I grew up with both traditional and computer animation. I don't prefer one or the other. They are both beautiful in their own ways. They have different qualities that I find endearing and though I do wish that they still made traditionally animated movies, I respect the fact that they are continuing with computer animation. I'm not gunna make this a 'which one is better' post. I'm just gunna talk about what characteristics they possess and why they are both equally appealing. The picture I posted above is one of my favorite Disney shorts ever. I'm sure a lot of you remember this. It came out with the movie Frozen and I found it to be a masterpiece. I was totally captivated by it (even more so than the movie) and was determined more than ever to continue majoring in animation. The short is called Get A Horse! and it has the perfect blend of both 2D and 3D animation. I used to love watching the black and white Mickey Mouse shorts as a kid and watching this got me really excited. I just loved how they were able to blend both types of animation together into a phenomenal piece of work. I could rave more on this short, but time is a bit against me at the moment. The animation industry began switching from traditional animation to computer when Pixar began their company. DreamWorks had begun to make their own 3D animated movies not too long after Toy Story released. This form of animation was revolutionary to a lot of industries and it wasn't long until more attention was given to its dimensionality than 2D. While computer animation is wicked cool, traditional, in my opinion, has a beauty to it that cannot be replicated through 3D. Hand drawn animation has a more personal feel to it than computer. Computer animation has gotten a lot better throughout the years though. Pixar's films can be just as beautiful to look at as Disney's. I remember my dad telling me that the first time he saw Toy Story he hated it for how it looked. He wasn't at all used to this 3D effect it had and being a computer guy himself, he was baffled by it. Still, it was something to be admired and turned out to be a huge success in the end. While it may seem that computer animation takes less effort to make than a traditionally animated film, the fact is that both take an enormous amount of effort to make in different ways. Traditional has to deal with singular drawings of thousands of frames by artists and 3D has to deal with the dimensionalities of the characters in the animation. This means modeling and how to make it actually look three-dimensional. It's not easy. I haven't even started on that yet and I'm already intimidated. Both styles have a charm to them that speak clearly and know how to capture their audience well. They're both successful styles. I know a lot of artists who prefer one or the other but, really, I'm just glad that we have both to appreciate in the long run. Yes, traditional animation is not as reoccurring now as it was before, but that doesn't mean it's dead forever. Artists and animators out there still contribute to animating traditionally and all animators out there need to know how to animate traditionally before moving onto 3D. Okay, next subject then is: TV shows vs movies!
Before I knew anything about animation other than it contained of silly cartoon characters on a screen, I would have never guessed that so much effort and time went into it. It wasn't until later in high school did I figure out just how much time and effort. I created a very short animated video for my English class my senior year of high school. It's seventeen seconds long and the most frustrated seventeen seconds I've ever had to create in my life. I just about pulled my hair out by the end of it. It consisted of 347 frames (not all animated) and I spent an entire weekend on it. This is basically child's play for any professional animator, but for someone who had never done anything like it, I was subjected to nearly giving up. However, my only motivation was the outcome of how it would look. I felt extremely accomplished and proud of myself by the end of it even if it wasn't anything as smooth as a Disney film. There was a point where I practically bawled because a good chunk of my animation was deleted without me saving it, but thank god my dad was able to recover it. I learned that saving your work at every chance is a life savor for those who animate on the computer. In short, animating is downright HARD. Nevertheless, the outcome is why animators continue to do it. Animation is so beautiful and it's an art form that continues to be perfected by passionate artists. The image above is a series of frames put together to demonstrate a walk cycle. Most animators start with walk cycles and the classic ball bounce to get the hang of how animation works. Still, there's still so many things added in that makes the figure look alive. What's so crazy is that there are literally hundreds of frames/pages of drawings used to create only a few seconds of animation. The drawing I posted looks like a jumbled mess of body parts, but when captured on film, it creates an illusion to the eye that the picture is moving. I'm not going to go into the whole history of animation, but know that speed and light is what captures that illusion. To break it down, animators will draw up certain prominent poses of a figure to get the gist of the movement they are about to make; a character will move from point A to point B. Then something called in-betweens are used to create that fluidity of the action so that it doesn't look all jerky and robotic. In-betweens are those extra drawings added between the prominent poses. That's why there is so many poses in the drawing above. Whether it's through flash animation on a computer or with a flipbook, every single frame is accounted for and recorded together. There are a lot of techniques animators use to amplify the movement of the characters. I'll just talk about one of those techniques for today. Squash and stretch is one if not the most important principle of animation. Squash and stretch are very exaggerated drawings from the in-betweens of a figure. It conveys the shape of that figure in action. If an old man is shaking his head back and forth, his jowls may be stretched out during a shake and brought back across his face so as to emphasize the movement. A bouncing ball is a great example of this. When a ball is bouncing, the shape stretches as it soars upward, remains it's circular form at the peak of it's height, and squashes down nearly flat when it hits the ground. This demonstrates the different forms that partake in fast paced movements. These are shapes that very much exist in the real world, but are difficult to see due to the momentum that carries it. Wow, I've only scratched the surface of how animating is done, but I'm going to go ahead and stop here. I'm glad that a lot of animators are becoming recognized and people are taking a lot more interest in it nowadays than before. Up next: Traditional vs. computer animation!
