Lo1

Practicing software

YouTube tutorial I'm using

I am creating a 30 second animation using 'clip studio' called 'Raccoon Bites'

here is a 3 second animation I have created

Animation styles and techniques

Line drawing: Line drawing animation is a type of animation that uses lines  that differ in weight and angle to create different. This can be done traditionally using hardware such as Paper, Pencils, Light Table/Light Box, Peg Bar, Cels/Transparent Sheets, Rostrum Camera and a Scanner or Digital Camera. Or it can be done digitally by using using hardware such as a Computer, Graphics Tablet, Stylus Pen, Monitor and External Storage. The software use for Professional and Industry-Standard with this method are Toon Boom Harmony, TVPaint Animation, Adobe Animate and Clip Studio Paint. The genre this technique is commonly used in include Anime/Manga-inspired Styles from action and sci-fi to romance and slice-of-life such as the anime 'Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!' and the manga Berserk by Kentaro Miura. It is also used for Indie/Experimental Animation as its expressive potential and lower production barrier help to create unique low cost animations such as "Colour Box" (1935) by Len Lye. 

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as 'Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!' as it targets viewer that are interested in the manga style of bold lines and simplistic clean shapes. It also creates visual interest due to its fluid movement. 

 

Cell animation: animators draw the 'moving subjects' by hand onto translucent paper and place them onto a static background, this technique made the process a more officiant form of animation than in the past. This is done with hardware such as a Scanner, Computer and Rostrum Camera. And software such as Toon Boom Harmony and TVPaint Animation. Cell animation is commonly used in Children's Entertainment such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and Comedy / Cartoons such as "Looney Tunes" as well as anime such as "Dragon Ball Z" and "Sailor Moon".

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Sailor Moon as it lets the artist focus on making visually appealing culturally realistic background that depict places like Tokyo, Japan. It helps target a younger stereotypically female audience that may be interested in the characters costume and movements, as they are simplistic but colorful and artistically interesting due to the unique style of the characters.

Hand-drawn animation: is an animation technique where each frame of the film is drawn by hand. For this technique hardware in used such as an Animation Desk (Lightbox/Light Table), Peg Bar, Animation Paper, Pencils, Erasers, and Drawing Supplies, Cell Vinyl Paint, Inking Tools, Animation Camera, Flatbed Scanner. The software used to enhance traditional hand drawn animation includes Toon Boom Harmony, TVPaint Animation, Adobe Animate and Clip Studio Paint EX. The most common genres that use this method include Children's Entertainment such as Bambi (1942), Comedy / Cartoons like Tom and Jerry, and Fantasy / Adventure genre that need immersive world building such as Studio Ghibli films.

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as  Tom and Jerry as it simplistic characters are easily recognisable and the depiction of its fluid slapsticks comedy entertains the viewer, this helps to entertain young viewers as its easy to watch and recognize. This technique is often use to create immersive detailed backgrounds in products like the jungle book intrigue the viewer due to appealing aesthetics.

 

Rotoscoping: drawing over live action footage frame by frame, this technique was created by projecting live action footage to a translucent easel and drawing a siloet of the subject, this allowed animators to mimic realistic movement. This technique uses traditional hardware such as a Rotoscope Machine, Film Projector, Animation Paper, Light Table, Pencils, Inks, Paints, Rostrum Camera. And  modern hardware such as a Processor (CPU), RAM (Memory), Graphics Card (GPU), Drawing Tablet, High-Resolution Monitor and Reference Footage Capture Hardware. This technique is featured prominently in Fantasy and Sci-Fi such as the lightsaber glow in the original Star Wars, Fantasy films like "The Lord of the Rings" (1978).

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Star wars as it adds visual interest and a fantasy sci-fi element to the film, this engages and entertains the audience. 

Live action animation: Live-action animation is a film genre that combines live-action filmmaking with animation. This technique uses hardware such as camera and Lighting Equipment, Motion Capture, Green Screens, drawing tablets. And software such as Adobe After Effects, Nuke, Fusion, Autodesk Maya and Blender. This technique is typical in genres such as Family / Children's Entertainment products like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam.

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit as it includes ideal selves for younger audiences and ideal partners for older audiences, this allows them to target family dynamics. Due to the stereotype preference adult audiences have to live action films and the stereotype preference children have to animated film, combining them also help to engage both audiences in a visually appealing interesting way.

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Stop motion: animating objects by taking pictures of them in slightly altered positions, this includes puppet work and Claymation. This technique uses hardware such as cameras, Tripods, Lighting, Armatures, Tie-Downs and Rigs, Computers and Software such as Dragonframe and Stop Motion Studio. Genres like Children's Entertainment / Family Films such as fantastic Mr. fox and Coraline use this technique.

