Fantasia Blog

“Fantasia” is the epitome of amazing animation to classical music. By watching and analyzing we can see what creates an exceptional, creative animation.  Fantasia utilizes classical music and it’s animations in a dynamic and interesting way that attracts people of all ages to the story.  Fantasia has three different types of animations that create the stories: 1. Very definite shapes and a defined plot, which tells a story 2. No real plot but very definite shapes dancing with the music (no story from beginning to end) 3. The most abstract version, which has shapes that are visually interpreting the music in a very artistic way.

The music is used to influence movements (slow, fast, low notes, high notes) in an animation.  Generally, the slower the music, the slower the movements in the animation are, and the faster the music, the faster the movements are.  So the animations and the characters movements move at a faster pace when the music is being played faster, and vise versa.  The low notes and high notes in the music also help emphasize the movements.  For example, when the beat of the music is “happier” or at a faster pace, not only are the movements happier, but the notes tend to be higher and more cheerful, and the colors in the animation tend to be brighter as well.  The opposite occurs in scenes where the music is playing lower notes, which tend to be slower and give off a gloomy feel, so the characters movements and the colors in these parts of the animation are “dark” and slower.

The chosen graphics work very well with the music because the characters are created specifically for particular scenes of the animation that would go together nicely with the music.  The part with the Pegasus and their babies is a good example of this in the animation.  There are unicorns in the beginning that are running fast, and the music moves faster and faster as they are approaching and running closer towards the viewer.  As the flying Pegasuses move slower and glide slowly through the air, the music is slower as well, and then as they build up speed and fly/run again the music gets faster again.  At the end of the scene, cheerful music plays as the Pegasuses and their babies happily swim away with each other.  These characters are made to look like enchanted, peaceful, and eloquent characters that are made up of bright colors and beauty, which compliments the music that they go along to because it sounds happy, peaceful, and enchanted as well.  The characters created in the animation flow along nicely with the selected music.

Color plays into everything in this animation and has a huge role.  The color woven throughout each specific scene in the animation is well thought out and tributes nicely to the characters and the music that they move along to.  Bright colors tend to be used in scenes where the characters, their movements, and the music are happier and cheerful.  Dark colors tend to be used in scenes where the characters and the music are slower and darker.  Color also separates different scenes from another in this specific animation of “Fantasia” as each different story that is being told usually has its only color theme for the entire story.  For example, the story that is told with all of the butterflies uses so many different bright and cheerful colors to decorate not only the butterflies with but also all of the different sceneries and backgrounds.  The same bright colors are used throughout that specific story.  “Fantasia” has a wide range of colors used throughout the animation, ranging from bright and vibrant colors to very dark and gloomy colors.

This animation uses many different alternative angles and transitions.  The alternative angles used through the animation make it so the animation transitions smoothly and from scene to another without it looking choppy or sloppy.  There are a lot of gradual zooms in the animation as well, and most scenes pan across the screen to different parts of the story or some just cut directly to the next scene.

Classical Animation Storyboard

My classical music animation will go along with the classical composition "Hallelujah" performed by Handel.

Classical Animation Moodboard

Pixar Animation Process

Pixar Animation Studios is the best of the best and have mastered the animation process by doing it in an unusual and creative way that has led the company to success.  Even though Pixar is at a way more advanced level with their animations than I am at right now, there are still several practices that I can apply to myself at a college level.  For example, the constant critiques process is a very important practice that not only Pixar is able to do at the advanced level they are at, but that I can also do with my Professors, fellow classmates, or other peers.  The purpose of critique is to offer comments on the work in progress and how the work could be changed in any ways for the better, which can lead to some major revisions and then to success.  Another example is the practice of creating storyboard sketches for each scene of the animation with the inspiration that I have come up with so far.  The storyboards allow me to begin to imagine the look and feel of each scene like it does for the filmmakers of Pixar.

