Is puppetry a form a animation.

[Archie]

Although we dont draw them out and they are objects we move in real time, we are still giving them some form of life and movement, so is Puppetry a form of animation.

[Konan]

Most definitely yes.

[Wontobe]

Most definitely depends. :)
If it is live then no but if it is filmed yes. In my opinioin.

[Harvey Human]

In a broad sense, anything that moves is animation. As I type, I am animating my fingers and the keys beneath them.

In a narrow industrial sense, only illusions of movement are animation (like photographs of illustrations that are strung together on a reel). By this definition, puppetry and live-action are not animation, since they are things and people that are actually moving, rather than pretending to move. If a guy moving a puppet is animation, then a guy driving a car is animation.

Some will say, "Well, animation [in the industrial sense] is not just the illusion of movement. It is also the illusion of life, therefore puppetry is animation! Weeee!" which is romantic nonsense. By this definition, wind blowing tree branches is animation.
"Illusion of life" is fine as the broad definition, but it is not an accurate industrial definition.

[dxv]

i'm gonna say no.
animation, in the cartoon definition, is frame by frame manipulation.

puppetry is not that.

[Ant-eater]

tr.v. an·i·mat·ed, an·i·mat·ing, an·i·mates
1. To give life to; fill with life.
2. To impart interest or zest to; enliven: “The party was animated by all kinds of men and women” (René Dubos).
3. To fill with spirit, courage, or resolution; encourage. See Synonyms at encourage.
4. To inspire to action; prompt.
5. To impart motion or activity to.
6. To make, design, or produce (a cartoon, for example) so as to create the illusion of motion.


Traditionally it's not, however I think it is, since it fits the definition. But it is best to avoid calling puppetry animation, since it just causes too much confusion. If someone referred to The Dark Crystal as animation, I would probably correct them. If it was filed under animation in a video store, it wouldn't bother me. If the animation section was then chock full of muppet dvds, it would bother me.

Yes but no but yes but no but.

Incidently, isn't stop-motion a form of puppetry? I have also seen animators describe a rigged cg character as 'a puppet'. If the cg character is manipulated through motion capture in real time, then surely it is closer still to literally being a puppet? Does it then cease to be animation? As you can see there are grey areas.

[Harvey Human]

Incidently, isn't stop-motion a form of puppetry? I have also seen animators describe a rigged cg character as 'a puppet'.
A stop-motion or CGI puppet is never actually in motion, as a "muppet" is. Both of them mimic motion.
Lights flickering on a TV or theater screen is not motion. If you believe that it is, then you might as well say that an animated marquee is motion.

The term, puppet, is not exclusively associated with live theater. A puppet is pretty much any figure - felt or digital - that can be controlled by a person; but Archie was obviously talking about real-world puppets.
If the cg character is manipulated through motion capture in real time, then surely it is closer still to literally being a puppet?
The rendered representation of the motion capture "puppet" that we see on screen was never actually moving in the real world. It's the same as rotoscoping. The rotoscoped Koko the Clown that we see on screen was never dancing around in the real world.

This should be relatively simple, people: If a physical thing is moving in the real world, it's not animation.
Stop-motion, 2D, and CGI don't move in the real world.

[Kaleidoscope]

Would you say it was more performance art??

[Ant-eater]

This should be relatively simple, people: If a physical thing is moving in the real world, it's not animation.
Stop-motion, 2D, and CGI don't move in the real world.

You're making destinctions of your own: I still say it fits the definition of the word in the broadest sense. It's just another way of bringing artificial characters to life. But we all know the difference.

The reason puppetry isn't traditionally lumped in with animation, is because animation traces it's roots back to the origins of cinema. In some books they go further back and start calling greek vases early forms of animation; this is just because for the most part they were more interested in tracing the origins of drawn animation, by far and away the dominent form. But with CG, animation is going all sorts of places it couldn't go before. It is not limited to individual frames like other forms of animation, and there are new forms of 3d projection(like what they did with the Gorillaz on stage). Rendering can be a 'real-time' process, and motion-capture can, which is a distinct difference over rotoscope. Some don't think motion-capture is animation, but rotoscope was always considered at least a form of animation, since it was drawings that move. Motion-capture may be closer to a form of computer puppetry than to rotoscope.

[Ant-eater]

A stop-motion or CGI puppet is never actually in motion, as a "muppet" is. Both of them mimic motion.


With 'go-motion', the stop-motion puppet was in motion in every exposure. It was moved by computer-controlled rods. This was the process developed by Phil Tippett on Dragonslayer.

It is also possible to have animatronic puppets that are driven by computer animation. In other words the animation is not just limited to being played out on any kind of screen, it can be played through a real world puppet.

[Harvey Human]

You're making destinctions of your own
Aren't we all?
I still say it fits the definition of the word in the broadest sense.
Yes, that is the first thing I said. (Scroll up.) In the broadest sense, anything that moves is animation. That part is easy. What I'm trying to do now is to define animation in only the industrial sense.
It is not limited to individual frames like other forms of animation, and there are new forms of 3d projection(like what they did with the Gorillaz on stage). Rendering can be a 'real-time' process, and motion-capture can, which is a distinct difference over rotoscope.
Real-time rendering doesn't exist in the real world. The monsters in Doom3 can't walk down our city streets just as Roger Rabbit can't. However, Big Bird can.
Real-time renderings are illustrations made on the computer, and, yes, they are rendered in frames. Every real-time rendered environment has an FPS (frames per second) speed which is either adjustable or is determined by the power of the video card. If you have a slow enough video card, or set the rendering options too high, you will see the individual frames.
It is also possible to have animatronic puppets that are driven by computer animation.
Animatronics is just robotics. If animatronics is animation (again, in the industrial sense), then the robots in car factories are a form of animation.

Now that I think about it, if you want to include puppetry as a part of the animation industry, then logically you need to include robotics as well. The humanoid robots that the Japanese are creating are, after all, an "illusion of life."

You should also probably include theater props like moving boats and waves. Maybe you should include a plastic bag blowing in the wind like in American Beauty. This is an object animated by nature to look like it's flying.

[Larry L.]

Hello.

I have to agree with others that puppetry is NOT animation. Puppets involve a live-action performance done in real time. Based on the criteria set up in previous posts on this thread- all live-action is animation, too.

Sorry, can't go there- animation, character animation involves bringing a character to life frme by frame.

Thanks.

[kukut]

hand puppets are really hands in costumes
like clowns and mimes
and kabuki theaters
and stage plays.

performance art. or live. real time motion recorded
in real time film. including animatronics. not Harryhausen.

it would be easier if we decided to define 'live action' first.

the next question is: Is direct rotoscoping animation?
from the current definition, it is not.

[Ant-eater]

Real-time rendering doesn't exist in the real world. The monsters in Doom3 can't walk down our city streets just as Roger Rabbit can't. However, Big Bird can.
Real-time renderings are illustrations made on the computer, and, yes, they are rendered in frames. Every real-time rendered environment has an FPS (frames per second) speed which is either adjustable or is determined by the power of the video card. If you have a slow enough video card, or set the rendering options too high, you will see the individual frames.


Your first point here only applies to your definition of animation. I'm not making any distinctions of my own, I'm just following the technical definition to it's conclusions. You have devised your own definition, by adding that animation cannot exist in the real world. But animation is a very old word. It's much older than the concept of frames.

After that, you miss my point completely: In computer animation, the movement can be defined by key poses, the frames are the equivalent to the pixels that make up the screen, or to the passage of time that is part of any performance. In traditional animation, there are also keys, but the frames are what define it. They must be created individually. There is no such thing as real time animation through this process. With puppetry there is always real-time animation, and with computer animation, this is also possible. In other words you can have virtual puppetry.

Everything else I refer to is some sort of artform(whether you want to call it animation or whatever). Rubbish caught in the breeze and industrial robotics are clearly not an artform. The only way this can happen is if they were used by an artist to express something.

[Ant-eater]

All this definition stuff is tricky, but do you just create a new definition because you don't like the implications of the old one? We all know the difference between what is considered animation, and what can be included in the broad sense of the word. Harvey says: "anything that moves is animation". I will explain anything I have said thus far, but I have nothing further to add, since we are all basically in agreement.

[kdiddy13]

A stop-motion or CGI puppet is never actually in motion, as a "muppet" is.

That's not actually 100% true. ILM, for instance, at the peak of their stop motion days had built armatures with motors on them that would vibrate and give additional motion blur while filming a stop motion scene.

