OUAN05 - Understanding - History of British Animation

Watership Down, 1978

The history for British animation spans over a century, starting in what is referred to as the 'first wave'. The first wave started around the 1930s, whereas in the USA, animation was already commercially established. In the UK, this was the time when the industry was starting to be recognised and Government Public Information films allowed for a greater experimentation than in other animation industries around the world, especially in the US. During the 1950s the popularisation of children's television was a shift in the demographic orientation of animation in the direction of children and children's television programmes, this also paved the way for the animation industry as a whole and opened up new potential for the industry. Also, the influential and groundbreaking animated feature, 'Animal Farm' was released in 1954 exhibited for its explicitly political content and adult tone, future UK animated features would continue to maintain a dark toner, much darker than most US productions.

In the year 1950 itself, new puppet based children's programmes would emerge. These would include; 'Andy Pandy' and 'The Flowerpot Men' which would later become almost staples of British children's animation. Another example of this was the character, 'Noddy', derived from a children's book and has appeared in a number of animated interpretations as a children's television series since in various forms such as stop motion and even CGI. The BBC also contributed heavily to the development of the animation industry, with a considerable amount of investment in resources and personnel geared towards children's media which would again open new avenues and expand the at the time small industry in entertainment for children because it was so new. This was inclusive of animation and in particular, stop motion animation which was derived from the same skill-set as the puppetry used to create previous children's television shows. Some of the shows that came about during the first wave in this period came from model maker, Peter Firmin and writer Oliver Postgate who would go on to create several animation works for children using the stop motion technique such as 'Pingwings', 'Pogles Wood' and 'Clangers'. It is also during this period that links between children's animation and literature can be formed. With this, ties can be seen with social realist cinema, documentaries and theatrical comedy. The transition from puppetry to stop motion also demonstrates an eastern European influence, such as that of Czech animator, 'Jiri Trnka'.

Later than this, in the late 70s, 'Watership Down' was released. Adapted from the children's novel of the same name, it was successful whilst maintaining the darker themes and tone, similar to that of the previously mentioned, 'Animal Farm'.

From this point onwards British animation entered the second wave. There was a growing diversity in artistic approaches during this time with the emergence of channel four and its pushing of the boundaries of the issues and themes it tackled on screen including the representation of ethnicity and sexuality. A lot of the animation that was shown by channel four during this early stage proved to be almost too experimental for the mainstream audience, however it yielded success globally nonetheless. An example of a successful channel four animation that also proved to be financially a success would be, 'The Snowman' which is still a christmas favourite now. It was around this time that the company 'Aardman' also started to break into the mainstream with series such as 'Creature Comforts' and 'Wallace & Gromit' which were all directed by Nick Park. Stop motion would continue to have a presence with series such as 'Postman Pat' and 'Thomas the Tank Engine' which also featured sections of stop motion animation.

The third wave of British animation is considered to have started in the late 90s and is still continuing today. The rise of new Labour would mean a softening of left wing dissidence in alternative comedy and experimentation, this has more of an effect on industries than I personally realised, before looking into it further. The emergence of SKY television allowed more access to a wide variety of programmes and animation particularly in the area of children's television with the Disney Channel emerging in 1995 followed by Cartoon Network in 1999.

It was during this time that animation was being offered to a much wider variety of audiences during the late 90s and early 00s. The Simpsons and a little later on, South Park would provide the foundations of a whole industry of adult orientated animation, featuring adult humour. This had an effect on the British industry too with series emerging aimed at adults, most notably; 'Pond Life', 'Stressed Eric', 'Bob & Margaret', 'Monkey Dust', 'Modern Toss', 'I Am Not an Animal' and 'Popetown'. Some of these animations were notoriously controversial, especially Popetown which was never run by the channel that commissioned it, BBC3. Other series featured darker or more adult themes such as beastiality, murder, suicide and paedophilia.

