Completed History of Animation

Part 1: Pioneers and Technology
For each of the technology listed below, please discuss / include:

• Who invented each technology and when?
• How each optical toy / device works?
• Visual examples of technology in use
• Embedded videos to show YOUR versions of the technology

What is meant by the 'persistence of vision'?

This works by our brains looking at an image of something and processing it while another image is being shown , this then makes our brains merge the two images into one making the images seem as they are moving, this can then be repeated for several minutes to create a movie.



Thaumatrope 

The Thaumatrope was invented by John Ayrton Paris who was a well respected English physician and in 1825 he invented the Thaumatrope. The Thaumatrope works by having two separate drawings on each side on a round piece of card, then after making hole on the left and right side on the card you can make it rapidly go back and forth between the two picture by using strings or elastic bands in the holes and moving your thumbs up and down. This merges the two images into making it look like one single picture due to persistence of vision. Today it may not seem that impressive but back in the early 1800s it was seen as a very impressive invention.     

Phenakistoscope

The Phenakisticope was first invented in December 1832 by two different people in two different places by a Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and the Austrian  professor of practical geometry Simon Stampfer. The Phenakistoscope works by spinning a a disc usually cardboard while its attached vertically to a handle pointing upwards with the disk at the top/middle. This then will create the motion of animation as it seems the before still images are now moving 

Zoetrope

The Zoetrope was invented in 1834 by William George Horner who was a British mathematician and was a very popular piece of entertainment for around 30 years. The Zoetrope works by using a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides, around the inside of the bottom consists the sequence of images. As the cylinder spins the pictures at the bottom come to life and begin to move. 

Praxinoscope 

The praxinscope was created as the successpr to the zoetrope. Charles-Emile Reynaud invented it in France (1877). It is very simular to the Zoetrope but the Praxinpscope offers a winder viewing angle by adding mirrors to the inner circle. 

Kinetoscope 

The kinetoscope is one of the earliest motion pictures devices in history and was designed to be viewed by one person at a time through a 'peephole'. The first Kinetoscope was invented in 1861 by Tomas Edison who is a famous American Inventor and Business man and William Kennedy Dickson who was a Scottish inventor. It worked by creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of film which played images over a light source with a high shuttter speed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_animation



Part 2 
Developers.

George Pal
George Pal was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer. He was born 1st February 1908 in Hungary, He was always making films growing up and when he was 23 he married and moved to Berlin where he founded Trickfilm-Studio where he mainly was involved in Puppet Movies, he first used stop motion in a professional setting when creating add shorts, later in life he moved to America and began working for Paramount Pictures. He mainly worked with puppets using stop motion and other figures then in later life he used animation and live stop motion.


A famous piece of this work called 'Wonderful of the Brothers Grimm' which was made in 1962 using puppets. Credit: Youtube.com


Willis O'Brien
Willis Harold O'Brien was a American motion picture special effects and stop motion pioneer. He was born 2 March 1886 in Oakland California. His most famous pieces of work was The Lost World and King Kong. Willis used model figures in his stop motion animation such as Dinsours and Cavemen.

Wills also revolutionised  the technique of paring live action actors with his creations as how in the film 'The Ghost of Slumber Mountain' made in 1918. Credit Youtube.com








Ray Harryhausen
Raymond Harryhausen was born June 29 1920, we was a American-British artist, who also did crucial effects as wel as writing and producing. He created a format of stop motion animation called 'Dynamation'. He was greatly inspired by Willis O'Brien's King Kong movie who was also a mentor to Ray. He even worked on Mighty young Joe with Willis. He worked with Stop Motion and computer generated animation.
Here are some images of his best creations. Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kmjW73-v4

Phil Tippett
Phil was born September 27 1951 in Berkeley California. He is a American director and has a Oscar and Emmy award for is visual effects. He mainly works with creature design and computor based animation. His most known work is being apart of hugely popular films such as RoboCop, Jurassic Park and even the orginal Star Wars trilogy.


Otmar Gutmann
Otmar Gutmann was born April 24 1937 in Germany, he is a German TV Producer, his most seen and appreciated work is the globally loved Pingu. Most of his other work also was made using computer animation.