But, I agree, in the definition that you are asking about, as pertaining to animated films, puppetry is not animation.

However, there are, as has been pointed out, a number of definitions to animation or the act of animating. One being, the act of animating something loosely meaning to bring life to something that previously did not have life. Therefore, puppetry as well as robotry, and bringing the dead back to life, would be considered animation, although again, not in the sense of the media classification of the word. So, not fitting one definition of it does not preclude it from fitting others.

And just to throw some further confusion into it, what will 3D animation be called when it does work in real time with devices that allow for animators to interact with those objects if the term animation depends on working in slower than real time conditions? Portions of the jet bike chase scene were animated in real time with a joystick input device at ILM (or at least they were playing with it at last I heard), the rendering was of course done later. But real time rendering is really not too far off either.

[Harvey Human]

Ant-eater,
You seem to be confusing the "old" and most general definition of animation ("to impart motion or activity to") with the professional definition of animation, which is to create the illusion of movement.
One is actual movement: puppets, cars, baseballs.
The other is not actual movement. They are things that were never really moving. They are merely lights flickering on a screen.

Apparently, your definition of animation is any artist or entertainer who creates movement or the illusion of movement.
By the definition you've created, jugglers and stagehands are animators, but "animation" created on a computer for scientific reasons (by mathematicians, etc.) is not actually animation.

[Harvey Human]

That's not actually 100% true. ILM, for instance, at the peak of their stop motion days had built armatures with motors on them that would vibrate and give additional motion blur while filming a stop motion scene.
Then that's not merely a stop-motion puppet. It's more of a start-motion puppet. :rolleyes: Stop-motion means the thing is stopped, not moving.

[Haredevil_Hare]

Actually, this debate happened within the industry last year acording to this article (http://forum.bcdb.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=49284;search_string=team%20america %20world%20police;#49284). (Scroll down a bit to eminovitz's post)

[kdiddy13]

Then that's not merely a stop-motion puppet. It's more of a start-motion puppet. :rolleyes: Stop-motion means the thing is stopped, not moving.

:) But the artist had stopped working on it...

Semantics. This board is crazy with it these days.

What's wrong with this sentence:

Puppetry can be used in animations. :D

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Harvey Human]

In order to include puppetry, you can define professional animation as "the practice of making things move so that they mimic real-life counterparts; or making things appear to move so that they mimic real-life movement," but all you're really doing is stuffing the definition of puppetry (real movement) into the definition of animation (fake movement).

[Ant-eater]

Ant-eater,
You seem to be confusing the "old" and most general definition of animation ("to impart motion or activity to") with the professional definition of animation, which is to create the illusion of movement.
One is actual movement: puppets, cars, baseballs.
The other is not actual movement. They are things that were never really moving. They are merely lights flickering on a screen.

Apparently, your definition of animation is any artist or entertainer who creates movement or the illusion of movement.
By the definition you've created, jugglers and stagehands are animators, but "animation" created on a computer for scientific reasons (by mathematicians, etc.) is not actually animation.

As you said earlier, this all boils down to whether you consider "animation is the illusion of movement" or "animation is the illusion of life". Both definitions seem to be about as popular. I always felt animation is more about creating life than movement. This is closer to the root of the word: animatus - to invoke life, to make alive, to give life to, bring to life.

[sajdera]

As you said earlier, this all boils down to whether you consider "animation is the illusion of movement" or "animation is the illusion of life". Both definitions seem to be about as popular. I always felt animation is more about creating life than movement. This is closer to the root of the word: animatus - to invoke life, to make alive, to give life to, bring to life.


If animation is the "illusion of movement" or "the illusion of life," then live-action films are way more animated than animation... heh, see? Uh, let me start over. I could reiterate Webster's definition, and although I'm not going to, keep it in mind.

1. A puppet is already "alive." Whether it's sitting on the self or being jostled about on stage, it's always there, no act of "animating" required. The subtle movements of the earth are effecting it, it's wood is aging (slowly, of course) and it's subjugated to time entirely independant of the artist that uses it (indeed, despite the artist that uses it).

2. Popeye is NOT alive, that is, not in "our" world. The definitive form of Popeye is... intangible, you might say. Popeye exists in our world only in the form of thousands of drawings and no one drawing can constitute *POPEYE* in his entirety.

Soooooo...

Animating is NOT even as simple as "the illusion of movement" or even "the illusion of life (whatever you think that is)".

Animation is creating the illusion of time and space in a medium that exists outside of the experienced illusion.

Deviating from this definition will result in: live-action film, stop-motion film, or live performance.

Traditional animation techniques as well as computer animation (2D and 3D) constitute: "animation." Wallace and Gromit is emphatically NOT animation. It's "stop-motion". Not "stop-motion-animation," just "stop-motion." Stop-motion is, needless to say, a totally valid and expressive artform (blah blah blah) but is definately not animation proper.

Puppets are not animation. The closest they can come is stop-motion, which is very related to animation. The easy way to tell is if the subjects, objects or "time" related to the audience actually exist or existed in real life somewhere, it's not animation.

DISCLAIMER:

1. According to the case presented above, the Max F. Betty Boops and Popeyes that featured the model backgrounds were then "hybrid" films. Betty was animated, the background was stop-motion.

2. Aural mechanism and/or performance is considered universal to all of the artforms discussed above.

3. I love Betty Boop and Popeye. :p Wheeee... and Wallace and Gromit. No flames, brothers and sisters.

[Harvey Human]

Ant-eater,
Neither puppetry nor frame-by-frame animation actually bring anything to life. They're both at odds with the root definition, which never mentions "illusion."

It's similar to the professional definition of magic versus the ancient definition of magic.
The broad definition of magic is the supernatural.
The professional definition of magic is the illusion of the supernatural.

I think we have to define professional animation as the illusion of movement rather than the illusion of life since so much of what we animate isn't supposed to represent living things.
Additionally, if animation is the "illusion of life," does that mean that The Polar Express is the best animation ever, since its characters look and move more like living beings than Bugs or Mickey? I think not.

If animation is simply the "illusion of life," then a plastic house plant is animated.

Sajdera,
How did the "illusion of ... space" get in there? :confused:

[DrSpecter]

I have to disagree with sajdera's definition, here. "A puppet is already "alive." Say that to an analyst and you'll end up in the "laughing academy." What you're saying is that it exists in 3 dimensions. But it's no more "alive" than an equally 3 dimensional chair.

Stop motion has always been a form of animation, and has never been classified as anything else. I like Wallace and Grommit fine, but if they say they're not animated, they're just lying. [and someone is having to animate them to make them lie]

Live action puppetry is just a gray area. Personally, I just call it puppetry. But if someone wants to call it a form of animation, it's close enough that I wouldn't deprive them of the right.

[sajdera]

I have to disagree with sajdera's definition, here. "A puppet is already "alive." Say that to an analyst and you'll end up in the "laughing academy." What you're saying is that it exists in 3 dimensions. But it's no more "alive" than an equally 3 dimensional chair.

Send your analyst if you must, but no, that's not what I'm saying.

What you have to do is rearrange your perspective. When I'm watching my favorite animated mouse, Mrs. Brisby, on my television I'm not experiencing the illusion of her life, I'm experiencing the illusion of my life, and more cosmicly, our life. That's the most important thing to keep in mind.

Animation, as I have differentiated it from Stop-Motion (note that the preceding term is wholly succifient and very precise), live-action, and live performance, is ENTIRELY ILLUSION. When an artist animates, she is creating the illusion of the entirety of a macrocosm of time and space; the universe of her illusion. In the mediums of stop motion, puppetry, live-action and (duh) live performance the universe has already been provided, see? That is what the audience sees: clay, actors, or wood (sometimes wooden actors :o ) and sees them as they are BECAUSE THEY ARE!

There's nowhere in the world where you can reach out and touch Mrs. Brisby as we experience her in the film Secret Of NIMH. She is complete illusion and the world she lives in is complete illusion. Comparatively, one CAN (potentially) reach out and touch the very Gromit that we see in the film, but perhaps even more importantly, the sculptor can touch Gromit (sounds dirty...). There is a gigantic difference between those two artistic activities. The connection the artist has with the work will be greatly influenced. I digress a bit.

Still, my definition in red holds up:

Animation is creating the illusion of time and space in a medium that exists outside of the experienced illusion.

Deviating from this definition will result in: live-action film, stop-motion film, or live performance.

