Animation design is to determine the form and modeling of background, foreground and props on the basis of storyboard, and complete the design and production of scene environment and background map. What is the production process of stop-motion animation for everyone to see? Come and have a look.
1, pre-planning and script writing
First of all, a good script begins with an attractive story, which is also the basis of an animation. Stop-motion animation should not be complicated and too long because it is complicated to make. Shortness and pity are one of the factors considered at the beginning of his creation. In the process of pre-planning, the story can be planned completely without being lengthy, just to better expand the free play of creation and imagination and realize the final integration.
Secondly, the position of each shot, the shooting time, the change of scene and the action of the characters are all decided by story board. Therefore, the role of the script is to let the creator see it clearly, without being exquisite and beautiful.
2. Art design
Art design refers to all the visual designs that people can see in the whole creation process of an animation, including character modeling design, scene design, shot screen design and so on.
Animation art design draws lessons from film art design, and shapes an artistic image through painting, sculpture, woodcut and paper-cutting. In animation art design, the overall modeling design is an auxiliary whole, and expressing the theme, role and style with animation is the primary task of animation art design. That is to say, after analyzing the role, the designer makes an overall artistic modeling conception and overall conception of the role image and space environment.
3. Split lens design
Lens design is an important link to embody the narrative language style of an animated film, construct the logical order of stories and control the rhythm of stories. The creator must understand the composition of the lens in order to create a good split-lens desk.
According to the content of each shot provided by the literary script and the director's intention, the shot is designed and drawn to determine the relationship between the position, angle and background of the role in the shot.
4, production and shooting
Stop-motion animation has its necessary tools in production. First of all, you need a unique character image, which can be a character, an animal, a thing, or a character you imagine. Choosing the right tools and materials to make a character is a necessary condition to ensure the smooth shooting. Now we are familiar with clay, silica gel, rubber, soft pottery and gypsum, all of which are the main materials for making figures. Aluminum wire, model paint and carving knife are all indispensable tools in the process of character making.
In the shooting of stop-motion animation, every shot should be prepared. Generally speaking, a shot needs to be completed in a short time, because the lens, characters and props have all been displaced, even the slightest displacement will lead to camera shake, so it is necessary to shoot again.
Because it is shot frame by frame, we should consider the position of the role and the lens, and pay attention to whether the performance space of the role is enough. When shooting close-ups, the support of lens and macro shooting is also important.
5. Edit after composition
Post-synthesis editing mainly includes the production and synthesis of facial expressions, post-synthesis of role actions, visual effects and post-synthesis. Using the current nonlinear editing and image deduction technology, we can make each part independently and finally synthesize it later. This not only saves time, but also avoids deformation, distortion and collision in production, and changes the disadvantages of rigid and inflexible original freeze-frame pictures. Secondly, by combining stop-motion animation with other new technologies, unimaginable images can be created by computer and other technologies.
An Artistic Paper on Animation Making of Fixed-frame Couples
First, the production process
When shooting each character, the producer will have such an important standard comparison table and a hint chart for checking details, because you may forget to check some details in front of tedious work, so it is very important to have such a standard comparison table. The construction of the scene is also an important part of the previous shooting work. The world created in animation is very important, which can increase the credibility of the animated characters you create. In Aderman's studio, there is no special requirement for setting the scene. Cloth, wood and metal can be used, but the most important thing is the decoration at the end of the scene. "For example, the roof in Super Invincible Dog: Bakery Murder, at first they wanted to make a reverse mold for each roof, but later they found that the effect was not very good, so they made independent tiles and stuck them like bricks. This is indeed a very extravagant practice, but we can do it, why not do it? " Merlin, creative director of Super Invincible Dog Series, said.
Second, even the performance of animated characters.
Animated characters can't talk, but they all express their emotions through performances. As an animator, it is very important for you to know how to perform. If you don't know what his actual performance is like, you can't operate the puppet to perform, let alone let the audience know what you want to express. First of all, the active story version is basically the blueprint for your next work. Whether it is a close shot or a middle shot should be determined in the active story version, which is the simplest way to present all the shooting information. After changing the story version of the event, it will be displayed to the producer. If you want to impress the producers, you should add some practical performances. Merlin said: "In fact, when we are performing, the animator and the director perform together. When an animator has a problem with some performances, he doesn't shoot my performances directly, but shows them to me first and convinces me first. If they behave well, I will say, let's do it. " Usually I discuss how to achieve the director's requirements through the expression of body language.
