Even after learning the basics of animation, my favorite animation (3D) is still Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. In fact, learning how animation works makes me appreciate it so much more. The art of every single shot looks tasteful. It’s like putting all of the best choreography, camera work, art, models, and coloring into one movie and having – instead of one – multiple “best parts” of the movie. Usually, I can figure out – in a movie or show – what an artist could do to achieve certain effects, but there are still some things in this movie baffle me.
In particular, there is one fight scene that is one of my favorite animations of all time:
One thing that this clip really shows is how much you can do to add to a normal action scene with camera movement. If you tried to imagine this scene from a distance, it would seem nothing like the final result. Some animations don’t take advantage of the unlimited camera movement in a 3d world.
Another thing that this clip uses is time remapping. To me, related to the original Disney principles, time remapping is like the squash and stretch and exaggeration applied to time. Actually, if you look at a line or graph editor of time, that is precisely what you are doing: bending, squashing, and stretching a line representing time. The time remapping mixed with the smooth camera shots, combined, make a great effect.
One thing that I’m learning more and more as I animate is that it is hard to fully take advantage of the 3d space for cinematography while also maintaining taste. My initial inclination is always to try something crazy, thinking that it will look just like my vision. But it never is, and watching a scene like this makes me really appreciate a few things:
1. The decision of how close and far away shots should be for which parts. It is very easy to miss some of the action and disorient an audience when whipping a camera around in circles and flying around a room. But, the shots are framed in ways that you can tell what is happening as well as get up close shots of parts that are happening. The shots are framed so well, in fact, that almost every 15 seconds, you could go through and take a still frame of the animation and use it as a still picture. (The cinematographer follows the rule of thirds well in most shots and breaks it well in others.)
2. The decision of what movement is appropriate for what shots. There are a number of ways that you can move a camera to get different effects. The camera movement enhances every part of what they are trying to convey to their audience. Fast turns and zooms give the idea that a camera man is having a hard time keeping up with the action. Shaking the camera gives the idea that there is a physical camera shaking because of the power of something hitting the ground or a wall.
3. The cuts. After all is said and done, having five or six cameras swirling around a fight scene, how do you decide when to cut what and where to cut? Some are timed with the beat, and others are timed with an action. The practice of a successful cut in an action sequence is to cut in the middle of an action so the audience is focused on the action and doesn’t notice the camera changing. That is the aim, to change shots without distracting the eye of the audience. They do a phenomenal job with cutting in this scene.
I’d like to say just one more thing about these three things combined in animation. Now that there is more control with cameras in 3d environments, Disney’s principles to exaggerate life in animation can be transferred to a camera for shots to give the same effect. For instance, instead of making a hand bigger for a punch, an artist could use a wide angle lens and get up close to the hand as it passes. This has been done very well in 2d Japanese animations; however, they have to emulate a wide angle or fish-eye lens instead of using a “real” fake fish-eye, like in a 3d program. Another thing, which I mentioned already, is the shake of the camera. The shakiness of the camera mixed with time remapping can make a powerless scene very dramatic and powerful. Last, the scene with the girl landing on the wall, while going into slow motion, is one of my favorite shots. She squashes to the wall, while complying with her realistic body and rig, and there is not a whole lot going on because she is just on the wall in slow motion hardly moving. But then the camera moves back quickly to see the flowers go up in the air in front of the camera. It is almost as if the power of her landing on the wall is not shown through her landing on the wall, but through the camera and the flowers in slow motion and fast camera movements. This prime example of what I am talking about.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Using Reference Footage in Blender
After much excitement and thought, I decided to just go ahead and try using reference footage in Blender, even though I didn’t really know how it would all work. I started by setting up two cameras: one camera from the front with the other at a 90 degree angle (side). I was looking for a few things while setting up the shot. 1. I wanted my subject to be distinguishable from the background. Ideally I would have set up white sheets behind my little brother (my subject), but what we had worked fine. Another aspect to this was lighting, which compensated for my lack of a solid background. 2. I was looking for enough space. I needed room above my subjects head and below his feet – enough for him to move around and jump without going off screen. 3. I tried to think of myself working in blender and what things I could do to make the process easier. I figured out that I should put the camera at about his chest area because that’s usually how I have my view in blender set up (ortho). (Also, I made sure that when my subject was in the middle of one camera, he was also in the middle of the other camera horizontally and then marked that spot for a reference.)