Please enjoy this short animatic from one of my favorite shows Rick and Morty! Yes, it is rather crude, but I really enjoy the creativity put into this show. It's hilarious and I'm a fan of science fiction so that's really adding icing to the cake. (Why, yes, I really am hungry right now). Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon really got something good going on here. Can't wait for season 3! Back to the topic on hand. An animatic is an animated storyboard. Well, isn't that what the show or film is as a product of the storyboards? Not quite. Animatics are a pre-visualization of what the show or movie will be like. It lets the crew see how the film comes together before actually animating the final product. They need to be able to edit anything that needs improvement and will help the film out in the end. It's sort of like the rough draft of an essay before writing it and turning it in. They need to be able to see how it's progressing. Dialogue and sound effects is added to an animatic unlike storyboards. Also, it allows the cast to see how the pacing is and if it looks like it's going to fast for their liking, they'll find a way to slow down that scene a bit. They'll add or subtract whatever they can to get the scene right. There are different mediums of software that is used to create animatics. Adobe is a common one that is used (I've used it myself quite a few times) and it works effectively. The scenes aren't fully animated, as you can tell from the Rick and Morty animatic, but rather certain main frames are chosen and put together to create a sense of movement. It's basically all the boards recreated but there is no inbetweening in the frames so a lack of smooth movement is absent. It doesn't matter, however, because it lets everyone know the general sense of how the characters are gunna move. I'll be explaining inbetweening in a bit, but for now that is all there really is to animatics. If you go online and look up a few that are from certain films or shows they are actually really interesting and fun to watch. Next to storyboarding, I have a strong interest in it because it basically has both storyboarding and animation to it and I love both so seems like a pretty kickass thing to get into. To quote Rick, "And that's the waaaaayyyyy the news goes!" Coming up next is what we've all been waiting for: Animating!
