Flip Book

Our first animation was done on post it notes to show us one of the oldest variants of animation which was the flip book. The flip book itself works by drawing a different frame on each page of the post it note, and once rapidly flipped through, an animation will emerge.

Within my flip book, I drew a calm sky, entitled 'A Calm Day', before a dog in a hot air balloon floated across the page, with clouds floating in the background continually to keep the animation animated. Each sheet of paper was a different frame, moving the drawing on only a little each time so the animation would flow smoothly and seamlessly.

I think mine worked well for how much we could do considering the limited pages and space for the drawings, as the animation itself isn't too jumpy or too fast paced, I would like to think I gave each frame enough time for the animation to be successful in getting the story across. I preferred working on a flip book than the chalk board animation we did, as I felt that this method was cleaner and less eclectic within its final outcome.

The paper on the post it notes however, is too small for the animation to be clearly seen. And the viewer would have to hold the post it notes at a funny angle to see all of the drawing fully for each frame. So I feel, to make the animation better next time, I would work on bigger pieces of paper as to give the viewer more room to see. There was also the problem of occasionally missing frames. To fix this, I had to go through the 'book' a few times, working the animation over to see where the tiny gaps were and going over the missing few in pen. Then, the animation finally looked well put together and complete.

Despite this, the animation itself works for the most part, and the pen overlaid over the pencil gives the animation a clear and crisp outcome, making everything easier to see and more stylised. The style itself is one simplified of my natural style to fit everything onto the page, and although i'm not too happy with the outcome of the style, the simplified nature of the drawing was one that was needed to fit everything onto the page and make the animation look better, as too much detail wouldn't translate well.