Visual Components

Logos, stills + titles
Live Footage
Recording of people within a scene

In many instances, there are scenes within a movie that are difficult to replicate in a live scene. Scenes such as a large army in a medieval movie, or a large explosion too large to create due to the risk that could be involved. However, animation doesn't have to be exclusive to special effects, but could also be for cartoons or animated films. There are multiple kinds of animations:

CGI

CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) is one type of animation used commonly in high budget films, in scenes where it can be too challenging to replicate through live means. CGI goes through many stages for it to look convincing to the audience, involving many animators to get the scene done quickly. First, the models of any character or objects within the scene are created, this is the foundation of the animation, as it shows what or who will be involved within a scene. Textures are then added to the model to give the model more 'Life' and realism, these are details such as a character's skin, or eyes etc.

After the animators are done creating the models within a scene, and animating the characters or objects, extra details are implemented into the scene to express the feel of the scene, such as the contrast, saturation and hue

A famous scene from Lord of the Rings Return of the King, a film that uses a large amount of CGI to replicate large battles.

However, CGI is often criticised as looking to 'Plasticy' 'Cartoony' or 'Fake'. An example of a movie which incorporates heavy CGI use is the Star Wars Prequels. Nearly every scene in the SW prequels were filmed on a blue screen, this is clearly visible through the CGI environments in every scene. The criticism is understandable, seeing as how the entire original Star Wars series was widely known for its realistic environments and props.

Cell Animation

Popular amongst cartoons, cell animation is another method of animation, traditionally done by hand. This style of animation is brought to life through thousands of pages of animations flipped through, each of these single pages are called 'Cells'. Now, of course, due to the advanced technology of today, the method of hand drawing cell animations is heavily outdated, and animation software such as Adobe CS6.
A popular example of cell animation is The Simpsons

Stop Motion


Certain filming styles can convey a different overall feel to a movie- they can create a darker atmosphere, or a more psychedelic theme (A good example of a stop motion video with a darker theme is the music video to Tool- Prisonsex), however this doesn't always have to be the case, as a popular example of stop motion is Wallace & Gromit: a series of stop motion cartoons, however, there still seemed to be a surreal theme within the animations.

There are, however, drawbacks to stop motion; an average 20 minute stop motion movie can take up to a year or more to create, the filming of the animation is a long, arduous effort.

Logos & Titles

Films, TV series, Video Games or any form of media require a logo or a title as a form of association for the audience. Often a movie will have a logo which will almost embody the film as a whole. This could even be applied for artists and bands with a particular logo.