So let me put it this way: in stop-motion, the "space" part is already there, but the artist is in the stop, and arranges the space and totally fabricates the "time" part.

Puppetry is the opposite: "time" is already provided and running at the same rate experienced by both performer and audience, and so the artist must totally fabricate the "space" (the puppet) part to create his illusion.

ANIMATORS DO BOTH to create their illusion: both time and space are completely fabricated and manipulated, and this is the distinction. :cool:

[sajdera]

Concerning stop-motion, I think it's much better to catagorize this art apart from what is called (or what I apparently assert sould be called) animation.

And it works: you're not animating a film, you're "stop-moving" a film! This distinction should be worn like a badge with pride, considering that stop-motion requires another set of skills that animation (or puppetry for that matter) don't.

Stop-motion is a distiguished artform... so distinguish it!!! :D

[DrSpecter]

"Stop motion animation" should be, and is, distinct from "cartoon animation." Similarly, if you just say "cartoon," you're also referring to the kind that appear in newspapers, etc.

To say stop motion isn't animation, you'd have to erase every reference to it in every book that has ever mentioned it-- where it is properly referred to as animation. You've gone way beyond trying to define a word. You're trying to change the english language.

And if you've ever spilled ink, there can be no doubt: ink IS, just as a puppet IS (and even more so if you get it on the furnature.)

[Ant-eater]

sajdera, the only way stop-motion is not animation is if we go by your definition, which is obviously bogus. You can't just write it out of the definition.

Illusion of Life, or Illusion of Movement; neither of these definitions are totally adequate. Live-action cinema started out as the illusion of pictures that move. So I agree with Sajdera, that they do not fully distinguish from live-action. Illusion of Life, doesn't fully distinguish from still drawings or statues.

Here's my stab at a definition: animation is the artificial creation of an illusion of life through movement.

No this doesn't rule out puppetry, and it doesn't disconnect itself from the root of the word. It's just my personal definition, and it carries no academic weight. It probably has some flaw too. Take or leave it, redifine it, whatever.

[DSB]

I'd love to know what the impetus was behind the original question, and why so many people are trying to include puppetry in the definition of animation. Is it senior thesis time again so soon? ;)

[Harvey Human]

sajdera, the only way stop-motion is not animation is if we go by your definition, which is obviously bogus. You can't just write it out of the definition.
Stop-motion animation is animation.
A nice paradox is embedded right in there!
You have things that have stopped moving, yet they're moving through the illusion of persistence of vision!
Likewise, cartoons - before animation came along - were newspaper drawings that didn't move.
Live-action cinema started out as the illusion of pictures that move. So I agree with Sajdera, that they do not fully distinguish from live-action.
It's true that live-action movies are also an illusion of movement, but, since they are representations of things that were actually moving (Frodo), whereas animation isn't (Gollum), we distinguish live-action from animation.
Here's my stab at a definition: animation is the artificial creation of an illusion of life through movement.
That definition doesn't take into account animated water, clouds, volcanos, machinery, spaceships, falling objects, robots, ghosts, etc.

Here's Wikipedia's definition:
"Animation is the illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements."
It seems to be without holes. It neatly includes stop-motion and cartoons while disallowing live-action and puppets.

This thread reminds me of a South Park episode:

JONATHAN: Well, that does it. Somethin' funny is going on here. Your missing grandma must be connected somehow to those creepy pirate ghosts.
DAVID: They're not pirate ghosts, Jonathan, they're ghost pirates.
JONATHAN: Huh?
DAVID: "Pirate ghost" would suggest that a pirate died, and became a ghost, but a ghost pirate is a ghost that later made a conscious decision to be a pirate.
MUNKY: No, David. Then they are pirate ghosts, because they're the ghosts of pirates.
FIELDY: You're wrong, because there were no pirates in Colorado. So these must be ghosts that have decided to become pirates after the fact.
JONATHAN: But that makes them pirate ghosts.
DAVID: No. It makes them ghost pirates.
MUNKY: Pirate ghosts!
HEAD: Guys! Guys! Guys! Fighting isn't gonna solve anything. Don't you see? This is exactly what those ghost pirates want us to do.
JONATHAN: Pirate ghosts.

[Ant-eater]

If we really want to get serious about this, I could just go on wikipedia, and change their definition to whatever I think it should be. It would seem perfectly reasonable to add in a 'illusion of life' somewhere. To be honest, I don't know that you didn't write the original article. I have never seen that definition in print before, so it could be technically disallowed as constituting 'original research'.

But as you say, this is all rubbish really, since if you look at my original post, you will see that our position is pretty close. I don't advocate calling puppetry animation, but some do.

For example:

http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/resources/artforms/drama/Features/Puppets,%20cohen%20and%20festival/PAF_logo.jpg

http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/artsinscotland/drama/features/archive/focuspuppetanimationfestival.aspx

[Ant-eater]

That definition doesn't take into account animated water, clouds, volcanos, machinery, spaceships, falling objects, robots, ghosts, etc.


Incidently, life is a very broad term, and and doesn't necessarily exclude those. Though I conceed that the latin animatus refers to life in the biological sense, which would exclude them.

[Harvey Human]

If we really want to get serious about this, I could just go on wikipedia, and change their definition to whatever I think it should be. It would seem perfectly reasonable to add in a 'illusion of life' somewhere. To be honest, I don't know that you didn't write the original article.
I promise you I didn't write that definition. :rolleyes:
Yes, Wikipedia is flawed. Still, their definition is the best I've seen on this thread.

As I've demonstrated many times, "illusion of life" isn't needed in the definition. "Illusion of life" is only one of the things that animation does, and it doesn't distinguish animation from painting, sculpture, or a bowl of plastic fruit. (People have a romantic attachment to "illusion of life" because it's the title of that book.) "Motion" and "movement" are just more accurate words because "illusion of motion" is exactly what animation does, while "life" is simultaneously too broad and too narrow a term.

Here's The Encyclopedia Britannica's definition. Maybe you'll trust this one a little more:

"the art of making inanimate objects appear to move."

Again, I promise I didn't write it.
It's similar to Wikipedia's in that it includes cartoons and stop-motion while excluding live-action and puppetry.
I like Wikipedia's better though. Wikipedia's is a more modern definition which can comfortably include computer animation.

Here's Encarta's:

"motion pictures created by recording a series of still images—drawings, objects, or people in various positions of incremental movement—that when played back no longer appear individually as static images but combine to produce the illusion of unbroken motion."

This definition also excludes live-action and puppetry but can technically include pre-rendered computer animation. Unfortunately, it seems to exclude video game animation.
Again, Wikipedia's is just a more modern definition:

"the illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements."

If you want to include puppetry, you need to come up with a definition that includes pixilation (animation using living beings) and all of cartoon animation, while excluding sculpture, robotics, and live performances, but somehow managing to include the Muppets. It's a puzzler. :)

[sajdera]

"Stop motion animation" should be, and is, distinct from "cartoon animation." Similarly, if you just say "cartoon," you're also referring to the kind that appear in newspapers, etc.

Thundercats? Does this fit the definition of "cartoon"? What about the family in American Pop? Are they "cartoons"? How about Buzz Lightyear? The term "cartoon" is about style and has nothing to do with this.


To say stop motion isn't animation, you'd have to erase every reference to it in every book that has ever mentioned it-- where it is properly referred to as animation. You've gone way beyond trying to define a word. You're trying to change the english language.

Words words words. What are words? Where do they come from? How do they get their meanings? How do their meanings change? WHY do their meanings and usage change? Who invented all of our words?

I'm not changing the English language. It changes all by itself. I am simply using English.


And if you've ever spilled ink, there can be no doubt: ink IS, just as a puppet IS (and even more so if you get it on the furnature.)


WRONG. The picture that is painted with the ink is utter ILLUSION. The depth and form (the artist's expression) are experienced, but do not actually exist. If you close your eyes, you cannot experience the illusion. So, when you think about it, a blind person could probably make a pretty damn interesting stop-motion film (although a sighted person might need to film it). I digress again.

What I'm trying to get across here is that you guys are probably kick-ass artists and know a lot about your craft, but you will never be able to breath life into ANYTHING. You are not a god (or are you?). You can take clay and stop-move it, or perform with a puppet, but they are not "animated". YOU ARE!

