Post 07 - Key frame / 'stop start' animaiton

Key Frame animation is a term that can be used to describe several methods of animation. Usually referring to the notion of movement 'frame by frame' which can be connected to Eadweard Muybridge's 'a horse in motion' study as mentioned in one of the first posts in this blog. Frames for the best part of the 20th century would be thought of as a frame of a televised, or visual product. approximately 25 frames of motion would be needed to create one second of a scene. This can be applied to cartoons as well as other hand drawn animations. This method also incorporates a technique known as 'stop, start animation', which usually involves manipulating objects in a scene and taking a still, or frame of footage. This also requires about 25 frames to create one second of viewable footage. The most popular examples of this technique are the Wallace & Gromit series, and the more recent Robot Chicken. The Rolf Harris Cartoon Club, when aired once featured the creators of 'Stop it & Tidy Up' and 'Trap Door'. This explained the techniques and demonstrated the practice. Its interesting to note that although there is about a 20 year gap between Stop It and Tidy Up and Robot Chicken, this technique has remained almost the same.

 

Most recently, stop start animation has developed into many artistic and thought provoking projects, most of which are independent. One such example is the painted stop start animations of the artist, or brand known as blu. An image is painted and captured on either a camera, or as a frame of footage. The artist would then paint an additional frame of motion and continue to capture it. This process would be repeated until the desired animation was complete. The example given below entitled 'Muto, a wall painted animation' is about 7 minutes long (420 seconds), so would of taken approximately over 10500 frames of motion. This is an approximation and upon closer inspection, it is more like 15-20 different frames per second. but this does demonstrate a few keys points. Firstly, that the stop start animation method is extremely versatile and very appealing to artists, as well as animators and film makers. Their is very little actual technology involved and can be made using anything which captures frames, or images as well as editing software on a computer. But it is worth pointing out the before computers, the frames would of simple recorded onto film or transferred to a similar viewable format. The technique is still around and widely used today, with cell based cartoons and other mediums.

However, the main issues which I believe this technique have are as follows. The very nature of key frame, or stop start animation is extremely time consuming. A project could take years for it to reach a significant length and would require a large amount of planning and devotion. In a lot of instances, as the animator is recording the frames, this practical, hands on technique makes it very difficult to review what has already been recorded until the editing process. An exceptional level of skill and knowledge in timing and motion must also be used when creating such products as a result of not being able to review initial work. The other main issue is that as it is a very much hands on method, for example the plasticine workings of morph, multiple body parts and face variants would have to be swapped over and repaired during the recording process. In the past this can be seen in the animations, with other issues such as finger prints, different shades of parts and son on. This same issue can be seen in drawn animation, such as continuity errors and animations irregularities.

Wallace & Gromit Clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jvOTsi3i64
Robot Chicken clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZfXir5dBIs&feature=related
Rolf Harris Art show - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZdRS_yvpJ4
Blu - Muto painted animation: http://vimeo.com/993998