影视动画专业英语.

1.1 What is animation?

Animation is a visual technique that provides the illusion of motion by displaying a collection of images in rapid sequence. Each image contains a small change, for example a leg moves slightly, or the wheels of a car turn. When viewing images rapidly, eyes fill in all details and the illusion of the movement is complete. Animation is always used for entertaining people. Apart from its use for entertainment, animation is also considered a form of art. It is often displayed in film festivals throughout the world and it is also used for educational purposes. Animation can be involved in learning and instructional applications as well. The classic form of animation is cartoon animation, which made its debut in early 20th century with the use of 24 different drawings per second. In this kind of traditional animated cartoons, frames are hand drawn.

Animation is not only time-consuming but also costly to produce. Because of this, most of the animations, which are made for television and film, are produced by professional studios. Besides that, there are also many independent studios. In fact, there are many resources, such as low-cost animation programs and distribution networks, which make the work of the independent animators much easier than it was in the past. Although the process of producing animated films and cartoons is intense and laborious, computer animations can make this work much faster. Computer technology is improving steadily, and professionals, by using computers and special animation softwares, can create life-like characters. However, skilled animators are still in need for producing quality animations. After all, computers are not yet capable of making artistic choices and bringing real passion to simple images.

If animation is used for movies and films, each frame will be generated on an individual basis. Using computers or photos of images which are drawn or painted can produce these frames. Besides that, frames can also be produced by altering a model unit in small ways and using a special camera to take pictures of the results. No matter what method is used, the film or movie can fool eyes into seeing continuous movement.

Persistence of vision is often projected as the reason why eyes can be fooled into seeing continuous movement that is not really happening. Basically, brains and eyes cooperate, to store images for a mere fraction of a second. Minor jumps or blips are automatically smoothed out by the brains. Since animation frames are shot at very fast rates, most of people see the movement without

stoppages. In fact, this persistence of vision is only a theory but not a proven concept. Many film academics and theorists accept its relevance to animation. However, this theory is called a complete myth by some scientists now.