Unit 37 Assignment 1 – History of 2D

Animation
Timeline of Animation
Phénakisticope (1833)
This device, also referred to as the “Fantascope” or the “Stroboscope” is the first
animation device which saw the use of a rapid successive substitution of sequential
pictures. This method of animation worked by a series of images of an object or a
character in which each image the object or character would progressively change
position or action. By doing this and images would be spun to then create the illusion
of movement or action. This worked on the Phénakisticope by placing images evenly
around a disk which featured small rectangular slits on its rim, after which you would
spin the disk and create an animation. To view the animation, you had to spin the
disk while in front of mirror, while doing this you would look at a mirror though the
openings and an animation would come to life. The phénakisticope was created by
a Belgian physicist named Joseph Plateau who was born in 1801 and is credited as
being one of the first men capable of demonstrating the illusion of a moving image
on his device. After having made his creation and naming it the fantascope, Plateau
then released a publication in 1833, featuring an illustration plate of the
phénakisticope with 16 frame portrayal of a dancer doing pirouettes. The device has
three different names, and this is because it had been invented by another man at
the same time as Plateau. This other man was Simon von Stampfer who named the
device “Stroboscope”. The fantascope was also given the name “phénakisticope” by
a French publisher named Giroux & Cie.

Examples of the fanatascope in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcswdif0JOU
Zoetrope (1866)
The Zoetrope is a cylindrical device that in many ways works like the phénakisticope.
It sports an evenly placed amount of vertical viewing holes in the side and the inside
walls of the cylinder allow for a strip of images with a sequence on them to be
inserted in. Once the looping strip has been inserted, the device can be spun and
the animation in viewed through the slits on the side.

After the invention of the phénakisticope in 1833, Simon Stampfer, the man who
invented the phénakisticope at the same time as Joseph Plateau released a second
version of the device which came including a pamphlet that detailed how it could
be possible to use the concept of his “stroboscope” in a cylindrical device. One year
later, British mathematician William George Horner, a British mathematician, used
Joseph Plateau’s notes from the phénakisticope to create a device which used a
revolving drum with viewings gaps between the pictures and not above them as later
version of the Zoetrope would feature. He named this device the “Deadaleum”,
however, while Horner never manged to publish his device, he is credited by most
in modern time as the first creator of a Zoetrope. The Definitive version of the
Zoetrope was created three decades later by 18-year-old university student, William
Ensign Lincoln in 1865. This version of the Zoetrope featured the cylindrical design
with the viewing slits above where the strip of images would sit along with the ability
to use illustrated paper disk on the base of the cylinder, much like the
phénakisticope. However, the disk was not always found on commercial versions of
the device. By the next year, Lincoln had named his device the Zoetrope which was
derived from the Greek words “zoe” for “life” and “tropos” for turning. This was
then coined by Lincoln as a transliteration for “Wheel of life”. After this, it was
recommended to him that he go and visit Milton Bradley and Co. an American board
game manufacture who he then licensed the device with and had the Zoetrope
appear to the public for the first time on the 15th of December 1866.

Examples of the Zoetrope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBg6dAE3mI0

Stop Motion (1897)

Stop motion is an animation technique created by making puppets, usually out of clay and
other materials, then shooting them frame-by-frame in different positions to create the
animation. The process is a long one and can often require a lot of work to try and recreate
a scene where one thing was wrong and needed changing. The method can be traced back
to the year 1897 when Albert E. Smith and Stuart Blackton created an animated short film
called The Humpty Dumpty Circus.

Overtime, the technique has been used for live actions

movies before computer generated graphics were
available to create scenes what would otherwise be
extremely hard to animate. A famous example from Star
Wars Episode V: The empire strikes back, where the
giant AT-AT walkers and smaller AT-ST walkers mount
an assault on the rebel base stationed there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3acC49W3yQk

I don’t quite like this technique of animation as It is very easy when looking back at older
movies where it has been used and where it has not, often reducing the overall quality of
the movie for me.

Tim Burton
Born on August 29, 1958, Timothy Walter Burton is an
American film director, produce, artist and animator
creating well known dark movies like Edward Scissor
Hands and Beetlejuice. Tim Burton has worked on many
movies and animations, a very popular animation of his
would be The Nightmare Before Christmas released in
1993.

