history of animation class

2005-12-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

2005-12-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

Post #12

Up until yesterday, I had always thought that The Nightmare Before Christmas, was always a clay-animation production. Well turns out I was wrong in that case, because yesterday I learned that it was a stop-animation. That is where it appears that the animators give the characters a full range of motion, but they don't, they just make it look like they have that full range, instead they move the dolls that they use in precise movements, so as to give the characters that effect. I'm still trying to get over the fact that the movie wasn't clay-animation.

In my personal opinion, some of the best animations out there are clay-animations. Just look at how much fun you can have with clay, as well as the difficulties of trying to create an animation with it. The way I see it, the difficulties of working with clay, are as follows: the quality of the clay character and the quantity of it as well. What I mean by this is that generally, as an animator, you want to make something seem the best, even if you don't think it is. Whereas, when I talk about quantity, I mean that when working with clay, it may be kind of hard to get the character back the way it was, after you smash it or some other wacky thing. I feel that the fun involved with clay-animation, are all the things that you can do while making the animation, such as smashing, exploding, you know stuff like that, the kind of things you generally see in them.

Clay-animation has been around for some time, I can still remember Gumby, from way back when. It is among my favorite animations from old. Another fairly old animation that I like is Wallace and Gromit, now those were spectacular, I especially like the one with the penguin that dressed up like a chicken. There are some new clay-animations that just came on to the scene not too long ago, one of which is Robot Chicken. This is pretty much a clay-animated variety show, that is freaking hilarious. So, as you can see, clay-animation has been around for a while, and I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon.

2005-12-01T06:40:00.000-08:00

Comments #11

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2005-11-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

Post #11

Today in class, we watched Toy Story 2. This movie was created by Pixar and Disney, in the late 1990s. It uses the newly created technique in the latter of the 90s, called "CGI", the full phrase is "computer generated images". This technique gives animators a better ability of creating greater detailed animations, as you can very well see in Toy Story 2. The features of each character are more in depth, and you can actually tell what emotion that they are trying to portray, even though they are toys.

Another thing that I noticed while watching this movie, was the little conceits hidden throughout the movie. One of these conceits, is the scene where Rex, the dinosaur, was chasing after the toy car, and you could see him in the mirror. This was kind of a spoof of the first Jurassic Park movie. Another conceit would be the scene on the elevator, where Zurg announced that he was Buzz Lightyear's father, this was obviously a spoof of Star Wars. Although there may be more conceits hidden throughout the movie, they are generally only found by adults.

This movie is great in that it appeals to both children and adults. For the children there are the obvious gags, that they don't have to think about and can still laugh. For the adults, you have verbal jokes that they can get, as well as the visual gags, that are fun for everyone.

2005-11-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

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2005-11-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

Post #10

Japanese animation has become one of the most popular animation types throughout the last decade or so. The origins of "anime", as it is often called, generally comes from "manga", which are Japanese comic books. One of the reasons that they are so popular, is that it's different from that of American animation.

One of the key differences between the two, is the style in which most of the animations are done, for instance, in Japanese animation, there is great deal of attention spent on the eyes of every character, but in Americanized animation, they don't necessarily detail very much, kind of like in family guy. In Family Guy, all the characters are pretty basic, there's nothing really to them at all.

Another difference between anime and American animations, is the way that most animes are focused more on action, rather than humor, whereas American animations are the exact opposite. For the most part, all the animes that I have watched, have been more about action, and less on humor, such favorites, would be Inuyasha or Full Metal Alchemist. Most American animations that I have seen, have focused mainly on the humor rather than the action, such animations that could illustrate this point would be Family Guy or maybe The Simpsons.

These are just a few differences that anime and Americanized animations have. There are many more differences, as well as some similarities, but I just wanted to give you a taste of what some of the differences between the two might be.

2005-11-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

Comments#9

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2005-11-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

Post #9

Making history come alive in animated movies is something that the animation industry is known for these past few years. Whether it is with animated people or with little animated rodents, our society enjoys it either way, mainly the children. Such classics as An American Tale or Pocahontas, let little children learn about history, even if it is related to them in ways they don't understand just yet.