As a director, I want to be very clear about what emotions the characters want to express at this time. Sometimes they need comedy effects, and sometimes they have tragic emotions. We are just discussing how to achieve this emotion through physical performance. "Before the actual production, the stop-motion animators will shoot a performance video as a guide, but if every detail and emotion are shown, it is definitely emotional kidnapping. In fact, the animator only needs to pick out one or two details to express the whole mood, such as adjusting eyebrows and taking a long breath. " When I communicate with animators, I always speak from the perspective of an actor. Every time I talk to animators, it's not animation, but how to perform and express emotions. If you are a junior animator, a picking action is the distribution of several key frames in your mind, but you can't really become a role animator until you forget the working rules of animation. If you only think about the regular distribution of his movements in your mind, you will never become a real role animator. So this leads to a very strange result. When you ask some famous animators how they finished the performance in Aderman, he will answer you,' I don't know, I just did it, and it came out.' "Stop-motion animation is a one-time animation. You can't say you'll come back and adjust what you just did. For stop-motion animation, there is great pressure. In most cases, it is 1 beat 2, but when the camera is moving, the whole frame is needed, and the action of the character is shot in 1.5 frame, which is quite difficult. According to this standard, an animator can shoot for at most 2 seconds a day.
Third, shooting and post-synthesis
In addition to the actual shooting problem, there is another problem, that is, the budget problem. Some shots are expensive to shoot, so it is necessary to discuss the cost of the shots with the producer at the beginning. No matter the size of the film, there is a shooting time and film cost, and the whole production must be completed within a certain period of time. It is the producer's job to ensure that the shooting is completed within a certain time and cost, and the director's job is how to tell the story well. Merlin encountered a shot that would cost a lot of money when shooting the super invincible dog. "As a director, I insist that this shot must be there, so the producer said, well, if you really need this shot, you have to cut out several other places in the film, but we just don't have enough energy to finish it all. This shot is ***26 1 frame, including the piano falling, Wallace running over and the fire extinguisher spouting out. There are still many problems, such as the piano falling will produce a lot of fragments, sparks, and foam sprayed by fire extinguishers. In addition to ensuring the performance of the role. At that time, we could use one camera to complete all the shooting, but we decided to shoot in layers, so this shot also shows that stop-motion animation, as the oldest film special effects shooting method, can also be combined with the current special effects technology to achieve the expected results. The bubbles that appear during shooting are real shaving bubbles, so sometimes real materials are used during shooting, not necessarily body double. " Therefore, in the case of limited funds, the coordination between art and technology needs to be seriously considered. If we can't handle the relationship between the two, the shooting effect may be unsatisfactory.
In addition, the development of digital special effects technology has also brought earth-shaking changes to the visual art world today. Stop-motion animation is no exception, and its combination with computer digital special effects technology can help stop-motion animation to improve shooting efficiency and present new visual effects. Special effects include erasing work traces, making special characters, special atmosphere and expanding space scenes. Usually two steps are needed to achieve these effects. Green screen (blue screen) technology will be used when shooting. The function of green screen technology in the production of stop-motion animation is mainly reflected on the basis of special effect synthesis: it is convenient to combine keys with special effects. Expand the physical space: increase the perspective and depth of field of the scene and enhance the flexibility of time-space transformation. Using a green screen and a blue screen as the background when shooting can completely replace the background behind the character, and there is no need to shoot real scenes. This not only improves the flexibility of lens scheduling, but also greatly improves the efficiency of shooting and production. In addition, the shooting of stop-motion animation is mostly assisted by three-dimensional animation, which makes the shooting easier and can achieve special effects such as gas, liquid, light and electricity, with remarkable results. In the Magic Pirate Ship, the scene really came to the sea through the combination of green screen keying technology and three-dimensional animation. The translucent ghost floating in Norman, the lightning, flame and smoke in Frankenstein all need the help of three-dimensional animation special effects.
Four. conclusion
Although the special production method of freeze-frame animation has many limitations, high production difficulty and complicated steps, its charm is also the most unique, which is unique in many film creation styles and shines in the galaxy-like audio-visual world. The origin and development of animation has always been closely related to technological progress. Every technological innovation has brought new development space to animation art. Now, with the development of technology, some new couple technologies and post-synthesis technologies have solved some limitations of stop-motion animation. After breaking through its own limitations, the creative field of stop-motion animation is also broader.
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