Animation process flow chart

Regulatory Bodies - BBFC

what is BBFC and what is its role?
The BBFC is the British board of film classification, original board of British board of film censors, it is a no government organisation, it is funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films in the UK.

Age Ratings:

U - Suitable for all.
PG - Parental guidance.
12A - Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over.
12 - Video release suitable for 12 years and older.
15 - Suitable for only 15 years and older.
18 - Suitable only for adults.
R18 - Adult works for licensed premises only.

legal Backing:
Human rights act 1988 - This act permits such restrictions of freedom of expression as are prescribed by the law, also protection of health and morals.
The licensing act 2003 - This act is for cinemas, and includes the condition requiring the admission if children (under 18) to any film to be restricted in accordance.
The video recordings act 1984 - This act is about the films with illegal drugs, and violent behaviours, protecting children and vulnerable people being influenced.
The sexual offences act 2003 - This to show that it is illegal to expose oneself with intent to cause alarm or distress, consent on filming sexual gratification.
The animal welfare act 2006

Coraline Case Study:

BBFC chose the age rating PG for the film Coraline, The reason that PG was chosen (surprisingly) is because children's films are actually aloud to show some content of horror as long as they meet the criteria an the frightening sequences are not prolonged or intense.

"Many children enjoy the excitement of scary sequences, but, where films are targeted at a younger audience, classification decisions will take into account such factors as the frequency, length and detail of scary scenes as well as horror effects, including music and sound, and whether there is swift and reassuring outcome"

The film is considered to contain a lot of 'mitigating factors' which lesson the intensity of frightening scenes, these included moments of, comedy, fun and silly music. Also the reassurance of a happy ending in this film encourages the film to be a PG.

Cartoon Character Analysis - Turtles

Character design moodboard

Summary:
My character is going to be a character who lives in the country, around forests, with a country fen sort of background. They are going to lead with their pelvis to show the structure and personality through physicality. He is a laid back character who doesn't worry about things and just tends to go with the flow. He is going to be independent for he lives alone, with a friendly personality though.

Keywords for Personality:
Friendly, Laid back, relaxed, Independent, Light, Lazy, Agile, Country Boy (Fen), Agile, Tall.

References:

My character

Character idea sheet

Feedback

The feedback given from my peers were useful, and gave me a lot of new ways to view my original ideas, and how to make them seem more interesting, they also informed me on which idea that thought would make a good animation, and a good viewing. My peers gave me ideas for 'Idea 3', they said that I could add in a pack of space whale's and make it like the film 'Treasure planet' - a very good film that has already been created, they also said it sounds detailes and it would be an interesting film. They also think 'Idea 1' would be good because it gives a different contract, for it is about Dasha instead of Rudolph which makes a change, which they think would be good. They gave me quite a few ideas on how I could make the animations more detailed and how I could expand my idea. I am thinking of carrying out either 'Idea 1' or 'Idea 3' because my peers gave me the best feedback on them, and also I believe they could be crated in an interesting way.

Animation comparison grid

Animation process

south park:
South park was originally going to be done using cut out pieces of paper, but because this would take such a long period of time they decided to do it computer animated, it tales five days to make as the animators work night and day over these days, once they have created the show, the start up a new episode over the next five days and so on. It is aimed towards adults and also older teenagers as it has a lot of adult humour in.
peppa pig
The animators and creators of peppa pig use a process called quantel paint box to create peppa pig it is pointed mainly towards television animation and also focuses on graphics within the animation. Peppa pig is a kids 2D hand drawn animation, they used the same drawing for every character of the pig family just varied in sizes, and all of the characters are very basic drawings for example the nose is on the side of the face rather than central.
dot
Dot is the smallest animation process created as it is done using a microscope, it was done for Nokia to demonstrate how good the camera is on that particular phone. They used pieces of string, and knitting and wire to create the background, and for the character Dot they created about 50 sculptures of Dot, as she is to small to be moulded into position.

AE Animation

I did this by creating the image in photoshop but having to use separate layers for each separate body parts, having a separate layer for each arm, each leg, body, and each eye, but without a mouth, i then imported the photoshop file into after effects, then changes the parented the arms and legs to the body so that every movement, the legs and arms stayed attached to the body, i then changed the position of the legs so that they moved and arms, so it looked like the egg man was jumping. I then created a sperate mouth in photoshop and for every layer changed the mouth picture so that when it was imported into after effects and the sound was imported it made it look like the mouth was moving with the speech "yeah boi".

