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[mipeltaja]

So that's the first week of animation now. This week was pure theory.

We watched some documentaries on the history of moving pictures. Turns out animation was actually around before live action moving pictures. I was aware of the existence of magic lanterns, but I'd never thought of them as a form of animation, which they are.

We reviewed filmmaking basics, such as the 180 degree rule (there's an invisible line between two interacting characters. You may only shoot the scene from one side of that line. The camera may only occupy the other side if it is moved there during a tracking shot), shot composition, lighting, and transitions.

Then we watched some animated shorts. Steamboat Willie and some Wallace and Gromit, plus a few short cartoons geared towards really small kids.

As we left the class today, we were tasked with writing storyboards for our own animations. We will all be making two: One in stop motion and the other in 2D drawing.

Comments

[mipeltaja.livejournal.com]

Okay, so, you have two characters facing each other in a scene, and they're both staying in the same place.

So you start with a shot of boht of them, where character A if in the left and B is on the right side of the screen. you can now continue to shoot them from pretty much any angle, but A must stay on the left and B must stay on the right.

So effectively, there is a straight line going through the spots where both characters are positioned. When you start filming, you pick one side to film from and never cross the line to the other side.

The one time you can shoot from the opposite side from where you started is when you move there with a tracking shot. That is, when the camera is moved there while it is filming. Then the audience can see the angle changing to the other side of the characters and it won't look like the characters themselves have moved.