ZiYin Wang MA 3D computer animation

In the early days hand drawn animation a group of Disney animators came together and defined 12 rules of animation that when applied properly could create amazing animation and engaging experience for the audience.

In 1981 Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston released a book titled ‘The illusion of life Disney Animation’ detailed all 12 principles.Since then animators form around the world have studied and applied these techniques. Although lots of them are hand drawn animators,but in nowadays,the 12 principles are still useful. whenever you set a keyframe in any application,the 3D animators should also think about the 12 rules of animation.

• 1.Squash and stretch : So,the first things I wanna talk about is what can ‘squash and stretch’ do for our animations,especially in 3D animations.For example,a bouncing beech ball or other some soft balls,how to make the ball feel more flexible and less rigid and ‘squash and stretch’ can solve that question perfectly.Just add key frames and squeeze in the collision with objects, and you will get a excellent sense of weight and quality.Of course, the same applies to expressions, characters, any physical changes.
• 2.Anticipation:It seems like anticipation is the oldest devices that has been used in animation.Anticipation is basically kind of a movement that you want to employ before the main action. Its function is to prepare the audience so that the next action of your character will not be so abrupt it’s exactly crucial in all animations.
• 3.Staging:Staging is that we should pay attention to the protagonist and tell the story. The principle of staging originated from the early theater, which means to accurately and clearly convey the concept to the audience(The story point is the most important thing).In another way, staging uses cameras, scenes and characters to attract the audience, giving people a very amazing feeling, rather than showing everything in front of the audience.It’s more like controlling the whole. For animators, how to show your story and firmly grasp the eyes of the audience has always been a very important thing.
• 4.Straight ahead and pose to pose:In fact, these are two completely different techniques,straight ahead is one action, one painting, frame by frame painting, linear process.pose to pose requires more planning and more thinking.Lay out all your main poses.Draw the key pose first, and then fill in the middle, which will make your animation more clear.In my opinion, this pose to pose production process can save more time and energy, and can set a big framework for your animations before production, and the idea will be clearer.
• 5.Follow-through and overlap: In the real world, humans, animals and insects stop a certain action, they will not stop immediately, but will be accompanied by associated actions.For example, our secondary organs will follow the movement of the primary organs, even if the primary organs have stopped moving.Overlap is the offset of key frames at different stages of each part’s motion, which is what we call the delay effect.
• 6.Slow-in,slow-out:Slow in and slow out is to slow down the entry and stop time in a uniform linear action, so that the beginning and end of the animation are not so abrupt. It is often achieved by adding frames.
• 7.Arcs:Using the arc rules will make the animations smoother and fluent.Think about the motion of an object. It’s basically a circular track. No matter what kind of creature it is, its motion has radians,it can bring more life to your animation in this way.
• 8.Secondary action:The secondary action is different from the following action.Follow-through means that the part continues to move with the stop of the whole movement,The secondary action is more like a support for the main action. For example, when a person walks on the street, there must be an expression on his face, and this expression is his secondary action.
• 9.Timing and Spacing:This is one of the twelve rules of animation formulated by early Disney animators.Painting and movement can determine time and rhythm.In practice, the more frames, the slower the rhythm, and the less frames, the faster the rhythm.
• 10.Exaggeration:Exaggeration is the display of physical characteristics, and the audience will feel very credible. It is mainly to enlarge the body movements to reflect more exaggerated emotions.This technology is very useful for cartoon animation.
• 11.Solid drawing:Solid drawing doesn’t seem very practical in the current 3D animation production, but in the early traditional 2D animation, a solid foundation means that your picture will have more depth, balance and three-dimensional sense. This can also be used in today’s three-dimensional animation. Having solid drawing skills means that you have stronger picture control and aesthetics.So animators still need to work hard on basic skills even the 3D animators.
• 12.Appeal:This rule is very important. It can be said that only when you master the appeal can you really step into the door of animation.Because it contains all the design of characters, exaggeration, acme, emotion and environment complement each other, your animation needs to constantly improve the quality to make your characters stand out and impressive in the eyes of the audience.

After summarizing and understanding the 12 principles of animation, I feel that I have learned about animation again, with the wisdom of those early animators. Maybe some rules are not so applicable to the current commercial animation mode, but every time you review the 12 principles, you can always get new things you want from the wisdom of the former people.

