Stop-Motion and Mixed-Media Animation

Chapter 20 of Design for Motion covers design boards driven mostly by characters, utilizing imagery of the design boards to develop the character as opposed to wordy descriptions. Designing and planning the motion is essential because motion is how the character traits are conveyed in animation. Mannerisms and behavior are conveyed via motion, so planning it by listing character traits and associating keywords with the character solidifies the character traits. 

Chapter 3 of The Animation Bible emphasized the importance of fully developing your idea in preproduction and having a fully developmed pitch loaded with concept and aesthetic choices. A rough script incorporating into the pitch allows for room for development of the story, then storyboards allows for a visualization of the concepts. It also discusses the aftermath of the pitch in promotion and marketing of the idea.

Director - Talia Gnessin 

Editor - Melanie Do

Producer - Jesse Zand

Shaw Ch. 20

An effectively designed character has the ability to contain metaphors for big ideas, break through walls of apathy, and helps deliver a concept through a story. Character’s personality is often exaggerated.

Chapter 5: Production of Selby’s book Animation, deals with the various processes of production in animation: traditional cell animation, stop motion, puppets or advanced computer virtual animation. It offers a description of some basic techniques, and also of the traditional 2D animation techniques, such as rotoscoping, or computer-generated 2-D animation tools, such as Adobe Flash. The author then explains how sets are designed and lighting is used in different techniques of animation. Lighting is extremely important in creating desired visual effects and convey specific moods.

In Chapter 3: Pre-production of the Animation Bible, the author describes the process of pre-production in animation, explaining that producer and director are two key roles in production, although they are not always authors or originators of the project. She explains the process of developing a concept for a work of animation, emphasizing the fact that inspiration can come from anywhere, but that it’s very important to think through all the stages of future production, in order to make the process effective. The author explains the process of pitching an idea, and the scriptwriting process, and even the sound design process, which is important for quality animation. For example, voice recording should be done during the pre-production process. Scheduling and budgeting, as well as promotion and marketing are also briefly explained, as well as some aspects of copyright and the various issues related to that.

Design for Motion, by Austin Shaw, Chapter 20: Character-Driven Design Boards, expanded my idea of a design board. This chapter addressed the process of creating a character driven design board. I found this to be something that what be very challenging for me considering a design board has to communicate so much about your story or narrative. Communicating that much of a plot through the use of a single character I would assume is a very large task. Along with this the chapter encouraged exaggeration in the character within the piece. This triggered my thoughts on whether or not I could think of a film without a dramatic character, a film with maybe a (authentic) character. Has this ever happened and would that even be a possibility? The closet style of film I could relate to this is italian neo-realism but the instant I came up with this relation I realized that Moma Roma (maybe the biggest star of the genre) is one of the most dramatic actors of all time. So although the goal of neo realism is to create a film centered on terrible historical events or not generic happy plot lines it still does this via dramatic actors which is possibly self conflicting? Along with this I was taken back when Oeffinger said he has more creative freedom when working on a staff or more willing to throw out ideas rather than as an individual.

When reading The Animation Bible, by Maureen Furniss, Chapter 3: Pre-production, I began to wonder why I always tend to enjoy pieces that are produced by an individual or a smaller studio. I am not sure if I am just impressed that they could pull something so impressive off with such a small crew or if they are for some reason better at telling or making stories. One benefit I can clearly see about working as an individual or within a small crew is the ability to experiment and freely explore personal ideas without the pressure of maybe say an investor or something. So maybe this just leads to better work. You also have to fit into a particular mold of making childlike animations for people like Pixar, so if on your own you can wield animation to any mood or genre.

In chapter 20 of Austin Shaws, Design for motion, he discuss character driven design boards. Character-Driven Deign Boards are design boards that express character emotion. With emotion, viewers can relate to the characters on the screen. Professionals dedicate time to develop characters emotions. Exaggeration in emotions are important because motion design is a short form of storytelling, so there isn’t much build up. Exaggeration is going to show exactly what the characters are feeling. Though many of us are not great at drawing, it could help us to convey what we are trying to express. Once we have design the characters we must prep them for motion. Tactile characters can be rigged for stop motion or live action animation.

 In chapter 3 of the Animation Bible, we explore the pre-production process. The first task is to find personnel. The director and producer are the two key individuals in a production. There are many other positons that go to many different people. The next thing to do is develop a concept. Once there is a concept we can pitch the idea so we can find someone to help make the film. When the film is ready to be made, we can start making the script. Then we can start getting sounds and storyboards together and focus on timing.

In the twentieth chapter of Austin Shaw’s Design for Motion: Fundamental Techniques of Motion Design, Shaw delves into the subject of character design. Similar to screenwriting, Shaw suggests starting with a written character profile. This allows one to fully understand a character, which matters a lot when trying to choose visual representations of that character’s emotions. There is something called a 2d layout sheet that might follow that allows an artist to understand the different views of their characters. The chapter is actually pretty short, but Shaw suggests making a character-driven design board. Considering my film will be fully character driven, I appreciated the suggestions made by Shaw in this chapter, despite its brevity. 

