⤷ Animation Skillz ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

WEEK 3 -

objectives:

- research into Norman McLaren

- do research into the animation principle staging

NORMAN MCLAREN ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

Norman Mclaren is a Canadian animator that started his career in 1934. Overal he won over 200 awards in his life time as well as wining the scottish ametur film festival twice. Following his success with the Scottish film festival he was invited to work in London in the General post off film unit. Where almost all of the films he won awards for where made. Most of his films where to surrport the war effeort and within his fils he had a big insterest in the sound used ofr the films. I don't really ever hear of animators being interested in the sound that people use so far the two people who i have researched already ahve inly been known for their art. Sure Mclaren is known fo his art but its cool that I found out he enjoyed the sound aspect. He also had an interest for dancing and dancers and many of his animations were based around those interests.

Now I decided to watch around 6-7 animations of his (one of them I didn't watch all the way through as it was all about Nazi's it wasn't a bad message it was just propaganda about the war and I don't really like looking at propaganda and things about the war that much I get sad), the animations I watched when I did research I didn't think that the sound and the feeling of movement dance would be so important and the main drive of the animations. But every animation that I watched even the propaganda, the sound drove the animation with the horrors that happened with boats and places going up in flames the sound was much louder and more harsher and felt more crunchy?.

With the other animation's they where much happier even one about how the war was changing the money and how expesve things where it was a happy little song that wnet along with the animation and made the problme not seem too dark.

I didn't think I was going to like his animations that much because something that is just based on music sometime i find it hard to follow along, but Mclarens animations arn't that long so the pace is fast but its not that difficult to understand as there only so much story you can fit in a 5 minuet video.

Something that I did learn with his animations is that he manages to convey the sound through the lines. Now I know that sounds very simple but if I turned off he sound the way the lines bounce around and use very juttey movements or they hit something elese on a sort of pattern it manages to give off the feeling of sound even if the sound wasn't there. I actually really enjoy his animations like alot my favourite thing is the colours. Now even the colours manage to convey the sound for example the animation called "Blinkety blank" the sound was very sporadic and it really fit the fact that the movement felt alot like exploding fireworks, where as the animation all about money ("Dollar Dance") felt alot more cartoonish but it had a silly song to go along with it so the style fits perfectly. He also made animations using ink and moving them across some papaer with images and my favourite one he did is "Boogie - Doodle". The music is very Jazz like and I really like he oranges and blues that are used, its a fast pace keeping up with the tempo of the music and the oranges and blues really give off a Jazz like feeling and a upbeat old timey feeling I ma not really sure how to explain it correctly but some colours together and the fact that the animation is really old is way so it ha a grainy feeling to it, it just feels alot like a jazz bar or just the sound it self has been visualize perfectly.

"Boogie-Doodle, 1941"

"Dollar Dance, 1943"

"Blinkety Blank, 1955"

These are screenshots form the short films that I watched, Now it was acutally quite hard ot get the screenshots considering everything moves quote juttery but with the screenshots I gathered I think it give of the vibe that I researched last week on week 2. You don't have to be amazing at drawing, you don't have to be able to draw photo realistic, if the drawings are crude so what if it works and you have the ideas to go with it and for it too be an effective animation then go for it.

I really like the animators I have looked into so far because well, the things they have used is all stop motion and I really think stop motion is one of the coolest animations that exist because of the tie and effeort ut into them and McLarens just have a different and cooler vibe due to the fact that it is all music based and I just love how he manages to incorperate things he likes into his work. Its definitely something that I want ot be able to do with my work, make it personalised and keep it me not change it for others!!

Where I sourced my info and screenshots from

STAGING (♡ˊ͈ ꒳ ˋ͈)

Staging is the third animation principle that I am studying for animation skills as a whole. I would say out of every animation principle this is the most important one. I know the others are super important to help you exaggerate or squish something, just too give things more life. But without this principle there would be no story and the other principles wouldn't work all together to make a convincing story.

This principle not only set the scene properly to make sure everything fits on the camera at angles that imply certain emotions or view points. But it is also actions and everything that builds a solid interaction with characters in a setting that could either contradict their personality or to match their personality.

It doesn't just have to be characters in a environment it could just be the setting/background, possibly showing it from a down bellow angle could show it from an overwhelming point of view or from above to show it could be a weak area or just ot give you an overview of everything.

