'Pingu' - Stop motion animation Children's Television
Pingu is a stop motion animation using clay. It is done by taking lots pictures of the clay characters as they make movements for example if they were to lift their arm up, you would have to take lots of pictures for each little movement they did as they move their arm up. Pingu itself it almost fully made of clay. The characters are clay but the sets are plastic. Some of the props may be made of plastic if they are not meant to break or have something happen to them. When they make Pingu, they have multiple models of the characters incase one of them is broken and if they are filming two scenes at the same time that require the same character. Pingu doesn't have any dialogue so all emotions are presented by noises that the characters do but also the expressions on the character's faces and the actions they do for example in the opening of the video above, Pingu jumps off the cart and starts dancing about. There is also soundtrack music that plays in the background to help present emotions. This must show that he is happy and that he is happy to help his dad deliver the parcel that was also in the cart. To show the different expressions, they have alternate heads for the characters so each of them have distinct expressions that are fairly unique to them. In terms of camera work, the animation itself will run at about 24 frames per second and one scene can take days or weeks to film and if you say accidentally jolt the camera or knock a character it could ruin the entire scene and you may have to start the entire scene again. To help combat this, the cameras are mounted on mechanical arms. This also helps in the filming certain shots such as pans or zooms. the set also has small markers on it to indicate where a character is so if the crew were to go on say a lunch break and someone accidentally moved a character, they would know where they go because of the markers. Characters have a wire skeleton to help with movements and some parts will have joints to further help with movement and positioning.
Pros and Cons of Stop Motion Animation Pros - You can be very precise with character movements. - The finished product can look extremely good. - The you can create things that may not exist for example giant monsters.
Cons - It can be incredibly time consuming. - For professional standard animation, you will need a fairly large team of professional animators and model makers - The slightest accidental movement of the camera or characters can ruin a shot and you will have to start again.
'Shrek' - 3D Animation Film
Shrek was created through 3D digital animation. It was made as CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). It was done by first recording the actors saying their lines and "breathing life into their character" and then modellers would create the models for each character. The animators would then move the character digitally to suit the script. The characters would have to be moved not frame by frame but near to it as computers can fill in the gaps for the motion. Shrek itself was all created digitally however there are 3D physical models of the sets and the characters. This was so modellers would know what they were creating and the animators would know where all the shots were. Shrek does have lots of dialogue. This allows the characters to display lots of emotions and it doesn't just rely on the character's facial expressions but both the dialogue must match the facial expressions as if they don't could ruin the scene for example if it were a sad scene and the character was talking about a bad experience but they had a straight face, it kind of takes away from the negativity of the scene and this is an issue. To help capture facial expressions, parts of the face have points that allow the animator to move them for example the eye brow has 5 points on it that allows the animators to make Shrek look angry or surprised just by making a few movements on the eye brow. There are points all around the mouth and cheeks to create dimples when the character speaks. To create lighting for the characters and the set they must put many different levels of colour on them for example in the video above, for Princess Fiona, they put layers of red and then yellow and they would add all these different colours until they got the lighting they wanted.
Pros and Cons of 3D digital Animation Pros - You can create precise and realistic facial expressions. - You can create surreal characters and environments.
Cons - It can be very time consuming. - You may not know how to properly model a character.
Describe the uses for digitised animation in the media
'Pingu' - Stop motion animation 'Shrek' - 3D Animation Children's Television Film
Pingu is a simple television show and doesn't really have any good guys or bad guys. It just follows Pingu and his family during everyday life. Pingu can be very mischievous and energetic and sometimes this can make him be seen as the antagonist but really I don't see an antagonist or protagonist. Every episode has a fairly simple plot as the children watching it will be very young. The stories just show Pingu and his family and friends in everyday life. In one episode Pingu helps his dad deliver parcels to people in the neighbourhood and in another Pingu plays around with his younger sibling. One of the themes in 'Pingu' is family. There are lots of scenes where Pingu interacts with his parents, usually at the dinner table, and they will be having dinner and they will either be happy and calm or they may have a small argument. This allows young children to relate to Pingu as they will have been in the same position as Pingu and they will be able to understand how he feels. There are also scenes of Pingu playing with his younger sibling which allows the audience to relate to Pingu even more as there are many viewers with younger or older siblings.
