Under the Camera: Animation Under the camera work can also be known as direct animation or animation without camera, is an animation technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, as opposed to any other form of animation where the images or objects are photographed frame by frame with an animation camera.
Caroline Leaf:
"I worked with white beach sand poured out onto an underlit piece of glass in a darkened room. The only light in the room came from the lights under the sand animation, letting the sand become a black silhouette against a white ground. Even though it was very fine sand, I needed a large field size to make detailed sand images. The field was approximately 24 x 18 inches. The best way to light such a large surface evenly turned out to be with a light on either side of the table pointing down to the floor and bouncing back up to the underside of my working surface from a large curved piece of white cardboard lying directly below on the floor. An important side benefit of this indirect lighting is that you are not looking directly into a light bulb while you work. This can strain your eyes, not only because of the brightness, but because the eye struggles to accommodate the big contrast between light and dark. Go for the weakest light possible behind your artwork whenever working with underlit images." (1)
"Caroline Leaf used the intrinsic qualities of these techniques as storytelling devices to create some exquisite films. In her film, 'The Street', for example, the paint-on-glass technique contributes significantly to the narrative. The audience’s point of view is totally fluid and each scene transforms seamlessly into the next - in keeping with fragmented recollections from a Jewish man's childhood about events surrounding the death of his grandmother.
Like cut-outs, claymation and other ‘straight-ahead animation’ techniques, the work tends to be improvised as the sequence proceeds. It is almost impossible to pre-visualise the form and pacing of the animation to follow. Great concentration is required, particularly in maintaining a steady rate of manipulation so that there will be a consistent flow in the finished sequence.
Surprisingly, one great advantage of these techniques is speed. Although being locked away in the camera room for hours on end animating directly under the camera can be a relentless task, each day results in a significant portion of the film being completed. Moreover, these images usually don't require any further post production. How ironic that after all this activity, only one or two paintings on glass remain instead of hundreds of pieces of artwork." (2)
Painting on Glass; Under the Camera Paint-on-glass, sand-on-glass, drawing using pastels or charcoal and other direct under-the-camera techniques can be loosely described as 'experimental' or 'alternative' animation. These techniques are nearly always undertaken by an individual artist / animator rather than by a production studio using factory-like processes.
Paint-on-glass animation is a technique for making animated films by manipulating some kind of wet media. Oil paint is most often used because it dries very slowly, enabling the animator to keep working with the medium across several days. Oil paint can be thinned with linseed oil and mineral turpentine is used to clean up various sections of the glass. Water based paints like Gouache are sometimes mixed with glycerine to slow down the speed at which it dries. It is also possible to animate in a similar fashion using dry mediums such as sand, brick dust, whiteboard markers and other art materials like charcoal and pastels.
These techniques impart a unique quality and richness to animation that comes not only through the distinctive graphic look that the characteristic of medium itself imparts to the image, but also from the individual personal approach of the animator and the way she or he is obliged to make things move. These techniques very often leave behind a history of the gestures and marks progressively made when the animator manipulates the medium. They are not a series of 'clean' images of the kind produced by other animation techniques, but contain a record of their making, which is part of the great charm of this method.
As the medium is pushed around directly under the camera and recorded frame-by frame, each image seems to merge from the previous one and melt into the next resulting in movement that can be very fluid and organic - a continual process of metamorphosis. Characters may move from place from place not by walking, but by being smudged away to re-form out of the background at the required location.
Artwork is continuously destroyed as new artwork is created. There is no going back. Without the ability to rehearse and refine the animation as in the key pose drawing on paper method, or the ability to set and edit keys within a computer program, the animator must plough on regardless incorporating any errors into the sequence. With a bold heart, this limitation can lead to spontaneity and work that is very fresh and distinctive as it celebrates the method of its making.
Advantages of using Under the Camera:
"A huge advantage in using the under-camera style of animation is that it does not require you to redraw every frame - just the movements. Although if you animate a panning shot, it's a hell job but well worth while - it looks amazing. . One hint when animating under-camera is that the eye only really pays attention to what is moving in frame, so you can don't have to worry about the details outside of this movement so there is no need to make every frame look perfect, as the eye will only see what moves and pretty much ignore everything else until the animation stops. It is important to get a sense of what the eye picks up to avoid spending a lot of time on a part of an image that will be completely overlooked by the audience anyway. Remember, it is not about the individual frames but the over all shot.
In order to get a handle on the technique, a good exercise is to create a morph - that is, begin with a shape and change it into another. Don't worry too much about timing as you will develop a sense of this in time in you own unique way. It is just a way of becoming confident with drawing straight ahead and playing with any mistakes/accidents you may encounter in the drawing. It is all about visualising the movements in your mind, very, very slowly. You can practise by going through the animation motion with your own body very slowly to understand how to depict the movement. Exaggerated movement works well in this medium so it may be worth while to play with 'anticipation and release'. Try very small incremental movements followed by larger movements to see how this effects the image." (3)