Title for Essay and Additional research

For the title of the essay I was considering The development of Computer Animation though it didn't really form much of an indirect question. I proposed choosing a question for my title so that the purpose of my essay would be to answer the question. So I've come to the conclusion that the essay title would be Has Computer Animation become a dominant form of art?

I'm recently looking at two books called Animation: A world history Volume 2: The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets by Giannalberto Benazzi and Animation: A world history Volume 3: Contemporary times also by Giannalberto Benazzi. Both of these books are fairly recent since they were published in 2016.

Animation: A world history Volume 2: The Birth of a Style - The Three Markets by Giannalberto Benazzi is interesting as not only does it back up relevant information on the Pixar book but it also goes into some of the history, explaining the how computer and animation as a whole became a thing rather than explaining solely on computer animation.

Fairly Legal further edit

Fairly Legal Additional Edit from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.
There was a continuity error in the last Fairly Legal Edit that I done. I was so focused on the audio editing and the L and J shape editing that I didn't notice the obvious continuity error in the video. I have change it and I have also edited the video a bit more slightly.

Zero to Hero edit

For this edit, I thought I'd make something along the lines of an intro for a TV show since it seemed to fit with all the clips.

Zero to Hero from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.

Here is my further edit of the clips.

Zero to Hero from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.

5 Major Edits

These 5 major edits are the essential methods of film production. Not only can they tell a story to the audience but they can also give the audience their own story to come up with.

Action edit
Continuity can be the key with this type of edit. The action continues from the movement in the previous shot, hence the reason why this edit is sometimes known as the continuity edit or movement edit. It will cut in the middle of an action and then continue where it left off on a different frame.


The most notable part that an action edit occurs is during the fight sequence between Jason and the police officers at 0:40. The camera angle constantly changes as Jason is about the attack the other police officer so the other shot to the other police officer can be seen with Jason finishing the attack. This scene continues on until both of the police officers are down.



Screen position
This edit is directional since it assists in keeping the audience's eye directed around the screen. The position edit can be cut but only when there is no specific timing needed like there would be in a continuity edit. Notably the screen would basically be switching from one character to another as they exchange dialogue when necessary.


This scene shows the camera angle changing as both the characters talk. The camera does not always focus on the character who's speaking but it changes to sometimes grasp the reaction if it is needed.




The Form edit
The form edit is the type of edit that consists of similar scene transition between two shapes, colours, dimension or sound. These types of edits need to be within the rage and have to look some way have a similar pattern to the next scene otherwise it will not work.

An example of this happening is during the intro scene to the Inspector Gadget movie which shows the G in the intro theme spinning, which transitions the scene changing into a bus wheel spinning.

The Concept Edit
This type of edit acts as a pure mental suggestion since it's left in the mind of the audience what is actually going on in the scene. It usually can be misleading. It is also known as the idea edit or the dynamic edit. This type of edit can also cover changes in place time,

The Combined Edit
This edit can be using two or more of the already mentioned edits to create a structure for the story. It requires a good deal of planning before the production hence why it can be a tricky edit. Two unintentional shots would be rare to be put together to make a combined edit by just the editor themselves.

Ed Catmull's Story of The Animated Hand Development

Ed Catmull is a computer scientist and is also the key people to begin the evolution of computer animation. He is also the key people for Pixar Studios.

Chapter 1, page 13 explains that Ed Catmull "had two heroas as a child: Walt Disney and Albert Einstein. "I remember watching one of the Wonderful World of Disney programs where animators were drawing on the desk and right there, the characters would come to life on the desk. I knew I was an illusion, but there was just something magical about it. I couldn't imagine anything better than being an animator. I'd watch all programs about it, and I brought art books and animation books and practiced drawing. At the same time, I really liked science and math, and back then, the image of the science was Albert Einstein. So here were these two idols, and I was drawn to both of them.""


This evidences that the 2D animations that Disney produced may have been the inspiration that influenced Ed to take part in the virtual reality course in University and may have inspired him to become and animator. The fact that he was into science as much as animation might have been another sign of what was going on through his mind when he decided to create the revolutionary computer animation.