         Character design is also a practice that is doable for me at a college level.  At Pixar studios they have thought out their characters and the way they are going to look by creating digital illustrations either by drawing them out by hand or some which are sculpted in clay and scanned, and later visual textures such as fur, fabric, or hair will be added to the form, which is a step known as simulation.  At the college level and with the skills and resources that I have, I would most likely only be able to practice character design by drawing out my characters by hand instead of using the other techniques that Pixar has mastered.

The steps of the animation process that seems most difficult are the technical challenges that start to pile up such as working with each character that can be defined by up to 1,000 avars, which are points of possible movement, that the animators need to work with, and the rendering of the film is very tedious as the average frame takes about seven hours to render and a movie has 24 frames per second.

The step of the animation process that seems most important is the presentation of the story reel with pre-recorded lines by the Pixar employees that is projected to an in-house audience.  This seems like it is the most important step because it allows the filmmakers to see what works and what doesn’t depending on not only the character design and layout of the film up on the big screen but the audience’s reaction to it as well.  This process will then allow the filmmakers to change whatever they need to in order to make the film a greater success.

In my opinion, the most interesting step in this entire process would have to be the animation process because of the complex steps they have to take that make the film so realistic and amazing.  Regardless of the incredibly long and tedious hours that have to be put into this process, I think it is the most interesting because of the results that are developed during this process, such as the exact movements that the animators must put into the characters to make them seem so realistic or the work that they put into “Lotso” in Toy Story 3, for example, to make his fur look so textured and realistic.

This entire process is especially reflected in the final Toy Story 3 animation.  The film would not look nearly as realistic and incredible as it does if Pixar had not gone through this long and tedious process.  The lights, shadows, textures, and shades that are just a small portion of what makes up this film are so precise and realistic that it has led this film to become a great success.  Another Pixar animation that I enjoy very much is the animated short “Jack-Jack Attack” from The Incredibles, which Pixar must have gone through a very similar animation process to make as the one that they utilize when producing their other big films, such as Toy Story 3.  For example, in “Jack-Jack Attack” the lights, shadows, textures, and shades that appear on the characters faces or objects within the scenes seem to be equally as realistic as they do in Toy Story 3, and the scene where Jack-Jack lights up into flames and takes the shape of a fire ball baby is my favorite because the flames seem so realistic and the lights and shadows they used to make the reflection of the fire on other objects seems so precise and accurate as to what it would appear as in real life as well.

Modified Animated Poem Moodboard

Animated Poems

One example of an animated poem that I think is effective is the "Dark Knight Kinetic Typography" animation.  "The Dark Knight" animation is a type of kinetic typography, which I think is effective and works because there are so many different uses of typography incorporated into this animation which really go along well with the specific words that are being spelled out.  The animation does a good job when considering it's type choices, colors, effective movements, timing, pacing, transitions, mood, as well as using limited additional graphics, which really add to the story.  Examples of the different uses of typography in this animation where it does a good job using effective movements and timing is when it spells out the line "I'm only burning my half"and has the right half of the words disintegrate to make it looks like the words are burning away.  The timing was well thought out as well as it began to disintegrate as the words were "burning my half" were said.

Another line where this animation used good type choices, and also changed the font size and colors, and also used limited additional graphics was:

The pacing throughout this kinetic typography animation was perfect along with the timing of the words being laid out across the screen.  It was very easy for the viewer to read the words and they did not fly across the screen too fast.  Most of the transitions in this animation were made with cool effects such as the foggy background that would disintegrate and new words would appear on the screen, or in many cases the phrase would altogether move to one side of the screen and the next sentence would then appear again in the middle of the screen where the previous sentence just was.

Another example of an effective animated poem is the "Fight Club - Chemical Burn - Kinetic Typography" animation.  This animation has some aspects that I find make it less effective, such as the sound and words being spoken too quietly and mumbled as well as the timing and pacing of the words moving too fast across the screen.  Overall, the animation did a good job with it's type choices, colors, effective movements, transitions, mood, as well as using limited additional graphics, which added to the story.  An example of part of the animation which included limited additional graphics was for the line "May I see your hand please?" and then the man kissed his hand.  Here is a screen shot from this part in the animation that used additional graphics.

