I am Dat, your companion into the vast, wonderfully fantastic world of animation. A media form that combines old with new, animation has the unique capability of imbuing art with the spark of life. I've tried multiple times over the course of five years to animate, but every time, it had culminated in me losing motivation and telling myself that I should try again later. Evidently, this never worked out for me, considering my inadequacy at animating.
But now, given the opportunity through this project, I'll finally have a source of motivation to continue improving on my (nonexistent) abilities, and learn the technical aspects behind animated films. Though I will be focusing much of my time and effort of the application of the principles of animation, I will not exclude the study of the planning and design that goes into the framing of a film. Animation is a multi-step process that does not start or end with the drawing of a frame, and I hope to learn more about what it truly means to animate a video.
As I still have a few files filled with my past animations, I'll leave a few of the more coherent "films" to establish my animation ability (or lack thereof).
Animations
Peasant Rising
No Title
The 12 Principles of Animation
- Squash and Stretch
- Anticipation
- Staging
- Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
- Follow Through and Overlapping Action
- Slow In and Slow Out
- Arc
- Secondary Action
- Timing
- Exaggeration
- Solid Drawing
- Appeal
Animator Alan Becker gives a very quick and easy-to-understand overview of these concepts in the following video:
Measurable Goals
The 12 principles of animation, created by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, go over the fundamental principles of making more expressive and dynamic animation. Every one of these principles can be applied to any type of animation, making them relevant no matter what is going on. At the end of the project, I should be able to know when, and how, to use these techniques when animating. To show my progress in understanding these, I will be posting animation excerpts displaying these principles in action.
To stay at a consistent schedule, my goal is to be able to understand and apply two principles a week.
Research Sources
Generally, I will be using online videos and physical books to further my study of animation. I will be looking to animators such as Alan Becker and Hyun for tips, but my main source of information will be from The Illusion of Life by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, and the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams.
Animation in of itself is hard to describe. Just like art, you can learn to get better at it, but at a certain point the only way you will improve is to continue practicing. Though my sources will prop me up for success, I am the one who ultimately has to struggle to improve. This prospect is somewhat daunting, but invigorating at the same time, as now I will have to work against time for the sake of my Genius Project.
Animation and Me
Animation and I go back a long way, to the time where elementary school was still an annoyance and I actually had free time. I would spend hours watching animations from websites, mostly stick-men animation, and be amazed at how they would do it. I couldn't grasp what digital animation was, so I assumed that they drew it all on paper and colored it in, which lead me to believe that animation was the most difficult type of art in the world.
Though I came to that conclusion the wrong way, it can be argued that animation is one of the most difficult art forms. I cannot deny that trying to become more competent within six weeks is likely not going to manifest with noticeable results, but if I learn enough about the principles of animation, I can make the expressiveness of my films better, rather than try to improve the quality of the animation itself.
