Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Critical Studies: Animation Studios
Aardman Animation Studios
I have chosen to focus on Aardman animation for this piece because I have been brought up with Wallace and Gromit, Morph and Creature Comforts.
Wallace and Gromit was always playing and after watching the making of The Curse of the Ware-rabbit, I knew, thats what I wanted to do, become an animator.
Aardman Studios was set up by Peter Lord and David Sproxton who met at school and then move to Bristol to set up their studio, which since 1972 (the year they registered the name Aardman) has received 4 oscars and been nominated for 7.
One of their earlier creations was Morph who was created to "annoy" Tony Hart in a series called Take Hart
Though at this point it was still just the two of them, doing most of the animation.
Also a lot of the work that the studio produced were 5 minutes shorts for channel four, not huge money grabbers and so Aardman couldn't afford to employ a large number of staff needed to expand their vision. However, people liked their animation, they loved morph and soon advertisers were coming forward to use Aardman's genius to sell products. Even though Lord and Sproxton were not convinced that they wanted to do animation, they agreed for the money, thinking they would go back to shorts in 6 months or so. Still doing them to date, adverts have become one of the financial backbones of their company.
In 1985 Nick Park joined Aardman and with him he brought Wallace and Gromit, Characters from his student film, A Grand Day Outs, About an inventor and his dog, who build a rocket and fly to the moon in the search of cheese.
From then on Aardman rocketed. With short films like the wrong trousers (at the time widely thought of as the most successful animated film ever made), creature comforts and more, the nation and the world became to love them.
In 2000, Aardman teamed up with Dreamworks animation, who funded Chicken Run. Aardmans first feature film. The Film was a major success and grossed $220M at the box office world wide. This was the run up to Wallace and Gromit, the curse of the Ware Rabbit. Which took 3 years to story board, changing little things the whole way through, rearranging scenes and adding and deleting parts of the story. In fact the whole film was so well planned that only 3 minutes of the animated film was cut in the final edit, meaning minimum time resources and money were wasted.
Over all Aardman animation, in my opinion are a beacon which all other animators can look up to. By looking at their journey and how the company start form just two school and grown into a huge enterprise and a household name, is truly inspiring and deserves the respect and admiration of every one in the field of animation.
Further References
Cracking Animation: The Aardman book of 3-D animation, by peter Lord and Brian Sibley
I have chosen to focus on Aardman animation for this piece because I have been brought up with Wallace and Gromit, Morph and Creature Comforts.
Wallace and Gromit was always playing and after watching the making of The Curse of the Ware-rabbit, I knew, thats what I wanted to do, become an animator.
Aardman Studios was set up by Peter Lord and David Sproxton who met at school and then move to Bristol to set up their studio, which since 1972 (the year they registered the name Aardman) has received 4 oscars and been nominated for 7.
One of their earlier creations was Morph who was created to "annoy" Tony Hart in a series called Take Hart
Also a lot of the work that the studio produced were 5 minutes shorts for channel four, not huge money grabbers and so Aardman couldn't afford to employ a large number of staff needed to expand their vision. However, people liked their animation, they loved morph and soon advertisers were coming forward to use Aardman's genius to sell products. Even though Lord and Sproxton were not convinced that they wanted to do animation, they agreed for the money, thinking they would go back to shorts in 6 months or so. Still doing them to date, adverts have become one of the financial backbones of their company.
From then on Aardman rocketed. With short films like the wrong trousers (at the time widely thought of as the most successful animated film ever made), creature comforts and more, the nation and the world became to love them.
In 2000, Aardman teamed up with Dreamworks animation, who funded Chicken Run. Aardmans first feature film. The Film was a major success and grossed $220M at the box office world wide. This was the run up to Wallace and Gromit, the curse of the Ware Rabbit. Which took 3 years to story board, changing little things the whole way through, rearranging scenes and adding and deleting parts of the story. In fact the whole film was so well planned that only 3 minutes of the animated film was cut in the final edit, meaning minimum time resources and money were wasted.