In his move The Nightmare Before

Christmas which originated by a
poem Tim wrote in 1982 while he was working with Disney
Animation. I think the use stop-motion animation worked very
well with the dark art style used in the movie. Both animation
and art style work together making this a really unique movie,
something Tim Burton is very well known for doing. As someone
who isn’t a very big fan of stop-motion, I think the way it was
done in this movie was excellent as it just flowed very well.
With the release of this movie, Tim Burton was met with critical
acclaim along with a lot of financial success as the movie grossed over $76 million
in its original theatrical run.
Cel Animation (1914)
Cel or Celluloid animation is a form of animation that is created by hand drawing on
transparent acetate sheets which are then compiled together to create a scene. This
form of animation was used commonly found in the early years of animation and is
often seen as the pioneering method for 2D animation. To get around one second of
animation, there would usually be four layers of celluloid sheets complied together,
with the bottom layer being a static
background image, the two layers above
that being the character(s) or object(s) and
the final layer above that would usually be
for the eyes, mouth and other moving body
parts like a tail on a dog. There would
usually be multiple versions of the top
layer, each one showing different stages of
an action, as this is where most of the animation will take place.

The technique of cel animation was pioneered by two animators, Earl Hurd, an
American animator and film director and John Randolph Bray, an American animator
who worked together on a project under Bray’s animation studio “Bray Productions”.
They were given credit for the technique in 1914 which is believed to be the year
they had invented it.

While the process of cel animation eliminated the amount of times an image had to
be re-drawn, it would still take a load of cels to create an animated film making it
a very long and gruelling task for a single animator. For this reason, this method was
more popular and often used by animation powerhouses like Disney as the labour
could be split up and streamlined by multiple animators. The average feature length
animation would usually consist of over 100,000 hand-painted cels.

Earl Hurd
Born on September 14th, 1880, Earl Hurd, an
animator and film director is most famously
known for, as previously mentioned co-creating
the Cel animation technique but not just that,
he brought animation to the mainstream,
creating some of the first animated shorts and
movies using his Cel Technique. In his time
creating animations, Earl worked for Bray
Productions to create animated shorts like
Bobby Bumps, a character inspired by the comic
strip series by Richard F. Outcault, which Hurd
himself would direct and animate. I would say
that the style Hurd used on Bobby Bumps heavily
influenced from the source material as Richard F.
Outcault was his inspiration in the creation of the Bobby
Bumps animated shorts. Earl worked on this until 1918
when he moved on from Bray Productions and later went
on to create his own animation studio, Earl Hurd
Productions in 1923. Little is known about this studio of
his as there are no animation ever released by it, nor is
there any information about it online. Later, in life, near the years of his death in
1940, Earl worked as a story board artist for Walt Disney Studios, working on the
Disney Classic Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and a few other cartoons.

In my opinion, Earl Hurd is the most important man in animation history, were it not
for him and the invention of the Cel Animation process, animation would never have
blown up as it did in the main stream, which means countless big-name animation
studios and animators would’ve never came to prominence to help cement animated
movies and cartoons as a worthwhile thing.

Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney, better known as Walt Disney is
undeniably the most famous name in animation. Born on
December 5th, 1901, Walt Disney was an American
animator, voice actor, entrepreneur and film producer
who helped pave the way for the rise in the American
animation industry. Walt Disney has won countless awards
for his creations and even now, long, after his death, his
Studio continues to create animation that are loved by the
masses.

Disney grew up with an interest in drawing and by the age

of 18 he was working as a commercial illustrator. Things really picked up for him
when he moved to California and opened up an animation studio with his brother
under the name of Disney Brothers Studio in 1923 which later be known as Walt
Disney Productions. Walt Disney then created the iconic
character Mikey Mouse in 1928 which was inspired by a studio
he founded in 1921 known as Laugh-O-Gram studios, the
character first appeared on an animation of Walt Disney’s
called “Steamboat willie”. As time went on and his studio
expanded, Disney became more adventurous, furthering the possibilities of
animation by using synchronised sound, technicolour (full colour picture) and thus
started creating full length cartoon episodes and not shorts as so many cartoons of
the time had been. Walt and his studio developed countless techniques and process
that have revolutionised the movie industry. For example, the process of story
boarding was a massive breakthrough for the time of its creation in the 1930s and it
is so effective that the process is still used today.

Walt Disney worked on many classic movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,
Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi with each animated movie bringing animation further
into the limelight and growing the popularity of him and his studio. Disney continued
to expand his business, creating movies, animated movies, cartoons, opening theme
parks until his death in 1966.