These historically infused animations portray history in certain unreal aspects, yet for the most part show what happened during that time in a way to make it appeal to the masses. An American Tale shows the immigration of thousands of people and the hard times they went through just to get to America. However, the animation studio portrayed it by using animated mice, instead of animated people. This made it all the more unrealistic.

Pocahontas, on the other hand, dealt with the settling of the Jamestown colony. It centered mostly around the people of the time, love, mistreatment, betrayal and all else that was happening back then. However, the Disney studio in making this film threw in some animals with personality, such as the raccoon, the hummingbird, and the dog. These animals effectively drew away the focus from the main story. This made it hard for young children to fully understand what is going on.

Historical animations make up a great deal of the animations that are out there. Other animated histories would be An American Tale: Fievel Goes West, The Land Before Time movies, The Magic Voyage, and Mulan.

2005-10-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

Comments #8

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2005-10-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Post #8

In class, we watched a bunch of different animations created in the 1950s. The 1950s, was the time of the Cold War, in which America was panicked, as well as spending all their wartime money to better their means. The animated shorts were for the most part, advertisements, for politics, society, and economics.

In general these animations got people to buy more, when the soldiers came back from war, seeing as how there was a great pent up sum of money unspent, in the time of the war. Also, these new advertising animations, promoted new products of the time that, before the war, were only ideal dreams. Animations of the time, promoted stocks, as well as luxuries now affordable by the general public.

In politics, the new animated advertisements, played a role in the campaigns of future presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower( Ike, in these shorts). They also showed the history of our nation so as to bring out a certain nationalistic pride, to help combat the communists in the Cold War, in spirit that is.

In society, these animations were supposed to promote the luxurious life. People were supposed to have nice "low mortgage" houses, new cars, and state of the art household goods. This was the standard for the 1950s.

As you can see, animated advertisements played an important part in the Cold War era.

2005-10-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

Post #7

Since the beginning of the semester, in class, there have been some comments made about how the Disney company could never do any great justice to human characters in their films. This I do believe to be true after pondering on the comments and what I have seen on my own accord.

For some reason, Disney is only able to make the animals look more realistic. This disturbs me in a way, in that, you have movies such as Snow White or Cinderella, where it tells you who the main character is pretty much, yet the animal characters of the story steal away from the human character. This leaves something desired that is unachieved when it comes to characters like Snow White.

Another thing about human characters in Disney films, is the lack of detail that goes into their creation. This in turn is more or less, why the characters lack personality, because they have no defining characteristics, unlike their supporting cast. The best example would Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. You could tell, generally, the personality of the dwarves, by their look, but Snow White's personality was about as boring as they come. Other films with personality deficient characters would be Mulan, Cinderella, and Pocahontas.

The way I see things, is that good well defined human characters won't be done until 3-D animation becomes more developed. That's just the way it seems, to me anyways.

2005-10-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

Comments #7

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2005-10-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

Comments#6

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2005-10-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

Post#6

Quite recently, I decided to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. After watching it, I just feel i have to talk about this film. In my personal opinion, you have to be some sort of actor if you are able to work with animated creatures that you can't even see at the time. Plus, this movie incorporated rival toons actually getting along... i.e. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse.

I think Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, was one of the better movies that crossed cartoons over with humans. It's right up there with Space Jam, I would think. But I think that the acting has a lot to do with how well these crossover movies do. In Space Jam, it was Michael Jordan, and everyone wanted to see if he could act. In Roger Rabbit, it was Bob Hoskins, he was great in that movie. Some may think that it's the cartoons that make or break the movie, but it's not. People come out to see their favorite cartoon creatures on the big screen all the time, they love them that much, but if the acting by the actor doesn't cut it, that is what can make or break that movie.

In general though, I think you have to be a really good actor in order to pull off a cartoon, real time crossover, and built a career for some degree of comedy. I mean could you imagine watching one with say... Keanu Reeves... I don't think so.

2005-10-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

Comments#5

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2005-10-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

Post#5

For this blog, I think I want to talk about the lack of originality that I have seen in cartoons as of late. I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of the animated shows on today, are just remakes of previous cartoons from like the 80s and 90s. I find that to be a little bit off, in my opinion. I will show you just what I mean because, this subject cannot go untalked about.