OUAN05 - Understanding - CGI

CGI Rendering

CGI stands for computer-generated imagery and is the application of computer graphics to create imagery in various different formats including; video games, film and art. The term CGI commonly refers to 3D imagery, however it may also be two dimensional. The use of the term, 'computer animation' refers to dynamic, meaning moving images, rendered together. The availability of CGI software has led to small companies, professionals and personal uses to create their own animation or CGI work. This itself has brought around an almost subculture containing cliches and specialist vocabulary.

Computer graphics and this method of generating images via CGI is used in a variety of industries and not just used for a method of producing entertainment. Modern architects use services from computer graphics firms to produce 3D models for themselves and for clients. It's also important in viewing buildings in relation to the environment they're being built in to give the people working on projects a much clearer idea of what the final outcome will be, this is an example of CGI and essentially simulation being useful in a different industry. This kind of CGI also allows architects to simulate walk-throughs or essentially an interactive look at what the structure will look like to the user.

In other industries, computer generation and CGI is used to generate anatomical models, mostly in the field of science and medicine. Computer generated anatomical models can be used for both instructional and operation models. A large amount of anatomical images have been produced and collected this way, and these medical images are continued to be used by professionals and medical students. In modern medical applications, anatomical models of specific patients can be constructed to assist in surgery. The example of this I read referred to a complete knee replacement and a detailed patient model can be used to plan the surgery because of the difference in anatomy between patient to patient.

Interactive simulation and visualisation refers to the application of rendering of data that varies heavily, with applications varying from fluid dynamics to computer aided design. Simulations such as flight simulations may take extensive use of CGI for the rendering of worlds and environments.

Computer animation has been described as a digital successor to the technique of stop motion. However, computer based animation is much easier to control than other physical processes such as controlling miniatures and creating sets etc. Although, a positive of computer based animation, as oppose to other techniques is that it allows the animator to create content without the use of actors, sets and props which cost a lot of money, or can cost a lot. To create the illusion of movement, a computer generated image is displayed on a screen and replaced by a new image usually around 24 - 30 times per second. This technique is identical to the illusion of movement created with television, film and other motion pictures. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - Stop Motion

Making of, Coraline

Stop motion animation, which is also referred to as stop frame animation is a technique where you physically manipulate or move an object and record its movement each time you alter it in order to compile a sequence of images that give the illusion the object is moving on its own. Objects made of clay are often used in stop motion animation because of the ease in which they can be altered and repositioned, this is called clay-mation. Not all stop motion animation has to be made using figures like this though, and people or other inanimate objects are often used to 

produce animation.

Sometimes stop motion animation is confused with time-lapse techniques where photographs of live surroundings are taken and compiled to form a film. The intervals these are taken at are less than normal viewing speed and when played back at a normal speed it creates the illusion that things are moving much faster than normal, and thus, lapsing.

In film, stop motion animation has a long history. Willis O'Brien's work on 'The Lost World' and 'King Kong' in the 1920s and 30s was groundbreaking in the world of motion effects in films. O'Brien's protege, Ray Harryhausen also took the world of motion effects in film a step further in the 40s all the way up to the 80s and worked on films such as 'Mighty Joe Young', 'Jason and the Argonauts' and 'Clash of the Titans.' From the 80s, stop motion was used on films such as Star Wars in order to simulate large scale scenes and objects such as space ships.

A more modern and more technologically involved variation of stop motion is called go-motion. It was first used in films such as 'The Empire Strikes Back' in 1980 and utilised a programme computer to move an object between frames certain distances between each exposure of the frame, in order to create a more realistic blurring effect.