Bear walk cycle

This is my walk cycle practise, i did this to practise making my animations walk. First i created my bear in photoshop, and made the bear legs and arms all separate layers, then uploaded into after effect, and made sure the layers of the photoshop document was not merged and created a composition window and put the bear photoshop document in, i parented the legs and arms to the body by moving the point up to the body. I then used the position on the legs and arms and moved them using anchor points, i also used the pin tool so that i could have elbows and knees, to move the position of that to so it looked like the bear was walking properly.

Creativity

Shapes in Character (my example)

Character Silhouette Sheet

Walk Cycle

Trends in Animation

Animation Feature Films

2013:

Frozen

Despicable Me 2

Monsters University 

2012:

Brave

Madagascar 3

Dr. Seuss Lorax

2011:

Kung Fu Panda 2

The Smurfs

Cars 2

(All of these films are Sequels Franchisers, which is for merchandise and financial reasons because they know that it has an existing audience for example 'Despicable Me 2', They are computer animated and have a 3D option, they are also by well established companies such as: Pixar and Dreamwork's  They have well established hollywood stars staring as the voice actors/actresses, and are all family oriented films and adventure films).

Extra Films

Lego Movie

Cloudy with  chance of Meatballs

(These are Quirky, Humor Appealing in all audiences).

Paranorman                                   (nightmare before 

Frankenweenie                                           christmas).

Coraline 

                            (9)

Rotoscope

I did this in photoshop using the video timeline. I filmed myself dancing then imported it into photoshop, i chose certain layers and put them into frames (5 frames):
1 frame - me standing arms down.
2 frame - me with arm half way up and other arm still by my side.
3 frame - me with arm up completely and other arm inwards.
4 frame - arm coming down other arm back to my side.
5 frame - me standing still again.
(each frame skips a bit because the time is set to quick so its not obvious to the viewers that some frames are skipped).
I painted over each of the photos (from videos) in that particular frame (traced), so that i could catch the exact body shape, shadow in the jumper, and arm and hand changes.
I then took off the eye key on each frame so that you could only see my drawing without the photos. I then played it and added a background, and did the same for every frame.

Animation in shapes

Daves's:

Mine:

Character Design + Theory

"Character Design is the combination of physical traits and (narrative)."

- Narrative/Storyline defines personality, gives context (genre, location, setting) therefore has to feed into look and design of the character.

Rules:

1) The face is the primary channel to express emotion.

- a reason for the many large needed characters.

2) A lot can be said with posture and body language

- This allows for personality traits i be identifiable in silhouette.

3) Solarski - states that how a character carries their physical weight can tell us about their personality - which body part they lead with is important.

3) Theories of Solarski:

- Leads with their chest - Hero.

- Leads with their pelvis - Laid back/Lazy.

- Leads with head - Intelligent.

- Leads with Knees - Coward

4) Cuddy: 

Power and dominance revolves around expanding. 

- Power: Expand - takes up space. 

- Weakness: cover up make yourself small.

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Leads with head:

Name of Character: Flynn Rider (Tangled)

Traits: Hero, Smart, Robber, Agile.

Leads with Pelvis:

Name of Character: Barney (Simpsons)

Traits: Lazy, Drunk.

Leads with head:

Name of Character: Roadrunner (Roadrunner)

Traits: Fast, Clever.

Cartoon Character Analysis - Tweety

Cartoon Character Analysis - Betty Boop

Cartoon Character Analysis - Pluto

Pixar Research

what is unique about the working culture and enviroment of pixar that has enabled them to be successfull?

The working enviroment and culture of pixar is known to the workers to be amazing and also fun to work for! The general public themselves would also say the same, claimig that they would also like to work there because it seems a fun place to work as it is a childrens pg animation studio with plenty of exciting things. The workers at pixar have spoken about the work enviroment of pixars studios plenty of times during tv interviews etc. Pixar studio workers have told interviewers that there is a bar that is in a hidden room behind a cupboard fill of books, that contains beer, wine and spirits, that can only be

accessed using a paskey entry system. Animators and production managers go there, there is also a guest book that has to be filled in before entering, the workers say that they enjoy this because it is a nice way to relax after a full late days working. Quotes from workers: "perfect working enviroment"; "feels eiter like a youth club or a well-founded cult". There is also a pizza room for the workers, and for the workers who work late they are aloud a free slice of pizza, there is alo a cereal bar which offers the same service. Pixar also made an enflatable highway - a room full of enflatables, this was made so that the animators could experience the scene in toy story where the toys are running through the rubbish.

Animation genre's:

Childrens, funny, entertaining, animation, family.

Recent sky advert "toy story of terror":

The sky "toy story of terror" promotion advert was guided by WRCS london, amd it was done by sky teaming up with disney pixar. It is also the first time disney has been involved in a co-branded movie chanel.

