Graphic's & Animations

Timeline

18,000BC
Cave paintings drawn on walls. Historians believe that these images were made to look like they were moving by the flickering shadows cast on them from the fires.

7,000BC
In China, shadows of puppets are projected onto parchment paper. This is developed into an art form in eastern countries, particularly India.

2,000BC
Greeks drew figures on vases in various stages of movement

1660s
Magic lanterns were introduced

1830s
The phenakistiscope (spinning wheel with slots in) and the Zoetrope were developed. Many variations on these and other optical toys developed in this period.

1860s
Development of the flip book which led to a coin machine 'viewer' based on a series of photographs being flipped by turning a handle.

1880s
Emile Raynaud developed the praxinoscope. This was a spinning drum, rather like a zoetrope, but one in which viewers saw moving images in a series of mirrors rather than through slots.

1895
William Harbutt invented plasticine. This is used for model animation - now made famous by Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run.

1897
Arthur Melbourne-Cooper produced an animated commercial for Bird's Custard powder. It is one of the first recorded uses of animation in adverstising.

1914
Windsor McCay, a pioneer animator produced the first proper animated film for cinema entertainment called Gertie the Dinosaur. This was a silent film in black and white.

1915
'Cel' or cellulose acetate was developed. This is a clear plastic that enables drawings to be made in layers. This cuts down the amount of drawings needed as drawings can be overlaid.

1920s
The means for adding sound to film was invented.

1928
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse made his first appearance as a character called 'Steamboat Willie'. This was the first successful animated film by the Disney Film Company.

1930s
Colour was added to film. 'Snow White' (1937) became the first full-length animated feature film in colour.

1980s
'Tron' was the first animated feature film made by a computer.

1990s
Computers are commonly used in all levels of filmmaking. The film 'Toy Story' was the first full-length all-computer-generated animated film.

2000
Fantasia 2000 becomes the first full-length animated film to be shown exclusively on the huge IMAX® cinema screens.

2002
CGI is mixed with traditional hand-drawn animation to combine the art with the technology in films like Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

2004
Shrek 2 used the first technical software to make light naturally bounce from one surface to another to create more natural and life-like surroundings.

Tasks for pupils

All you need to try your hand at animation is some paper, a pencil and lots of imagination!

Mirror Images

Choose a letter from the alphabet and write it down on a piece of paper making it quite large. With a small mirror in one hand hold the piece of paper in the other so that you can see the original letter and its mirror image. The reflection of the letter in the mirror will often make a picture. By moving the mirror, some letters look as though they have wings. Moving the mirror faster you can make the wings flutter. Try drawing faces in this way.

Flip Books

Draw the outline of a face (no eyes, nose, or mouth, but DO draw ears and hair) on a sheet of paper then make several copies of it on a photocopying machine. You need to make copies so that each drawing is of the same size and matches up. Alternatively, trace the face outline onto several sheets of paper using a thick pencil so that your drawing will show through.

When you have several copies of your face outline, start to draw some eyes moving from one side to the other. Make the nose get longer in each drawing with the mouth opening wider and the tongue sticking out. Break the movement down stage-by-stage making sure each picture is only slightly different from the previous one. Place your first drawing at the bottom and all your other drawings on top of this with the latest one on top. Now bind the left-hand side of the pages and flip the book from back to front.

Finger Shapes

Using a large sheet of paper, draw around your hand and fingers several times to make shapes. The fingers can be used for an alligator's jaws opening and closing or a rabbit's ears waggling. Your hand can be drawn around with the fingers opened and closed to look like a dog's head, an octopus, a snake, and even an elephant. Try thinking of other animals or characters that you can create using your hands.

In pairs, try making hand shadows on the wall. First you will need to stick a piece of paper on the wall and shine a light towards it. One pupil should then put their hand in front of the paper so that it creates a shadow, moving it closer or further away until the shape is clear. The second pupil will then trace around the shadow.

Making cut-outs

There are several ways to make cut-out figures. On a piece of thin cardboard draw just the outline of a head – an oval shape – and cut it out. Then draw the following items on the cardboard and cut them out:

· Four sets of eyes from wide open to nearly closed

· Six mouths showing the sounds A E I O U and open wide

· Four sets of odd shaped ears

· Four sets of eyebrows

· Four sets of hair styles

· Four different hats

Make up different faces with these cut-outs. Use a mirror and pull faces in the mirror to get some ideas. A simple way to make cut-outs is to stick magazine photos onto cardboard and cut around them. You can make pictures larger by using a photocopier. You can reverse them by tracing over the original then tracing over the back of the tracing paper.

Drawing tasks

· Draw the lid of a box opening in six movements. Then re-draw it with something coming out of the box.

· Draw a caterpillar crawling along in five movements.

· Draw smoke coming out of a chimney and disappearing in four movements.

· Draw a juggler with three juggling clubs. Show the positions of the three clubs as they move through the air.

Sound

A film's soundtrack consists of dialogue, music and sound effects. In animation, sounds are often shown as drawings as in comics. Draw the following sounds using a suitable picture:

· Plop!

