Category: 2_Invention, Plasticity and Visual Music

  • Synaesthesia

    “Synaesthesia: From Greek syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Meaning “joined perception.” Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is
    simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses (such as sight). Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. It can affect all of the senses.
    Four percent of the population, when seeing number five, also see color red. Or hear a C-sharp when seeing blue. Or even associate orange with Tuesdays. This neurologically-based condition is called synesthesia in which people involuntarily link one sensory perception
    to another. “ Darya L. Zabelina Ph.D, Psychology Today (n.d)

    But the associations are fixed for any one person. And are automatic. Helps memory. But can it limit imagination and creativity through limiting flexibility of possible associations.

    Synaesthetic associations vary between people. This variability offers interesting possibilities for widening human experience.

  • Seasonal music

    Spring

    Summer

    Autumn

    Winter

  • Research 2.4 Bouncing Balls

    Types of Ball

    Physics of Ball Motion

    Animations

    Bouncing Balls Adobe Animate Motion Tween

    Jazza Adobe Animate motion tweened bouncing ball and curve path.
    Aaron Blaise TPPaint Frame by Frame. Exaggerated squash and stretch. Keeps straight line from impact. Redraws up bounce instead of duolicating and reversing to stop things being mechanical.

    Tv paint
    Frame by Frame

    TV Paint Frame by Frame Simple UpdDown Bounce
    TVPaint FbF Horizontal Bounce
    TV Paint FbF Complex perspective bounce

  • Principles 3

    figure drawing
    Animation principles
    animation process

    Animation is a process and the malleability of time is its primary material.

    ‘Time is what prevents everything from being present all at once’ Henri Bergson. The animator seeks to control at what pace, rhythm and direction things appear.

    “What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame” Norman McLaren, Computer Animation
    It is not the image, drawing or shape of each frame that matters in animation, rather it is the difference between the frames that generates the illusion of movement in animation.

    It is the animator’s ability to control and play with these intervals between frames that matters. It is important to think in terms of intervals, rates of change and flux, rather than thinking in terms of still images or compositions.

    Key Resources
    • You Tube
    • OCA Moving Image 1: Animation
    • Howard Wimshurst YouTube channel and tutored courses on Animator Guild
    • Proko – A channel which specializes in teaching observational figure drawing.
    • FilmMaker IQ – So much of Animation is linked to Film Making. This channel is a fantastic resource for film makers of all kinds.
    • Striving for animation – for those who are specifically focused at working in the Japanese Anime industry, this channel gives excellent advice and training.

    BOOKS

    • Animator’s survival kit – Widely considered to be the cornerstone book for animators
    • The Illusion of Life – This covers the principles of animation in a lot of depth as well as being a valuable insight into classic Disney-style animation and drawing.
    • Drawn to Life – Another good book for learning animation and drawing
    •  Framed Ink – A fantastic book on dynamic composition
    • Framed Perspective – A lot of people get hung up on perspective. If you are one of them, this book explains it very well and gets pretty advanced in book 2.
    •  Force: Dynamic life drawing for animators – This book helps you to understand gesture – getting energy into your drawings!
    • Directing the Story – Highly recommended. Explains very simply how to tell a story with drawings – it shows you that you don’t need to have mad drawing skills to be able to convey a compelling story.
    • Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – For breaking bad drawing habits and learning to draw what you see.
    • Atlas of the Human Anatomy – contains good pictures and diagrams if you want a deep dive into anatomy and proportions.
    • Color and Light – an inspiring book which teaches all about colour and lighting for artists.

    Animation techniques

    Boil

    In traditional animation when an object, character or scene is at rest it is not still or motionless, it ‘boils’. Boiling is the term used to describe an animated effect in which the outlines or surface of an otherwise still character or object are made to wiggle or quiver in drawn animation. This is achieved by the looping together of several tracings of the same image (usually between 3 to 8 drawings). Boiling movement is used to sustain the illusion of movement in the animation overall and provide the impression of life or liveliness.

