Stop Frame Animation :)

Stop motion (also known as stop-action or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning.

Clay-Mation

Clay animation is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually Plasticine clay. All traditional animation is produced in a similar fashion, whether done through cel animation or stop motion. Each frame, or still picture, is recorded on film or digital media and then played back in rapid succession. When played back at a frame rate greater than 10–12 frames per second, a fairly convincing illusion of continuous motion is achieved. While the playback feature creating an illusion is true of all moving images.

there is many examples of Clay-Mation like Walce and Gromit and Purple and Brown on Nickelodeon.

I think this is one of the best ways to do animationm as its fun, and easy to do. and gives a light hearted, realistic effect to it.

Phenakistoscope :)

The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope) was an early animation device, the predecessor of the zoetrope. It was invented in 1832 simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer.
One variant of the phenakistoscope was a spinning disc mounted vertically on a handle. Around the center of the disc a series of pictures was drawn corresponding to frames of the animation; around its circumference was a series of radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc's reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images with the appearance of a motion picture (see also persistence of vision). Another variant had two discs, one with slits and one with pictures; this was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror. Unlike the zoetrope and its successors, the phenakistoscope could only practically be used by one person at a time.The phenakistoscope was only famous for about two years due to the changing of technology.

Rotoscoping :)

Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, pre-recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computerss in recent years. In the visual effectss industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.

an example of rotoscoping is the 1978 animated fantasy film: Lord Of The Rings.

i think this could be a good way of doing an animation, alough i think it woud take alot of time to draw 28 frams for one second the output would be great.

The Animations....

1. neighbours.
this animation used pixalation which is where you animate the actors like your using clay. this one was very dramactic and exaggerated. i found it to be quite boring. it was about the rivalary of two neighbours and they both end up killing each other over a flower.

2. Two Sisters.
this one is done in 2D motion. and i didnt like this one as it was in green and black and was hard to see what was going on. the basic story line of this is that one sister has the other locked in a room as she has scares all over her face and is not nice to look at. it has a strong meaning to it as you see the sister bullying the one locked up by calling her uglay and a freak.

3. Sunset Strip
this one was wuite different from the others. it used sound along to motion pictures to create the effect of a sunset. i dont think it really acheiveed this but it could be quite good. i liked the abstract art that was used.

4. The mill
this used the oil on glass method. though out it had a violin playing which i hated and it was very annoying but did give an eary effect to the story, which there wasnt really one of and it was just about a girl who gets taked away by bees and put into a cage.

Fusion Animation

i have watched a few animation clips. to get inspired for my own animation video. my favourite style of animation was the oil on glass style, it looked really good and effective. i also like the adding sound to motion to create the effect of something :)