Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
Once you have an idea, you need to think about an animated technique
that serves the idea or enhances it. For example, a lawyer who is going to
demonstrate to a courtroom the events of an alcohol-induced fatal car
accident to prove his client's innocence would be best using an emotionless,
naturalistic, demonstration with computer-generated images. Imagine
what the results would be if the lawyer showed this demonstration in clay
animation or even pixilation. The courtroom might burst into laughter and
not take the demonstration seriously. That lawyer would lose the case.
What would Gumby or Wallace and Gromit look like in drawn animation?
Many of the old cartoons from the 1950s and 1960s are being updated into
computer effects and images, and they just do not sit right. Some of this
incongruity has to do with the way a film or character was first conceived.
Originally, the choice of some techniques may have had to do more
with economics than technique to support the idea. Once a technique is
established and an audience embraces that film or character, an animator is
treading on thin ice to move a beloved idea or character to a new animation
approach. Ultimately, it is important to think about films that have been done
in certain techniques and why those techniques were used. If you choose to
use pixilation, time-lapse photography, or downshooting techniques, then
how does that approach affect your final idea and outcome? Terry Gilliam
from
Monty Python's Flying Circus
claims:
“I think the limitations of cutouts leads towards comedy or violence.
Movements are crude, ungainly, and inelegant. It's hard to be portentous
or pretentious with this technique. However, serious ideas can often be
communicated very powerfully with humour.”
Fig 2.4
image from
Monty
Python's Flying Circus
, terry
gilliam.
Courtesy of Roger Saunders
© Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd, 1969.
Today, cutout animation is composed with After Effects, Toon Boom, or Flash
to smooth out the “violent” approach that Gilliam cites. As a result, more and
more kids' shows are being produced this way. The movement is much more
fluid and subtle.
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