As we all know, as the leading company in the animation industry, Disney’s editing lens processing is world-class, which is not too much to say that it is an industry-standard. If we want to say animation with a similar style, in terms of two-dimensional, the exodus from Egypt directed by Kathleen Cartier and Sandrine Gimenez must be one of them, whether it is the lens processing like opera, The smooth mirror movement reveals the shadow of Disney, which is very similar to the two-dimensional animation made by Disney through European fairy tales and legends in the early stage. Of course, the subsequent big picture avatar Moses opened the Red Sea and so on has a little more style of Disney in the later stage, which is grand and exquisite.

The three-dimensional direction is similar to Disney’s editing lens style. Among them, the best are DreamWorks and Pixar (before being acquired). For example, the style of toy stories can be classified as Disney style. The same delicate lens and film level editing are exquisite and not offensive. A large number of narrative lenses are very excellent three-dimensional works

There are also many people with different styles, among which my favourite is Lango. The western style editing is completely different from Disney’s style. Some scenes even seem boring, but it really gives people endless aftertaste. That year Lango also defeated Disney and won the Oscar for best animation feature, which shows its stylized charm.

After the first week’s study(Design for Animation, narrative structure and film language ),I exactly learned a lot,especially the history of film, animation and VFX,there’s some understanding of mine after those videos and a timeline I laid out after class.

When I really put my efforts into understanding the development, decline and growth of movies, I realized how magnificent things had happened in the past 100 years, although I had already had a general understanding of the development of movies before taking this class. Especially in the early days of film development, our pioneers went through numerous attempts from scratch, from failure to success (such as the Lumiere brothers and the Two French and English Georges, and later Edison who invented the projector) to have today’s booming film industry.Among them, Max Linda impressed me most，He almost sacrificed his life for the movie！

Who would have thought that the world’s first movie star would be a dog? And, of course, there were great movie actors, whether they were ordinary people caught on camera unconsciously, or the first movie comedians (those who danced in cages with animals). People in animal costumes or George Melies) or even the train that first appeared on screen.The development of the film is inseparable from the efforts and creativity of these actors.

I love this line in this video”Inventors were separately and simultaneously racing towards the invention of cinema.”As the younger generation of the film industry, we should keep the same idea to make new development of the film industry

• THE TIMELINE OF THE HISTORY OF FILM
• 1895, Moving pictures projected onto a big screen.
• 1895-12-28: the Lumiere Brothers demonstrated their invention of motion pictures for the very first time. The first time they were shown on a cinema screen was in one thousand in Paris.
• 1887: Eadweard Muybridge settled the bed by setting up a system of twelve separate stills.cameras space twenty one inches apart. Each can move around on trip wire that was triggered by the horse’s hoofs.
• 1891: the American inventor, Thomas Edison had perfected the kinetoscope.
• 1892: project the first animated film on its praxinoe scope In UK: 1895,two pioneers Robert W Paul and Bert Acres had invented the first thirty five millimeter camera in 1895.
• 1893, Thomas Edison constructed the world’s first film production studio, the Black Maria.
• 1895, Robert W. Paul and Bert Akers had invented the first British 35 millimeter camera
• 1896-2-21, Robert W. Paul demonstrated his projector the theatre graph. Also Lumiere system was displayed in London.
• 1897: George mainly built the world’s first film studio here in Montreal.
• 1900, George Smith showed close up for the first time in film.
• 1901, James Williamson The Big Swallow using extreme close-up. He developed multi shot films and cutaways.
• 1902, La gallina misteriosa (Pathé Frères, 1902) A chicken-and-egg comedy about what came first.
• 1903, George Smith used close-ups to highlight the personalities of the characters and fades out to show the transition from dream to reality.
• 1909: George Melies was outdated. The action was so far away from the camera.It was very difficult to get personality across an audience’s love personality.
• 1905:He’d been a stage actor before making his first film appearance.
• 1911, Max Linder, the most popular comedian in the world. His comic creation of the coat was remembered by other comedians.
• 1913: At a time of high infant mortality, babies were often used as comic prompts.
• 1914: the First World War. Fred Evans and Max Linda provided entertainment for army recruits. He was shot through the lungs just above the heart .
• 1917, the First World War caused Max Linder depression because he narrowly escaped death.
• 1918, Hollywood took over as the leader of world cinema the end of the First World War. The language of cinema was already fully formed.
• 1923, Pathé was able to take over Star Films and the Montreuil studio. George Méliès burned 500 negatives of all his films.Chaplin completes ‘A Woman of Paris.’
• 1925, The theory of Conflict Montage is applied and Max Linder committed suicide.
• 1929: Fred Evans made his last film.

