Animation drawing style. Research work "animation styles"

Throughout its existence, man has tried to reflect the movement in his art. The first attempts to convey movement in a drawing date back to around 2000 BC (Egypt).

Another example of movement is found in the caves of Northern Spain: this is a drawing of a wild boar with eight legs.

Today, the transfer of motion can be realized by means of animation.

Animation is the artificial representation of motion in film, television, or computer graphics by displaying a sequence of drawings or frames at a frequency that provides a holistic visual perception of images.

Animation, unlike video, which uses continuous motion, uses many independent drawings.

Synonym for animation "animation" is very widespread in our country. Animation and animation are just different definitions of the same art form.

The more familiar term for us comes from the Latin word "multi" - a lot and corresponds to the traditional technology of drawing reproduction, because in order for the hero to "come to life", you need to repeat his movement many times: from 10 to 30 drawn frames per second.

The world's accepted professional definition "animation"(translated from the Latin "anima" - soul, "animation" - revival, animation) most accurately reflects all the modern technical and artistic possibilities of animated cinema, because animation masters do not just animate their characters, but put a piece of their soul into their creation .

From the history of animation

Animation, like any other art form, has its own history. For the first time, the principle of inertia of visual perception, which underlies animation, was demonstrated in 1828 by the Frenchman Paul Roget. The object of the demonstration was a disk, on one side of which there was an image of a bird, and on the other - a cage. During the rotation of the disc, the audience created the illusion of a bird in a cage.

The first real practical way to create animation came from Thomas A. Edison's creation of the camera and projector.

As early as 1906, the short film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces was created by Stuart Blakton. The author made a drawing on the board, photographed, erased, and then again drew, photographed and erased ...

A real revolution in the world of animation was made by WALT DISNEY (1901-1966), an American director, artist and producer.

This is far from a complete history of animation, a small digression from the material of the lecture. You can learn more about the amazing and interesting history of animation on your own.

Animation creation technologies

Currently, there are various technologies for creating animation:

Classic (traditional) animation represents an alternate change of drawings, each of which is drawn separately. This is a very time-consuming process, as the animators have to create each frame separately.

Stop-frame (puppet) animation. Objects placed in space are fixed by a frame, after which their position is changed and fixed again.

Sprite animation implemented using a programming language.

morphing– transformation of one object into another by generating a specified number of intermediate frames.

color animation- it only changes the color, not the position of the object.

3 D-animation created using special programs (for example, 3D MAX). Pictures are obtained by rendering the scene, and each scene is a set of objects, light sources, textures.

Motion capture (Motioncapture) – the first direction of animation, which makes it possible to convey natural, realistic movements in real time. Sensors are attached to the live actor at locations that will be aligned with the control points of the computer model for motion input and digitization. The actor's coordinates and orientation in space are transmitted to the graphics station, and the animation models come to life.

Animation principles

When creating animated films, some general principles are used. Most of them are formulated for Disney animation and originally referred to cartoons made in the technique of traditional animation, but almost all of them are applicable to other technologies.
Here are the main ones:

"Squeeze and stretch"(squash & stretch). This principle has revolutionized the world of animation. The essence of the principle is that a living body is always compressed and stretched during movement. Before the jump, the character is compressed like a spring, and in the jump, on the contrary, it is stretched. The main rule in this case is a constant volume - if the character is stretched (stretch - deformation along the Y axis), then it must be compressed to maintain the volume of its body (squash - deformation along the X axis).

"Preparatory Action" (Anticipation). In real life, in order to perform any action, a person often has to make preparatory movements. For example, before jumping, a person needs to sit down, in order to throw something, the hand must be brought back. Such actions are called refusal movements, because. before doing something, the character, as it were, refuses to act. Such movement prepares the viewer for the subsequent action of the character and gives momentum to the movements.

stage presence(staging). For the correct perception of the character by the audience, all his movements, postures and facial expressions must be extremely simple and expressive. This principle is based on the main rule of the theater. The camera should be positioned so that the viewer sees all the movements of the character.

"Key Shots" (Pose to Pose). Before the discovery of this principle, movements were drawn, and therefore the result was difficult to predict, because. the artist himself did not yet know what he would draw. This principle provides for a preliminary arrangement of movements - the artist draws the main points and places the character on the stage, and only then the assistants draw all the frames of the movement. This approach dramatically increased performance, as all movements were planned in advance, and the result was exactly as intended. But in order to create any specific movement, it was necessary to carefully study each “piece”. Developing expressive poses, the artist puts all his skill, so it is these moments that should be visible to the viewer for a longer time. To do this, the assistants complete the movements in such a way that most of the frames are next to the key poses. In this case, the character, as it were, slips the movement from one layout to another, slowly leaving the pose and slowing down at the other.

