Tim Burton

Timothy Walter Burton

25th August 1958, Burbank, California 

Tim Burton started drawing at an early age and attended California Institute of Arts where he studied animation after being awarded a fellowship from Disney, who he later went to work with.

For the majority of his work he worked with Johnny Depp such as Edward scissor hands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeny Todd. His style of work is very unique, and can instantly be recognised as his due to its out-going, mad and wacky stamp on it.




Tim Burton wrote and directed was a short animation called 'Stalk of the Celery Monster' (1979) he made this during his time at California Institute of Arts. It is all hand drawn in pencil by himself. It was due to this video that he was offered a place to work at Walt Disney.
For a while this animation was considered to be lost until sections of it was shown in 2006.

However, he is work that is most known as being his first is 'The Island of Doctor Agor' 1971, made when he was only 13 years old. This animation was shot with a group of his mates. Near that time, he also made a short film called 'Houndini', starring himself as the famous escape artist.

Tim Burton is 'Mars Attacks' (1996) created a financial difficulty in his career and got him a variety of reviews, but sue to the cast and humour achieved a good status from his fans.
Chose one of his animated films and write about it. This film is about when the world is over powered by aliens who try to take charge of the world.

'Alice in Wonderland' (2010) fits the style of Tim Burton perfectly due to its weirdness and creativity. It's a story based on a 19-year-old Alice who returns back to 'Wonderland', a magical world she once explored when she was younger. She is reunited with old friends she met before and learns her destiny, which is to end the queens reign. The estimated budget for this film was approximately $200,000,000 but overall the film grossed over $1.02 billion worldwide. It was the first Disney film to make $1 billion dollars in ticket sales and by October 2013 was 15th in the highest-grossing film of all time. The film was released in the USA and UK ON March 5th 2010. At the 83rds Academy Awards 'Alice in Wonderland' won best art direction and best costume design but was also nominated for best visual effects.

Focus Group- Nikon

Secondary and Primary Research

Primary and Secondary Research from Ruby Hornsey

Animators of Stop Motion

Animators of Stop Motion

 

 

 

Joseph Plateau-

• His dad wanted him to become an artist.
• Plateau was a professor at the university of Ghent in 1844.
• He started the idea of animation film.
• The first one to find illusion of movement.
• Micheal Farday was his inspiration.

William Horner- 

• Born in 1786.
• At the age of 14 was the assistant headmaster at a school in Bristol.
• 4 years after (age 18) became headmaster.
• He later founded a school in Bath.
• In 1834 he invented the Zoetrope.

 Charles-Emile Reynaud-

• Reynaud was a professor in natural science.
• He was home schooled, and his mum taught him to draw and paint.
• He invented the Pratinascope. 
• He created the first animated cartoon 'Pauvre Pirrot'.

Eadweard Muybridge Edison- 

• Was born in Kingston.
• Became a photographer.
• Edison was known for motion and in- motion pictures.
• He was the first animator to do animal locomotion.
• Proved the theory that at one point a horse has all feet off the ground when running.
• On 1879 he created the Zoopraxiscope.

The Lumiere Brothers-

• Their dad was a painter. 
• One was born 19th October 1862, the other born 5th October 1864.
• They were most popular in 1895.
• Known as the 'fathers of film making'.
• They created films about everyday life.

George Pal-

• Born February 1st 1908.
• Made Puppetoons. 
• He studied at Budapest Academy of art.
• He immigrated to America and worked at Paramount Pics.
• In 1950 he worked on 'Destination Moon' and was awarded an oscar for his work.
• Overall he won 6 Oscars.
• Most famous for 'Time Machine' 1960. 

Ray Harryhausen-

• He liked fantasy.
• His mum and dad encouraged him to follow his dream.
• He studied at LACC.
• Learnt how to make models.
• King Kong inspired him to become an animator.
• In his work he replicated King Kong moments.
• He inspired directors such as Steven Speilberg.

Jan Svankmajer-

• Born in 1934, Prague.
• Studied applied arts 1950-1954.
• He inspired Graeme Harper.
• His style was very surreal.
• Had an impact on people such as the directors of Saw and Cabin in the Woods.

Willis O'Brien

Powerpoint from rubyhornsey

The Basic Principles of Animation

The Basic Principles of Animation

The basic principles of Animation were developed by Walt Disney Studios 'old men', Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the 1930s. The principles were developed through reflection and practise on making Disney animations seem more 'real'. They wanted the movement, expression and personality seem more realistic. 

Rule 1. Squash and Stretch

http://www.evl.uic.edu/ralph/508S99/squash.html

This can be used for facial expressions as well as movement in a object for example a ball bouncing of a surface. It's a broader short style of picture and is subtle in the final cut. This element is very important and will be used in the majority if not all your animations.

Rule 2. Anticipation

https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse459/12au/exercises/animation_principles.html

This shows the movement in a character before doing the action intended. Before you jump you have to bend your legs and go down in order to extend and jump in the air, therefor showing the anticipation before the jump is made. This can be exaggerated or kept realistic to help develop characterization.  

Rule 3. Staging

http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mobile-design/blog/animation_principle_three_stag/

Staging helps to portray and enhance the story line of your animation. It can determine how the audience see's each character in it and influences their reaction and idea towards the plot. The use of camera angles and shots also help to do so. The staging helps to tell the audience what's occurring in the story and can direct their attention towards it. You need to make sure there is not anything in the background of your shot that could distract the audience's attention from your animation.

Rule 4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Animation



http://www.epichuynh.com/2011/01/animation-notes-12-principles-of.html

Straight head animation goes from drawing to drawing, beginning to end. With this you can lose size, volume and proportion, but works well to create freedom in your animation. Action scenes are done like this. Pose to pose is more planned with vital drawings done throughout the scene. Size, volume and proportion are more tame this way. This method is easier to make more scenes and focus on the planning. Both of these methods are used a lot in animation.

