Animation and cartoons: This guide will help break down the types and technicalities of animation. Learn to appreciate cartoons in a new way.
One of the great benefits of the Internet is that it has brought about a resurgence in the interest and practice of animation. Cartoons of all types and styles can be found online, many of them taking their cues from the cartoons of the 1930's and 40's. This bonanza of animation has no doubt brought about a number of new fans, fans who may not be overly familiar with some of the basics of animation. This guide will help provide some key terms that will allow both the novice and experienced cartoon watcher to gather greater joy out of their viewing experiences. Keep in mind that many of the definitions listed here originated during the early days of animation but are, to some extent, used still today.
The obvious way to begin is to look at what Animation is:
Animation - The display of images which are slightly different in their placement, shape, size, lighting and so on which, when shown consecutively, give the illusion of motion.
This leads then to the question: What makes up Animation?
Lead (Key) Animator - This animator is responsible for creating and animating one particular character in the film.
Character Models - The first thing a Key Animator does is to create a model sheet of their character. This contains the character in a variety of facial expressions and poses which will be the model for every time they are drawn.
Maquette - A statue that is based off of the model sheet. This allows everyone to see the character in three dimensions.
Rough Animation Drawings - Original first sketches of a character in action. In computer animation this is done with wire-frames. There are three types of "˜Roughs:
1. Key Drawings - These are done by the Lead Animator alone. A general rule is that one key drawing is done for every 5 frames of film.
2. Inbetweens - These are completed by an Animation Assistant and compromise the drawings done between the key drawings.
3. Breakdowns - The drawing that is at the center mark from one key drawing to the next. (If the scene was a car driving right to left across the screen. The key drawings are the car entering and exiting the scene and the breakdown is the car at the center spot of the screen.)
Clean ups - "˜Tracings' made of the rough drawings on which color and shading specifications are marked.
Background Drawing - The area over which the action takes places. There are usually far fewer backgrounds in a film compared to cels.
Cel - This is a clear piece of plastic (generally 12 ½ by 16 ½) onto which an image is drawn. This image is one that is made from the clean up. The picture's outline is drawn on the front of the cel and then it is colored along the back.
Sequence - All of cel's are then put together to form a sequence (or scene).
Timing Out - This is an animation key. It involves setting all of the on screen action to the proper beats (including music, sound effects, dialogue etc.)
Rendering - This is the final step when animating by computer. During rendering, the computer takes each pixel that appears on screen and processes all of the components as well as adding some motion blur before it spits out a final image.
Motion Blur - Done through the computer, it helps bring the frames together, eliminating the jumpiness that can come from computer imaging.
Depth of Field - This is particularly important in computer animated efforts, it deals with the range of depths over which objects in a frame are in focus. This is easy to accomplish in live action photography but when dealing in animation it becomes somewhat tricky. The objects that are opposite of what you want the viewer to focus on will be rendered blurry so that the eye is forced to focus on the next focal place.
Animation: By the Numbers. A motion picture is projected at 24 frames per second (fps). In a two hour movie this would be 173,000 frames that are projected, this would also be the number of cels (at least) that would need to be created.
Alternative Animation Types:
Rotoscoping - This is an interesting process used to amazing effects in the Max Fleisher Superman cartoons of the 1930's. A live action film is taken and frame by frame traced over. These tracings are then copied onto cels. This gives the animated film tremendous reality.
Stop-Motion - A precise animation technique in which a model is moved by hand one small bit at a time. Each movement is photographed so that when it is played back the model appears to be in continuous motion. Examples of this are James and the Giant Peach and Mad Monster Party.
Claymation - A form of stop motion where the objects to be animated are made of clay. Wallace and Gromit and the California Raisins are examples of this art.
Puppetoons - Developed by George Pal, these cartoons were made by manipulating wooden models. Instead of moving the model for every movement, the piece in movement (or the actual model) would be removed and replaced. Although Pal would use an average of 9,000 models for each 8-minute film, this technique gave him a commanding sense of realism.
Flash - The most common animation program for the Internet. Many "˜animations' found on WebPages are done with Flash.
Shockwave - A computer animation program. This has become popular with many of the Internet sites that provide cartoons.
Anime - Popular in Japan, this animation style is known for its "˜dark' feel and real world look.
