History of Animation

History of Animation

In the last year we looked at the history of graphic design and animation as a whole. however this year we began by looking at the separately to get a more detailed understanding of the subject. Over the course of the lecture we were  multiple animations that were significant to the development of animation.

Animation started back in 1834 with its simplest from, the Zoetrope. The Zeotrope consisted of a collection of images on the inside of a wheel that were rotated to create a moving image of a few seconds long. The Zeotrope was created by William George Horner (British Mathematician). In recent years the Zoetrope has been developed into a 3D form by Studio Ghibli , which later inspired walt disney to create a similar design. The 3D zeotrope consisted of models that were span fast enough to animate them even though they were stood still. The difference was that no viewing hole was required and could be viewed from any angle.

The creation off the rotarscope allowed animators to easily re create the previous drawing using a light box. Prior to this it was hard to draw consistent animations. All these forms of animation are anti essentialist , meaning that the animation isn't fixed. on the early forms of animation we notice that the drawings flowed into eachother other. Bruce Bickford produced Prometheus Garden in 1988. The animation was Anti essentialist style of animation showing that nothing was permanently fixed and the plot could evolve as the story moved along. The artist used plastercine models and stop motion animation as the material can be crafted into a verity of shapes.

Seminar 1 , Year 2

Introduction

In this seminar we began by breaking down how we would research into a topic. We identified key steps that allowed us to extract as much information from a source and be able to use it to the best of our advantage. 

we start with asking WHAT? , What do we want to create or investigate? This question gives you the foundation for thoughts , if you have no idea of what you want to achieve then there is no direction of thought.

Then the question is WHY?, What is the reason for investigating the subject and why does it relate to you? Look into what other creatives and researchers have done in this field to build your knowledge of the subject and spark originality.

Finally ending with HOW? How will you carry out your investigation and what kinds of tools , media and methods will you use to execute the task.

From carrying out all these steps the designer should have established wide knowledge of the task and have multiple ideas about how they would like to approach it. This also allows the designer to think about future plans. Research is key as it is used in professionally in industry. researching a subjects widens your knowledge especially if not much of a brief is provided.

We then applied this method of research to a piece of previous work. The Hear the Human project was created by AL Jazeera news channel to show that they looked beyond the story and went into the lives of the people they report about.

What?- TV and Online Documentary

WHY?- Al Jazeera wanted the public to know that it went beyond the headlines to find out what the people had to say other than just the reporters

How?- 6 People from different countries shared their incredible stories through a series of TV and online documentaries. deliberately directed in an elegant cinematic style and documentary style narrative.

Process and Production 2 , After Effects 1

After Effects 1 , Year 2

After not using after effects all summer i felt like i needed to have my memory re-jogged. When we first got back to using the software i felt very lost however once i started creating my compositions i started recognising the tools and layout of the software making my work speed flow faster.

This After effects session started to introduce us to a more complex way of working. We looked at adding more detailed effects. We started off with a background that we wanted to animate , i chose a striped background that had a blind transition to change the background colour from striped to purple. The transitions worked by using key points just like the transformation options that we have previously used over the last year.

We focused on creating separate compositions that were of 1 seconds in length , using individual compositions allowed us to focus on specific points in the animation instead of having one long 10 second clip and constantly having to zoom on specific parts. At the end of the composition we would stitch all the individual parts together to create our final image.

i found this way of working much more effective as it allowed me to concentrate in getting detail into small elements of my work. I used various transitions throughout my work to create an animation that flowed smoothly into each individual scene.

The next step was to animate a shape in the foreground of the video, having two animations running constantly throughout the duration of the video added depth to the piece and made it more interesting to watch. The first effect i added to my shape was the wiggle effect which caused the shape to ripple around the edge the return to its original shape we did this by using the wiggle window. I then used the wiggle window to add a magnitude to the shape. this option made the shape shake in its original form but have the centre anchored to the background creating an earthquake kind of motion.

I then used the pen tool to distort the shape out of its original form and return to the starting position, this was accomplished by using the pen tool on the position option. i started by placing a key point at the end of the timeline and working backwards to make sure the shape retained its original shape.

I also used the Hue tool to make the shape change colour , this of which was done through plotting key points, the colour could be cycled through using a radial wheel making the simple for the colours to flow into each other instead of picking out the colours individually.

My final part of the animation included a 3d effect that i created using the simulation drop down in the effects menu. I struggled to do this at first because i was unfamiliar with 3D effects. after adjusting the settings i finally found how to create an effective looking 3d animation for the end of my video. i used settings that allowed the explosion to retain the shapes original form. Although i struggled with this i would like to explore these effects more as they are more complex and interesting , i feel these will develop my skills further.