In his earlier animations it was clear to see that Walt

Disney’s art style was heavily inspired by Max Fleischer’s
rubber hose animation style. This is notable in the theatrical
poster for Trolley Troubles, the colour scheme and lack of
joints for the character is something often seen in the
Fleischer’s animation style. However, as time went on and
Walt’s studio grew in size, as did his animation style and
colouring used. As mentioned before, Disney started to use
technicolour which allowed him to
move on from black and white
animations, bringing more depth to his creations. During the
creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney
had created a whole new animation and art style, no longer
was he using the monocoloured rubber hose technique, but
a more recognisable art style that would be used in many
movies to come. I quite like the art style used in Snow
White, I think that for the time of its creation, the colour
and detailed animations were revolutionary. However, I
have a few gripes with the human faces in this movie as they
seem to lack realistic emotion.

Rotoscoping (1915)
Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which an animator will trace over motion
picture footage to create realistic visual effects on live action film. Rotoscoping
works by having the film project frame by frame onto a transparent easel which
allowed for the animator to do what they had to do. The device used to project the
image was called the “rotoscope” and though in modern times, all this can be done
with a computer, the name and process of rotoscoping remains the same, only, it is
done using software such as Adobe After Effects.
The equipment known as the rotoscope, was
developed in 1915 by Polish-American
animation, inventor, film director and
producer, Max Fleischer. He would then use his
invention in his is animated series “Out of the
Inkwell” and at the time, the process was simply
credited as the “Fleischer Process”.

One of the most famous examples Rotoscoping on the silver

screen would be in the original Star Wars trilogy, which saw the
use of rotoscoping on the lightsabres wielded by Obi-Wan
Kenobi, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. By the third movie,
the technology had advanced quite a bit, allowing for the light
sabres to look much more realistic (as realistic as lightsabres
can be) and allowing the actors to have more action filled
battles.

Max Fleischer
Born in Poland on July 19, 1883 Max Fleischer was a Polish-
American animator, inventor and film director. He is
known for a great number of things from creating the
rotoscoping technique and his cartoons like Betty Boop,
Popeye and superman.

Fleischer emigrated to America in 1887, where he grew up

and attended school in New York City. After his father lost
the family business he spent his teen years living with his
family in a Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn. However, this did
not deter him as he was motivated to succeed Fleischer
attended multiple studies graduating from an evening high
school and receiving commercial Art training at Cooper
Union. Max started his career by joining The Brooklyn Daily Eagle where he started
as an errand boy and worked his way up to becoming a staff cartoonist where he
drew satirical cartoon strips that reflected his life in the ghetto. It was during this
time where he met John Randolph Bay, who would jump start his career in
animation. During the early 1910s animated cartoons had begun to appear in movie
theatres but they did not look very good being described as “stiff and jerky”.
Fleischer then worked on creating a method that would make animations look
smooth and flow well, the end product was the device known as the rotoscope. He
used his technique for animating for nearly all of his creations.
 When you think about old time animation, Disney
is usually the first name to come to mind,
however the style we all think about was not
Disney’s but Fleischer’s. I believe that his
animation style has had a monumental impact on
the animation throughout history due to the
unique way characters act and behave within the
animation. His animation style known as rubber
hose animation is the first major American
animation and was so popular, it became an industry standard until the late 1930s
where Walt Disney’s style of animation became favoured by animators. However,
while the style went out of fashion, it’s effects can still be seen in modern day
media like cartoons and video games that incorporate the rubber hose style. For
example, the video game Cuphead used this style of animation which gave the
game the as if it was made in the 1930s by Fleischer himself.

I personally like the animation style used especially when it is used in modern
media to pay homage to the time. Additionally, I think the animation style works
great for cartoons aimed at kids as it tends to be wacky and surreal. However,
when looking back at some of his work, you can definitely tell it’s dated and hasn’t
stood the test of time very well as some things tend to just look very sluggish along
with dialogue playing but the mouth of the character not moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX0qY9xkP3k

While the studio may have been made defunct, its legacy continues to have an
impact on modern culture as modern media outlets pay homage to the famous art
style created in the studio with the use of video games and other forms of media.

