In the article,the writer believes that the film Rio 2 is a little stereotypical in terms of representations of some of the characters, as the lead characters are voiced by white Americans. However, Rio 2 uses non-white voice actors for the singing, dancing, the wacky sidekicks are stereo typically voiced by African-American actors.
PEPs is when racial stereotyping is used in animation. Problem contexts, Entertainment contexts and Performance contexts. Dr Charles Da Costa, who is a British lecturer, has written on racial stereotyping in animation says "Within PEPs, black people and other genotypes have to be associated with vexing circumstances," and "Strive to pacify, make others happy and be exceptional or extraordinary – far from 'normal'. Villainy, exoticism, jocularity and athleticism are common indicators of this malaise. Images of ethnicity do not need to be conveyed within the narrow scope of PEPs."
He believes that the slow, expensive, labour-intensive process of producing could also be a factor as decisions on character and performance must be made very quickly in order for design and production processes to commence and advance. So with the representations of ethnicity and epidermal type, family animation often finds itself in a bind. It would consciously and subconsciously weighs financial against moral obligations, then unconsciously goes for the 'safe' representational defaults stereotypes.
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/06/repressed-brits-evil-mexicans-arab-villains-hollywood-animated-movies-stereotypes
Friday 30 May 2014
Friday 16 May 2014
Thursday 15 May 2014
Animation Test
Friday 9 May 2014
Tuesday 6 May 2014
Friday 2 May 2014
Animation Comparison Process Sheet
South Park
They wanted to make it to be as how kids talk, Trey Parker and Matt Stone the co-creators of south park. Eric Stough Director of Animation South Park Studios.
Simulating construction paper cut out is what they originally used to create the animation series over hand drawn animation due to the fact that they couldn't draw which, is why the characters are so simplistic as once they are cut out, they act like puppets.
When they would speak, they would take pictures of each shot where the mouth would move, this would cause the positions of the characters to be accidentally moved as when they were changing the positions of them, some parts would move causing the 'jiggle' of the characters we see on the screen.
First, all dialogue is broken down to the basic sounds into standard mouth shapes, animators would use between 8-12 to convey the characters dialogue. They made a shape for every vowel and consonant.
In total, it took 3 months and a crew of 8 to shoot the first 22 minutes episode (an entire summer). So to keep up with the demands of 15 episodes a year, they chucked the paper and went on with powerful computer apps. This allows the action to be more complex and more takes can also be done.
Each episode then took 4-5 days to make, they would start on a Thursday for scripting then it will be produced, sound will be added and for it to be animated all in 5 days.
To make this possible, they would first record the voices to animate them later, next the artists in storyboard rooms start to work on the character design and such. This would then be put onto computer with the voices to run simultaneously.
They do have the equipment to make it look incredible but it has its own look, which they love, people know as soon as they see the sort of animation shown that it is south park so don't want to change the original look of it.
Jack Shih (head Animator) uses high tech computers for a simplistic look, they wanted to maintain the paper cutout look so would cast shadows, giving the paper cutout appearance. All different layers of characters, individual looks were created though all using the standard mouth shape.
Dot
Edd Patterson and Will Studd (directors of Dot) create an animation where Dot wakes up and her world is unraveling around her as she runs away. It is all filmed on a Nokia N8 phone which has a 12 mp camera to create the worlds smallest film.
Dot is 9mm tall and has 50 different replacements and 3 stand ins for each pose. As she is too small to be manipulated or do anything with for the frame by frame shots, this is necessary to create the illusion of movement that she has.
They only make 4 seconds of footage a day as it couldn't be made in the conventional way, so thought of the printing technique to print in 3D to lay a resin gradually building up to create Dot.
They would stick the model on to a very fine wire and then start to paint, which takes deep concentration due to how small she is. They would pay close attention to the hair to get a sense of momentum so it would be slightly different in each model as she is running away.
There were some mishaps during the process as the foot or head would fall of giving how small she was so needed multiple copies to prevent any setbacks.
Lew Gardiner, the senior mechanical engineer- They had to create their own cell scope as the only point of focus is on the glass so theirs no requirements for any depth in field. However, they wanted to have the depth in field for the background in the shots so modeled it to fit how they wanted it to be which is why theirs is different.
The set moves from underneath the camera to make it easier to do the shot by shot frames. When the footage is taken, in shot you can see that the bar from Dot's head is in view so they use a method called back play to digitally remove it to leave them with the finished look.
Peppa Pig
Peppa Pig was created from a storyboard panel. When they first came up with the idea, they weren't really settled on how the characters were going to look. it was broad brush strokes to start, with the characters they kept rough drawings all through and so when they created Peppa they just put a flower dress on and scaled up. The rough drawings were made all along with the parents and brother also.
They wanted a family theme as they noticed in other pre-school animations that there weren't any families in them.
Peppa is a slightly cheeky and bossy character to keep the balance with the relationship with her brother.
In total there are 52 episodes over 18 months, to start off with they tried to get an episode out a week so once the week started they wanted a different on by the end continuously through the weeks. Every frame is considered through the process, so they would think deeply about each individual frame to get the finished version looking just right.
They wanted to make it to be as how kids talk, Trey Parker and Matt Stone the co-creators of south park. Eric Stough Director of Animation South Park Studios.