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as fantastic Mr. fox. It appeals to a target audience of children and adults as it is visually interesting and includes lots of detail and artistic expression that gains the attention and fulfills the purpose of entertaining viewers visually. It appeals to both men and women as both genders are casted in this film, these character engage viewers as they are represented as ideal selves due to their funny smart and quirky personalities.

2-D/3-D animation (e.g. computer-generated images): created digitally and has a sense of depth that isn't achieved by traditional animation. This technique uses hardware such as a Powerful Computer, Storage, High-Resolution Monitor, Graphics Tablet, Graphics Card. And software such as Toon Boom Harmony, TVPaint Animation, Adobe Animate and Clip Studio Paint EX. This technique features in genres such as Comedy / Cartoons like Family Guy, Children's Entertainment movies such as Shrek and Big hero 6.

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Big hero 6 as the use of 3D animation is more immersive and allows the viewer to get drawn into what they are watching, this helps  Big hero 6 as it include futuristic technology and super hero's. 3D animation helps to represent culture as it can accurately depict settings such as Iconic San Francisco landmarks with Japanese architectural elements to blend and create a hybrid city of San Francisco and Tokyo. and facial features that the audience may relate to having. The style of 3D animation helps to target their target audience of children as it looks round smooth and non threatening.

Character animation: Character animation is the process of creating a series of images or drawings that give animated characters the appearance of life. This technique uses hardware such as a Powerful Computer, Drawing Tablet, High-Resolution Monitor, 3D Mouse, Motion Capture, Light Box and Scanner. And software such as Autodesk Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, Adobe Animate and Toon Boom Harmony. This technique is featured in the Action / Superhero genre with series such as Justice League and Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

This technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Avatar: The Last Airbender as it allows high action scenes that keep the attention of their young audience, its high quality smooth movement helps them to reach a larger audience as higher quality products get more recognition and attention. This technique allows for better representation of characters via their body language and facial expressions this has helped to accurately represent cultures in the animation in scenes that depict fluid and circular Chinese martial art.  

Studio 1 Ghibli

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation company, they produce primarily hand-drawn animation this gives their films an organic extremely detailed look. This makes their backgrounds feel tactile and they are able to depict subtle character movement and expressions. Their films are often rendered in soft watercolors and acrylics with a vivid colour scheme, they use warm and cool colours to connote comfort and tension. Ghibli often uses wide shots to establish landscapes and close-ups for emotional impact. They frequently use the genres Fantasy, Adventure, Coming-of-Age Story's,  Drama, Environmentalism, Historical and Slice of Life. Ghibli uses the animation software OpenToonz to incorporate into their hand-drawn animation to alter and enhance some colour and line art. As their animation is hand drawn they use hardware such as Lightbox, Peg Bar, Animation Paper, Pencils, Erasers, and Drawing Supplies, Cell Vinyl Paint, Inking Tools, Animation Camera, Flatbed Scanner. 

Example product - Ponyo 

In this movie Ponyo is a little gold fish like creature, she gets board living in the ocean with her siblings and sorcerer father so she travels to the surface, on the surface a little boy called Sosuke finds and saves her, taking her home he keeps her in a bucket filled with water, Ponyo decides she want to be a human so she starts to grow rudimentary limbs, when she reaches her human form this causes a magical imbalance due to her mother being the sea goddess Granmamare, this causes the town Sosuke lives in to flood, Ponyo uses her magic to enlarge a toy boat and go on an adventure with Sosuke to resolve what happened to the town. This film appeals to their target audience of young children due to its bubbly vibrant art style and highly detailed attention holding animation,  and its representation of child characters, this film focuses on a simple plot and centers everything that happens in the plot around emotion, this makes it easier for young viewers to understand and relate to. The character Lisa, Soske's mother, is represented as an ideal self and roll model for the children watching this movie due to her selfless actions and dedication to saving her son and helping the elderly care home community she works for. Audience entertainment is created through the characters Ponyo's immature and funny actions, that clearly depict her as a small child. The target audience of parents may find Ponyo's actions funny as they can relate her character to their own children, this helps the viewer engage in the product due to relatability. This movie targets Japanese culture by representing Japanese comfort food, folklore and Community. 

