Context of Practice 3 - Notes 5 ( Cracking Animation, Peter Lord and Brian Sibley)

Here is what I have so far from this book, however I have not finished reading it so there may be many more useful quotes that I might gather from this book.

Cracking Animation

‘One of the earliest films by Peter Lord and Dave Sproxton shows a human hand flattening and shaping a ball of clay that then takes on animated life.’ pg 17

‘A three-dimensional animator, however, works with articulated puppets or models built around a metal, movable ‘skeleton’ called an armature, and made of plasticine (modelling clay), fabric or latex.’ pg 17

‘The power of animation lies in the fact that, like all film, it plays with optical illusion known as ‘persistence of vision’.’ pg 17

‘What we are really seeing when we look at a cinema screen is not a ‘moving picture’ at all, but a series of still images - 24 every second - shown in such a rapid succession that our eyes are deceived.’ pg 17

‘Not only must characters and settings be designed, but decisions must also be taken about what movement will be involved in a scene and the kind of shot - such as close up or a long shot - that will be used.’ pg 18

There is also a major difference between drawn and model animation, as Peter Lord explains: “Drawn animation is a process that develops in a very controlled, measurable way. When your character is walking (or jumping or flying) from A to B, the key positions, and then you systematically draw all the positions in between - the animation. But in puppet animation, when you set off from position A you do not know where B is, because you have not got there yet (like real life, come to think of it). So every single stage of movement is an experiment or even an adventure. You have this idea of where you are heading, but no certainty of getting there...’ pg 19

‘Melies was an accomplished stage - illusionist who saw the new medium of cinema as a natural extension of his magical arts with their transformations, metamorphoses and mysterious appearances and disappearances.’ pg 23

• Edison Kinetoscope - The execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

‘stop action (or stop motion) enabled Melies to create astonishing visual illusions in such trick - film masterpieces as Voyage to the Moon (1902), and it subsequently became the standard technique... ‘ pg 23