I had no experience of animation when I began this project. I was curious about animation: where it began and what the possibilities were. It was a daring choice in my mind, but as no final piece was needed, I could do test pieces. I could make mistakes.
I’ve learnt a lot about the origins of animation and the practical skills to make working examples of the first animation tools. I’ve learnt to make a thaumastrope, zoetrope, kineograph (flip book) and a phenakistoscope. Objects I never knew existed before, except flip books obviously. I understand how they work, or should I say how the eye reads images collectively at fast speeds.
I can now video myself using photobooth on my mac and I've been using my phone to film some of my tests too. This is much different to my usual way of documenting my work and I really like it. Tempted to do some video diaries for future projects, maybe some how-to videos for my craft collective in the summer. I now have a vimeo account and can upload the videos. All very easy really but I'd never done it before, a video can sometimes show a lot more information than a photograph. It would save me time typing too if I wanted to evaluate in video.
I’ve learnt that I don’t really want to spend a long time on a computer. I much prefer the making of things to editing animation. I don’t think I would choose to make an animation knowing that I would have to spend a lot of time editing it. However, I do like the concept and aesthetic of stop-motion. I'm sure that if I could spend lots of time making a 'set' and tactile objects to animate, I may enjoy it more. I guess that means I've learnt how I learn. I'm a kinetic learner, I like to make things and be hands on.
I began looking at examples of animation, mainly youtube and vimeo videos. The topic of animation seemed vast and it was hard to initially start creating animations; I didn’t know where to start. I found it difficult to make stop-motion animations to begin with as it kind of put me off the project. I had trouble with the camera focus in the stills, which made the animations look amateur.
I went to Bradford Animation Festival, which was fun, but gave little information about the making side of animation. However, it did show me how animation can be used to make beautiful pieces of work. Imagining the time and effort to make each film, blew my mind. I could not sit a rotoscope for hours a day, I think I would go crazy. I really do like the finished pieces but it's just not me.
The animation workshop with Animation Yorkshire was a great experience. I could do the image capture parts again without needing help. I would not feel confident at all working with Adobe Flash again. Instead of being talked through it and having a go, Rozi demonstrated. I never remember much from simply looking at a screen, I have to use my hands for memory. I know this already and I should have said this at the time. I know codes for doors at work with my hands but I couldn't say the code - the numbers just aren't in my head, the hand movements are there instead. Memory hands!
I found animation books much more helpful than the youtube videos for stop motion. I could go at my own pace. I found that with the tech staff I was at such a level (no level!) that I needed to have a go on my own first. It must be so frustrating for them to have a student that has no idea about animation. I think that now I would have acted differently. My confidence is back to normal after a tough time and I would have no problem asking for help.
I don’t think there’s anything I ‘need’ to learn further. I’m not just an animator nor just interested in animation. This was a project to look further into a discipline that I had no idea about.
That's not to say I will not learn more about animation.
I would like to make a working praxinoscope and then a zoopraxinoscope. These will take much more skills are I’ll have to consider placements and angles much more accurately so that the mirrors reflect in the right direction. I think it’s definitely something I will do. I have a new found love for traditional forms of animation. After a few prototypes, I feel confident I’ll be ready to make them out of more durable materials to stand the test of time.
My record player that I used for some experiments is actually broken and will not play at the usual speed for LPs - If it's not worth getting fixed (if it's more to fix than buy a new and better record player) it's perhaps useable it as a phenakistoscope player. Although I think I need to get it speeded up. I could make more elaborate phenakistoscopes to use on it. Would be a good piece of kit to have for perhaps traditional animation workshops with children?
I think that in the back of my mind I'm always thinking "How could I use this in community arts?" and "How could I teach people to do this?" I think this is something that kids would enjoy making and then using. Although I'd have to test the market, so to speak, as I may be wrong.
I would like to find out more about the image capture in stop-motion and how to stop the camera moving in and out - even when set to manual!
I’ve always believed that making mistakes is important. I think I made a mistake choosing animation for this module in the first place. Although the traditional forms of animation I really like. I know now that I wouldn’t choose to do animation again. It was something I had to try. It's now another discipline ticked off the list of things to try. If I hadn't disliked stop-motion the editing element of stop motion so much I may not have taken my research to earlier forms. Then I wouldn't be able to throw words around like phenakistoscope - if there was any doubt of my progress as a practitioner, at least my vocabulary has expanded!
The problems I encountered with the phenakistoscopes just pushed me to try and make them work.
Technology is constantly improving in the field of animation. New techniques and software are very quickly, to some people, becoming obsolete and out-dated. In my perception, there is still a need for older forms of animation and it would be wrong to forget about zoetropes and phenakistoscopes and their founders, as this is history. These older forms tantalised audiences when they were invented and still have that power to do so.
However, as I don't plan to go into digital animation for anything other than to create imaginative pieces (and that's only a possibility), I fail to see how the advancements in technology would affect me much as a practitioner. It would simply mean that I would have to learn a new software if that's what I chose to do.
What worries me about technological advances is how our lives are being more and more consumed by gadgetry. One might say that the western world is more comfortable emailing someone than speaking face to face. My research into the future of animation was pretty shocking. Animated news reports? It worries me the prospect of fictionalised information being shown to masses of people that have little or no interest in going out of their way to learn for 'real news' and to form their own opinions based on fact.
At the beginning of the module after the briefing I got straight into the project. I organised external trips to an animation festival and went to a workshop by Animation Yorkshire. I continually was researching and watching animations and read through lots of books to gain more insight. However, this level of perseverance with the module did not continue throughout.
Usually I am very good at managing a project and motivating myself. This module has been particularly difficult to finalise. This was purely on a personal level with outside factors affecting my work. Once I had realized there was an issue, I feel that I dealt with it head on. However, I took a break from the module in order to reflect on my work and my life, perhaps I took a break from Comm Tech for too long. This was my first ever extension on a module and so I had nothing to compare it to. If I got an extension on a project (fingers crossed to not) I would try and get the module finished so that I could concentrate on my other modules.
When it came to getting back into the module I did contact tutors to have a look at my work so far and to give feedback. This was helpful, as is any feedback, but especially this time as I didn't know where to start again.