On Chapter 1, page 14 of To Infinity and Beyond: The Story of Pixar Studios" by Karen Paik, the author quotes "Catmull eventually earned two bactelor's degrees, one in physics and one in computer science."
This shows that Ed Catmull was not only into art but into the concept of how the electronic side of how computer worked at the time. This might have played a part in Catmull's revolutionary creation of the wireframe hand that was used in a movie open to the public 4 years later.



Catmull quotes that "I was intending at that time to work on computer languages. But my first grad course was a computer graphics course. As soon as I took the first class, I just fell in love with it. It blew everything else away. Here was a program in which there was art, science and programming all together in one place in a new field, and it was wide open. It was like being at an Easter egg hunt where you're at the front of the line. You could just go out and discover things and explore."



The author further explains that "At the time, the brass ring for the field was photorealism - not as the ultimate goal, since "you could always just photograph reality" but because reality was so complex that being able to match it would mean they had truly mastered technology."
They are basically saying that Catmull and his fellow students had an objective that photorealism was a primary goal for them but they focused even more on capturing reality since they believed it would prove to be the key in mastering technology.



Ed Catmull said "Tackling a hard problem brings energy into a group of people and gives you a sense of camaraderie. Here was a whole community of people trying to solve the problems of computer graphics, writing papers and exchange ideas. This whole field was marching forward with great excitement. That sense of community was so strong that it inspired me to try to recreate it after I left."


Basically how I interpret this quote is Catmull wanted to further his knowledge on how the basic principle of computer animation would work and he wanted to push himself even more by dealing with the problems that inevitably would've occurred with it.



At the time in the University of Utah, many of the students were training on computer simulated reality. On page 15, the author of the book states "Jim Clark, who was interested in what would eventually be in virtual reality, helped start Silicon Graphics and Netscape. John Warnock, who was studying 3D rendering, co-founded graphics arts company Adobe. Alan Kay, who was working with language paradigms and models of interaction with systems, went on to do important work in developing object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces.


Ed Catmull, of course, wanted to use computer graphics for animation."

It seems that Catmull wanted to try a different tactic to the average computer graphical arts that were being done by the University students at the time since most of them wanted to do rendering. Ed seems to be the one of the main people who started this whole concept of computer animation.

The Hand

I have found this book titled "To Infinity and Beyond: The Story of Pixar Studios" by Karen Paik. This book is a great source for accurate information as it is based on interviews and genuine research done by Leslie Iwerks. In addition many of the Pixar workers being mentioned in the book have done some foreword materials.

On Chapter 1, page 16, it states "In 1972, as part of a class project, Catmull digitalized a plaster cast of his left hand and animated the computer model of it opening and closing."

So not only does this mean that Ed Catmull has created one of the earliest known 3D models but also gave life to it by animating it. The hand only appeared as a wireframe at the time since that was basically all the computers could process at the time.

The hand animation was used in the move, Futureworld.
The book confirms this by saying "The animation was enthusiastically received (and was actually used in the 1976 movie Futureworld), but for Catmull it was only a first step."

An online article interview (http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/mobile/53193670-90/film-catmull-computer-animation.html.csp (10.03.2016)) also confirms this story stating "Hollywood noticed Catmull's experiment, and made it the first computer animation to be used in a feature film. It was shown on a TV monitor in the 1976 science-fiction thriller "Futureworld," about a futuristic theme park where androids are programmed to grant every guest's wish."

So I have learned that the movie Futureworld which contains the earliest known computer animation used in movies was made by a Pixar worker. Although the scene itself is not very long, it does seem to be the trigger point to the revolution to how computer animation evolved over the years and how it got to where it is today.


40 Year Old 3D Computer Graphics (Pixar, 1972) from Robby Ingebretsen on Vimeo.

Fairly Legal Update, Delicious Peace Export and Group project

The main issue with my Fairly Legal project edit is the audio jumps around with the volume in every clip. This was because I was unware of the "L" and "J" shapes for using audio. I recently watched a video tutorial explaining how to use the L and J shapes. I found this tutorial very useful because now my Fairly Legal edit has improved in audio.

