501 - Study Task 3 - Reading and Understanding Texts

As my research question promotes a more investigative response, this task is slightly less applicable in terms of analysing the themes as the book I chose - "Elemental Magic: The Art of Special Effects Animation" - is full of content that relates to my question. I therefore only looked at chapters 1 and 2 for the time being, as these are more general and help to build my fundamental understanding of effects animation as a whole. I made a note of the page numbers of the different elements to look at in more detail when I get onto those sections.

 

I found this very useful as it allowed me to think of how to structure my project a bit more, and gave me some more practical ideas. Here are my research notes:

The author, Joseph Gilland (ex-Disney lead fx animator) started this book by talking about how there is a lack of content out there for fx animators wanting to learn about the "classical" approach - referring to frame by frame animation that stressed the fundamentals over any technical skill. Despite this being very interesting, I don't think it relates to my new question anymore.

The next concepts he talked about that were relevant were how important fundamentals are despite the medium, as without them you can be technically proficient but lack the energy and emotion behind the animation, which leaves it falling flat and unappealing. I could back this up and expand on it later on in my project with a practical example using digital rendering and comparing it to the frame by frame version.

This then led to the concept of energy as a fundamental that is essential to appealing drawings and capturing effects. The idea is that all your lines should take into consideration the energy and flow of the effect, so even if there are many many details, they still make sense. I can use this in the general fundamentals section of my project, and do lots of drawings trying to capture this energy that he talks about.

The next concept/fundamental he talked about was the idea of avoiding symmetry, repetition and parallel lines in your drawings, as these decrease the appeal. Examples of this were used in the book, comparing a "wrong" drawing to one that applied those techniques, and it was very clear which one was more appealing. I can do something similar in my project.

Overall, this book contains a wealth of information that I can use directly in my project, as well as expand on for practical outcomes and for a source of triangulation.