Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with animation

What's some quality surrealistic humor from Japan?

jtron — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:32:30 -0800

Recommendations for surreal Japanese humor? Although I've been hep to the anime since Battle of the Planets in '78, there're no anime/manga fans in my peer group to get recommendations from. I dig the brooding minimalism of Gatchaman, and the beauty of Miyazaki, but what's really been floating my boat is the surreal humor of Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie High School (and Junko Mizuno's manga, but not much has made it over here). Is there anything else out there I should check out that's sorta the same flavor*?

Note: this doesn't mean I'm looking for yonkoma, or high school stories, necessarily - the weird laughs are what I'm looking for. Anime or manga OK, and I'm OK with recommendations of stuff that's not commercially available in the US so long as there's a fansub out there somewhere.

*I also like Kure Kure Takora, movies like Funky Forest, Karaoke Terror, and Wild Zero, and DDT Pro Wrestling, if that gives you more of an idea of my wavelength

In what cartoon does Foghorn Leghorn say, "Kids coming up nowadays don't even know how to tie down their pumpkins"?

Joe Beese — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:49:24 -0800

In what cartoon does Foghorn Leghorn say, "Kids coming up nowadays don't even know how to tie down their pumpkins"? I've seen it attributed to "Henhouse Henery" (1949) - but this appears to be incorrect.

Film Filter 101:

AlliKat75 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:58:29 -0800

I am looking for films that use animation to help push their stories along. For example, the animated sequence that Michael Moore used to tell the 'brief history of the united states' in "Bowling for Columbine" or the anime sequence that Quentin Tarantino used to tell O-ren Ishii's story in "Kill Bill, vol. 1".

Any help would be much appreciated.

simulated 3d from two photos

karl88 — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:19:58 -0800

what is it called, and how do you make a simulated 3D photo using two photos, then animated to flash back and forth? i saw this somewhere, but can't remember where. tried googling it, but i am probably using the wrong search. you take a photo, then move slightly and take the same photo again. then make an animated gif so the two photos jump back and forth... gives the impression of 3D.

how? what? where?

On The Fringe of Maya?

Rykey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:06:59 -0800

Looking for examples of Maya animation that don't look like Maya animation. Just got an opportunity to learn Maya (yay). I'm completely new to 3-D animation.

I'd like to get a feel for what Maya can do outside of its typical application as a tool for making uber-slick, hyper-detailed characters and landscapes (examples of what I mean by that here, here, and here).

I'd like to find work that takes on the aesthetic of the non-computer world... kind of like if the people who made the videos here, here, or here had access to a program like Maya.

Stop-motion animation help, please!

shrimpsmalls — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:10:53 -0800

What is the most user-friendly, online, (and hopefully free) tool for making simple stop-motion animation shorts. I am in the process of creating several stop motion animation shorts with my 3rd grade students. We have about 4 animations of 35-50 frames each (so about 4-5 seconds each) that i shot with my digital camera. Is there a simple way that I can feed the images into something and have them play back as a video file? Is there a program I can use that maybe has a free trial? Please help!

Franco-Russian psychedelia?

palindromic — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:50:48 -0800

Is there a name for this late 60s through early 70s aesthetic that was very common in (sort for for) children books and films? And if so, any recommendations beyond what is listed... Books especially include those of Jay Williams and Friso Henstra:
Petronella
Forgetful Fred
Stupid Marco

Probably the most famous example of this style in movies is The Beatles' Yellow Submarine but it can also be seen in Fantastic Planet.

It seems also very similar to some of the animations done by Soyuzmultfilm back in the day (like this (semi-horrifying) Winnie the Pooh, and I think Walter Moers does a sort of modern homage to this style in his Zamonia books.

It kind of looks to me like a psychedelic take on eastern European folk art, but what do I know? I'm an epidemiology student, not an art historian!

What other books, movies and print artists use this style? Is there a name for this style? Did my parents do me a terrible disservice by hooking me on an outdated style of illustration? So many questions!

What is this documentary called?

jeffmilner — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:10:03 -0800

I'm trying to track down a documentary I saw online years ago. Details are sketchy, but I remember either 8x8 or 16x16 pixel art animation - enlarged. I think they talked about Edison electrocuting an elephant, and many design and art related topics. Two people were narrating and I believe they worked for some kind of design firm. What is the name of, and for bonus points where can I find a copy of that film online?