The more recent innovations in stop motion come from companies such as Aardman, creating hugely successful series of stop motion animation including; Morph, Wallace & Gromit and creature comforts as well as popular feature films in collaboration with Sony Pictures and Dreamworks. Another studio that specialises in stop motion animation and in particular stop motion animation feature films is 'Laika', which has also produced some of my favourite animated features. The films they have produced include, Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls, which were all received extremely well on release and in my opinion have set the bar for stop motion features in terms of quality of production and writing. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar animation studios is an American computer animation company that was founded in 1979 as the 'Graphics Group', a section of the computer division of Lucas Film. In 1986, Steve Jobs gave funding to the group causing it to spin out and consequently, Jobs became their largest shareholder at the time. In 2006, The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar for a value of $7.6 billion, which brings us to the present day. Pixar as a company has produced fourteen feature films with the first being Toy Story in 1995 and the most recent being Monsters University, which was released in 2013, for a total of fourteen releases across eighteen years. Quite impressive given the scale and work that it takes to produce each feature. As of December 2013, the companies feature films have grossed over $8.5 billion worldwide with the average gross per film totalling $616 million. All of Pixar's fourteen features are amongst the highest fifty grossing animated features of all time, which Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 which were released in 2003 and 2010 respectively being in the top 50 highest grossing films of all time. In total the studio has earned 27 Academy Awards, 7 Golden Globe awards and 11 Grammy awards amongst many other acknowledgments. Most of Pixar's films have been nominated for best animated feature since the award began in 2001 with seven films winning the award. These include; Finding Nemo, Toy Story 3, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up and Brave.

The animators at Pixar came from a range of different animation backgrounds. Some were cel animators such as John Lasseter, there was also animators that came from stop motion and even computer animation, although they were much fewer. Pixar often employs people straight from University or College in order to in a way, adopt new talent in the world of animation.

The relationship between Pixar and Disney is an interesting one and the two companies have a lot of history together. They had disagreements over the production of Toy Story 2 which was originally intended to be a straight to video release. However, Pixar wanted it to count toward the three picture agreement but Disney refused. Although profits for this film were split 50/50, Disney held the rights to the story and sequel rights, despite Pixar being responsible for the production and creation of the feature. The firms tried to reach a new agreement in 2004 regarding distribution. The proposed deal included Pixar having complete creative control, financing their own film and receiving 100 percent of the profit, but giving Disney a 10 to 15 percent distribution fee. In addition to this, they wanted the rights to films that were in production under their initial agreement, which was the Incredibles and Cars. Disney considered these conditions extreme, and unacceptable, but Pixar wouldn't concede.

There were disagreements between Steve Jobs and the Disney CEO at the time Michael Eisner. Jobs being on the board at the time because of his 7 percent share he had in Disney. This consequently made negotiations difficult and agreements that might have been fell through as a result. The two companies resumed efforts to come to an agreement regarding a deal in 2005 after Michael Eisner left Disney. It was around this time that Steven Jobs announced what I believe to be a bold and interesting move regarding the business side of Pixar schedule, stating Pixar films would be released in the early summer months as opposed to the November time that Disney preferred, this would mean that Pixar films would available to purchase around Christmas and the winter months.

In May of 2006 Disney ultimately agreed to buy PIxar for a total of $7.4 billion. The deal catapulted Steven Jobs into the position of Disney's largest stock holder with around 7 percent of the company. As part of the deal, John Lasseter became the Chief Creative Officer, after previously being the Executive Vice President. Also, instead of being the Chief Executive Officer of Pixar, Steven Jobs took a place on the Disney board of directors. After a few years in this format, Lasseter and Catmull were able to transfer the basic principles of the Pixar braintrust to Disney. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - The Golden Age of Cartoons

Snow White, 1937

'The Golden Age of American Animation', was a period in the history of U.S animation that began in 1928 with sound cartoons and continued until 1960 when theatrical shorts began to fall short to the new medium of television animation, which was becoming popular. During this period, many popular characters emerged within the animations that were shown such as, Micky Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Popeye and Tom & Jerry. During this golden age period, feature length animation also began. The first of Walt Disney's feature films were produced during this time, including and post notably; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi.

