet with the director and have his scene sweatboxed, or reviewed by the director, producer, and other key creative team members. Similar to the storyboarding stage, an animator may be required to re-do a scene many times before the director will approve it.
In high-budget animated productions, often each major character will have an animator or group of animators solely dedicated to drawing that character. The group will be made up of one supervising animator, a small group of key animators, and a larger group of assistant animators. For scenes where two characters interact, the key animators for both characters will decide which character is “leading” the scene, and that character will be drawn first. The second character will be animated to react to and support the actions of the “leading” character. Once the key animation is approved, the lead animator
forwards the scene on to the clean-up department, made up of the clean-up animators and the INBETWEENERS. The clean-up animators take the lead and assistant animators’ drawings and trace them onto a new sheet of paper, taking care in including all of the details present on the original model sheets, so that it appears that one person animated the entire film.
The inbetweeners will draw in whatever frames are still missing in between the other animators’ drawings. This procedure is called tweening. The resulting drawings are again pencil-tested and sweatboxed until they meet approval. At each stage during pencil animation, approved artwork is spliced into the Leica reel. This process is the same for both character animation and special effects animation, which on most high-budget productions are done in separate departments. Effects animators animate anything that moves and is not a character, including props, vehicles, machinery and phenomena such as fire, rain, and explosions. Sometimes, instead of drawings, a number of special processes are used to produce special effects in animated films; rain, for example, has been created in Disney animated films since the
late-1930s by filming slow-motion footage of water in front of a black background, with the resulting film superimposed over the animation.
PENCIL TEST After all the drawings are cleaned-up, they are then photographed on an animation camera, usually on black and white film stock. Nowadays, pencil tests can be made using a video camera, and computer software.
BACKGROUNDS While the animation is being done, the background artists will paint the sets over which the action of each animated sequence will take place. These backgrounds are generally done in gouache or acrylic paint, although some animated productions have used backgrounds done in watercolor, oil paint, or even crayon. Background artists follow very closely the work of the background layout artists and color stylists (which is usually compiled into a workbook for their use), so that the resulting backgrounds are harmonious in tone with the character designs.
TRADITIONAL INK-AND-PAINT &CAMERA Painting with acrylic paint on the reverse side of an already inked cel. Once the clean-ups and in-between drawings for a sequence are completed, they are prepared for photography, a process known as ink-and-paint. Each drawing is then transferred from paper to a thin, clear sheet of plastic called a cel, a contraction of the material name celluloid (the original flammable cellulose nitrate was later replaced with the more stable cellulose acetate). The outline of the drawing is inked or photocopied onto the cel, and gouache or a similar type of paint is used on the reverse sides of the cels to add colors in the appropriate shades. In many
cases, characters will have more than one color palette assigned to them; the usage of each one depends upon the mood and lighting of each scene. The transparent quality of the cel allows for each character or object in a frame to be animated on different cels, as the cel of one character can be seen underneath the cel of another; and the opaque background will be seen beneath all of the cels. When an entire sequence has been transferred to cels, the photography process begins. Each cel involved in a frame of a sequence is laid on top of each other, with the background at the bottom of the stack. A piece of glass is lowered onto the artwork in order to flatten any irregularities, and the composite image is then photographed by a special animation camera, also called ROSTRUM CAMERA. The cels are removed, and the process repeats for the next frame until each frame in the sequence has been photographed. Each cel has registration holes, small holes along the top or bottom edge of the cel, which allow the cel to be placed on corresponding peg bars before the camera to ensure that each cel aligns with the one before it; if the cels are not aligned in such a manner, the animation, when played at full speed, will appear “jittery.� Sometimes, frames may need to be photographed more than once, in order to implement superimpositions and other camera effects. Pans are created by either moving the cels or backgrounds one step at a time over a succession of frames (the camera does not pan; it only zooms in and out).
A camera used for shooting traditional animation. See also Aerial image. As the scenes come out of final photography, they are spliced into the Leica reel, taking the place of the pencil animation. Once every sequence in the production has been photographed, the final film is sent for development and processing, while the final music and sound effects are added to the soundtrack. Again, editing in the traditional live-action sense is generally not done in animation, but if it is required it is done at this time, before the final print of the film is ready for duplication or broadcast. Among the most common types of animation rostrum cameras was the Oxberry.
DIGITAL INK & PAINT
Such cameras were always made of black anodized aluminum, and commonly had 2 pegbars, one at the top and one at the bottom of the lightbox. The Oxberry Master Series had four pegbars, two above and two below, and sometimes used a “floating pegbar” as well. The height of the column on which the camera was mounted determined the amount of zoom achievable on a piece of artwork. Such cameras were massive mechanical affairs which might weigh close to a ton and take hours to break down or set up. In the later years of the animation rostrum camera, stepper motors controlled by computers were attached to the various axes of movement of the camera, thus saving many hours of hand cranking by human operators. A notable early use of computer cameras was in Star Wars (1977), using the Dykstra system at Lucas’ Sun Valley facility. Gradually, motion control techniques were adopted throughout the industry. While several computer camera software packages became available in the early 1980s, the Tondreau System became one of the most widely adopted. Digital ink and paint processes gradually made these traditional animation techniques and equipment obsolete.