After getting the shots my next decision came: do I try to use both videos separately? Or should I edit them together and cut off some of the screen space to make it easier. I didn’t know how this whole thing would work in Blender, but it was all a learning experience to just get me to try this process out. So, for simplicity in Blender, I imported the video files into Adobe Premiere and started editing. During the shoot, I made sure to clap my hands on screen to have an easy way to time both shots. After getting them timed, I brought both of them to about 75% size and placed them next to each other. The front angle to the left and the side angle to the right (overlapping the front). Then, I took the overlapping video and added a 4 point garbage matte effect to it and made the overlapping video cut off in the middle so that both videos were cut equally. I exported as a .mpeg.
I looked up a tutorial that I previously posted on here, the Blender and Voodoo tutorial. I remembered that tutorial covering how to import a video and play it during an animation. What I had to do is add a background image and choose movie. Also, I made sure to click auto refresh or something like that to make sure that the video frame changed when the frame of my animation changed. It didn’t work. After restarting and going through the tutorial 5 more times, I tried something that I noticed was different from my screen and the screen of the tutorial. It worked! In blender, your video doesn’t show up unless you are viewing an Orthographic Perspective. Mine was set to User Perspective. Another thing to mention, is the video didn’t show up in any other windows. I was thinking that I could have done what I had planned on doing from the beginning: take two separate reference video files and have them in different angled windows. So, I would guess that if you open two separate background images in different windows, the process would be the same.
Next, I changed the size of the videos. In the Background Image Properties window, I changed the percentage of the size down to fit the size of my character. Then, when I zoomed in, the quality of my video was not compromised at all! So, I had my front angle to the left, my side angle to the right, and I put my character right in the middle of them where the video split. It was difficult to see the rig controls with all of the distracting colors from the video in the background, but I got over it. Now, every time I turned the camera in that window, the reference footage would disappear, but I would then just change back to a front (ortho) perspective to get it back. My last test before I started animating was to see if I could cover the other angle; it wasn’t looking too bright, because when I rotated my view the reference footage disappeared. I tried switching to a side angle (ortho) and it worked!! I was so proud of how easy everything was in Blender. Now, I could simply change angles and my character, in between both reference subjects would just turn to the side. It was perfect.
A few notes that I had from my first experience with reference footage..
I set up my cameras looking the wrong way. I had a camera from the front and to the left of my brother. I should have had a camera to the right of him so that when I changed angles in blender, I wouldn’t have to hold ctrl to get the other side, but it wasn’t that much of an extra burden. Another thing that I did incorrectly at first was set my brothers feet facing down. Like in a cartoon, if a foot is facing you, it points down a little and is lower than a foot behind it. I knew this wasn’t right, but I did it anyway. When I thought about it, my real camera was NOT an orthographic perspective, but a user perspective. When I changed my 3d view to User, the feet could be flat on the surface in Ortho and look like they were facing down and one higher than the other in User, like my reference footage. So, bear in mind that you won’t be working with orthographic footage if you use any normal camera. My last note is on keyframing. I decided to treat the animation like pose-to-pose rather than straight ahead. I started with straight ahead and it was taking forever. What I looked for in pose-to-pose was any change in movement or direction with different parts of the body. When I found a shift, I would set a keyframe. For instance, when my brother jumped, I chose the highest point in the air for a keyframe, but in mid air, his arms came up with his body and halfway through the jump stopped while his body kept moving higher. Because his arms significantly changed in movement, I set a keyframe there as well. After the main movements were keyframed, I could go back and work on more subtle things like some facial animation and other movements. (I didn’t do much with that yet because this was just a test, but it seems to be the best workflow for this type of thing.)
