Vision, sound, music, and our minds

I am fascinated by our growing scientific understanding of our senses, brains, and minds. Today I present some reports originally presented on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's weekly science radio program, Quirks and Quarks. (If you're interested in the world around you, I think you should listen to it every week.) These reports impressed me and give me insights into how I'm making movies. Particularly when I want to trick you into thinking a patch of colored light on a screen is thinking and feeling, or maybe even dancing.


You can also follow progress in our understanding of music. Here's the web page for a Quirks and Quarks radio documentary that introduces the subject.

We Got the Music In Us June 15 2002

Here's the link to the mp3 audio file:
We Got the Music In Us running time 25:41

Fast forward to 2006, Dr. Daniel Levitin writes a book: This is Your Brain on Music. He's interviewed on Quirks and Quarks on December 9; here's the page from the Quirks site:

This Is Your Brain On Music December 9, 2006

The mp3 file of the interview is here:
This Is Your Brain On Music running time 16:45


We're discovering the mechanisms by which music goes directly to our emotions, before our conscious mind is even aware of what's going on. Mood music has always been important in movies but can be overused - and I want to understand where the line is between "just right" and "in your face".

It's not just music that gets processed before it gets near our consciousness. Here's a related story from November 3, 2007. Towards the end of the story they note that movies are totally dependent on the ventriloquist's illusion. It certainly helped me, as an animator, understand just what's going on when I get a drawing to talk.

Ventriloquism and the Brain November 3, 2007

Here's the audio file:
Ventriloquism and the Brain running time 8:57


As an animator, I am tricking you into believing things you see - lines, shapes, forms - are moving, thinking, feeling, living - and I'll use whatever I can to make you believe it. Music that makes you feel things and brain processing that links movement and sound before you notice it - both of these are part of that trickery.

The better I can do it the better my animation will be. I'll be able to grab you, my audience, and hold you through whatever roller-coaster ride I want take you on. As well as being able to look at my work and proclaim to the world, ---(dramatic chord)--- "It's ALIVE!!!!"


Studies of creativity are important and fascinating as well. Here's one from the March 29, 2008 Quirks and Quarks show.

Your Brain on Jazz - or should that be Your Brain Doing Jazz ? Dr. Charles Limb has found a unique pattern of brain activation during musical improvisation. This pattern is shared with dreaming, and (I speculate) is connected to other states of creativity and improvisation as well.

Here's the link to the mp3 file of the interview:
Your Brain on Jazz running time 9:30.

"Crit" - a movie by Kyler Kelly

Kyler Kelly made this movie, Crit, using my program StopMotion Station for the animation. He's letting me post it here; I think it's inspiring!

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To rate or post a comment on this movie, go to Crit on YouTube.

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Crit blends live action and animation into a complete story. Kyler says he used Premiere to combine all the elements to make the finished movie. It's a movie "from the heart"; he's a student and it looks like he's been through some pretty rough critiques. The movie also says you shouldn't underrate the characters you create! Kyler can be reached at kylerk@gmail.com.

Classic Pixillation and Cutouts - Zanymation Magic

Quickdraw Animation Society held their third Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF) November 2 -3. I try not to let one pass without having an animation in the festival, so I edited a movie out of animations created by the instructors and facilitators at Quickdraw's Zanymation events. The movie (ta-DAA!):

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(Summary) Animation compilation, various artists, sound design and editing by Andrew Jaremko. All animation created using my program StopMotion Station. Please feel free to rate or comment on this video at Zanymation Magic on Google Videos.

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"Zanymation Magic" wasn't in the main festival screenings. Instead, Keith Murray decided to run it as an installation. I made a looping DVD and "Zanymation Magic" ran continuously in the classroom space. I suspect the soundtrack got a little annoying for the people in the classroom doing cameraless 16mm film. I could occasionally hear the track next door in what we call the sunroom, where we were doing pixillation and lightning doodles, live with the attendees.

Photo Gallery of GIRAF 3 courtesy of Cineart Photography.

It was an honor to have Zanymation Magic run continuously for anyone who cared to watch. (I actually caught some people watching it!) I'll have more to say about this movie and about our lightning doodles in later posts. For now, watch and enjoy!

A mini-lockdown Nov. 10

The November 10 Zanymation Workshop on Stopmotion Station at QAS went well and was a lot of fun for the seven people attending. Here's a quick look:

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(Summary) In the first part of the workshop, we animated to a soundtrack. I managed to animate and talk at the same time. We took a break and Alan Ferguson animated his version in about 30 minutes.