The current process, termed “digital ink and paint,” is the same as traditional ink and paint until after the animation drawings are completed; instead of being transferred to cels, the animators’ drawings are scanned into a computer, where they are colored and processed using one or more of a variety of software packages. The resulting drawings are composited in the computer over their respective backgrounds, which have also been scanned into the computer (if not digitally painted), and the computer outputs the final film by either exporting a digital video file, using a video cassette recorder, or printing to film using a high-resolution output device. Use of computers allows for easier exchange of artwork between departments, studios, and even countries and continents (in most low-budget animated productions, the bulk of the animation is actually done by animators working in other countries, including South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, and India). The last major feature film to use traditional ink and paint was Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke (1997); the last major animation production to use the traditional process is Cartoon Network’s Ed, Edd n Eddy (1999–2009), although it was forced to switch to digital paint in 2004.[1] Minor productions such as Hair High (2004) by Bill Plympton have used traditional cels long after the introduction of digital techniques. Digital ink and paint has been in use at Walt Disney Feature Animation since 1989, where it was used for the final rainbow shot in The Little Mermaid.
All subsequent Disney animated features were digitally inked-and-painted (starting with The Rescuers Down Under, which was also the first major feature film to entirely use digital ink and paint), using Disney’s proprietary CAPS (Computer Animation Production System)
technology, developed primarily by Pixar (the last Disney feature using CAPS was Home on the Range). Most other studios use one of a number of other high-end software packages such as Toon Boom Harmony, Toonz, Animo, and even consumer-level applications such as Adobe Flash, Toon Boom Studio and TVPaint.
COMPUTERS&DIGITALVIDEO CAMERAS Computers and digital video cameras can also be used as tools in traditional cel animation without affecting the film directly, assisting the animators in their work and making the whole process faster and easier. Doing the layouts on a computer is much more effective than doing it by traditional methods. Additionally, video cameras give the opportunity to see a “preview” of the scenes and how they will look when finished, enabling the animators to correct and improve upon them without having to complete them first. This can be considered a digital form of pencil testing.
TECHNIQUES CELS The cel is an important innovation to traditional animation, as it allows some parts
of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving labor. A simple example would be a scene with two characters on screen, one of which is talking and the other standing silently. Since the latter character is not moving, it can be displayed in this scene using only one drawing, on one cel, while multiple drawings on multiple cels will be used to animate the speaking character. For a more complex example, consider a sequence in which a girl sets a plate upon a table. The table will stay still for the entire sequence, so it can be drawn as part of the background. The plate can be drawn along with the character as the character places it on the table. However, after the plate is on the table, the plate will no longer move, although the girl will continue to move as she draws her arm away from the plate. In this example, after the girl puts the plate down, the plate can then be drawn on a separate cel from the girl. Further frames will feature new cels of the girl, but the plate does not have to be redrawn as it is not moving; the same cel of the plate can be used in each remaining frame that it is still upon the table. The cel paints were actually manufactured in shaded versions of each color to compensate for the extra layer of cel added between the image and the camera, in this example the still plate would be painted slightly brighter to compensate for being moved one layer down. In very early cartoons made before the use of the cel, such as Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), the entire frame, including the background and all characters and items, were drawn on a single sheet of paper, then photographed. Everything had to be redrawn for each frame containing movements. This led to a “jittery” appearance; imagine seeing a sequence of drawings of a mountain, each one slightly different from the one preceding it. The precel animation was later improved by using techniques like THE SLASH & TEAR SYSTEM invented by Raoul Barre; the background and the animated objects were drawn on separate papers. A frame was made by removing all the blank parts of the papers where the objects were drawn before being
placed on top of the backgrounds and finally photographed. The cel animation process was invented by Earl Hurd and John Bray in 1915.
LIMITED ANIMATION In lower-budget productions, shortcuts available through the cel technique are used extensively. For example, in a scene in which a man is sitting in a chair and talking, the chair and the body of the man may be the same in every frame; only his head is redrawn, or perhaps even his head stays the same while only his mouth moves. This is known as limited animation. The process was popularized in theatrical cartoons by United Productions of America and used in most television animation, especially that of Hanna-Barbera. The end result does not look very lifelike, but is inexpensive to produce, and therefore allows cartoons to be made on small television budgets.
