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Animation Stand
An animation stand is a device assembled for the filming of any kind of animation that is placed on a flat surface, including cel animation, graphic animation, clay animation, and silhouette animation. Traditionally, the flat surface that the animation rests on is some kind of table that the animator sits at. Pegs made specifically for animation are embedded into the table, in at least two slots allowing the pegs to slide from side to side, permitting horizontal movement of images, but can also be easily fixed into position for the accurate positioning ("registration") of the artwork. Opposite the animator is a series of supporting arms and supports, on top of which is mounted a film or video camera, pointing down toward the artwork, which films the artwork, frame-by-frame, as it is slowly moved and changed by the operator. The vertical positioning of the animation camera, always shooting down, is the main component that defines an animation stand, as opposed to a stop motion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cel Animation
Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. Process Writing and storyboarding Animation production usually begins after a story is converted into an animation film script, from which a storyboard is derived. A storyboard has an appearance somewhat similar to comic book panels, and is a shot by shot breakdown of the staging, acting and any camera moves that will be present in the film. The images allow the animation team to plan the flow of the plot and the composition of the imagery. Storyboard artists will have regular meetings with the director and may redraw or "re-board" a sequence many times before it meets final approval. Voice recording Before animation begins, a preliminary soundtrack or scratch track is recorded so that the animation may be more precisely synchronized to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphic Animation
Graphic animation is a variation of stop motion (and possibly more conceptually associated with traditional flat cel animation and paper drawing animation, but still technically qualifying as stop motion) consisting of the animation of photographs (in whole or in parts) and other non-drawn flat visual graphic material, such as newspaper and magazine clippings. Technique In its simplest form, Graphic "animation" can take the form of the animation camera merely panning up and down and/or across individual photographs, one at a time, (filmed frame-by-frame, and hence, "animated") without changing the photographs from frame to frame. But once the photos (or "graphics") are also moved from frame to frame, more exciting montages of movement can be produced, such as on Los Angeles animator Mike Jittlov's 1977 short film, ''Animato''. Graphic animation can be (and often is) combined with other forms of animation including direct manipulation animation, and traditional cel animation. Notab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clay Animation
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films and video games, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second. Technique Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as plasticine, usually around a wire skeleton, called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Upon playb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silhouette Animation
Silhouette animation is animation in which the characters are only visible as black silhouettes. This is usually accomplished by backlighting articulated cardboard cut-outs, though other methods exist. It is partially inspired by, but for a number of reasons technically distinct from, shadow play. History Inspired by both European shadow play ( ombres chinoises) and European silhouette cutting ( Etienne de Silhouette and Johann Caspar Lavater), the medium of silhouette animation in film seems to have invented independently by several people at around the same time, the earliest known being the short subject ''The Sporting Mice'' (1909) by British filmmaker Charles Armstrong. The first to have survived is the same director's ''The Clown and His Donkey'' (1910). This, and at least one other of Armstrong's films (some stills of which have survived by being reproduced in a book by Georges Sadoul), is in white silhouette on a plain black background. It is, however, most likely that ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field. Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons, but who are not animators, include layout artists (who design the backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animation Camera
An animation camera, a type of rostrum camera, is a movie camera specially adapted for frame (film), frame-by-frame shooting of animation. It consists of a camera body with lens and film magazines, and is most often placed on a stand that allows the camera to be raised and lowered above a table often having both top and underneath lighting. The artwork to be photographed is placed on this table. For stop motion photography, the camera can also be mounted on a tripod or other support, pointing in any desired direction. Since most animation is now produced digitally, new animation cameras are not widely manufactured. Image scanners, video cameras and digital SLRs have taken their place. Examples of professional animation cameras (16 and 35 mm) A partial list of manufacturers of animation cameras includes: * Acme Tool and Manufacturing (USA) * Crass GmbH, Crass (Germany) * Neilson-Hordell (UK) * Oxberry (company), Oxberry (USA) * Double M Industries (USA) * A.I.A. Productions (US ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stop Motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints (puppet animation) or plasticine figures (''clay animation'' or claymation) are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation. Terminology The term "stop motion", relating to the animation technique, is often spelled with a hyphen as "stop-motion". Both orthographical variants, with and without the hyphen, are correct, but the hyphenated one has a second meaning that is unrelated to animation or cinema: "a device for automatical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Jittlov
Mike Jittlov (born June 8, 1948) is an American animator and the creator of short films and one feature-length film using forms of special effects animation, including stop-motion animation, rotoscoping, and pixilation. He is best known for the 1988 feature-length film ''The Wizard of Speed and Time'', based on his 1979 short film of the same name. Life Born in Los Angeles, Jittlov became a math major at UCLA. Jittlov took an animation course to satisfy his art requirement. He made a super-8 film, ''The Leap'', enlarged to 16mm film, 16mm to participate in film festivals in the early 1970s. Jittlov entered a 16mm film made for his UCLA class, ''Good Grief'', into Academy Awards competition. That short made it to the professional finals for nomination, the first of several of his short films to do so. Afterwards, Jittlov bought his own 16mm camera, designed his own multiplane camera, multiplane animation system for $200, and began his career. Some of his other original film shorts, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiplane Camera
The multiplane camera is a motion-picture camera that was used in the traditional animation process that moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another. This creates a sense of parallax or depth. Various parts of the artwork layers are left transparent to allow other layers to be seen behind them. The movements are calculated and photographed frame by frame, with the result being an illusion of depth by having several layers of artwork moving at different speeds: the further away from the camera, the slower the speed. The multiplane effect is sometimes referred to as a parallax process. One variation is to have the background and foreground move in ''opposite'' directions. This creates an effect of rotation. An early example is the scene in Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' where the Evil Queen drinks her potion, and the surroundings appear to spin around her. History An early form of the multiplan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster (entertainment), blockbuster. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed ''THX 1138'' (1971), based on his student short ''Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB'', which was a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Light & Magic
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original ''Star Wars'', now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga. ILM originated in Van Nuys, California, then later moved to San Rafael in 1978, and since 2005 it has been based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired ILM as part of its purchase of Lucasfilm. History Lucas wanted his 1977 film ''Star Wars'' to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. After discovering that the in-house effects department at 20th Century Fox was no longer operational, Lucas approached Douglas Trumbull, best known for the effects on '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) and '' Silent Running'' (1972). Trumbull declined as he was already commit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