Perhaps the reason for calling it the 'Golden Age' is that prior to this, animation was dying out as a novelty and less that 23% of the cinemas at the time showed animated shorts. During the Golden age a lot of emphasis was on sound, despite animation being heavily swayed towards visuals. The vocal talent and sound production was important to encourage the success of a cartoon. A lot of the music was done by studio orchestras, whether they were creating original music or mixing classic songs and music.

For the history of hollywood animation, the industry didn't branch off much and it was a very exclusive industry. Animation studios almost worked solely on creating animated cartoons and animated titles for films that were released at the time. Due to the exclusivity of animation, motion picture special effects was derived in order to cater for other areas of film and the entertainment industry as a whole. An example of this would be the invention of stop motion animation. Despite them being of the same industry, hand drawn animation and stop motion animation rarely overlapped during the golden age. During the wartime era hollywood studios contributed greatly to the war effort and various cartoon studios pitched in, shorts were shown such as Popeye the sailor joining the navy to fight againt the Nazis and the Japanese army. Also, instructional films were produced by studios informing soldiers of various things.

In the year 1948, the Animation Union negotiated a 25% pay increase, making it so cartoons as a whole were much more expensive to make. After this time, there was no booking guarantee on theaters to show shorts and as a consequence, the animation business was much riskier as a whole. At the beginning of the 1960s television was beginning to gain momentum and the animation industry changed dramatically, new cartoons were introduced and characters popularised due to the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons, and there was a decline in the amount of theater-going. In order to tackle this, theaters lowered there costs but the few shorts that found there way into theaters were considered inferior to their predecessors by critics.

OUAN05 - Understanding - Kineograph (1868)

The Kineograph

Kineograph is the word used to describe the device much more widely referred to as a flip book. A flip book is a book containing a series of pages each with a different image that changes gradually from page to page so when the user turns the pages at a relatively quick pace the pictures appear to be animated by simulating motion. Often flip books are illustrated children's books but some are also aimed at adults using illustrations with a more serious tone or photographs.

Flip books are quite a primitive form of animation, like various other early devices such as the thaumatrope they rely on the persistence of vision in order to operate. Also, despite the book form, the user does not read the pages left to right but instead stares at the same spot whilst flipping through the pages, and for the illusion to work adequately the user must flip the pages at a certain speed. The German word for flipbook, 'Daumenkino' reflects the process that's used to operate a flipbook well, translating to 'thumb cinema'. 

The first flipbook was invented in the year 1868 and patented by John Barnes Linnett under the name 'kineograph'. Something I found interesting about the flip book was that it was the first form of early animation or moving image to display the images in a linear fashion as oppose to a circular one like that of the zoetrope for example. In modern times flipbooks are widely considered toys and were once given as prizes in things such as cereal boxes, but they were vital in the development of early cinema and animation as a whole, and were also used as a promotional tool for adult products such as cigarettes. So they haven't always been the novelty we know them as today. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - Zoetrope (1834)

The Zoetrope

The zoetrope was another big advancement made in the world of moving images during the mid 19th century. The zoetrope is another one of the pre-film animation devices that display sequences of images in order to create the illusion of motion. The word 'zoetrope' itself comes from the Greek words meaning 'life' and turning' so again, a very literal description of the device when looked at it like that.

The zoetrope consists of a cylindrical kind of casing that has vertical slits around it. On the inner surface, is a band of sequential images that in turn demonstrate the phases of movement through the pictures. As the cylinder spins, the observer can view the images through the slits in the side, the scanning also keeps the images from blurring together. As the user of the zoetrope sees the rapid succession of images, the illusion of motion or movement through the pictures is created.

