Blog 5: Animation and Mood

            "In most instances, the driving force behind the action is the mood, the personality, the attitude of the character--or else all three.  Therefore the mind is the pilot.  We think of things before the body does them."  This quote by Disney is a summation of how the mind and its many chemical and neurological processes work in conjunction with the body - in essence, these 'signals' that convey messages between the brain and the body.

            In order to understand this and apply this to animation, it's important to remember that the key to conveying a realistic (even if exaggerated) animation is to understand the way in which the body moves and the processes behind that movement.  Take, for example, moving your arm.  Just the simple action of moving it - again, this is a basic and general description - is generating a neurological signal from your brain to the nerves in your arm, which then causes you to move your arm.  While very simple, the process behind this also carries over into animation.

            Whether it be moving a limb or using the mouth to speak, the idea is that behind each physical movement is a neurological 'pilot' to guide the correct and appropriate action to the correct appendage or area of the body.  When speaking, your mind is forming the words used to communicate orally using sound and motion of the mouth.  The same process carries over into animation. 

Blog 4: The Real and Realism of Animations

             When taking in Walt Disney's quote, there is a fundamental understanding behind his words.  "I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real" is a quote that still holds true to this day.  To interpret his quote, Disney is stating that unless we know how real objects move, feel, weigh, and interact with other objects, our animation will not have the same quality of 'life' than if you knew the real, physical properties of the way objects exist in our world.

            When comparing Disney's quote to Chapter 2 of 'Illusion of Life', the two seem to go hand-in-hand, as Disney himself prided and focused on bringing life to his works.  The amount of time that it takes to create a semblance of life in each frame of animation requires an understanding of the properties of different materials, movements, forces, and mechanics.  This leads into the idea that without proper understanding of real-world physics and motions, the animations we can create will not have the same vibrant 'life', on screen, that exists in our world.

Blog 3: The Twelve Animation Principles According to Disney

            In animation, there are twelve different principles of animation.  The first (and most important), Squash and Stretch, is a simple term detailing the stretching or squashing of a fixed shape.  Think of a ball bouncing up and down on the floor.  When animated, the ball will squish when it makes contact with the 'floor', followed by stretching when it lifts from the ground and back into the air.

            The second principle is Anticipation, which is a planned sequence of events. For the most part, many animations are a sequence of planned events with which the audience may expect to occur between each key frame of animation.  Going back to the ball, we know that objects have a certain weight to them.  With a ball, we expect it to drop from its starting point (either from a hand or a table) and hit the ground, followed by the resulting motion of it bouncing back into the air.

            Staging is the third principle of animation that focuses on the presentation of any idea that it is both unmistakable and completely clear.  A good example of this would be any Tom and Jerry cartoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVW_rTqo4bs).

            Straight Ahead Action / Pose to Pose is the fourth of the twelve principles.  While 'Straight Ahead Action' focuses on working straight from the first drawing in the scene (think of a batter in Baseball and how he will swing the bat when the baseball comes by the home base).  Pose-to-pose, however, relies on the animator planning the action out, figuring which drawings will be needed to animate the action, drawing the key frames, relating them to each other in both size and action, then giving the scene to his or her assistant to draw the in-between frames.

            Follow Through / Overlapping Action, the fifth principle, is a rather interesting one due to it being broken into five main categories.  In base terms, however, the concept is that a figure and all of its appendages (whether it be a feather or a coat or what-have-you) must carry some weight and therefore must be animated along with the object or figure to give a sense of the believability, regardless on if the action is broadly cartooned or not.

            Slow In / Slow Out is a principle in which in-between frames of an animation are so close together (almost extremely close to each pose frame) that they make a smooth transition from one frame to the next without  the animation having to suffer from pauses when transitioning from frame to frame.

           Arcs are the seventh principle in which most living creatures will follow a circular motion (albeit slight).  A good example of this is watching a walking animation and taking note of the almost circular motion that the object makes after taking each step.                                                          

            Secondary Action, the eighth principle in the set of twelve, is one that gives a scene its characteristic 'life'.  Not only that, but the main focus is that they emphasize the main action (instead of taking attention away from it).  An example of this would be a woman walking whilst rummaging through her handbag.

            Timing, the ninth principle, refers to the number of frames for a specific, given action, which then translates to the actions speed when processed into a film.  This is one of the most important principles of the twelve, as it heavily influences not just the object's perceived weight, but also how it mirrors the laws of physics by giving the figure or object a perceived motion and weight.

            Exaggeration, the tenth, is the style of giving a realistic item or object an exaggerated look to give said object or item a sense of 'life'.  To note, the level of exaggeration is varied by the artist's style and whether one seeks to create something using realism or a caricature.

            Solid Drawing is to give the object or item a sense of being three dimensional in the sense of both space and weight.  In animation, this applies to the artist/animator knowing and understanding the fundamentals of three-dimensional shapes, the shape's anatomy, its weight, and its effect of light and its resulting shadow, among others.

            Appeal, the final principle of the twelve, is the act of making the character a sense of realness - that is, making it so that the viewer or audience is attracted to the character(s) due to the character's behavior, likability, and is interesting to the viewer.

Blog 2: Caricaturing Reality...or Realistic Exaggeration

            A caricature is, by definition, "a picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.”  In animation, this applies to a character, background, or object that takes its real-world properties and effectively stretching them to make them unreal or largely out-of-proportion to its real-world counterpart (for example, a standard butter knife in reality could be stretched to be an unwieldy sword).  This, in turn, gives the work a more interesting and original feel to it that otherwise would go unnoticed by the audience or by the creator himself.

            What is interesting to note, however, is that caricature and realism are both opposites of the same coin in a sense.  On one hand, caricatures focus on the absurdity and out-of-proportion features that differ them from realistic properties and equivalencies.  Realism, though, differs in that it takes what we perceive to be real and keeping those proportions within the same boundaries.

            To compare, think of a sword from an animated short or film and then think about a sword that you would see in a museum.  While we perceive them to both be swords, the animation version will differ greatly from the real-life counterpart.  For instance, the caricature version of the sword might focus on a larger hilt or the blade will be comically longer or heavier looking.  In that sense, caricatures are - depending on your view - truer than realism in that the creator has more freedom with how to carve these objects out than he would if he based them exactly like their realistic versions down to the most minute detail.

Blog 1: Communications - The Basics of Conveying Ideas

            One of the basic fundamentals of communication stems from the idea of two or more beings interacting with each other.  With this in mind, the same basic principle applies to mass communication, albeit on a larger scale.  Whether it be through speech, text, or motion, communication is the prime outlet with which we, as humans, convey a wide range of ideas and emotions between one another.

            This also applies to animation, as communication between the creator and the audience is a bond that relies solely on being able to convey any idea, thought, or emotion.  Just as the creator brings these things to life, so too must the audience be able to understand the creator's manifestation of his or her ideas.  This back and forth "conversation" between audience and medium heavily relies on the creator's ability to convey such communication in an easily understood way, otherwise the message being conveyed will be lost.