ANALYSIS OF FILMMAKING TECHNIQUES FOR ARCHITECTURAL ANIMATIONS

Rodrigo Garcia ALVARADO

Digital animation provides a new possibility to exhibit architectural projects, but it must address some features to properly show the building design. This paper (1) exposes a review of diverse moving images presentation of architectural environments in order to identify principles to be considered when display building projects through digital animation. It studied scenes of twenty productions; eight famous
movies from different ages, like examples of major filmmaking efforts; six
documentaries of historical buildings, as specific productions targeted to
display architectural environments; and six digital animations remarked
or prized in recent contests, like examples of new technologies in the
professional realm.The paper describes in particular the scenes of two
movies (“Metropolis” and “Bladerunner”), one documentary (on “Basilica
of San Marco”, Venice) and one digital animation (“Urban Prototype”).
The review was based on three scales of cinematographic representation:
the composition of image, the takes or sequence of images, and the general
montage of scene. Making a record of takes during the sequence, extracting
some frames, getting the point-of-views and drawing the environment
or building filmed. It analysed graphic properties of images, cameras’
location and movements, duration of takes, sounds, transitions, order
and meanings developed according overall production and cultural
situation. The main characteristic revealed was visual fragmentation of the
display of architectural environments, expressed in the graphic diversity
right through different takes to the scattering of camera views in the
environment filmed.

Keywords: architectural animation;filmmaking; CAAD.

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