SHOOTING ON TWOS Moving characters are often shot “on twos”, that is to say, one drawing is shown for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However, when a character is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating “on ones”, as “twos” are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye fooled without unnecessary production cost. Animation for television is usually produced on tight budgets. In addition to the use of limited animation techniques, television animation may be shot on “threes”, or even “fours”, i.e. three or four frames per drawing. This translates to only eight or six drawings per second.
ANIMATION LOOPS
A horse animated by rotoscoping from Eadweard
The animation consists of 8 drawings, which are “looped”, i.e. repeated over and over. This example is also “shot on twos”, i.e. shown at 12 frames per second. Creating animation loops or animation cycles is a labor-saving technique for animating repetitive motions, such as a character walking or a breeze blowing through the trees. In the case of walking, the character is animated taking a step with his right foot, then a step with his left foot. The loop is created so that, when the sequence repeats, the motion is seamless. However, since an animation loop essentially uses the same bit of animation over and over again, it is easily detected and can in fact become distracting to an audience. In general, they are used only sparingly by productions with moderate or high budgets. Ryan Larkin’s 1969 Academy Award nominated National Film Board of Canada short Walking makes creative use of loops. In addition, a promotional music video from Cartoon Network’s Groovies featuring the Soul Coughing song “Circles” poked fun at animation loops as they are often seen in The Flintstones, in which Fred and Barney (along with various Hanna-Barbera characters that aired on Cartoon Network), supposedly walking in a house, wonder why they keep passing the same table and vase over and over again.
MULTIPLANE CAMERA Main article: Multiplane camera The multiplane camera is a tool used to add depth to scenes in 2D animated movies, called the multiplane effect or the parallax process. The art is placed on different layers of glass plates, and as the camera moves vertically towards or away from the artwork levels, the camera’s viewpoint appears to move through the various layers of artwork in 3D space.
The panorama views in Pinocchio are examples of the effects a multiplane camera can achieve. Different versions of the camera have been made through time, but the most famous is the one developed by the Walt Disney studio beginning with their 1937 short The Old Mill. Another one, the “Tabletop”, was developed by Fleischer Studios. The Tabletop, first used in 1934’s Poor Cinderella, used miniature sets made of paper cutouts placed in front of the camera on a rotating platform, with the cels between them. By rotating the entire setup one frame at a time in accordance with the cel animation, realistic panoramas could be created. Ub Iwerks and Don Bluth also built multiplane cameras for their studios.
the size of the xeroxed objects and characters (this replaced the little known, and seldom used, photographic lines technique at Disney, used to reduce the size of animation when needed). At first it resulted in a more sketchy look, but the technique was improved upon over time. The xerographic method was first tested by Disney in a few scenes of Sleeping Beauty, and was first fully used in the short film Goliath II, while the first feature entirely using this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).
XEROGRAPHY Applied to animation by Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney studio during the late 1950s, The electrostatic copying technique called xerography allowed the drawings to be copied directly onto the cels, eliminating much of the “inking” portion of the ink-and-paint process. This saved time and money, and it also made it possible to put in more details and to control
The graphic style of this film was strongly influenced by the process. Some hand inking was still used together with xerography in this and subsequent films when distinct colored lines were needed. Later, colored toners became available, and several distinct line colors could be used, even simultaneously. For instance, in The Rescuers the characters
outlines are gray. White and blue toners were used for special effects, such as snow and water.
THE APT PROCESS Main article: APT process Invented by Dave Spencer for the 1985 Disney film The Black Cauldron, the APT (Animation Photo Transfer) process was a technique for transferring the animators’ art onto cels.
Basically,theprocesswasamodificationofarepro-photographicprocess; theartists’workwerephotographed onhigh-contrast“litho”film,andthe imageontheresultingnegativewas thentransferredtoacelcoveredwith alayeroflightsensitivedye.Thecel wasexposedthroughthenegative. Chemicalswerethenusedtoremove theunexposedportion.Smalland delicatedetailswerestil inkedbyhand ifneeded. Spencer received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for developing this process.
CEL OVERLAY A cel overlay is a cel with inanimate objects used to give the impression of a foreground when laid on top of a ready frame. This creates the illusion of depth, but not as much as a multiplane camera would. A special version of cel overlay is called LINE OVERLAY made to complete the background instead of making the foreground, and was invented to
deal with the sketchy appearance of xeroxed drawings. The background was first painted as shapes and figures in flat colors, containing rather few details. Next, a cel with detailed black lines was laid directly over it, each line drawn to add more information to the underlying shape or figure and give the background the complexity it needed. In this way, the visual style of the background will match that of the xeroxed character cels. As the xerographic process evolved, line overlay was left behind.
