Blog 7: Fred's 14 Points of Animation

1. Appeal of Drawing
Are the characters interesting, relatable, and believable?
In Frozen, the main characters of Elsa and Anna are relatable and interesting.

2. Staging
This is the animator's way of showing the audience what to look at and what to pay attention to given the scene.
Elsa's ice castle takes the stage in this scene.

3. Most Interesting Way (Would Anyone Other Than Your Mother Want to See It?)
The storyline must be interesting and captivating to a demographic, not just you.
The themes of family, love and betrayal are widely appealing.

4. Is It the Most Entertaining Way?
An animator must choose which of the infinite number of ways a scene can be presented is the most captivating - which is the best.
Many of the scenes in Frozen are aesthetically pleasing and captivating due to their presentation.

5. Are You In Character?
The animator must feel what the character feels and really think like the character so that the character comes off as consistent and realistic.
Elsa and Anna stay consistent throughout the movie given their personalities.

6. Are You Advancing Your Character?
Characters must develop and change along with the story to keep it interesting and believable.
Both Elsa and Anna grow as characters and develop so that they are significantly different at the end of the story.

7. Is This the Simplest Statement of the Main Idea of the Scene?
The story doesn't need to be complicated to be good - sometimes simple is best.
Having an entire change of Elsa didn't have to be complicated - a new dress and letting down her hair show how she feels.

8. Is the Story Point Clear?
The story must be capable of being followed by a demographic.
Again, Frozen has a wide appeal and is easy to follow.

9. Are the Secondary Actions Working With the Main Action?
Secondary actions (hands moving while walking, etc.) make the animation realistic.
Anna runs and her hair moves as well as her arms in this scene.

10. Is the Presentation Best for the Medium?
Which type of animation - CGI, 2-D, 3-D - best fits the story and the animator's needs.
Frozen's presentation in CGI was deemed best because of its versatility and more realistic feel than 2-D animation.

11. Does it Have the Two-Dimensional Clarity?
The animation must be clear and defined.
The characters are well defined and easy to see.

12. Does it Have Three-Dimensional Solidity?
Anatomy, composition, physics, et al. must go into the animation to make it realistic.
Given its 3-dimensional look, it looks significantly more realistic than 2-D.

13. Does it Have Four-Dimensional Drawing? (drag and follow through)
Giving the impression that the characters follow the laws of physics help the audience suspend their disbelief.
Here, Hans' legs and arms follow through even after he swings his sword.

14. Are You Trying to Do Something That Shouldn't Be Attempted? (like trying to show the top of Mickey's head)
Some scenes may be difficult and unnecessary. Again, simple can be best.
Some scenes should be big and spectacular, but others can be minimal, such as Elsa walking across the lake in this scene.

Blog 6: Appeal

While I believe much of mass media does use the lowest common denominator (LCD) to appeal to a wide demographic, many movies and television shows are situated so that their appeal is more centered on a specific demographic. That being said, most smaller genres (children's movies, for example) have elements for those who are closely related, such as more adult jokes set out for parents who will inevitably be watching children movies with their kids.

The LCD is also said to dumb down mass media so that larger audiences can understand. I disagree with this sentiment in general, but Disney does tend to do this if only because their audiences are children who won't get the nuances of filmography and animation. Perhaps a few complicated elements would be added for parents' sake, but with their kids being the main demographic, the story is not going to be incredibly complicated. The "dumbing down" seen with Disney is less about appealing to a mass audience and more about appealing to children.

For example, although Disney caters to a young audience, they also have all four the Pirates of the Caribbean movies made for adults with complicated storylines and multifaceted character.

Looking at typical Disney films, however, such as the new film "Frozen," the story line is fairly simple. However, and as proved by its long-standing run in theatres, it appeals to a wide audience. Its overall theme of familial love applies to a mass demographic, without finding the LCD to make the story less interesting. In fact, there are spells and trolls and betrayals throughout that a five-year-old may not be able to keep up with, but the songs and visuals are enough to keep their attention.

Blog 5: Mood

Body language is everything in real life as well as animation. In animation, it is the driving force behind the mood of a scene. A character's reaction to a scenario is pivotal to understanding the scene itself.

For example, in this scene, Kida's initial reaction (shock) is represented by wide eyes, raised eyebrows, and a lowered mouth. This quickly changes to anger seen by a scrunched face, lowered eyebrows, and bared teeth. She then punches Mole.

The punch can be anticipated simply by studying her facial expressions, seeing the shock and anger before expecting a punch. Even the arm being pulled back before the punch itself is indicative of what is to come. The body language sets the mood, shows the audience what is going to happen, and allows the audience a look into what is happening, what is going to happen and how they should be feeling given the scenario.

Blog 4: Real and Realism

Walt Disney stated, "I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real unless we first know the real." In other words, a basic understanding of anatomy, physics, and the way things move is pivotal to creating characters and scenes that are realistically fantastical.

Given that a scenario or character cannot be believable in fantasy without the suspension of disbelief, one must understand that it is vital as much as can be realistic is realistic. In animation, since there is another layer of disbelief - these are not just unreal people, they are also presented in an unreal medium - it takes even more understanding of physics and anatomy.

This seems contradictory to chapter 2 of The Illusion of Life since this chapter is talking about how realism simply doesn't work in animation. However, with a closer look, there is no discrepancy. An understanding of realism is not the same as having animation be realistic.

For example, in Sleeping Beauty, a basic understanding of anatomy is needed to animate the characters - especially the people but also the creatures. However, the people themselves are not entirely realistic. For the audience to believe the animation and to demonstrate fluid movement, some artistic liberties are taken.

Blog 3: 12 Principles of Animation

The 12 principles of animation are as follows:

1. Squash and stretch: this gives a sense of weight and flexibility to characters and animations. This can either be used comically

or in realistic animation

to show fluidity and movement. In realistic animation, the volume of the object does not change. 

2. Anticipation: This principle is used by alerting the audience subtly that an action is about to take place. 

Here, the elephant lifts his foot first, informing the audience that he is going to put his foot in the water. This keeps the audience from feeling the animation is disjointed or jerky.

3. Staging: Staging is the animator's way of setting a scene so that the audience is aware where and who the most important things are. This avoids unnecessary details.

Here, the background is muted and stationary while the characters are colorful and moving.

4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: SA action is drawing every frame while PtP is drawing only the key frames of an animation. SA action looks more fluid while PtP is good for emotional scenes.

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action: These give the impression that animations follow the laws of physics, making them more realistic. Follow through means body parts keep moving when the action has stopped. Overlapping action means not everything is symmetrical.

6. Slow in and slow out: Animation is generally more realistic if there are more frames and time spent on motions at the beginning and end of an action. 

7. Arcs: To make realistic animation, things tend to follow arcs. Arcs tend to create the bridge between one extreme and the next. 

8. Secondary action: This is secondary actions given to a character to add realism. i.e. whistling or swinging arms while walking.

9. Timing: the number of frames/drawings per second that give the film speed. Correct timing gives animated objects the ability to look realistic. 

10. Exaggeration: depending on whether the artist is trying for realism or not, exaggeration can create caricatures or simply express an emotion that otherwise anatomically correct characters could not do well. 

11. Solid drawing: Giving drawings volume and weight to make them more realistic. 

12. Appeal: The ability of a character to be real and interesting to an audience.

Blog 2: Caricature in Animation

"'Caricature'" and 'exaggeration' were two favorite words to stimulate the animator's approach to his scene." This quote from "The Illusion of Life" perfectly depicts how caricature functioned in the lives of animators at Disney.

Walt Disney was seen as something of a perfectionist - wanting all those working for him and their animations to be perfectly to his standards. And caricature and exaggeration play huge roles in those standards. Walt stated: "We oughta be looking for entertaining ways of doing things." The characters, in other words, could not simply walk into a room, but lumber or leap or tiptoe - something that would give them personality.

Caricature - an exaggerated facet generally of a personality trait personified in a singular being - is used throughout Disney's work. Dopey in "Snow White" is clumsy and all over the place so even his walk feels off-kilter. His arms move exaggeratedly and show his glee at finding jewels. 

Attention to detail, however, does not falter within these exaggerated characters.

In this gif, for example, each dwarf seems to be walking in sync. Yet, with a closer look, one can see that Grumpy has his fists clenched, Sleepy dips a little lower when he walks, and Doc - the leader - seems to be conducting the song.

Both caricature and realism play important roles in Disney animation. Although caricature is not as true to anatomy or physiology, it does express emotions better. However, audiences will feel more empathy for characters who appear more human. 

In this instance, we can put ourselves in the shoes of Aladdin whose anatomy seems regularly fixed in human anatomy while Genie, someone we cannot be even in our wildest yet realistic dreams, is less easy to empathize with. 

Blog 1: Communication in Animation

Especially when looking at 2-D animation, communication played a huge role in its infancy and still does today. When Disney was first starting, communicating with the audience was the key factor. The audience had to be engaged the whole time and they had to care. Caring seemed to be the biggest issue animators had - characters up to that point had been one-dimensional and uninteresting beyond singular tropes.

As stated by Walt Disney, "At first the cartoon medium was just a novelty, but it never really began to hit until we had more than tricks... until we developed personalities. We had to get beyond getting a laugh. They may roll in the aisles, but that doesn't mean you have a great picture. You have to have pathos in the thing."

Indeed, many of the characters people fell in the love with (Dopey from "Snow White," Jiminy Cricket from "Pinocchio") were loved because of the emotional level they produced in the audience. 

Learning how to communicate, however, has never been just about pathos. The animation itself has to work; it has to give the illusion of life. Animators would later come up with the 12 principles of animation to guide animators in their quest to create a character that the audience could connect with, could sympathize or even empathize with. 

Exaggeration, for example, is one of the 12 principles and it plays a huge role in expression - the way audiences are capable of sympathizing for and caring about characters. This technique is used even in more modern films.

By exaggerating the eyes, mouth, ears, even the hair of Pegasus from "Hercules," the audience becomes more aware of his distress and terror. Now, the audience can be sure of what Pegasus is feeling so that they can properly assess whether to sympathize with him.

Communication plays a huge role in connecting with an audience in animation because an animator must create the illusion of life in order for his work to be appreciated and loved the way it should. Without an emotional connection with the characters created by the 12 principles, audiences will leave feeling underwhelmed. Communication is key.