I have given myself 2 weeks to get this module done starting by Monday 6th May. My first week is mainly going to be researching more into the module and getting the development started so that I know exactly what my idea is going to be. My last week will be pre-production, where I will do it on cinema 4dD and get it put altogether. will then render it and take notes on my strengths and weaknesses of the module and how I will improve.
Traditional cut-outs come from the stop motion animation family. It is one of the easiest and fastest techniques to make, as you don't need to colour and draw each frame to scratch. However with technology growing some cut ours are now done on software such as cinema 4d. Computer cut outs have an advantage of being able to go back and forth on the timeline and work with keyframes in the pose to pose method. The technique has many variations and forms. The tradition technique is when the animator moves the pieces of paper cutouts under a fixed camera then shoots it straight ahead frame by frame as they come.
One of the most famous cut out animations is South Park. They are cut out boards put into 3D, which would be very challenging for people to do. These days, animation is mainly done on the PC in order to make everything look smoother and prettier. But South Park creators put a lot of effort in making it look hand made, without the splines, curves and 3D. The computer allows them to make an episode a week, thats all there is to it. They did there own thing, and stuck to it.
Another animation I found is “Your Face” created by Bill Plympton.
In his animations he uses basic styles such as using coloured pencil drawings
on paper. He did this to show his outrageous transitions that what build his
quirky animations. He only draws four to six drawings per second which is a lot
less that what Disney would do for example as they normally would require to do
12 to 24 drawings per second. The layout is shown as a cut-out were he drawings
many drawings and puts them together to create a moving image for a film or
animation.
The
techniques Plympton used for “Your Face” were cut outs and cel animation to
show the bizarre drawings of the face morphing into unusual shapes such as
mouths rotating and moving across the face while he sing and his head twisting
and turning it many more heads of himself. In each animation he wants to tell a
story and his techniques are different to what a normal animator would do but
he brings out humor to this. He spends many hours of the day constructing
drawings to create the short film. The processes of it all are constant
drawings and colouring in and making sure the composition of the character is
perfectly aligned correctly.
First, my plan for doing my cut out is that I'm going to take photos outside of little mud piles, trees, buildings etc and use them to put onto cinema 4d to create a cutout effect, as if it was done hand drawn. I want to try and create something basic for now as I am limited to time, but doing the idea from my previous module in E4 Esting, the evolution idea of the man going to the moon. I think this would work really effective and hopefully will work well. I'm going to research more into it and look online for tutorials to help me a long the way. I hope I will learn new skills and even do a practise cut out hand drawn to see the difference of whats its like to do it on software and on paper.
I have already given myself the timing I'll be doing this as told above and will be back on my blog to reflective on what I have done and what influenced me to do what I did. I will evau;ate my work and show a personal development plan of my weekly aims and objectives. Until then, for now I will research more into cut out animation and prepare for next week.