The invention of the device took place around 1833 and 1834, when the basic drum like form was created by a British mathematician named William George Horner, who was aware of the recently invented phenakistoscope. Once the zoetrope was established, projections of the zoetrope were made using the magic lantern as early as 1860. In modern day the zoetrope is still used for entertainment purposes but in a much more novel way, for artwork and other media uses. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - Phenakistoscope (1841)

The Phenakistoscope

The phenakistoscope was an early animation device, invented in the early to mid 19th century following on from the invention of the thaumatrope from several years prior. It consists of a spinning disk that features sequential images that when spun, creates the illusion of motion. Similar to the thaumatrope, this also utilises the idea of the persistence of vision principle.

The idea for the phenakistoscope was first established by a Belgian man named, Joseph Plateau. Plateau planned the invention of the phenakistoscope in 1839 and invented it for real in 1841. However, later in the same year, an Austrian named Simon Von Stampfer invented a similar machine named the stroboscopic disk. Phenakistoscopes work in a much more complex manner compared to that of the thaumatrope. It consists of a disk attached to a vertical handle, around the outside of the disk is a series of sequential images showing the phases of the animation. The scanning of the slits that are equally spaced makes it so the images look like they are blurred together to form one moving image, as oppose to many individual still images. A similar, variant of the phenakistoscope is where there are infact two disks, one with slits and one with images naked the zoetrope.

The advancement made between the thaumatrope and the phenakistoscope was vital in the exploration of moving images. Unlike the thaumatrope the phenakistoscope uses many images to create movement, despite it being a repeating series it displays the illusion of motion nonetheless, something that the thaumatrope didn't quite manage to do, although it was the first step and impressive at the time no doubt.

OUAN05 - Understanding - Thaumatrope (1824)

The Thaumatrope

The 'thaumatrope' was first introduced in the early 19th century and became a popular toy or entertainment device during this time. The term 'thaumatrope' comes from the Greek words that translate to mean, 'wonder turner', which is quite self explanatory when looking at the function and way that the thaumatrope operates via a turn mechanism. The credit for who invented the thaumatrope is usually directed at either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget, and in 1824, John Ayrton Paris used on to demonstrate persistence of
vision at the Royal College of Physicians in London. 'Persistence of vision' being the phenomenon where an after image persists on the retina for approximately 1/25 of a second. It is reported that he based the invention on ideas of that of the astronomer John Herschel and geologist William Henry Fitton, some sources even credit Fitton with the invention of the thaumatrope as oppose to Paris.

The thaumatrope is incredibly simple when looking at how it works. It simply consists of a disk, usually made of card with images of varying difference on both sides. The disk is attached to string that when spun, causing the disk to rotate produces a still image with the not quite the illusion of movement, but the foundations of it that rely on the idea of the persistence of vision. This idea, and the illusion it created is considered one of the first steps towards producing the animation, and lays a foundation of moving image that we can relate to even with the work being produced today.

The next step from the thaumatrope was the phenakistoscope which used a spinning disk with multiple images to create the illusion of movement, and was the first real steps in making images move, and the first time moving image was really used. 

OUAN05 - Understanding - Magic Lantern (c.1650)

The Magic Lantern

The magic lantern was a type of image projection device, that was developed in the 17th century with its main purpose being entertainment and sometimes, education purposes. Despite the debate it is widely accepted that the inventor of the magic lantern is Christiaan Huygens during the 1650s, however there are sources of evidence suggesting that Giovanni Fontana had already created such a device that projected an image of a demon. During the early development of the magic lantern there seemed to be a mysterious and in some ways a frightening stigma attached due to it because of the uses it had by different professions and the type of image it was used to convey. A couple of examples of this is Huygens device being referred to as the 'lantern of fright' after he used it to summon images of ghosts and a man named Thomas Walgensten who in the 1660s used the device to 'summon ghosts', this of course just being a simple projection. To add to this I think that the unavailability of information to the average person during the 16th and 17th century made it so people were easily convinced by peoples claims once they'd been introduced to a very alien thing such as the magic lantern at the time and demonstrations of the use of the magic lantern became more frightening and mysterious because of this.   In modern times, the device is primarily only used by collectors.