COMPUTERS & TRADITIONAL ANIMATION The methods mentioned above describe the techniques of an animation process that originally depended on cels in its final stages, but painted cels are rare today as the computer moves into the animation studio, and the outline drawings are usually scanned into the computer and filled with digital paint instead of being transferred to cels and then colored by hand. The drawings are composited in a computer program on many transparent “layers” much the same way as they are with cels, and made into a sequence of images which may then be transferred onto film or converted to a digital video format. It is now also possible for animators to draw directly into a computer using a graphics tablet, Cintiq or a similar device, where the outline drawings are done in a similar manner as they would be on paper. The Goofy short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007) represented Disney’s first project based on the paperless technology available today.
Some of the advantages are the possibility and potential of controlling the size of the drawings while working on them, drawing directly on a multiplane background and eliminating the need of photographing line tests and scanning. Though traditional animation is now commonly done with computers, it is important to differentiate computer-assisted traditional animation from 3D computer animation, such as Toy Story and ReBoot. However, often traditional animation and 3D computer animation will be used together, as in Don Bluth’s Titan A.E. and Disney’s Tarzan and Treasure Planet. Most anime still use traditional animation today. DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg coined the term
Pop by Ralph Bakshi. The popular music video for A-ha’s song “Take On Me” also featured rotoscoped animation, along with live action, in addition, Kanye West’s music video for his song Heartless, in homage to American Pop is fully rotoscoped. In most cases, rotoscoping is mainly used to aid the animation of realistically rendered human beings, as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, and Sleeping Beauty.
“TRADIGITAL ANIMATION” to describe films produced by his studio which incorporated elements of traditional and computer animation equally, such as Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Interestingly, many modern video games such as Viewtiful Joe, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and others use “cel-shading” animation filters to make their full 3D animation appear as though it were drawn in a traditional cel style. This technique was also used in the animated movie Appleseed, and cel-shaded 3D animation is typically integrated with cel animation in Disney films and in many television shows, such as the Fox animated series Futurama.
ROTOSCOPING Rotoscoping is a method of traditional animation invented by Max Fleischer in 1915, in which animation is “traced” over actual film footage of actors and scenery. Traditionally, the live action will be printed out frame by frame and registered. Another piece of paper is then placed over the live action printouts and the action is traced frame by frame using a lightbox. The end result still looks hand drawn but the motion will be remarkably lifelike. Waking Life is a full-length, rotoscoped animated movie, as is American
A method related to conventional rotoscoping was later invented for the animation of solid inanimate objects, such as cars, boats, or doors. A small live action model of the required object was built and painted white, while the edges of the model were painted with thin black lines.
The object was then filmed as required for the animated scene by moving the model, the camera, or a combination of both, in real time or using stop-motion animation. The film frames were then printed on paper, showing a model made up of the painted black lines. After the artists had added details to the object not present in the live-action photography of the model, it was xeroxed onto cels. A notable example is Cruella de Vil’s car in Disney’s One Hundred
and One Dalmatians.
The process of transferring 3D objects to cels was greatly improved in the 1980s when computer graphics advanced enough to allow the creation of 3D computer generated objects that could be manipulated in any way the animators wanted, and then printed as outlines on paper before being copied onto cels using Xerography or the APT process. This technique was used in Disney films such as Oliver and Company (1988) and The Little Mermaid (1989). This process has more or less been superseded by the use of cel-shading. Related to rotoscoping are the methods of vectorizing live-action footage, in order to achieve a very graphical look, like in Richard Linklater’s film A Scanner Darkly.
LIVE ACTION HYBRIDS Main article: live-action/animated film Similar to the computer animation and traditional animation hybrids described above, occasionally a production will marry both live-action and animated footage. The live-action parts of these productions are usually filmed first, the actors pretending that they are interacting with the animated characters, props, or scenery; animation will then be added into the footage later to make it appear as if it has always been there. Like rotoscoping, this method is rarely used, but when it is, it can be done to terrific effect, immersing the audience in
a fantasy world where humans and cartoons co-exist. Early examples include the silent Out of the Inkwell (begun in 1919) cartoons by Max Fleischer and Walt Disney’s Alice Comedies (begun in 1923). Live-action and animation
were later combined to successful effect in features such as The Three Caballeros (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), Song of the South (1946), Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Heavy Traffic (1973), Coonskin (1975) Pete’s Dragon (1977), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Rocka-Doodle (1992), Cool World (1992), The Pagemaster (1994) Space Jam (1996), and Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003). Other significant live-action hybrids include the music video for Paula Abdul’s hit song “Opposites Attract” and numerous television commercials, especially for breakfast cereals marketed to children. This technique was also recently used for the Geico commercial starring Foghorn Leghorn.
SPECIALEFFECTSANIMATION See also: Special effect#Special effects animation Besides traditional animated characters, objects and backgrounds, many other techniques are used to create special elements such as smoke, lightning and “magic”, and to give the animation in general a distinct visual appearance. Notable examples can be found in movies such as Fantasia, Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, The Little Mermaid, The Secret of NIMH and The Thief and the Cobbler. Today the special effects are mostly done with computers, but earlier they had to be done by hand. To produce these effects, the animators used different techniques, such as drybrush, airbrush, charcoal, grease pencil, backlit animation or, during shooting, the cameraman used multiple exposures with diffusing screens, filters or gels.
TA K E 9 :
T H E I L LU S I O N OF LIFE: DISN EY A N I M AT I O N
THE ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia “Disney Animation” redirects here. For Disney’s feature film animation studio, see Walt Disney Feature Animation. For Disney’s television animation studio, see Walt Disney Television Animation.
Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life (ISBN 0-7868-6070-7), 1981, is an acclaimed book by two of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. It is widely considered to be one of the best books ever published on the topic of character animation
It tops the list of “best animation books of all time” in a poll at AWN [1]. Totalling five hundred and seventy-six pages, a revised edition, with the inverted title The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation was published October 19, 1995. It contains four hundred eighty-nine plates in full color, and thousands of black and white illustrations ranging from storyboard sketches to entire animation sequences, all of which illustrate the exquisite art of Disney style animation. The philosophy of the Disney animators is expressed in the so-called 12 basic principles of animation. The book gives many glimpses into the workings of the animation masters at Disney’s during the Golden Age of Animation. It is a frequently used reference among professional animators.
CRITICISM In recent times, the book has come under attack from some animation professionals. John Kricfalusi, known for his dislike of content in Disney films, has largely dismissed the book as “Disney propaganda”. Animation historian Michael Barrier has also criticised the book. This Disney-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. View page ratings Rate this page What’s this? Trustworthy Objective Complete Well-written I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional) Submit ratings Categories: Disney stubsDisney booksAnimation booksBooks about Disney
Log in / create accountArticleTalkReadEditView history
The Twelve Basic Principles of Animation is a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.[a][1] Johnston and Thomas in turn based their book on the work of the leading Disney animators from the 1930s onwards, and their effort to produce more realistic animations. The main purpose of the principles was to produce an illusion of characters adhering to the basic laws of physics, but they also dealt with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing and character appeal. The book and its principles have become generally adopted, and have been referred to as the “Bible of animation.”[2] In 1999 the book was voted number one of the “best animation books of all time” in an online poll.[3] Though originally intended to apply to traditional, hand-drawn animation, the principles still have great relevance for today’s more prevalent computer animation. This page was last modified on 10 August 2011 at 16:30.
TA K E 10 : 12 B A S I C P R I N C I P L ES O F A N I M AT I O N
12 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
CONTENTS 1 The 12 principles 1.1 Squash and stretch 1.2 Anticipation 1.3 Staging 1.4 Straight ahead action and pose to pose 1.5 Follow through and overlapping action 1.6 Slow in and slow out 1.7 Arcs 1.8 Secondary action 1.9 Timing 1.10 Exaggeration 1.11 Solid drawing 1.12 Appeal 2 Notes 3 References 4 Further reading
1SQUASH & STRETCH
Illustration of the “squash and stretch”principle: Example A shows a ball bouncing with a rigid, non-dynamic movement. In example B the ball is “squashed” at impact, and “stretched” during fall and rebound. The movement also accelerates during the fall, and slows down towards the apex see “slow in and slow out”).
Animated sequence of a race horse galloping. Photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge. The horse’s body demonstrates squash and stretch in natural musculature.
The most important principle is “squash and stretch”,[4] the purpose of which is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. It can be applied to simple objects, like a bouncing ball, or more complex constructions, like the musculature of a human face. [5][6] Taken to an extreme point, a figure stretched or squashed to an exaggerated degree can have a comical effect.[7] In realistic animation, however, the most important aspect of this principle is the fact that an object’s volume does not change when squashed or stretched. If the length of a ball is stretched vertically, its width (in three dimensions, also its depth) needs to contract correspondingly horizontally.[8]
2
A N T I C I PAT I O N
Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for an action, and to make the action appear more realistic.[9] A dancer jumping off the floor has to bend his knees first; a golfer making a swing has to swing the club back first. The technique can also be used for less physical actions, such as a character looking off-screen to anticipate someone’s arrival, or attention focusing on an object that a character is about to pick up.[10]
Anticipation: A baseball player making a pitch prepares for the action by moving his arm back.
For special effect, anticipation can also be omitted in cases where it is expected. The resulting sense of anticlimax will produce a feeling of surprise in the viewer, and can often add comedy to a scene.[11] This is often referred to as a ‘surprise gag’.[12]
3
S TAG I N G
This principle is akin to staging as it is known in theatre and film.[13] Its purpose is to direct the audience’s attention, and make it clear what is of greatest importance in a scene; what is happening, and what is about to happen.[14] Johnston and Thomas defined it as
“the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear”, whether that idea is an action, a personality, an expression or a mood.[13] This can be done by various means, such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, and the angle and position of the camera.[15] The essence of this principle is keeping focus on what is relevant, and avoiding unnecessary detail.[16][17]
4
STRAIGHT AHEAD ACTION & POSE TO POSE These are two different approaches to the actual drawing process. “Straight ahead action” means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, while “pose to pose” involves starting with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the intervals later.[14] “Straight ahead action” creates a more fluid, dynamic illusion of movement, and is better for producing realistic action sequences. On the other hand, it is hard to maintain proportions, and to create exact, convincing poses along the way. “Pose to pose” works better for dramatic or emotional scenes, where composition and relation to the surroundings are of greater importance.[18] A combination of the two techniques is often used.[19] Computer animation removes the problems of proportion related to “straight ahead action” drawing; however, “pose to pose” is still used for computer animation, because of the advantages it brings in composition.[20] The use of computers facilitates this method, as computers can fill in the missing sequences in between poses automatically. It is, however, still important to oversee this process, and apply the other principles discussed.[19]
5 FOLLOWING THROUGH & OVERLAPPING ACTION These closely related techniques help render movement more realistic, and give the
impression that characters follow the laws of physics. “Follow through” means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. “Overlapping action” is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates (an arm will move on different timing of the head and so on). A third technique is “drag”, where a character starts to move and parts of him take a few frames to catch up.[14] These parts can be inanimate objects like clothing or the antenna on a car, or parts of the body, such as arms or hair. On the human body, the torso is the core, with arms, legs, head and hair appendices that normally follow the torso’s movement. Body parts with much tissue, such as large stomachs and breasts, or the loose skin on a dog, are more prone to independent movement than bonier body parts.[21] Again, exaggerated use of the technique can produce a comical effect, while more realistic animation must time the actions exactly, to produce a convincing result.[22]
Thomas and Johnston also developed the principle of the “moving hold”. A character not in movement can be rendered absolutely still; this is often done, particularly to draw attention to the main action. According to Thomas and Johnston, however, this gave a dull and lifeless result, and should be avoided. Even characters sitting still can display some sort of movement, such as the torso moving in and out with breathing.[23]
6 SLOW IN & SLOW OUT
The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, animation looks more realistic if it has more drawings near the beginning and end of an action, emphasizing the extreme poses, and fewer in the middle.[14] This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects, like the bouncing ball in the above illustration.[24]
7
A R C S
Most natural action tends to follow an arched trajectory, and animation should adhere to this principle by following implied “arcs” for greater realism. This can apply to a limb moving by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory. The exception is mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines.[25] As an object’s speed and momentum increases, arcs tend to flatten out in moving ahead and broaden in turns. In baseball, a fastball would tend to move in a straighter line than other pitches; while a figure skater moving at top speed would be unable to turn as sharply as a slower skater, and would need to cover more ground to complete the turn. An object in motion that moves out of its natural arc for no apparent reason will appear erratic rather than fluid. Therefore when animating (for example) a pointing finger, the animator should be certain that in all drawings in between the two extreme poses, the fingertip follows a logical arc from one extreme to the next. Traditional animators tend to draw the arc in lightly on the paper
for reference, to be erased later.
8 SECONDARY ACTION Adding secondary actions to the main action gives a scene more life, and can help to support the main action. A person walking can simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his pockets, he can speak or whistle, or he can express emotions through facial expressions. [26] The important thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize, rather than take attention away from the main action. If the latter is the case, those actions are better left out.[27] In the case of facial expressions, during a dramatic movement these will often go unnoticed. In these cases it is better to include them at the beginning and the end of the movement, rather than during.[28]
9
TIMING
Timing refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film.[14] On a purely physical level, correct timing makes objects appear to abide to the laws of physics; for instance, an object’s weight decides how it reacts to an impetus, like a push.[29]
Timing is critical for establishing a character’s mood, emotion, and reaction.[14] It can also be a device to communicate aspects of a character’s personality.[30]
Exaggeration is an effect especialy useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons.[14] The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of an artist. The classical definition of exaggeration, employed by Disney, was to remain true to reality, just presenting it in a wilder, more extreme form.[31]
10 E X AG G E R AT I O N Other forms of exaggeration can involve the supernatural or surreal, alterations in the physical features of a character, or elements in the storyline itself.[32] It is important to employ a certain level of restraint when using exaggeration; if a scene contains several elements, there should be a balance in how those elements are exaggerated in relation to