After getting the shots my next decision came: do I try to use both videos separately? Or should I edit them together and cut off some of the screen space to make it easier. I didn’t know how this whole thing would work in Blender, but it was all a learning experience to just get me to try this process out. So, for simplicity in Blender, I imported the video files into Adobe Premiere and started editing. During the shoot, I made sure to clap my hands on screen to have an easy way to time both shots. After getting them timed, I brought both of them to about 75% size and placed them next to each other. The front angle to the left and the side angle to the right (overlapping the front). Then, I took the overlapping video and added a 4 point garbage matte effect to it and made the overlapping video cut off in the middle so that both videos were cut equally. I exported as a .mpeg.
I looked up a tutorial that I previously posted on here, the Blender and Voodoo tutorial. I remembered that tutorial covering how to import a video and play it during an animation. What I had to do is add a background image and choose movie. Also, I made sure to click auto refresh or something like that to make sure that the video frame changed when the frame of my animation changed. It didn’t work. After restarting and going through the tutorial 5 more times, I tried something that I noticed was different from my screen and the screen of the tutorial. It worked! In blender, your video doesn’t show up unless you are viewing an Orthographic Perspective. Mine was set to User Perspective. Another thing to mention, is the video didn’t show up in any other windows. I was thinking that I could have done what I had planned on doing from the beginning: take two separate reference video files and have them in different angled windows. So, I would guess that if you open two separate background images in different windows, the process would be the same.
Next, I changed the size of the videos. In the Background Image Properties window, I changed the percentage of the size down to fit the size of my character. Then, when I zoomed in, the quality of my video was not compromised at all! So, I had my front angle to the left, my side angle to the right, and I put my character right in the middle of them where the video split. It was difficult to see the rig controls with all of the distracting colors from the video in the background, but I got over it. Now, every time I turned the camera in that window, the reference footage would disappear, but I would then just change back to a front (ortho) perspective to get it back. My last test before I started animating was to see if I could cover the other angle; it wasn’t looking too bright, because when I rotated my view the reference footage disappeared. I tried switching to a side angle (ortho) and it worked!! I was so proud of how easy everything was in Blender. Now, I could simply change angles and my character, in between both reference subjects would just turn to the side. It was perfect.
A few notes that I had from my first experience with reference footage..
I set up my cameras looking the wrong way. I had a camera from the front and to the left of my brother. I should have had a camera to the right of him so that when I changed angles in blender, I wouldn’t have to hold ctrl to get the other side, but it wasn’t that much of an extra burden. Another thing that I did incorrectly at first was set my brothers feet facing down. Like in a cartoon, if a foot is facing you, it points down a little and is lower than a foot behind it. I knew this wasn’t right, but I did it anyway. When I thought about it, my real camera was NOT an orthographic perspective, but a user perspective. When I changed my 3d view to User, the feet could be flat on the surface in Ortho and look like they were facing down and one higher than the other in User, like my reference footage. So, bear in mind that you won’t be working with orthographic footage if you use any normal camera. My last note is on keyframing. I decided to treat the animation like pose-to-pose rather than straight ahead. I started with straight ahead and it was taking forever. What I looked for in pose-to-pose was any change in movement or direction with different parts of the body. When I found a shift, I would set a keyframe. For instance, when my brother jumped, I chose the highest point in the air for a keyframe, but in mid air, his arms came up with his body and halfway through the jump stopped while his body kept moving higher. Because his arms significantly changed in movement, I set a keyframe there as well. After the main movements were keyframed, I could go back and work on more subtle things like some facial animation and other movements. (I didn’t do much with that yet because this was just a test, but it seems to be the best workflow for this type of thing.)
Friday, November 20, 2009
Economics!
This is a list of the nine economical ways that animation an build emotions in the imagination of the audience:
1. Rear View – for the audience to get inside the characters’ heads
2. Shadows – for suspense, drama, and interest
3. Shadows Over The Character – for excitement and dramatic action
4. Overlays – for adding depth to the situation through the movement of things other than the character (almost personified)
5. Dramatic Layout – for the portrayal of feelings of a character through the layout
6. Pictoral Shot – for setting a mood and saving yourself difficult animation through the use of an establishing shot
7. Effects Animation – for creating strong feelings by the animation equivalent of particle system effects
8. Held Drawings With Camera Moves – for strengthening expressions beyond what is normally possible
9. Offstage Sounds – for telling a story and or enhancing a story by sounds rather than or in addition to animation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uuEOV5PhI
Shadows are used heavily to dramatize the shots, as well as overlays and effects though the names over people’s heads and gun shots. Held drawings with camera moves are used, however the frames are not still.