Example product - Howls moving castell
In this movie Sofie a hat maker gets cursed by a jealous 'Witch of the Waste' and gets turned into a 90 year old woman. To find a cure she embarks on a journey, while wandering through the countryside she finds the character 'turnip head' who guides her to a magical moving castell, she enters this castell and finds the owner howl, she makes a deal with Calcifer a powerful fire demon and Howl to break her curse, because of this deal she starts to work for Howl and they eventually go on adventure together to stop a war that is happening between to kingdoms, by trying to save people these characters are represented as ideal selves. This movie targets it audience of family's with older children and teenagers due to its relatable themes of Self-acceptance, Rebellion, First love and complex relationships and more complex themes of the concepts of war, curses and aging. 

Studio 2 Laika Animation Studios

To animate in stop animation objects are taken pictures of  in slightly altered positions, this includes puppet work and Claymation. This technique uses hardware such as cameras, Tripods, Lighting, Armatures, Tie-Downs and Rigs, Computers and Software such as Dragonframe and Stop Motion Studio. This technique is often featured in genres such as Dark Fantasy, Adventure, Coming-of-Age Story's and Comedy's.

Example product - Fantastic Mr. Fox
This movie uses the stop animation technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as fantastic Mr. fox. It appeals to a target audience of children and adults as it is visually interesting and includes lots of detail and artistic expression that gains the attention and fulfills the purpose of entertaining viewers visually. It appeals to both men and women as both genders are casted in this film, these character engage viewers as they are represented as ideal selves due to their funny smart and quirky personalities. The plot of this movie consists of a family of fox's struggling with themes of family drama, action and adventure, the family battle's the farmers that are trying to harm their home and hunt them, this story is depicted through the witty commentary and funny actions of the characters creating audience entertainment, the main characters include Mr. Fox and Mrs. Fox the mother and father, their child Ash and his cousin Kristofferson. By having a family dynamic in this movie it makes it relatable and engaging for their target audience of family's with young children.

Example product - Paranorman 

In this movie Norman an 11 year old boy living in an ordinary town, he is outcast by his family and local community as they believe he is faking the ability to talk to ghosts. his only friend is fellow outcast Neil an overweight kind boy. One day Norman's astringed uncle comes to talk to him revealing the dark secret of a 300-year-old witch's curse, due to this curse zombies raise from their graves and the town forms a mob, Norman, his sister, Norman's bully, Neil's brother and Neil team up to solve the mystery of the curse and stop it from harming them. This film entertains its viewers by the witty humour of the characters and targets viewers that feel outcast and different from their peers this helps the viewer feel connected and relate their personal identity to the main character Norman, the target audience of this movie are family's with young children. Slapstick humour and interesting visuals are used to keep the interest and entertain both children and adults. 

Studio 3 Disney

As pioneers in the animation industry Disney have used many evolving animation techniques starting with traditional 2D (Hand-Drawn) Animation, including techniques such as Rotoscoping and Cell animation,  then using CGI techniques such as digital 3D Modeling and Rigging. Disney animated movies often focus on genre's such as Fairy Tale/Fantasy, Musical's, Adventure, Coming-of-Age and Family Drama. They use software such as Autodesk Maya, Proprietary/In-House Software, Houdini, Adobe Creative Suite and Pixar's RenderMan. They use hardware such as High-Performance Workstations for Artists, Massive Render Farms, High-Capacity Network Infrastructure, Specialized Input Devices and Studio-Specific and Custom Hardware.

example product - Big hero 6 
This movie is about Hiro Hamada, he is a 14-year-old robotics prodigy, he creates a multitude of tiny robots called Microbots to showcase at an exhibition at the university Hiro's brother attends. After trudgedy strikes at a university exhibition hall Hiro's brother Tadashi die while trying to save someone from the building, Tadashi is represented as an ideal self due to his selfless actions. During Hiro's morning he accidently activates his brothers robot Baymax, Hero and Baymax along with Tadashi's university friends go on an adventure to track and fight the villain who stole Hiro's technology that he featured in the exhibit and was thought to be destroyed in the fire. The movie Big hero 6 uses 3-D animation, this technique appeals to the age, gender, culture and purpose of the animation in products such as Big hero 6 as the use of 3D animation is more immersive and allows the viewer to get drawn into what they are watching, this helps  Big hero 6 as it include futuristic technology and super hero's. 3D animation helps to represent culture as it can accurately depict settings such as Iconic San Francisco landmarks with Japanese architectural elements to blend and create a hybrid city of San Francisco and Tokyo. and facial features that the audience may relate to having. The style of 3D animation helps to target their target audience of children as it looks round smooth and non threatening.

