How to create cartoons from sand, jelly and other animation technologies

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Animation is an art form popular with both children and adults. After all, it is used both in the creation of not only funny cartoons, but also in advertising, presentations, and even in the "serious" film industry. The profession of an animator obliges the creators of animation videos to constantly improve and invent something, to come up with new shooting technologies. And it doesn't matter how the author works on the creation of an animated film - with the help of a computer or manually. In this review, there are some of the most unusual ways to create cartoons.

Digital technology

If we talk about digital technologies, then they are probably the fastest changing. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they are not very noticeable to a common viewer on the screen. Few people seriously emphasize how the textures of clouds, tissues, hair or human skin change towards "liveliness". But all this is a banal improvement of already existing technologies. But fundamentally new techniques of animation based on "numbers" are created not so often.

One of these is the technology of viewing a cartoon in 360 ° visibility directly on a computer screen. At the same time, the very technique of digital animation can remain quite "traditional". The first such VR cartoon - Pearl, created by US independent director Patrick Osborne, was even nominated for an Oscar.

The film tells the story of a father and his daughter, whose whole life is spent in an old hatchback. The viewer, independently changing the viewing angle using the cursor in the upper left corner of the screen, can observe both the father driving the car and the daughter gradually growing up in the back seat of the car.

Needle animation

The technique of needle animation itself is not new - it was invented by a French director with Russian roots, Alexander Alekseev, back in the early 1930s. The essence of this technology is as follows: needles (or knitting needles) move freely in the holes of an impromptu vertical screen. When pressed in certain places, the multiplier on the other side of the "monitor" makes a kind of sculpture or bas-relief. The very same animation is created using the shadows that these needles cast. The technique is quite complicated, as are the "screens" themselves: currently there are only 2 such devices in the world. There are also few followers of Alekseev who have mastered the basics of such animation.

A new "version" of the needle animation technique was invented by South Korean director Jin Man Kim. Instead of needles, he filled his screen with ordinary long noodles. The Korean's cartoon image is obtained not so much from the shadows as from the pasta themselves, which are folded either into a bas-relief or into a counter-relief. At the same time, portraying both the characters themselves and the environment of the film. Jin Man Kim simply called his "pasta" cartoon with a fascinating plot - Noodle Fish.

Powder or free-flowing animation

In the last decade, free-flowing animation from a very original and rare cartoon technique has become almost the most popular. Almost everyone is accustomed to the fact that it is made exclusively from 2 materials: fine sand or ground coffee. However, talented filmmakers create animation using almost any means that can be crumbled.

Usually, the greatest amount of such materials "at hand" is in the kitchen. This means that you can literally shoot an interesting cartoon without leaving your home. This is exactly what the director from St. Petersburg Natalya Mirzoyan thought when she created the cartoon "Chinti" from different varieties of tea about a funny ant living in India.

Very interesting "free-flowing cartoons" are also obtained, for example, from small metal shavings. With a simple magnet, the director can move this material to create whimsical images and visuals. In addition to shavings, other small metal parts may also be suitable: nuts, washers, gears, etc.

Animation using jelly

If we continue the theme of “kitchen animation”, then one cannot but recall the magnificent animated film by Anita Kwiatkowska-Naqvi, a young director from Poland. It was created using multi-colored jelly. The plot of the film as a whole is fantastic, but it has a very specific philosophical implication.

In an animated movie called Protozoa ("The Protozoa"), a man appears to emerge from foam escaping from a kitchen pot. He grows, eats and even acquires a life partner. In the end, the "hero" disintegrates into primitive particles, becoming what he was from the very beginning - the simplest organism.

Medical imaging animation

A very interesting technique based on the familiar and popular computer animation. Canadian director Nicolas Brault has created a truly extraordinary film called Foreign Bodies. For the filming of his cartoon, Nicholas used various kinds of medical images. Among them are X-rays, computed tomography, MRI "pictures" and others.

In the film, images of human organs are miraculously transformed into unusual, outlandish animals. One gets the impression that this is not an animated film, but a documentary filmed on another planet. And all these "creatures" seem to be truly alive and somehow alien.

Pixilation

This is not to say that pixilation is some kind of new animation technique. However, despite the fact that it is quite easy to shoot colorful and unusual films with its help, animation directors do not very often use pixilation in their work. One of the most famous animated films in this genre is Victoria Mather's Stanley Pickle. The film tells about the life of a young inventor who created a "mechanical" family of gears for himself. The genius lived in his artificial world until he met a real girl.

The filming technology consists in the fact that the director assembles individual frames of a real video in such a way that as a result, it begins to resemble a simple animation. A person in this "way" can be made to fly without touching the ground, or send him deep under water without scuba gear.

Scratch animation (film scratching)

Scratch animation, or, as it is more often called, "tubeless animation", like needle technology for making films, has been known for a long time. However, not many directors use it. Despite the fact that it is quite simple in terms of technology. In scratch animation, the image is applied to the finished captured film. Most often it is simply scratched with a sharp object. Hence the name of this animation technology (English scratch - "to scratch"). With the help of scratch animation, you can create very dynamic and interesting work in terms of the plot.

In Russia, the recognized "guru" of tubeless animation technology is director Boris Kazakov. His works are regular participants and nominees of various international animation festivals and competitions.

In fact, there are dozens of non-standard technologies for filming animated films in the world. This proves that for a truly creative and creative person it is not important from what a real masterpiece can be created. It is enough just to include imagination and ingenuity.