    Questions about boil

    • What ‘boil’ technique is used? Why do the lines move and what elements, if any are allowed to be still?
    • Does the pace of the boil emanate throughout?
    • What emotional or narrative purpose does the use of boiling serve? Does it make for a more lifelike effect or is the boil deployed humorously?
    Frame rate

    It is most common in animation to draw on twos, this is both because drawing on ones is double the amount of work and because working with twos lends a smoother appearance to slower actions, avoiding unnecessary jitter that can accompany shooting on ones. It is generally thought that working on twos adds a particular liveliness to a fast action rather than working on ones, which can make an action appear more leaden.

    Cycle, loops and layers

    Cycles can loop, oscillate, or even appear to be stationary. The use of cycles is often motivated by economy because it saves on drawing time. But the type of cycle that you use also make up the meaning of your film.

    Looped cycles are most commonly employed on particular layers within a frame. Sergei Eisenstein described this layered looping within a frame as ‘vertical montage’:
    “The simultaneous movement of a number of motifs advances through a succession of sequences, each motif having its own rate of compositional progressions, while being at the same time inseparable from the overall compositional progression as a whole” Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein Volume 2: Towards a Theory of Montage (London: BFI Publishing, 1991)

    • ‘Dumbland’ (2000), David Lynch purposely used cycles of animation to represent the breakdown of social structures depicted in his film.
    • Francis Alÿs, Jordan Wolfson and Owen Land work extensively using loops to communicate meaning.
    • Katie Dove’s Luna, 2013 https://vimeo.com/81492504
    Eye trace

    All animation is an exercise in applying the principle of ‘eye trace’. This is a principle of film- making in general but one that is essential for the illusion of animated movement to work. ‘In The Blink of an Eye’ by Walter Murch, (1995) sets out the principle that the viewer’s eyes will focus on a particular position on the screen and editors exploit this to allow less jarring edit when one shot follows another by ensuring that the action or image is located in the same part of the screen.This is also known as ‘registration’ in animation. A keen awareness of eye-trace allows the animator to play with the audience’s expectations and surprise them. The registration protocol was developed for hand-drawn animation to ensure that each subsequent drawing uses the same co-ordinates so that the illusion of movement between frames is not interrupted. In other animation the registration is looser and is intended as such to draw attention to the variation that ‘eye trace’ allows.

    Do more research on using photographs

    Technical note: resize and don’t overload software, particularly on iPad.

    Animation Steps and Principles

    Animation Steps
    12 cel animation principles

    from Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson:
    1)squash/stretch
    2) anticipation and leading attention, can have multiple levels
    3) Staging/exaggeration/sequencing to make things clear
    4) straightahead/pose to pose drawing
    5) Follow through and overlapping action
    6) slow in slow out
    7) arcs
    8) secondary action
    9) timing
    10) exaggeration
    11) solid drawing
    12) appeal

    Timing

    Norman McClaren

    Smooth versus flow

    Difference between fluid animation and smooth animation:

    • Smooth is about the frame rate – how many new frames occur per second of animation.
    • Flow is about the gesture of the drawings, the arcs, the drag and follow through of a movement.

    To get smooth animation, you just need to draw plenty of in-betweens until all of your animation is on 1s
    Flow is more complex to get right than smooth.

    Keyframing
    Stick animation
    https://youtu.be/ilrJVUn0QTw

    See also Ross Bollinger: pencilmation

    Howard Wimshurst

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    issuu.com/laramoon/docs/f._thomas___o._johnston_-_the_illus

  • Principles 2

    figure drawing
    Animation principles
    animation process

    Animation is a process and the malleability of time is its primary material.

    ‘Time is what prevents everything from being present all at once’ Henri Bergson. The animator seeks to control at what pace, rhythm and direction things appear.

    “What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame” Norman McLaren, Computer Animation
    It is not the image, drawing or shape of each frame that matters in animation, rather it is the difference between the frames that generates the illusion of movement in animation.