In fact, I do not know much about the development of special effects, but in my childhood, Toy Story and Jurassic Park also accompanied me to grow up. This time, I also systematically understood the development of special effects in the whole film, which enabled me to increase a lot of knowledge.

Avatars, the highest grossing movie of all time, back to the brim with spectacular effects and true life. CG, characters.It is also the most powerful special effects film in the world at that time. I have to say that the special effects of this film are still outdated, even in the current film market, I believe it will also achieve good box office.

Back in the day,Directors often use stop-motion animation for special effects production, such as King Kong, 1933. But this is very time-consuming and labor-intensive, and photographers often need to shoot frame by frame.It’s very artistic, even if it looks rough.

It’s hard to imagine that movies from King Kong to Avatar and Final Fantasy, all made entirely of cgi, haven’t lasted more than 100 years,can only be described as shock, I hope in the future, computer technology can develop more rapidly, there are more technical talents like Steve Jobs, make animation have more methods to describe the world.

• 1933, KING KONG, the visual effect is as engaging as human actors.
• 1958, The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad, the motion of the monster is controlled frame by frame.
• 1963, Jason And The Argonauts, the skeleton battle animation took 4 months.
• 1985, Young Sherlock Holmes, computer generated character from photo.
• 1989,THE ABYSS,part of those were spent using an early version of Photoshop, the first use of the program in the feature film.
• 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, water effect was improved.
• 1993, Jurassic Park, the animator nearly bring the dinosaur in real life by using armature devices.
• 1995, Casper, the first computer animated title character was created.
• 1995, Toy story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film.
• 1996, Dragonheart, the special effects took 15 months to produce.
• 1999, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, over 2000 visual effects, including sixty digital characters were create in that film.
• 2001, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the first Hyper Real, fully computer generated feature film based on original designs.
• 2002, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Weta Digital was awarded the Oscar for best visual effects for three consecutive years for this film.
• 2002, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, improved new character
• 2003, The Matrix Reloaded, used a process called Universal Capture recording the real actor’s performance. And played back from different angles and under different lighting conditions.
• 2005, King Kong, the remake version, having the largest number of visual effect shots in a single film.
• 2006, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Davy Jones was generated by computer so real that people thought they were watching a real person.
• 2007, Beowulf, advanced motion capture technique to transform life action into digital animation.
• 2008, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The actor’s face was captured to create an aging face.
• 2009, Avatar, using face capture and motion capture.

Animation as my major, I have also learned a lot about the development of animation. From the initial lantern and comic strip to the later development of camera, animation has become more and more vivid and interesting. For example, the world’s first character animation “Dinosaur Gertie” (1914), animation has become more and more vivid. Later, the emergence of Disney, Mickey Mouse and Steamship, I think it should be the guide for countless animation predecessors to start their animation career. Although it still has many shortcomings, such as violent elements, as the world’s first animated film with sound, it is good enough.

After the Great Depression in the United States, Snow White, the perfect two-dimensional animation work in my mind, came out. The perfect line drawing, lens design and scene separation enabled Disney to establish a leading position in the future.

FPS is more like playing tricks on your eyes. If cameras record the world in frames, animation creates the world in frames. Without a doubt, Pixar, Steve Jobs and his associates are the people who created the world in this way. They are also my idols. Toy Story changed the entire animation industry and the work of animators, but in the end, traditional animation and the new animation industry found their own convergence point. I hope I can become such an excellent animator in the future and make efforts for the development of animation.