With traditional technique or computers, the experienced illusion exists nowhere that can be actually accessed by our physical selves; it is a phantom world. Here, it is impossible to say that the experienced illusion is not animated because there is no scientifc way to test that being that the illusion exists nowhere. A stop-motion character DOES exists the same way The Thinker exists and we can prove that both of them are definately not animated, illusion they both certainly are.

Therefore, traditional and computer film illusions are only what can be truly considered "animated" because, somewhat paradoxically, there's no way to prove that they are or aren't because these illusions have no anchor in our reality.

Now, I have a challenge: Please explain to me how the following definitions do not make perfect sense:

Animation is the illusion of time and space using a medium that exists outside the experience of that illusion.

Stop-Motion is the illusion of time (events) using a medium that exists within the experience of reality.

Puppetry is the illusion of (the dictionary's version of) animation.

I am not changing the meaning of any English words, either. What I am asserting is a clear and precise definition of industry terms. The bolded animation above is an industry term used by us that is only vaguely referenced in the dictionary, and it's supposed to be that way. If most of the industry refers to Stop-Motion as "animation," then I disagree based on the reason I've explained above.

Am I trying to change the industry terms? Sure, why not?! :o WE ARE the industry, aren't we? Isn't it up to us? Just because terms are in wide use doesn't mean they're the best.

[JohnnyLethargic]

What's wrong with this sentence:

Puppetry can be used in animations.

Is the error the fact that animation shouldn't have an "s" at the end? Oops, wrong thread... :D Is animation actually a form of puppetry? CG and stop-mo are. There are parts that get manipulated by hand. Has this been said already? The last two pages have been a bit long winded for my attention span.

[Harvey Human]

Now, I have a challenge: Please explain to me how the following definitions do not make perfect sense:

Animation is the illusion of time and space using a medium that exists outside the experience of that illusion.
Stop-motion has been called "animation" since the creation of the first animated films over a hundred years ago. I don't think we can just arbitrarily write "illusion of space" into the definition of animation.

Also, what is "a medium that exists outside the experience of that illusion"? Media can create illusions, but media aren't illusions themselves; e.g., a drawing may create an illusion of a world, but it's the world that doesn't exist, not the drawing.

[Harvey Human]

I also have to say that "illusion of time" doesn't work for me either.
The time needed to experience animation is the same time needed to experience a painting or a novel or anything. It's a real thing, not an illusion.
"Illusion of time" sounds more like a philosophical concept.

[sajdera]

Stop-motion has been called "animation" since the creation of the first animated films over a hundred years ago. I don't think we can just arbitrarily write "illusion of space" into the definition of animation.

Why not?! Compare what I'm saying to the *respected* members on this board that are saying puppetry is a form of animation!


Also, what is "a medium that exists outside the experience of that illusion"? Media can create illusions, but media aren't illusions themselves; e.g., a drawing may create an illusion of a world, but it's the world that doesn't exist, not the drawing.


I'm glad you asked this. What I mean by "a medium that exists outside the experience of the illusion" can be illustrated by the following scenario: the "cartoon within a cartoon" factor. It is feasible for Wallace and Gromit or a puppet to watch an animated film within their film, but it doesn't exactly work that way when the Simpsons watch "The Itchy and Scratchy Show".

This is where the boundry lies! The keyword in my definition above is not illusion, but experience, and that includes the artist and the audience both. The animation medium (ink or 3D graphics) is outside of the experienced illusion (Mrs. Brisby, for example), in that we are not watching the ink. We are watching an illusion of space: the character cells upon backgrounds - and time: all work done on the animation is done independantly of the time experienced during the illusion.

Which brings me your next point:

I also have to say that "illusion of time" doesn't work for me either.
The time needed to experience animation is the same time needed to experience a painting or a novel or anything. It's a real thing, not an illusion.
"Illusion of time" sounds more like a philosophical concept.

I've never seen a painting, comic book, novel or anything of the like that included a running time on the back of the cover. Greatly depending on individual circumstances, time in an illusion sometimes controlled to an extent by the reader or viewer in these mediums and therefore is not related to what we do in cinema.

When the illusion of time is handled improperly, we get jump cuts, continuity errors or the lipsynch is off. And this is the same in Stop-Motion EXCEPT the illusion of space. Space in a Stop-Motion film is not any more of an illusion than a live-action film because it actually exists. So, if you or anyone else can create another universe with all the physics of this world and make a film there with clay you big-banged yourself, I'll call you an animator. Maybe God, too.

At any rate, am I not still using English words for what they mean?! I'm pretty sure I am. :o

[Harvey Human]

The animation medium (ink or 3D graphics) is outside of the experienced illusion (Mrs. Brisby, for example), in that we are not watching the ink.
Okay, now you seem to be saying that the animation medium is not an illusion, which is correct. I don't understand why you have to state in your definition that the medium is not within the illusion. Media that we use to create things (paper & pencil), or media that we create (drawings), are never illusions.
A drawing on the wall of my home is not an illusion. If the drawing were an illusion, then the drawing wouldn't really exist. The image creates an illusion (you can say the house in the drawing is an illusion), but it is not an illusion itself.

I also don't understand why you need to use the term "experienced illusion" since all illusions are experienced.
Without a viewer, there's no illusion.

Technically we are watching the ink - or rather projected photos of the ink - as well as the illusion, just as we can simultaneously read a book, read printed text, and read an adventure; but I think I understand what you're trying to say. You're saying that we don't pay attention to the fact that it's ink just as we don't pay attention to the ink in a book.

We also don't pay attention to the fact that we're watching puppets when we watch stop-motion. We suspend disbelief for moments and think that we're watching living things, or life-sized working cars and houses. Stop-motion movies can also create the illusion of spatial depth. The horizon that looks like it's thousands of miles away is only painted on a wall. The buildings down the street that look like they're a half mile away are really only 10 feet away. Making 10 feet seem like a half mile is certainly spatial illusion.

Of course, stop-motion doesn't have to create the illusion of spatial depth (see Pixilation), but then neither does cartoon animation. Chuck Jones' The Dot and the Line creates no illusion of spatial depth whatsoever, and that's just one example. We've all seen other examples of 2D or traditional animation that have no illusion of spatial depth, and any of us could create one right now on the corner pages of a book or in Flash.

So animation can exist without the "illusion of space," while it still can't exist without the illusion of motion.

... on to time.
I've never seen a painting, comic book, novel or anything of the like that included a running time on the back of the cover.
A set running time does not create an illusion of time.
An illusion is an erroneous perception. We do not erroneously perceive the time in which we view a cartoon.

To have an illusion of time, you'd have to have some time that didn't really exist, but fooled you into thinking it existed. I don't know what the hell that would be, but it certainly isn't animated cartoons. Maybe if you had a cartoon that seemed to take 9 months to watch but when you looked at your watch afterward it only took 90 minutes... . I don't think I'd want to watch a cartoon like that.

Maybe what you mean is that cartoons make the time seem to go faster or slower depending on how good or bad they are; but, by that definition, all time that we experience is an illusion and has nothing specifically to do with animation.

Maybe you mean that cartoons, movies, novels, and plays can jump around in time. That's not creating an illusion of time though. It's creating an illusion of time travel, if anything; although many cartoons don't jump around in time, so that doesn't work either.

Anyway, we already have a perfectly good definition of animation: "[blah blah blah]... illusion of motion... [blah blah blah]."
"Illusion of time" and "illusion of space" have never been or needed to be in the definition of animation. Bringing them into it now just muddies it up, as you can see.

[Larry L.]

Wow- you folks have way too much time on your hands!!!!:D ;) :D

[Kaleidoscope]

Thi reminds me of a module I once had at uni, it was on sound and sound theory. The Lecturer talked about what might be defined as music, is it to do with rythem and pleasing sound -but that might include waves on a beech, and some might not classify heavy metal as music rather then noise.

We were asked to come up with our own definitions of what music was, what we included and what we didn't include.

The main point of the exercise was that the term music was just subjective opinion, as long as we thought about it and could be able to give logical reasoning for why we defined it as we did.

Clearly from this thread, animation means different things to different people. As long as your happy with your own definition, no one is really right or wrong.

I think puppets are hard to define because they have their foot in many different camps that they could fit different art categories depending on how you looked at them.

