BBC Imagine- "From Pencils to Pixels" documentary

Animation styles developed over the years and have a rich history. Which particular style and genre are you are most interested in. Explain, analyse and elaborate why you have chosen it.

The animation style that interests me the most is 2D animation. I prefer digital as you can create a lot more variety of styles compare to traditional 2D. For example, the lighting would be limited using traditional animation as the cel and background are separate. You can experiment more with lighting in 2D digital as the technology today has vastly improved. The traditional animation was usually hand painted which took a lot of time and effort. Although now it's still similar, most 2D animators digitally paint and create in Photoshop or other similar softwares. There are a lot more tools you can work with and as years go by, they will be releasing and adding new ones for you to experiment with which gives the animator a chance to be more expressive. A lot of people are saying that 2D animation is dying down since CGI is taking over the industry and becoming a lot more popular. However, I think that 2D animation isn't dead yet and over time, 2D animators will be able to create something completely different from the 2D animation before. It comes to preference whether 2D or 3D. I think the people who prefer 3D likes it to be more realistic whereas others like me who prefer 2D likes to be more experimental with our tools and see other's creation in a flat dimension which is a completely different world.

What makes a pencil line becomes a character? What makes a drawing become emotion, movement, humour and etc.? Research and explain John Lasseter's statement. Provide examples to substantiate your findings.

What makes a line drawing a character is giving it a personality. What John Lesseter was asking was, "What makes the audience want to see them again?". He was talking about how can you make it more interesting. Animators give a character a personality by adding their feelings and emotions. The audience will only know what the character is thinking by their facial expressions, body language and reactions to match their emotions.The animators decide how they want their audience to judge the character they created by highlighting some of those aspects.

This particular scene from Lion king is when Simba, his friend Nala and the bird Zazu meets with a couple of evil hyenas. Judging from their appearance in this picture, the audience will have an idea of what the characters are like. For example, Zazu the bird looks frightened because of the way his eyes are closed and his eyebrows are shaped like he's worried. However, the way his body language is showing us that he's also protective over the cubs. So his personality shows that even though he is terrified, he's still brave by wanting to put the cubs first and risk his life because he doesn't want them near the hyenas. 

Provide a timeline in the development of animation from historical to contemporary context highlighting key moments. Try to fill in 'gaps' that were not mentioned in the Documentary.

Pick the personality of an animated character and explain why and how it is believable to the audiences?

I choose Marlin the clownfish from Pixar's Finding Nemo. I think his character is one of the most relatable to the target audience. Watching his tragic experience at the start of the film, the audience is able to tell how he developed his uneasy, overprotective and serious personality. Finding Nemo is a family film, so most likely, its audience are dominantly children and their parents. They will both able to relate how a parent can be protective over their child and would be able to do anything for them if something bad happens which makes it believable. His personality is very realistic to the audience that they are able to understand why he acts that way to certain situations. For example, at first when he starts his adventure to find his son, he seems like he doesn't like to have a good time but that's because he's always on edge and just wants to find his missing son. This makes it believable because he has a reason to act that way and a lot of people can relate and understand.


What are the differences between Miyazaki's films and Western animation? Miyazaki celebrates the quiet moments of a film. What does it mean? Discuss.

One of the differences between Miyazaki's films and western animation is detail. Not that all western animation are simple but Miyazaki likes to highlight the character's surroundings. This is for the audience to feel like they are also in the film seeing this amazing world that the characters are experiencing. This gives a deeper depth of what the atmosphere is like instead of leaving the audience to imagine for themselves and have a greater understanding of what world Miyazaki created is like.
Miyazaki celebrates the quiet moment of the film. This proves that you do not need speech to explain but to experience and follow the character's adventure just by looking at their expressions, body language and reactions.