The first animation I chose to watch was the phenakistoscope, which I found fascinating. I liked that you can see the sequence of the images frame by frame from beginning to end and when spun, create a connecting/repeating animation of them moving. The second animation I chose to watch was Fantasmagorie by Émile Cohl. What I found interesting was the artist’s ability to hand draw each frame, which depicted a storyline with a lot of movement and action, and the use of photography to capture each frame. Something I did not like, however, was the varying exposure of each frame, but since it was the early 1900s, I understand that this was harder to control back then. The third animation I watched was the South Park Christmas short. I really like the imperfect look and somewhat choppy movement of construction paper cutouts in animation. Even though these cutouts are two-dimensional, you can still see depth and perspective from the shadows of the cutouts on the very top layer of each frame. The fourth animation I watched was Rejected by Don Hertzfeldt. I liked that there are multiple frames of the same thing drawn, such as words or characters in the same position. Since no two frames are drawn or written exactly the same, there is this slight movement happening, which portrays the passage of time in animation better than just showing one frame for a longer time. One good example is the scene where one of the stickman’s eyes starts gushing out blood. Although it is the same image, the slightly varying pen streaks and position of the drawing with sound create an illusion of movement and time.
Introduction to New Media Arts
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