In addition to the audio, I have made slight changes around the scenes because I felt as though my last edit had certain shots that weren't needed. I felt as though my previous edit was focused too much on the female character. Even though she is the main character of the show, my edit was over doing it.

Fairly Legal Edit from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.

Delicious Peace Export 

I made a structure from a documentary using video clips and audio. I even tried to keep the video timeline in order of narrative. Below is my attempt.

Delicious Peace Export from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.


I think a major flaw would be the size of the clips creating the black border around the video. This could be improved.

Group project

We have done a group project recording our own material with various shots. We each individually had the entire footage so that we could make our own structure from the project.


I overall think the cuts worked pretty well but I think it could've used some improvement.


My cut of the group project from Jack Vanes on Vimeo.

Sound in Animations

How Now Boing Boing

The sound effect from the boy’s mouth such as the boing and such seemed intact with the lip sync despite being a sound effect which is an interesting way of mixing sound and music together. On the top of lip sync it seemed matching to the audio at times but there were points which it did not. With relation to sound, lip sync is an important way of obtaining the dialogue.

Sound often varied depending on the character’s movements and actions. The music symphony occurring in the background was correspondent to what was actually going on in the scene, like the scene with the professor pacing up and down to the music that flowed in an up and down order. There was also one particular scene which seemed very significant in terms of sound being used to support the images in the movie where the boy spoke into the telephone and then a series of flashing lights came onto the screen presenting a series of flashing colours going through the telephone connector that seemed to fit with the sound beat in the background.

Tom And Jerry - 001 - Puss Gets The Boot (1940) from Girish Kumar on Vimeo.

Tom and Jerry’s musical background tend to alter depending on what the character is doing and the emotion of the scene. Tom and Jerry are known for their mute personalities and thus unlike How Now Boing Boing lip sync is not seen through dialogue is heard from Mammy Two-Shoes. Like the How Now Boing Boing cartoon it has sound that corresponds to how the scene is played. 

Audition and First Assignment

I have been introduced to Audition. An Adobe application that edits digital audio.

For the first assignment, there is a Cat Burglar animation with no sound. So I will find various audios from websites to add to the sound. In the process, I will also add some sounds of my own.

Computer Animation Research

I have looked at "New Digital Edition: The Animation Book" by Kit Laybourne.
On page 238, Chapter 16, it states "Toy Story was the breakthrough 3-D computer film made by Pixar and distributed by Disney. This stunning achievement did not come from nowhere."

Laybourne further mentions "Pixar's Animation production Group, creatively led by writer/director/animator John Lasseter, spent a number of years working on self-funded short films."



This indicates that Animators had previously worked on 3D Animations before in the past. Therefore it argues that Toy Story was not the first film that was fully made using computer animation. It was however the first film using Computer Animation that was commercially successful.

There are four short computer animated films mentioned by the author that are of interest since they came out extremely earlier than Toy Story.



The author proceeds to mention "Luxo Jr." which Laybourne states "broke new ground with its ability to imbue inanimate objects with personality and emotion. The film was introduced at the 1986 SIGGRAPH convention and went on to win over twenty festival prizes."

This author's argument is that Luxo Jr was the first CGI film that featured believable personality and emotion to the inanimate objects that were featured in the film. It also seems to indicate that it was Pixar Animation Studios' first Animated movie since it's the one in the list with the earliest mention.

Next the author explains "Red's Dream was completed in 1987 and encompassed several technical achievements. A number of scene were rendered with procedural texturing techniques, self-shadowing and motion blur."



Additionally the author quotes "Tin Toy was Pixar's first work to feature the animation of a human character. The baby's face required the definition of more than forty facial muscles, which were grouped by function to allow the animator better control in creating expression. Computation of the final color images was preformed using RenderMan from Pixar, for 3-D scene description. This proprietary 3-D application subsequently was released for desktop hardware suite. Tin Toy won an Academy Award in 1989 for Best Short Animated Film. "




Finally the author mentions the final film "Knickknack was designed in 1989 as a 3-D stereoscopic film to create a unique three-dimensional visual experience. The film can be viewed as a traditional two-dimensional work. The cartoon features an original musical score by Bobby McFerrin through courtesy Pixar."