Exploring Animation 1, Year 2 from Ben Moulson on Vimeo.

Studio Project 1 - Cybernetic Self

Studio Project 1 / Week 1

This studio session opened up by us writing two words on a post it note. The words had to relate to What you think you are and What other people think you are. The words i chose to use were Charismatic to describe myself and Moody as what other people see my as. The idea behind this was to see how we perceive ourselves. this exercise showed that although we were all different we had similar ways of describing ourselves . people suggested that society pushes us to be modest about ourselves as people didn't want to say what they thought they were due to it seeming embarrassing or big headed.

After the exercise i started to research into the topic of Cybernetic Self. I wanted to focus on how identity can be forged through the internet. Such as Identity Fraud or Catfishing. My main focus was to look at advertising campaigns. 

Designers that stood out to me were:

Global Mobile Internet safety - Designed by Oglivy & Mather Sofia

This advertisement stood out to me as the internet is an unmonitored place and could lead to children being exposed to explicit content. this advertisement uses photography to show you a place you wouldn't let your children play , making out its just as dangerous for your child to play on the internet.

Innocence en Danger - Designed by Rosa Park

 This campaign focuses on false identities and stating that you dont know who is behind the emojis. The designer has used photo manipulation to create a fairly disturbing image of a person who's face is now in the shape of a well known emoji. I feel that this advert stands out by using scare tactics as the character looks awfully creepy.




Whats behind the smile - Designed by JWT

This design takes well known emojis and manipulates them in disturbing ways. this campaign focussed specifically on sexual abuse over the internet , similar to the last one getting across the point that people on the internet could be anybody , using the internet to create an alternative image of themselves.

First Briefing

Brief 1

Our first brief is titled Cybernetic Self , it is a 4 week short brief that focuses on how personalities are built over the internet. Throughout this project we should explore themes such as:

Autopoiesis- Meaning creating or production , a system capable of maintaining and reproducing itself.

sociomaterial- Is the way that technology and sociology interact, especially how peoples activities are helped or shaped by technology in every day life.

Network Self- How someone constructs a personality and acts over the internet e.g an extension of yourself.

As the project is only 4 weeks the output will be very quick moving. 

Week 1 - Research/Idea Generation

Week 2 - Formalise and develop

Week 3 - Begin final output 

Week 4 - Finalise Ideas

Week 5 - Workshop Week 

Week 6 Assessment Week

Personally i feel that i may struggle with this topic as its not something i have explored previously , however it will be challenging which will test my abilities. I am producing a supplement for a magazine such as Vice , ID , Dazed or something similar. This could be a document or print that would be suited to the readers of these types of magazines.

Welcome to Second Year

Welcome to Second Year

This lecture focused on warming us pinto what we were going to be studying in the second year of the degree. Peter explained to us about Placements and different ways of securing placements for your third year of study. He recommended that we should write letters to companies we would like to work for , this is because letters are very hard to ignore as they are directly addressed , where as emails can be handed down for someone else to open. Writing letters would secure a more friendly approach to the company instead of having a standardised email that is forwarded to multiple choices. 

Not to directly ask for a placement in you're first letter is a good strategy of securing a placement as it allows the company or agency to get to know you as a designer and as a person , it allows them to see if you will fit into their team and have the right attributes for the job. Asking for feedback on your work from an industry point of view can also be helpful.

We then proceeded to look at more of a business side of Graphic Design, i enjoyed this because it was very different from what we learnt in first year , we were shown how to apply our designs to the working world. We started by looking at Different types of Graphic Designers:

Freelance - Someone who works for themselves 

Agency - Team of Graphic designers that work on projects together

Company - There will be a creative team in a large company , e.g. Porsche , Creative Director.

We looked into basic forms of marketing Price , Product , Promotion and Place. These were the key points to look at when creating a product or design. We then broke each P into sub headings giving us a much more detailed insight into each point of marketing , For example:

Price:

- Cost +

Cost to: 

Manufacture

Deliver

Package

Admin & Management

-Profit element

Mark-up can be very high

100%+ in some instances

-Loss Leaders

Losing money on one product to excel sales in another

We then looked at different channels of thought. We looked at Convergent and Divergent thought processes. Convergent thinkers will focus all attention on the problem and chip away at it ever so slightly until they get the right answer. Divergent thinkers will approach the problem from all different sides using different methods to try tackle it , eventually ending in a fast or slow answer.