In essence the way the magic lantern functioned was using mirrors and glass to reflect and manipulate light in order to project images. In more detail, the process involves a concave mirror (concave meaning curved inwards) that directs a light source through a small rectangular glass slide or what was referred to as a 'lantern slide'. On the slide was the image that was to be projected, whether this be a photographic image later on or a painted image at the beginning. This image was projected through a lens and onto a simple white wall so that the clarity of the image was as clear as it could be on the white surface.

Apart from sunlight, at the time the only available light source was from a candle or oil lamp which didn't produce much light and was inefficient as a whole, so consequently the projected image was dim and hard to see. However, the invention of the argand lamp and the limelight in the late 18th and early 19th century produced a much more intense light and made using artificial light to project brighter images much easier. The magic lamp is considered the first or very distant ancestor of the motion picture projector, but itself could be used to produce moving images using mechanical slides. Usually, two glass slides would be placed one on top of the other, one part stationary and one part to move and then a hand operated mechanism would allow the slides to be switched and a moving image would appear to be projected. The mechanism was usually controlled by a lever. Chromotrope slides which produced displays of abstract geometric shapes and colour were operated by pulley wheel that rotated a glass disc. 

OUAN05 - The Classical Elements - Incorporating After Effects

Simulating Snowfall

Once I decided I wanted it to be snowing in my animation I took the animation into after effects where there is the option to simulate snowfall, I thought this would be a consistent and easy way to achieve the desired snow effect whilst making it look professional. 

Altering Colours, Brightness & Contrast

The option to alter the brightness and contrast on the colours of the animation proved useful just go alter the atmosphere and overall feel of the animation in terms of the weather and time of day because of the levels of colour and shadow. 

Altering Snowfall Simulation Properties

After effects gave me complete control which adding simulations to my project. For example, for the snowfall I wanted to add, I was giving a list of multiple properties that I can adjust to give a much more desired effect with the snowfall I included. The changes I made included, the number of flakes and the speed of the snow as it fell. This was to make the snow appear thick and heavy. Finally, I altered the direction the snow fell with the wind speed and direction to make it feel more like a blizzard, and emphasise the weather. 

Effect, Motion Blur

Between the switching of camera angles or directions I wanted to make it so it didn't just snap to the next scene. Instead I experimented with different transitions before settling on the timing option, 'pixel motion blur' which gives an interesting effect when the camera makes a dramatic change. It also makes the direction of the animation feel less clean cut and less polished, which given the story and context of the animation is something that suited it well. 

Motion Blur Properties

Here I was given the option to change the properties of the motion blur feature I added. I altered the shutter angle slightly to make the transition more obvious and a little more harsh. 

Adding Titles, After Effects

Given the diversity of the features after effects has to offer, I also added a title at the very beginning of the animation. I also made it so it transitioned in and out nicely at what I felt to be the right moments with a fade effect. I made it so the text started to leave the screen as the opening scene transitioned into the next and I think it worked quite well from a timing point of view. 

Motion Blur Effect

Here is an example of the motion blur effect used a transition, just as the scene above starts to change. You can see the distortion in the characters lines. 

Example of Snowfall

Here is a still shot from the animation to show the level and type of snowfall that was used in the final animation, I tried to make it so the snowflakes were large and many to emulate the idea of thick snow building up over the terrain. 

Motion Blur Effect

Another example of the use of motion blur to transition between scenes and shots in the animation, this is more obvious, I like in particular how it compliments the harsh weather and makes the scene very hard to look at in this respect. 

OUAN05 - The Classical Elements - Final Stages

I drew the frames for this scene at the point where I was comfortable with the process I was using and the pace of the animation was beginning to pick up slightly as I was getting used to it. The first scene shown below shows the characters close together but with their swords down, this was the position I used after a small sequence within the fight scene to demonstrate the idea the characters were tired or needed a break. After watching multiple fight scenes, both animated and live action I found this to be a common feature in them all and did my best to incorporate it also. 

