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by Kirk Bangstad
kirk.bangstad@theanimationschooldirectory.com
Animation School Directory Columnist

“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” was both a hit movie and an example of cutting edge computer animation. In pursuit of realism, animators drew on every bit of animation technology available, fine-tuned the frames by hand, and even went into a lion’s den.

Lion-Sitting Not in Animation Training Manual The biggest challenge the Narnia animation team faced, explained one of the animators, was creating a realistic Aslan, the lion character. They could emulate about 85% of a lion’s movements by tapping into their artistic talents, but the other 15% required some homework. The team decided to go into a lion’s cage and videotape his movements. Once they played their animated and real life videos side by side, they were able to catch a few mistakes and make their animated lion as realistic as possible.

Computer Animation Training Hones Diverse Skills The company that created Aslan for Narnia was Rhythm and Hues. Surprisingly, most of R&H’s leaders have backgrounds in computer science and engineering, showing that the art of computer animation is based in science and mathematics. R&H’s founders created proprietary animation software that was able to render high definition characters on the big screen. Their recipe for realism gained a great reputation in the film industry, and they’ve been quite successful over the years.

Animation Training is First Step towards Career If you want to get into the animation business, you should think about getting some high level animation training. There are a number of great schools out there that introduce students to state-of-the-art computer animation software and offer professional level computer animation training programs. Many of these schools have relationships with top animation studios because these studios have a vested interest in training the next generation of computer animators.

Whether your job takes you into a lion’s den or just to your desktop computer, there’s never a dull moment in animation.

Source Animation Realism in Narnia

About the Author
Kirk Bangstad is a singer living in Chicago, IL. Having received his B.A. in Government at Harvard, Kirk previously worked as a management consultant.

by Wendy Croix
wendy.croix@animationschoolreview.com
Animation School Review Columnist

A brief history of stop motion animation would include military training films as well as early special effects for B films like It Came from Beneath the Sea or Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. The fifties fantasy spectacular brought living color to stop motion animation techniques, training audiences to expect the wonders of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad—from the one-eyed Cyclops to the snake-haired Medusa. Now the wonders are back for a whole new generation of viewers, so new generations of animation school students are learning classic stop motion techniques.

Stop Action Animation Training

If you want to create the next Chicken Run or Curse of the Were-Rabbit, then head for animation school. Your stop motion courses will teach you more than just puppet making. You’ll learn to create sets for those puppets, and you’ll learn how to make them use props. You’ll photograph your animation characters, too, so good camera training is a must. Whether you’re mold-making or sculpting, your stop motion animation school training will give you lots of hands-on experience.

An Animation School Graduate’s Story

Oscar nominated animator Shane Acker has two master’s degrees—in architecture and in animation. Like so many animation school graduates trying to break into the business, he mastered the art of the short film. Fortunately, his animation school gave him access to some of the early stop motion animated films—and it gave him the training that lead to his “post-apocalyptic” film “9,” recognition by the Academy, and a sale to Universal.

Sources:

“Cartoon Character: Shane Acker,” by Edward Carreon
InternetMovieDatabase

About the Author

Wendy Croix is a movie fanatic and former university professor who loves Ray Harryhausen movies.