Seminole Cinema: SEHS Film



IB Film 2: Week 56.1Overview of AnimationLook at these three groundbreaking animations.Watch -? HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" Luxo Jr.The Enchanted Drawing: de Peltrie: cannot be defined as a particular type or genre of film. Rather, it is a technique for making all types of films.Animated films can be comedies, dramas, science fiction, romance, western, war, horror, or fantasy.Though painstaking and time consuming, animation gives the filmmaker complete control over the characters, settings, and situations being created.The term 'animate'?literally means bringing something to life.Animators can use all kinds of techniques to bring their subjects to life.These can include paint and ink applied directly to film stock, flat drawings, multi-layered flat drawings, three-dimensional models (claymation, plastic models, etc.), stop-motion objects and people, and more recently, computer-generated imagery.A Brief History of AnimationAnimation can be said to predate film.Animation in the form of flip books and other persistence of vision toys were part of the experimental approach to developing actual moving images on celluloid.George MélièsGeorge Méliès, the French magician and director, was an important innovator who incorporated animation into his live action films.Méliès particularly favored, and developed, stop-motion techniques.Sub-plotThe term 'stop motion'?refers to an animation technique that involves moving an inanimate object in small increments and photographing each move.When played back at normal speed ( 24 or 30 frames per second ), the inanimate objects appears to move on its own.Early stop motion experiments included the so-called 'lightning cartoonists'.These illustrators would use stop motion and dissolves to bring basic drawings to life.Winsor McCayAs mentioned in the lesson on fantasy, animator Winsor McCay was creating dinosaurs for the screen 80 years or so before Steven Spielberg.Gertie the Dinosaur?(1914) was an animated short film featuring Gertie, a brontosaurus based on the famous skeleton in the American Natural History Museum.This early type of character animation is a good example of anthropomorphism - giving human characteristics to animals and objects.Filmed animation developed rapidly into a popular, if not commonplace, storytelling technique.Audiences used to reading comic strips in newspapers and magazines related to this new form of entertainment.McCay, Max Fleischer, and Walt Disney in the United States, George Ernest Studdy in Britain, and Wladyslaw Starewicz in Russia were all exploring character and technique to push the boundaries of what was possible in animation.Walt DisneyWalt Disney founded his company in 1923.As a young animator and entrepreneur, Disney dreamed of establishing a cartoon studio that would rival the live-action Hollywood studios of the day.He specialized in drawn cartoons ( as opposed to clay models or puppets ) and cel animation.Cel animation refers to painting straight onto clear celluloid, which is then photographed one cel at a time.Disney's Pencil TestDisney created the first cartoon with synced sound,?Steamboat Willie?(1928), and he pioneered what is called the 'pencil test',?where animators would do a series of pencil drawings to test the movements before committing to the drawing ( and painting ) of cels.Disney also developed the first multi-cel camera. This allowed animators to film through a series of movable planes, thus creating a sense of realism and depth that had not been possible in traditional animation.Disney retold many classic, European folk tales (Pinocchio?and?Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for example) through animation and used classical music as the inspiration for?Fantasia?(1940).Chuck Jones and?Norman McLarenOther important players included Chuck Jones and the gang at Warner Brothers' Studio who created a hugely popular series of characters and cartoons through the 1940s and 50s.These included?Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Elmer Fudd.Norman McLaren of the National Film Board of Canada was a pioneer of both stop-motion animation and painting directly on film stock.Polish AnimatorsIn Poland, the 'cut-out'?style of animation (like that favored by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame) was raised to new heights of beauty by animators like Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk.Anime (Japanese Animation)Osamu Tezuka?Osamu Tezuka has been called the Walt Disney of Japan.His Mushi Production Company created?Astroboy?in the early 1960s.Tezuka invented the 'large eyes'?style of animation and incorporated adaptations of Western literature into his animation work.The so-called anime style is distinctive.It includes the aforementioned large eyes, uses a set amount of pre-determined facial expressions, and features so-called 'limited animation'?in which parts of drawn frames are reused rather than redrawn.Further Viewing?The additional viewing film for this lesson is the beautiful Japanese anime?Spirited Away?(2001) directed by Hayao Miyazaki.Miyazaki was both inspired by and opposed to Tezuka's work, and he struggled hard to develop his own distinct style.Anime is now an international style with many non-Japanese animators incorporating it into their work.CGI and PixarBy the 1980s, there had been significant work done using computer-generated imagery (CGI) in feature films.Early CGIIn the field of animation, there were three very important short films that hinted at the enormous possibilities of CGI.The first was?Tony de Peltrie?(1985) by Daniel Langlois.The second was a commercial called?Brilliance?by Robert AbelAnd the third was?Luxo Jr.?by John Lasseter.PixarJohn Lasseter was an animator for the Disney studios.He left to work for George Lucas's special computer group.In 1986, Steve Jobs purchased the Lucasfilm graphics division, and Pixar was born.In 1989, the company won an Academy Award for?Tin Toy?and in 1995, Pixar produced?Toy Story, which made history as the first fully-computer-animated feature film.The Modern EraThough CGI animation has proved to be extremely adaptable and popular, one must never forget that successful animation depends on interesting narratives, well-drawn characters, and innovative use of technique.There are many examples of wonderful animated films done with traditional cel technique, claymation stop motion, motion capture (using live action as a framework on which to build animation), and cut-outs.Some recent examples (at the time of this writing) would include -Fantastic Mr. Fox?(2009) - traditional stop motionThe Lion King?(1994) - traditional cel animationGhost in the Shell?(1995) - Japanese animeCoraline?(2009) - stop motion 3-DIt is comforting to note that despite huge advances in CGI and digital modeling, traditional styles of animation can still appeal to audiences ................
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