Create scale animation in Photoshop?

aaronetc — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:48:44 -0800

I am trying to create an animated button in Photoshop CS4 which includes a logo scaling down and moving a bit across the animation. I've created two frames that I'll tween between, but no matter what I do, when I scale the logo it changes in both frames. I've turned on and off the three unify buttons and the propagate frame 1 checkbox, and I've scaled using Transform and with the move tool options, every time it scales in both frames. Moving it from one position to another works just fine. Can anyone help?

Flash CS4 Quicktime Export leaves artifacts and looks like crud. Help!

buriednexttoyou — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:03:30 -0800

Flash animators: When I export my flash cartoon to quicktime, moving objects leave behind horrible artifacts. Apparently I am not the only one with this problem. If Flash's quicktime export is so crummy, how do the professionals publish their cartoons to video? I'm working with CS4 on a mac, but I've heard this is also a problem with CS3. I've also heard that you can import SWF files into After Effects and then export to video. As much as I'd like to be able to afford AE, I can't at the moment.

I know there are tons of animators working in Flash. Does this problem exist for you, and how do you deal with it?

Dreamlike Animation from the Eighties

lilyflower — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:39:23 -0800

Half remembered international animated short story from the 80's - does anyone recognise this story? I have a faint memory of a cartoon in my head from when I was a child in the eighties, I believe it was an international animation as there was no language, it wasn't feature length and was very simple animation.

The basic outline of the story as I remember it was a man living in a house in suburbia with all the mod cons (at least that the 80's had to offer!). He was out driving in his car but when he went to fill up at the gas/petrol station there was a huge queue. He goes home and it seems that the lights aren't working and the heating is off too. Food becomes scarce and one day while driving his car runs out of fuel. He leashes an ox to the car and uses it as a cart to be pulled home on.

He soon runs out of food so has to go out hunting, he has no heating and the winter starts to come in so he chops up all his furniture to make a fire in the house. I think spring comes around and the trees have grown through his house and he ventures outside. A mammoth starts chasing him and he can't get away, he is then caught under the hoof of the mammoth and when you think he is about to be crushed he awakens in his bed! He jumps out and runs to the lights and flicks them on and off, he turns on the thermostat and runs hot water through the taps. He is so excited and relieved...

And that is what I can remember, sounds a bit like a dream but I am sure I saw this on TV and watched it over and over on video.

Anyone remember it? Any suggestions would be most welcome!

Please help me find good examples of short introduction and promotional clips for websites / new web service.

shalam — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:46:10 -0800

Please help me find examples of short screencasts or short animated films that have been used to promote websites, stores, applications on the web. One such example is an animated documentary that jingproject.com had on their website - with human caricatures etc. I cannot locate that now. It is not the best example and in any case what jingproject.com have on their website is a more traditional screencast.

HP has some welcome presentation film on their new laptops. Not that I like the work they have done.

Apple has quite a few presentations - all exquisite. But most with audio.

I am even more interested in films that do not have audio.

Thanks for sharing!

Do they make kids handheld movie projector toys anymore?

jeremias — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:31:52 -0800

Do they make kids handheld movie projector toys anymore? I don't quite remember the form factor and "projector" is not actually correct, but as a lad in the 70's I had this toy that you could put 8mm film cartridges of some sort into. It wasn't actually a projector because you had to look inside an eyepiece to see the cartoon, I mainly remember Disney cartoon loops of a minute or so. . Can't remember what the light source was, if it was a lamp, ambient light or what.

In any case, failing memory aside, is there anything like this on the market today, esp. for kids?

Where can I find this old Flash animation with hopping bunnies and the head of Margaret Thatcher?

chrismear — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:10:47 -0800

Does anyone remember and know where I can find an old Flash animation that I saw on the internet years ago, which featured hopping bunnies, the floating head of Margaret Thatcher, and a jaunty song containing the word 'ja!'? Other features that I remember from this animation:

the head of Margaret Thatcher shot laser beams from her eyes;
there was a bit in the middle with, I think, valkyrie-type naked women dancing in a cancan style;
the opening lyrics of the song were something like (phonetically), "Oppan? Ja. Poppan? Ja!"; and
I think there were buildings on fire in the background.

I would like to see it again for nostalgia's sake, and also to confirm that this did actually exist and I'm not just going very very mad and inventing this horrible scene in my head from whole cloth.

I have tried searching for these terms on Google, but have had, perhaps understandably, little success.

Not Tinkerbell again...

Artw — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:09:02 -0800

What animated movies star awesome female characters? Bonus points if it's appropriate for a younger children (a 3 year old and a 6 year old), extra special bonus points if it's not utterly irritating to adults. Scary bits may need a certain amount of skipping over.