"Through movement and overlap"(follow through / overlapping actions).
The essence of the principle is that the movement should never stop. There are such elements as ears, tails, clothes, which must be constantly in motion. "Through movement" ensures the continuity of movement and the smoothness of the transition of phases, for example, from running to walking and vice versa. The movement of individual elements of the body, while the body is no longer moving, is called overlap. The overlap is expressed in scenes of changing the phases of movement. If the character brakes hard after running, the soft parts of the body cannot stop along with the hard parts and a slight overlap occurs (hair, ears, tails, etc.). When walking, the movement begins with the hips, and only then spreads to the ankles. Thus, all movements of the character are connected in a separate chain, and it becomes possible to rigidly describe the rules by which he moves. A movement in which one element follows another is called through movement.

"Arc Movements" (arcs). Living organisms always move along arcuate trajectories. Prior to this, the method of rectilinear movement was used, and therefore, the movements looked mechanical - like those of robots. The nature of the trajectory depends, as a rule, on the speed of movement. If the character moves sharply, the trajectory straightens out, if it moves slowly, then the trajectory bends even more.

Secondary activities (Secondary actions). Often, secondary movements are used to give the character more expressiveness. They serve to draw attention to something. For example, a grieving character might frequently blow his nose into a handkerchief, while a surprised character might twitch his shoulders. Secondary actions have become widespread in the world of animation. Thanks to their use, the characters become more alive and emotional.

Time calculation(Timing). This principle allows you to give the character weight and mood. How does the viewer evaluate the weight of the characters? The character's weight is made up of factors such as movement speed and inertia. In order for the character to move in accordance with its weight, the artist calculates the movement and overlap time for each character. When calculating the time, the weight, inertia, volume and emotional state of the hero are taken into account. The mood is also conveyed by the speed of the character's movements. So a depressed character moves very sluggishly, and an inspired character moves quite vigorously.

Exaggeration (Exaggerate and Caricature). Walt Disney has always demanded more realism from his employees, in fact aiming more for "caricature realism". If a character had to be sad, he demanded that he be made gloomy, while a happy one had to be made dazzlingly radiant. With the help of exaggeration, the emotional impact on the audience increases, however, the character acquires a caricature character.

professional drawing. Drawing is the basis of everything. Quite common at the Disney Studios are signs like, "Does your drawing have weight, depth, and balance?" The principle of professional drawing also forbids drawing "twins". "Twins" are any elements of the drawing that are repeated twice or are symmetrical. "Twins" very often appear against the will of the artist, without noticing that he draws two hands in the same position.

attractiveness (Appeal). The attractiveness of the character is the key to the success of the entire film. How can you tell if a character is attractive? Any object can be attractive if you look at it with pleasure, finding in it simplicity, charm, good design, charm and magnetism. From an attractive character it is impossible to take your eyes off. Even the nastiest character in a movie needs to be attractive to keep viewers on the screen.

Animation- the most common technology, the most famous version of which is the process when the depicted figure is drawn many times with minor changes, representing its movement. The finished images are shot - 1 frame equals 1 image - and broadcast at 24 frames per second.

puppet animation differs from the drawn one in that instead of drawings, dolls are used, which are filmed frame by frame with the slightest transformations.

Silhouette animation appeared later. Using this technology, the characters are made of dense material, after which they are placed on the film.

collage animation uses images from periodicals and other ready-made pictures.

Subject animation turns inanimate things into personalized ones, and often uses everyday things - watches, candlesticks, etc., and images or photographs.

computer animation requires only images of the main poses, after which the rest can be done automatically.

Electronic animation allows you to complete the animation tape completely. But this process is laborious and lengthy.

Plasticine animation. Films are made by taking frame-by-frame plasticine objects with modifications between shots.

Powder technique(loose/sand animation) is rarely used. On illuminated glass, the artist draws pictures with powder. A more densely poured layer gives dark "strokes", and a thin one - almost transparent. In this technique, tinted sand, sifted in a special way, salt, coal, metal and graphite powders, coffee, and spices are most often used.

