character development: shows the pig from different angles with different expressions, and a drawing of the tree branch that points the way to student services.
initial animatic
here is an example of how I want the money to fall, although it will be mixed in with coins as well, you may have to watch the video a few times to see it as it goes very fast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFYhLAPikk4&feature=related#t=0m4s
observational drawings based on the reference photos I have drawn 2 stylized versions to represent money in my animation.
This was a quick matching of the sound and my story board to see if the story makes sense together with the sound. The story board was just to show the matching of the sounds with the images and does not show the transitions which will be included later. It is about a girl who comes home from school in a dystopian police state setting and the things she sees on her way,
I tried to match the sounds with something more unusual than what they originally were, for example I used the sound7.mp3 of the match being lit as an electric shock.
I think in this animatic the sound comes across as separate events and the story doesn't always flow together, for example between the girl running the stick along the fence and walking through the subway it may seem that the story has just jumped because the two scenes are separate. If I was to use both sounds in the same setting, i.e. have the gates and the subway that the girl is going to walk in to both in view as the sound changes it would make for a smoother transition and allow people to follow the story more easily. In the next anamatic I will work more on the realism of the setting and concentrate on making the transitions more believable so people can follow the story, this will include thinking about the angle from which the viewer will be looking, for example I will probably show the gates only in the left side of the frame so that the subway can come in to view in the rest of the frame at the same time.
I have chosen to examine a short history of experimental animation, highlighting the key moments that paved the way for future development. I will mainly be focusing on short media pieces for music videos but I will also touch on how this has influenced a larger area in the film industry.
This music video pushed the boundaries of animation by combining the real and imagined world through the use of hand drawn animation and video. There are moments when the imagined, hand drawn world pushes through in to the real. Not only was this the beginnings of new ideas concerning augmented reality but it conveyed thoughts alongside film in a way that had not been seen in mainstream culture before. Perhaps indirectly this influenced the film world through movies like "who framed roger rabbit" and space jam which involved the same concept, showing highly animated cartoon characters alongside real world characters.
The styling of the hand drawn animation remains realistic yet free flowing and even chaotic at times, with lines out of place cutting through the characters, allowing you to feel the fast pace movement. As apposed to much of the previous works involving hand drawn animation which were of a more polished form.
Personally, I prefer this this element of surrealism for more artistic works, especially when trying to convey speed. Another good instance of this style was in the animatrix film, A kid's story
Aphex Twin - On
"on" is certainly not the first time lapse animation, the form has it's origins in Georges Méliès' motion picture Carrefour De L'Opera in 1897. However I believe it to be a great example of experimental animation, it was created in 1993 at the same time video cameras started to become relatively affordable and just before movie editing software became common place, partly responsible for it becoming so influential. The video incorporated simple ideas like the linking of sound to the environment in a concrete way i.e. raindrops hitting the water for each individual note, something that can be done easily now with video editing software. Building on this is a new generation of games and media such as Audiosurf and Beat Hazard that will custom design tracks and the speed of the game to your individual music files using complex algorithms. The video itself is quite repetitious, which I'm not much a fan for and in my opinion it contains cheesy symbolism with giant plastic moving ears that I don't think were implemented very well. However as an experimental "modern" art piece produced on a small budget, it is worthy of noting as it also paved the way for many art students with 100's more experimental videos like it. Which I'm not much a fan of either, but some people are.
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood [2001] This is not so much a review of the form of animation but it's implementation, I started with a music video that blurred the lines between the real and imaginary, this and other cgi animations made by the gorillaz succeeded in destroying that line. The cgi characters they created became the band, with people going to their concerts just to see the invented characters in 3d holographic form. This is a testament to the power of animation, it's gone so far as to people having heated debates over marrying Noodle and her personality, but maybe that is just a testament to human sadness. The form of animation is cartoonish in style with a dark/grunge twist. What interests me is how they have established a precedent for fictional characters with some what of a real world presence through animation, some would argue that the band who actually create the music are hiding behind these fictional characters but I think it amplifies their creativity.
Daft punk feature length animation
The film is a combination of Leiji Matsumoto's animation and the Discovery album by Daft Punk. Obviously it is limited by it's lack of dialogue and hour in length but it has developed something of a cult following by fans of both anime and daft punk. It is an animation of simple pleasures, cleverly marrying the mood and actions of the film to the lyrics. For example at this point in the animation it references "the game" whilst showing a low resolution display on the inside of a space ship, similar to early arcade machines . This is another example of matching sound to a visual representation using animation, and clearly they have put a lot of thought in to this throughout the film. Although I don't feel it is as effective as the implementation in the aphex twin video which takes a less abstract approach.
