Dissertation Response
The theme for my dissertation that I was investigating was the conflict between the practice of traditional analogue animation and digital animation.
This topic is personal to me because I grew up with watching classic hand-drawn animation, to homegrown animation from Aardman Animations and watching the development 3D computer animation.
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My research looked into the variety of practices through the early years of film making, the rise of computer generated imagery (CGI) and how the present is combining disciplines from the past and the present.
Above Left: Here was my first digital test, this test was based on ballet dancing.
When I presented it for feedback my tutor thought that it would be improved if the animation would be better suited to the music, if it were abstract instead of figurative animation.
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If I were to attempt to do this project again, I would like to explore figure animation further.
Above Right: This was the first test of the analogue animation.
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From the start I wanted the analogue animation to be abstract, so that it could interact with the figurative animation of the digital test.
Though I liked the textual quality of the charcoal I used I knew that I would have to add more frames to make the flow of the animation smoother then on the test.
Above: The final film integrating both digital and analogue animation segments. Early on as part of the research I saw Disney's Animated features: 'Fantasia' (1940) and Fantasia (2000) I wanted to base the animation on a score of classical music so I chose Tchaikovsky's 'Nutcracker suite'.