    It is the animator’s ability to control and play with these intervals between frames that matters. It is important to think in terms of intervals, rates of change and flux, rather than thinking in terms of still images or compositions.

    Key Resources
    • You Tube
    • OCA Moving Image 1: Animation
    • Howard Wimshurst YouTube channel and tutored courses on Animator Guild
    • Proko – A channel which specializes in teaching observational figure drawing.
    • FilmMaker IQ – So much of Animation is linked to Film Making. This channel is a fantastic resource for film makers of all kinds.
    • Striving for animation – for those who are specifically focused at working in the Japanese Anime industry, this channel gives excellent advice and training.

    BOOKS

    • Animator’s survival kit – Widely considered to be the cornerstone book for animators
    • The Illusion of Life – This covers the principles of animation in a lot of depth as well as being a valuable insight into classic Disney-style animation and drawing.
    • Drawn to Life – Another good book for learning animation and drawing
    •  Framed Ink – A fantastic book on dynamic composition
    • Framed Perspective – A lot of people get hung up on perspective. If you are one of them, this book explains it very well and gets pretty advanced in book 2.
    •  Force: Dynamic life drawing for animators – This book helps you to understand gesture – getting energy into your drawings!
    • Directing the Story – Highly recommended. Explains very simply how to tell a story with drawings – it shows you that you don’t need to have mad drawing skills to be able to convey a compelling story.
    • Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – For breaking bad drawing habits and learning to draw what you see.
    • Atlas of the Human Anatomy – contains good pictures and diagrams if you want a deep dive into anatomy and proportions.
    • Color and Light – an inspiring book which teaches all about colour and lighting for artists.

    Animation techniques

    Boil

    In traditional animation when an object, character or scene is at rest it is not still or motionless, it ‘boils’. Boiling is the term used to describe an animated effect in which the outlines or surface of an otherwise still character or object are made to wiggle or quiver in drawn animation. This is achieved by the looping together of several tracings of the same image (usually between 3 to 8 drawings). Boiling movement is used to sustain the illusion of movement in the animation overall and provide the impression of life or liveliness.

    Questions about boil

    • What ‘boil’ technique is used? Why do the lines move and what elements, if any are allowed to be still?
    • Does the pace of the boil emanate throughout?
    • What emotional or narrative purpose does the use of boiling serve? Does it make for a more lifelike effect or is the boil deployed humorously?
    Frame rate

    It is most common in animation to draw on twos, this is both because drawing on ones is double the amount of work and because working with twos lends a smoother appearance to slower actions, avoiding unnecessary jitter that can accompany shooting on ones. It is generally thought that working on twos adds a particular liveliness to a fast action rather than working on ones, which can make an action appear more leaden.

    Cycle, loops and layers

    Cycles can loop, oscillate, or even appear to be stationary. The use of cycles is often motivated by economy because it saves on drawing time. But the type of cycle that you use also make up the meaning of your film.

    Looped cycles are most commonly employed on particular layers within a frame. Sergei Eisenstein described this layered looping within a frame as ‘vertical montage’:
    “The simultaneous movement of a number of motifs advances through a succession of sequences, each motif having its own rate of compositional progressions, while being at the same time inseparable from the overall compositional progression as a whole” Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein Volume 2: Towards a Theory of Montage (London: BFI Publishing, 1991)

    • ‘Dumbland’ (2000), David Lynch purposely used cycles of animation to represent the breakdown of social structures depicted in his film.
    • Francis Alÿs, Jordan Wolfson and Owen Land work extensively using loops to communicate meaning.
    • Katie Dove’s Luna, 2013 https://vimeo.com/81492504
    Eye trace

    All animation is an exercise in applying the principle of ‘eye trace’. This is a principle of film- making in general but one that is essential for the illusion of animated movement to work. ‘In The Blink of an Eye’ by Walter Murch, (1995) sets out the principle that the viewer’s eyes will focus on a particular position on the screen and editors exploit this to allow less jarring edit when one shot follows another by ensuring that the action or image is located in the same part of the screen.This is also known as ‘registration’ in animation. A keen awareness of eye-trace allows the animator to play with the audience’s expectations and surprise them. The registration protocol was developed for hand-drawn animation to ensure that each subsequent drawing uses the same co-ordinates so that the illusion of movement between frames is not interrupted. In other animation the registration is looser and is intended as such to draw attention to the variation that ‘eye trace’ allows.