Tubeless animation. The cartoon is "drawn" directly on the film using a special machine. It consists of a pressure frame with a gear mechanism that ensures the exact position of the frame, and a special optical system that reflects the last frame drawn onto the next, still clean frame of the film.

Oil painting on glass. It turns out something like a picture, transferred to film, in terms of the strength of the impact, the presence of air and light, comparable to the canvases of the Impressionists. Each frame is unique: being captured on film, it is immediately erased and another appears in its place. Moreover, the artist draws on glass not only with a brush, but also with his fingers. The most picturesque example of a cartoon made in this technique in every sense is The Old Man and the Sea (1999) directed by Alexander Petrov. This film was the first cartoon in the history of cinema for large format IMAX cinemas, and in 2000 was awarded the Academy Award.

needle screen is a vertical plane through which evenly distributed long thin needles pass. The needles can move perpendicular to the plane of the screen. The number of needles can be from several tens of thousands to a million. The needles pointing towards the lens are not visible, but unevenly extended needles cast shadows of different lengths. If you push them out, the picture darkens, if you pull them in, it brightens. Fully retracted needles produce a white sheet without shadows. By moving the light source and moving the needles, interesting pictures can be obtained.

Rotoscoping(method "Eclair"). The technique was invented back in 1914, but is still popular today. A cartoon is created by drawing frame by frame of a real-life film (with real actors and scenery). Initially, a film shot in advance was projected onto tracing paper and manually outlined by the artist, now a computer is actively used for these purposes. This technique is also used when a fully drawn character is required to have very realistic, accurate and lively interactions with real actors and furnishings. In this case, the digital character is first played by a real person, and then completely, "seamlessly" replaced by an animated character (cartoon characters in the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"). Walt Disney and his artists successfully used rotoscoping in cartoons such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1950). Domestic cartoons filmed using this technique are “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs”, “Kashtanka”, “Scarlet Flower”, “Golden Antelope”. Computer rotoscoping is also called pixelization. One of the most striking examples of such a cartoon film is Beowulf, where Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich appeared as cute and very realistic cartoons.

Animation techniques are constantly evolving, and game developers and film studios are constantly looking for talented and creative individuals who can apply these techniques.

Here are the main types of animation that can be used to create digital characters for television shows, commercial applications, company logos, movies, videos, or games.

• traditional animation.
• 2D vector animation.
• 3D computer animation.
• Motion graphics.
• Stop motion.

Traditional animation

Have you ever seen images that appear like fast-paced frames drawn on transparent sheets of paper with colored markers? This type of computer animation is called traditional. It is used for preliminary character sketches.

This process can be quite costly and time consuming as the animators have to create a set of different frames based on 24 frames per second. This method is used mainly on PCs, as well as tablets, using special computer programs that allow you to create animations in the style of old Disney cartoons.

2D vector animation

The most commonly used animation style. Her shots are created on a relatively flat surface. In addition, vector animation has adopted some of the methods of traditional animation. In fact, this is the same traditional animation, except that the frames are processed, known as drawing and painting.

During this process, animators place thin transparent sheets of celluloid on paper on which the animated characters are drawn, and then redraw them onto film. At the end, frames with different characters are superimposed on each other, and due to the high transparency of the film, this allows you to create a composition of various elements and characters.

3D computer animation

3D animation is completely different from other types of animation in computer graphics. Although they use the same principles of composition and movement, the technical methods used to solve a variety of problems differ significantly. In 3D animation, the animator does not need to be a graphic artist. It's more like playing with dolls than drawing.

This is also called computer generated images ( CGI). They occur when computer animators create a stream of images that are brought together to form an animation. Combining dynamic and static images is performed using computer graphics. 3D-created characters are digitally displayed on screen and then combined with a wireframe, allowing each model to be animated differently.

Animation is formed by creating models in separate keyframes, after which the computer performs their "multiplication", interpreting the animation by adding intermediate frames between the keyframes.

In addition, a lot of time is spent working with curves representing different parts of the object at different time periods. In 3D animation, all characters should be taken into account, even those that are blocked by something at a certain point in time and are not visible.

The main difference between these types of animation is that in traditional and 2D animation the artist works on individual frames, while in 3D animation there is always a continuous flow. If it stops, it is perceived as an error. Even when the character stays in place, there is always a continuous stream of frames that creates the illusion of reality.

Motion graphics

Have you ever wondered how promos, animated logos, movie opening credits and app ads are created? This is done with moving graphic texts and elements, or as I call it, motion graphics.