Tim Burton
Was born Augest 25th 1958 and is a American Film Director, Producer, artist, animator and writer. Is most famous work is Beetlejuice 1988, The Nightmare before Christmas 1993 and Corpse Bride 2005. He started making stop motion projects when he was a teenager and was also heavily involved in art when growing up.
A great piece of animation created by Tim is from the short animation series 'Stainboy' this clip is form episode 1 which was release in 2009. Credit Youtube.com


Henry Selick
Henry is an American Stop Motion director, producor and writer, Born 30 November 1952. His most well know work is also for The nightmare before Christmas as well as James and the Giant Peach. He was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He was inspired at a young age by two stop motion films called 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.


The Brothers Quay 
Otherwise known as Stephen and Timothy Quay are identical twin brothers born June 17 1947 in Pennsylvania, US. They are both Film Directors and Animators, the majority of their animation is done using puppets and other organic materials. There biggest projects are 'The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes' and 'In Absentia



A great example of the type of work the brother produced is this clip from the film 'Street of Crocodiles' released in 1986. Credit Youtube.com


Adam Shaheen
Adam was born 13th October 1964, He is a British-Canadian animator, television producer and screenwriter, he has over 150 international awards for his work. He also in the founder and owner of Cuppa Coffee Studies. His most known work is for Celebrity Deathmatch, Jojo's Circus, Rick and Steve and Life's a Zoo. Adams first animations were made using just clay figures but as more and more resources have became available to film he a strayed more to computer animation

An example of why Adam is so beloved by his fanbase is also throught the cultral aspects of his work for example here is a famous clip of a Celebrity Death Match clip with features Beavis and Butthead. Credit Youtube.com


Nick Park
Nickolas Wulstan is a English director , writer and animator, born 6 December 1958, His most known work is the national loved Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep and a bundle of others, He was born in Lancashire, England. He growing up he was fond of drawing cartoon and when we was 13 he started making his own films. He is also one of the key people for Aardman Animators which is a British animation studio based in Bristol. Nick really loves making his films using clay figures along with stop motion.


An great example of Nicks work is if you look back to the earlier parts of his career also to see how he has evolved while keeping his classic style. Clip from the short 'War Short' from the 1990s.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_animation






Part 3

Media Platforms and Audiences
Examples for each of the following in the format Stop Motion.

TV program - Children- Postman Pat - This is target towards children because its family friendly and
positive and also ends on a positive message. This movie uses a very modern form of animation which is high definition and very colorful. I believe this is done make to shorts not look like real life as the animations are tying to give it a cartooned vibe while using of the capability of modern computer animation

Adult - Angry Kid - Adult - This is targeted towards adults due to its vulgar humor. This style of animation is very unique, They used Live action and stop motion when creating these shorts.

Feature Film - Children- Fantastic Mr. Fox - This is targeted at Kids as its family friendly and funny to children. This is also a very high quality stop motion animation with a lot of compter generated features also. The animals and humans also look very realistic. They did this by using stop-motion and a very large budget.
Adult- ParaNorman - Adult - This can be viewed by children but does involve large amounts of gore and jump scares. I have never seen an animation style like this before and its due to the animatiors trying to make everything scarys as everything as a creapy feeling to it. This was done by using a form of 3D stop-motion

Advertisement - Children -McCoy's Crips - Children will find this funny. This is a very classic form of animation using live action stop-motion, it look pleasing and is very cheap to produce it would of however taken a bit of time to prefect.



Adult- Honda - Adult - This is targeted towards adults to buy there cars but also towards kids as they are likely trying to also build a relationship with young potential consumers. This is personally one of the most impressive look aniamtions I have seen as it mixes stop motion and computer animation perfectly to create a incredibly well done masterpiece of modern animation
Music Video - Children -  OK Go - "Primary Colours" Helps children with Colours. This is also a simpler form of animation using stop motion as well as a ton of hours and man power to make this possible.


Adult- Sledgehammer- This is target towards older people due to the old looking film style, lyrics and backdrops in most scenes. This music video mixes a lot of animation styles together for a 5 minutes of mind blowing animation ranging from stop motion to clay and computer animation.

Ident - Children CBeebies - Children as its on a children TV channel. This a fully computer based animation which is just made as a ident but shows great quality and great smooth animation with multiply things moving at once.




Adult- BBC Hippos- Adults as BBC 1 is a TV channel for adults. This animation is also just a ident for BBC but it mixes a few actual nature shots of hippons along with very pleasing shots of hippos swimming synchronized by editing it using computer programs and animation.