Honestly, the hardest part was choosing which storyboard to post on here. There are so many fantastic storyboards out there and I decided to do one on a television show but most were either of bad quality or too small to see. Anyway, Hey Arnold! is one of my favorite childhood shows and Helga Pataki is my all time favorite TV animated character EVER. She's so dynamic and I always enjoy episodes with her in them. But I digress! Storyboards. That's what we need to talk about here and not just about the image above. Storyboarding is the process of taking a script for a film or show and drawing it out visually. A particular scene from the script is given to a storyboard artist and they must produce a bunch of illustrated frames that they imagine it would look like for that scene. Of course, they're constantly getting feedback and input from their director. Sometimes the director will have a particular vision for that scene that they want added in and other directors let their storyboard artists work freely off their imagination. I love this part of animation. It's like reading a comic version of the film or show and they're not all done the same way. It varies on the type of artist obviously. Some, like the storyboard artist above, draw very cleanly. Others have more of a rough sketch to them, but it still conveys the movements and message of the scene. There are some storyboard artists who like to break down the scenes in a detailed manor and other artists can break it down in less frames if they're really good at getting the message through. There's usually a special layout for storyboards such as the picture above. Each drawing exists in a thumbnail and each frame will correspond with the next. Artists will capture the dominant pose in a movement and follow it with another prominent pose they want to see. Films and older television shows mainly use this type of format where each drawing is traditionally drawn in each template, but new shows and some films now storyboard digitally through Photoshop or any other illustrated program. Through this technology they create their own templates, but it's still similar to the template that is traditionally used. Although, I've now heard that there are shows out there that actually use sticky notes to storyboard (Adventure Time). Some storyboards include dialogue in their boards and others rely simply on the actions of the scene to fill in for the dialogue. There's a bunch of acronyms used in boards such as BG (background), SA (same action), OS (on/off screen), VO (voice over), etc. I don't know all of them but I do know that those are the most reoccurring ones that I see. Storyboard artists also need to have a good understanding of camera angles and composition. They must figure out how the scene would be appealing to the eye so it's quite hard to do. Storyboarding is a very popular field to go into with animation so I've got some competition ahead of me. Guess I'll have to see how it plays through! Well, I'd say I've said a mouthful on this subject and even still I don't feel like I've told enough, but I'm going to go ahead and move to the next subject: Animatic!
Yes, I definitely did post another Pixar reference because you know what? I really, really, love this movie and how well it was made. Also, it displays a perfect example of what I'm going to be talking about. Lighting and color is a whole different monste--uh, subject in animation. It's an extremely important one nonetheless even if it doesn't get a whole lot of recognition. It's also something I'm not very well informed about, but I do know some of the general aspects to it. Color and lighting deals with contrast, hues, tones, and color palettes to enhance scenes in the movie. It's all about emotional appeal. Depending on the genre of the scene, these techniques are used to make it come to life in the eyes of the viewer. It makes it look more naturalistic. If the scene is more dramatic then there is a lot of contrast with both colors and lighting; the light could darken until bright eyes are the only thing seen in the background. If it's a comedy scene then brighter colors are used and a natural light bright enough to capture the scene is used. Again, it depends on the genre of the scene and setting it to that mood. In animated movies, a color script is used throughout the entire movie and a schema coincides with emotional beats and to the story arc. I've seen several color scripts from Pixar to DreamWorks and it's very impressive how they know which colors to use and what kind of lighting sets the attitude. I saw a documentary on the making of Finding Nemo and the way they charted the lighting and colors for underwater is phenomenal. They did a LOT of studying for this film. I can't imagine it being easy to try to make the underwater world look as realistic as possible. They went scuba diving in the ocean in order to chart how the light filters through the water and how underwater looks during the day, evening, and at night. I recommend watching the process on YouTube because it was freaking amazing how they did it. For TV shows, I am actually not quite sure if they use color scripts, but I imagine they use something like it in order for them to set moods and everything. A lot of shows do a really good job on this, too. The art director for the TV show, Gravity Falls, does an excellent job conveying color schemes of the forest and how the light filters in through the trees. I'll be talking more about that show later, for sure. All you really need to know is that the colors and lighting for movies and shows are there to convey the mood of each scene and to capture the attention of the audience. It's just more ice cream on top of that delicious apple pie. I apologize, I always get hungry around this time. Next topic is finally the one I've been waiting for and can't wait to talk about: Storyboarding!