This is a process that uses "multiplication" of animated frames to create smooth motion between frames. Frame multiplication programs support scripts that automatically change animation to create multiple effects.

3D compositions are created from flat elements moving relative to each other, which creates the illusion of volume. They may also be accompanied by sound effects or music. Such objects are often used in multimedia projects.

ESSAY

On the topic "Animation"

Work completed

Volodkovich Angelina

Teacher: Semyonova Larisa Vasilievna

Ulyanovsk 2016

Animation

All about animation

Animation(from Latin multiplicatio - multiplication, increase, increase, reproduction) - techniques for creating the illusion of moving images (movement and / or changes in the shape of objects - morphing) using a sequence of still images (frames) that replace each other with a certain frequency. Animation (fr. animation: animation, animation) is the Western name for animation: a type of cinema art and its work (an animated film and, in particular, a cartoon), as well as a family of related technologies.

(C) Wikipedia

History of animation

First steps in animation

70s BC- Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in his treatise "On the Nature of Things" described a device for displaying moving pictures on the screen.
X-XI centuries- The first mention of the Chinese shadow theater - a type of spectacle, visually close to the future animated film.
15th century- There were books with drawings that reproduced the various phases of the movement of the human figure. Rolled up and then instantly unfolded, these books created the illusion of drawings coming to life.

In the Middle Ages, there were also craftsmen who entertained the public with sessions of moving pictures using optical devices like filmoscopes, where transparent plates with drawings were inserted. Such devices were called a magic lantern or in Latin "laterna magica".

1646. - Jesuit monk Athanasius Kirscher gave the first description of the device he designed "magic lantern" - a device that illuminated the image on transparent glass. Since the 17th century, traveling theaters throughout Europe have been performing such performances.

1832. - Attempts to find ways to revive drawings by means of special apparatus long precede the advent of cinema. Young Belgian professor Joseph Plateau built back in 1832 a small laboratory device - a phenakistiscope, the design of which is based on the ability of the human retina to store images (the name comes from the Greek word "phenax" - a deceiver and the root "scope" - to look).

1832. - The same principle was laid down by the Viennese professor Simon von Stampefer at the heart of the stroboscope. The effect of visible movement when changing still images taken on the internal disk became known as the stroboscopic effect. In the middle of the XIX century, this device called "strobe" was widely used as a technical toy. Essentially this was the birth of animation in its most primitive form. In order to obtain the desired movement in a stroboscope or on a movie screen, the artist has to produce (multiply) a large number of drawings that decompose this or that movement into its constituent elements. "Strobe" was called a cardboard drum mounted on an axle. On the inside of this drum, on a paper tape, there was a series of drawings (usually there were from eight to twelve) illustrating the successive phases of the movement of a person or animal performing a certain action, for example: an ostrich running, an elephant walking, a horse galloping, a child jumping with a rope, etc. .P. Each subsequent drawing was slightly different from the previous one in that it reproduced a new moment of movement; the last drawing of each cycle was, as it were, closing in relation to the first drawing. By inserting a paper strip with designs into a drum with narrow, oblong holes cut against each design, and rotating the drum around its axis, the viewer saw a rapid succession of patterns that created the complete illusion of their movement.
1834- The zootrope, in which, like a stroboscope, pictures pasted on a tape moved, was designed by an English mathematician William George Horner. However, in the original Horner's apparatus was called "daedaleum" (in honor of Daedalus, who, according to legend, created moving pictures of people and animals), and only subsequent versions of this apparatus (in particular, the apparatus that was designed in 1860 by the Frenchman Desvin, and a similar apparatus of an American William E. Lincoln) assigned the name "zootrope" to all such devices.

Zoetrope on the topic of beating babies "All things fall"

Watch video: http://www.kulturologia.ru/blogs/170515/24532/

Animation creation technologies

Currently, there are various technologies for creating animation:

Classical (traditional) animation is an alternate change of drawings, each of which is drawn separately. This is a very time-consuming process, as the animators have to create each frame separately.

Freeze frame (puppet) animation. Objects placed in space are fixed by a frame, after which their position is changed and fixed again.

Sprite animation is implemented using a programming language.

morphing– transformation of one object into another by generating a specified number of intermediate frames.

Color animation - when it changes only the color, not the position of the object.

3D animation created using special programs (for example, 3D MAX). Pictures are obtained by rendering the scene, and each scene is a set of objects, light sources, textures.