[Harvey Human]

Wow- you folks have way too much time on your hands!!!!
Yes, why are we wasting our time discussing animation on the animation forum when we could be watching American Idol or getting drunk in a bar? :confused:
Some people like to spend time having conversations and expanding their understanding. Go figure. :rolleyes:
As long as your happy with your own definition, no one is really right or wrong.
It doesn't matter if you know what words mean as long as you're happy? Isn't that the definition of retardation, or insanity? I guess that's another thread. :D

[DSB]

Yes, why are we wasting our time discussing animation on the animation forum when we could be watching American Idol or getting drunk in a bar? :confused:
Some people like to spend time having conversations and expanding their understanding. Go figure. :rolleyes:
Conversations like these threaten those who rely on preconceived notions and pat answers to define what they believe. Personally, I'm enjoying the give and take - keep at it!

[Ant-eater]

Yeah I've been enjoying it too. I've never really considered puppetry a form of animation, but now that I've given it a bit of thought I can see many reasons why it could be.

What would completely clinch it for me though, is if anyone can dig up an old enough reference to puppetry that describes the act of performing with puppets as animation. I found a book about puppetry from 1920 on Google's book search that uses the terms animated and animation. That's not old enough to predate cinema though.

If it used to be considered animation, then any modern definitions may need to be expanded.

[Harvey Human]

What would completely clinch it for me though, is if anyone can dig up an old enough reference to puppetry that describes the act of performing with puppets as animation. I found a book about puppetry from 1920 on Google's book search that uses the terms animated and animation. That's not old enough to predate cinema though.
There are a couple of problems with that notion.

1. You're also going to find old texts that refer to any type of movement as "animation." Does that mean everyone in the world is a professional animator, since all work involves movement? However, we've already been down that road. :rolleyes:

What you'd need to find are eras where people who used puppets were commonly called "animators" instead of "puppeteers." "Call in the animator to perform the Punch and Judy act!"

2. Calling puppetry "animation" makes it difficult to distinguish from "puppet animation," a form of stop-motion.

Even if it was once called "animation," it can't anymore in order to distinguish it from the "illusion of motion" industry. Sometimes the definitions of terms or the terms themselves need to change to make room for newer terms. For example, we now have "2D animation" or "traditional animation" to distinguish it from 3D animation. We now have "snail mail" or "postal mail" to distinguish it from e-mail. and so on

Before the artforms of animation came along, "animation" meant a very different thing. Before electronic computers came along, a computer was a person who calculated figures; but, if I were to refer to a kid scribbling out his math homework as a "computer," it would just be confusing.

[Ant-eater]

1
First of all, giving a performance is a very different thing from 'moving'. It's an art. Animation the art, is distinct from animation in the biological sense which basically means life, lively, alive. Secondly, an animator can be an actor, can act through an animated character, but he is an animator first. Similarly, a puppeteer can animate his puppet, but he is a puppeteer first.

2
In my initial post, I said that it is best to avoid calling puppetry animation, since it just causes too much confusion. This is exactly what I had in mind. Before the age of computer animation, stop-motion was sometimes referred to as 3d animation. It's rarely called that anymore. But it's still considered animation(well, except by Sajdera).

[Harvey Human]

At this point, I'd really like to see what your revised definition of animation looks like, Ant-eater: the one that includes puppetry.

Again, you have to be careful since "illusion of life" can refer to painting, sculpture, live-action movies, novels, puppets, comic books, dolls, paper flowers, and audio recordings.

"Liveliness" is similar to "motion," but can also refer to music and all other sound waves.

I've revised my own definition to "the creation of the illusion of motion using the consecutive display of images of static elements." This definition seems to include 2D, 3D, stop-motion, flipbooks, and video games while excluding live-action video and puppetry.

[sajdera]

Excuse my avatar. Mok had to put on his smokin' jacket for this one.

I also had the idea that some visual representation might also help, so I went to the trouble of creating the following collage for this purpose. Now, let's get started *whew*...

http://www.geocities.com/wjsaj/examples.jpg

I don't understand why you have to state in your definition that the medium is not within the illusion. Media that we use to create things (paper & pencil), or media that we create (drawings), are never illusions.
A drawing on the wall of my home is not an illusion. If the drawing were an illusion, then the drawing wouldn't really exist. The image creates an illusion (you can say the house in the drawing is an illusion), but it is not an illusion itself.

In exhibit A, a scene from The Secret Of NIMH, the illusory time/space experienced by the audience and artist is outside - or detatched from - the medium it has been rendered in. This means: the mouse, rat, puddle, everything in the environment and the time experienced during the illusion are universally intangible. Everything in this scene, as it is expressed and experienced, has absolutely NO real-world substance, form or time existed. It is complete illusion. I'll get back to this, but allow me to move to the next point.


A set running time does not create an illusion of time.
An illusion is an erroneous perception. We do not erroneously perceive the time in which we view a cartoon...
To have an illusion of time, you'd have to have some time that didn't really exist, but fooled you into thinking it existed...
...Maybe you mean that cartoons, movies, novels, and plays can jump around in time. That's not creating an illusion of time though. It's creating an illusion of time travel, if anything; although many cartoons don't jump around in time, so that doesn't work either.

Turn now your attention, if you will, to exhibit B, one of the animated scenes from Fight Club (by the way, if you're easily upset, don't look at the picture above :o ). The time it takes a bullet to shoot through a head is a small fraction of a second. This shot ;) lasts about 1 or 2 seconds. The ubduction of the princess in Ralph Bakshi's Fire And Ice or the credit sequences from The Benny Hill Show similarly illustrate this point: Time is manipulated in all film, and therefore is an illusion. Why? Because it's not just slow- or fast-motion, but all "time" in any film is consciencely constructed and thus is NOT "real time". If it isn't real time, then it stands by your reasoning that it is an illusion of time.

We also don't pay attention to the fact that we're watching puppets when we watch stop-motion. We suspend disbelief for moments and think that we're watching living things, or life-sized working cars and houses. Stop-motion movies can also create the illusion of spatial depth. The horizon that looks like it's thousands of miles away is only painted on a wall. The buildings down the street that look like they're a half mile away are really only 10 feet away. Making 10 feet seem like a half mile is certainly spatial illusion.

Contrast the next two exhibits: (C): Dawn Of The Day, an short animated film that was done by myself (used here only to show that I'm not entirely pulling this all out of my ass) and (D): The Devil Went Down To Georgia. In both cases, the audience is required to "suspend disbelief" in both the situation and most certainly the actors therein. However, the kids and building experienced in my film are a complete fabrication of space; not so in Stop-Motion. The actors and environment of Devil are in fact made up of real-world matter (clay, foam, what-have-you) and the audience experiences these elements in the same way they would a puppet, EXCEPT that the Devil and Johnny are under the influence of the conscience manipulation of time.

The Devil artist constructs the set, characters and lighting, and they are as they will be experience by the audience, then STOPS the camera to MOVE those characters and/or environment.* The camera is, in a way, always "rolling" but to achieve the effects of Stop-Motion, the camera must be stopped. This means that the artist - the Stop-Motion artist - is himself the animation, just as a puppeteer is the animation of a puppet. The difference in that the puppeteer does not manipulate time; he works in real-time.

* In contrast, the camera is never left rolling on a single cell of Mrs. Brisby.

Of course, stop-motion doesn't have to create the illusion of spatial depth (see Pixilation), but then neither does cartoon animation. Chuck Jones' The Dot and the Line creates no illusion of spatial depth whatsoever, and that's just one example. We've all seen other examples of 2D or traditional animation that have no illusion of spatial depth, and any of us could create one right now on the corner pages of a book or in Flash.

So animation can exist without the "illusion of space," while it still can't exist without the illusion of motion.

Animation, not to mention Stop-Motion, can NEVER exist without the illusion of space. We have to mind our English on this thread, so below is Webster's definition of space (sans definitions for "outerspace," etc.):

space
1: a period of time
2: a limited extent in one, two or three dimensions
3: a boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have a relative position and direction
4: physical space independant of what occupies it

Accordingly, The Dot and the Line is executed upon a different set of dimensions than was The Secret Of NIMH, Fight Club or my animated film, but operates within the mechanics of space nonetheless. 2 dimensions hardly means "without space."

(E), Punch and Judy, and (F) Triumph, are examples of Puppetry. The scene witnessed in (E), considering the backdrop, is the same as witnessed in (D), except that there is no manipulation of time; it's performed live. And (F) is just strait-up puppetry, no bones about it.

Anyway, we already have a perfectly good definition of animation: "[blah blah blah]... illusion of motion... [blah blah blah]."
"Illusion of time" and "illusion of space" have never been or needed to be in the definition of animation. Bringing them into it now just muddies it up, as you can see.

