[FIRST YEAR] Animation Context
Covered today:
Watched this BBC documentary, as it's very interesting and insightful. Many question came from watching this documentary.
Some interesting themes emerged:
- The first example of British character performance in animation.
- Many British stars of animation are not British!
- The business of animation – Morph was not profitable for Aardman.
- Many British animators created commercially sponsored work.
- A lot of Public information films used animation to convey information to the masses.
What was the underlying message of the show?
British animation is so much more than kid's tele. Its bloody minded brilliants can be traced from Victorian musics to the lasted blockbuster. Even in today's digital age this is an industry that is handmade at heart. Animation is an art and had a lot of effort jam packed inside.
What was the most surprising or interesting animation process?
The most interesting animation process was when Bob Godfrev created 'Roobarb' as the process of hand drawn animation was completely different to cel animation, having backgrounds on a separate layer, as they needed to be completely redraw every frame with each background. The company used markers for the animation as they didn't have big budgets. The got discrepancy between the inks because they never dried the same way and this gives a kind of shimmering effect. There was nothing wrong about that because it gave the film vitality, its called boiling in the industry.
Whom was your favourite animator featured?
Walter Disney as because of is amazing character performance and what it makes your feel. The hand drawn animation that was made from his company came out with brilliant stories and 2D animation.
Which featured films do you now want to watch fully and why?
French film: JACK ET LA MÈCANIQUE DU COEUR because it looks amazing, interesting models and it probably got a good story line but I hope it's not French (It probably is), I hope I can find a version in English or English dubbed as stop-motion mouths match up with many languages. 'As everyone goes...
is that made by a human? Because there so beautifully made.' It reminds me of Tim Burton and Henry Selick's films from the styles of models.
