Provide some reflection on Question 1, and then either Question 2, 3, or 4. (But not all three.)
1) What is animation?
2) Is a zoetrope loop animation?
3) Is "A Trip to the Moon" animation?
4) Is "Avatar" animation?
I'll start, using a definition that comes from an 8th grader: Animation is drawings that move.
Have at it.
If we run out of material and answers start repeating I'll jump in with something else for the remaining posters to muse on.
(And remember to sign off with your name, and to check the previous post about taking notes.)
-Tim Finn
What is animation? Sequential images that create fluid movements and actions when placed in the right devices. Such as a flipbook, the phenakistoscope and the zoetroupe.
ReplyDeleteIs Avatar animation- In many ways it is. a form of Rotoscoping was used in the film. Capturing the actors movements, gesticulations and emotions on film and then "tracing" over them. The technology may have changed since Walt Disney used it in Snow White, but never the less the actors physical being was replaced by an animated avatar of themselves. So yes i would argue that AVATAR is animated in many ways if not completely.
Vincent Coviello
Animation, basically, is the illusion of movement through pictures shown one after the next. Whether it's hand drawn, stop motion, film based art or any other type of animation method, the first sentence still applies.
ReplyDeleteAvatar was a motion capture film, meaning the actors movements were digitally recorded through sensors on their bodies and applied to three dimensional characters on the computer. I've heard the director himself, James Cameron, say, "this is not an animated film, it's a motion capture film." However, keeping my first definition of animation in mind, how can one argue that Avatar does not use the illusion of movement through pictures shown one after the next? How can one argue that any movie (a film not being real actors moving, but pictures on film creating the illusion of movement) is not animation? For this reason, I feel it's a touchy subject. Keeping my initial definition of animation in mind, however, I'm going to say that yes, Avatar is animation.
- Dillon Kemble
What is Animation? Somehow, that's a broader, harder to answer question than I thought it would be. My general rule of thumb is that if you're taking something that is generally IN-Animate, and you are using it to create the illusion of movement in one way or another, it's animation. Be it a drawing, a puppet, an every day object, or anything else for that matter, this applies.
ReplyDeleteThat definition in mind, I still find it hard to classify exactly what Avatar is. My gut instinct is that since the majority of it is not straight up photographically captured live-action subjects, I would consider it animation. But then if you re-examine my personal guideline for what I consider to be animation, it actually doesn't fit under that category. It's really just caught in limbo between those two extremes. For the sake of generalization, I just call it animated. If that makes any sense.
-Anna Bohrer
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnimation is the illusion of movement created through the display of a series of sequential images in rapid succession.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with those who have posted before me that Avatar is indeed animation at least in part. Motion capture was used in a lot of the film which is a 3D animation technique. The movie blends CGI and live action very well. A lot of movies nowadays use CGI to get some of the amazing special effects we see. Is Avatar animation? Not completely. But does Avatar use animation? Yes.
-Rachael Brennskag
Animation is defined as a state of being full of life and in an artistic viewpoint its a technique that shows a sequence of drawings or images that move or are "animated". Animation comes from the latin word anima which means life, to this definition I would say that, "A Trip to the Moon" has animation qualities. For the most part, the film was filmed by camera and it used real people and some moving objects. I say "some part animation" because not all of the film is drawn/painted/what have you. Most of the film had rendered objects (giant bullet, mushrooms, most of the background), some of these objects were interactive and animated in a sense because they were movable and "animated" movements. Also they appear to move in the film "naturally" because they are filmed and on cells in a sequential order. The film "A Trip to the Moon" is an animation, with people in it.
ReplyDelete-Connie Deng
Animation is creating the illusion of movement by a series of varying images. Unlike live-action, animation is created by giving "life" to inanimate things (such as drawings, paintings, clay, etc).
ReplyDeleteA zoetrope is animation because it is a continuous sequence of images that create the illusion of movement. Individually, the images are static, but when spun into motion they come to life in a way.
-Rachel Meza
Animation is a series of pictures drawings, or image to create a illusion of movement. EX; giving entertainment purpose to still images by making them seem to move. Is a zoetrope loop animation? Like Rachel said, by the viewer spinning the ¨toy¨ It gives off the effect a the picture moving. It is a Cave man form of the modern animation.
ReplyDeleteThe word, "animation" has imagery that floats into your head as soon as you hear the word. I always think of cartoons, flip books, and of course, Japanese anime. We all know what it is, but if it must be defined, I would say that it is a rapid sequence of images of either 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions to create the illusion of movement. For example: stop motion or claymation would fit snugly into this definition, along with cartoons, which are simply images drawn multiple times to create different poses that allow the characters to "move".
