Animation and Video Life

Perspective drawing is the art of creating the illusion of three dimensional space on a two dimensional surface such as a piece of paper or your computer monitor screen. The principles of Perspective drawing are also very relevant to 2D animation - particularly when you want to move a character closer or further away from the camera. In this series of articles on perspective I'm going to demonstrate how perspective can be taken into consideration when creating your animations. I'm going to try to keep things simple so you don't have to remember too much when applying these concepts in your own work. I'll be using the GoAnimate studio to create my examples but the concepts also apply to any form of 2D animation. If you'd like a detailed explanation of Perspective Drawing then there is a great series of articles in Art Factories, Perspective Drawing Techniques for Artists . Most people are aware of the key concept of perspective i.e. things get smaller as they ...

A lot of first time video digital camera owners don't have access to a tripod and vary what their camera films through their own natural movement when filming a scene (and going overboard with the zoom function). However once they start to learn technique and story telling they soon discover that fixed (usually tripod camera mounted) shots with minimal use of panning the camera and using the zoom function are how stories are more conventionally told through the lens. On GoAnimate the camera is replaced by the scene stage and how it is framed using the CUT, PAN and ZOOM frame tools. Whilst this article is focused on GoAnimate, the principle applies to almost any film medium. Below are two videos of the same 'Where's your Helmet?' joke animation. The first uses a single, fixed camera shot to film the entire scene, with a panning shot at the end (which is needed so as not to spoil the joke). The second uses variable (or multiple) camera shots to tell the same joke. T...

Way back in May and June of 2009 I released the first two episodes of my comedy series, How to Get Views The Evil Genius Way , intending to make more in the series at some future date. Nearly three years later I finally came up with a new scheme. Which is not to say I couldn't have thought of something sooner, I've just had a lot of other projects and ideas that I've been exploring in those years. My key problem with this new episode was that the Underdog theme license with GoAnimate had expired - and with it, Simon Bar Sinister's availability as my original star. There was also the problem of the Super Rica and Rashy theme license also expiring. Rashy had featured as a supporting character in both of the previous episodes and, whilst this new episode didn't really require him, I thought it would be funnier if Simon still had his monkey army around (having had it returned by Evil Witchy). This all got me started on the challenge of seeing if I could recrea...

Over the 2011 Christmas break I started work on Men In Black 2 - Part 6 unaware that GoAnimate's license for the Super Rica and Rashy theme would expire on January 1, 2012. Had I known the theme was going to expire, I would have not only fast tracked this episode, I would also have fast tracked part 7 - which will be the final episode of the series. Thanks to GoAnimate's CEO, Alvin Hung, who allowed this episode to be published despite containing a character (Rashy) from a discontinued license. If you're not yet familiar with the series then check out MIB2 - Part 1 to catch up on the story. Essentially it's a parody of the MIB films with President Obama playing the Will Smith role but the story is my own original script. For those of you up to speed, knowing that Sock Monkey, Rashy, is an Evil Genius and a master of disguise, below is Part 6 for your enjoyment. In this episode we see Rashy's diabolical scheme unfold with disastrous results... Pt6 - Men ...