Over all Aardman animation, in my opinion are a beacon which all other animators can look up to. By looking at their journey and how the company start form just two school and grown into a huge enterprise and a household name, is truly inspiring and deserves the respect and admiration of every one in the field of animation.
Further References
Cracking Animation: The Aardman book of 3-D animation, by peter Lord and Brian Sibley
the art of wallace and Gromit by Nick Park and Brian Sibley
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
C P & B: The Phoenix
This week we had a another group project, except instead of using the Stickfas men we were to use objects which we had found and come up with an animation.
Working with the same girls (Sally and Aleisha grimdodo.blogspot.com and Harshini) from last week, we came up with plenty of ideas and finally decided on the a house burning down and a tree growing from its ashes.
Random, but it seems like it could be quite an interesting project to attempt.
We have decided to use lego, clay, paper, wire, wooden lolly pop sticks, paints, foil, and a hanging basket liner. and probably some other stuff along the way.
In our animation we have a growing tree, here are some animations found on youtube of trees growing.
In our animation we have a growing tree, here are some animations found on youtube of trees growing.
Monday, 17 January 2011
Just a little fun.
Since we've started to do a little bit of stop motion, I've been out and bought some modelling clay and having a practice with it. Rich also decided to join in and here are a couple of our own creations.
New Year.
This new year, I went to Orlando Florida with my boyfriend and his family and we were the typical tourist. In fact, We stayed in a Disney Hotel (Pop century) and Went to a disney park every day, well most days.
Being the animation geek that I am, I went to all the art shops around the park and got talking to one of the artists, he told me about a workshop I could do in Disney's Hollywood studios, and of course I checked it out.
It was really interesting, all though it was aimed at every one (not at animators). It went through some of the character design (of mushu in Mulan) and then I found out that Pocahontas was originally going to have three side kicks including a turkey.
Also, did you know the Sorcerers apprentice was written for Dopey and then Walt Disney changed his mind.
Just thought I would share.
:)
C P & B: Stickfast two
After we had finished our walk cycles we move on to our group tasks. We had a lot of fun with this task and the groups got a little competitive with each other, you know to make the best animations :) Nothing wrong with that. I am proud to say that my group ended up hogging a rather large space in the studio. Using two cameras, three computers and two spot lights, between four of us. In our defence on of the computers does belong to our very own Harshini (http://mylittledrawingdesk.blogspot.com) which we used for research.
We had a lot of ideas what we could do and decided to challenge ourselves a little bit.
We went with doing the YMCA in the end and had a lot of fun with it.
We had a lot of ideas what we could do and decided to challenge ourselves a little bit.
We went with doing the YMCA in the end and had a lot of fun with it.
Character Performance and believability: Stickfast
This week we have started a new module. And. Its stop motion based. Whoo. I've been looking forward to do doing stop motion since I applied to do animation.
We were given two task to do, a walk cycle to be done individually and a Group task.
For my walk cycle I used Sally (rashanimations.wordpress.com) as a model and based how my man walked on her movements.
I also had a look in "Cracking Animation" a book about Aardman animation (Wallace and Gromit), which had a walk cycle in it which they have used.
And this is how he turned out...
I know he looks a little bit drunk, but he was extremely hard to work with, bits of him moved which shouldn't have. However, I think these flaws add to his personality. I especially like that he leaves foot prints on the glass floor. (From the blue tac) not planned, of course though adds a bit of character to my little animation I think.
We were given two task to do, a walk cycle to be done individually and a Group task.
For my walk cycle I used Sally (rashanimations.wordpress.com) as a model and based how my man walked on her movements.
I also had a look in "Cracking Animation" a book about Aardman animation (Wallace and Gromit), which had a walk cycle in it which they have used.
And this is how he turned out...
I know he looks a little bit drunk, but he was extremely hard to work with, bits of him moved which shouldn't have. However, I think these flaws add to his personality. I especially like that he leaves foot prints on the glass floor. (From the blue tac) not planned, of course though adds a bit of character to my little animation I think.
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