ReplyDeleteI'd have to argue about "A Trip to the Moon" for the sake of argument itself. "A Trip to the Moon" was a play. It may have appeared to be an animation on the film reels because it showed images in sequence, but the film itself was no animation. The environment was built ad painted, the actors moved without being drawn or being sculpted and arranged to do so, none of the effects were animated either. This was a live performance with a small number of cameras, perhaps even only one.
-Danielle DiFalco
Animation refers to the process of each frame of a film being produced individually. This could mean that it was generated by computer, or by a series of drawn images, or by using a model and photographing each movement made with it (stop motion or claymation). When the frames are put together and played at a fast speed, an illusion of continuous movement is made.
ReplyDeleteI would consider a Zoetrope as a loop animation because a loop is created so that, when the sequence repeats, the motion is created. The Zoetrope uses the same images and when turned the images are repeated to create a sense of motion. For example, if you were to make a man walking using a zoetrope. you would just draw the man taking one step using his left foot and one step with his right foot. So when the zoetrope is spun, is repeats the images to make it seem like the man s walking.
AnneMarie Petroni
Well, to broaden the definition, animate is to give motion to something that normally doesn't inherintly have motion. That's why phrases are used to like "animate the dead" is to give the dead motion again. With animation, it is to give motion to something that doesn't normally have motion in regards to film. Stop motion, hand drawn, computer made animation, these are all things that do not normally move and through the magic of technology they are made to move on the screen.
ReplyDeleteA zoetrope is animation, as it is using technology to make something move and it is an early form of film. It doesn't use a camera but it flashes images quickly like a motion picture camera does.
Mimi Alves.
So far, so good.
ReplyDeleteDanielle, "A Trip to the Moon" was definitely filmed with just one camera.
For those of you yet to comment, if you feel the "Animation" definition is now well-worn ground, you can instead write a few sentences of description for Tecknarna's "Revolver." Keep it formal, like this is a brochure or a program guide. Write for someone who hasn't seen the film. Look at your cheat sheet if you need ideas.
For example, here's something NOT to do, using a different film: "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" is this awesome movie made by the dude George Lucas and it's got laser swords but lame romance! Obi-Wan looks for the lost info and Anakin kills sand people. Jango Fett is the bomb!
Here's a better take:
"Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" is writer/director George Lucas's second film in his prequel trilogy, telling of the fall of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. He engages in a forbidden love while his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, uncovers a galactic conspiracy. Action, romance, and humor abound in this visual effects-laden spectacle.
(But even that could use work since "engaging" in a "forbidden love" is clunky. But it's better than the first one.)
-Tim Finn
Animation is giving motion/life to something ordinarily stagnant by playing a series of images in rapid succession to make it appear to be moving, making something "not real/alive" appear to be "real/alive." By this, I would count Avatar, if only partially. The actors were filmed in real time, however, they were then used as puppeteers for 3D models in a computer, which were not alive until the actors and animators made them so. By this definition though, I still wouldn't consider something like the Muppets animation, because they were shot in real time and unchanged or edited from there.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Danielle about "A Trip To The Moon." It may have used a few interesting effects, but it was still shot with one camera, with the actors playing their parts in real time. Some interesting effects were used, such as (what appeared to be) stopping the camera then replacing certain objects with others or actors with smoke to make them seem to disappear, but nothing was altered or changed from there.
Today, most movies contain SOME bit of animation in them, in part because just about MOST special effects are rendered with computers these days, and a lot of movies, Avatar and the Star Wars prequels included, use rendered and often animated backgrounds. So I guess I really gauge whether a movie is "animated" or not by how much animation it includes. In the case of Avatar, at LEAST 75% of that was animated.
-Ryan Biggins
I'm not going to lie, “Revolver” is going to be one of the hardest things to describe that I've looked at in a while. As there doesn't seem to be a full out plot, nor any sort of helpful narration, much of what we can pull from the animation are our own concepts. The interpretation is going to be very different for anyone that views it.
ReplyDelete“Revolver” is an short animation by a Swedish team of animators which plays with the concepts of time, transformation, and anxiety. The piece is done in black and white, without music or narration, which takes the viewer through a series of points in time showing scenes of a surreal, fantastical world consisting of animalistic humanoids and robots.
I'm on the same side as Ryan and Danielle on “A Trip to the Moon.” While it shows hints of early animation in its scene transitions and some of their stage effects, I don't think I can really call it animation. It was a film certainly, but animated it was not, even if they did show some complicated stage set ups and techniques with the camera.