2D Animation on Toon Boom Harmony (2005)

Toon Boom Animation Inc is a
Canadian Software company who
specialize in the creation of
amination software. They are most
notable for creating Harmony in
2005 which is an animation
software that allows animators to create professional 2D animations for movies, TV
shows or online shorts. Along with this, Harmony features sophisticated but easy to
use tools that allow for things like handling cut outs or puppet animation (Seen in
the TV show South Park) and even allows for traditional Cel animation which can be
scanned into the software and put into its digital compositor allowing animators to
recapture old time animation styles like 1930s Disney. Also, the software comes with
2D/3D integration which allows the use of 3D models on a 2D animation. For
example, if you were creating an animated series about race cars, you would create
the cars with 3D models in a 3D modelling software like 3DS Max or Maya and then
import them into Harmony which will save you a lot of time and resources when it
comes to animating them.

As mentioned before, Harmony

features very professional tools
for animating, these tools are:
pencil lines with textures,
deformation tools (Bone and
curve deformer), morphing,
inverse kinematics, particles,
built-in compositor, 3D camera
and 2D-3D integration. Harmony
also includes the ability to use a
graphics tablet to create a frame-by-frame animation, which is the most common
method of 2D animation. Additionally, Toon Boom Harmony can be used to create
2D animation assets that can be imported into compatible game engines like Unity.

The software is somewhat of an

industry standard when it comes to
creating animated TV shows for kids or
adults. For this reason, Harmony has
been used in the creation of countless
classic TV shows and movies such as
SpongeBob Square pants (TV show and
movie), Family guy, Rick and Morty,
Archer, South Park, Star Wars: The
Clone Wars, Ruby Gloom, Arthur, Adventure time, My Little Pony: The movie, and
dozens more. However, while the software may be popular for TV shows it isn’t used
by animation juggernauts like Disney or DreamWorks as they tend to have their own
inhouse animation software but when it comes to smaller animation studios, Toon
Boom Harmony is a great and often first choice.
 Seth MacFarlane
Born on October 26, 1973, Seth MacFarlane is a
popular American actor, producer, singer and
animator known mostly for his animated TV series
like Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland
Show. Seth studied animation in the Rhode Island
School of Design which allowed him to join as an
animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera where he
helped create multiple cartoons like Dexter’s
Laboratory and Jonny Bravo. After working for
Hanna-Barbera Studios for a few years, he felt it
was time to move on as he wanted to create more
adult centred shows, so in 1997 after his first
pitch to Fox failed, he tried again to pitch his
idea for the show that would become Family Guy. He was given a deal to create a
pilot episode however, he only had a budget of $50,000 and most prime time
animated productions at the time would cost around one million dollars per episode
to produce. After spending six months animating and creating his pilot he went back
and presented his creation to Fox, which they loved, immediately ordering the
series’ creation.

I think Seth MacFarlane’s animation style for

Family Guy has been heavily influenced by Matt
Groening’s The Simpsons as the style is extremely
similar and Seth himself said he wanted to create
something like The Simpsons. Because of the way
Groening influence Seth in the creation of his
show, the similar art and animation style makes a
lot of sense and it’s easy to see why The Simpsons
and Family could create such a successful
crossover episode as most of the animation and art for both shows are very similar
with the only difference being the colours used to create characters from The
Simpsons. Along with this, both TV shows are animated using Toon Boom Harmony
which would have made the animating process easier due to both parties involved
with the crossover’s creation being very familiar with the software. One thing I don’t
like about the animation is how sometimes when vehicles like passenger jets are
shown landing they come to halt unrealistically fast. This could be resolved by adding
more frames of the plane gradually slowing down.
 Matt Groening
Born on February 15, 1954, Matthew Abraham
Groening, often referred to as Matt Groening is an
American cartoonist, writer, voice actor,
producer and animator. He is most famous for
creating the TV shows, The Simpsons and
Futurama with The Simpsons currently being the
longest running primetime TV series and animated
series in the history of the United States of
America. In 1977, Groening moved to Los Angeles
to become a writer where he struggled to good
work. From this, he created a self-published
comic book named Life in Hell that describes his
experiences in LA.

The comic book caught the attention of Hollywood writer-producer James L. Brooks
in 1985, he then contacted Groening about working in animation for a future project
which ended up being short animated skits for a show on
Fox. Brooks had wanted Groening to develop the characters
from his comic for the show, but he did not want to give up
the rights for it, so Groening quickly thought up the idea
for The Simpsons which was loosely based off his real-life
family. Groening created a rough sketch up of the
characters that were given to the animators to appear on
the show and were known as The Simpsons shorts. In 1989,
the shorts were adapted into a half an hour series officially
starting off The Simpsons.

It’s hard to say what influenced Matt’s art style as the

shorts used his rushed deigns of characters. However, it’s clear that when The
Simpsons went into full production and Groening cleaned up the characters, the
style he used would influence other primetime animated series, Family Guy being
one of them.

Animation Studios
Fleischer Studios
First founded in 1921 as Inkwell Studios by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer. The
studio would later be named Fleischer Studios in 1929. This studio specialized in
creating animations and is most famously known creating the rubber hose animation
style courtesy of Max Fleischer and for creating some of the most popular animations
for its time. Additionally, the common animation technique used by this studio was
rotoscoping which was created by Max Fleischer, the co-founder of the studio. The
first animated series released by this studio was
named Out of the Inkwell and had infants started
production a few years before the e founding of the
studio. A few other notable productions by
Fleischer Studios is Popeye, Betty Boop and
superman. During the 1930s, Fleischer studios
would be the biggest competitor for Walt Disney
Productions. However, Disney seemed to have won
the battle, as Fleischer Studio was made defunct on the 27th of May 1942.

While the studio may have been made defunct, its legacy continues to have an
impact on modern culture as modern media outlets pay homage to the famous art
style created in the studio with the use of video games and other forms of media.

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Founded in 1923 by Walt Disney and his brother under
the name of Disney Brothers Studio and went through
many name changes after. Currently it is referred to as
Disney Animation. This studio is responsible for the
creation of multiple hits it’s nearly 100 years of creating
animation, from the first feature length animated movie Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs to other classics like Bambi, Dumbo, Lady and The Tramp, Cinderella, Beauty
and the Beast to its recent endeavours, it’s clear that the impact done has been
monumental and will continue to be so.

The studio has gone through many different eras so to speak with each era often
bringing in new styles of animation or improving on previous ones. Additionally,
Disney used cel-animation from its inception until the late 1990s. The first era the
studio went through was the Disney Brothers Studio era which started in 1923 and
ended in 1929. After this came and with each era in which Disney made itself known
to all of America with movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and animated
shorts while moving away from the rubber hose style of animation previously used
as Walt Disney developed his style; this lasted from 1929 until 1940. More movies
like Dumbo were released with shorts for WW2, this went on from 1940 till 1948.
After this, from 1948 till 1959, more animated movies like Cinderella, Alice in
Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp were created. Next up came the
years between, 1959 and 1966 where the Studio didn’t produce many things along
with this, Walt Disney died in 1966. After his death, the studio fell from popularity
and this continued until 1983, this was known as the “rock bottom” era. In the years
between 1984 and 1989, Disney begun it’s rise back to prominence which was known
as the “Resurrection” era. Next came the beginning of the Disney renaissance in
which many successful feature length animations like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin
and The Lion King were made. These featured a new art style that can be linked can
often just be linked with the name of the era, which lasted from 1989 to 1994. After
1994 in Disney begun declining again which went on until 1999. This was known as
the end of the Disney Renaissance. From 2000 to 2006, Disney experienced what was
know as the “Slump” as they had to downsize. However, this time period for Disney
same them make the conversion to computer animation. Disney rebounded from
2006 to 2009 as they started creating successful computer animated movies. In this
time, they also acquired Pixar. From 2010 to present day, Disney continues to
resurge releasing many successful movies like Tangled, Frozen and Moana. Disney as
a whole, not just the animation department is currently thriving and growing as the
purchase other studios and distributors.

Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar is an American computer animation studio
that specialise in creating CGI 3D animated films.
Pixar first started in in 1979 as a graphics group that was part of Lucasfilm’s
computer division. It became its own company in 1986 when it got backing from
Apple Inc. Later, in 2006, Pixar was purchased by Disney for $7.4 billion, becoming
a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Pixar have created nineteen feature length
films with their first being the classic Toy Story that hit was released in 1995. With
the introduction of 3D CGI animation in Toy Story, the movie industry was swept
away as people rushed to view this method of animation that had never been seen
before. Toy Story became the highest grossing movie worldwide in 1995 generating
over $191,767,232. Along with this, Pixar have crated multiple other hit movies like
Monsters Inc, released in 2001, Finding Nemo released in 2003 and many more. While
their first feature length animation may have been in 1995, they created a short film
in 1986 named Luxo. Jr which is the name of the studios mascot.

DreamWorks Animation Studios

Founded in 1994 by legendary film
director Steven Spielberg and few
others, this is an American animation
studio that is a subsidiary of Universal
Studios. DreamWorks like Pixar
primarily specialise in 3D animation
but have used traditional methods of
animation in past. Since their inception, DreamWorks Animation have released
over thirty-five feature length movies and created some popular franchises in
doing so. Franchises like Shrek, Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon and a few
more. Fifteen of their thirty-five films made are in among the fifty highest grossing
movies of all time. While DreamWorks had created many good movies, they have
always had serious competition with Pixar and Disney, competition that they
haven’t really been wining in as of late.

Movement
In animation, fluent and realistic and believable movement is created through the
use of various techniques. Following these techniques allow the animator to create
appealing and life like movement.

Squash and Stretch

This is one of the most important techniques in animation which is given to a

character or object by the artist to create the illusion of weight and volume as said
character/object moves. The squash and stretch technique works by indicting the
rigidity of an object as it movies, for example, organic beings like humans and dogs
aren’t so rigid and have a level of flexibility to them meaning there will be some
bounce or shift in weight as they move, but objects like wheelchairs aren’t going to
be bouncing around as they are stern and not flexible. Additionally, squash and
stretch can prove to be useful when animating dialogue or facial expressions,
however the degree of squash and stretch will vary depending on what needs to be
animated. The most common example of squash and stretch can be seen in a
bouncing ball, the ball starts of rigid and is it increased velocity it stretches a little
(usually exaggerated) and as it
impacts on the ground, the ball
will squash (compress) and lunch
back up, stretching in the process
and the cycle will repeat until the
ball is out of momentum.

Anticipation

Anticipation is used as a way to indicate to the audience that the character is about
to perform a major action like running or jumping. For example, when someone
jumps from a stationary position, they must first crouch down in order to build the
energy necessary to execute the jump, similar to a spring recoiling. This tells the
viewer that character is about to jump. Anticipation is often exaggerated in cartoons
as characters tend to bend the limits of what’s
possible which can give a comedic effect. Goofier
cartoon characters often seen on TV will use an
exaggerated amount of anticipation as it adds
comedic effect, however, when it comes to
feature length animated movies, the anticipation
is often dialled back so that the characters look
more realistic. Also, anticipation can also be seen
in the previously mentioned squash and stretch
technique to indicate what action come next.

Staging

When drawing a character in a pose, said pose should portray character body
language and facial expressions that are easy to read by the audience as the
character should be clearly communicating their attitude, mood, reaction, etc. To
do this effectively, the camera plays a very important role with the use of different
shots can help clearly portray the scene to the audience. For example, a faraway
shot, is good for portraying large actions done by the character like jumping or
fighting whereas a closeup with the camera is good for showing character
expressions. A lot must be taken into account when creating the staging of a scene
as a scene with poor staging will leave the audience confused as to where they
should look. Good staging will feature a character in the centre of the screen or on
one of the thirds of the screen and if a character is facing sideways, there should be
more empty space in from on the character and not behind unless there is something
happening behind the character that audience should know about. Good staging will
also feature clear and simple actions that are not detracted by the surroundings of
the character. Additionally, the staging of a scene is about presenting ideas that
viewer will be able to see and understand. For example, if you are trying to convey
a happy over the top character you would
create the scene to show that show this, i.e.
the character will bounce around instead of
walking normally, there will be lots of
sunshine wherever they go, the character
will feature bright colours either in clothing
or things they use, etc.
Slow In and Slow Out

The basic principle of this technique is that as an action starts, there are more
frames at the beginning and end of the pose and only a few, two or three in the
middle of the pose. This done as more drawings slow the action down and less speed
the action up. In real life, all actions start slowly and end slowly, therefore this
principle is paramount in creating life like motion.
For example, in real life, when a plane lands it does
not instantly come to a halt (Unless it is a VTOL
aircraft) instead the pilot activates the brakes and
brings the plane to a gradual halt. In an animation
of a plane, you would show this by using a slow out
as the aircraft touches the ground and then
gradually add more drawings to show the decrease
in speed.

Arcs

In real life, most living creatures follow a circular

arc when moving, the only things that do not
follow a circular arc are machines as they follow
angular arcs. This is paramount when animating a
human or natural being as the arcs will allow the
action to look more natural and in turn, it will
flow better. Movements such as eye movement,
arms, head turns and tail wags all follow arcs.