Motion Capture- the first direction of animation, which makes it possible to convey natural, realistic movements in real time. Sensors are attached to the live actor in places that will be aligned with the control points of the computer model for motion input and digitization. The actor's coordinates and orientation in space are transmitted to the graphics station, and the animation models come to life.

Everyone involved in the author's animation is sure to invent something, inventing their own shooting technology - this is such a profession. And it doesn't matter if the author of the cartoon works on a computer or does everything by hand. Sometimes these inventions are not visible to the viewer: the artist himself needs them so that everything turns out the way he wants. And sometimes they are amazing. For manual techniques, perhaps the most important and illustrative discoveries are made in three directions: in how the image itself is made, what becomes the background for it, and how the animation itself, that is, movement, is made. And for digital technologies, the main innovation so far remains VR - virtual reality, where it is not the animation technique itself that is important, but how the viewer watches this movie.

I High tech

Perhaps digital technologies are changing the fastest. But in most cases, the viewer does not notice the endless improvements in computer graphics, which allow you to make textures of fluffy clouds, sun-drenched seas or "living" human skin, or draw a huge army in the film so that no one will think that it is not real. At the same time, techniques that completely change the approach to animation do not appear very often in digital. Here are the main ones.

"Pearl" ("Pearl")

Directed by Patrick Osborne. USA, 2016

Today there are many opportunities to watch 360-degree films right on your computer: technology allows this. At the same time, the animation technique itself can remain quite traditional: for example, the hand-drawn "Pearl" by independent American director Patrick Osborne, the first VR film nominated for an Oscar. This is a sentimental musical story about a father and daughter, whose entire life is spent in a 1970s hatchback car. By changing the viewing angle with the cursor, we can see the father driving the car, and his growing daughter in the back seat.

Gorillaz - "Saturnz Barz"

Directed by Jamie Hewlett. UK, 2017

The clip of the band Gorillaz "Saturnz Barz" tells a fantastic story about the company's visit to an abandoned house where ghosts live. Thanks to the technology of three-dimensional computer animation, we can examine this scary house in detail, and then, flying into space, look at the celestial bodies around.

"Back to the Moon"

Directed by Francois-Xavier Gobi, Helen Leroux. USA, 2018

A project that unexpectedly combined VR technologies and google doodles. The first interactive doodle with a 360-degree view was dedicated to the film Journey to the Moon by film pioneer Georges Méliès. “Back to the Moon” can be downloaded on a mobile phone in Google Spotlight Stories, then insert the phone into special glasses for VR (cardboard Cardboard will do) and find yourself right inside the cartoon, where a beauty, a magician and a green troll act.

3D pen

"Ties" ("Ties")

Directed by Dina Velikovskaya. Germany, in progress

Another amazing opportunity that high technology gives us is a 3D pen with which you can draw in the air. It is already actively used in design, but it seems that there have not been such experiments in animation yet, although this technology, which combines drawing and object-ness, was literally created for cartoon films. And just now, the Russian director Dina Velikovskaya, who has made both puppet and cartoon films, has started filming the cartoon Bonds in Germany using a 3D pen. So far, only a teaser is available.

Unusual uses of Motion Capture

II Unfamiliar materials and ways to create an image

Now let's move on to manual techniques, among which there are, if not new, but unusual and rare. First of all, let's look at how and from what materials you can create the image itself for the cartoon.

Animation on the needle screen

"Here and the Great Elsewhere" ("Here and the Great Elsewhere")

Directed by Michel Lemieux. Canada, 2012

The needle animation technique was invented in the early 1930s by Alexander Alekseev, our former compatriot who emigrated to France after the revolution. Its essence is that the needles move freely in the holes of a vertically standing screen and, when pressed, form a sculptural shape on the other side. The animated image itself is created by the shadows cast by the needles, and it turns out to be very soft and volatile, it is a bit like drawing with charcoal or powder. This technique is not simple, and there are only two screens created by Alekseev in the world: one in France and the other in Canada. Accordingly, there are few followers of Alekseev working on these screens. One of the latest films made using this technology is “Here and the Great Here” by Canadian Michelle Lemieux, filmed in 2012, philosophical and fantastic stories about the Universe and man’s attempt to understand the world.

"Noodle Fish"

Directed by Jin Man Kim. South Korea, 2012

Korean director Jin Man Kim came up with his own charming version of the needle technique. Instead of needles, he poked the screen with noodles, and his image is built not so much from the shadow of the needles, but from these pasta needles themselves, folding now into a bas-relief, then into a counter-relief, depicting the characters and the environment of the cartoon. A fish made of noodles dreams of knowing the world by falling out of a puddle into the sea; she wants to know what is beyond the boundaries of the water, but by the end credits she hits the animator's plate. The characters speak Korean, but there are English subtitles, and the plot is clear even without words.