Pingu and his family and friends are snow creatures (Penguins, seals e.t.c) which represents the place they live in very well. It also makes the audience immediately fall in love with them because they are cute peaceful creatures. They also live in igloos which really represents the landscape and environment they live in because igloos are made of snow and I assume that they live in one of the poles. There is furniture inside their igloo homes which I don't think would be there in the poles but there could be if there were some human settlements. In some of the sets, you can sometimes see debris from either barrels or something else. This kind of represents where they are because there are bits debris in the poles such as crashed planes.
Shrek is a feature length 3D animated film. It's protagonist is Shrek along with his reluctant sidekick Donkey and they are against the antagonist: Lord Farquaad. Shrek is faced with all these fairytale characters in his swamp who have been exiled there by Lord Farquaad. Shrek then makes a deal with Lord Farquaad, he will rescue the Princess Fiona for him and Farquaad will remove all the fairytale characters from Shrek's swamp. Shrek accepts and he and Donkey go and rescue the Princess and bring her to Farquaad. On their journey to Farquaad, Shrek and Fiona find out that they have more in common and begin to fall in love. One night, when the trio is near their destination, Donkey finds out that Fiona turns into an ogre, like Shrek, every night. When Shrek returns to his swamp, he realises he misses Fiona and he goes and interrupts Fiona and Farquaad's wedding and kisses Fiona, permanently turning her into an ogre and they both live 'happily ever after'. The story is a classic fairytale story but with a few twists. The plot allows for some good character development for example when Shrek and Fiona are together and it shows that they are falling in love and also scenes with Shrek and Donkey showing their friendship like the scene when they are at the castle where Fiona is kept prisoner and they are crossing the bridge. There are lots of links between the themes of the film and the characters such one of the themes is friendship and this is shown lots with the interactions between Shrek and Donkey. Another theme is love and romance which can be seen with Shrek and Fiona. There is also the interaction between Shrek and the other fairytale characters which adds to the theme of acceptance along with Fiona accepting herself as an ogre.
The place they come from is very colourful and bright. There are obvious changes in the light to indicate a negative part of the film. All the characters wear colourful clothes (except for Donkey who doesn't wear anything) and this shows the positive atmosphere of the film but also shows that this is a fairytale film. The story also shows the views of the writer as the story shows ogres as horrible beasts but towards the end it shows that they are not all bad showing that the writer wants people to be more accepting of others and themselves.
The environment that Pingu is set in is very clean and calm. The snow is clean and white. There isn't really any big signs of any rubbish. The setting is calm. There are no snow storms or thunder and lightning as this could prove stressful to the child viewers as that may frighten them. There are some scenes where Pingu is making a mess. Usually this is at the dinner table with his food but sometimes in the bathroom making a mess with soap and toothpaste. There are no fights or violent acts in Pingu which further shows the atmosphere and setting as a calm one but this is not an accurate portrayal of real life as there are fights, violence and thunder and lightning and it doesn't really prepare the viewers for real life but I suppose at their age you don't really need to know about what the real world is like as you are still only a baby or toddler. Shrek is set in a more harsh environment. There is prejudice and it is more violent that Pingu and there are scenes that may not be suitable for babies or toddlers but that is for the parents to decide. Because the film is based on loads of fairytales, the film doesn't show a true representation of real life but it is more true to the real world than Pingu. I think this is because the target audience for Shrek is older than that of Pingu and that allows them to do more things. I feel Shrek shows more of the past than it does present, mainly due to not only the fairytale aspects of the film but the sort of things the characters use such as bows and arrows and swords, both of which are not really used in combat anymore. Some of the narrative themes are different in both of the animations I have studied but there are a few similar ones such as the theme of friendship which is present heavily in both of the animations, between Pingu and his friend and Shrek and Donkey. There are differences such as in Shrek there is the theme of acceptance with Fiona accepting herself as an ogre but that theme doesn't really show up in Pingu as all the characters accept each other. Another theme could be romance which doesn't appear in Pingu but has a prominent role in Shrek because you have the romance between Shrek and Fiona but there isn't really any sort of romance in Pingu. You could call Pingu's love for his family romance but that depends on what you see is romance.
Both animations have realistic and idealistic aspects to them. Pingu has a more realistic type of setting but humans have been replaced with animals native to the region whereas Shrek is more idealistic as pretty much everything is myth and legend. The part of having a Lord and Knights in Castles are realistic but everything else is idealistic such as ogres and talking donkeys.