 In the third chapter of Maureen Furniss’s The Animation Bible, Furniss, in heavy detail, goes over pre-production. She begins the chapter with choosing personnel – who will be on my team? For me, it’s Enrique, Duane and Ana. Then Furniss suggests a few questions to ask when developing a concept. All of these questions are things one should have answered before starting one’s project. Next Furniss goes into pitching ideas and then writing the script. I sort of feel like that’s the wrong order – but maybe not in animation. Timing was the section I was particularly interested in. “When pre-recorded sound controls timing, it is necessary to ‘read’ the soundtrack to determine how many frames of visuals are required to accompany it” (Furniss 73). This is important to remember as I use pre-recorded sound for my project. To finish the chapter, Furniss goes over style guides – similar to a style frame but a little longer and turned to often throughout a project, and she suggests a test run. I just did this for my project! 

 In the fifth chapter of Andrew Selby’s Animation, Selby goes over different production techniques. He starts with the origin of animation: a magic lantern. This probably isn’t the very beginning, as suggested in earlier readings, but it was an integral part in the history of creating animation as an art. Selby introduces cel animation and other 2D techniques. Eventually Selby gets to stop-motion – something we know a lot about at this point. I particularly liked learning a little more about armatures and intend to use them very soon. Selby wrapped up the chapter with where we currently are in production: 3d computer-generated animation. 3D animation has sort of taken over, at least in terms of feature length films. It has been consistently used in Pixar. Selby, like Furniss, also touches on sound and its importance in all productions. 

Chapter 20 in Shaw’s Design for Motion is one of my favorite readings we have done all quarter because it focuses on something I would love to focus on in the future, character design. The chapter titled, “Character Driven Design Boards”, details how to go about creating a strong character design and use it in terms of motion design. My most important takeaway from this is it’s not all about how the character looks, you can create one really cool drawing of a character but that would not be enough to get across the feel of that character for a production. You need to have an idea of what the character is like by starting with a written profile, and then you need to show the character in different perspectives, poses, and emotions to really get across the substance of that character.

Chapter 3 of Furniss’s Animation Bible discusses the pre-production phase of a project, which we are very familiar with after having to go through this process for our story pitches, but there is much more to do beyond the pitch. First, you must develop the story concept and really focus on capturing your idea for the pitch and selling it. Then you need to flesh out, edit, and finalize a script. Next comes sound design, animation is unique in that it is usually more logical to gather all your sound before you shoot a single sequence, because you have to animate to the dialogue and score instead of adding it after. My group is using this technique and it is working very well for us. Some of the main steps that I was already aware of that Furniss mentions are timing, storyboard, animatic, and layout. But Furniss opened my eyes to new concepts like budgeting, marketing, ownership, elements of a studio, and test runs.

Chapter 3 of “The Animation Bible” discusses pre production for animations, specifically how drastically pre production processes can transform the flow and overall outcome of a project.  When collaborating with directors, producers, and other creators, those working on the project must make important decisions regarding the goal of the story, and even things like how the project’s components will be handled after the animation is complete.  

When creating a pitch for an animation, it is also crucial to understand the company that you want to invest in your idea.  Presenters should know how to start a dialogue with an investor and highlight the strengths of a project. Understanding not only how to quickly and effectively communicate the goal of an animation, while also making it seem appealing, is a difficult balance, but is the major goal when pitching an idea.

Chapter 3 finishes by going into further detail about specific aspects of pre production, including planning pacing, sound design, scripting, storyboarding and animatics, and budgeting.  These all may feel like pieces that won’t come up until later in the production process, but thinking about them early on will save time, money, and most importantly, make an animation better.

Chapter 20 of “Design for Motion” covers character design, which involves research on mannerisms and behavior, on top of the artistic process of creating characters.  Shaw recommends doing loose sketches of characters to practice conveying emotions and physical attributes in the most accurate way possible. From there, an animator should move onto creating action poses and designing gestures.  These are crucial to the plot line because they contribute to the audience’s perception of a given character, along with the other characters, as well as the mood and tone of the entire story.

Chapter 20 of Austin Shaw’s design for motion begins by talking about the process and importance of one’s character design.  Shaw understands that character design can be a daunting task for those who do not have strong drawing skills, however, he believes the process of conceptualizing the character as well as the research and references that come with it pay off in the long run. He believes a good starting ground to be a written profile of the character because of the quality that including mannerisms, behaviors, and other emotional characteristics can bring forth to your overall portrayal of the character as a whole. Shaw believes in spending time actually drawing loose sketches of the characters at first in order to experiment with different designs until they are closer to the actual look of your character overall.  The animator will then need to visit other areas such as creating action poses in order to visualize the characters movements and gestures, actually rigging your character for the actual animation, and even the creation of a design board that is based off different aspects of your character as well.