Simulating construction paper cut out is what they originally used to create the animation series over hand drawn animation due to the fact that they couldn't draw which, is why the characters are so simplistic as once they are cut out, they act like puppets.
When they would speak, they would take pictures of each shot where the mouth would move, this would cause the positions of the characters to be accidentally moved as when they were changing the positions of them, some parts would move causing the 'jiggle' of the characters we see on the screen.
First, all dialogue is broken down to the basic sounds into standard mouth shapes, animators would use between 8-12 to convey the characters dialogue. They made a shape for every vowel and consonant.
In total, it took 3 months and a crew of 8 to shoot the first 22 minutes episode (an entire summer). So to keep up with the demands of 15 episodes a year, they chucked the paper and went on with powerful computer apps. This allows the action to be more complex and more takes can also be done.
Each episode then took 4-5 days to make, they would start on a Thursday for scripting then it will be produced, sound will be added and for it to be animated all in 5 days.
To make this possible, they would first record the voices to animate them later, next the artists in storyboard rooms start to work on the character design and such. This would then be put onto computer with the voices to run simultaneously.
They do have the equipment to make it look incredible but it has its own look, which they love, people know as soon as they see the sort of animation shown that it is south park so don't want to change the original look of it.
Jack Shih (head Animator) uses high tech computers for a simplistic look, they wanted to maintain the paper cutout look so would cast shadows, giving the paper cutout appearance. All different layers of characters, individual looks were created though all using the standard mouth shape.
Dot
Edd Patterson and Will Studd (directors of Dot) create an animation where Dot wakes up and her world is unraveling around her as she runs away. It is all filmed on a Nokia N8 phone which has a 12 mp camera to create the worlds smallest film.
Dot is 9mm tall and has 50 different replacements and 3 stand ins for each pose. As she is too small to be manipulated or do anything with for the frame by frame shots, this is necessary to create the illusion of movement that she has.
They only make 4 seconds of footage a day as it couldn't be made in the conventional way, so thought of the printing technique to print in 3D to lay a resin gradually building up to create Dot.
They would stick the model on to a very fine wire and then start to paint, which takes deep concentration due to how small she is. They would pay close attention to the hair to get a sense of momentum so it would be slightly different in each model as she is running away.
There were some mishaps during the process as the foot or head would fall of giving how small she was so needed multiple copies to prevent any setbacks.
Lew Gardiner, the senior mechanical engineer- They had to create their own cell scope as the only point of focus is on the glass so theirs no requirements for any depth in field. However, they wanted to have the depth in field for the background in the shots so modeled it to fit how they wanted it to be which is why theirs is different.
The set moves from underneath the camera to make it easier to do the shot by shot frames. When the footage is taken, in shot you can see that the bar from Dot's head is in view so they use a method called back play to digitally remove it to leave them with the finished look.
Peppa Pig
Peppa Pig was created from a storyboard panel. When they first came up with the idea, they weren't really settled on how the characters were going to look. it was broad brush strokes to start, with the characters they kept rough drawings all through and so when they created Peppa they just put a flower dress on and scaled up. The rough drawings were made all along with the parents and brother also.
They wanted a family theme as they noticed in other pre-school animations that there weren't any families in them.
Peppa is a slightly cheeky and bossy character to keep the balance with the relationship with her brother.
In total there are 52 episodes over 18 months, to start off with they tried to get an episode out a week so once the week started they wanted a different on by the end continuously through the weeks. Every frame is considered through the process, so they would think deeply about each individual frame to get the finished version looking just right.
Thursday 1 May 2014
How Does Your Product Fit Into Curent Trends?
How my product will fit into current trends is by picking out little details from other movies and games, as you can see, it is mainly focused around a post apocalyptic setting but with a little fantasy touch, for example, the snowman, as it was a short animation about a young boy and his snowman who go on a journey during Christmas. However, the rest are quite dark, from the top, is 'Deadlight', a side scrolling game about a man who escapes a zombie outbreak and must reach his friends on the other side of the city, I picked this out as I want my animation to be retro scoped and animated from a side scrolling view.
Another, is Joel from the hit game 'The Last Of Us', I am basing my lead character 'The Traveler' on him, as he is courageous and an expert survivalist, even though the Traveler will silhouetted, I want to show the fact he looks rugged and a little rough around the edges, by giving him some low grunts when jumping over objects.
To add, the film 'The Road' I have chosen to base my animation a little, as it is about a father and son traveling through apocalyptic america, being hunted down by cannibals, I chose this because it's a film focused on the father and son relationship and how they work together to get out of tricky situations, including character development, in which I'm aiming for my animation between the snowman and the traveler.
Post And Scheduling
The Simpsons
Episode Length: 22 minutes
Animation type: Cell Animation (Hand drawn)
Length Of Production: 8-9 months
Adventure Time
Episode Length: 11 minutes
Animation Type: Cell Animation (Hand drawn)
Length Of Production: 8-9 months
South Park
Episode Length: 22 minutes
Animation Type: Cut out - computer manipulated
Length Of Production: 6 days
Peppa Pig
Episode Length: 5 minutes
Animation Type: 2D computer animated (Cell 2D)
Length Of Production: 3 months
Frozen
Movie Length: 120 minutes
Animation Type: Computer Animation 3D
Length Of Production: 2 years
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