Unit 1A

I am going to be taking part in a British Film Industry animation course at Wem Town Hall. I already have a few art and technology skills through doing Art, Graphics and Media lessons at college and Art, Media and ICT at GCSE. I would like to develop my skills and learn something new when creating the animation.

I would like to try out and learn how to use computer software that allows you to create animation. In the past, I have tried out hand drawn animation and a small amount of stop motion animation. 

For the course, I have considered all of the animating techniques. There are positive and negative points to each technique. 

Hand drawn - They can look better than if they were drawn on the computer. You can add as much detail as you want to. They take a longer time make than if they were made on a computer. They would take a long time for you to redraw each image on each frame. You have to take a photograph of each frame and then import them onto the computer and into a particular piece of software to create the animation. 

Cut outs - You can use different kinds of textures, patterns, shades, colours, materials, surfaces and backgrounds within the animation. You can cut out anything and add it easily to the animation. The downsides to this technique are that the animation will always be in 2D and there may be health and safety issues when using scissors to cut the material. 

Rotorscope - This technique can be simple because you draw over the top of a piece of video. It can end up having a hand drawn feel. It can be very time consuming because you would have to draw an image multiple times but with small differences on each frame. 

Drawing straight into animation software - The movements of the character and objects are smooth. The software may be difficult to use at first and you would have to learn how to use it effectively to gain a good outcome. 

Plasticine or clay - You can change the shape and size of the model however or whenever you want to. You can morph objects and/or characters together easily. You get a good 3D effect because they are actual objects opposed to creating a fake 3D object on the computer. However, the process is long and time consuming because you have to add all the detail to the clay and move the object for every frame.

After considering the different animation techniques, I have come to the conclusion that I would like to try rotor scoping. This is because I have never tried this technique before and it will develop my skills in using Photoshop. I will need to use photoshop, a piece of film to draw over and a graphics tablet to create a piece of rotor scope animation. I am expecting this work to take a few days or more to complete.