Perfectly good definition already? Obviously not. Time/space isn't muddying this up, it's clarifying it. That's what I think!

[Harvey Human]

With all due respect, Sajdera, these monster posts are just too much for me to adequately respond to on a regular basis.
The existing encyclopedic definitions of animation classify it accurately, with minor adjustments here and there.
I still see no error in my latest definition of animation.

By the way, is puppetry a form of animation? :o

[sajdera]

With all due respect, Sajdera, these monster posts are just too much for me to adequately respond to on a regular basis.
The existing encyclopedic definitions of animation classify it accurately, with minor adjustments here and there.
I still see no error in my latest definition of animation.

By the way, is puppetry a form of animation? :o


.............

*crickets chirping*

.............

*coughing in the audience*

.............

[Ant-eater]

Stop-motion is not Animation


Traditional animation techniques as well as computer animation (2D and 3D) constitute: "animation." Wallace and Gromit is emphatically NOT animation. It's "stop-motion". Not "stop-motion-animation," just "stop-motion." Stop-motion is, needless to say, a totally valid and expressive artform (blah blah blah) but is definately not animation proper.

Puppets are not animation. The closest they can come is stop-motion, which is very related to animation. The easy way to tell is if the subjects, objects or "time" related to the audience actually exist or existed in real life somewhere, it's not animation.


Sajdera, I thought you were mad when you came out with that, but after extensive thought, I can see how it is reasonable to come to that conclusion. Disregarding your definitions, which are a little unwieldy for me to use, I will explain my understanding of why stop-motion may be considered to be other than animation. A series of drawings can be created which, when flipped, or photographed onto film will create an illusion of motion. The drawings are individual, yet they all combine to show animation. With stop-motion, the motion is real. It happens increment by increment, but it is definately not an illusion. The only illusion is that of time speeded up. So with stop-motion, there can be no 'illusion of motion'. This also means that pixilation is not animation, live-action is not animation, and puppetry is not animation. All show movement that actually took place. Real movement. The only exceptional case where stop-motion can be animation, is where a series of replacement models are used (as in the Puppetoons, and Jack Skellington). An eyelid may appear to move, but this movement is an illusion, since there were actually a series of separate eyelids, each slightly different that together created the animation.

So it makes perfect sense to come to the conclusion that Stop Motion is not Animation.

However this is a reasonable conclusion founded on a fallacy. The fallacy is that animation is not an illusion of mere motion. Animation is an illusion of Life. I know both definitions appear to have their drawbacks, but we have to go back to basics, since we have all come up with our own revisionist definitions, and they all seem to be tailored to serve our own individual agendas. "Illusion of Motion" describes how animation can be created through a series of still images. In other words film animation and flipbook animation involve an illusion of motion, but animation itself does not exclusively require the illusion of motion.

An Illusion of Life.

It suddenly occurs to me that the term 'effects animation' is a misnomer(and always has been). This sounds like more crazy talk at first, but it is another conclusion that makes perfect sense. Effects animation*, which you get in all forms of animation, is 'animation' that is not character animation. It covers dust, smoke, fire water, rocks, chairs, vehicles, basically any inanimate object(or material) that moves. But how can you animate the inanimate?!!** This is a fallacy.

Animation means life. None of us can ever hope to be animators in the truest sense of the word. We can make a man out of clay, but we can never bring him to life. But we can, through some trickery make it seem as though he is alive. Of course he is not alive, and it is just an illusion. This is why the art of animation is the creation of an illusion of life. It is not the illusion of motion, but this is clearly part of it, since motion is one of the intrinsic characteristics of life. The only time any living thing totally stops moving is when it ceases to live. A wax dummy in Madame Tussaud's may look very lifelike, but standing motionless is no life. It is lifelike, but lifeless, and there is no illusion of life. This is what is meant by 'illusion of life', and to derive any other meaning from these words is to misinterpret them.

This is why it is acceptable to consider puppetry a form of animation. A puppet is a mere collection of fabric, string and paper maché, very much artifiicial. But at the hands of a skillful puppeteer, it seems to live. The puppeteer can animate it to give the appearance of life, even intelligence and personality. These are all an illusion. This is also why acting on itself is not animation. The actor is very much alive. There is no illusion.

So there you have it. I am now quite confident in the logic of this line of argument. Puppetry was always a form of animation. By extention Animatronic Puppetry is also animation. 'Effects animation', 'Abstract Animation', and 'Logo animation' were never animation.***





Notes

*If 'effects animation' is an incorrect term, then perhaps we shall have to call it 'effects motion', or 'motion effects'. And the 'effects animator' will have to work on a new job description.

** well you can animate an inanimate puppet, but unless an inanimate object is animated such that it seems to become alive, it is not animation.

***Okay, now here's the big cop-out. I conceed that the word 'animation' has come to mean many different things, and is now mostly assosiated with the process of creating animation or artificial motion through a series of still images or positions. I don't see much likelyhood or even point of changing this perception. When I use the term that's what I generally use it to mean.

[Harvey Human]

With stop-motion, the motion is real. It happens increment by increment, but it is definately not an illusion. The only illusion is that of time speeded up. ... All show movement that actually took place. Real movement.
Saying that stop-motion is motion is, of course, a contradiction, since "stop-motion" means that the motion is stopped; which means they aren't moving when photographed; which means that it's the photography of static, non-moving characters and props.

If you believed stop-motion characters are actually in motion (which is to not even understand what motion is, or what an illusion is), you'd have to eliminate the term "stop-motion" entirely and call it something that distinguished it from all other animation and from live-action puppetry.

The only time any living thing totally stops moving is when it ceases to live. A wax dummy in Madame Tussaud's may look very lifelike, but standing motionless is no life.
Are you saying, if I'm sleeping or sitting perfectly still, then I'm not alive?

Your basic error is still this narrow "illusion of life" non-definition. If you want your definition to work you probably need to modify it to "[creation of] the illusion of living beings which are either moving or appear to be moving through illusion."
This definition seems to work, though - as you say - excludes everything but animal-based (people, animals, space aliens, etc.) characters. Naturally, this means that many of the characters in Futurama aren't animated, and Robots isn't an animated movie.

Anyone can enter this thread and devise a definition of animation that includes or excludes any practice or craft. They could create a definition of animation that excluded traditional 2D, if they wanted; but animation isn't defined by your whims. It's defined by its beginnings and by a hundred-year-old industry.

I'll stick with my definition of animation, since it actually represents the industry, and since no one has debunked it. :D

[sajdera]

Ant-eater:

We agree on what is a key element to my argument regarding Stop-Motion, Live-Action and Puppetry: All show movement that actually took place. Right! The artist herself, therefore, is the animation. In constrast, Bugs Bunny is, from start to finish, creation to experience, intangible, as is the very concept of "animation." Therefore, Bugs Bunny, the wascily wabbit, is to be considered animated, because you cannot hold the Bugs Bunny in your hand anymore than you could the force or essesnce of animation.

The major fallacy here, though, is on your part. We must abandon, as a suitable definition, this "illusion of life" malarky! The illusion of life in an animation is entirely subjective; it is up to you to decide whether the artists have capably expressed the essence of life, and that's going to mean different things to everyone who sees it. On the flip side of this coin is "the illusion of motion," which is true of animation, but waaaay too vague to define it. The illusion of motion is inherent in all film.

Let's look at Harvey Human's definition of animation:The creation of the illusion of motion using the consecutive display of images of static elements.

This definition is tailor-made to include Stop-Motion films, and that's fine and it seems to work. However, if you then identify the exclusive elements of animation and stop-motion, you will find that the term "animation" is not an appropriate catch-all word because "animation" itself is not reproducable using real-world substance. I'm advocating that "true,"or "authentic," animation is only achievable on a totally fabricated, intangible "stage": traditional animation or computer animation.

All else utilizes an animation already in motion - the real-world's, and whether you think that's created by a god or a big-bang or whatever, it's definately not you. Remember that, for our own reasons, we are seeking to differentiate animation from live action (puppetry included). Correct? We don't want them confused. For all the reasons that one will agrue that live-action-puppetry is not animated, one must exclude Stop-Motion from the others as a distinct-but-related third party.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that, in practice, the lines are blurred:

Ant-eater's example - interchangable facial features on stop-motion characters

Harvey Human's example - 2D backdrops in puppetry or stop-motion

And my example - The model backgrounds in Betty Boop and Popeye.