    Do more research on using photographs

    Technical note: resize and don’t overload software, particularly on iPad.

    Animation Steps and Principles

    Animation Steps
    12 cel animation principles

    from Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson:
    1)squash/stretch
    2) anticipation and leading attention, can have multiple levels
    3) Staging/exaggeration/sequencing to make things clear
    4) straightahead/pose to pose drawing
    5) Follow through and overlapping action
    6) slow in slow out
    7) arcs
    8) secondary action
    9) timing
    10) exaggeration
    11) solid drawing
    12) appeal

    Timing

    Norman McClaren

    Smooth versus flow

    Difference between fluid animation and smooth animation:

    • Smooth is about the frame rate – how many new frames occur per second of animation.
    • Flow is about the gesture of the drawings, the arcs, the drag and follow through of a movement.

    To get smooth animation, you just need to draw plenty of in-betweens until all of your animation is on 1s
    Flow is more complex to get right than smooth.

    Keyframing
    Stick animation
    https://youtu.be/ilrJVUn0QTw

    See also Ross Bollinger: pencilmation

    Howard Wimshurst

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    issuu.com/laramoon/docs/f._thomas___o._johnston_-_the_illus

  • Animation Principles

    figure drawing
    Animation principles
    animation process

    Distorted movement
    The above systems of observing and capturing movement are useful for
    animators but only in so far as they inform the animation process rather than
    dictate it. If followed too closely these techniques severely limit the possibilities
    of animation. As noted above, it is not possible to transcribe the whole of the real
    world in an image. Choices must be made, things must be left out and short-cuts
    taken. The questions of what to leave out and what short-cuts to take are the key
    creative decisions in animation. The
    Consider two basic principles of animation: instability of line and
    exaggeration .
    As a general rule, to add life to a drawing, the identity of line should be unstable.
    The unstable line implies movement, breath, what we know to be life-like (see
    exercise 1 of Part 1). It follows from this that lines and shapes in animation
    should be expressive and dynamic. In addition, the ability to read movement
    works best if the movement is exaggerated. The most common form of this
    exaggeration is known as ‘squash and stretch’. This is where a shape is distorted
    to indicate the impact of gravity and energy. It is very important to remember
    that when distorting a shape or form, the volume should be maintained in order
    to maintain the illusion (continuity of volume). For example, if a round shape is to
    be elongated or stretched, as in the image below, it must also become thinner. If
    it is to be squashed then it must become wider.

    A particular application of ‘squash and stretch’ is known as ‘anticipation and
    overshoot’. When a movement is about to begin and the shape or object has
    been stationary prior to this, it is a convention of animated movement that the
    first frame of the movement actually moves in the opposite direction of the
    movement as a whole (the ball above is about to reach upwards but the first
    frame will have the ball compress downwards a little in anticipation of the
    upwards movement). Including a frame or two of anticipated movement adds to
    the illusion that the movement is ‘self-motivated’, it also allows the viewer’s eye
    to momentarily register that a movement is about to take place – so that it can
    be the point of focus and viewed without being missed.

    Animation is a process and the malleability of time is its primary material.

    ‘Time is what prevents everything from being present all at once’ Henri Bergson. The animator seeks to control at what pace, rhythm and direction things appear.

    “What happens between each frame is much more important than what exists on each frame” Norman McLaren, Computer Animation
    It is not the image, drawing or shape of each frame that matters in animation, rather it is the difference between the frames that generates the illusion of movement in animation.

    It is the animator’s ability to control and play with these intervals between frames that matters. It is important to think in terms of intervals, rates of change and flux, rather than thinking in terms of still images or compositions.