-Rue Hartsell
I think I have to agree with the 8th grader definition- that "animation is drawings that move." But it is so much more that just that. Animation is a series of drawings that are working together in a rapid motion, that has the ability to capture characteristics of the real world, such as movement and time. A single illustration can only do so much. It is like a photograph, one moment in a series of many. Animation is the whole series of moments and an entire story. From what I have read on here, we all understand that animation has the power to give 2D drawings the power of movement, a physical trait, but what a lot of people are forgetting is that animation has the power of time. Again with the example of an illustration, it’s quick. A viewer will only spend seconds on it before moving to the next one. An illustrator must pack in so much in such a small space. With animation, it controls the time a viewer must view the art. It demands the viewer to pay attention for a certain length of time so that the viewer can fully grasp the story. It has the power to capture the viewers and allow them to ride out the journey of the animation.
ReplyDeleteI think that the film “Revolver” is the perfect example of this. The film is a short animation from a Swedish animation team. It is a series of several scenes combined, that explores the idea of time in one way or another. Some focus more on fish while others use more images of robots, while still keeping and exploring the idea of time. Different scenes in the films provoke different emotions, from strong anxiety to lighthearted humor. The film grabs hold on to the viewer and forces them to endure whatever emotion they may be feeling and are desperate to break away from. “Revolver” takes you captive and forces you to run through the peaks and valleys of emotions that the film generates.
While it can use the rules of reality, time and movement, animation can also break our rules. Only is the world of animation can a mouse or rabbit stand on its back legs and talk as a human being. Animation uses our laws of reality, only to be used against us and create its own universe with its own laws. As for "A Trip to the Moon," while I would not call it a "pure" animation because it is a blend of fast moving drawings and live action, the film does understands that animation has the power to go beyond our limitations of reality and use it to go as far as they can imagine, in this case the moon. Today’s movies understand this also, especially in “Avatar.” James Cameron knew he wasn’t going to be make a tangible Pandora in our real world but knew in the world of animation, he could create a universe of his own.
-Maura Karpenko
Animation is giving the appearance of life to inanimate objects. This is done by capturing minute changes in movement on film and displaying these images sequentially in such a way that one watching them perceives the object to be moving of its own accord. It can be drawings, puppets, objects (including people), and computerized images that move.
ReplyDeleteI consider Avatar not to be an animated film but to have great amounts of animation in it. Many of the actors' movements were caught on camera and digitized, then different creatures were created based on their respective actors' features and actions. They are not real and do not exist anywhere physically except on film; they were created with computers and animators. Even the environment was created digitally. If an entire moon and species brought to moving life with people working at computers is not animation, then you'd have to say films like Snow White that relied heavily on video reference are not animation, either, and that's simply not true.
-Meaghan
I don't think animations are just drawings in movement over a period of time. I think anything naturally stagnant put in motion through a series of pictures during a given amount of time. This is true for the flipbook, the phenakistoscope and the zoetroupe. The images are naturally still, but when a series of them with slight changes in the proceeding image is put in motion, they create the illusion that the subject is moving. This is not true just drawings, but also for film, which are like miniature photographs (to my understanding).
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to wrap my definition of animation as much as possible, because otherwise, I would have agreed with the 8th grader, animation is drawings that move. Why would "Avatar" be defined as an animation if humans are naturally and constantly moving? What was added to the humans, computer graphics, is stagnant until imparted life through the illusion of movement, better explained by Vin...
Feel free to let me know if I'm confused or vague.
-Katherine Cruz
Since the definition of animation as an ‘illusion of movement over time using a sequence of images in rapid succession’ has been beaten to death, I figured it would be better to describe animation in its current form as either a medium or supplementary technique (as is the case with Avatar) that gives artists, storytellers and filmmakers the tools and license to create the impossible.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s reductive to look at movies in stark terms such as ‘Is this animation?’ or ‘Is this film?’. Film and animation are mediums of storytelling that are inherently tied to the their technology. While writing, in contrast, has changed very little since its inception, both film and animation are in a constant state of development. This evolution is reflected in movies such as Avatar, where it is nearly impossible to separate the two. Discounting the use of motion capture, even the most mundane scene has been modified with some form of secondary/composite animation. The uses and methods of animation in today’s entertainment/commercial industries are too broad to be limited to the traditional idea of an animated feature.
-Dante Finn
Tecknarna's "Revolver" was a very interesting animation in that it really made you think about what you were seeing on the screen. The animators stuck with all black and white and used repeating scenes but sometimes would change a nuance of the scene the second time around. If someone were to watch this without formal training on how to evaluate animation, one might write this off as "stupid". However, the animators gave the movie little hints of what they were trying to portray, but you really had to look for them. The film has robots, fish, time, babies, and more fish. The sounds, repetitiveness and images give you a "creeped out" feeling. But mostly because you don't understand what was going on. The tinny music also adds to the confusion of the story. Overall I think the animators got across what they were trying to say.
ReplyDeleteBrianne Dupuis