Points to remember when animating emotions:
1. Make sure the emotional state of the character is clearly defined.
2. The thought process reveals feeling. Sometimes it can be shown with a single, held drawing or a simple move. Other times, there should be gestures, body moves, or full action. Determine which is best in each case.
3.Be alert to use of cutting and camera in helping to accentuate the emotion.
4. Ask yourself constantly:
What am I trying to say here?
What do I really want to show?
How do I want the audience to react?
5. Use the element of time wisely:
To establish the emotion of the character,
To convey it to the viewers,
To let them savor the situation.
Don’t be ponderous, but take it away from them just as they start to enjoy it.
1. Rear View – for the audience to get inside the characters’ heads
2. Shadows – for suspense, drama, and interest
3. Shadows Over The Character – for excitement and dramatic action
4. Overlays – for adding depth to the situation through the movement of things other than the character (almost personified)
5. Dramatic Layout – for the portrayal of feelings of a character through the layout
6. Pictoral Shot – for setting a mood and saving yourself difficult animation through the use of an establishing shot
7. Effects Animation – for creating strong feelings by the animation equivalent of particle system effects
8. Held Drawings With Camera Moves – for strengthening expressions beyond what is normally possible
9. Offstage Sounds – for telling a story and or enhancing a story by sounds rather than or in addition to animation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2uuEOV5PhI
Shadows are used heavily to dramatize the shots, as well as overlays and effects though the names over people’s heads and gun shots. Held drawings with camera moves are used, however the frames are not still.
Points to remember when animating emotions:
1. Make sure the emotional state of the character is clearly defined.
2. The thought process reveals feeling. Sometimes it can be shown with a single, held drawing or a simple move. Other times, there should be gestures, body moves, or full action. Determine which is best in each case.
3.Be alert to use of cutting and camera in helping to accentuate the emotion.
4. Ask yourself constantly:
What am I trying to say here?
What do I really want to show?
How do I want the audience to react?
5. Use the element of time wisely:
To establish the emotion of the character,
To convey it to the viewers,
To let them savor the situation.
Don’t be ponderous, but take it away from them just as they start to enjoy it.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Rules and Guidlines of Animation
1. Appeal in drawing
Does this drawing appeal to an audience. (is it likeable)
2. Staging
Make sure that everything around looks good with the scene including the placement of the characters. (Interaction with stage)
3. Most interesting way? [Would anyone other than your mother like to see it?]
This one is great. Get your head out of the fact that you just created something and observe it as you would anything else that you would watch. Critique it like it's not yours. Is it plain or interesting? (Like appeal)
4. Is it the most entertaining way?
Could the same thing happen in a different way to entertain the audience more than it does now?
5. Are you in character?
Are you thinking as if you are the character?
6. Are you advancing the character?
Is the audience learning anything about the character?
7. Is this the simplest statement of the main idea of the scene?
Are you complicating a simple idea?
8. Is the story point clear?
You know why this is happening; will the audience know?
9. Are the secondary actions working with the main action?
The secondary actions are to supplement the main action, not fight against it for attention.
10. Is the presentation best for the medium?
Are you trying to do something that is not best suited for paint, pencil, marker, this kind of paper, etc.
11. Does it have 2 dimensional clarity?
Does the silhouette make sense?
12. Does it have 3 dimensional solidity?
Does everything look 3d equally?
13. Does it have 4 dimensional drawing? [Drag and follow through]
This is like squash and stretch over time, bringing a cutout circle to life by thinking outside of the box.
14. Are you trying to do something that shouldn't be attempted? [Like trying to show the top of Mickey's head]
Is it necessary to be attempting this? Could this be done in another way and be just as effective?