    Key Resources
    • You Tube
    • OCA Moving Image 1: Animation
    • Howard Wimshurst YouTube channel and tutored courses on Animator Guild
    • Proko – A channel which specializes in teaching observational figure drawing.
    • FilmMaker IQ – So much of Animation is linked to Film Making. This channel is a fantastic resource for film makers of all kinds.
    • Striving for animation – for those who are specifically focused at working in the Japanese Anime industry, this channel gives excellent advice and training.

    BOOKS

    • Animator’s survival kit – Widely considered to be the cornerstone book for animators
    • The Illusion of Life – This covers the principles of animation in a lot of depth as well as being a valuable insight into classic Disney-style animation and drawing.
    • Drawn to Life – Another good book for learning animation and drawing
    •  Framed Ink – A fantastic book on dynamic composition
    • Framed Perspective – A lot of people get hung up on perspective. If you are one of them, this book explains it very well and gets pretty advanced in book 2.
    •  Force: Dynamic life drawing for animators – This book helps you to understand gesture – getting energy into your drawings!
    • Directing the Story – Highly recommended. Explains very simply how to tell a story with drawings – it shows you that you don’t need to have mad drawing skills to be able to convey a compelling story.
    • Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – For breaking bad drawing habits and learning to draw what you see.
    • Atlas of the Human Anatomy – contains good pictures and diagrams if you want a deep dive into anatomy and proportions.
    • Color and Light – an inspiring book which teaches all about colour and lighting for artists.

    Animation techniques

    Boil

    In traditional animation when an object, character or scene is at rest it is not still or motionless, it ‘boils’. Boiling is the term used to describe an animated effect in which the outlines or surface of an otherwise still character or object are made to wiggle or quiver in drawn animation. This is achieved by the looping together of several tracings of the same image (usually between 3 to 8 drawings). Boiling movement is used to sustain the illusion of movement in the animation overall and provide the impression of life or liveliness.

    Questions about boil

    • What ‘boil’ technique is used? Why do the lines move and what elements, if any are allowed to be still?
    • Does the pace of the boil emanate throughout?
    • What emotional or narrative purpose does the use of boiling serve? Does it make for a more lifelike effect or is the boil deployed humorously?
    Frame rate

    It is most common in animation to draw on twos, this is both because drawing on ones is double the amount of work and because working with twos lends a smoother appearance to slower actions, avoiding unnecessary jitter that can accompany shooting on ones. It is generally thought that working on twos adds a particular liveliness to a fast action rather than working on ones, which can make an action appear more leaden.

    Cycle, loops and layers

    Cycles can loop, oscillate, or even appear to be stationary. The use of cycles is often motivated by economy because it saves on drawing time. But the type of cycle that you use also make up the meaning of your film.

    Looped cycles are most commonly employed on particular layers within a frame. Sergei Eisenstein described this layered looping within a frame as ‘vertical montage’:
    “The simultaneous movement of a number of motifs advances through a succession of sequences, each motif having its own rate of compositional progressions, while being at the same time inseparable from the overall compositional progression as a whole” Sergei Eisenstein, Eisenstein Volume 2: Towards a Theory of Montage (London: BFI Publishing, 1991)

    • ‘Dumbland’ (2000), David Lynch purposely used cycles of animation to represent the breakdown of social structures depicted in his film.
    • Francis Alÿs, Jordan Wolfson and Owen Land work extensively using loops to communicate meaning.
    • Katie Dove’s Luna, 2013 https://vimeo.com/81492504
    Eye trace

    All animation is an exercise in applying the principle of ‘eye trace’. This is a principle of film- making in general but one that is essential for the illusion of animated movement to work. ‘In The Blink of an Eye’ by Walter Murch, (1995) sets out the principle that the viewer’s eyes will focus on a particular position on the screen and editors exploit this to allow less jarring edit when one shot follows another by ensuring that the action or image is located in the same part of the screen.This is also known as ‘registration’ in animation. A keen awareness of eye-trace allows the animator to play with the audience’s expectations and surprise them. The registration protocol was developed for hand-drawn animation to ensure that each subsequent drawing uses the same co-ordinates so that the illusion of movement between frames is not interrupted. In other animation the registration is looser and is intended as such to draw attention to the variation that ‘eye trace’ allows.