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I tried to put some emphasis on the elemental aspect of the animation by trying to use the idea of spells or the control of elements. Here, the character projects a sphere at the other character. The way I did this, like the other aspects of this animation without animating anything like this before, was raise the characters arm before carefully applying spacing and timing principles to make it appear as if the sphere accelerates towards the other character. 

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I wanted to include a character jumping at another character and bringing their sword down mid air. To try and make the movement here as accurate as I could, I made sure that the characters were a certain distance apart from each other before I started the sequence. I then had a character run up to the other whilst bringing his sword behind his head. Then as he jumped he brought his sword down, I also tried to include some follow through animation to make it look fluid. 

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I enjoyed animating the scenes, where the characters weren't moving because they were straight forward but I think added a lot to the realism and style of the animation. It also made certain scenes more dramatic or tense, because it gives the audience a chance to catch up on the action, and attempt to predict the next move of the characters which is what I was trying to achieve by putting these pauses in between the action. 

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Towards the end of the animation I do a close up of each characters face before they final sequence occurs, I primarily did this to break up the action and change the shot so it wasn't the same for the second half of the animation. I think it also adds some more drama to the sequence and gives the audience a break so it doesn't get too repetitive. 

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The final sequence consists of the characters charging at each other and the fight ending in a stale mate. After the close up shots I zoomed the camera back out to reveal the full width of the environment before pausing and the characters charging. I didn't use many frames for the charge because I wanted the movement to be swift and from a technical and professional perspective, to keep it under the allocated 20 seconds. 

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Here is the final fade out at the end of the sequence. This takes place as the characters swords go through each other and it's revealed to the audience the fight ended in a stale mate. I wanted to fade it out rather than just cut to a black screen so the animation felt like it transitioned smoother and had an overall more professional feel to it.  

OUAN05 - The Classical Elements - First Scenes of Animation

Here are some screenshots of some of the scenes as they were being animated. You can see from the screenshot the timeline and in the first scene in particular the repeated walk cycle that was used to make it seem as though the character took several shots on camera before the transition. This was quite early on in the animation, and the scenes were changing quite a lot, so the background image had to be adjusted quite often. The way I changed the image was by taking the background image I had create and zoomed it in and cropped it before placing it accordingly. 

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Here the camera is starting to pan out, so for each frame of the panning I adjusted the background image and re-drew the character at a different size to accommodate for the different distance from the camera. 

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This was the beginning of the fight scene where the camera was at the widest shot it will be for the duration of the animation. As you can see in the image, the characters are starting to charge towards each other. In order to portray this kind of swift and heavy movement I made it so the characters body was tilted forward as if the momentum was encouraging his stance to be lead by his head, and his arms to be placed behind him.

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For this scene, which ended the first few scenes of the animation, I attempted to make one of the characters jump upwards before disappearing and reappearing. To do this I applied the principle of anticipation for a couple of frames before the character moved upwards and left the ground. In order to make it so the character gradually disappeared I drew him gradually getting more and more faded with softer lines and a much less solid drawing style with the lines until he was gone completely. 

OUAN05 - The Story / Storyboard - The Classical Elements

The overall premise for the storyline for my animation was that a warrior would be shown walking down a road before stopping himself and pausing as he meets another warrior or traveller on the road. The two ronin warriors then engage in a fight sequence that would last for around three quarters of the allocated animation time. The storyboard sequence below shows my thought process for each major scene change or action for the duration of the animation.

At the very beginning of the storyboard the scene is set where the background I've illustrated is show for a few seconds as the scene fades in. I plan that the title when I decide on one also be shown at this point in the animation, during the fade in stage, to add some realism and life to the scene I'll have a leaf blow from one side of the screen to another to show the direction of wind allow for a point of interest. I think the addition of some movement here in the form of a leaf will allow for a wind sound effect to be added and the use of a leaf gives a seasonal aspect to the environment, in this case an autumn/winter scene.