1. Inner feelings and emotion
Are the feelings and emotions of the character showing through?
2. Acting with clear and definite action
Does this look like a deliberate action or an accidental one?
3. Character and personality
Does this character have a distinguishable set of character traits and personality?
4. Thought process through expression changes
Can we see into the character's mind by watching mind turn?
5. Ability to analyze
Does the character show life through the ability to judge and analyze things for him/her self?
6. Clear staging
Is everything placed for a reason? Is it balanced and realistic? (Not realism)
7. Good composition
Does everything work together harmoniously?
8. Timing
Is the timing realistic and does everything work together?
9. Solidity in drawing
Does everything stay looking solid? Don't make things incongruent over a period of time.
10. Power in drawing
Don't make the scene or anything in it look weak unless intentional and or balanced by something strong.
11. Strength in movement
Are the actions of movement looking deliberate or accidental?
12. Imagination
This is an animation: are you getting the most out of it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUl0EPwo4ds This first example shows beautiful staging in very interesting and unique ways. I'd like to talk about how this uses the 4th dimension. A popular technique, time remapping, adds to this 4th dimension. It's like the classic drag and follow through the medium of time instead of actually seeing it. This allows for the equivalent of a drag and follow through to be applied to realistic a medium like film. Every aspect in the first list is covered well here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByMZYcDk18M In this example, more of the character points are covered, but it also covers the other points as well. The staging and interaction with it is great in the fight scenes. Also, the words and attitudes from the voice acting to facial expressions to the way that the characters move when they fight shows advancement of character and all of the other things on the second list.
Does this drawing appeal to an audience. (is it likeable)
2. Staging
Make sure that everything around looks good with the scene including the placement of the characters. (Interaction with stage)
3. Most interesting way? [Would anyone other than your mother like to see it?]
This one is great. Get your head out of the fact that you just created something and observe it as you would anything else that you would watch. Critique it like it's not yours. Is it plain or interesting? (Like appeal)
4. Is it the most entertaining way?
Could the same thing happen in a different way to entertain the audience more than it does now?
5. Are you in character?
Are you thinking as if you are the character?
6. Are you advancing the character?
Is the audience learning anything about the character?
7. Is this the simplest statement of the main idea of the scene?
Are you complicating a simple idea?
8. Is the story point clear?
You know why this is happening; will the audience know?
9. Are the secondary actions working with the main action?
The secondary actions are to supplement the main action, not fight against it for attention.
10. Is the presentation best for the medium?
Are you trying to do something that is not best suited for paint, pencil, marker, this kind of paper, etc.
11. Does it have 2 dimensional clarity?
Does the silhouette make sense?
12. Does it have 3 dimensional solidity?
Does everything look 3d equally?
13. Does it have 4 dimensional drawing? [Drag and follow through]
This is like squash and stretch over time, bringing a cutout circle to life by thinking outside of the box.
14. Are you trying to do something that shouldn't be attempted? [Like trying to show the top of Mickey's head]
Is it necessary to be attempting this? Could this be done in another way and be just as effective?
1. Inner feelings and emotion
Are the feelings and emotions of the character showing through?
2. Acting with clear and definite action
Does this look like a deliberate action or an accidental one?
3. Character and personality
Does this character have a distinguishable set of character traits and personality?
4. Thought process through expression changes
Can we see into the character's mind by watching mind turn?
5. Ability to analyze
Does the character show life through the ability to judge and analyze things for him/her self?
6. Clear staging
Is everything placed for a reason? Is it balanced and realistic? (Not realism)
7. Good composition
Does everything work together harmoniously?
8. Timing
Is the timing realistic and does everything work together?
9. Solidity in drawing
Does everything stay looking solid? Don't make things incongruent over a period of time.
10. Power in drawing
Don't make the scene or anything in it look weak unless intentional and or balanced by something strong.
11. Strength in movement
Are the actions of movement looking deliberate or accidental?
