Both animation lectures together....

The first lecture on animation made sense to me. From a modelling perspective things like puppets, automata and stop motion mean animation in models. It is the movement that makes them appear 'animated' the cogs the axels that form the basic movements that we presume to us through the various signs that mean running, walking, rolling etc.

Looking through the seminar things like model cars must appear to be a car but almost must appear to have the same movement as a car.... or must crash and burn like a car when travelling at a high speed.

The 'uncanny valley' has been mentioned several times through these lectures. How as a human a model cannot be half way between being the real thing and being an arbitrary symbol for it. It is how as a human we could respond to a puppet for instance. We would accept it if it were something along the lines of looking like a wooden puppet such as pinochio:

However if this puppet then took the form of a real boy this would be entering into the uncanny valley. We would know it is not a real boy... and find it unbearable that it looked like one. It would scare me I know!

The second lecture for animation was between Disney and the Japanese area Anime of cartoons. To be honest I cannot think of anything model wise that would be linked to either of these genres. Apart from the area of Disney where the animatronic models of the cartoon characters are made to mimic those that we see in the films.