Animation Processes

The creation of DOT;

Using a Nokia mobile phone and a microscope to magnify the camera. 9mm Dot has 50 replacements and is stuck to a wire so she is able to be changed at every new position with ease. As the style of animation was stop motion, for every frame they would move the phone along and change the model of Dot to get the illusion of running. They designed the model of Dot on sheets of paper, then using a 3D printer, they printed every position of Dot they needed, which the 3D modeller creates. The 3D model is then attached to thin wire and then painted. They created a background, laid out across a table, the camera is mounted above the set which moves below the camera. They use After Effects software to digitally remove any hands or wire.

Making of South Park;

Firstly they start with a script, they then turn each action of the character into a visual image, for each character they design they create a turn around which is the side, front and back image of the character. To enable different poses for the characters they create a puppet for each so they are able to move limbs and facial features instead of drawing out every expression. The newly created characters are then sent to a lip sync apartment, who bring in the audio and lip sync the characters. This is then followed on by the process of the animation where an animatic is created with audio.

Making of Peppa Pig

Peppa Pig is a 2D hand drawn kids animation, Phil Davis the animator attended an animation course at Middlesex University along with other creators. He eventually took over and began teaching others about animation. He created some of the animation used in Peppa Pig today which he took to a company to pitch his ideas which they liked and wanted to take further action and create a kids animation programme. It started off with a 3 minute script and storyboard which they pitched to a broadcaster. The original Peppa Pig looked a lot more like George at the time because of size. They decided to include a family along with Peppa because at the time there wasn't a huge range of animations showing family life for families with young children. They decided on a family of four; Peppa, George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. They used a computer called 'The Quantel Paintbox' which was a dedicated computer graphics workstation.