example product - Atlantis: The Lost Empire
This movie starts by showing the highly advanced city of Atlantis being magically submerged deep beneath the ocean, later on Milo Thatch a smart but awkward cartographer, he is depicted as being obsessed with finding the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Milo is approached by Preston B. Whitmore, an eccentric millionaire, he offers a job for Milo to join  a high-tech large expedition to find Atlantis. On this journey the viewer is introduced to many quirky characters they face high levels of danger together but a core group survive and succeed in finding Atlantis. They are met by Princess Kidagakash, the princess and Milo work together to save the city from a volcanic eruption and evil members of the expedition that want to steal Atlantis's resources, their heroics depict them as ideal selves for a young target audience. This movie is made with both traditional hand-drawn animation and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Each frame of the film is drawn by hand. For this technique hardware in used such as an Animation Desk (Lightbox/Light Table), Peg Bar, Animation Paper, Pencils, Erasers, and Drawing Supplies, Cell Vinyl Paint, Inking Tools, Animation Camera, Flatbed Scanner. They integrated CGI by rendering grand set pieces, complex machinery, and dynamic environments, they used the software  'Alias|Wavefront's Maya' for this. 

The animation in the Tv program 'Gumball' is appropriate for its target audience of 6 - 12 year old's because it is visually interesting and very creative due to its inclusion of live action animation and puppet work in there animation

The children’s animations 'monster high' Gen 3, is appropriate for its target audience of 7 - 14 year olds. This 3D animation is suitable for its viewers becuse they use viberent engaging colours and a clean easy to watch animation style.

The stop motion film 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' is appropriate for its target audience of 8- 12 year olds, this chosen animation style allows it to be family friendly as it is visually interesting for both an adult and the child.

The cel animation '7Eleven' advert is appropriate for its target audience of 18 - 34 year olds because its fast movement captures the viewer attention  https://youtu.be/fL50lNMIV5s

The comedy stop motion animation 'The Lego Batman Movie' is appropriate for its target audience of 5 - 17 year olds 

The stop motion horror 'Paranorman' is appropriate for its target audience of 7 - 12 years old

The super hero 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' is appropriate for its target audience of 16 - 28

D1: Compare the different styles of animations across global cultures 

Ghibli Studios vs Dream Works 

Howls moving castle 2D animation vs How to train your dragon 3D animation

Ghibli Studios and Dream Works target different cultures as Ghibli is a Japanese studio and DreamWorks is an American studio. 

Ghibli targets their Japanese audience by making references and using Japanese culture in their films, In Howls moving castle they portrayed Anti-War Themes and Pacifism, this is both because Miyazaki, the director, is a staunch pacifist, and these themes are present in Japanese culture. They also explored themes of apocalypses and impending doom which is in popular in Japanese media such as manga and anime. Ghibli is able to target audiences from other cultures such as western culture by dubbing their product in different languages for example the Japanese original voice actor for the character Sophie is Japanese voice actress Chieko Baisho in the the English dub they have used the English voice actor Emily Mortimer for this character. Dubbing their products allows they to reach a wider audience as the break down language barriers and increase accessibility and immersion in the product as instead of reading subtitles the viewer is able to focus entirely on the visuals of the animation and the storytelling. As the storyline of Howls moving castell is based of the British novel by Diana Wynne Jones and features a European-inspired setting, Hayao Miyazaki, as a Japanese director deliberately blends Western and Eastern influences, this has helped their film to reach such a large audience and fanbase. The 2D animation used in this film is popular in japan as manga is hugely popular medium in Japan, 2D anime often directly reflect the art in manga this helps to create a seamless transition for fans.

DreamWorks target their American audience by using themes such as Coming-of-Age and Self-Discovery, Friendship and Loyalty, Family Dynamics and Generational Conflict, witty dialog and slapstick humor, relatable and stereotypical character types such as the character Hiccup being featured as the nerd in the story as he isn't a stereotypical Viking which is prominent in American media. Due to these themes as the are feelgood and relatable themes they resonate with audiences across culture and languages. They also used common American marketing of family-friendly branding, Merchandising and Spin-offs such as the Netflix series Dragons: Race to the Edge. The film how to train your dragon reached a global audience as its High-Quality Animation and Storytelling appeals to diverse age groups and cultural backgrounds. This film used dubbing in numerus languages and subtitles in many more, This made them accessible in many major film market around the world. The 3D animation used in this film is popular in America as it allows to depict realistic environments, characters, and objects that make the media feel more tangible and allowing the viewer to feel immersed in the product, This is useful for the fantasy genre of how to train your dragon as they are depicting a world where something mythological is real. Animation for TV is around 16FPs compared to an animated feature film which would be 24-30FPS this is because for films audience expectations are higher for product quality, its effective balance of perceived motion and production efficiency, for films like How to train your dragon their is a higher budget for cost and labor meaning they can afford to animate at 24-39FPS.