Animation! Animation! Animation!
Animation is one of the industry that is blooming at this time and it is well known in the whole world and the Philippines is making a map in this industry.
Filipino animators, many of whom have been employed by the Disney, Cartoon Network and Warner studios for the last 20 years, are producing the full-length animated films. And both productions commissioned major talents to lend their voices for the lead parts.
"Urduja," produced by Tony Tuviera's APT Entertainment, has a star-studded voice cast. Regine Velasquez stars as Princess Urduja; Cesar Montano as her lover Lim Hang; Johnny Delgado as Wang; Eddie Garcia as Lakanpati; Allan K as Tarsir; and Michael V as Kukut. Watch the Urduja trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRFIFMWCRVs.
"Dayo," by Cutting Edge Productions Inc., features the voices of child stars Nash Aguas as Bubuy and Katrina "Hopia" Legaspi as Anna Manananggal. Peque Gallaga is the voice behind the character Nano, Michael V is Narsi, Johnny Delgado is Anna's father and Laurice Guillen plays a diwata.
"These are ambitious projects," said Artemio Abad Jr., "Dayo" supervising producer. "We hope to erase the image of Pinoy animators as mere subcontractors of big animation companies. We want the world to know that we are also capable of producing our own animated content."
"Urduja" tells the story of the legendary warrior princess and ruler of the Kingdom of Tawalisi in Pangasinan from 1350 to 1400. Urduja was famous for leading a group of women warriors, called Kinalakian or Amazons, who were skilled fighters and equestriennes. These women, having developed a high art of warfare, fought alongside male warriors to protect their land from invaders.
"Dayo" follows the adventure of 11-year-old Bubuy as he tries to save his grandparents who have been abducted and brought to Elementalia, a mysterious and magical land that is home to popular creatures of Philippine mythology.
The local theater run of "Urduja" is tentatively set for the middle of the year. The makers of "Dayo" plan to make their project an entry in the 2008 Metro Manila Film Festival in December.
"Urduja" and "Dayo" are only the second and third locally produced full-length animated movies.
An animated version of "Ibong Adarna," co-produced by FLT Films and Guiding Light Productions, was shown in 1997. It was the brainchild of animator Gerry Garcia, winner of the 1995 Star Awards for Best Visual Effects.
In 2002, local production studio Top Peg ran an animation TV series, "Tutubi Patrol," a values-oriented show for children.
Abad, who co-wrote "Dayo" with Eric Cabahug, said work on the film began as early as October 2006, about the time Cutting Edge Productions started investing in digital animation.
Cutting Edge is a 4-year-old post-production company specializing in TV commercials and audio-visual presentations. Its owner, Jessie Lazaten, is a musical director of several TV series and films.
"While 'Urduja' is done in the traditional animation process (hand-drawn), 'Dayo' is all-digital, which is a combination of 2D and 3D technologies," explained Abad. "We are hoping to get Lea Salonga to record the movie's theme song with a 30-piece orchestra. This will be a first in Philippine cinema."
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although several other forms of presenting animation also exist.
Traditional animation
Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.
The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology.
Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), Treasure Planet (USA, 2002) and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003).
Computer animation (or CGI animation) is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time rendering needs. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes the target is another medium, such as film. It is also referred to as CGI (computer-generated imagery or computer-generated imaging), especially when used in films.
To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer screen and repeatedly replaced by a new image that is similar to the previous image, but advanced slightly in the time domain (usually at a rate of 24 or 30 frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures.
Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the art of stop motion animation of 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. For 3D animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a virtual skeleton. For 2D figure animations, separate objects (illustrations) and separate transparent layers are used, with or without a virtual skeleton. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the figure are moved by the animator on key frames. The differences in appearance between key frames are automatically calculated by the computer in a process known as tweening or morphing. Finally, the animation is rendered.
For 3D animations, all frames must be rendered after modeling is complete. For 2D vector animations, the rendering process is the key frame illustration process, while tweened frames are rendered as needed. For pre-recorded presentations, the rendered frames are transferred to a different format or medium such as film or digital video. The frames may also be rendered in real time as they are presented to the end-user audience. Low bandwidth animations transmitted via the internet (e.g. 2D Flash, X3D) often use software on the end-users computer to render in real time as an alternative to streaming or pre-loaded high bandwidth animations.
For the Philippine Animation, one of the founder of Philippine cartoons was Mr. Larry Alcala.