Secondary Action

Secondary actions are gestures that support a character’s main actions which add
more dimensions to the characters animations. For example, a character sneaking
around. If it is in a cartoon, the character will be tiptoeing, while raising his knees
up high as he takes each step keeping his arms in a T-rex like position close to his
chest and having his back hunched forward. The secondary action would be the
characters head as he looks around to make sure all is clear as he sneaks into his
position. There is a lot that can be
done with secondary actions such
as the character turning to the
screen and placing a finger over
his mouth to tell the audience to
hush, but these actions must not
distract or obscure the viewers
sight of the main action.
Exaggeration

When it comes to creating animations especially cartoons, key parts of the character
that display emotion are often exaggerated in size to help show the audience the
characters emotion at that moment in time. For example, when a character in a
cartoon is hurt, their eyes and mouth will usually bulge out and drastically increase
in size whereas a character from a feature
length animated movie will have to not be as
exaggerated as the character should stay
within the realms of reality. Often, animated
characters will have large eyes as they help
the animator convey a wide range of emotion
to the audience.

Appeal

Creating an appealing character is a very important part of animation as they will

be what they audience will have to look at. For this reason, it is important to make
both then heroes and villains of the story look appealing. The appeal of a character
includes an easy to read design, clear drawing and personality development of both
the heroes and the villains, like their motivations are, why the hero is the hero and
why the villain is the villain, all their back stories, how the characters become
involved etc. All this will give characters more depth and make them more relatable
to the audience.

Speed Lines

One part of movement often seen in cartoons is

speed lines which indicate that a character or
object is going in a certain direction or doing a
certain action at a very high speed. Speed lines
can make a massive difference to the audience
as it gives them at visual indication of
movement.

Rotoscoping in animation

Mostly used in 2D animation as modern-day 3D

animation allows for actors to wear motion
capture rigs that pretty much self-animate a 3D
model. This form of animation was famously used
by Max Fleischer to create his animations and by
Disney to animate over real life dancers for their movies, allowing them to create
realistic and life like animations on their characters.

Review of Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of The Rings

This was the first part of an animated adaption of the
critically acclaimed fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien
created by animation legend Ralph Bakshi. Whilst
watching this movie, it is very possible to become
confused by what is going on as you are thrusted in with
little to no context of what is going on or who is who.
Those who have read the books this animation is based
off will understand the story and characters, however,
for a non-reader of the book, you don’t get much
explanation. I believe this definitely one thing that held
the movie back as the story should have been clearly
explained so that someone who has never read any of
the books can view this animation and understand what
is going on.

The animation in this movie can be a hit or miss, it was created for the most part by
using live-action footage that was then animated over using the rotoscoping
technique. Whilst rotoscoping can help reduce cost in animating, it can be very hard
to get real life actors to act like they are in a cartoon. Rotoscoping works best when
used in small dosages like in fight scenes that tend to be hard to animate. There are
points in this movie where the animation doesn’t cover the live footage, making it
glaringly obvious that real life actors were used, ruining the overall emersion. Along
with that, the animation tended to be clunky at some points as characters hands or
body parts would get stuck for a frame or two making it looked they paused when
they shouldn’t have. Because of this, viewing the movie became more of a chore as
I was taken out of it every time a small but avoidable error came up. I think that
were Ralph to use the technique of cel animation for most of the movie and leave
the rotoscoping for the action-packed scenes, this movie would have not only looked
better, but it would’ve felt more fluent which keeps the viewer more absorbed with
the beautiful world he has created.

Another thing I didn’t very much like about this movie was its art style, sure you
can’t expect every animated movie to have visuals on par with a Disney production
but in my opinion, the visuals in this movie were lacking and often times changed
from very detailed to almost barley any details within a matter of scenes. However,
this was for the most part due to technological limit of the time.
It seemed that Ralph was aiming this movie at a more mature audience which for
the time was unheard of, so I have to hand it to him there for trying to create a
movie with an animation technique that is best used in small amounts to try and do
something that no one had done before. You can kind of tell by watching this movie
that the art style wouldn’t really appeal to children due to its use of a lot of darker
colours.

To sum up, I think that what from an animation and technical standpoint, what Ralph
had created was nothing short of amazing. However, due to many errors in animation
and a rather stale and unappealing art style along with its lack of explanation of the
story made for an unenjoyable movie.

References
Boom, T. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://docs.toonboom.com/help/animate/Content/HAR/Stage/003_Interface/001
_H1_User_Interface.html

http://www.dsource.in/course/principles-animation/staging