My Animations - Traditional Animation Project

Today I want to wrap up, finally, my university animations here in my blog. So there's only one more to talk about and this one was the one that took me longer to get as far as it is. Just because it's a 2 min short all done with traditional animation, so for those who have experienced something like this, they'll know how long this can take for one person alone to make. And that's why in some parts it isn't finished. Maybe in the future this will be one more project for me to finish, but not right now, as I'm busy with another even more awesome stuff like learning animation from the top animators in the world!

This project was a personal short that intended to honor the animation world. Not only its history and how it grew to be this spectacular art form we know today, but also to make reference of some of the most influential artists in the area.

So in the end what I chose to represent were some of the objects that preceded animation itself, objects that created the illusion of movement through images before it went out onto the screens. Many objects like the thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, zoetrope/praxinoscope, mutoscope are here represented but also the film and paper itself are shown here as methods of creating motion. The whole animation is representing and simulating other objects, but in the end it was made in paper, everything was drawn, so the paper itself cannot be forgotten, that is the reason that the main character, an illusionist, since he is creating the illusion of motion, the illusion of life, is drawn in such a sketched way, and organic drawing that is moving for it's own, has a life but still is a drawing. That is also the reason that the last thing animated is the paper itself.

Not only the objects and methods of animation are represented but also animators and their work. The first representation is a generic bouncing ball, and it's there because it is one of the first exercises a person learning animation must do, so is an exercise that every professional animator has done one way or the other.
Then some artists are referenced, like Winsor McCay with Gertie the Dinosaur, Norman McLaren with Blinkity Blank and Pas de Deux, and also traditional animation studios like Walt Disney Studios with the enchanted broom of the Sorcerer's Apprentice part of Fantasia, and 3D studios like Pixar and Dreamworks animation studios with Luxor Jr. and the fishing rod/line.

(all the links are to images search in Google and Wikipedia, I think all the animations I refer above can be found in the internet if you search for it)

Of course there were many other artists and studios that were equally, if not more, important for the development of this art form, but this was a personal choice, having in mind that when I first planned this short, I was starting my animation studies, so the references are not as knowledgeable as I could have make them today. And also, this was to be just a quick reference to a very few group of artists that were/are in fact important for the evolution of animation. Another interesting aspect of this animation is that some parts I animated when I haven't really animated almost nothing at all before, so I was even more an amateur than I am today, and other parts were animated almost two years later, so the quality in movement is clearly better.


To finish up this rambling, I want to mention that although many parts are made as references to other animations, all the animation in this unfinished short was done by me, and no method of copying animation, like rotoscopy was used at all.

So here it is, the most time I spent, ever, in any kind of project, and still needing more time (maybe in the future, who knows?), one of the animations of my last year of university, this traditional animation project.



Tradicional Animation Project from Rodrigo Costa on Vimeo.


For now on, the animations I'm creating are for the online animation school Animation Mentor which I'm currently in week 6! So stay tuned!