An example of a scene from the animation where it used effective movements and type choices, as well as additional graphics was:

Another example of a scene from the animation that used effective movements and type choices was: 

In this scene the line "Stop it!" suddenly stamped down onto the bottom half of the screen and the letters from the previous line went flying.

I learned a lot from these viewings of different types of kinetic typography animations that I could apply to my own work, such as considering the different type and font choices that are available and which ones would go best with which line and words.  I also learned to take into consideration the different colors and effective movements that could match and really emphasize the word(s) that I am trying to portray to the viewer.  The timing and pacing are also very important to the animation because if the words fly across the screen too fast or are too hard to read then it will be less effective to the viewer.  Finally, transitions are also a very key part to making the animation successful.  The transition needs to be clean and smooth, where it does not effect the ability to read the words or the effective movements in the animation.

Animated Poem Storyboard

Animated Poem Moodboard

Popular Flash Animations

The animation that I enjoyed watching the most was "Dancing Animals in Love."  The story was about all of these creatures dancing, laughing, and happily singing about falling in love.  I enjoyed watching the animation because the story was cute and the song that went along with it was also very catchy.  The characters were very childish and unrealistic looking because they did not look like real characters that would exist in our reality.  They were made up of all different colors, shapes, and sizes.  The style of graphics looked like a cartoon type of graphic that could be seen in scenes from a children's book or movie.  I say this because not only were there childish-looking characters throughout the animation, but there were also a lot of flowers, grassy plains and trees, butterflies, rainbows, bright and happy colors, and all of the animals had a big smile across their faces the entire time.  However, there were a few scenes that were a bit inappropriate for a children's theme, such as when the animals were licking and mating, and especially what surprised me the most was at the very end of the video when suddenly several enormous buildings shoot out of the ground killing all of the animals....  It was definitely unexpected and contradicted the children's book theme that they had going on throughout the entire rest of the video, which made the animation very ironic.  The characters were also very simple animations, though, as there were very few and limited movements.  For example, during the part where all of the animals were clapping, there was a still image of the animal's face while only it's body (the arms) of the animal moved together in a clapping movement to make a simple animation of the animals clapping.  The transitions in this animation would for the most part just immediately flash to another scene in the video, either in the same location or to a scene with a completely different background.  Sometimes the transition would show the previous scene but either zoomed in or zoomed out, and several times it would pan horizontally across showing the rest of the characters and scenes.  All of these factors about this animation, the characters, the story, style of graphics, and transitions, are what made the animation work and flow together, and what made it successful.

Some things that I could carry over to my animation efforts are following similar transition effects that were used in the animation "Dancing Animals in Love," as it gave me many ideas that were clear and very possible for me to do in my animations as well.  Also, the characters in this animation inspired me to try to use some in my future animations that are of similar type of graphics.  These type of characters would be those where they can be very simple and unrealistic looking characters that do not need to have a lot of movement to them in order to get the point of what action they are performing across to the viewer.

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2009/02/19/dancing-animals-in-love/

Character Flash Animations

I found 3 different styles of characters in the different Flash animations, "This Is the Best Burrito I've Ever Eaten," the "Yu-Gi-Oh Theme Song," and the "Powerpuff Girls Theme Song."

"This Is the Best Burrito I've Ever Eaten"
I chose this flash animation because it showed how some characters can be made really simple and not have many motions to it, yet is still able to get the point across that the character is walking, for example, by only moving the legs while the rest of the body and head stays still.

"Yu-Gi-Oh Theme Song"

I chose this flash animation because it shows more detailed character designs and graphics and also because it shows the characters performing more complex movements rather than just the movement of one part of the body at a time, like the simpler animations' characters do.