All Clips from youtube.com


Part 4

Who do you think stop motion in made for?
I think that stop motion can be viewed by anyone and loved, its a classic type of cinematography and was a big step in terms of entertainment, it made the impossible possible for a lot film makers, there is also very different types of stop motion in all different genres e.i Wallace and Gromit which is who a younger family friendly audience or there is more scary and thrilling movies such as Beetlejuice or Alice

What do you think holds for stop motion animation e.g., will it disappear and be replaced with computer animation?

I think within the next decade its not too debatable that stop motion animation will be taken over by computer animation, I think the reason for this is the fact that computer animation is getting better and better each year with better colors, and cinematography and with lots of depth and detail. Where as stop motion has improved a lot since it started to become popular and Ido believe there is a ceiling and only so far you can go with it but I would like to think will also be around and the work people have done with it will be looked back on and praised for many years to come.

Research and Planning: E4 and the Brief

E4 and the Brief

I have been doing a lot of research on E4 on all types of different topics. Things I found include that the owner of this national praised TV channel is 'Channel Four Television Corporation' which was founded in 1982, E4 however was not launched until 18th January 2001. Upon further research I found the two most viewed TV Shows on E4 are 'The Inbetweeners' and 'The Big Bang Theory' both of which have a large and strong fan base and are adored by fans, other popular and common shows you will find on E4 include 'Tattoo Fixers' 'Coach Trip' 'Celebs Go Dating' and many more. 

Currently in 2017 E4's Primary Target Audience is more towards female housewives than men and the aged of the viewers is more often than not between 16-34. Below is a shot of the Audience at a 'Live in Chelsea' showing which is a very popular reality TV show along with a profile chart showing the averages of views in terms of age and gender.

Next I will follow up on the last point my going into detail on E4's secondary target audience. On top of E4 playing TV dramas with long story lines, plot twists and a lot of drama they also tend to play and have aired some really great comedy shows that have been adored by all types of people ranging from teenagers to older people who love to laugh and with these shows E4 provided that. An some examples are the TV shows 'The Inbetweens' and 'The Big Bang Theory' have received mass amounts of love and support as well as high ratings, 'The Inbeweens even to 2 spin off movies with both being extremely successful.

Another interesting thing I found about E4 was the other channels they owned and the other target markets from those channels. There quite a few to I will analyses the main and most popular ones. Firstly, I am going to look at Channel 4 with is often called the 'Sister' to E4. It is another british public service television broadcaster and it started almost 20 years before E4 was lunched, its Primary Target Audience is a mixture of all adults, 16-34 and there is slightly more female viewers and male.



E Sting
A E sting is something that a channel will play between the adverts and the program, it works as part as a introduction back into the program and partly to let you know what channel you are watching so similar to self promotion.

I liked this ESting due to its bright attracting colors and interesting imagery as well as a clean and sharp showing of their logo, they also made a compelling beat to go along side with the animation. I believe the target market of this ESting is teens as it shows eye catching images and satisfyingly shapes. 






These EStings are very unique as once they are placed together you can see they are based on doodles shown by the paper background and simply characters, also these EStings are a lot more humorous than most. The target market for these EStings is children as that is who the charatars and humor is appealing too, furthermore it is played on the children TV channel/website.



This particular ESting is the most interesting and bezar one out of this list as it shows to the almost full extent of what Stop Motion Animation and Computer Animation can do. It shows multiply objects moving simultaneously and doing this that would normally be impossible.
The target audience for this ESting would be to teenagers and adults as its attention grabbing and once you see the E4 logo at the end its likely you wont forget it. 

Here is a list of my current experience using animation including the first ever types being thaumatrope, praxinoscope and a zoetrope.





Next I will embed my Lego animation.


When creating this piece my intentions where to experiment using Logo as well as using a dubbed voice over and syncing it the the Lego pieces month using drawings of a month showing the appropriate shapes. It was a enjoyable process as I didn't find syncing the audio to the video too difficult although I am aware it could have been done better, working with Lego was not as fun as I thought as I felt limited to what I could create and the way the characters moved.



The following videos are of my live action Stop Motion and my Inanimate object animation.   


When creating this me and a classmate were experimenting with using people and stop-motion which turned out the be a more of a different experience than using objects. It was also I very enjoyable process but turned out to be a little more different in terms of keeping the camera is the right places and walking around correctly in the animation was more challenging than expected. We also set out to make it seem as the person had super natural powers which I was pleased with how it turned out for our first attempt but I know we could have done better.