Need to find this animation.

kaseijin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:50:14 -0800

I saw a really great (seemingly circa 1970's?) stop-motion animation recently, and I really want to find out what it was... It had a folded-paper bird and a sun-dress that was caught in the wind. The bird and the dress flew around together over a bunch of backgrounds that were very washy... like they were painted with watercolor.

Bird and dress fell in 'love' or at least a deep friendship, then there was this smoke monster sort of thing that was composed of a bunch of shapes cut from dark paper or cloth. Dress defended the bird from the smoke, then bird saved dress from being overcome.

The whole thing was silent, save for a fairly calm and classical musical score.

Any ideas, HiveMind™?

We're opera mad in Camelot, we sing from the diaphragm a lot.

alynnk — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:06:04 -0800

Trying to find an animated short film about opera that aired on PBS in [approximately] the late '90s. A friend of mine asked for some help locating something he remembers watching ages ago -- we seem to have stumped Google, but now it's nagging at me, too. He writes:

I'm trying to remember the name of a short film shown as filler on my local PBS station about ten years ago... It's in Monty-Python-like cutout animation, and features a Daria-like deadpan female narrator summarizing the plots of famous operas. Every time someone dies, a bell rings, and a counter at the bottom of the screen goes up by one. I don't know enough about it to find it on IMDB, but it's definitely worth finding. And it really made me want to see Don Giovanni when I heard about the statue dragging him down to hell.

If it helps, 'local' for him would be near Harrisburg, PA.

Thanks!

circles or spheres?

nushustu — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:39:46 -0800

Pixar's Up: 3d or 2d? I love Pixar and I love animation. I want to see this film in its optimal setting.

Do I see this in 3d? I don't dislike 3d, but most of the time it seems too gimmicky to bother with. I'm taken out of the film half the time because I'm thinking about 3d.

What is a great Biblical animation for kids

lynnie-the-pooh — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:39:10 -0800

Looking for a good animated Biblical DVD for my five year old. My daughter loves a DVD called Prince of Peace by Vision Video and it was made in the year 2004. Are there any other good videos or DVD's from that company or another company that make great animated Biblical stories for youngsters?

Thanks,
Lynnie-the-Pooh

What cartoon was this?

consummate dilettante — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:48:52 -0800

Can you help me find out the animated short I saw in the late 1990s on SPACE (the Canadian SciFi Channel)? This has been bugging me for ages, but I'm certain AskMe will provide.

As I said above, the cartoon was seen on the SPACE network in the late 1990s. It was a filler animation that they slotted in between programs.

Here's what I remember: It involved an evolutionary battle between a red dot and yellow dot. They start off as atoms (dots) hurtling through space until they both collide with a planet. On the planet they begin to evolve into more complex creatures, starting from single celled organisms, and, I think, ending up as giant fighting robots. They battle each other constantly at each stage of evolution.

Ringing any bells?

Exporting graphics to make an animation in Final Cut?

nextian_geometry — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:05:07 -0800

I'm attempting to make an animation by exporting graphics from Photoshop into Final Cut. The dimensions of the image are fitting, but I think the format of the graphic is making it appear pixelated in Final Cut. What file format should I be saving it as before I import it into Final Cut? (pngs and jpgs are failing, rather predictably).

What's this still motion effect called?

jrchaplin — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:52:06 -0800

This motion technique is used all the time on History Channel shows and the like, and I'd like to learn more about it. But I don't know what it's called, so I don't know where to even start with my Google-Fu.

Basically, it uses what's obviously a still image; a figure in the foreground is isolated and is either moved or zoomed in relation to the background, creating a sort of parallax effect.

First, what's this effect called, and, secondly, any ideas, suggestions from Me-Fites on where I can find more info or tutorials on it on the interwebs? Thanks!

Elf Yourself style application?

ecorrocio — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:40:53 -0800

I'm looking for "off the shelf" code/functionality that works like the popular ElfYourself thing done by EVB in San Francisco. I'm hoping to be able to have users upload a face photo, and have it appear in an animation. Anyone know anything about this? (I'd post a link to ElfYourself, but it's down for the season).

How to make an object rotate while banking on a path in Maya?

N2O1138 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:21:01 -0800

How can I rotate an object in Maya while it's on a path and automatically banking? I'm currently making an animation involving a paper airplane, and I have it set to bank automatically, but I would like it to fly upside down at one point, and briefly turn on its side at another. I'm very new to paths in Maya, and whatever I try to do usually ends up making the plane rotated for the entire animation. Ideally I'd like to be able to keyframe a rotation while still having the paper plane following the path and banking normally. Is this possible?

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)