Akira is an amazing film about gangs that ride bikes and is set in a cyberpunk genre mixed with distopian rural landscapes which is a representation of what the late 1980's thought of the future. This film starts by an establishing shot which shows the ehole city this story is based in, behind the scene footage showcases that this background was all done traditionally and so was the explosion that happens in the first few moments of the film.
the animation was done all traditionally, which makes it one of the best animation ever because the effects they produce is very hard to do traditionally. but since they didnt have the technology we have now it is very impressive to watch all these effects.
I really love the backgrounds they made for this film, this is because of the variety of shapes the buildings use, snd that not all the buildings are same. I would love to learn how they developed these types of buildings and learn how the lighting is made like the picture above.
One of my favourite scenes in the film is this bike scene.
i love this whole sequecne having a battle whilst riding bikes, and each hit felt exciting as each biker that fell with their bike scraped across the ground. the effects in this scene are incredible and must of been very difficult to animate, such as the smoke and the sparks that come from their bikes.
Spirited away is one of my favorite films which has ever excited, the animation is done by studio Ghibli which are a well established film studio, they are known for the quality and amounts of details within each film they create.
The story takes place of a girl and her parents moving houses, they almost reach the house but the father takes the wrong turn or rather thinks the road ahead is a shortcut towards their house. This then takes them to a new world where Chihiro wonders around a village as her parents eat in an empty restaurant.
The story then develops as we follow Chihiro trying to enter a bath house and has to work to survive.
From the start of the film the animation is flawless full of amazing details that tricks you to believe its real life which is hard to create when animating and this is one of the reasons why i love this film and Studio Ghibli behind it all.
One of my favorite moments in the film is the part when Chihiro is putting her shoes on, it may look like a simple scene but it is made by observation of a girl actually putting her shoes on, for example when she puts the foot in the shoe she holds it then stands up and taps the floor in order to fully put her foot in her shoe which is quite complex but its these moments that make the film seem alive as ever and makes you believe its real.
i want to observer and try to create a realistic feel to my animations, i would love to achieve this for my future animations and hopeful have an eye for movement to give the impression of realism.
one punch man is a popular anime at the moment, and its inspired me to create some tests and create some interesting animation,
I really like the movement and the way the animators are able to achieve certain effects which produces that impact of surprise using camera shakes and strong punch impacts with the great explosions. You can easily analyse how all of these works in each scene.
The test i have done which is still a WIP and might not be done because i may have to improve my anatomy then get back at it. here it is at the moment.
i really like what ive done so far for this, the idea came from talking with my friend discussing about funny things the character is able to do. i want to improve on this and see what i can do also i need to animate the clothes on saitama, my friend Reshanims helped me with the crack
What we know of camera conventions are the basics:
For example camera angles, composition and mise-en-scene.
Applying all these, produces a narrative we can easily follow and understand.
Camera Angles:
over the shoulder shot:
above head shot:
wide shot:
Without these basic camera conventions it would be hard to follow the narrative, meaning that the audience will lose interest and not understand.
Camera angles are important within a narrative but we must make the best use of correctly positioning. for example:
camera cannot cross over the line because then it will confuse the viewer as to what it happening on screen. as you can see the transition the camera should do is shown in the image above.
1st camera angle:
2nd camera angle:
3rd camera angle:
As you can see its easy for the viewer to understand that the person coming from the left is going to sit down from the three camera angles above. if we crossed over the line it would make it seem like we are looking from behind the person who just sat down, which makes it difficult for the viewer to understand what just happened.
Early age of camera convention in animation
most early animations were all done with a basic composition using a wide shot, this was because it was easy to animate a character on a flat background.
It was hard to convey an effect back then because sounds were limited, in order to showcase an effect or an emotions given by a character they would produce indications.
Here is an indication given by mickey mouse from the old cartoon:
These indication lines above his head are suggesting what hes looking at.
Modern day camera conventions in animation
Nowadays we use camera conventions effectively and in many ways.
We have made compositions of scenes more interesting by adding the rule of thirds, an example of that is with this short clip.
In that small clip you can see how when he picks up the car the scenes continue using the rule of thirds.
Here are screen shots with the rule of third lines:
As we can see here how Mr incredible and the kid are in line with the focus points in the rule of thirds, also because the camera conventions are following the 180 degree rule it makes it an easy narrative to follow.
with modern advancements of composition and technology, we can develop really amazing scenes that could've not been made in the early stages of animations. we use all these different techniques in composition.
one of these effects which are commonly used are blurs. here's a short clip to showcase blur in an action sequence.
These indication lines above his head are suggesting what hes looking at.
