The Stretch-Engine: A Method for Creating Exaggeration in Animation Through Squash and Stretch

Animators exaggerate character motion to emphasize personality and actions. Exaggeration is expressed by pushing a character’s pose, changing the action’s timing, or by changing a character’s form. This last method, referred to as squash and stretch, creates the most noticeable change in exaggeration. However, without practice, squash and stretch can adversely affect the animation. This work introduces a method to create exaggeration in motion by focusing solely on squash and stretch to control changes in a character’s form. It does this by displaying a limbs' path of motion and altering the shape of that path to create a change in the limb’s form. This paper provides information on tools that exist to create animation and exaggeration, then discusses the functionality and effectiveness of these tools and how they influenced the design of the Stretch-Engine. The Stretch-Engine is a prototype tool developed to demonstrate this approach and is designed to be integrated into an existing animation software, Maya. The Stretch-Engine contains a bipedal-humanoid rig with controls necessary for animation and the ability to squash and stretch. It can be accessed through a user interface that allows the animator to control squash and stretch by changing the shape of generated paths of motion. This method is then evaluated by comparing animations of realistic motion to versions created with the Stretch-Engine. These stretched versions displayed exaggerated results for their realistic counterparts, creating similar effects to Looney Tunes animation. This method fits within the animator’s workflow and helps new artists visualize and control squash and stretch to create exaggeration

Exploring the Innovation System of the Animation Industry: Case study of a Chinese Company

In the past 10 years, the animation industry has developed rapidly due to new technology and market expansion. Leading firms such as Disney are continuously seeking strategies to expand business towards products and service innovation, whereas Pixar and DreamWorks focus mainly on technology management. Driven by market and government policy, there is a blooming of the animation industry in China. However, most Chinese companies, in shortage of knowledge and experience, are unclear about innovation strategies. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the innovation system of China’s animation industry as a late comer. The literature is covered together with an industry review. To further explore the details, an in-depth case study into a Chinese company is conducted. This company has developed an open innovation system by interacting with industry, university and government; meanwhile, it is penetrating into the character business and service sector, seeking for sustainability. Findings indicate that a combination of internal knowledge management and open innovation is important; government plays a vital role at the early stage of forming the innovation system; innovation is a dynamic process with different configurations at each stage. Discussions are given to address the critical issues of the innovation system in the animation industry, followed by conclusions and recommendations for future research areas

The Synthespian’s Animated Prehistory: The Monkees, The Archies, Don Kirshner, and the Politics of “Virtual Labor”

This article explores the political-economic “prehistory” of the “synthespian” by tracing the emergence of the rock and roll cartoon The Archies (1968—78) from the ashes of the live-action sitcom The Monkees (1966—68) through the career of music publisher and producer Don Kirshner. Drawing on original interviews with the producers of The Archies, it argues that early experiments in “fixing” variable entertainment capital through the organization of divisions of nonproprietary authorship contributed to the development of rights-free “virtual labor.” This analysis brings to light the logics and politics that are never far from “purely technical” advances in entertainment production. The trajectory of Don Kirshner brings into relief historical convergences of efficiencies and rationalizations in different but related fields that were fortuitous for entertainment capital in that they allowed the solution of labor problems—the “agency costs” posed by singing, dancing, instrument-playing, rights-bearing persons—with “virtual laborers,” the visible, audible, and agency-free avatars of hidden divisions of creative labor

Animators of Atlanta: Layering Authenticity in the Creative Industries

This dissertation explores post-authentic neoliberal animation production culture, tracing the ways authenticity is used as a resource to garner professional autonomy and security during precarious times. Animators engage in two modes of production, the first in creating animated content, and the other in constructing a professional identity. Analyzing animator discourse allows for a nuanced exploration of how these processes interact and congeal into common sense. The use of digital software impacts the animator’s capacity to legitimize themselves as creatives and experts, traditional tools become vital for signifying creative authenticity in a professional environment. The practice of decorating one’s desk functions as a tactic to layer creative authenticity, but the meaning of this ritual is changing now that studios shift to open spaces while many animators work from home. Layering authenticity on-screen often requires blending techniques from classical Hollywood cinema into animated performance, concomitant with a bid to legitimate the role of the authentic interlocutor for the character. Increasingly animators feel pressure to layer authenticity online, establishing an audience as a means to hedge against precarity. The recombined self must balance the many methods for layering creative and professional authenticity with the constraints and affordances of their tools, along with the demands of the studio, to yield cultural capital vital for an animator’s survival in an industry defined at once by its limitless expressive potential and economic uncertainty

The art of persuasion: a critical survey of British animated information films (1939 2009)

Comparatively little has been written about British animated public information film and this gap in knowledge led to research, which positioned my practice as an animator in the historical and theoretical contexts of British filmmaking. My research investigates how animation creates distinctive approaches to information narratives and contributes to persuasive information communication. The animated public information film is one of several categories of information film, which are identified in my Glossary of Terms. Volume 1 of the thesis contains theoretical and historical discussion and argument. Chapter 1 is an overview of my research which generated the first comprehensive filmography of animated British public information shorts, chronologically recorded and defined from 1939 2009. Chapter 2 uses my filmography to determine the core characteristics, role and function of animated information film in the interdisciplinary contemporary era. This in turn informs my own approach to making a contemporary information film, and I also draw on some informal primary research and my critique of the historical sources identified in Chapter 1. Chapter 3, on my practice (evidenced in Volume 2), identifies how a contemporary animation responds to my research questions: How is the art of persuasion manifested in British animated information films? and How can animation practice contribute to contemporary information films made for public distribution? I focus on the history of British animation information films to assess patterns and forms affiliated with information delivery. I examine media technology and methods of communications as they evolve in a cross-media era, consider how they facilitate the production of a contemporary information film, and evaluate how I developed Tell Someone to provide information on how children, aged seven to eleven, can remain safe while on the Internet. My research establishes that British animation has been instrumental in contributing to social awareness by delivering important information to British society for over seventy years. My practice reveals that animation can make a contemporary contribution to information films. It proves to be adaptable to rapidly changing technology and capable of updating knowledge to meet new social challenges posed both by online access to technology and the new multiple platforms available for the delivery of information in the digital era