Animation

Unfortunately again not exactly sure what was the main point of the lecture :)

But a good point I really liked was about 2D animation frame by frame, that each frame is an artistic choice and each a unique opportunity to do something with the character. The animator can extend/exaggerate the movements or expressions. This gives a great sense of life to the character and the animation and particular character and personality. Also another interesting point was about hand-drawn animation that the expressions and movements of hand-drawn characters are never the same! Which is very true thinking about it unlike with software we are able to just copy and repeat movements where necessary to make the process easier/quicker and as a result losing the expression of hand-drawn animation.

This in particular made me think of Disney animation and the 12 principles of animation that they created such as the squash and stretch etc which gave the original life to animation. The core principles that are now always used even in contemporary animation.

Disney continues to be my favourite animation that I grew up with, however only the classic Disney which I believe was up to around 1998 or 1999 when Tarzan was released was the last classic. Further animations released onwards have lost the "spirit" of Disney movies in my opinion. Although a recent release of the 'princess and the frog' in my opinion mostly succeeded to bring back that disney spirit. Not perfectly but almost! :) Parts of the movie felt rushed but they managed to create loveable and memorable characters in my opinion. For this movie they went back to hand-drawn basics which can show the difference between software and hand drawn.

I also liked the quote from Chuck Jomes Bill told us which was a really nice way to look at animation :) that his two characters bugs bunny and daffy duck are two projections of himself. Daffy is how he is and bugs bunny is how he would like to be.

Although I love disney animation and think hand drawn animation gives more life to animation I do also love 3D and dont disagree with the use of software. In particular I think pixar are incredibly successful with movies, especially when teamed up with disney. The biggest example of this would be the popular trilogy toy story. Another movie I grew up with and a third wasnt made for 10 years after the second! But worth the wait :D I dont know anyone that didnt cry at the end of the third one :p


I love animation and movies in the sense that they take you to another world. The Lion King takes you to a world where lions talk! Toy Story takes people to a world where toys come to life. It appeals to the sense of imagination and allows us to do literally anything with it! See stories and characters come to life on screen that we can't experience in the real world.

Bill talked in particular about Warner Bros who have also produced many great animations aswell such as looney toons but I have not so much watched them and so this part of the lecture did not appeal to me quite so much unfortunately.