Improvement:

Pixar studios used to have only 46 employees, and was only a computer hard ware company, where as now it has 12 hundred people employed approximately, amd has won 26 oscars and taken $8 billion.

Basic information on pixar:

Pixar began in 1979 as the graphics group which was a third of lucas's films in the computer devision. Walt disney also bought pixar in 2006.

Awards:

1) golden lion for lifetime acheivement by the biennale venre film festival (2009) - john lasseter, brad bird, peter doctor, andrew santon, lee unkrich.

2) academy award for best animated feature - finding nemo (2003), the incredibles (2004), cars (2006), ratatouille (2007), Wall-E (2003), up (2009), toy story 3 (2010).

Important people etc.:

1) steve jobs - steve jobs is an american marketer and investor, he is alos a chairman amd a CEO of apple inc. cheif executive of pixar animation studios.

2) luxo jr. - this is a short animated film involving the lamp in the logo produced by pixar amd is directed by john lasseter in 1986.
3) Lucas film - lucas film's creates films using the entire entertainment spectrum dor example using production of original content, post production effects, audio for external clients, licsemsed products, gaming, animation, products, they also created the star wars films.

4) tin toy - tin toy is a short animation created 1988, produced by pixar and directed by jon lasseter. It was the third short film created in a small animation division.

5) Jon lasseter - jon lasseter is an american animator, film director, screenwriter, producer, cheif creative officer of pixar amd walt disney animaiton studios, and principle creative advisor for walt disney imagineering. Walkt dismey was jon lasseters first job, although he ended up being fired for promoting computering animation, after that he joined locas film who then sold him to pixar. He also directed toy story (1995) which was the first creation from pixar, a bugs life (1998), toy story 2 (1999), cars (2006), cars 2 (2011). Jon Lasseter has also wone 2 academy awards for short films, and a special acheivement award for toy story.

Animation

Examples of types of animations

Film:

Balto:
Year of release: 1995
Which company made it: Universal pictures
Who directed it: Simon Wells
What is the animation style: Hand - drawn animation
Target Audience: Children (PG)
Purpose of the animation: To show kids that just because they are different there is no need to hide and they can still do amazing things.
What you like about it: It is very well animated and it is a very entertaining film, with a very detailed look and storyline.

TV Series:

Wolfs Rain:
Year of release: January 2004
Which company made it: Bones
Who directed it: Tensai Okamura
What is the animation style: Drawn Animation
Target Audience: Teenagers 12+
Purpose of the animation: To entertain and keep people interested.
What you like about it: The animation of the wolves in the TV series.

Short:

ASDF Movie:
Year of release: 10th August 2008
Which company made it: TomSka
Who directed it: TomSka
What is the animation style: Flash Animation
Target Audience: All ages
Purpose of the animation: To make people laugh and entertain the audience so that mor epeople watch it in future.
What you like about it: The basic animation and it also entertains and makes people laugh.

Web Series:

Waco Valley:
Year of release: 2012
Which company made it: Landline TV
Who directed it: Ben Warheit
What is the animation style: Computer Animated
Target Audience: Children (PG)
Purpose of the animation: To entertain and make people laugh.
What you like about it: It is entertaining and makes people laugh.

Music: 

Miss Atomic Bomb - The killers:
Year of release: 2012
Which company made it: Mainstream Radio
Who directed it: The Killers
What is the animation style: Drawn animation
Target Audience: All ages
Purpose of the animation: To tell the story of the song, and show the audience the story, and meaning through animation.
What you like about it: It tells the lyrics of the song very well, and is an interesting animation by switching between the real life and animated life of the people in the story.
http://www.creativebloq.com/animation/best-animated-music-videos-912838

Advert:

Twining's:

Year of release: 2011

Which company made it: AMV

Who directed it: Twinnings

What is the animation style: Computer Animated

Target Audience: Adults

Purpose of the animation: To make people want to buy the product and spend their money on that particular item being advertised.

What you like about it: It has good eye catching colours, and good music, attracting you, making you want to buy the product.

My Gif Words

This is my word gif of the word 'Hail' repeatedly freezing. This was done in photoshop by writing a word in photoshop and then adding an effect on top in a new layer.

My Gif Video

This is my Gif of me freezing a bottle of water and turning it into ice. I did this by uploading a video to photoshop and then adding in the effect at the end of the video as a new layer.

Rocket Gif

Rocket Gif Animation:
I did this Gif animation on photoshop, bu using the tweenie method where we had to tick what is was we wanted to change, in this case it was the position of the rocker, for when it is launching upwards.