Lotte Reigniger

Lotte Reigniger was a film director and silhouette animator who was born on the 2nd June in Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany. Growing up she became interested in Chinese shadow puppetry and the films created by Georges Melies, known for his special effects in theatrical film making. This sparked an interest for Lotte as a child. She often made small, shadow puppet shows for her close family and friends.

She later became interested Paul Wegener a German actor, writer and Director. As a young women, Reigniger managed to find a job in designing inter-titles for his films. When working on the film The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1918), Paul Wegener had a problem when it came to animating live rats! They even tried guinea-pigs. So he asked for Lotte's assistance!

Here she speaks of her first encounter with Animation: 

"So it had to be wooden rats and stop-motion. We were again hidden in our cellars, loaded with wooden rats this time. The Piper piped, the shot was fired and we put our rats out of the window and withdrew hastily. We came out again, moved our rats a fraction, withdrew again, and doing this from five o’clock in the morning until the sun was setting we really had moved our rats all along the street."

Lotte then discovered the experimental animation studio, called the Berliner Institut für Kulturforschung, where she worked along side  Bertolt Brecht and her future husband Carl Koch. This is where she practiced and refined aher artistic approach to film making! 

Here is one of her animations for you to enjoy! 

First Animated GIF

Don Hertzfeldt - Billy's Balloon

Billy's Ballon by Don Hertzfeidt appears at first to be a light hearted and child friendly film due to its simple lines and childlike drawings. However in just a short space of time, you later discover its dark humour!

Young, Billy starts off happily sitting alone on a big stretch of grass with a balloon in one hand and a rattle in the other. Then suddenly the ballon starts to move and brutally attack Billy using different methods. This happens continuously throughout the animation. Towards the end other children like Billy come into the scene and are also being attacked by there balloons of all different colours!

Although a simple setting, the sound affects and different perspectives made it feel like you were with billy at the park. Whether that be in the sky or on land! This made me feel slightly uncomfortable, as a balloon would usually create a happy memory for a child, not a sad one!

It is interesting that only the balloons contain colour, everything else is just black and white. Perhaps it's portraying the importance of the ballon in the scene and surprisingly not the Human being! The object took control of Billy and not the other way round.

I'm not sure what the intentions are for this animation, wether to inform us or entertain us? Cleverly constructed but not something i'd want to see too many times!

12 Principles of Animation

Squash and Stretch
Gives the illusion of weight and volume for a character. Can often be used to show a ball bouncing up and down.

Anticpation
Shows the gradual build up of a characters movement, for example if a character was to do a "run up" they would do a small or big backwards motion before the actual "run up".

Staging
An action which is clearly communicated for that scene, portraying the right attitude and mood for that moment in time.

Straight ahead and pose to pose animation
This principle helps speed up the "action" scenes within an animation.

Follow through and overlapping action
When the actions of a character all stop at different times, rather than all at once! When overlapping you can even do this with there clothes, for example a Characters clothes will move first and then a few frames later so will the character.

Slow-out or slow-in
Having more drawings at the start or middle of a pose. The more drawings the slower the action, the less drawings the faster the action.

Arcs
Creates a more natural approach to the characters movement, bringing in a more circular path. For example a swinging pendulum wouldn't swing in a straight line.

Secondary Action
Is a more enhanced action different to a primary action of just walking and swinging arms! It helps exaggerates a characters mood.

Timing
Using fewer drawings create faster action, using more drawings creates slower action.

Exaggeration
The exaggeration of movements, even small ones like tilting your head. However too much exaggeration can make an animation seem unnatural and too theatrical.

Solid drawing
Creating the illusion of a 3D/4D character.

Appeal
Creating a simple and easy to read character. Making it visually appealing for the audience intended.

Animation Part 4 - Dynamics

Gold chain from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Common Shaders Tutorial - Robot Design

Ceramic Robot

Chrome Robot

Glass Robot (sorry the black background doesn't help!)

Glow Robot

Glow Robot without object

Gold Robot

Plastic Robot

Silver Robot

Life Drawing Exercises - Lesson 3

The first exercise was a medium of our choice, so I decided to use charcoal. Doing this helped my drawing become less rigid and more in proportion. Overall I am pleased with my effort, however I need to start adding shadow and light to my drawing. This gives my drawings the opportunity to step outside of there 2D shell and become 3D. 

The next exercise caused me great discomfort as we only had 30 seconds for each pose, I wanted to create "perfect" drawings. After this, I then realised that this wasn't the aim of the exercise at all. It was to help us think about what was important, making sure we had the shape of the body first before we added in the extra detail!

I was first nervous to try out black paper, but gradually enjoyed working with different mediums. It helped me get out of comfort zone and what I was used to doing. We were asked to just focus on tone and not the outline of the figure. I found this really difficult as i'm used to creating line drawings. Despite this problem, I learnt to think about light and shadow. 

Well practice makes perfect!