From here I'll transition to the next scene which I plan to be a walk cycle, but a close up show of a characters upper body/head. This will add some diversity to the camera shots used throughout the animation and create an overall more interesting viewing experience. The walk cycle will continue for around three or four steps before the character comes to an abrupt stop and pauses for a second. I want to make sure to include the sound of footsteps in the snow whilst the character is walking, to really get across the idea of the winter environment. I also think that the walking with the added sound effect will be emphasised and the illusion of walking increased. The final addition to this segment of the animation will be the slight panning of the background to make it seem as though the character is actually walking, however, due to the distance between the character and the buildings I have indicated in the background the panning will be extremely slow, but noticeable nonetheless.

Once this scene has ended, an outward pan will take place where the shot for the fight sequence will be framed, and that's how it will be remain for the next 10 or so seconds of the animation until the scene changes again. During this segment, the characters will charge at each other and brawl with what I hope will contain quite fluid animation, or more fluid than I have been able to previously achieve given my limited time animating. I have noted in the story board the kind of movements I want to emulate in the fight sequence based on fight scenes I have watched and the aspects of those I liked. The use of movement is important here so I've tried to make the sequence simplistic yet interesting and varied for the audience.

The sequence ends when the characters take a step back and charge at each other with the final few frames consisting of a fixed image as the scene fades out, alerting the audience to the end of the animation. 

Storyboard.a

Storyboard.b

OUAN05 - The Final Environment - The Classical Elements

Due to my bad planning for the first background I created, it didn't have the perspective I needed in order to observe two characters executing a fight sequence from the side-on perspective. Consequently, I've designed and created a new background image for the scene that is much more suitable given the perspective I designed for it. I've added two sketches of characters to confirm to myself that it would be eligible for using as a background. The camera angle I wanted to achieve for this scene was similar to the angle used in games such as street fighter where the camera is at a level with the characters and you can observe their movement from this perspective. However despite the animation only being twenty seconds long I want to make sure it doesn't feel boring or lose the tension when the fight sequence is active, so although this will be the view that will take up the majority of screen time I do plan on adding some close up shots also. This should be easy to add in as the close up shots take up a huge percentage of the screen and extra backgrounds don't need to be designed or implemented to accommodate for this change. As well as this the character models I want to use are very simple and won't require much detail even close up, I will probably use various Photoshop tools to make the characters quite uniform in colour, so as to not over complicate the animation. 

The steps I took in producing the background for the final fight sequence were quite straight forward and had to be efficient so I could paint it in the few hours I had that day so I could move forward and begin animating.

I started by painting a base layer of a colour very slightly darker than pure white, the reason for this is because I wanted the scene to contain snow and have a winter feel so with that in mind I painted this in. From here I added in a structure to give the background a sense of scale and depth, I added this in just left of center - keeping in mind the rule of thirds and making sure the composition was appealing visually. The structure itself was influenced heavily by references of Japanese temples since that's the location that the fight sequence takes place, and using this kind of recognisable architecture made it so the location of the environment was apparent straight away. Next I added a second structure to increase the level of depth the painting had, as well as this I added in a layer of orange whilst altering the layer properties so that it gave the image a of time of day, and using this method with the sun I added in gives it a feeling of early morning of evening when thinking about times of day.  The next step was adding touches of colour and adjusting things accordingly so that it was a stronger image overall, during this process I changed the tone of the sky and experimented with clouds but left them out ultimately. A silhouette of trees was added to the foreground to give the image an extra sense of scale and depth. Finally I experimented with snow and characters to make sure everything fitted appropriately and that the overall perspective of the image worked throughout and especially with the character models I added in the foreground to test this. 

Initial Colour / Background

Addition of a structure, sense of scale

Second structure added, depth and perspective

Additions of colour, lighting and foreground layers

Snow & Character test

Final Environment