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I had thought to have two segments in the workshop: one on animating to a soundtrack and one on copying motion from one movie to another. I hadn't thought to allow time for the group to try things out, but that's what I should have done, and it's what I'll plan for next time. As it is, we did two animations to my track, and could have done more.

In an "animation lockdown" participants spend an "insanely intense" period of time creating a movie. Quickdraw's first Animation Lockdown happened over three days, with 3 teams animating to a 30 second soundtrack. Judging by Alan's performance on Saturday, we could have a StopMotion Station Lockdown that lasted just one day. The 4 hour workshop would have been enough time for a "mini lockdown" with cutouts or plastic shapes or clay or other things that lend themselves to improvisation in front of a camera.

I used a "buddha board" for part of my animation. This is a sheet of paper that darkens when it's wet, with the marks fading as the water dries. I hadn't worked with it before and wanted to try it. It's fun and very immediate.

Trying two distinct techniques in one day was definitely too much. Just like in a movie, it's best to focus on one thing and take it as far as you can. I'll be seeing just how far I can take my ideas...

StopMotion Station workshop synopsis

Here's the 45 second promo video for my Saturday, November 10 2007 workshop at Quickdraw Animation Society.

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(Summary) In the workshop we'll create an animation in sync with a soundtrack and see how to copy motion from one movie to another. I'll answer questions about StopMotion Station and we'll talk about your animation challenges.

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The cutout animation is fresh today. I was (of course) using the Dial feature in StopMotion Station to stay in sync with the soundtrack. I'm still learning how to think about motion while watching the counter to make sure I hit my marks. It's one of the things any actor has to do; in animation, we're doing it in slow motion.

The "gravel dancer" is an example of copying motion from one movie to another. In this case, it's live action copied to aquarium gravel. Working with sand, stones, seeds, beads or other loose material is almost another whole category of classic animation. Wikipedia has a short article on Sand Animation, with links to performance artists and animators.

A minor update to StopMotion Station

I've made a minor change to StopMotion Station based on a workshop that I'll be doing at Quickdraw Animation Society (QAS) on November 10, 2007. One of the things I'll be doing in the workshop is animating in sync with a soundtrack. I animated to a soundtrack during QAS's Animation Lockdown earlier this year, and the sync was perfect; but I've realized I could make working with a soundtrack better and easier.

To animate to a soundtrack you use StopMotion Station's Dial counters. Just press the D key when you're Shooting or Viewing a movie, and the Dial overlay will pop up. Press D again to hide the Dial. The Dial includes two counters: a footage counter that shows you how many frames are in your current folder, and a frame counter that keeps track of how many frames you've shot since the last time you reset it (by pressing Alt-D).

I had set up the footage counter to be a literal footage counter - counting in frames, feet of 35 mm film (16 frames per foot) or 16mm feet (40 frames per foot). This was a throwback to animation stands, where that's how you kept track of your shooting. Working on a little promo video for the November workshop, I realized it would be a lot more useful to show the footage as seconds and frames.

So now (Ta-DAA) the footage counter shows frames or seconds and frames. And you can choose 30 frames per second, for working in NTSC video; 25 frames per second, for PAL video; or 24 frames per second for working film style. The Other options tab of the Setup dialog lets you choose the one you want.

This change lets us break down a soundtrack at the frame rate of the movie we're making and use those time and frame counts directly when we're animating. This also shows an important facet of my programming: I actually use my software in real-life creation and make the changes that I find genuinely helpful.

I'll be resubmitting StopMotion Station for the malware-free certifications. I also plan to shoot video at my QAS workshop, so you'll see me in action animating to a (short) soundtrack. The other technique I'll demonstrate is copying motion from one movie to another, a little like rotoscoping. If you check out my movie "Beginning" at Stopmotion-Software.com you'll see some of this at 1:14, where I copied a dancer's motion in aquarium gravel.

The updated StopMotion Station 1.3 installer is now online at Stopmotion-Software.com. If you've purchased StopMotion Station, the license file I emailed you works with the updated version as well. Just download the new installer, uninstall StopMotion Station, reinstall it from the new download, and unlock it as per the instructions in the email.

Happy animating!

StopMotion-Software.com animation software rated safe!

You want to create classic animation. I want you to do it using software that I've written. It's a big and potentially nasty Internet out there, with some people who are trying to do harm - or at least not telling you everything they've put in their software. People like you are naturally suspicious of "free" stuff - and rightly so.

