Starting to look at Animation Theory

I decided I needed more technical tuition in animation and enrolled on an MA in animation at Newport University. There we did a lot of walk cycles, and talked a lot about the theory of animation. This was interesting but not what I was looking for.

Theory
As I'm interested in animation as a backdrop to poetry, I focused on this as part of my theory essay. Unfortunately, there is very little written about poetry in combination with animation. There is a lot about poetry with film, but, in spite of doing fairly substantial web search, and searches by the librarians at New York state library, the BFI, and the Poetry Library I wasn't able to find a body of work to get my teeth into.


As part of our theory classes, we looked in detail - frame by frame - at animations to assess timing and movement. This was really interesting, and I found it a useful exercise in understanding mood and atmosphere as well as seeing the amount of frames you need to create different styles of animation.


Some, for example, Billy Collins' 'The Dead' (http://bcactionpoet.org/the 20dead.html)  uses simple line drawings with jerky movements, fast transitions and lots of metamorphoses. If you slow down the animation and watch it frame by frame the moves are made across very few frames, for example the arm moves with the cigarette over 24 frames (12 different images). The poem itself is dealing with abstract ideas; it is concept driven as opposed to being a narrative.

'Goodbye Blue Sky' from Pink Floyd's The Wall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0v07InoFiU) has beautiful Gerald Scarfe drawings with much smoother transitions. It gives a very different feel. There are still a lot of metamorphoses, but these tend to be at a slower pace generally, and there is a flow of ideas which follow more of a narrative than 'The Dead'. It's still quite abstract but grounded in  reality. The arm movement of that big creature takes 70 frames (each a different drawing)!

'The Piano Duet' from Corpse Bride is even smoother (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaMcImrNnOQ). 3D animation with no metamorphosis. This is a narrative, relationship based, much more like live action. The camera moves in the way live action camera moves. The movement of his arm takes 90 frames just for a slight gesture!

The ideas behind the animations help to dictate the nature of the animation. The Dead is intellectual, abstract and concept driven. It lends itself to an animation with lots of transitions, metamorphoses and changing images. Goodbye Blue Sky is more shocking and laden with messages about war and death; the beauty of the images and smooth transitions works on our emotions. The Piano Duet is a narrative, part of a larger story, exploring the relationship between two characters, and the live action-feel works to make the characters real for us, and enables us to identify with them.