    Do more research on using photographs

    Technical note: resize and don’t overload software, particularly on iPad.

    Animation Steps and Principles

    Animation Steps
    12 cel animation principles

    from Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson:
    1)squash/stretch
    2) anticipation and leading attention, can have multiple levels
    3) Staging/exaggeration/sequencing to make things clear
    4) straightahead/pose to pose drawing
    5) Follow through and overlapping action
    6) slow in slow out
    7) arcs
    8) secondary action
    9) timing
    10) exaggeration
    11) solid drawing
    12) appeal

    Timing

    Norman McClaren

    Smooth versus flow

    Difference between fluid animation and smooth animation:

    • Smooth is about the frame rate – how many new frames occur per second of animation.
    • Flow is about the gesture of the drawings, the arcs, the drag and follow through of a movement.

    To get smooth animation, you just need to draw plenty of in-betweens until all of your animation is on 1s
    Flow is more complex to get right than smooth.

    Keyframing
    Stick animation
    https://youtu.be/ilrJVUn0QTw

    See also Ross Bollinger: pencilmation

    Howard Wimshurst

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    Animator Guild: https://www.animatorguild.com

    https://youtu.be/ecoGkqpeq8w?list=PLwEV9MxoDbJz_aSQ_AQknpJhxO7KDBbxP

    issuu.com/laramoon/docs/f._thomas___o._johnston_-_the_illus

  • Len Lye

    Leonard Charles Huia Lye (1901 – 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture.
    see you tube comments on kaleidoscope.

    Animation mixing abstraction with manipulated video.
    Like an electric storm. Scratching on film.
    Uses video of a figure cutout on a background. This 9ne does littlevfor me.
    Beautiful abstract animation.4400 drawings. With music added later by another musician see You Tube commehts.
    With original music
    Very energetic Maori-influenced abstract video. See extensive comments on You Tube.

  • Peter Millard

    https://lectureinprogress.com/journal/peter-millard

    Peter Millard is a London-based animator. He creates his absurdist animations on paper (all recycled) with oil bar and paint. Then he scans the large images in with a large scanner, sizes them up in After Effects before using Premiere Pro to edit. 

  • Mary Ellen Bute

    https://youtu.be/ySUtIgZU9uU

    Mary Ellen Bute (1906 – 1983) was a pioneer American film animator, producer, and director. Her specialty was visual music. While working in New York City between 1934 and 1953, Bute made fourteen short abstract musical films. Many of these were seen in regular movie theaters usually preceding a prestigious film.

    Filmography from Wikipedia

  • Norman McLaren

    An artist may be like someone who just hears music and then starts to dance

    Norman McLaren (1914 – 1987) was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound.

    Experiments in Motion

    Tempo: The basics of perception of linear movement: Shows the animator’s table with camera, switch and frame counter. Calibration marks and muscle memory. And shows the difference in perceptions of movement through increasing the number of equal spaced moves of a cut-out circle going from A to B. The greater the number of moves, the slower the movement. We interprete this differently depending on our understanding of context eg whether we think the circle is a large sun moving fast or a small golf ball moving slowly. Ends with interesting abacus type comparison of movements at 1-1000 moves between A and B.

    Synaesthesia and experiments in sound

    Experimental animation

    In this animation McLaren created the sounds through drawing on film. The tall vertical geometric shapes make it seem like a film about speed and impersonality of city life. Reminiscent of Mondrian paintings.

    Short films

    Cold war allegory. Story of two neighbours who kill each other in a fight about a flower that starts to grow along the fence between them.
    A Chairy Story: Amusing story of a man trying to sit on a chair. The chair refuses to be sat on until the chair has sat on the man. metaphor for the importance of equality and politeness and not taking power for granted.