"Powerpuff Girls Theme Song"

I chose this flash animation because the Powerpuff Girls are a good example of another simple character that can easily be made basically with a circle and a few other shapes.  In this example of a flash animation the backgrounds do a lot of the work to make it seem like the characters are moving.  For example, when the girls are "flying" they are actually not moving at all (except for their bows blowing in the wind) but the background is moving sideways to make it appear as if they were moving.

Hansel & Gretel Animation Blog

This animation is a short "silhouette film" designed and animated by Lotte Reiniger, and is about the classic story of "Hansel and Gretel."  It is a very simple animation as the characters are just the simple silhouettes of the two children and not much detail is put into the shapes.  The entire animation is made is black and white as well, optimizing different shades of black, white, and grey to make different shapes throughout the scenes.  The story starts off with the children leaving their mom at their home to go play in the woods.  It shows several scenes of them traveling through the woods until they end up at the witch's house made of candy where they end up getting lured in and stuck doing manual labor for the witch because she will not let them leave.  Eventually, with the help of animals, Gretel gets rid of the witch and she and Hansel escape with the animals.  The story ends with the children walking back through the same woods as they were in in the beginning of the animation and ending up back at their house with their parents.
This animation also used many different perspectives and angles, such as a far away shot on a character sitting in a field of flowers to zooming in on her making a headband out of the flowers and putting it on her head.  Another example is that it would show the house made of candy zoomed out, then just one side of it, then another scene where just the right side of it would be showing.  There were many different viewpoints and positions that the viewer experienced the story through in this animation.
Every transition in this animation goes from one scene directly to another just by having the screen go black for what seems like only a millisecond and then showing the new scene by having it appear next.  It works well in this animation, though, because it would portray Hansel and Gretel in one scene, for example, the woods, then flash to another scene of them still in woods but in a different location where it looks just a bit different.  Sometimes it would flash from a zoomed out scene to a zoomed in one and back to a zoomed out one, or it would show a different angle of that same scene.  For the scenes where it went from one setting to a completely different one, the screen would go black for a longer period of time but no more than a few seconds.

After looking at these animations, this animation will definitely help me with creating my moodboard and storyboard for my first city animation.  I know I have to create a story and I also am using silhouettes in my animation so I got several ideas from watching this film by seeing how they created and moved their simple silhouettes and how they had them interact with each other.  I also have thought of several more ideas about the different uses of perspective that I am going to incorporate into my animation, such as zoomed out scenes, zoomed in scenes, panning across or up different scenes or objects, and using different angles.  Finally, watching the transitions in this animation really helped me think of ideas of how to do transitions in my animation, such as using the simple screen flashing black then having the new scene instantly appear.  I also want to make the screen go black for a little longer than a quick millisecond when the scene is changing to a completely different setting.  Also, I am going to use the technique I saw in this animation of changing from one scene in a certain setting to another scene in the same setting but I am going to try to make it obvious the scenes are still in the same setting but use different angles or perspectives of zooming in or out of that setting.

Revised City Animation Moodboard

Modified City Storyboard

First Draft City Storyboard

Washington D.C. Moodboard

Here is my moodboard for the city animation:

Storyboard of "Superman (1941)"

Animation History

After watching several videos about animation history, the one that I enjoyed the most was the classic story of "Superman." In the Superman video what stands out to me the most is that the movement is very slow and most of the scenes seems like it is almost a still picture with very slight movements in one character at a time.  The animation does exceptionally well regarding the storyline.  There is a narrator for most of the video which explains Clark Kent's background of how he turned into Superman, what Superman does, and what is going on throughout the video.  The technique of using a narrator during this video makes the story really easy to follow along.  There are also several different scenes in this video where they used different angles.  For example in the beginning of the video when the narrator is talking about Superman's background and the planet he came from they show outer space, the planet, and then Earth and a view of the city.  They also use different angles of the city such as a view from the ground looking up at a big tall building.

Here is the video "Superman:"