This post is intended to help reduce your anxieties, and to reassure you that I'm being open with my agenda - to get you to try and, hopefully, buy my software. My programs have been on the Web for several years now, and I've gotten unsolicited emails about them. There's quite a few awards (check out the list at StopMotion-Software.com for details) but more importantly, several of my programs have been certified as free of viruses, spyware, and other malware by several independent download sites.

The download and monitoring sites are softdll.com, SuggestSoft.com, SoftPedia.com and DownloadSofts.com. Four of my programs have been checked so far and certified clean by one or more of them. I've put three of them in this post.

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My flagship program is StopMotion Station, which turns a PC and an Windows DirectX compatible image source into a single frame movie camera and advanced movie viewer. (Perfect for creating classic animation, of course!) Here are the certifications it's received. (All links should open a new browser tab or window.)

From SuggestSoft.com


Anti-virus report 1
Anti-virus report 2
SuggestSoft download page

From softdll.com





From DownloadSofts.com





Naturally, I'm very pleased by these reports.

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The freware program that I really want you to try is FlipView Free. It looks at a folder of JPG images as a flipbook, from 0 to 30 real frames per second and virtual frame rates up to 90,000 frames per second. I'm just working on a minor update and will have it done and checked for malware soon. Meanwhile, the current version (on the freeware page at StopMotion-Software.com has been checked by SoftPedia.com.


SoftPedia's listing for FlipView Free.

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My freeware program StopMotion Camera (at, where else, StopMotion-Software.com) captures JPG images, one at a time, from DirectX compatible cameras and image sources. StopMotion Camera and FlipView Free together let you shoot classic animation and view it instantly. Check out the Free Animation video on the freeware page of my site. StopMotion Camera has been checked out by SoftPedia.com.


SoftPedia's listing for StopMotion Camera.

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I have more software for creating classic cinema on StopMotion-Software.com. But as I note in this page in the StopMotion Station Help file, a program reflects the programmer's personality - and doesn't necessarily make sense to its users. I made a movie about this idea way back in 1994. There's some Deluxe Paint animation here, from the glory days of the Amiga. The movie finally reveals what users do - or want to do - when prompted to "Strike any key when ready".



This film was shot in super-8, in a style deliberately imitating silent films. It premiered at the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers $100 film festival that year, and I had the chance to ask the audience how many people thought they understood it. Only one hand went up - and he was a programmer. I think now most people would get it.

Feel free to comment on the movie or on this post. The movie is on Google video at When What?.

What is classic animation?

The theme of this blog is classic animation; my purpose is to get you to create classic animation yourself - but what is classic animation? A quick search on "classic animation" (on Google, of course!) turns up 93,800 references as I write this. The number will have grown by the time you're reading it. A search on "classical animation" turns up another 84,600. A spot check of the sites shows that people think "classic animation" means cartoon animation.

Classic Animation Defined

To me, classic (or classical) animation means any animation in which the animator creates each frame individually. Cartoon animation is just one variety of classic animation. There are many more varieties already in existence, and yet more waiting to be invented.

Classic animation can be shot with a movie camera, a digital camera, or can be created using a computer - as long as the artist creates each frame individually, using classic visual arts techniques and media, or their digital equivalents. I exclude things like Flash animations and CG animation in which the computer generates frames algorithmically. Of course, the definition is pretty loose and there are gray areas. And the categories I list here shade into each other as well.

Types of Classic Animation

All animation can be regarded as stop motion animation; the subjects - drawings, clay, sand, puppets, paintings, or people - are all stopped in their motion and photographed one frame at a time. "Stop motion animation", though, conventionally means animation with dimensional models or armatures. While there are many ways of dividing animation into categories, I'm splitting classic animation into these broad types:

Cartoon (Cel) Animation
Stop Motion (Model) Animation
Direct (Cameraless, Scratch) Animation
Cutout Animation
Progressive (Painted) Animation
Pixillation
Lightning Doodles (Pika Pika)

Cartoon (Cel) Animation

In cartoon animation, each frame in the movie is drawn and/or painted separately. I think we all know what cartoon animation is, but just for completeness, here's some cartoon animation on a demo reel from EdSeeman.com. There's a wide range if styles in his work, and combinations of cel animation with live action.



Cartoon animation can be anything from realistic to surreal. The work of animation pioneers is still inspiring. Here's the rather bizarre "Betty Boop, M.D." from the Fleischer Studio that includes four of their trademark characters.



This video was uploaded by azothstudios.

