Wednesday, September 8, 2010

ANIMATION A-B-C

Animation a-b-c

THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION

All film is essentially an optical illusion, a trick of the eye, which is known as ‘persistence of vision’. When the human eye sees an image, it retains it for a fraction of a second. If in that tiny space of time, one image can be substituted by another which is slightly different, then there appears to be movement! What you really see when watching a ‘movie’ is NOT really a ‘moving’ picture at all but a series of ’still’ pictures being shown in rapid succession. At the rate of 24 frames per second, the eye is easily deceived.

Animated film-making is fundamentally different from live-action film-making. The live-action camera captures a scene moving in real-time and freezes it into individual still ‘frames’ which are then projected onto the screen. In animation, there is no pre-existing motion. The camera captures stills that are either drawn, sculpted or created in a digital environment.

Animation is a complex and immersive art, with science as its backbone. It takes a great deal of practice and dedication for an artist to master it.


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