Live Animation

          Speaking from my experience in high school art class, my instructor advised the whole class to never try drawing from memory as without some kind of reference, your subject will not be consistent or fully formed. The same techniques goes for animators. Before any animated film goes into production, studios would hire actors to play out and film scenes in the film’s narrative. This process offers many benefits to an animated production, “As resource material, it gave an overall idea of a character, with gestures and attitudes, an idea that could be caricatured. As a model for the figure in movement, it could be studied frame by frame to reveal the intricacies of a living form’s actions” (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p. 320-321).

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By filming actors, their performance gives the animators rich insight in body language, the intricacies of the face when it expresses emotions, or how costumes would behave if the character did this particular action. Sometime the actors would make a big impact in the little things put in their performance, “Helene Stanley…portrays the gentle Anita in 101 Dalmatians while Mary Wickes is her overbearing flamboyant friend Cruella de Vil. Each actress contributed her own ideas on personality and mannerisms within the framework of the action devised for this particular scene” (Johnston and Thomas, 1981, p. 320). Or sometimes out spontaneity, the actor provides their behavioral tics and idiosyncrasies. For example, actress Sherri Stoner would serve as reference actress for both Princess Ariel and Belle, and between takes she would bite her lip in nervousness like Ariel or sometimes brush away a lock of hair from her face like Belle.

When shooting reference material, the following questions are considered. Is the material ready for animation? Does it fit in the story, the character, the mood, tempo, or overall idea? Is it entertaining? Is it just exposition or character building? If we get some entertaining material, can it be used effectively? Am I helping the animator? And in the words of Stanley Kubrick, “Is anything happening worth putting on film?”

A rotoscope image of Gandalf. Ralph Bakshi was infamous for this. Link

Also when filming for animation, care is needed when using it. Animation is a caricature or parody of real life, and it is important to never trace over the material to produce an animated performance. That would be rotoscoping and it’s not animation. Rotoscoping is an animation technique, however, it’s a technique exclusively for inanimate objects like vehicles, to help the animator save the trouble in drawing a rigid, three-dimensional object in motion. The most famous example being Cruella de Vill’s car, which was a white model with black outlines that would photograph as it was animated via stop-motion, to appear it was in motion. The photographs would be Xeroxed and the animators had an inked car cel that need to be colored.

Animating the car chase. Link

When dealing with animal characters, studios would introduce the animators with real animals in order to associate its movement and behavior. An animator would study how an animal would display emotion through its ears or the state of its tail. Mythical creatures on the other hand, an artist was forced to use their imagination. Johnston and Thomas (1981) reported this was an experience Woolie Reitherman had when animating the dinosaurs in Fantasia’s “Rite of Spring” sequence: “It was a disarming request since there was little research possible on what a real dinosaur might have been like, but Woolie was not bothered. He dipped into his imagination, combined that with a few raw animal things he had seen, and, working closely with Bill Roberts, who was directing that sequence, came up with scenes dinosaurs that seemed to be just the way people always imagined these giants should be, if ever they had thought about it before!” (pp. 345).

Works Cited

Johnston, O., & Thomas F. (1981). The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions.  

Technology and Technique

When animation was still in its infancy, these were the techniques utilized in producing it:

The Cycle: A series of drawings that animated back into itself by having the last drawing work into the first one, creating a continuous loop. This technique was ideal for walking, dancing, and scramble animation.

Repeat Action: An action that could be repeated just as it was in a second scene, with a new beginning or a different ending. Examples of this technique could be seen in classic Scooby-Doo shorts, which allowed the creators to save money by recycling the animation for chase scenes.

The Cross-over: Recycling the action to have two or more characters repeat in a cycle. How this was done is that inkers would trace over the same subject multiple times, and even in reverse, to create the illusion of a whole crowd or a line of dancers. Look closely at the background characters of Beauty and the Beast during the "Be Our Guest" sequence.

Rubber Hose Animation: In response to the stiff quality of early animations, animators thought animating appendages and sections to that of a garden hose. Reasoning that no one would know or understand bones or muscle structure in an animated character, this technique extremely well in creating loose and fluid movement. The animation suggested no sense no realism which had a charm of its own and offered comedic possibilities.

             However, Walt Disney disliked this type of action and was quick to criticize rubber hose animation:

“Get some straight lines in there, like you’ve got in Oswald. Doesn’t that camel have a knee or an ankle? And you’ve got the body the same all the time––he can bend back or forward, y’know. And get rid of those limp noodles: get some drawing in it!” (Johnston & Thomas, 1981, p. 45).

Animation became more progressed and refined as animators sought after new and better methods and techniques in conveying the illusion of life and motion. These techniques were perfected and came to be known as the Principles of Animation:

Squash and Stretch: The most important technique. When a fixed shape is moved about from one frame to the next, there is rigidity in its motion. This does not comply with real life as even the most rigid shapes, whether it be furniture, dishes, or anything composed of living flesh (no matter how bony), there is considerable movement and alteration in shape as it progresses through the action. The most basic example of the squash and stretch technique is the ball diagram. If a ball were drawn consistently as it progresses through its fall, there’s bounce or weight to it; it just looks flat and rigid. Apply the squash and stretch technique, however, and the ball gives a sense a weight and bounce as it flattens on impact and rebounds after it hits the surface. Any shape can be animated with the squash and stretch technique, allowing the subject to move with fluid realism.

Anticipation: Animating a character or a subject in way that signifies to the audience that the character will behave this way or take a certain course of action. For example, to signify that a character will run, he will draw back a raised leg in anticipation of this action.

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Art by Sandford Shirk

Staging: Looking at the animation and subject from all angles. How is the scene edited? Is the action clear? Does the environment obstruct it? What is the effect the makers want to convey? These are the elements that considered in staging a scene, through planning and choreography.

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Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose: The straight ahead pose is when the animator works straight ahead from the first drawing in the scene. He simply works through one drawing after another, developing new ideas, and keeping the scene fresh. Pose to pose is similar to straight ahead, however, instead of the animator working off of spontaneity, there’s deliberateness in animating the scene as he knows how he wants the action to play out.

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Art By Larry Lauria

Follow Through and Overlapping Action:  Rendering movement more realistically and to give the impression that characters follow the laws of physics. Characters and body parts will continue to move even if the character has stopped. Overlapping actions includes body parts moving at different rates. “Dragging” in which it would take a few frames for parts of a character to catch up such as clothing, hair, body parts, etc. Exaggerated use of this technique can produce comical effects, whereas realistic animation must be timed to produce convincing results.

Slow In and Slow Out: Moving the human body and other objects at different rates to create a realistic effect. For example, the bouncing ball to emphasize the ball’s weight and speed.

Arcs: Natural actions follow an arched trajectory and thus animation should adhere to this principle for greater realism. Applies to rotating limbs or joints, thrown objects. Another example would be the bouncing ball, which falls and ascends in a V arc.

Secondary Action: A character or subject moving with subsidiary action. For example, a character walking and his arms moving independently to express and emphasize emotion.

Timing: The number of drawings or frames for a given action, translating the speed of the action on film. An animated film consists of 24 frames per second. If a character were consistently featured throughout a 90-minute film, the amount of frames would be at least 130,000 frames for one character. Correct timing will an object appear to obey the laws of physics, for instance, an object’s weight determines its reaction to an impetus. Timing is critical in conveying a character’s mood, emotion, and reaction.

Exaggeration: Sometimes, to create an imitation of reality, one must present a caricature of it. Otherwise, a perfect imitation would look static and dull.

Solid Drawing: Drawing a character or subject and taking into account of three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight. This makes the character look natural, more real. If handled poorly, however, the character would look wooden.

Appeal: A character must look real and interesting. Be wary, however. A character that is drawn too complex or clumsily done will quickly lose appeal. It’s always best to use simplicity to create appeal in a character.

Left: Mr. Incredible / Right: Gribble
Left: Caricature, simple, unrealistic: appealing. / Right: Complex, detailed, reaslistic: ugly.

To demonstrate a character encapsulating all twelve principles, I choose Disney’s Tarzan. Tarzan was animated by supervising animator Glen Keane and was the most complex character done during the Disney Renaissance. For instance, he’s the most anatomically accurate-–detailed animated character to date, as Keane had worked with other artists and biologists determining Tarzan’s bone and muscle structure to create a convincing jungle übermensch. This video goes into detail the methods and steps Keane and his animation team took to make Tarzan plausible and believable.

If one were to freeze-frame his action scenes, they would find various parts of his body undergoing the squash and stretch technique as well as slow in and slow out to illustrate his strength, speed, and agility. At various points of the film, Tarzan would surf on vines and tree trunks. This is demonstration of the arc technique as Keane had to animate Tarzan sliding down naturally to the set pathway using the Deep Canvas technology. As for appeal, the film takes full advantage of the animated medium by having Tarzan walk on his knuckles and travel like an ape whereas a normal human can’t, nonetheless, it further establishes his gorilla upbringing. In addition, Keane and his team had a little fun showing Tarzan’s innocence as he reacts to civilization. For example, not understanding personal boundaries as he listens to Jane’s heartbeat and tries to peak her skirt to see what’s under it, not understanding the full implications of his actions. Tarzan’s behavior and background enables him to have appeal as it translate an old, popular character into something new and fresh. 

Works Cited

Johnston, O., & Thomas F. (1981). The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. New York: Disney Editions.