each other, to avoid confusing or overawing the viewer.[33]
11 SOLID DRAWI N G
12
APPEAL
The principle of solid drawing means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight.[14] The animator needs to be a skilled draughtsman and has to understand the basics of three-dimensional shapes, anatomy, weight, balance, light and shadow, etc.[34] For the classical animator, this involved taking art classes and doing sketches from life.[35] One thing in particular that Johnston and Thomas warned against was creating “twins�: characters whose left and right sides mirrored each other, and looked lifeless.[36] Modern-day computer animators draw less because of the facilities computers give them, yet their work benefits greatly from a basic understanding of animation principles, and their additions to basic computer animation.[35]
Appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor.[37]
TA K E 11:
STAG I N G & SCENOGR APHY
STAGING [THEATER] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)
Staging is the process of selecting, designing, adapting to, or modifying the performance space for a play or film. This includes the use or absence of stagecraft elements as well as the structure of the stage and its components. Staging is also used to mean the result of this process, in other words the spectacle that a play presents in performance, its visual detail. This can include such things as positions of actors on stage (often referred to as blocking), their gestures and movements (also called stage business), the scenic background, the props and costumes, lighting, and sound effects. Besides costume, any physical object that appears in a play has the potential to become an important dramatic symbol. The first thing that the audience of a play sees is the stage set, the physical objects that suggest the world of the play. The stage set is usually indicated by the playwright, but the degree of detail and specificity of this rendering vary from one playwright to another and from one literary period to another. In film, staging is generally called set dressing. While from a critical standpoint, “staging” can refer to the spectacle that a play presents in performance, the term is also frequently used interchangeably with the term “blocking”,
referring to how the performers are placed and moved around the stage. Many audience members may believe that performers move spontaneously on the stage, but blocking/ staging is rarely spontaneous. Major points of blocking are often set down by the playwright, but blocking is usually done by the director, sometimes in collaboration with performers and designers. Historically, the expectations of staging/ blocking have changed substantially over time in Western theater. Prior to the movements towards “realism” that occurred in the 19th century, most staging used a “tableau” approach, in which a stage picture was established whenever characters entered or left the stage, assuring that leading performers were always shown to their best advantage. In more recent times--while nothing has changed about showing leading performers to best advantage-- there have been changing cultural expectations that have made blocking/staging more complicated. In the modern theater, there are purely mechanical reasons why blocking is crucial. STAGE LIGHTING is focused on specific parts of the stage at specific moments, and the performer must be sure to be on his or her “mark” or “spike” or they may not be well lit. Blocking also assures that the stage picture gives the proper focus to the proper places, and that transitions occur smoothly. This becomes even more crucial as modern stage technology allows for ever more elaborate special effects. There are also artistic reasons why blocking can be crucial. Through careful use of positioning on the stage, a director or performer can establish or change the significance of a scene. Different artistic principals can inform blocking, including minimalism and naturalism. The Stage Manager is responsible for recording blocking and assuring that the blocking is followed.
SCENOGRAPHY From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Scenography relates to the study and practice of design for performance.[1]
CONTENTS 1 Usage 2 Etymology and Cultural Interpretations 3 References 4 Selected Bibliography 5 Journals 6 External links 7 References
USAGE Whilst also aligned with the professional practice of the scenographer, it is important to distinguish the individual elements that comprise the ‘design’ of a performance event (such as light, environment, costume, etc.) from the term ‘scenography’ which is as an artistic perspective concerning the visual, experiential and spatial composition of performance. Influenced by the work of Modernist pioneers Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig, scenography proposes that design practices within performance are considered an equal partner, along side other elements such as literary texts and performance technique, within the construction and reception of meaning. The practice of scenography is thereby a holistic approach to the
Through careful use of positioning on stage, a director or performer can establish or change the significance of a scene. composition of performance and can be applied to the design or curation of events within, and outside, of the conventional theatre environment. Or as Pamela Howard states in her book What is Scenography?:
“Scenography is the seamless synthesis of space, text, research, art, actors, directors and spectators that contributes to an original creation.” [2] Joslin McKinney and Philip Butterworth expand upon this to suggest that:
“Scenography is not simply concerned with creating and presenting images to an audience; it is concerned with audience reception and engagement. It is a sensory as well as an intellectual experience, emotional as well as rational.” [3] ETYMOLOGY & CULTURAL INTERPRETATIONS The term scenography is of Greek origin (skēnē, meaning ‘stage or scene building’; grapho, meaning ‘to describe’) originally detailed within Aristotle’s Poetics as ‘skenographia’. Nevertheless, within continental Europe the term has been closely aligned with the professional practice of scénographie and is synonymous with the English language term ‘theatre design’. More recently, the term has been used in museography with regards the curation of museum exhibits.
SCENIC DESIGN From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For film and television, see production design.
THE STAGE The “stage picture” is the “look” or physical appearance of the stage for a play, whether in rehearsal or performance. It reflects the way that the stage is composed artistically in regard to props, actors, shapes and colours. The stage picture should express good principles of design and use of space.