Rule 5. Follow Through and Over Lapping Action



http://www.animationbrain.com/follow-through-overlapping-2d-animation-principle.html

 

Follow through shows that not everything stops at the same time. When a character stops all other parts continue to moves to catch up with the movement of them like arms, legs, clothing, hair ect. they follow the path of the action. Overlapping is where the character changes direction but things such as clothing, hair, limbs ect. continue to go the same direction then follow after. Timing is extremely important when using these principles.  

 

Rule 6. Slow In and Slow Out

To make something move slowly have less action in between each shot and have more shots near the starting image and a couple in between to get to the final shot, this will create the illusion of something taking longer to move. To make something fast, decrease the amount of shots used for the movements in your animation.



 

http://road2animate.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/arc.png

Rule 7. Arcs

Actions follow a arc or slightly circular path, especially humans or animals. Arcs give the animation a more realistic and natural action and allows it to flow better. All arm, head and eye movements are made following a arc shape. 

 

Rule 8. Secondary Action

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Animhorse.gif

 The secondary action is a few gestures that gives a sense of realism to the characters. For example when someone is walking, it's not only the legs that move, the secondary action would be the arms as they would also be moving along with other parts of the body. All of the actions support one and other.

Rule 9. Timing

Timing gets better once you practice and get ore experienced with animation. The trail and error method works best to develop the technique of timing. A mixture of slow and fast timing in a animation helps add texture and interest to the movement in the scene. Most animations are done on twos (one shot to every two frames of film) or on ones (one shot to each frame of film). Twos are more commonly used. The timing of a character helps to establish the mood, emotion and reaction to another character or situation.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3TRi6EAb-s1ed9DLE1VbhJZG5ApuIRY5ud6s_JwOBhh5Zura3m8ax1AbLuuEh5CaLNP1OFBS_v3XiheuTkJT8i3UhN5Hh5qI0rcdGARWoYXuL2RAifuaLBlTP9xzSr3rDPwVNCUKNgg/s1600-h/timingSpacing%5B6%5D.jpg

Rule 10. Exaggeration

http://tuanzawari.blogspot.co.uk/

Exaggeration is a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Actions can be copied from real actions but tend to be stiff and robot like. A character must move broadly to look natural. It's the same with facial expressions, but the action is a little less broad. Exaggeration in a walk or eye movement will give the animation more appeal to the audience. Use common sense to prevent it becoming overly animated.

http://mnmtanimation.weebly.com/solid-drawing.html

Rule 11. Solid Drawing

You need to take into consideration weight, volume solidity and the illusion of 3D and apply them to animation. Using these elements you can create the illusion of three and four dimensional life. 3D is movement in space, 4D is movement in time. 

http://top-10-list.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/The-Lion-King.jpg

Rule 12. Appeal

Appeal includes a simple design, clear shots and personality development that intrigues the audience. Like all stories, the animation has to appeal to the eye and mind. If the animation does not appeal to the audience, it wont be a success. 

http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html

Animation practise

Cut Out stop motion 

For this animation my role was the modeler. This roll required me to move each piece of the cut out for each shot to create the sense of how the body moves.

In cut out animation we thought about secondary action. For example we made one of the characters hit the other so we had to think about his legs moving as well as the arms. Also, we had the legs move with it this is using the principle of anticipation. This is to show the movement of the body to make it feel more realistic. 

To improve our cut out animation we could keep the camera in the same positon by putting it on a tripod. This will help to create the illusion of a free moving image rather than individual images put together. 

Claymation

For claymation I took the role of the modeler again. It's slightly different in comparison to cut out as the principles in claymation  as the principle of staging applies more in this, with cut out it's 2D and flat on a table whereas claymation is using 3D characters.
I found it more challenging to use follow through because the clay is all stuck together, making it harder to not make everything stop at the same time. To make our claymation better I would focus more on every part of the model and include the principle of squash and stretch in it by giving the character a face so we could show emotion through that element.

Pixelation

 For pixelation I was one of the models. Being a model was more challenging than I thought it required me to only make subtle movements for each shot to make a free flowing, realistic animation.
I think that with pixelation its easier to use the principles of arc, secondary action, and anticipation because it's natural for your body to do all of those elements without thinking about it.

This was hardest to create something imaginative compared to the others as there is only a limit of what your body can do, however we made the illusion of Chris floating in the air by taking shots of him jumping (while off the ground) which is something we can't do in a film.

sand animation

 I was the photographer while making Sand animation. Being photographer I was constantly focusing on the position of the camera. I had to try and keep it in the same spot for each shot so the illusion of it all being one moving image rather than single shots put together wasn't lost.

I think our sand animation worked really well as we had good timing and good appeal. Our idea was clearly shown in our animation, showing steps of 'evolution' and didn't jump from one thing to the next, you could see it evolving in the sand.

Small Objects

I found this one the most difficult. It's hard to use the principles of secondary action, arc, follow through and over lapping anticipation and squash and stretch as the objects can't do it. Therefore you have to make sure that timing, staging straight ahead, pose to position and others are accurate to still give the effect that it is one moving image.

Slow in and slow out is also used for this, I think we could have focused more on this principle as we jumped a few places due to it being difficult to move objects in certain ways. We also could have changed the back ground of this animation as it could distract the audiences attention and loose their focus. Instead of having the class room behind, have a plain simple backdrop or screen. 

Over all I enjoyed making animations. My personal favourite one would be claymation as it allows you to be creative with what you can do and I also found easiest to apply the principles to.

Flick Book