Probably the most dramatic difference between the
animation described by the first article, Chapter
3 of the 1981 edition, and “Ghost in the Shell” is that the movie
is very ‘static’. Most of the artwork doesn’t
move. The backgrounds are highly detailed and many
of the static character sequences are as well,
giving no doubt to the skill of the artists. But
movement is extremely rare.

The movement of the mouth, for instance, during a
character’s speech is often the only movement in
the scene. The head remains fixed, along with the
body and everything else visible. In someways this
resembles the early examples of animation that we
watched in class, where the movement of the mouth
didn’t effect the general outline of the head, but
it doesn’t seem to give the same effect. I wonder
if this is due to the fact that the quality of
artwork is so well done that one overlooks the
lack of movement. Personally I would classify this
as the use of appeal, but I’m not sure if it
qualifies. I can say that the scenes are often far
more detailed and exacting than American
backgrounds, though this may be due to a film budget.

However, it is my belief, after watching the film
closely, that the sparsity of movement is actually
playing into the principles of
exaggeration. Unlike the Disney animation, where
exaggeration is an extreme version of the action,
the motion in this film seems very realistic. The
key difference is that since it is so rare, ones
eye is immediately drawn to the movement, giving
it an impression of exaggeration. It seems to be
relying on the trick of emphasis by omission,
rather than overload.

The other point I’d like to make is that, for some
reason, the characters in the film seemed far more
believable to me than regular cartoon
animation. I don’t know if that is because they
are all human, rather than semi-human
caricatures – but I suspect that the real
reason is, as I said above, that they move in
realistic patterns. While it was hard to catch if
the motion was arcing properly, it appeared
to. More importantly in my mind, there was a
distinct lack of cartoon motion – where the body
would perform physical changes impossible to do
in real life. Extreme stretching and squashing
never seemed to happen. People were not made out
of stretchy rubber.

Of course the fact that motion in the film was so
rare dispelled any idea that the characters
were real. Real people and things move randomly at
all times. No one can stay perfectly still – there
is always a wiggle or shift as a person fiddles or
maintains balance. Even when one tries to remain
still, its impossible to keep the poses that the
characters in the film do. That fact is probably
the most exaggerated part of the film.

I’d like to conclude this post with the following
remark – I don’t believe that the principles that
are outlined and described in the first article
are completely necessary for good
animation. “Ghost in the Shell” is a fairly famous
film for the genre, noted for the quality of the
animation. However, it looks nothing like films
such as Snow White or other more modern Disney
films. There is obviously some combination of
elements that will satisfy an audience without the
full list that Johnson and Thomas lay out.

———

I made a point not to read the other comments
before writing this up, so hopefully I don’t
repeat what others have already said.

An actor can exaggerate his expressions. It’s real, but not real.

I am not sure there’s a best way to communicate things: I prefer to think of it as a palette of choices that an artist has available.

What do you mean by exaggeration takes many forms?

I certainly agree that exaggeration has many forms and by no means is it limited to cartoons; I’m just arguing that the general usage of it in animation helps sets the medium apart from realism. Exaggeration in (cartoon-ish) animation seems to amplify the response to the feeling the animator is trying to convey. Because everything is abstracted/simplified, by itself the intended emotion is already clear, exaggeration just takes it a step further to make for, in my opinion, something more powerful.

I guess this all boils down to my belief that abstraction and realism are both better suited for eliciting different emotional responses. Abstraction seems to be more capable of creating ‘heightened’ response from the observer because of its directness; the simplification makes for conveying an emotion that is unambiguous in its intent. On the other hand, realism seems more suited for creating an emotional response that comes from internal reflection on the perceived intent which is more ambiguous due to complexity. Although I think direct and perceived intent can be achieved in both abstraction and realism, it just seems that one medium is better suited than the other.

*What I watched:
**Pixar Luxo Lamp Pencil test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNF7rQeC7BI
Just stunning for its time, being computer generated. Funny how a lamp head that rotates to nod conveys so much emotion to a scene!
**Donald Duck – SnowBall war
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS2PQwPqsCs&feature=related
Watching the cartoon after reading the Illusions of Life, a lot of the key principles seemed very evident: squash and stretch, exaggeration, appeal and the importance of seondary action and timing the frames stood out for me.

**Lion King Pencil Test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OtYNiX5lmE&feature=related
Lion King is something that instantly takes me back to my childhood and I just loved the film. This video shows how the pencil drawings are played (something the illusions of life reading talked about) to get a sense of how it looks. I really felt the importance of two (or more) characters in a drawing instantly being able to communicate to the viewer (i guess this would be part of appeal).

**How SnowWhite was made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhfp6Z8z1cI&NR=1 is a fantastic overview of the process and the work that went into creating it!
250,000 celluloids, 1500 shades of color and the camera work involving placing celluloids (correctly) over watercolored backgrounds repeated over half a million times.
It just goes to show how painstaking the process was then, and even is today. There are some things that just can’t be automated.

*Other thoughts:
**South Park
Its fun to contrast the classic cartoons and shorts with a series like South Park.
It seems like quite a number of animation principles fade away here; Squash and stretch for one isn’t that evident. A lot of the focus in on expressions and sound and simplicity of art. I mean seriously, look at everyones eyes! Some of the animation principles talked about not being very repetitive in a frame (i.e. similar hand position, eyes etc created a “stiff” image to the watcher) but its amazing how repetition in art isn’t a negative in South Park.
I’d love to hear other peoples views on classic cartoon animation versus the anime sitcoms of today. Its quite amazing how the script and dialogue delivery diminish the importance of “showing” it.
http://www.spscriptorium.com/SPinfo/MakingOfSouthPark.htm was a fun read about some of the art forms and technology that went into making South park when it started off.

**About games being too realistic using more polygons and not leveraging exaggeration:
http://www.slate.com/id/2241438/ is a nice article on the topic. It talks about today’s games being way too realistic and lacking empathy and about Twisted Pixel, a company that builds character fondness through some of the principles we learned.

Sorry about the size of this comment, but I didn’t really feel like posting bits and pieces.

I suppose it’s true that the techniques are there, but wouldn’t it be somehow more “nice” (or “democratic”, or whatever) if the answer to “how do you create rich, believable computer animation” was something other than “you find yourself a really good artist and give them very good tools?”

Actually here’s the documentary from the beginning Chuck Jones Extremes & Inbetweens, A life in animation (1/9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ca7iNqDTxs&feature=related

Sorry i must have mixed up the links heres the links to the Chuck Johns interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7VlEUqA7qA&feature=BF&list=PLF37B2AA36FEED99C&index=100

This was a good excuse for me to learn about Tom and Jerry – I had no idea of the diversity of production with it. I think that explains why some of it I really liked, and others, didn’t work so much for me. I want to go back and watch the Chuck Jones T&J episode.

The eyes in animation (and communication in general) are really important. But really overlooked in the CG field.

The real life comment is interesting / motivation from physics and perception is a whole conversation.
Animators play with reality and use the control to better make the point. In the real world, we use a different set of cues to better communicate. (Which might mean trying to control information flow).
Your “it doesn’t matter” with your “personal staging” is an interesting thought. There are other things that you do optimize with your movement (although, sometimes, you do stage your movements so that others can “read” them). Its interesting to think of the tradeoffs – what am I giving up because I am trying to stage my movements?