For my Inanimate object animation I was once again using objects rather than people but this time I choose to focus more on the characters, story line and moving objects with no audio. I was trying my best to make it seem as if the mouse was alive searching for food, climbing around and having a good time but this turned out harder than I thought as I struggled to make the mouse move in a realistic way and show emotions. However, I was pleased with my animation I found I had the most fun doing this piece.   


For my final E4 ESting project I will be using Paper squares to display numbers and shapes such as E4. After seeing several extremely creative videos online of people using sticky notes to create animations I was inspired to try it myself. Also I felt as if using an object was the best for me personally as I could take my time and work at my own pace and get fairly creative.

Research and Planning: Designing an ESting

Designing an ESting

1. For my proposal I am going to be doing a stop motion animation using white and purple post-it notes and a time-lapse. 

2. My plan for my ESting would be a bundle of purple and white post-it notes scurrying around then joining together and making the E4 logo. 

3. It will be in a world where post-it notes can move on their own and have personalities, they often join together to create things.

4. I believe I will face quite a few difficulties when creating my ESting, firstly we be giving the impression that all the post it notes are alive, then it will be creating the E4 logo but I believe I am able to do it and lastly I will have to depend on the weather for whether I can shoot my ESting outside or if the wind/rain is too strong I will be reformed to doing it inside.

5. My target audience for my ESting would be to the younger audience as I believe its not going to be extremely funny or exciting but will be seen as interesting and unique to a younger audience  

Below is the relevant planning paperwork for my ESting.

Budgeting: My total cost for my ESting with £0:00 due to the college providing me with the props required. 

Animation Evaluations

Step 1


1. Here is my final submission for the E4 ESting competition.


  





Step 2

1. For the evaluation and feedback proportion of my E4 ESting I will be using a written report, this is due to the many benefits of a written report and written feedback including me personal being most comfortable with writing my reports up on blogs or word documents, also for people responding to my questionnaire in a written format makes it easier for me to send it around as well as them being able to go into much deeper detail for example reasons why and how they felt about certain things. Furthermore a written reply is great for the questionnaire as it makes much it simpler and effective for creating graphs and statistical charts. 



2. Once I completed my project and was satisfied with the project it was Publicly uploaded to the Colleges YouTube channel which it was seen by people browsing the channel and I was also able to create a copy of the URL or a embedded version of the animation which I was also able to place within my blog and email to the appropriate people for feedback. Other ways I consider sharing my animation was through social media websites/apps such as Twitter or Facebook but I felt it likely was not going to each the age group I was appealing too. I also had the option to post my animation onto a short film viewing websites such as 'Vimeo', 'shortoftheweek' or 'annietfest' but felt the same issue as not appealing to the correct age group as well as most of the sites requiring a up front cost to upload your films which I felt it was unnecessary.

3. When it came to how I was going to distribute my work for feedback via questionnaire my options were limited as I needed to get the responses in a reasonable time and the questions also needed to be answered professionally. This made me shy away from spending it to random people via social media so I opted to use my personal connections and lead me to create a email chain filled with people who would appropriately answer the questions I provided. The audiences I asked was a mix of male and female with multiply of each students and teachers. Here is a list of the persons I sent it too;

The questions I asked for my feedback are as follows, 

1. Who do think the target audience is for my project?


2. What did you think was the content and narrative of my project?


3. Did you notice what style of animation my project was in? e.i stop motion, clay, puppet etc.


4. What did you think about the props I used and the production quality of my project?


5. Did you notice any animation techniques in my project that you may or may not have seen prior? e.i style, FPS, multiply objects moving together.


6. Did you feel in a sense that the objects were alive living in their own world?


7. What did you think about the scenery and the colors of my project?  


























Here is a graph of the feedback I received regarding which age groups the people responding thought the target audience was.


I obtained my feedback through e-mail. There was varying amounts of praise and constructive criticism but the general feeling I had was that people though it was enjoyable but but have seen better. To highlight some key phrases I received answers like "Fairly Creative", "Nice bright coloring", "Cool idea and looked clean/smooth with high FPS", "Smooth with no jumpy cups or clips out of place etc.", "Good idea with nice editing" and "Creative and props used well". 