Animation with light

“But what is the glitter (I see on the balcony)?” ("What Light (Through Yonder Window Breaks)")

Directed by Sarah Wickens. UK, 2009

You can also paint with light. For example, Sarah Wickens, a graduate student of the Royal College of Art in London, did it in her film What Light (Through Yonder Window Breaks) in a very original way. This is a line from the monologue of Romeo in love in the scene on the balcony from Romeo and Juliet, which, in Pasternak's translation, sounds like this: “But what kind of shine do I see on the balcony? / There is a light. Juliet, you are like the day! / Stand at the window, kill the moon with your neighborhood ... "Sarah shoots a story about a spot of light coming to life in her attic, using no sophisticated technology, but only the light itself, mirrors and stencils (how she does this can be seen on the final credits ). Her hero is a playful sunbeam, similar to the air spirit Ariel from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Pikapika - Go! Go! Pikapika!"

Directed by Kazue Monno, Takeshi Nagata. Japan, 2007

There is another technology that has become popular today, light animation technology, it is called “freezelight” - frozen light. Artists paint in the air with colored lanterns and shoot it with a long exposure - it turns out very elegant. Here, for example, is the music video of the Japanese project Pikapika, which has received many awards for the development of this technology.

Stop motion from unusual materials

Efrat Ben-Zur - "Robin"

Directed by Yuval and Merav Nathan. Israel, 2014

Animation technology stop motion (“stopped motion”) is the most traditional and widespread in animation. Usually, this term is used to refer to work with dolls and objects: they are photographed frame by frame, changing the position of the object, and then the photographs are combined - motion is obtained on the video. But when unexpected materials take the place of dolls and familiar objects, the old technique looks new and experimental again. For example, the animation of flowers and leaves in the music video by Israeli animators Yuval and Merav Nathan for Efrat Ben-Tzur's song based on Emily Dickinson's poem "Robin" ("Robin").

Oren Lavi - "Her Morning Elegance"

Directed by Yuval and Merav Nathan. Israel, 2009

The same directorial couple has another experimental clip that has greatly influenced many animators, where people were filmed in stop motion technology.

"Brilliant" ("Shiny")

Directed by Daniel "The Cloud" Campos, Spencer Sasser. USA, 2016

There are very witty films where clothes are animated, and often the technology is on the border of two popular techniques - stop motion and repositioning, where details, unlike object animation, move on a plane in parts, like in an appliqué. Here, for example, is such an adventurous story, filmed by American directors Daniel "The Cloud" Campos and Spencer Sasser (it is essential for this film that the first of them is a dancer and choreographer).

Loose animation from unusual materials

"Chinty"

Directed by Natalya Mirzoyan. Russia, 2011

In recent years, loose (or powder) animation has turned from a rare technique into one of the most popular. But everyone is used to the fact that it is made from the same materials, mainly sand and coffee. Of course, cartoons can be shot not only from them, but also from everything that can pour, even from iron shavings, adding interesting effects with a magnet. The best of bulk materials are traditionally found in the kitchen, and here their taste, particle size or origin can bring additional meaning. Here, for example, is the cartoon "Chinti" by St. Petersburg director Natalya Mirzoyan about a dreamy ant. His story takes place in India, and therefore animation made using different varieties of tea looks especially appropriate.

"Spitfire Man"

Directed by Natalia Antipova. Russia, 2004

The film by VGIK graduate student Natalya Antipova "The Hot-tempered Man" is made of spices. And since the oriental parable is about a man who cannot suppress his anger, red pepper and other hot spices are used here.

"Kitten that got lost", "About a hedgehog and an apple", "Ballet in the forest"

Director Svetlana Razgulyaeva and her students in the Loose Animation Workshop. Russia, 2015

At the Cartoon Factory of the Big Cartoon Festival, director Svetlana Razgulyaeva and her students filmed three simple stories about a kitten, a hedgehog and a forest ballet, using all home supplies: multi-colored cereals, beans, lentils, pasta of various shapes and much more. And the next year, at the Factory, the children filmed Shagayka: this short animation made of nuts and iron, also partially working as loose, tells about the Big Bang.

