Major Blog Post 14- Czech animation

Posted on by Wendy Kong

Czech animation has been one of the most developed in history. It has started for about 100 years, Czech animators are known as the innovator in film animation. Czech animation started in the 1920s, they reached the peak and produced some of the best anime between 1950s and 1980s, the period is known as the “Golden Era”. Cutout animation, Puppet animation, and Clay animation are largely used by the Czechs. However, they seldom use 3D animation because of the financial and technical issues. 3D animations are more expensive than what they used in the past, because what they used to make anime, clay and puppets, are low cost. Also, they do not have a lot of trained 3D animators. That is the reason they become less successful and unpopular after the 1980s.

Other countries employed 3D animation because it is fancier and more realistic, which eliminated Cutout, Puppet, and Clay animation. Rumors are saying that Czech animation is coming back, the new generation of animators are currently students, and the universities in Czech support the creation of animated films. I think one of the reasons for the revival is the 3D animation technique getting more common, the price of animation programs varies more than the 1990s. I am looking forward to the new generation of Czech animators! I have a feeling that they are going to kill it!

Wendy Kong

Cut out animation WIP 2

Posted on by victoriacourchesne

Work in Progress Post- Project 2 : Production. Posted by Victoria Courchesne,

Team: Eunhae Mary Park & Victoria Courchesne

For the cutout animation project, our production process required us to have a homemade set up. We made sure to plan a whole day just for the creation of the assets, which in all took 7 hours to make. Then on the day of filming we set up the “set”, taping down the edges of both the frame and the camera so the shots would be consistent.

Overall, the hardest part was animating the astronaut. The original plan was to put pins in his body as joints, but the pins were too big and so we went without bindings of any kind. This turned out to be rather difficult since every piece then had to be carefully grabbed with tweezers and moved slightly over. If you’ve every played the american game operation, just imagine that but 1000 times more intense. If we were to do another cut out animation, we would create a much larger puppet with pin joints to animate.

We decided to use a ironing board as a camera tripod and hovered it over the table upon which the cut outs were laid.

For animating the silhouettes, we looked to Lotte Reiniger in how she animated the silhouettes in “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”.

In conclusion, we learned from the process of creating a cut out animation and was able to appreciate the grand efforts  Lotte Reiniger went through in the creation of “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”. It is impossible to imagine the difficulty she undertook with the materials available to her at the time, but it also allows us to appreciate her film even more.

Major Blog Post 4: Cut Out Animation-The Idea (1932)

Posted on by Wendy Kong

We looked at a few cut out animations in for this class. Out of all the animations we watched, The Idea (1932) by Berthold Bartosch impressed me the most. The Idea (1932) is the first poetic and tragic work in animation which shared an anti-capitalist idea. Berthold Bartosch used several layers of rice paper to create a mysterious effect and a sense of depth for the whole film. At the same time, he also used lather spread on the glass plates and lit from behind to create a halo, smoke effect. I am impressed by how he used different experimental techniques to enhance the mood of the animation. I can’t imagine how he pulled this 25 minutes film all out by paper cutting.

I also love the story of The Idea a lot. The naked woman was hinting the idea of anti-capitalist. She terrified authorities as she heads out into the street without clothes on. A man was executed because he stood up for her. At last, she sparks a workers ‘ revolution caused by the violent suppression by big business. The meaningful story matched with the visual style and music of the animation which I think is very unique and successful for cutout animations at that time. I enjoyed watching it a lot.

Image result for the idea 1932
The Idea (1932) 

Wendy Kong

Project 2 – WIP 1 – Experimentation

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

For our second project, Chandi and I wanted to be a little more ambitious. Before we met up to brainstorm an idea, I started doodling a character to practice the cutout technique. I made some quick sketches of a girl in a dress and I drew out each body part separately. Then I cut out the dress, legs, arms, head, and so on. Soon I realized I might need more poses for her legs, so I drew a couple bent legs and one of her standing on her toes.

The coffee table in my dorm has a glass top, so I used my phone and an app called Stop Motion Studio to shoot a quick test animation. The character isn’t connected at the joints yet, but I was still able to learn a bit about the technique we’ll need.

I went out and bought some fasteners that we can use for the joints on our actual characters and they’re quite big, so I know we can scale up our characters and backgrounds a bit. I also bought some scissors, so I don’t have to keep borrowing my roommate’s!

Chandi and I came up with a fun idea about a girl who is performing on the street for tips. She will trip and fall into a sewer that has toxic waste in it. She’ll then emerge as a mutated monster will glowing yellow eyes. As a monster she will now force all the people watching to dance for her. We might add an ending where someone comes and gives her an antidote, but for now the plan is to just have the camera pedestal towards the sky and it fade to black.

Storyboards and Character Experimentation
Test animation

Sydney McPherson

Chandi Marsh

Cut out animation WIP 1

Posted on by victoriacourchesne

Work in Progress Post- Project 2 : Pre-Production. Posted by Victoria Courchesne,

Team: Eunhae Mary Park & Victoria Courchesne

For the cut out animation assignment, Mary and I first began by planning the shots we would need. We discussed the original concept and our goal and then started sketching out what kind of camera angles we would have. Below you can see two pictures of my sketch book where we began drafting our idea.

Shot storyboards along with identifying assets and size of assets.
It was essential that we created an asset list in order to buy supplies before hand.

We sought to have a more ambitious project than the first stop motion we did. As you can see we planned out 6 shots- some which included a mixture of camera pans and zooms. For the project’s efficiency we decided to make the film black and white, that way we could use simple backgrounds and silhouettes to create a compelling image. I then created a word document and wrote a shot list guide that described each shot, it’s camera angle, the assets included, and a short description of animation.

More images to come soon in the next post that will feature the production of the project.

South park; cut out style, computer animated.

Posted on by victoriacourchesne

Major Post 2

Written by Victoria Courchesne

If you’re a fan of south park, you are familiar with the show’s construction-paper 2D style. While the show now is made using After Effects and 2D scans of the characters, the original pilot for the show was created using traditional cut out animation. The 22-minute-long animation featured multiple shot changes and extensive dialogue. In an interview with The Wired, co-creator of the show Mike Stone referred to the creation of the pilot as hell on earth, and so they came to the conclusion that they needed a better way of creating the show. The documentary film “The Making of South Park: 6 Days to Air” features the shows new production schedule from writing to animation. With a production schedule as crazy as that, the show’s utilization of the modern day animation programs is ideal for the fast-pace turn around. Even on their 23rd season, the shows original creators still remain leading the team, keeping the continuity of the show’s original hand-made style in every episode.

https://archive.org/details/southparkpilot

Sources:

https://www.wired.com/1997/09/it-aint-easy-making-south-park-cheesy/

“6 Days to Air” Reveals “South Park”‘s Insane Production Schedule

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/6-days-to-air-reveals-south-parks-insane-production-schedule-67657.html