• 1609, The Magic Lantern, moving images was projected onto a screen, but it’s assisted by human hands.
• 1825, Thaumatrope, the first actual animation, this is a disc toy with pictures on both sides. When the rope is twirled, the pictures will merge into one because of the theory of “persistence of vision”.
• 1879, Zoopraxiscope, the first contraption to show a clip of animation, this is a cylinder, and as successive images are placed and rotated, images can be seen moving through the slits.
• 1900-1910, Animation began to exist on the big screen, started with simple faces.
• 1914, Gertie the Dinosaur, the first characteristic animation by Winsor McCay.
• 1928, Steamboat Willie, showed Mickey Mouse to the world. Music and violence appeared in it.
• 1929, Because of the great Depression, People keep going to the theater to watch cartoons as entertainment. Because of this demand, more cartoons were made.
• 1937, Snow White, the first feature film to be created by Disney. Using lots of new techniques.
• 1969, Animator began trying to create real looking monsters such as skeleton soldiers and dinosaurs.
• 1970, Cresta discovered children’s love of animation and created an animated commercial to promote its drink. The main character is a polar bear wearing sunglasses.
• 1986, Pixar Animation Studios was founded. CGI (Computer-generated imagery) began to play an important role in producing animation.
• 1995, Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film was released by Pixar. The film caused a sensation all over the world.
• 2009, Avatar was on the screen. Fantastic CGI made the movie a great success.
• 2014, CGI became a dominant species of animation.

In this week’s study, I mainly learned camera, shooting and lens language, which I am very interested in. At the same time, I also learned the history of CGI and the development history of animation：

Shot Length

• Wide shot – You can see the whole subject or scene. Show the action.
• Extreme wide shot – Watch the whole scene from a distance. Show the place.
• medium shot – A partial body shot of the subject. Show the character.
• Two shot – Two objects are in a frame. Show closeness
• Close up – A complete detail of an actor’s face or object. Show powerful emotion.
• Extreme close up – Closer than close up. For exposition or disorientation

Angle

• Eye level – Camera looks straight at the subject.
• High angle – Camera looks down at the subject. Make a object seem small
• Low angle – Camera looks up at the subject. Make a object seem large.
• Dutch angle – Camera looks at a tilted angle.

Focus & Lenses

• Depth of field – How much is in focus.
• Deep focus – Long depth of field, everything was focused.
• Shallow focus – Short depth of field, only part was focused.
• Rack focus – Changing the focus.
• Tilt shift – Blur part of the image to create artificial depth of field.
• Telephoto lens – A long lens that compresses space.
• Wide angle lens – Give space more depth.
• Fisheye lens – For disturbing images.

Movement

• Handheld
• Steadicam – Handheld with rig for stabilizing.
• Pan – Swivel the camera on a tripod horizontally.
• Tilt – Swivel the camera vertically.
• Zoom – Shot length changed by adjusting the lens.
• Dolly/Tracking shot – Move both the camera and the rig.
• Jib/Crane shot – Camera put on a platform and raised above/ brought down to the subject.
• Dolly zoom – Camera is dolly while rooming.

Mise en Scene

https://www.youtube.com/embed/clBT7O3A3wI?feature=oembedHow to Speak Movie Part 2: Mise en Scène

Decor

• Setting – Outdoor/ Indoor/ Real place/ Green screen.
• Set dressing – The objects are not used by actors. Show place or character.
• Props – The objects used by actors. Show character.
• Costume – Show character.

Lighting

• Three-point lighting – Combines by Key light, Backlight and Fill light.
• High key lighting – bright lights and colors with strong key and fill light.
• Low key lighting – Darker lights with somber mood. Weak key and fill but strong backlight.
• Chiaroscuro – Light contrast with dark.
• Hard lighting – Bright harsh key lights to create hard shadows making the scene tough, angular and unflattering.
• Soft lighting – The lights diffuse through a filter, create a romantic lighting.
• Ambient lighting
• Unmotivated lighting – Lighting shape the scene without being an element of it.
• Motivated lighting – Lighting is the element of the scene.

Color

• Black and white
• Tinting – Entire scene is bathed in a certain color.
• Sepia Tone – One type of tinting with a dusty color.
• Color film
• Color grading
• Saturation – Highly saturated scene can feel bright and exciting. Lowly saturated scene can feel washed out and desolate.
• Color palette – Can be broad or selective.

Space

• Balance – Symmetrical balance.
• Deep space – The scene places elements both far and near to the camera.
• Shallow space – No depth.
• Offscreen space – Scene draws attention to the thing out of the frame.
• Blocking – All the movements the actor makes the scene.