12. Imagination
This is an animation: are you getting the most out of it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUl0EPwo4ds This first example shows beautiful staging in very interesting and unique ways. I'd like to talk about how this uses the 4th dimension. A popular technique, time remapping, adds to this 4th dimension. It's like the classic drag and follow through the medium of time instead of actually seeing it. This allows for the equivalent of a drag and follow through to be applied to realistic a medium like film. Every aspect in the first list is covered well here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByMZYcDk18M In this example, more of the character points are covered, but it also covers the other points as well. The staging and interaction with it is great in the fight scenes. Also, the words and attitudes from the voice acting to facial expressions to the way that the characters move when they fight shows advancement of character and all of the other things on the second list.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Blender's Open Source Friends
Open Office: Open Source Office ProgramsSimilar to and compatable with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and more..
Similar to Boujou
Similar to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS
Ubuntu: Open Source Operating SystemUbuntu's User Interface: Example
Runs Blender, Gimp, and Open Office. Think about it. Ask yourself why you pay for things that are free. Then smile, because you can download all of this and try it out right now : )
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Stay Real
Caricature, traditionally, refers to a picture with accented features to create a recognizable face based on features unique to different individuals. Caricature in animation refers more to giving something life and thought of its own - believability of life. The "real" that is used to discuss Disney's philosophy on animation is not realism, such as a movie like Final Fantasy. No, this "real" is just as magical and unreal as any Disney movie. Caricatures are used to trick people into forgetting that who they are watching is not a real person, not forgetting because everything is so realistic looking. Character readability is extremely important to pull off making something real for an audience. Realistic caricature could make a sad character’s eyes huge and cute, making them more real of a person. Realistic realism may show a sad character look down at the ground and subtly shift their bodyweight from one realistic leg to the other.
The job of caricature is to take something real and enhance it. Thus, caricatures need to be based on real things. If an animator has no idea how the real works, he could never use caricature to enhance the animation. If an animation goes too far out of reality, it can and will take an audience out of the story. There seems to be some sort of limit as to how much exaggeration an audience can take before unrealistic body movements take one out of the believability of a story.
Example1: A character throws a ball through a window. The glass flies from the left of the frame to the right of the frame until it is all out of the frame. Well, in reality, the glass would also be constantly moving down because of gravity. So, even though this larger than life glass break isn't supposed to be realistic, it should still follow the rules of gravity - or at least give the idea that there is some gravity in order to keep the audience from being distracted.
Example2: A character bends from the middle of the chest, where the torso would normally not bend. An animator could get away with a subtle bending of this, but if a character were to turn with this unrealistic turning point of the body, the character would look distorted and members of the audience might question what was going on.
Example3: A character throws a rock. During the throw, the arms and or fingers bend past where bones would normally allow. If this is only done slightly, it can enhance the movement of the shot and add to the aesthetic with arches. However, if done too much and not understanding how the body works, it could look like a character's limbs are broken and make that character look weak and flimsy rather than strong.
So, understanding reality before enhancing it us a must for animators.
So, what is more true, caricature or realism? There is no correct answer. As for most things, there are pros and cons for both approaches. It just depends on the style in which one is attempting to achieve their communication. To this question, I would answer: what is truth? An important job of a storyteller is to find the best way to achieve communicating ideas to his or her audience. So, if doing things in a larger than life manor and exaggerating animation gets your ideas across better, this is the best way to go about telling your story. Or maybe using realism would highlight things that aren't realistic in the story and make them more believable; this, then, might be the better way to go. It is the decision of the person(s) telling the story as to what would be better for that particular tale.
UPA's animations don't really fall into either category fully. But, because all of the art is set up as unrealistic with the main purpose of efficiently communicating ideas (such as showing what is on a table by tilting the top unrealistically toward the viewer or extending someone's legs to peer over someone else), UPA is able to pull it off without distracting the audiences eye. Disney follows more realism, but breaks the rules nonetheless. A major difference in the two works is detail. Disney animations would never have a table that is at an incorrect angle, however they might extend someone's arm slightly to add to a certain effect that they were going for. Bakshi, on the other hand, attempts as much realism as possible in his animations by rotoscoping most frames from live film footage. It would never extend a limb or show anything moving or standing the way that you would not see it in real life.
