1. In your opinion, what is animation?
- The illusion of life
- Rapidly moving images
- Study of movement
- Capturing the essence of a character/movement better than a still image can
- Expressing yourself
2. What is it used for?
- Entertainment
- Story-telling
- Advertising
- Education
- Expression of ideas
3. Who are your top five animators?
- Felix Colgrave
- Tim Burton
- Josiah Brooks
- Aaron Blaise
- Genndy Tartakovsky
Task 1
A film by Michele Yi and Yaron Farkash
Produced at Ringling College of Art and Design Department of Computer Animation
Duration: 02:06
Software used: Maya, Renderman, Nuke, Photoshop and Premier
Why I chose it:
- It had many references of paintings that I was familiar with
- The comedy was simple and immature
- The 'punchline' to the joke at the end made the animation memorable
- The concept of the paintings being alive and animated was intruiging
- There were a lot of phallic paintings, sculptures and other subtle jokes which one only notices after watching it multiple times
Historical - Chuck Jones
- Wikipedia page
- His cleverly designed website (with a quote from it below)
- The making of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Roadrunner, and more - Extremely relatable! My backstory is so similar to his
- The Evolution of Chuck Jones - The recipe for interesting jokes and characters
- Looney Tunes Wiki - Chuck Jones and all the wacky characters he designed
Contemporary - Brad Bird
- Wikipedia page
- Insight: Brad Bird on Animation (got goosebumps watching this)
- Voice Performance Isn't an Actor's Paid Vacation
- Playful Cinema
- 'The Spirit' 1980 pencil test animation - very grimy, rough and traditional. But the animation itself is still very clean and efficient!
International - Genndy Tartakovsky
- Wikipedia page
- Genndy's Scrapbook - lots of relatable stuff here in terms of moving to a different country and experience different cultures and how that affects animation and art in general
- Reading Action - analysis of how he uses timing
- Opening scene of Samurai Jack narrated by Genndy - almost like a script for all things animated
- Popeye - an animated feature that was never released due to disagreement with the studio...
Something I noticed at the end, after collecting all this information, is that all the animators I've chosen have one technique/trait in common - their action:anticipation ratio. They value both very much, and are masters in using the right amount.