It should be visually appealing for the audience or should express the show’s concept.
Scenic designer Robert Edmond Jones (1887-1954) drawing at a waist high table (c. 1920).
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, set design or production design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers have traditionally come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but nowadays, generally speaking, they are trained professionals, often with M.F.A. degrees in theatre arts.
CONTENTS 1 The stage 2 Responsibility 3 Training 4 References 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 External links
An electrician wires up a sconce on a dungeon set.
RESPONSIBILITY The scenic designer is responsible for collaborating with the theatre director and other members of the production design team to create an environment for the production and then communicating the details of this environment to the technical director, production manager, charge scenic artist and propmaster. Scenic designers are responsible for creating scale models of the scenery, renderings, paint elevations and scale construction drawings as part of their communication with other production staff.
One of Russell Patterson’s (1893-1977) rough scenic designs, for the film Give Me a Sailor (1938).
TRAINING In Europe and Australia[1] scenic designers take a more holistic approach to theatrical design and will often be responsible not only for scenic design but costume, lighting and sound and are referred to as theatre designers or scenographers or production designers.
Like their American cousins, European theatre designers and scenographers are generally trained with Bachelor of Arts degrees in theatre design, scenography or performance design.
TA K E 12 :
ADOLPH E APPIA
ADOLPHE APPIA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ‘Appia’ redirects here. For other meanings of Appia, see Appia (disambiguation)
Adolphe Appia ca. 1900 Adolphe Appia (born 1 September 1862 in Geneva; died 29 February 1928 in Nyon), son of Red Cross co-founder Louis Appia, was
a Swiss architect and theorist of stage lighting and décor. Appia is best known for his many scenic designs for Wagner’s operas. He rejected painted two-dimensional sets for three-dimensional “living” sets because
Directors and designers have both taken great inspiration from the work of Adolphe Appia,
He believed that shade was as necessary as light to form a connection between the actor and the setting of the performance in time and space. Through the use of control of light intensity, colour and manipulation, Appia created a new perspective of scene design and stage lighting. he believed that shade was as necessary as light to form a connection between the actor and the setting of the performance in time and space. Through the use of control of light intensity, colour and manipulation, Appia created a new perspective of scene design and stage lighting.
whose design theories and conceptualizations of Wagner’s opera’s have helped to shape modern perceptions of the relationship between the performance space and lighting. One of the reasons for the influence of Appia’s work and theories, is that he was working at time when electrical lighting was just evolving. Another is that he was a man of great vision who was able to conceptualize and philosophize about many of his practices and theories.
The central principle underpinning much of Appia’s work is that artistic unity is the primary function of the director and the designer.
of “word-tone drama”, together with his own stagings of Tristan und Isolde (Milan 1923 and parts of the Ring (Basle 1924-25)
Appia maintained that two dimensional set painting and the performance dynamics it created, was the major cause of production disunity in his time. He advocated three elements as fundamental to creating a unified and effective mise en scene: Dynamic and three dimensional movements by actors Perpendicular scenery. Using depth and the horizontal dynamics of the performance space (Brockett 1994)[1] Appia saw LIGHT, SPACE and the HUMAN BODY as malleable commodities which should be integrated to create a unified mise en scene. He advocated synchronicity of SOUND, LIGHT and MOVEMENT in his productions of Wagner’s operas and he tried to integrate corps of actors with the rhythms and moods of the music. Ultimately however, Appia considered light as the primary element which fused together all aspects of a production and he consistently attempted to unify musical and movement elements of the text and score to the more mystical and symbolic aspects of light. He often tried to have actors, singers and dancers start with a strong symbolic gesture or movement and end with another strong symbolic pose or gesture. In his productions, light was ever changing, manipulated from moment to moment, from action to action. Ultimately, Appia sought to unify STAGE MOVEMENT and the use of SPACE, STAGE, RHYTHM and the mise en scene. Appia was one of the first designers to understand the potential of stage lighting to do more than merely illuminate actors and painted scenery. His ideas about the staging
have influenced later stagings, especially those of the second half of the twentieth century. For Appia and for his productions, the mise en scene and the totality or unity of the performance experience was primary and he believed that these elements drove movement and initiated action more than any thing else (Johnston 1972). Appia’s designs and theories went on to inspire many other theatre creators such as Edward Gordon Craig, Jacques Copeau and Wieland Wagner.
WORKS Appia, Adolphe. L’oeuvre d’art vivant. 1921 Appia, Adolphe. La mise en scéne du théatre Wagnerien. Paris, 1891 Appia, Adolphe. Musique et mise en scéne, 1897 See also the articles about Appia written by Prince Serge Wolkonsky (in Russian Wiki) [edit]Filmography Adolphe Appia, Visionary of Invisible (1988) a film by Louis Mouchet