In The Illusion of Life, by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, the authors describe Walt Disney as "exploring all facets of the entertainment world, as long as he remembered always to captivate the audience by making it all believable - by making it all real." Again, something to realize when looking at this work is that when Disney animators are talking about real, the realistic animations of today were not around. They were not talking about realistic looking animations. They were talking about creating the illusion for an audience to forget that characters were not real people - not the illusion that what was happening on-screen was happening or could happen in the real world. Believability and realism are different. In the book, Wilfred Jackson said, "Walt wanted his drawings that were animated to seem to be real things that had feelings and emotions and thoughts, and the main thing was that the audience would believe them and that they would care what happened to them . . . and he used to stress that." And not to beat a dead horse, but later in the book, Ben Sharpsteen said this about Walt Disney: "I think that Walt was initially inspired by animation that stressed personality... This was one of the biggest factors in the success of our early pictures; Walt recognized the value of personality animation and he stressed it in story development." Caricature is to create a hole into a character's personality. This is what makes something real to an audience. And, this is the real that is written about in The Illusion of Life.
So, when Walt Disney said, “I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real", he was talking about staying within the realm of things that we perceived as natural. Because when we break that realm, and we are not careful or good at it - like UPA - we can and will take our audience out of the animation. So, know the real, stay real, and break the rules from there.
The job of caricature is to take something real and enhance it. Thus, caricatures need to be based on real things. If an animator has no idea how the real works, he could never use caricature to enhance the animation. If an animation goes too far out of reality, it can and will take an audience out of the story. There seems to be some sort of limit as to how much exaggeration an audience can take before unrealistic body movements take one out of the believability of a story.
Example1: A character throws a ball through a window. The glass flies from the left of the frame to the right of the frame until it is all out of the frame. Well, in reality, the glass would also be constantly moving down because of gravity. So, even though this larger than life glass break isn't supposed to be realistic, it should still follow the rules of gravity - or at least give the idea that there is some gravity in order to keep the audience from being distracted.
Example2: A character bends from the middle of the chest, where the torso would normally not bend. An animator could get away with a subtle bending of this, but if a character were to turn with this unrealistic turning point of the body, the character would look distorted and members of the audience might question what was going on.
Example3: A character throws a rock. During the throw, the arms and or fingers bend past where bones would normally allow. If this is only done slightly, it can enhance the movement of the shot and add to the aesthetic with arches. However, if done too much and not understanding how the body works, it could look like a character's limbs are broken and make that character look weak and flimsy rather than strong.
So, understanding reality before enhancing it us a must for animators.
So, what is more true, caricature or realism? There is no correct answer. As for most things, there are pros and cons for both approaches. It just depends on the style in which one is attempting to achieve their communication. To this question, I would answer: what is truth? An important job of a storyteller is to find the best way to achieve communicating ideas to his or her audience. So, if doing things in a larger than life manor and exaggerating animation gets your ideas across better, this is the best way to go about telling your story. Or maybe using realism would highlight things that aren't realistic in the story and make them more believable; this, then, might be the better way to go. It is the decision of the person(s) telling the story as to what would be better for that particular tale.
UPA's animations don't really fall into either category fully. But, because all of the art is set up as unrealistic with the main purpose of efficiently communicating ideas (such as showing what is on a table by tilting the top unrealistically toward the viewer or extending someone's legs to peer over someone else), UPA is able to pull it off without distracting the audiences eye. Disney follows more realism, but breaks the rules nonetheless. A major difference in the two works is detail. Disney animations would never have a table that is at an incorrect angle, however they might extend someone's arm slightly to add to a certain effect that they were going for. Bakshi, on the other hand, attempts as much realism as possible in his animations by rotoscoping most frames from live film footage. It would never extend a limb or show anything moving or standing the way that you would not see it in real life.
