Other Animations

These are some other animations I found which I find interesting and could use for some inspiration, some of these are about global warming and some aren't but these are all animations made by amateurs or non professional animators on youtube who put their stuff out on the web.

Saving the Environment

This is a stop animation about helping to save the environment which was made with about 700 chunks of tiny, scrunched up balls of coloured paper and edited in After Effects CS5. The soundtrack was composed and mixed by the you-tuber on Apple Garageband and the sound effects were created by mouth and mixed in Logic Pro. There is no voice over in this animation and The sound track sounds quite minimalist as it uses a repetitive tune and also sounds quite mellow. I prefer that the sound effects were done by mouth rather than taken from sound clips or recording sound clips of the actual sound as I feel it makes the animation seem a bit more comical and gives it that original and home made feel. The elements that are visibly noticeable that were made with After Effects would be the scene where the chainsaw is chopping the tree's down as he's looped the same scene and with after effects he's also put the recycle symbol over the tree and drew a line between the tree and the chainsaw which acts as if it were a wall protecting the tree. I like the look of the scrunched up paper as I think it's original and a unique visual style and it also sends through the message it's trying to deliver because it looks as if the animation was made by using recycled scraps of coloured paper itself. The animation doesn't use any text apart from the 'O2' made out of paper which comes out of the tree. The colour scheme is mostly green, brown, blue and white which i've noticed is quite common for animated commercials and videos about global warming as they're earthy and aquatic colour relating to nature, forests and the sea as well as the things living in both of those areas. I don't think there is a specific message being sent across accept for to save the environment but the message is very vague. There are some elements that suggest that people should recycle because there is a recycling bin and the recycling symbol appears more than once. I think the transitions in the stop motion itself are interesting such as the tree exploding out text and it zooming into the text making it look like a background and the water drop from the tap which changed into the image and shape of the world.

Stop Motion Paper Animation

I found this other stop motion animation which is also made out of paper except rather than scrunched up paper or objects made out of paper it's more like cut out stencils or like the style of a pop up book. The colour scheme in this is dominantly red and white which i think works since the animation is of an apple tree growing. The white is obviously to show it is made of paper but also i feel like it gives off some sense of purity and cleanliness as if there tree was grown in a completely unpolluted area. The red is for the apples only but I think against the white it makes the apples look healthy and ripe. There is no voice over or sound effects in this animation, only a sound track which has a steady pace and a repetitive tune. This animation also has a homemade feel and theme especially because at the beginning and end it shows the paper crafted tree on a wooden desk surrounded by stationary and tools like scissors and pens.

Littering

This is a flash animation made by a you-tuber about littering and recycling. It's a hand drawn animation made with adobe flash and isn't all that informative about global warming or the effects littering has on the environment but is more like a short story of how he's picky about littering and recycling which he has roughly animated and illustrated. I think this kind of animation can be a bit more humorous, casual and cartoony because it wasn't made by a professional but I think it's also an effective way to somewhat inform an audience about littering and recycling in a casual way because many young people spend time viewing videos on youtube. There's voice overs for the characters in the animation which were done by the animator and there is also a soundtrack in the background which sounds casual and easy going but there are no sound effects except for at the end where he opens and closes a door. He's also used puns in the dialogue which I think if it was applied to an animation delivering a serious message about global warming it could lighten the mood and tone and he uses text at the end to make his point which is "Don't litter. And also recycle". There is no consistent or dominant colour scheme here and the  style doesn't have much detail as they're simple drawings with minimal shading, thick lines and no textures.

Video links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkq_srFGW5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t2aqli5Z4E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHIWmCuGSJo