P1, P2 - explain the different types of animation, expalin the uses of animation,

Introduction
Animation is used in all types of film without us even knowing, animation has evolved from old obvious lighting effects and characters, to now where you cant even tell animation apart from the real acting. In this blog I will be discussing the different types of animation and what they do, I will then include the different uses of this specific type of animation and give examples of when they are used in the animation world, the different types of animation techniques are;

•       Flip Book
•       Cell Animation
•       Stop Motion
•       Cut out
•       Rotoscoping
•       Skeletal Animation
•       Flash Animation
•       CGI

Flip book
Flip book animation is where you get a little book and on every page you draw a picture and as you flick through the book all the little pictures show an animation, they take a while because you have to draw the same picture every time but with a little movement to create the animation. An example of this would be in the film 'Hot Fuzz' where Nick Frost shows Simon Peg his notebook and he has drawn a stickman getting shot in the head, this is a prime example of this type of animation as most people tend to just doodle in them. A use of this would be to get a feel of simple animation and this is the most common way of amateur getting used to animation.

Cell animation
Cell animation is where you originally have a background on a piece of paper and put a transparent sheet over the top with different pictures on or different characters, this is traditionally used for hand animation. this type if animation isn't really used anymore as we have got more advanced technology and better ways of getting the animation into our films. This is an easy way for amateur animators to get used to drawing over templates of animated pictures and getting used to adding effect to the original picture. The other use would be to add a cartoon effect to the picture like shown in the picture, they do this by drawing a basic layer, then adding over the top of it and they keep doing this until you have the cartoon effect that you want. this is a good way to add shadowing effect and adding in props to the picture.

Stop motion
Stop motion animation is where you use stop frames to make it look like the object is moving when it actually isn't, all you do is take a photo of the object and then slightly move it, take a picture, and repeat this until you have your object where you want it, it takes 24 frames to make 1 second of film, this type of animation does take a while but it one of the most effective. A use of where stop motion animation is used is in the films Chicken run and Wallace and Gromit, they use this method because they want to get the cartoon effect on the film. Film makers choose to use this method because although its time consuming the end quality is of the highest.



Cut out
Cut out animation is where you cut out pictures of props, IE, animals, people and houses, and take a photo from above them move the prop where you want it, you can use all types of materials for this; paper, card, fabric. this type on animation was the earlier of its type because it was so simple and easy to use, but it was very time consuming. an example of where cut out animation is used is in South Park, they use this type of animation because they want to use the cartoon effect that they get, the main reason is because they were fiercely in competition with family guy etc, so they wanted a different look, the way that they preform this type of animation is to film a real life scene then 'cutout' that scene and replace this with the cartoon version. 











Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping animation is where you trace over actual footage that you have filmed frame by frame, years ago they just used to put an image over the footage and paused it then got an animator to draw over it, like 'tracing paper'. This used to be a very popular type of animation but now as technology has moved on CGI is the new way, rotoscoping is used in a lot of films that we don't know about, for example in Lord of the rings, Gandalf is on his horse going to battle that is actually a drawn picture that has had layers of different pictures added to the original, then they add in a really picture, another example would be in Lady and the Tramp, most of the film is pictures that have been drawn.



Skeletal Animation
Skeletal Animation is where you get a three dimensional set of interconnected bones which freely move giving the object movement. this type of animation is normally used to recreate human movements. also this type of animation gives the 'hand' a better look and to make it more realistic to the real thing. In the film Night mare before Christmas they use Skeletal animation, they use this specific type of animation because it looks the best, and would be more suitable for this specific film because they want to get the exact movements to make the film that extra bit more realistic, although the film is an animation, they still want to get everything as if it was a real life film.


Flash Animation
Flash Animation is best known for its cartoons animations where, the main use is for people to draw and create pieces of art, but on a computer rather than on paper etc. it is mainly used for younger children to mess around with and used different colors and make pictures. The most common use for Flash animation is in kids TV programs because children are easy amused and if they saw a scene that have people talking they would be very interested, but if they saw some animated characters on the TV then they would find that more entertaining and watch it. Also because they are limited in the audience that will be interested in their TV shows then they wont have to spend much money on high tech equipment unlike the producers of avatar.



CGI
CGI stands for (computer generated imagery) this is the most common use of animation as it is the most advanced and is the best technology wise. it is used in art, printed media, video games and mainly films. CGI can be used in  2D images or even 3D graphics used for creating scenes or special effects. CGI is uses in almost every new film that comes out, the best thing out about CGI is most people don't even notice when it involved in films or TV programs, the best example would be, in Pirates of the Caribbean, Davey Jones, there are three stages to get his character to look how he does on screen, firstly they put loads of cameras/sensors all over his body that can track his every movement, the second step is to put that scene into an animated look, they then add in all of the detail and make the picture look realistic and add effects to give him a real life look.   







In my opinion i think that animation has transformed over the last ten years and will rapidly improve within the next ten years, but i think that CGI is the best and most used type of animation, this is because of its ability to apply normal features and change them into a cartoon version but make it fit in, in a normal film. also i think that as the animation world evolves they will be put into films and we wont even know about it because the technology is so advanced that they have the ability tro add scenes in to make them look realistic.