In The Illusion of Life, by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, the authors describe Walt Disney as "exploring all facets of the entertainment world, as long as he remembered always to captivate the audience by making it all believable - by making it all real." Again, something to realize when looking at this work is that when Disney animators are talking about real, the realistic animations of today were not around. They were not talking about realistic looking animations. They were talking about creating the illusion for an audience to forget that characters were not real people - not the illusion that what was happening on-screen was happening or could happen in the real world. Believability and realism are different. In the book, Wilfred Jackson said, "Walt wanted his drawings that were animated to seem to be real things that had feelings and emotions and thoughts, and the main thing was that the audience would believe them and that they would care what happened to them . . . and he used to stress that." And not to beat a dead horse, but later in the book, Ben Sharpsteen said this about Walt Disney: "I think that Walt was initially inspired by animation that stressed personality... This was one of the biggest factors in the success of our early pictures; Walt recognized the value of personality animation and he stressed it in story development." Caricature is to create a hole into a character's personality. This is what makes something real to an audience. And, this is the real that is written about in The Illusion of Life.
So, when Walt Disney said, “I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real", he was talking about staying within the realm of things that we perceived as natural. Because when we break that realm, and we are not careful or good at it - like UPA - we can and will take our audience out of the animation. So, know the real, stay real, and break the rules from there.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
INTRODUCTION
While animating, the animator is constantly checking a silhouette of the character to see if the character visually communicates a particular message. Without the details of color and shading, the animator can see if the pose of the character is effective in visually communicating what the animator wants. In other words, in this form of communication - animation - things need to be clear on every basic level of visual perception to be a strong signal of communication.
Now, Disney's Principles of Animation are not just magical ways to animate that automatically make an animation a good form of communication. Everything, at its most basic form, needs to be effective in order for these things to benefit your animation best. Going back to our silhouette example. One of the twelve principles of animation, according to Disney, is arcs. The reason it is important to check silhouettes is to see if the camera angle is truly taking advantage of the arc. If, for instance, you are looking at a character from the front or back and the character's arc goes from the top of his neck to the bottom of his spine, you will certainly not get the same effect that you would from the side, where you can see a strong visual arc.
This example of using silhouettes can be used in other forms of animation and communication in general. In animation, an animator uses silhouettes to see a character at its most basic form from that angle with no details. That is how we should always check our communication: we need to look at its most basic forms in order to create a strong sender. Text, for another example, can be a very strong or very weak communicator. Little tricks like making smiley faces and expressions with characters - :D - won't make your communication the best that it can be without it being strong on its own. Are there words that could be different to make your sentence stronger? Is every sentence readable and logical? Does each paragraph stick to a point and clearly communicate what you want it to communicate? Does the writing as a whole come to a conclusion? If not, smileys aren't going to make up for the lack of a foundation.
The reason animators check silhouettes and writers check sentences is that communication needs to have a strong and clear foundation before making it a strong and clear communicator and adding all of the frills and details that they have in mind. Remember, the special effects and smileys won't save you!
Now, Disney's Principles of Animation are not just magical ways to animate that automatically make an animation a good form of communication. Everything, at its most basic form, needs to be effective in order for these things to benefit your animation best. Going back to our silhouette example. One of the twelve principles of animation, according to Disney, is arcs. The reason it is important to check silhouettes is to see if the camera angle is truly taking advantage of the arc. If, for instance, you are looking at a character from the front or back and the character's arc goes from the top of his neck to the bottom of his spine, you will certainly not get the same effect that you would from the side, where you can see a strong visual arc.
This example of using silhouettes can be used in other forms of animation and communication in general. In animation, an animator uses silhouettes to see a character at its most basic form from that angle with no details. That is how we should always check our communication: we need to look at its most basic forms in order to create a strong sender. Text, for another example, can be a very strong or very weak communicator. Little tricks like making smiley faces and expressions with characters - :D - won't make your communication the best that it can be without it being strong on its own. Are there words that could be different to make your sentence stronger? Is every sentence readable and logical? Does each paragraph stick to a point and clearly communicate what you want it to communicate? Does the writing as a whole come to a conclusion? If not, smileys aren't going to make up for the lack of a foundation.
The reason animators check silhouettes and writers check sentences is that communication needs to have a strong and clear foundation before making it a strong and clear communicator and adding all of the frills and details that they have in mind. Remember, the special effects and smileys won't save you!
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