· Vrooooooooooooooom!

· Clang!

· Zap!

· Splosh!

· Crash!

· Wheeeeeeeee!

Try drawing a picture of a haunted house; ghostly noises, chains clanking, footsteps, groans, doors creaking, crazy laughter, whispers, wind, rain, thunder and lightning. Using an audio cassette player or computer recording software make up some sound effects for the scene. Use your voice, musical instruments and/or any objects available in the classroom to make the sound effects.

Storyboards

Filmmakers use storyboards to plan their films. Storyboards are a sequence of pictures with a description of the dialogue and action. They look similar to comic strips. Start by storyboarding a simple action like a boy going down a slide. Then try to storyboard your favourite moment from a book or film. Remember, though, the emphasis is on telling the story, so don't spend too long on the drawings. They can even be stick people if you want!

Animation Techniques

Animation: Animation Techniques

There are four basic techniques used in animation. These are:

· Drawn animation

· Cut-out animation

· Model animation or stop motion animation

· Computer animation or computer generated imagery (CGI)

Drawn animation

This covers any form where one drawing is replaced by another in a sequence. Each drawing is slightly different from the one before. It works the way a flipbook does. These animated films are made up of thousands of drawings which are shown on screen very quickly one after the other. It takes a very long time to film from start to finish and requires many animators to complete the work.

Cut-out animation

This covers any form of animation where cut-out shapes are moved around or replaced by other cut-outs. Flat objects like buttons, matchsticks and string can also be used in this form of animation. Cut-outs can also be laid on top of drawings. It is very quick and easy to do but difficult to have more than one or two objects moving at the same time. Cut-out animation can appear very stiff and awkward.

Model or stop-motion animation

This involves the filming of three-dimensional models. The materials used could include plasticine, clay or wire - in fact anything that can be bent or formed into another shape. The puppets are positioned and filmed before being moved ever so slightly and filmed again. These shots are put together as a piece of film and will give the impression of the models moving.

Models can be used over and over again and copies made of them to shoot different scenes at the same time so that the filming takes less time. This type of animation needs a lot of time and hard work. The makers of 'James and the Giant Peach' were only able to complete 45 seconds of stop-motion animation a week - 10 seconds a day. This was because each puppet had so many joints that needed moving for each frame - the centipede alone had 72!

Computer animation or Computer Generated Imagery (CGI)

This refers to the drawing of three-dimensional models and sets on the computer. Images can be scanned into the computer using digital photography or made within the computer itself. Human characters can be built from clay whilst sets and furnishings are modelled using design systems similar to architects drawings. These models are scanned into the computer as wire-frame models, which are gradually built up into a coloured and textured form. The wire-frame model (far left) was made on a computer before being built up into the character (left).

Computers have become cheaper and easier to use than traditional animation. The computer animated film 'Toy Story' cost $30 million to make and used 110 animators. 'The Lion King' using drawn animation cost $45 million to make and used 800 animators.

Ask pupils what animated film and televsion they watch and what kind of animation it is. Introduce them to stills of some animation they might be unfamiliar with. Are they drawn, cut-out, stop-motion or CGI?

What is Animation

Animation: What is Animation?

Animation is the process by which we see still pictures move. Each picture is shot on film one at a time and is shown at the rate of 24 pictures per second making the pictures appear to move. Some problem solving in numeracy will help children grasp this.

If 24 pictures (frames) are shown per second in an animated film, how many frames would be shown in one minute (60 seconds). If a film lasts for approximately 90 minutes (an hour and a half), how many frames would be shown in the film altogether? Estimate the answers first, then work them out on a calculator.

The reason our eyes are tricked into seeing movement can be explained by the 'Persistence of Vision' theory. Our brain holds onto an image for a fraction of a second after the image has passed. If the eye sees a series of still images very quickly one picture after another, then the images will appear to move because our eyes cannot cope with fast-moving images - our eyes have been tricked into thinking they have seen movement.

Get your pupils to test this by waving your hand in front of their eyes very fast. You will seem to see several hands at once. This is called 'The Moving Hand Theory'. Try doing this in front of a television screen when it is switched on. You will see even more images of your hand because the television is actually flickering. By waving your hand in front of it you make your eyes very confused about what they are actually seeing.

In animation, you get moving images when the pictures change in some way. Here are some ways in which pictures can change:

· Change in size – Things can get bigger (grow) or get smaller (shrink). Try drawing a balloon. Now draw it again but a little bit bigger. Now draw it getting even bigger. Draw it so that it is so big that it bursts!

· Change in position – Imagine the spokes on a bike-wheel moving around as the wheel runs full circle. Draw the wheel five times - each time showing how the spokes on the wheel have moved.

· Change in angle – Draw the hands of a clock as time is passing. Each time the hands should show a different angle.

· Change in speed – Draw a car parked. Now draw the same car speeding down a road. How could you show the element of speed?

· Change in colour – Draw six circles and colour them in, each time showing how the colours are getting darker.

· Change of shape – Draw a face that is sad. Now draw three other faces changing the eyes and mouth to make, in four stages, a happy face.