Making a gif

Stop frame animation at its core, is a series of still images played sequentially at a rate fast enough to give the subject the appearance of movement. The majority of the animated work I have done for this unit was created using photography. By placing my taken images in order, on the Gif maker site   http://gifmaker.me/ I was able to quickly turn my collection of pictures into fully animated short videos, lasting only seconds. By placing the images in order then backwards, like the images below, I was able to make the animations loop indefinitely.

The speed of an animation is measured by its frames per second (fps), the more frames it takes for an animated subject to make an action, the smoother the movement will appear. The gif maker site conveniently has a slider to adjust how fast an animation moves, which I have used on the majority of my work to make it appear as smooth as possible.

Lopping an animation example

Lip syncing

In many animations there are moments when characters must  speak. To make it seem as if the sound is coming from a character animators use lip-syncing techniques. The illustration below is a basic guide as to the shape a persons mouth makes to pronounce certain sounds.

Using my wire puppet I attempted to make an example of lip syncing at work, though no sound can be heard through a gif it is easy to imagine what the character is saying just by the movement of the mouth. I also chose to stick my character in place to prove the wire joints can move fluidly as the previous attempt wasn’t very successful. After taking photos of the puppet moving I drew over each individual frame digitally making it seem as if the characters mouth is moving. 

12 principles of animation

In animation there are apparently 12 main principles or rules to making an appealing and effective animation. These rules were apparently developed in Disney studios and must be well acknowledged as there are many sources online which explain them in detail. Here is one example http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html

The twelve rule are

-Squash and stretch

-Anticipation

-Staging

-Straight ahead and pose to pose animation

-Follow through and overlapping action

-Slow-out and slow-in

-Arcs

-Secondary action

-Timing

-Exaggeration

-Solid drawing

-Appeal

Final piece plan

For my final piece I decided to create a white board animation. The animation would transition between four characters in unusual and surreal ways. This would test my ability to design characters, make a smooth animation incorporating the twelve rules and set up a shot. Other than the original whiteboard animations I saw, a lot of my inspiration has come from animations with a similar premise of transitioning between characters and or objects particularly these three.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKSLu2n7jL4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryOR-lU6x7E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwSDkGpOdX4

Before I could begin shooting the final piece I needed to do a test trial and see what could be changed or needed improving. I set up the shot similarly to how I did my first whiteboard animation, propping the camera on a tripod and using coloured markers. This time however I had a clear goal, to test out methods I could potentially use to transition between my characters. The board was also facing the light this time making the animation slightly clearer.

Evaluating the effectiveness

What worked

-The actual movement of the animation I was particularly happy with, the skin being stretched off the face for example, showed strain but also anticipation. As it finally comes off the face it moves faster which is effective because it gives weight to the moment as well as follow through.

-The worm like fragments the second face develops into is also quite appealing because of the smooth motion and how fast the face warps. This type of motion is definitely something I would incorporate into my final piece.
-In my original white board animation one problem which arose was smudging. In  this test  I used paper towels between shots, which seem to have completely removed any sign of smudging.

What didn’t work

-The whiteboard was quite reflective so it is easy to notice the movements of me animating in the background.

-The actual process is quite tedious, because unlike a model which can be slightly shifted in each frame, almost the entire whiteboard image has to be rubbed out and redrawn. If I accidently rub out a part I didn’t mean to or cant remember where a certain detail goes, the animation could awkwardly shift or change. This means there is very little room for error.
-Despite the effectiveness of the paper towels, they are very awkward to use when trying to rub out specific details.
-Maintaining consistency with line thickness is another difficulty which again comes from having to erase the previous image.
-The camera jumps about. This isn't very noticeable and doesn’t majorly impact the content of the animation but it would be preferable if it didn’t move. Unfortunately I do not have a remote for my camera, meaning I would have to buy one if I want a still shot.

Though I liked the animating techniques of my test piece, the setup and assets could be more convenient. I chose to do a whiteboard style final piece because of the freedom of 2D animation, however now I have found it could prove more difficult to produce than originally intended. To remove these concerns I have opted to create my stop frame animation digitally. I would use the very same aesthetical style of a whiteboard animation, keeping the white background and using mostly bold black lines to contrast with it. This removes the need to continually draw and redraw frames and the animation can be saved so nothing is lost. Assets would only include my computer, Photoshop and the tablet on which I can draw the frames. There is also a function on photoshop known as onion skins which shows a translucent version of a previous frame as a guide, this is what I will be using to help me make as smooth an animation as possible. I have already produced some digital animation when making the lip sync on my puppet, so I am confident that this style will prove effective.

Now that I am happy with my new format and assets I can focus on how the sequence will play out and the characters featured. I had the idea to do caricaturised versions of me and my siblings as they would be easy for me to draw. The characters in this style of animation aren't as important as the other styles I have seen because the focus will be more so on how they transition rather than look. However the characters do need appear unique from one another otherwise it will just look like the same person over and over.

Final animation basic character design

I want my animation to continually loop like my earlier work, bot not by reversing the frames. The animation will flow as one sequence continually changing between the characters. Each transition will be different and display a new type of movement. Each transition between the characters should take about the same length of time and there will be enough frames held on the characters to have a decent look at them.

Final story board

1.Starts as a ball

2.The ball stretches downward

3.The ball is now separated into two pieces

4.The upper piece forms a brain while the other forms the characters skin

5.The two pieces meet and the first character is formed

6.The character begins to turn her head

7.The character has completely turned and we can now see her whole body

8.The black of her hair begins to engulf the shot

9.From the blackness a skull appears where  the character would have been

10.The blackness begins to melt away

11.The blackness has now melted away revealing the next character

12.The characters eyes and mouth begin to burn

13.The fire completely engulf the character

14.Two embers leap from the fire

15.The embers begin to spin around one another very quickly

16.The embers begin to form into running people and they have slowed down

17.The first character runs past the screen

18.After which the next character does the same

19.They turn and begin to run at each other

20.The characters collide and burst into balls where the process will begin again

Final animation in progress

FINAL ANIMATION

Final piece review

What worked

-The animation showed a good variety of techniques which display some of the 12 principles of animation. The first transition sequence shows squash & stretch and anticipation with the brain and skin. The same can be said for how the flame turns into two balls in an elastic manner.

-The black drawing on white background looks clean and keeps aesthetically close to the videos I reviewed, this is because I borrowed a lot of aspects from these such as how the faces transitioned in the ‘love and theft’ video.

-The small addition of colour breaks up the monotony of the black and white. I felt this was necessary as even the white board animations featured the animators hands just to bring in another element.

-Every frame is hand drawn and different, this is a positive because it shows a digital setup definitely works in creating stop motion animation and the process reflects how it would have been made using a white board.

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What didn’t work

-The animation feels empty because there is a lot of negative space. I could have taken advantage of more of the space provided by adding extra details just to make the screen a little more interesting.

-I unfortunately had to show two characters at once because I was limited for time and likely would not have finished the animation fully otherwise. Now that I know I like this style in comparison to a white board I will be able to recreate this more proficiently in the future.

-The time left on the faces is slightly too short. I originally wanted to hold on the faces of my characters a little longer because I wanted the viewer to be able to comprehend everything that happened in one loop. However this may be beneficial because it will engage viewers and force them to look for what they missed before hand, very much like the ‘love and theft’ video I took inspiration from. (I did slow down the frame rate for the final animation to show the process clearly)

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Overall despite all the flaws, I am very happy with how the animation turned out. I was able to capture the surreal aesthetic I like in 2D animations and doing it digitally meant I could be more expressive because none of my work was likely to get lost or be ruined.