Here's one thing I most likely won't ever be doing in the animation business. Designing backgrounds is not really my forte, which is depressing because I admire the art that comes out of it. I mean, look at the image above for example. It's gorgeous! There's so much to say about it that you don't even need the characters inserted to tell a story. The background tells a story of its own. The cobblestone, the awning, the wooden signs hanging above entrances, and the baskets stacked together is enough to let me know what could take place here. I actually imagine a chase happening through this scene or perhaps a horse and carriage making its way down the narrow street. People who are skilled in background design are people who really know how to succeed in the business. Backgrounds are hard enough on their own and a talented background artist is someone that animation studios will want to have. I don't know a lot of artists who specialize in backgrounds so they may be hard to come by. I could be wrong, but I'm just magnifying how hard it is to do the job since I have so much difficulty doing it myself. Those who actually do know how to draw backgrounds have to have a clear understanding of perspective. Perspective can be a pain in the ass if someone didn't know how to use it properly. Knowing how to make objects appear closer or farther away in a scene is really essential in background designing. The drawing needs to look alive so that the characters can fit in more properly to the background. TV animation backgrounds can go from simple to complex depending on the show. Each show has a different style so the background style will be different with each show. Movie backgrounds, traditional or computer animated, are a lot more intricate because having a detailed background allows the audience to be dragged further into the film. Also because they're pouring their heart and souls into it and want it to look impressive. I have a lot of respect for these guys and hope to actually become mediocre in it. Aha. Yeah, I'm actually terrible with backgrounds. Next topic: Lighting and Color!
Much like concept art, I don't know a lot about artists who work with layouts. To break it down simply, layouts are rendered scenes based off of storyboards. Specific backgrounds and character posing is added to the scene. I think the most important feature to the layouts is setting up the camera shots. Storyboards focus on camera angles as well, but layout artists focus more on how it'll look on screen. It's a process I never even knew existed not too long ago but you learn as you go along so it's pretty cool. I went with Miyazaki's film Spirited Away for today's image because I really liked the layout for this scene. It's a great scene in the movie and is always drawn beautifully. Any Miyazaki movie is done stupendously. Sorry, I'm kind of rambling on great films, but, like I said, I don't have too much information on layouts. I never really considered going into it, but I could always surprise myself by being pretty good at it. It's not too far off from storyboarding. Actually, a few days ago I visited Nickelodeon studios and toured around it with a group I was with. It was so freaking awesome. I would recommend interning there if you're wanting somewhere to intern. I heard they slime you at some point. Anyway, we got to talk to the art director for SpongeBob Squarepants and what's interesting is that that show and another show are the only two shows in Nickelodeon who paints their backgrounds non digitally. Spongbob's keeping it classy and sticking to their original painting style. Respect. Well, the art director paints the layouts he's given. These layouts are actually really big drawings. A lot bigger than I thought they would be, but it makes sense if someone was going to paint on it. So I suppose layouts vary in size depending if someone was going to hand paint it or if they were going to digitally paint it, which is still a great art form. I'd prefer digital over using my shaking hands to dab on paint to the image. These painters are what's going to be discussed for our next topic: Background Design!
Okay, I apologize. I know I said I was going to be discussing the topic of storyboarding, but I'm gunna hold that off a little longer because what I really want to focus on right now is the illustration part of animation. Illustration covers a lot in the business so I'll go ahead and start with concept art. Concept art was something I never looked into before I came to college, but it's a very beautiful profession not only in the film industry but video games, comic books, etc. A friend of mine is an illustration major and wants to go into concept art; her artwork is amazing so I have no doubt she'll make it there. What does a concept artist do? Well, they create designs for specific things that do not exist yet. These things could be characters, props, or places. When the industry needs something added in the film, such as weapons for an upcoming scene, they turn to the concept designers to create the look. If, say, they were designing the weapons for a battle in outer space, then they would draw up a few cool looking space guns and show it to the director. If they were pleased with the look, then the concept artist would color, shade, and render the drawing to their pleasing and once again show it to the director. As soon as everything was set then they would send the drawing off to the modelers or animators. A lot of concept artists use digital paint to draw up their imaginative image. A concept artists has to be very creative and imaginative to take on a job like this because they're not drawing something off of the director's specific ideas, but are drawing specific looks off a director's non descriptive words. The director could say, "We need props in this scene." What kind of props? Doesn't matter. The concept artist will create many different props that may fit into that scene until everyone is satisfied with the outcome. The same thing goes for background characters and settings. Since I'm not focusing in illustration, I don't know much about concept artists. However, I do know is that they have to be quick on their feet and have extreme creativity. Hopefully I'll be seeing them in action soon enough. Anyone seen The Good Dinosaur yet? I haven't, but I heard it was good! I'm gunna try seeing it this weekend. Next topic: Layout!
