Monday 7 November 2011

[Animation] Telekinesis

This is a week project I did in University, we had to make an animation which the theme had to be gravity using pixel animation. To do this, at some point in the animation we would have to give the effect of defying gravity either by floating in the air or an inanimate object moving on its own. Below is the animation:



This animation is one of my favourites so far, it is smooth and follows the theme of gravity well. I like that this animation has a story, a beginning, a middle and a end. The beginning of the animation is really well set out, showing a boy bored on the internet who types in "how to get telekinesis powers" in which he gains the power of telekinesis. The middle of the story is the boy using the powers, moving pencils, drinking his drink with out moving and making it go from day to night in an instant. The end of the animation is the boy getting tired and using his powers flies to his bed in which he claps his hands to turn the lights off.

I found this project fairly easy to do, from the experience of having a broken tripod during the last project; Time lapse I took a tripod out from the University as well as a Camera, but because of this I only had a limited amount of time to get the animation done before I had to return them back to the University. Due to this, the ending of the animation seems abit rushed in my opinion. The scene where I fly to my bed was the worst part of the animation in my opinion, I cut off my legs so it doesn't even seem like I am flying and there aren't enough frames to make it look smooth, instead it jumps roughly to each frame. During the scene when it gets dark and I turn the light on, the light in the room isn't enough to show my face or the room, and instead still looks as dark as it being turned off, this made about 10 seconds of animation really bad as you cannot see what is happening. Although during the flying scene I noticed that the setting on the camera where wrong, so I changed the ISO settings, the shutter speed and aperture settings so the picture would look more clearer and less blurry when I jumped in the air. The music used in this is not Royalty Free, the first piece of music is the Original Soundtrack used from the video game 'The Sims', the second piece of music that is used is another Original Soundtrack used from the anime series 'Lucky Star'. I used this music as I think it matches the animation really well; the first song is smooth and flowing, quite a normal song to represent the characters normal life, until the second song kicks in when he gains these telekinesis powers. I chose the second song as it is epic and has power, just like the main character at the time, which is why I think the animation and the music work well with each other.

The theme for the animation was gravity and I feel that my animation covers that greatly. Most scenes in the animation defy gravity; examples would be, pencils moving across the desk freely, a computer mouse moving on its own, flying across my room and spinning on a chair with four legs. I cover the main focus really well in this animation I think, there were other things I added to the animation such as cola being drank without drinking it, doing a transition from day to night, and even closing the curtains without touching them. I wanted to give the animation a storyline that revolved around the theme, instead of meaningless jumping and floating, so I came up with the idea of finding a website that teaches you ‘how to use telekinesis’ and ‘how to defy gravity’. Although there is no voice acting, I think I get the story across really well with the actions on screen.

I was influenced greatly by the Walt Disney animation, ‘Fantasia – Mickey the Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. Walt Disney’s animation is about Mickey Mouse who finds great power and uses it to help him do chores, I did something similar but chose to represent it differently; In my case the main character found great power on the internet and use it to help himself in my everyday life, grabbing pencils, moving a computer mouse and drinking his drink. Although in the case of Fantasia it all goes horribly wrong in the end, whereas in my animation I represented it helping the character all the way to the end. One thing that I wasn’t influenced on was the choice of Audio I used, being it smooth and calm in the first half and then grand and epic in the second half. I think this is because I wanted to get the point across that the first half is his everyday life, smooth and calm, whereas later with his power it becomes epic and dangerous.

The intention of the animation was to show how I can use pixel animation to create something that gives the illusion of defying gravity. The whole animation was based around the main character finding out that he can use telekinesis to move objects and defy gravity; I think that I got my intentions across to the audience. The main character was intended to be an everyday teenager, browsing the internet and typing in nonsense into it, and think that the main character pulls this off well.

The movie only uses music and sound effects; there is no dialogue or voiceover so Semiology is a key thing to understand the plot. The character goes on the internet and goes on a website called “How to get telekinesis powers”, and because of this indexical sign we know that he is going to learn how to use telekinesis. This animation follows its own conventions; a place where you can use psychic powers even though it is set in the present. Even though it is set in present times the main character is still able to use powers that do not exist in today’s time. I can manipulate the film form to represent what the character can and cannot do in the present time.

“There are no absolute principles of form that all artists must follow. Artworks are products of culture. Thus many of the principles of artistic form are matters of convention.” (Bordwell & Thompson: (2007), p.65)

The next time I do pixel animation I will make sure that all the settings are correct on the camera, by doing this I will get the best quality photo I can which will result in a better quality animation. I will also use a camera man instead of using a remote to take the photo, by using the remote I become less focused on the role of the actor and more focused on the camera.

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