Take Scooby Doo for instance. In the 80s, this was one of the hit animation shows of the decade. But quite recently, they have sullied the name of Scooby Doo, by bringing out "What's New, Scooby Doo." This cartoon came out only about 2 or 3 years ago, and it's bad, it most definitely takes away from the greatness of the early Scooby Doo cartoons.

Another cartoon that I loved as a kid, Transformers, has been taken to extreme and unnecessary lengths itself. Most people that watched Transformers, loved it and some of the newer stuff, like Transformers: Beast Wars. But now they have this new series called Transformers: Energon, in which the visual computer animation just looks very shoddy. It makes me sad thinking of how Transformers is going down the tube as it were.

To offset the bad, there has to be some good, and in my opinion, the Batman series do this the best. The original Batman animated series, was the best as a kid, but know they have The Batman and Batman Beyond. I find these to be quite adequate in portraying tales of the heroics of the dark knight himself. They bring villains from the original into all of the series, so as not to stray from the original storyline too much.

These are just a few of the animations that we have today, but as you can see originality is lacking in the animation world. Those that do original material, often turn out to bomb badly, and then it is back to the drawing board.

2005-09-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

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2005-09-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Post#4

I find it fairly interesting, how a guy like Paul Terry, can pretty much turn out good quality cartoons, such as Mighty Mouse, yet still have no love for the practice that he is in. In chapter four of Of Mice and Magic, we end up learning about Paul Terry, founder of Terrytoons, and founder of the great Mighty Mouse series.

Paul Terry was a envisioned artist, who started out like any other cartoon animator, in drawing comics. His first ever film, was entitled "Little Herman." He didn't start turning out his best works til after the first World War. Around the 1940s, is when he started his new spoof series of the recent Superman cartoon, Super mouse. This in his eye was his crowning acheivement, a great cartoon that he would be remembered for.

Super mouse was like Superman in every way, except the fact that he was a mouse and that he saved mice from the clutches of cats. When the first Super Mouse cartoon came out, reviews were phenomenal, thus Paul Terry and Terrytoons began working on more episodes for this wonderful cartoon. But before that could happen, Super Mouse's name had to be revamped, due to an employee going to a comic book company with the Super Mouse idea. So, Super Mouse became Mighty Mouse as most know. Even with the changed name, there were still problems with the story plots, seeing as how Mighty Mouse is like Superman, there was the whole problem with the lack of personality, plus the mouse says nothing in any of his films. Also, he only showed up when there was saving to be done, so he didn't have very much screen time. Somehow, Paul Terry managed to make it work, with the addition of music and lyrics. This pulled the series out of danger of being a failure.

Even without having a love for the work that he did, Paul Terry still managed to put as much effort into the cartoons that he made as he would have for anything else. I salute him for his work on Mighty Mouse, for it is one of my favorite cartoons of all time.

2005-09-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Post#3

Quite recently, I decided to watch a couple of Superman cartoons, from the early 1940s. The titles of which were Superman and the Mad Scientist and Superman and the Mechanical Monsters. Both of which were created by the Fleischer brothers. I found these cartoons on a compilation tape of all the Superman cartoons in the library in the JC. These cartoons originated from the early comic books of Superman in the late 1930s. In the cartoons that i watched, some things were different and unique to each, where as there were some things that were similar.

In both of these animated shorts, there was a great deal of special effects being used, something of which was fairly new territory to animators at the time. These special effects were used differently in each of the cartoons that i watched. In the one with the mad scientist, the ray gun that he was using had a great effect with the way it powered up and the way that it shot the ray, with lightning bolts. Superman would then come and force the ray back, knocking away the bolts with his fists, this would capture the audience, with not only it being the climax, but also that it was a great special effect. In the other short, the one with the mechanical monsters, when Superman comes to save Lois Lane, he encounters these robots. While he fights them, they are bombarding him with flamethrowers, which is a great special effect for the cartoon world. Also, when he saves Lois, the evil mastermind of it all, dumps a giant vat of molten liquid upon Superman and Lois. Superman grabs his cape and drapes himself over Lois to protect her, while the molten liquid splatters all over him leaving him unscathed. The molten liquid had a good effect, because it sort of spread, just like you would see any liquid spread. The way the special effects were used, shows some differences in the cartoons.