Because actual films, indeed the most inventive, will create a recipe of different techniques, styles and arrangement thereof, is not grounds to abandon the recognition of exactly what the hell we're doing, see? That said, if I go to an animation festival and see a Stop-Motion film, I'm not going to get my ticket refunded and indignantly storm out of the theater. If I see a puppet film, I might scratch my head. If I see a live-action film, I'd be all :confused:

I'm simply identifying "animation." It doesn't stop anyone from using it in whatever awesome way they want to. Combine it with smoke and projectors like the characters are standing in front of me! Great.

[sajdera]

Anyone can enter this thread and devise a definition of animation that includes or excludes any practice or craft. They could create a definition of animation that excluded traditional 2D, if they wanted; but animation isn't defined by your whims. It's defined by its beginnings and by a hundred-year-old industry.

What chance do we stand against you, Harvey, behind you an undead army of the ghost-warriors of animation history?! We study the great animators of years past and their legacy lives on, but WE are the future of the industry. The origin, use and philosophy behind the terms and words we are debating about are well to be taken into consideration, but they are not the end-all-be-all of the matter any more than the earth is FLAT.

I'll stick with my definition of animation, since it actually represents the industry, and since no one has debunked it. :DEasy enough to say when you don't even give us a chance. You didn't have anything to say about my post that included my screen-capture collage, so what's the deal? I'm willing to read and respond to any length of post as long we continue to think carefully and take each other seriously. It's not fair to shrug someone off and then say there has been no challenge to the definition of animation!

[Harvey Human]

You didn't have anything to say about my post that including my screen-capture collage, so what's the deal? ... It's not fair to shrug someone off and then say there has been no challenge to the definition of animation!
Sorry, that was the most diplomatic response I could think of at the time. I can only handle so much craziness at once. ;)
Therefore, Bugs Bunny ... is to be considered animated, because you cannot hold the Bugs Bunny in your hand ...
A Bugs Bunny flick is the animation of drawings, just as a W&G flick is the animation of puppets. I can hold a drawing in my hand just as I can hold a puppet; which is all irrelevant since whether you can hold something in your hand has never defined any type of animation - ancient or modern - just as "space" and "time" have never defined animation.

This definition is tailor-made to include Stop-Motion films, and that's fine and it seems to work.
That's simply not true. You see, the first form of film animation was stop-motion. A basic understanding of animation history - as well as the concepts of motion, illusion, time, space, and media - would save us all some time.

(And at this point I'd suggest that you re-read that last sentence. If you don't even know that stop-motion is the foundation of animated movies, you have no right to be offended if I brush aside some of your posts. I mean, seriously - with all due respect - pick up a book before continuing this conversation.)

Drawing-based animation grew out of stop-motion and was included in its definition since both employed the same basic camera technique of stringing together a bunch of images of still objects.
WE are the future of the industry.
Yes, so why don't WE just write stop-motion out of industry, even though stop-motion began and defined the industry. :rolleyes:
That's just revisionism at its worst: the rewriting of history.

And can we drop this whole "real animation means bringing things to life" and "real animation means being God" nonsense? By now, we should all understand that we're specifically discussing the illusion of real animation: the actual animation INDUSTRY of the past hundred years.

[Ant-eater]

Yes, so why don't WE just write stop-motion out of industry, even though stop-motion began and defined the industry. :rolleyes:
That's just revisionism at its worst: the rewriting of history.


Your argument against Sajdera's assertion of stop-motion not being animation is precisely the same as my argument that puppetry is animation. Stop-motion has been called animation for many decades. That's your basic argument of why stop-motion must be considered animation. But as I pointed out earlier, puppetry has also been called animation for decades, possibly centuries. And puppetry predates stop-motion. So you want to disregard my argument, and at the same time use that same line of arguement to serve your own purposes. You will have to do better than that. You cannot have it both ways.

I contend that the term animation, as it relates to the 'art of animation' did not just spring up, entirely unrelated to the original meaning of the word. It was derived from the original word. Animation means life. Motion means movement. To say the art of animation is 'the illusion of motion', is to hijack the word and to divorce it completey from the original meaning. The original latin 'animatus' does not mean illusion, and it does not mean motion. Illusion of Life, is the only definition that has any real claim to the word.

I have given up trying to devise new definitions for what the word has come to mean, because as this thread has shown, there are clearly subjective differences as to what the word should mean. That is why I did not attempt to debunk your definition or Sajdera's. That's not what animation means, it's what animation means to you.


And can we drop this whole "real animation means bringing things to life" and "real animation means being God" nonsense? By now, we should all understand that we're specifically discussing the illusion of real animation: the actual animation INDUSTRY of the past hundred years.

Back in the late nineties I met an artist who was working at Disney's The Secret Lab. When I asked him what it was like, he said it was a great place to work and added "they treat their animators like gods". I didn't realise at the time what a profound statement that was. This "real animation means being God" talk can't be dismissed as mere nonsense. Animation is the closest thing you can get to 'playing god'.

You are discussing the industry of animation. This is a tangent. We are supposed to be discussing the art of puppetry, and whether or not it can be considered animation. I say it can. It has been in the past, and it continues to be in the present. The only way it cannot be considered animation is if you change the meaning of the word, which is what you have been focusing your energies on. You seem to think it is justifiable to change the definition to reflect what the word has come to mean and to disgard what it used to mean. The trouble is, as I have shown, that meaning of the word continues to be used.

What if years into the future, 2d animation has all but died out, and the term animation is commonly used to refer to 3d animation specifically. 2d animation is commonly referred to as cartoons and stop-motion(if anyone remembers it) is stop-motion. Why could they not then try to define animation so as to exclude those?

[Ant-eater]

Saying that stop-motion is motion is, of course, a contradiction, since "stop-motion" means that the motion is stopped; which means they aren't moving when photographed; which means that it's the photography of static, non-moving characters and props.

The motion is real. It happens in real time. The only illusion, is that the portions of time where the puppet is stationary are removed. We see the motion that actually happened, but we do not see the periods of time where the puppet was put through the motion, or the periods where it was motionless. Stop-motion is essentially an editing of the motion that took place. It is a process of editing the puppeteer out of the picture to create the illusion that the puppet moves through it's own lifeforce.


Are you saying, if I'm sleeping or sitting perfectly still, then I'm not alive?

Your basic error is still this narrow "illusion of life" non-definition.


Firstly, no matter how still you appear to sit or stand, if you are alive, does your heart not beat? Does blood not flow through your veins? Is there not the constant tensing and relaxing of muscles? Is there not the constant Expansion and contraction of the lungs and ribcage? A waxwork figure or a statue creates the illusion of suspended animation.

As for your second point well, before you were saying 'Illusion of life' was too broad a definition.

[Harvey Human]

You're still confusing the broad, universal sense of animation (any movement) with the industrial or commercial sense of animation (illusion of movement), in the same way that a 5-year-old confuses "real" magic (saints and fairies) with the industry of magic (Las Vegas).

And we ARE discussing the industrial term of animation; otherwise we'd allow dancing and childbirth into our definitions. :rolleyes:

To say that animation can mean whatever makes an individual comfortable is either lunacy, extreme naivete, or narcissism. Animation was defined at the advent of the film industry. That's what I'm working with.

The [stop-motion] motion is real.
As I said before, you still don't understand the most basic difference between real motion and an illusion. Next you'll be trying to convince me that a mirage is real water.

Firstly, no matter how still you appear to sit or stand, if you are alive, does your heart not beat? Does blood not flow through your veins? [etc.]
That's completely irrelevant. We're talking about visible movement, unless you want to allow plastic fruit back into your definition.
If a sleeping person and a freshly-dead person were lying side-by-side, you couldn't tell which was dead and which was alive. If you're watching a person (real or cartoon) lying still in a movie, you cannot tell whether he is dead or alive, until he moves!

Good God, man, can't you do better than that?

As for your second point well, before you were saying 'Illusion of life' was too broad a definition.
Yes, it's both too narrow and too broad, because not all life is animation, while not all animation is life. In other words, "life" - like "space" and "time" - has no place in the definition of the field of animation.
Too much to wrap your brain around?

At this point I wouldn't mind hearing a fresh opinion, since we're just going around and around and around in circles.

[sajdera]

Your argument against Sajdera's assertion of stop-motion not being animation is precisely the same as my argument that puppetry is animation...
...You cannot have it both ways.

