The creative mind produces a spectrum of results that amazes everyone around it. On International Animation Day, people honour the people who bring all kinds of animation and the world’s imagination to life.
Understanding Animation
Once upon a time, in the backyard of some creative mind, arose the possibility of mobility for their beautiful creation. They desired to bring to life the still images they created.
Today, adding life to still images is termed “animation.” The only way to tell if an image is animated is if you can see the rhythm of its movement.
The world as we know it is based on a lot of animations that are used for things like marketing, adding a creative touch to the simple decor, and entertainment.
Though many people feel and believe that animation is an easy task, the actual animators speak otherwise.
History of animation
In 1892, in Paris, the first public performance of projected moving images attracted attention.
To date the exact time, we return to the turn of the twentieth century when J. Stuart Blackton came up with the first animated picture, The Enchanted Drawing (1900), which was made using live-action actors, props, and slow-motion techniques. The movie was a two-minute comic scene.
This led to the availability of the platform for other creative minds of that time. Eight years down the lane, we found French cartoonist Emile Cohl presenting the world with another two-minute animation through Fantasmagorie (1908). This was the first cartoon in the world as we understand it in its highest and most developed version today.
International Animation Day
On October 28th, 1892, in Paris, Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique gave the world its very first performance of motion images. This was the main reason why the International Animation Film Association (ASIFA) decided to honour animators from all over the world.
The day to celebrate the coming of animation to the world of still images was set as October 28th and is now popularly known as International Animation Day.
It is celebrated every year, and ASIFA gives out awards to animators who have done good work.
Debating the types of animation
While with the growing technology, it is beginning to be more confusing to simplify the types of animations, from an animator’s point of view, there are 5 major types:
- Traditional animation
- 2D Animation
- 3D Animation
- Motion graphics
- Stop motion
To be a good graphic designer, one needs to have in-depth knowledge of every kind of animation available for it. The animators and designers who apply animation to their work receive attention faster than those who don’t.
Let’s detangle the world of graphic designers and animators
As they both—graphic designers and animators—work on the same equipment, there is a silver lining between their jobs.
While graphic designers can incorporate animation to provide visual mobility to their design, there are limitations. The reason for this limit is that graphic designers mostly work in businesses, which need serious but friendly designs for their clients.
Animators, on the other hand, work for the industry with the goal of gaining attention based on their ability to entertain. No matter how serious a topic they cover, animate, and present to the world, the crux of animation remains entertainment.
Tools for animation
In this part of the century, we have come to actively pursue animation techniques that are fast and efficient. But in the early days of animation, tasks were done by hand, and there wasn’t much technology, so even a simple one-shot detail took many days to make.
Today, everything from the simplest to the most complicated tasks can be done and put together for animation in just a few hours. Even the smallest details are clear and easy to see.
Some of the common devices and tools used by animators include:
- After Effects (Adobe)
- Animate (Adobe)
- Cartoon Animator 4 (Reallusion)
- Dragonframe (DZED Systems)
- Open Toons (Digital Video SpA)
- Piskel
- Synfig Studio
The principles behind animation revolve around three major factors, which have been set by Disney, the world’s oldest and most loved animation house. It consists of squash and stretch, straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose, and exaggeration.
These are the basics for any animator, be it at any given point in time.
Animations loved by everyone around the globe include marvellous movies and anime produced around the year. Some of them include the following:
- Dragon Ball Z (Anime)
- Trigun (Anime)
- Naruto Shippuden (Anime)
- Finding Nemo (Pixar motion picture)
- Moana (Disney)
- Encanto (Disney)
Acknowledge the Animators
Any task is a difficult task if one does not know how to pursue it and produce the results required. But the task becomes fun and still remains difficult even when one has learnt how to perform it. The real reason for this is that the creative mind keeps changing and wants other people to see the same things they do.
We should put our best foot forward in acknowledgement of the people who bring animation to a static life. One should be mindful that animation does not only mean cartoons or short-moving clipart. To the deepest core, the animation is involved in the entertainment industry to the deepest degree as they help in implementing the principles laid down by Disney and present to us what we can only imagine.
We should praise them for their love of imagination and for putting it out into the world to observe and enjoy.