Comparing my intentions of my ESting with the reactions from my feedback. Previously in the blog I posted a graph displaying the results of the the question "Who do you think is the target audience for my project?". The majority of people said teenagers and young adults, this was what I had intended for my ESting and was pleased people could see this. Another interesting thing from the feedback was from the question "What do you think was the content and narrative of my project?" My intentions of the narrative was the two different colors of paper fighting to display the number or letter they wanted, which was the white color showing a 'E' and the purple paper showing a '4' and then after the 'fight' they decide to join together and make E4 Logo. 2/12 people who answered my feedback understood this but I understand it was not super clear what was going on and I know next time how I can make a more clean and understandable narrative. Next, I will compare the reactions of the question "What did you think about the scenery and the colors of my project?" 4/12 people stated that they found the background boring which was just a tabletop so I understand, this was not my intention but I felt at the time it was appropriate because it was close, in my classroom and meant I didn't need to leave the classroom every time when I was filming, next time I will be sure to review all my options and spaces I can use to record to maximum how good the scenery can be and step outside my comfort zone. Furthermore, 7/12 people also commented on this question saying they liked the bright colors and lighting which was also nice to hear as I did intent for my project to come across in this manner. My intentions were for the colors to seem like their own characters and I thought a good way to do with was to use bright colors and edit the contrast as best as I could plus it matched with the E4 colors as well as making it pleasing to the eye.    

A lot of people (10/12) also picked up on the fact that my ESting was a Stop Motion Animation when asked "Did you notice what style of animation my project was in? e.i stop motion, clay, puppet etc." I did expect this as it shows a very basic understanding of animation techniques as it is one of the most popular ways animation is created. 

 

Another question I asked and was "6. Did you feel in a sense that the objects were alive living in their own world?". To this question I would have been pleased if around 4-5/12 would understand this as I was trying to make its seem as if the paper notes were characters and alive. There was a lot of varied answers rather than a straight yes or no which makes me feel like people half felt that way but not really. 6/12 did partly understand this but not with certainty, next time I will be sure to enhance the way the characters look and the world around them to make them feel much more life-like and as if they are if their own world. 

  

Overall I was happy with the feedback and I am fairly happy with the ESting I produced and I know next time what I can do to improve and make a better piece of animation which will help me to improve my grade and skills in animation.  

Animation Questionnaire

Questionnaire For my Final E4 ESting Project


Please watch the following clip and give your constructive feedback:





1. Who do think the target audience is for my project?








2. What did you think was the content and narrative of my project?






3. Did you notice what style of animation my project was in? e.i stop motion, clay, puppet etc.






4. What did you think about the props I used and the production quality of my project?






5. Did you notice any animation techniques in my project that you may or may not have seen prior? e.i style, FPS, multiply objects moving together.







6. Did you feel in a sense that the objects were alive living in their own world?








7. What did you think about the scenery and the colors of my project? 











Thank You for Your feedback.

Final E4 ESting

Improvements from Feedback

We received peer feedback on our first drafts of the E4 Esting competition.

I will resolve the following issues with my Esting

• Re-shoot the final scene with a clearer more polished logo.
• Use the appropriate E4 music that is provided for us.
• Look into editing the lighting and focus in post production for a more eye pleasing and professional look.
• Delete unneeded scenes to provide more time for the logo at the end while keeping under 10 seconds.

Here is a link to my first draft.

Here is a list of my Peer feedback:

E4 Esting Risk Assessment

Identified hazards	Who might be harmed & how?	What are you already doing?	What further action isnecessary? (write “none” if appropriate)
Careful with heavy Tripod and Camera	Camera man or surrounding people due to something falling on them	Being cations with the Camera	Keep away from moving objects and other people.
Tripping Hazard	Anyone  walking around by any wires on set are in danger of tripping and getting injured	Place the wires out of the way of any foot traffic when possible	I will tape the wires down to the ground and inform people who are walking by if they to unaware of surroundings e.i on mobile phone
Heavy winds or other extreme weather conditions	Cameraman and surrounding people due to camera or lights from the set falling or other surrounding items falling	Record in a place with not a lot of surroundings	Make sure to schedule filming dates along side with suitable weather.

Action Plan from “further action”	By Who	By When (Date)
Keep minimal amount of people on set	Adam	08/11/17
Ask to borrow some duct tape from the college in order to tape down wires	Adam	08/11/17
Regualy check weather updates and plan accordingly	Adam	08/11/17

Please ensure that the Assessor and Line Manager have signed this prior to any production work.

Assessment upon completion of action plan LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH (Delete as appropriate)
Assessed by:	Name: Adam Thorn		Accepted by Teacher:	Name:
	Signature: A. Thorn	Date: 07/11/17		Signature:	Date: