Techniques and Formats

Techniques and Formats

Time Lapse

Time Lapse is the method of taking a series of photos of a slow action, and playing them back at a faster speed.

Benefits of Time Lapse
-Can make a scenic shot look much better with a smooth flowing sky and ground
-Time Lapses allow for hours of footage to be easily compressed into a minutes worth of video.
Drawbacks of Time Lapses
-Video could be confusing to watch
-Difficult to see what is actually happening in the video

Plasticine and Claymation
Plasticine and Claymation animation is the use of Plasticine or clay to create a character, and make said character move however you want.

Claymation is useful because you can create anything you like, such as a human character, an animal, or even an inanimate object.

This is beneficial because it can enhance the creative mind of the developers, and they can create whatever they want out of clay or plasticine.

However, each model has to be so incredibly detailed, and the models themselves are fragile, which can be difficult for the producers.

Claymation is targeted at younger audiences generally, due to the unlimited resource for creativity it has. This would appeal to younger audiences because the non naturalistic and more abstract style of animation means that the producers can specifically target their animation to any audience.

Some examples of Claymation are:

• Wallace and Gromit
• Early Man
• Flushed Away

The BBFC rating for these films are as follows

Wallace and Gromit - U

Early Man - PG

Flushed Away - U

Found objects
Found objects are natural or man made objects which are known as a form of art. These would not be too useful in animations because the amount of movement with the objects are extremely restricted.

However, this is counter-acted by the fact that the objects will be much more realistic than something made of clay or plasticine.

You can be creative with found objects, as an example, laying out a selection of coins to create a character, instead of just using one coin as a character.

The low quantity of movement within the animations appeals to a more simplistic style of animation, which would appeal to younger audiences because they may prefer that the animation itself is not complicated or confusing in any way.

Cut outs
A cut out can be used within a piece of animated footage on a 2D surface.

Cut outs can be useful because the actual cut out itself can be of a photo taken of a human or animal, rather than being like a cartoon.

However, similarly to the Found Objects, there are a minuscule amount of movement available when using a cut out, and so this would be heavily restricted. To allow fluid movement, for example, having a character walk, you would need a cut out image of at least 15 frames of one person taking a step.

Puppetry
Puppetry can be used to show interaction between two characters at the same time in live action pieces. Puppetry is usually targeted towards a younger audience because of the limited movement of the characters and their mannerisms.

Puppetry within animation is used because of the more human-like aspects of each character, they can more easily portray the idea of a human character.

Pixilation
Pixilation is the method of animation in which you use humans as the animated characters. This can be effective because it allows the animation to be incredibly realistic, as well as allowing a creative freedom to the producers of the animation. However, some movements are difficult to pull of with pixilation, such as a jump or a fall, without seeming incredibly awkward, or being shot without actually fully showing the motion.