Good show. That went *zirp!* :rolleyes: right over my head, but still, it's quite irrelevant to my arguement either way. All I've got is a dictionary, a library of animated pictures and a brain. In the context of this debate, WHO CARES which came first or what they were refered to fifty years ago in some book by some dead dude? I'm looking at things the way they are NOW and describing and defining in a very precise and logical way what I see (and who's even fully addressed it, let alone break the logic in it!?!?). This is not a history of animation debate, so "picking up a book" on it is not required (but probably informative nonetheless).

A Bugs Bunny flick is the animation of drawings, just as a W&G flick is the animation of puppets. I can hold a drawing in my hand just as I can hold a puppet; which is all irrelevant since whether you can hold something in your hand has never defined any type of animation - ancient or modern - just as "space" and "time" have never defined animation.

Interestingly enough, you'll notice that I edited that post shortly afterwards citing as my reason as "clarification." Believe me or not, what I did was take "the illusion of" out where it appeared before "Bugs Bunny" because I thought it was redundant (as being exhaustingly covered ground) and thus confusing. Apparently, I should have left it in. So read it this way: You cannot hold the experienced illusion of Bugs in your hand. YOU CAN hold Gromit. Again, animation proper can only occur in a totally fabricated and intangible world, be it rendered on paper or in the lines of code in a computer. Otherwise, it is a puppet that you have Stop-Moved. Simple!

At this point I wouldn't mind hearing a fresh opinion, since we're just going around and around and around in circles.

WRONG! I find it frustrating, Harvey, that you again choose to totally blow off my argument. Post #49 (with pictures) totally spells out exactly what I'm trying to advance and you call it "so much craziness" and that's that?!

WHAT, EXACTLY IS CRAZY ABOUT IT? WHAT? You never say. Fine, take the words "animation" "stop-motion" and "puppetry" out of it then and call them Thing 1, Thing 2 and Thing 3, because it doesn't matter. What matters is that I've broken down all three and have shown that they have major differences that warrent clear and seperate distinctions (names). My system of differentiation stems from how the three methods create what and which space/time illusory perceptions for the audience. This is a proposed way to address these forms of entertainment more precisely.

So, again, what's crazy about my argument?

[Ant-eater]

You're still confusing the broad, universal sense of animation (any movement) with the industrial or commercial sense of animation (illusion of movement), in the same way that a 5-year-old confuses "real" magic (saints and fairies) with the industry of magic (Las Vegas).

And we ARE discussing the industrial term of animation; otherwise we'd allow dancing and childbirth into our definitions. :rolleyes:

To say that animation can mean whatever makes an individual comfortable is either lunacy, extreme naivete, or narcissism.

As I said before, you still don't understand the most basic difference between real motion and an illusion. Next you'll be trying to convince me that a mirage is real water.

Good God, man, can't you do better than that?

Too much to wrap your brain around?


Okay, I thought we were having a nice little cordial debate here. I have treated you in a respectful manner, and endeavoured to address any misunderstanding or confusion about where I stand. And suddenly, in a fit of rage you have flipped the chessboard in my face.

[sajdera]

Don't tell me I have to pick up all the Monopoly pieces!

Told you we should've played Connect Four.

[Ant-eater]

gotta have standards. :)

[DrSpecter]

I guess people will say that I'm just animating a dead horse, but with the shifting definition of "animation" on this thread, nothing can be any better than a hybrid. Any time a character is seen as moving in any way, and you're using the same painted background, and moving it along behind them a frame at a time (as has always been the case in animated cartoons) then you automatically disqualify your work as Animation and it becomes mere stop-motion.

I just hope they find out about this before the Oscars, or it could be pretty embarassing.

[phacker]

In a broad sense, anything that moves is animation. As I type, I am animating my fingers and the keys beneath them.

In a narrow industrial sense, only illusions of movement are animation (like photographs of illustrations that are strung together on a reel). By this definition, puppetry and live-action are not animation, since they are things and people that are actually moving, rather than pretending to move. If a guy moving a puppet is animation, then a guy driving a car is animation.

Some will say, "Well, animation [in the industrial sense] is not just the illusion of movement. It is also the illusion of life, therefore puppetry is animation! Weeee!" which is romantic nonsense. By this definition, wind blowing tree branches is animation.
"Illusion of life" is fine as the broad definition, but it is not an accurate industrial definition.

There's a flaw in your logic Harvey, since a tree is a living organism and it's movement in a wind is part of it's biological presence in life, this can't be defined as animation.

[ewomack]

This is worse than some of my philosophy classes! :D

The definition of "Animation", like many definitions, contains fuzzy areas that are hard to define. It's such a broad category that definitives are hard, if not impossible, to arrive at. "Is puppetry animation?" reminds me of the now ancient argument "Is rap music?" Some people argued that rap is merely "sound manipulation" to which some people responded "well, isn't playing a piano 'sound manipulation'"? The term "Animation", like "music", is so broad in scope as to defy any final definite definition. One could argue that a motion picture is animation - just look at the frames. Nonetheless, one of the reasons animation and music are so much fun is that they're extensible in this way. To narrow the definition would very likely remove some of the fun.

[Harvey Human]

Here's how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (as in the Academy Awards or Oscars) defines animated film. Keep in mind this isn't a definition they invented over a weekend. They've been working on it for 75 years. :D



An animated film is created by using a frame-by-frame technique, and usually falls into one of the two general fields of animation: character or abstract. Some of the techniques of animating films include cel animation, computer animation, stop-motion, clay animation, pixilation, cutouts, pins, camera multiple pass imagery, kaleidoscopic effects and drawing on the film frame itself.
So there ya go: from the "horse's mouth." :D

P.S. Anyone in L.A. might want to check this out on December 6th (Tuesday):
http://oscars.org/events/animation_invades_liveaction/index.html

[Ant-eater]

Fair enough, but bear in mind that this is the same acadamy that finds Titanic to be one of the greatest movies ever, at least for the year 1997.

[Harvey Human]

What we really need to know is, are puppies a form of animation: those cutesy wutesy snuggle-buns.

[Ant-eater]

Yes. I find that any organism which falls under the classification ani-mals, is a form of animated life.

[BuckBeaver]

Forgive me if someone has already suggested this (it's quite a long thread and I only skimmed it) but I write a couple of blogs on puppetry and this question comes up a lot. My personal distinction between the two artforms is that animation creates the illusion of life/movement/insert-your-own-term-here by animating or moving an object frame by frame whereas in puppetry the same illusion is created by manipulating an object (or possibly an image) in real-time.

I think there's confusion because both "puppet" and "animation" can be used in a variety of different contexts. For example, stop-motion is sort of the bastard child of the two because it uses puppets or dolls but the illusion of life/movement is created on a frame by frame basis (because of that I've always maintained that stop motion is animation, not puppetry).

It's also worth noting that there is an enormous amount of crossover in the principles and techniques used in both artforms. I've heard of animation instructors who have their students study footage of Jim Henson performing Kermit the Frog, for example.

[krlina]

Hi... Recently I joined AWN in hopes of finding a freelance CGI animator to bring my vent puppet to animated 'life'...thought this was a good subject thread to do this ;) ...My puppet's copyrighted story is (I'm guessing) about 8 minutes long.

I am an individual with a website (under construction) and the link to it is: www.xnods-turf.com

Will appreciate your replies.

Krlina

[Wade K]

http://oscars.org/events/animation_invades_liveaction/index.html[/url]

Goo done Harv. Probably the first time I have everyt agreed with you, and possibly the only one, but good one this time.

[madmanmarco]

I love puppys

[Scarlett]

Visit Myriad of Marionettes at

http://myriadofmarionettes.bravehost.com

for the following puppetry resources:

* U.S. Puppet Theaters
* Cool Puppetry Sites
* International Puppetry Sites
* Puppet Museums
* Puppet Dealers
* Puppet Making
* Stories For Puppetry
* Puppetry Schools
* Puppetry Scholarships
* Puppetry Workshops
* Puppetry Internships
* Puppetry Videos
* Puppeteers
* Puppetry Forums
* Indonesian Puppets
* Puppet Making Materials
* Puppetry Festivals
* Puppetry Organizations
* Puppet Clock Towers
* Operating Marionettes
* Christian Puppetry

[Archie]

Did any one manage to see the gigantic elephant and young girl puppets that were walking through london. Oh my god! It was amazing, i managed to capture it on BBC 4, it was called "The Elephant and the Sultan" Without a doubt the best piece of animation you will ever see.