Staging is not only used in animation it is also used in illustration. Without stagin things in an image or a frame would compete with each other making it hard for the human brain to focus on the main subject. But with staging it creates simple points your brain will start with and creating a convincing story that you as a viewer to feel like you are involved with the characters or what ever is happening in the piece of media.

Now as a general thing of understanding I am awful at staging, I always struggle with proportions as well as making sure the scene is filled appropriately for the feeling I am trying to convey. Due to how I see the world, I usually make a lot of my work super busy because well that s how I see everything but sometimes putting my own flare onto a piece of art shouldn't be used because then the feeling that I am trying to convey doesn't come across properly.

To make sure I really understood this animation technique I re-watched this video that we (as a class) and to make sure that I understood the staging technique (and to link with my class work) I deiced to try out quick different sketches of my character in my class work (though it is their new design more explained down bellow) facing something scary in the water !!

The video I re-watched

Here is me practicing staging, I tire out man different framing shots to make it feel like my character is smaller than what is scary, that the scary thing is big to show visually to the viewer that this unammed fear is huge and makes my character feel powerless.

CLASS WORK ／(≧ x ≦)＼

For the classwork this week I started a wave animation. When I first started this I thought that I was just going to do a hand waving on a character. I didn't relaize their was a skil that l I need to know for animation. Its not a simple wave it is like a crly wave (if your arm wa the way they looked it wold be broken) Its more ofr the clothes and how if somethign is heavier or if ther eis more of it when it comes to moving it will drag behind the main action and follow afterwards. Creating a very alive feeling drawing.

This task proved to be super difficult, I haven't finsihed it and I am not really sure if I will get the opportunity to do 2 animations like I did for the bouncing ball. Though drawing wil; this waviness I understand it much better and now know esactly what a wave cycle is !! Now for this classs work just like last weeks and the weeks before that it is a 2 week project. But this time instead of me finding it quite easy like the bouncing ball and doing 2 the videos are me practicing the wave cycle over and over again and then making it into something just like I did for the bouncing ball :D !!!!

Here are all of the practices that I did for the final wave animation. This was super hard like I struggled quite alot to understand how the wave should move aswell as how it should just flow properly. I struggle to in vision things in my head sp I had to watch a video that taught e just simple things on about how the wave animation that gets use (see button down bellow for the link to the video I watched).

Video I watch to help me !!

Even though I struggle a lot with this I am glad I did multiple versions it really helped me learn what I need to do to make sure that I did it correctly. Sure at some points doing it I did feel like giving up because well I didn't think it would work properly and doing the basics of animation again (even though I did them briefly in college) is making me really, re-think my skill level, I think that my level isn't as good as. Ithought it was and I really gotta work hard to get better. As even though I prefer illustration and planning , Animtion is still a super fun aspect of what I enjoy and want ot do when I am older and I want ot make sure that my skills keep porgressing and arn't the worst skills that I have. I want ot be able to show to future people that I am goo at what I do :D!!!

Now as you can see with these animations there is a semi circle about the wave because it is there to make sure that the line I was practicing with didn't grow or change size. The little redbal at the bottem on the ground is the fixing point. The wave shouldn't move from the fixed point as when a flag waves the flag doesn't go up and own the pole it stays where it is but flaps in the wind.

Now here is where I started to really come into problems after feeling confident that the wave animaton I practiced many times was good I diecdewd to apply it too a character that I am designing for a personal project - now the design has changed since I started working on this animation but I want ot keep it to make sure that I have a past design to refer to (see new design bellow this text!!) now, the colours that I started tot add, I haven't exported it as a video yet and I havn't finished it. But the colours I chose are also different now (I am colouring it in blue but the character design I have settled on is purple)

Now enough of the character design that isn't the main focus. The focus is the tail moving. I didn't think oit would be hard to apply the knowedge I jsut learnt to a wave that was jsut facing a different direction.ut it porved to be super dfficult at one point I had to as la teacher for helpto make sure that the movment was working propoerly. I spent the rest of the lesson pretty much working on making it look good and like a proper tail or at least sort of like a tail flipping. Though working on it really hard and asking for help really did pay off, I really like my lined version I think the movment has that whip feeling that fish tails have but also a smooth feeling. I think it could always be better, I am not claiming that it is the best animation ever but I am proud of it currently with the skills I have!!

Here is the character ( I know this isn't really relvant ot the waving animation its just I wanted to show off my cool character :D)