Stop Motion (Model) Animation

Stop motion animation or model animation is another type of classic animation. The original King Kong (1933) and all of Ray Harryhausen's movies featured stop motion animation. Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" is a spectacular modern example. Here's an older movie, "The Milky Way", that I came across in some old 16mm films: it's one of a series of movies from Kinex Studios, made in the 1920s.



Modeling clay is another favorite medium for stop motion animation. Animator Jimmy Picker won the Academy Award in 1985 for "A Sundae in New York". Here's another of his movies, "Breakdance".



Jimmy doesn't use armatures for his clay figures. He reveals some of his secrets in a video shot in 1986 at a Quickdraw Animation Society workshop. It's in my "Learn Claymation with Oscar Winner Jimmy Picker" post.

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I think that Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is an authentically great movie, as well as having incredible animation. The "making of" documentary shows that the movie was shot with digital cameras - one frame at a time. Click on the link to order the DVD from Amazon.com.

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Direct Animation

In this type of classic animation, the artist draws, paints, or scratches directly onto the film that goes into the projector. This is called "direct", "cameraless", or "scratch" animation. Once again, the artist creates the movie one frame at a time. Here's an example: "Aria", from glorialoyola:



"Aria" isn't strictly a cameraless movie. glorialoyola freezes some of the frames in the movie to accent the music. This is done in the editing, and is easy to do with digital movies.

Some artists add direct animation to images already on the film. Here's "Whiz!", a very creative example from gazzookabazookaz.



No collection of direct animation would be complete without a movie by the National Film Board of Canada's Norman McLaren. Here's Begone Dull Care (1949). His work speaks for itself, and is one of my inspirations. The video was posted by JoniChe.

Cutout Animation

In still another type of classic animation, the animator moves cutouts or other objects around in front of a camera and shoots the movie one frame at a time. One of my movies in this style is "Face #1":



If the artist turns the cutouts into silhouettes, the animation has the look of shadow puppets. (Shadow puppetry is "one of the oldest art forms in the world" according to ArtsEdge at the Kennedy Center.) Here's an untitled example on YouTube, from Bhavpreet81.

Progressive (Painted) Animation

In progressive animation the artist shoots frames of a piece of artwork as it is being created. A painting paints itself or transforms as the artist changes it. "Darfur" from joefrechette is a very powerful example.




Some artists refuse to tie their art to a canvas or the camera to a tripod. Digital cameras are definitely making animation happen all around us, as in "Fantoche" from notblu.



"Progressive animation" is an older name for this type of animation. If you search for "progressive animation" videos, though, you won't find anything like these. People seem to be calling it "painted animation" now. I prefer "progressive animation" since that's what's happening - the movie records the progress of the artwork.

And the "artwork" can be very ephemeral. There are several kinds of sand animation. In one type, artists create flat images in (typically backlit) sand; in another, artists mold sand into shapes much the way they mold clay. Shoot them one frame at a time and you have animation, as in "EN TIERRA" from cesarlinga.

Pixillation

In "pixillation" the moviemaker shoots actor's performances one frame at a time. Norman McLaren's "Neighbors", done in this technique, is an Academy Award winner. The video was posted by JoniChe.





More modestly (much more modestly), there's a lot of pixillation in Zanymation Magic, which I edited from improvised animations created by the instructors and facilitators at Quickdraw Animation Society's Zanymation animation events. Of course, we're improvising with cutouts and other things as well...

Here's a pixillation music video from VitaTigris.

Lightning Doodles (Pika Pika)

A more recent development is "lightning doodles" - it's sort of "air animation" or "air drawing". You open the shutter on a camera, draw in the air with lights, and close the shutter. Shoot a sequence of frames and you have animation. This movie is from the people who originated the technique:


This movie was posted by beccatronic.

One Frame at a Time

The common theme in all these styles is that the artist/animator creates each frame as an entity of its own, and determines what's happening and how things are moving, frame by frame. At times (especially when creating textures in scratch animation) the artist takes advantage of patterns that emerge by chance, but it's still created one frame at a time.

When animators began using computers, they were eager to automate parts of the process. The result is now a field of its own - CG animation. But computers can be just as useful in classic animation. Digital technology has made classic animation easier and better, and it's what I'm exploring through my software and my movies. My software is at StopMotion-Software.com and you'll be seeing more of my movies in this blog, on my site, and elsewhere on the Web. I'll be exploring all the classic animation styles in this blog, and showing how you can animate yourself.

Mixing it Up

Here's one more of my movies. See how many classic animation techniques you can find in it!

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Norman McLaren is a master of classic animation in all its forms. Norman McLaren: The Masters Edition showcases all of Norman McLaren's work, not all of which is animation. This DVD set includes many documentaries. Some of the documentaries manage to make the principles of animation boring - but will reward close attention. These DVDs will stretch your mind. Click on the link to order them from Amazon.com.

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My thanks to all the posters who upload movies and let us view them. Where no other poster is credited, the uploads are mine.

Animating a Simple Walk

In the summer of 2004 I took the Introduction to Character Animation course at Quickdraw Animation Society. One of the assignments was an animated walk. I (of course) immediately grabbed my copy of Richard Williams's "The Animator's Survival Kit" and started work. My walking robot eventually looked pretty good (I thought), but of course the exercise also made me see how much I didn't know.

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I think Richard Williams's book The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators is an essential book if you want to do animation in any style. I wouldn't be without it. Click on the link to order it from Amazon.com.

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I started watching people walking. Williams makes a big point later in his book about the importance of the "whip" action, though he doesn't really define a "whip". I started to think I could see some whip action in walks, specifically when the rear leg swings forward. I thought it was worth checking further, but didn't want to just trust my impressions.

I was working with some of my super-8 movies (a Disneyland trip in 1976) and saw that I had a shot of some people walking at right angles to the camera, with nothing in front of them. I grabbed the frames and made loops that I could look at.




By coincidence, this walk loops on 24 frames - a magic number for animators. It's a real coincidence that it does. My super-8 film is at 18 frames per second, so a normal two step per second walk would be 18 frames. People just stroll at Disneyland, so my subject took 2/3 of a second for a step - 12 frames. A full left-right cycle came out to 24 frames.


One of the first things I saw was that weight isn't transferred from one foot to the other instantly. Williams's "normal" walk drawings imply that it is. He starts with a drawing like this one, showing full weight on the back toes and no weight on the front heel.





I didn't rotoscope my frames, but I see the weight transfer starting with this position




and finishing, about 3 frames later, with this position.




It's very clear in the movie frames.




Alan Ferguson, looking at these frames with me at Quickdraw, pointed out that this is just one example walk and is slightly slower than normal. The weight transfer could take proportionately less time in a normal walk. We could doubtless find out a lot more if we just asked the sports physiology professors at the University of Calgary. Or looked in a technical library.

After that little sidetrack, I got back to looking for the whip action, and confirmed what I thought I was seeing.




While the toes are still planted and the rear heel is coming up, the rear leg is bending and the rear thigh is already moving forward. Once the leg has bent to an angle of about 120 degrees, the toes lift off. The thigh keeps swinging forward, but the knee stays at about 120 degrees until the thigh stops, like this:




The lower leg and foot swing forward and out once the thigh has stopped rotating.




This is the part of the walk that I see as a whip action. The thigh moves before the lower leg and foot, and drags them along. The thigh stops, and the lower leg keeps going until it "snaps" into position. Williams doesn't define what a whip action is but leaves it to our intuition. I think whip actions happen with flexible objects (jointed or rope-like) that are anchored at one end and driven by forces that work from close to the point of attachment. Inertia delays motion in parts of the object further from the attachment. The details of the delays should give more or less feeling of weight.

And also (contrary to Williams) my film doesn't show the leading knee bending after it contacts the ground and starts receiving weight. Legs seem to stay straight all the time they carry weight.


Those last four drawings look suspiciously like a walk cycle. Here they are, in motion:




This was actually a pleasant surprise, since I hadn't planned these four drawings as a step cycle. The walk shows no weight whatsoever - it looks to me like the glide of a geisha.


Williams makes the point that, as animators, we are caricaturing motion and giving characters their own motions. And also that to do this, to show what's different about an individual, we need to know what the ordinary, common motion is. It seemed to me that even Williams's "normal" walk is a caricature. My film, of course, shows a "character-less" walk. It's an ordinary, casual stroll.

I decided to make a chart of the timing of what I could see in the walk. For the weight transfers, the chart looks like this:




A similar chart for Williams's "normal" walk might look like this:





This is a walk on the very edge of becoming a run. In a run, there are intervals when neither foot is in contact with the ground.




The chart for a different walk (say Daffy's as he enters the saloon in "Drip-Along Daffy") might look like this:



Here's the walk itself. This walk was animated on ones (one drawing for every frame, at 24 frames per second) and is a total of 30 frames long. It's definitely an expensive piece of animation. I've slowed it down to 12 frames per second to show the motion more clearly.



In this walk both feet bear weight most of the time. Each leg moves forward for the next step very quickly. This is like the pattern I used for the robot walk I mentioned earlier. Daffy brings his foot forward quicker than my robot does.




This is giving me another way of thinking about animating walks, and might even help me "get my brains in my pencil" (to quote from Williams) once it really sinks in. I could start by putting a grid onto the walk chart. The grid would contain the number of frames I want to draw - say 8, for example.




This grid gives me the four positions I used in the example cycle. Because the leg timing is symmetrical, the leg positions in the second four frames are the same as in the first four. Things are different when I want an odd total number of frames. (Williams doesn't discuss odd total numbers at all.)




In this case, the leg positions in the second half of the walk cycle aren't the same as in the first. I tried drawing this cycle and came up with these leg positions.




And the walk looks like this.




A few comments about this one. I'm still learning where to put the body relative to the legs so it balances properly. I actually had to lean the body a little forward in these drawings to get it to look better. There's a bit of a limp - the body does come down a bit as the right foot lands but not when the left foot does. And with an odd number of frames, there's ambiguity about just where the weight goes in the overall cycle. All of which just reminds me how much more I have to learn.

I charted more than just the weight transfers, hoping it'll help me learn more about animating walks. Click on the link for a PDF file of my walk chart.

WalkChart.pdf

I also grabbed some leg bones from the CorelDraw clipart collection and animated them according to what I saw in my film. I think the bone walk turned out pretty well. Doing it helped me understand what goes on in the bones and joints, even though I didn't do anything with motion in the toes.



Click on the link for a PDF file of the 24 frames in this walk.

BoneWalk.pdf

Next time, I think I'll start with where the weight goes and then put the feet and legs in to support it. Happy walkies!

First post: about this blog

I start this blog with good intentions and quite an ambition. I want to make it not just a daily journal, but a place that will come to contain and organize things that I think I know. The area that I will focus on to begin with is creating "classic" animation. I will branch out into other subjects but it remains to be seen whether they will have separate blogs or should all be jumbled together here.

I've been discovering that the content management system powering this blog is incredibly versatile. For several years, I've been imagining what I want in a system that I can use to take notes, organize them, publish articles, and track a variety of creative projects. At first glance, a blog is a daily journal. The basic view of a blog is chronological or historical - you'll see the posts in the sequence I make them. But each entry becomes a "unit" of its own, and I can give them labels that identify their topics. It's then easy for me (or you) to look at all the posts on one topic.

But I can also create "books" out of them, by setting up a "table of contents" post that list specific posts that I decide belong together. I'll also put them in the order that I think they should be in, and I'll be able to see what I need to write to "fill in the gaps". Literally creating a book - or books. My ambition is to have a bookshelf here that is "the encyclopedia of Andrew Jaremko".

I have another agenda with this blog, too. I want to excite you about creating animation, and specifically to create animation using the software that I've been writing. Some is freeware, and you can use it to get a taste of classic animation. Some is shareware, with features that make animating easier, or more flexible, or more creative. I'll be referring to my site regularly in this blog. It's StopMotion-Software.com, in case you'd like to have a look. Here's a little piece of my animation that you'll also see on that site.



And this shows one of the most exciting things about assembling books on the Web - moving illustrations. Perfect for showing you what I'm doing and how you can do it too. It's a challenge for authors - to be good at writing, illustrating, and making movies - but it's a challenge I like.

And the best part: the content management part of this is free, and I don't have to do anything "behind the scenes". I began setting up a content management system on StopMotion-Software.com and it turned into a lot of work. Here, all I have to do is write and illustrate. (A little knowledge of HTML helps, but it isn't absolutely essential.)

This blog is free on Google and I'm using Google to host all my videos. They have an agenda of their own, of course, but I'm perfectly happy to ride along with them, and hopefully contribute to their success as well.

My various ambitions mean that, when you look at my posts sequentially, they'll jump around among topics and you won't necessarily get much of my ongoing biography. But that's not what I'm here for. In six months I hope to have a start on the bookshelf and a better idea of whether I can pull together anything coherent. I plan to allow comments to my posts (I'll review them and delete things I consider spam without hesitation or explanation) so we will find out whether I'm speaking to people or "crying in the wilderness". I'll also be tinkering with the blog as I go along.

A note added on February 24, 2008 - I've been discovering lots of things about blogging. Among them, that the posting date can be edited (at least on blogger.com) to change the order that posts appear in. I'm creating some posts about important animators and hiding them "before" this post - which remains the first post I wrote. I'm starting to do some of the things I talk about here; time will tell if it works the way I imagined. The main access to these "earlier" posts will be from other pages here and on other sites.

Animation Odyssey - Richard Williams

Richard Williams is a Canadian-born artist, animator, and animation director. This documentary maps out his career and fiercely independent struggles to learn all he could about animation and produce an animated feature film. This is both inspiration and warning: the heights of animation are a heady climb and the view is intoxicating, but it makes a lifelong obsession. The Wikipedia article will open in a new browser window.

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 1

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 2

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 3

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 4

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 5

The Thief Who Never Gave Up Part 6

These videos were posted by cookedart.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Cartoons For Big Kids - Tex Avey

Tex Avery was a star maker for the Looney Tunes. The characters of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (at least) were defined in cartoons directed by Tex Avery. He introduced more adult themes and concerns into cartoons, especially when he was working at Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Tex Avery Part 1

Tex Avery Part 2

Tex Avery Part 3

Tex Avery Part 4

Tex Avery Part 5

These videos were posted by skewiff1.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Claymation with Oscar winner Nick Park

Nick Park - "South Bank Show" Part 1

The South Bank Show videos were posted by skewiff1. It's a very intimate portrait of Nick Park and how he works. And in Part 3, you'll learn the secret origin of Gromit's expressive eyebrows.

Nick Park - "South Bank Show" Part 2

Nick Park - "South Bank Show" Part 3

Nick Park - "South Bank Show" Part 4

Nick Park - "South Bank Show" Part 5

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

I Drew Roger Rabbit - Richard Williams

Richard Williams is a Canadian-born artist, animator, and animation director. In this documentary he talks about animating and directing the animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit The Wikipedia articles will open in a new browser window.

Williams: "I've picked the most expensive medium that takes the longest time. ... The reward is - you can play God."

I Drew Roger Rabbit Part 1

I Drew Roger Rabbit Part 2

I Drew Roger Rabbit Part 3

These videos were posted by cookedart.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Voices of Disney Animated Characters

The animation is only half of an animated character. It takes both animation and a voice to bring the character to life! These videos go behind the scenes to see how much the animators relied on the voice talent - as voices and as actors.

Disney Album - Voices of the Characters Part 1

Disney Album - Voices of the Characters Part 2

Disney Album - Voices of the Characters Part 3

These videos were posted by yensidtun.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Biography - Disney's Marc Davis

Find out more about Marc Davis on Wikipedia. These links open in a new browser window.

Marc Davis on Disney Family Album part 1

Marc Davis on Disney Family Album part 2

Marc Davis on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were posted by cookedart.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Biography - Disney's Frank Thomas

Andreas Deja on Frank Thomas

The links above open the Wikipedia articles on Andreas Deja and Frank Thomas in a new browser window.

Frank Thomas on Disney Family Album part 1

Frank Thomas on Disney Family Album part 2

Frank Thomas on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were uploaded by Darthkoon and cookedart.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Biography - Disney's Ollie Johnston

Glen Keane on Ollie Johnston

The above links open the Wikipedia articles on Glen Keane and Ollie Johnston in a new browser window.

Ollie Johnston on Disney Family Album Part 1

Ollie Johnston on Disney Family Album Part 2

Ollie Johnston on Disney Family Album Part 3

These videos were posted by loosetoon and Darthkoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animation Biography - Disney's Milt Kahl

Brad Bird on Milt Kahl

The above links open the Wikipedia articles on Brad Bird and Milt Kahl in a new browser window.

Milt Kahl on Disney Family Album part 1

Milt Kahl on Disney Family Album part 2

Milt Kahl on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were posted by loosetoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animation Biography - Disney's Ward Kimball

Find out more about Ward Kimball on Wikipedia. The link opens in a new browser window.

Ward Kimball on Disney Family Album part 1

Ward Kimball on Disney Family Album part 2

Ward Kimball on Disney Family Album part 3

The Firehouse Five Plus Two

Music isn't just used in animation; it can be a key ability for an animator. Animation is performance, with rhythm, timing and a lot of non-verbal expression. Music reaches audiences at a similar deep emotional level. The Firehouse Five play "Jingle Bells" Dixieland style, while apparently playing hooky from animating. But how did the camera get in there - and on a camera crane yet?



These videos were posted by loosetoon, cookedart and yensidtun.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Biography - Disney's Ken Anderson

Find out more about Ken Anderson on Wikipedia. The links open in a new browser window.

Ken Anderson on Disney Family Album part 1

Ken Anderson on Disney Family Album part 2

Ken Anderson on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were posted by loosetoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animation Biography - Disney's Eric Larson

Find out more about Eric Larson on Wikipedia. The link opens in a new browser window.