Larry Alcala
Born August 18, 1926
Philippines Philippines
Died 2002
Occupation Filipino cartoonist
Lauro Zarate Alcala (August 18, 1926 – 2002), also known as Larry Alcala, was a well-known editorial cartoonist and illustrator in the Philippines.[1][2][3]
Biography
He was born on August 18, 1926 to Ernesto Alcala and Elpidia Zarate in Daraga, Albay. Through a scholarship from Manila Times granted by the publisher Ramón Roces, he obtained a degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1950. He became a professor at the same university from 1951 to 1981. He also received the Australian Cultural Award accompanied by a travel study grant in 1975.
He started his cartooning career in 1946 while still attending school. After World War II, he created his very first comic strip, Siopawman, which was printed on the pages of the Filipino comic book, Halakhak (Laughter). In 1947, he created the comic strip Kalabog en Bosyo, using Taglish as the medium of communication of his characters. He pioneered animated cartoons for television commercials of products such as Darigold Milk in 1957 and Caltex in 1965. His campaign for the advancement of illustration and commercial art in the Philippines resulted to the establishment of the Visual Communication Department at the UP College of Fine Arts.[1][2][3]
In 1997, the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) granted him the title Dean of Filipino Cartoonists, an achievement award for his lifetime dedication to the art of capturing humor in the character and everyday life in the Philippines. In 1991, he promoted the formation of a group of young children's book illustrators called Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK).
All in all, he made over 500 cartoon characters, twenty comic strips, six movies, two murals, and 15,000 published pages in his 56 years of professional cartooning career. He believed in the far-reaching role of cartoons in education and value formation.
He died on June 24, 2002 when he was 75.
His cartoons
Slice of Life
His most popular cartoon series was Slice of Life, which is a reflection of the many unique aspects of everyday life in the Philippines. He captured the interest of his weekend patrons by giving them the task of looking for his image cleverly concealed within the weekenhhbj d cartoon. He did the same with his other comic strip Kalabog and Bosyo. His cartoons had been tapped in advertising campaigns, such as corporate calendars, print ads, promotional t-shirts and in San Miguel Beer cans.[1][2][3]
In 1988, his Slice of Life received the Best in Humor award and was also cited for helping to keep alive the Filipino's ability to laugh at himself, through the lively marriage of art and humor, and through commentaries that are at once critical and compassionate, evoking laughter and reflection.
Slice of Life appeared on the pages of the Weekend Magazine.
Mang Ambo
Mang Ambo is the personification of the Filipino according to Larry Alcala. Mang Ambo, the character, is an incorrigible cock-eyed innocent, possessing a small town charm amidst urban sophistication. Through Mang Ambo and the other characters of a fictional place called, Barrio Bulabog, Alcala exposed the follies and foibles of Philippine society in general and of cosmopolitan life in particular. In this cartoon strip’s characters, he also affirmed the Filipino's peculiar coping mechanism of laughing at himself in the face of adversity but still absorbing life's vicissitudes with resilience. Mang Ambo made its debut in 1960 as a full-page feature in the Weekly Graphic. The cartoon series later became the first Alcala comic strip to be compiled in book form.
Kalabog en Bosyo
Alcala's most enduring comic strip was Kalabog en Bosyo that first appeared on the pages of Pilipino Komiks in 1947. It eventually became the longest running cartoon series created by a Filipino.
Decades before Slice of Life, Alcala was already doing cameo roles in his Kalabog en Bosyo comic strips, but instead of portraying himself with a moustach, spectacles and side burns, he rendered himself in a crew-cut, younger and about 100-pounds thinner profile.
An onomatopoeic Tagalog word, the name of the character, Kalabog, refers to the thud sound produced after the impact of a falling object finally reaching solid ground. In Kalabog en Bosyo, Alcala pioneered in the blending of Tagalog and English or Taglish as the medium of communication among his characters. The comic misadventures of the two bungling detectives namely Kalabog and Bosyo had been transposed into films by Sampaguita Pictures in 1957, starring the Filipino actors-comedians, Dolphy and Panchito Alba.
Larry Alcala has made over 500 characters, 20 comic strips, 6 movies, 2 murals, and 15,000 published pages during 50 years of cartooning. He drew the popular 'Slice of Life' cartoons in Sunday Times Magazine, the much sought after trio of 'Bim, Bam, Bung' in Funny Komiks and 'Lolo Brigido' in Pambata Magazine. His long running humor cartoon 'Kalabog en Bosyo' can still be read in the Manila Times. Famous for his humorous and satirical cartoons, Alcala participated in numerous exhibitions and won numerous prizes.
On Monday, 24 June 2002, Larry Alcala died at his home of a heart-attack.