Kissel animation

"The simplest" ("Protozoa")

Directed by Anita Nakvi. Poland, 2011

Continuing the theme of the kitchen, we must also talk about a wonderful film by a young Polish director Anita Nakvi called "The Simplest". The main building material for Anita's cartoon is kissels of different colors.

Animation of medical pictures

"Foreign Bodies" ("Corps étrangers")

Directed by Nicolas Bro. Canada, 2013

Another interesting possibility inside the familiar technique of computer animation. Canadian director Nicolas Braud made a very beautiful abstract movie "Alien Bodies" using images taken from various kinds of medical studies - computed tomography, MRI, etc. Our organs here turn into strange animals, and the body really feels like something strange and alien.

Silkscreen Animation

"A Love Letter to the One I Made Up"

Directed by Rachel Gutgartz. Israel, 2017

The original technology was used by Rachel Gutgartz, a graduate of the Israeli Bezalel Academy of Arts. For her diploma film, in which a girl, on her way home, thinks about how she imagines an ideal man, and in her imagination writes a letter to him, Rahel used silk-screen printing, that is, printing each frame through a stencil. Hand-printed, which is different every time, gives a special, “trembling” frame and “live”, saturated color. Film in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Pixilation

Stanley Pickle

Directed by Vicki Mather. UK, 2015

Pixilation is not a new, but nevertheless not very commonly used animation technique. A real movement is filmed for it (a person, for example), and then the video is frame-by-frame re-edited so that it already looks like an animation. It is in this way, for example, that you can show the magical flight of a person above the ground: shoot how he jumps, and then cut out all the frames where he takes off and lands, and leave only the frames in the air. The famous pixelated film Stanley Pickle by British Vicki Mather is a very fitting story for this technology about a young genius inventor who made himself a mechanical family and lived in a world of gears until he met a live girl.

"Svetilo" ("Luminaris")

Directed by Juan Pablo Zaramella. Argentina, 2011

And another famous film in the pixilation technique is The Luminary by the Argentinean director Juan Pablo Zaramella. Here the director very naturally combines pixelation with object animation (the combination of different techniques is common today) to show what fantastic events take place in what seems to be a very real world. Before us is a production novel - mocking and lyrical.

Animation from photos

"On the threshold of Ilyich"

Directed by Mikhail Soloshenko. Russia, 2014

Animation from photographs is, of course, not a term: strictly speaking, any stop motion animation, like re-laying, is built from frame-by-frame shooting. But Mikhail Soloshenko’s VGI educational film “On the Threshold of Ilyich” was made more complicated: four actors took part in it, each for this film was filmed frame by frame like a doll and cut out. Separately, facial expressions were filmed in order to put a suitable lip movement on each cue, separately - the whole situation. It turned out thousands of cut out photos and their fragments. Here such a complex technology was needed, in particular, because in this parody story the scale of the characters is different: the hero and his mother are ordinary people, while Lenin and Pushkin are pets about the size of a cat. Well, because in such a manual assembly, all objects, seemingly remaining real, received some kind of grotesque irregularity, very suitable for this absurd story.

"4min15 au revelateur"

Directed by Moya Jobin-Pare. Canada, 2015

Canadian Moya Jobin-Pare's successful festival debut was an experimental film for which Moya invented the technology herself. She filmed the city and her sister through the apartment window, then printed out a mountain of photographs and scratched emulsion on them, watching the texture and color change on the silver print, and then re-combining the image on the computer. It turned out to be a very interesting semi-abstract movie.

collage animation

NET Theater Festival Trailer 2017

Directed by Maria Aligozhina, Alexey Ermolaev. Russia, 2017

Collage animation is actually a special case of the traditional re-laying technique, which primarily uses not the author's image, but ready-made (for example, photographs cut from glossy magazines and emphatically artificially moving). Here, for example, is a collage trailer for the NET theater festival, shot by Maria Aligozhina and Alexei Ermolaev.

Animation made from cinema

"Fast Film"

Directed by Virgil Vidrich. Austria, Luxembourg, 2003

Austrian director Virgil Widrich made his Fast Film as a tribute to old Hollywood. The classic story of the hero chasing and rescuing a beautiful woman was created from frames and microfragments of 400 old films from The Maltese Falcon and Godzilla to Psycho: Vidrich printed 65,000 frames and combined objects from them - planes, trains, cars, - in which the action takes place. The heroes of the film change faces every second: Humphrey Bogart starts kissing one star, and breaks away from another; one actor peeks through the door, and the head of another sticks out - a real gift for a movie buff.

Typewriter animation

"Typewriting" ("Schreibmaschinerie")

Directed by Karo Estrada. Austria, 2012

Another example of the fact that the most unexpected things can be the basis of an image in a cartoon, take at least the letters and signs printed on an old typewriter. The film by the Austrian Karo Estrada is called “Typewriter” (Karo said that she was inspired by her grandmother’s accidentally discovered typewriter). On this typewriter, an anti-war film dedicated to the First World War was shot.

"G-AAAH"

Directed by Elizabeth Hobbs. UK, 2016

British filmmaker Elizabeth Hobbs dedicated her film "G-AAAH" to Amy Johnson, who worked as a typist before making the record-breaking solo flight from England to Australia in 1930. Elizabeth also “drawn” her entire film on an old Underwood 315 typewriter. It must be said that cartoons from letters (printed or handwritten) although always look experimental, are not so rare. Here, for example, the film "Loof and Let Dime", filmed by VGIK graduate student Roman Vereshchak. This is an absurdist poem by autistic poet Christopher Knowles, read by American theater director and artist Robert Wilson.

felt animation

"Soft Plants" ("Zachte Planten")

Directed by Emma de Swaaf. Belgium, 2008

There seems to be nothing special about dolls made of felt. But a few years ago, after the release of the film " Oh Willy...” by Belgian directors Emma de Swaaf and Mark Ruls, where not only the characters, but the whole world looked soft and pubescent, like a woolen sock, the felting technique was of particular interest to everyone. The warm space was deceptive: the soft, defenseless characters of Oh Willy didn’t feel safe at all (the cartoon can seem quite scary to children). The same can be seen in Emma's very first diploma film "Zachte Planten" ("Soft Plants"). Her cartoon is about how the office clerk had a scary adventure in a soft forest.

Drawing in blood

"Blood Manifesto"

Directed by Teodor Ushev. Canada, 2014

I must say that you can draw with blood. Here is Blood Manifesto by Canadian director Teodor Ushev, filmed in the recent revolutionary heat, when the whole world (and Canada, like Russia) was protesting against the totalitarian regime. Own blood, as well as own rhythmic prose (the cartoon has not yet been translated from English into Russian), and poster-poetic visual style - everything works for the spirit of this film, similar to the bitter song of the revolution.

Silhouette animation

"Three Inventors" ("Les Trois Inventeurs")

Directed by Michel Oselo. France, 1980

Silhouette technique is rare, but one of the oldest. It was glorified by the German animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger, and one of her most famous followers in this technique is the French director Michel Oselo. His "Three Inventors" is an incredibly elegant film that looks like lace doilies. A sad story about a family of three genius inventors, whom the townsfolk considered sorcerers, destroyed their inventions and burned down the house. The cartoon is in French, but there is very little text, and the plot is quite understandable.

Shugo Tokumaru - "Katachi"

Directed by Kasia Kiek, Pshemek Adamski. Japan, 2012

And here is a modern version of the silhouette technique - a music video for the Japanese artist Shugo Tokumaru, filmed by the Polish directorial couple Kasey Kiek and Przemek Adamski: here new paper silhouettes do not replace the old ones, but stand in front of them, leaving behind all the previous phases of movement, like his trail. You can see how it was filmed: the phases were drawn on a computer, printed out and cut out with a laser.

III Unusual background and space for animation

It happens that the film looks very unusual, although the animation technique that it uses is quite traditional - it is the background or space that makes it special. Imagine, for example, a cartoon drawn on the body (and this happens), or a film where the animation is projected onto the real space of the forest. There are countless options, here are the most famous.

Animation on the walls of houses and in the spaces of the city

"Big Bang Big Boom"

Blu director. Italy, 2010

There are also animators among the street artists who paint graffiti and turn the walls of houses and city objects into giant backdrops for their cartoons. One of the most famous graffiti animators is the artist hiding under the nickname Blu. He loves to combine surreal hand-drawn animation with object animation. For example, his film "Big Bang Big Boom" tells the story of the Big Bang that created the world, and uses the whole city for this: houses, factory areas, city beach, bridges, cars, and so on.

"Stencil Tango No. 2" ("Stencil Tango no. 2")

Directed by Mario Rulloni, Juan Pablo Zaramella. Argentina, 2010

Another cartoon on the walls - no longer drawn, but made with the help of stencil graffiti on the wall of a dilapidated house. To make stencils, professional dancers