Some things that i found to be similar and somewhat monotonous, were probably Superman and Lois Lane themselves. In both animations, Lois was always in trouble, sure that's how the story was supposed to be, but she'd get in trouble, in the stupidest ways. In the first one, she flys in a plane to go meet a mad scientist, smooth move? Very. In the other one, while the robot is stealing the money, she stows away in the robot, only to be captured by the villain. Yet again, stupid. Near the end of the cartoons, when Superman has saved the day and rescued Lois, he takes Lois in one arm, the evil villain in the other, and does a big leap, doesn't even fly, and lands in Metropolis. This occurs in both, it's kind of odd, in that throughout the course of the cartoons, when they fly, it seems they are flying a good distance away from the city, and yet he is able to leap back to town. It is unfathomable, in my opinion, but this is an example of the imaginative world of cartoons, that i love so much.

I enjoyed watching these Superman cartoons a great deal. I plan on watching a lot more cartoon animations for the blogs to come.

2005-09-15T07:06:00.000-07:00

Comments

Comments#1

Lauren V, Kristy D. Manas

Comments#2

Mona

Comments#3

Kristy D. Manas, Lisa Hargrove

2005-09-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

Post#2

After reading the first 2 chapters of Of Mice and Magic, I have found that it is quite amazing as how far the cartoon industry has come. From plain comic strips to full-blown animation, from black and white, to a plethora of colors. Every person that created cartoons, in the early 1900s, started out with a background doing comic strips, from Winsor McCay to Walt Disney. They were geniuses of their time. Creating new methods to get their stories across to the public domain. There also seemed to be a darkside to the whole animation industry, the side that most businesses display today, in the way they "take out the competition" as they say.

In the 1900s, the first person in America to ever animate a comic strip, was Winsor McCay. The technique he used to create these animated shorts was to, for the most part, hand draw everything for each clip that took place, lightning-fast. It was only afterwards that other animators started to devise ways to make it easier to produce these animations, and not have to hand draw every little thing over and over again. John Bray, developed a method of creating one translucent background, so as to just have to draw the movements of the character rather than everything. Other techniques developed later on by other animators were the invention of "cels" or celluloids which made it easier to produce the movements of the characters, and also the invention of the storyboard, which Walt Disney perfected in his hay days.

The darkside of the animation industry, to me, is that whenever you read text book, there's always talk of certain major animators trying to take other animators from other companies, but then again, that could be considered to be what it means to compete. However in the second chapter, it tells how Charles Mintz, the distributor of Walt Disney's early cartoons, pretty much put Disney out of business, by pulling a fast one on him, and taking his early cartoon character, Oswald the rabbit, seeing as how Mintz owned the rights to the animation. Although, there was a silver lining, for with this treachery Disney and his partner Ub Iwerks, came up with the character we know and love to this very day, Mickey Mouse.

2005-09-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

Post#1

For my first assignment of the semester, I decided to watch an animated show called One Piece. It is an interesting show about pirates and a dream, a dream to one day be the king of the pirates. This show gives the viewer a sense of how one person's dream can affect other people in a sort of infectious manner.

In this show One Piece, it starts out with this kid named Luffy, who ends up venturing around the ocean called the Big Blue as a pirate. His one dream in life is to be king of the pirates, but no one that he meets believes, at first, that he has what it takes, however, after watching him fight and show his skills, they begin to realize he could really do this. Luffy is later joined by people that become part of his pirate crew, Solo, Nami, Usop, and Sanji. Having Luffy as their captain makes them believe that their dreams can come true as well. Solo wants to be the best swordsman in the land, Nami wants to be the world's greatest navigator, Usop wants to be the best marksman, and Sanji wants to be the world's greatest chef. They all realize that if they stick with their captain, these dreams could be attained and much, much more. One person was able to alter other people's views on goals that were almost unattainable. This show tells you that determination will help you achieve your goals in life, no matter how difficult they may be.

As you can see, One Piece is a show that draws you into a world of pirates and adventure, that also tells you that no goal is out of reach. So, never give up on your goals, and always keep fighting to keep them alive.

2005-09-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

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