Eric Larson on Disney Family Album part 1

Eric Larson on Disney Family Album part 2

Eric Larson on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were posted by loosetoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animation Biography - Disney's Woolie Reitherman

Find out more about Woolie Reitherman on Wikipedia. The link opens in a new browser window.

Woolie Reitherman on Disney Family Album part 1

Woolie Reitherman on Disney Family Album part 2

Woolie Reitherman on Disney Family Album part 3

These videos were posted by loosetoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animation Biography - Disney's Art Babbitt

Find out more about Art Babbitt on Wikipedia. The link opens in a new browser window.

Art Babbitt - Animating Art part 1

Art Babbitt - Animating Art part 2

Art Babbitt - Animating Art part 3

Art Babbitt - Animating Art part 4

These videos were posted by Darthkoon.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com.

Animate with Disney's Glen Keane

Find out more about Glen Keane on Wikipedia. The link opens in a new browser window.

This is from a lecture given by Glen Keane at CalArts. Watching an animator at work is usually as exciting as watching paint dry, but Glen narrates his process as he works. Keep an eye on how much he rolls the drawings to see the motion and how he adds elements to successive drawings rather than finishing one drawing at a time. He is drawing motion, not making drawings move.

Glen Keane animates a scene part 1

Glen Keane animates a scene part 2

Glen Keane animates a scene part 3

These videos were posted by cookedart.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Animation

These videos are three excerpts from the Access Alberta documentary of the same name, produced about 1999. All of the segments are about classic cartoon (cel) animation. Watch all three and you will have a better idea of the cel animation process as it evolved along with digital technology. You'll also see the full range of animation projects - from the one person, completely independent production to the multimillion dollar theatrical feature.

Excerpt 1 - Dreamworks Animation "Road to El Dorado"

Dreamworks Animation should need no introduction. This documentary goes a little deeper into the production process than many other documentaries do; and you get a real feeling for the complexity of feature animation.

Excerpt 2 - Bruce Wilson's "Friday Night Idiot Box"

"You're out of your mind for making movies anyway." - Marv Newland, International Rocketship. Bruce Wilson made a series of three 30 second cel animated cartoons, completely in the classic manner - making and testing his drawings, inking and painting the cels, and shooting on 35mm film. Marv Newland of International Rocketship helped him with it. This documentary goes beyond most animation documentaries and shows some of what happens on an animation stand. Marv has strong opinions about film's superiority over digital movies; I disagree. But hear him out and make up your own mind.

Excerpt 3 - "Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning"

Kevin Kurytnik and Carol Beecher of Fifteen Pound Pink Productions started Mr. Reaper's Really Bad Morning as a more or less conventional cartoon. During production they decided to switch to digital ink and paint and worked with Quickdraw Animation Society to set up the system. They finally output the digital files to 35mm film. This documentary shows the grant supported side of independent animation, though Kevin and Carol work like Richard Williams, doing animation for clients to help them make their independent movie.

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Nation 1 - The Art of Persuasion

The British claim the first animated film, made in 1899 by cinema innovator Arthur Melbourne Cooper - and it was both advertising and propaganda. See it in this 2005 BBC documentary and judge for yourself. Watch the documentary to broaden your ideas about animation and what it can do for your audience... and to your audience.

Animation Nation 1 Part 1

Animation Nation 1 Part 2

Animation Nation 1 Part 3

Animation Nation 1 Part 4

Animation Nation 1 Part 5

Animation Nation 1 Part 6

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Nation 2 - Something to Say

The history of British animation continues through the sixties with new voices, new attitudes, and new ambitions. Art school graduates bring new looks and the themes and concerns become darker.

Animation Nation 2 Part 1

Animation Nation 2 Part 2

Animation Nation 2 Part 3

Animation Nation 2 Part 4

Animation Nation 2 Part 5

Animation Nation 2 Part 6

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com

Animation Nation 3 - Visions of Childhood

Animation springs from "the childlike desire to bring the fantasy world to life." Animation became a way to reach children - and then it became the promotion for merchandising. In all of it there's "underlying absurdity" - that finds its full expression in Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit. (For more documentaries on Nick Park, see my Clay Anmation with Oscar Winner Nick Park post.)

Animation Nation 3 Part 1

Animation Nation 3 Part 2

Animation Nation 3 Part 3

Animation Nation 3 Part 4

Animation Nation 3 Part 5

Animation Nation 3 Part 6

Create many kinds of classic animation with software from StopMotion-Software.com