Integrated Theory and Practice (ITAP) 2: Pencils to Pixels

Question 1:

Animation styles have developed over the years and have a rich history. Which particular style and genre are you most interested in. Explain, analyze and elaborate why you have chosen it.

Answer:

Out of the multitude of methods and techniques developed over the long course of animation history, I’ve always been taken by the specifically traditional, truly hand-crafted film. The reason for this is that I get a true feeling of appreciation for what has been created with the human hand, which just doesn’t have the same impact if it were done with CGI (granted this does not apply to every creative studio or company that specializes with CGI like PIxar, but when done cheaply it will tend to be more disliked than cheap hand drawn work).

CGI animation done right.

     

CGI that's gone horribly wrong.

Whereas hand drawn animation, even on cheap budget's retains a certain charm about
it that most of the time redeems it. 

Little Princess.

Even to the point of cut-out animation (Ivor the Engine)

Question 2:

What makes a pencil line become a character? What makes a drawing become emotion,  movement, humor and etc.? Research and explain John Lasseter's statement. Provide examples to substantiate your findings.

Answer:

I think that what makes a pencil line become a character is in it’s sense of movement. I find it crucial that even with a still drawn image, the way the line constructs the character can tell the viewer a lot about it’s state of mind and general mood, which then brings about the emotional attachment that helps tell the audience how they should feel towards this character, towards a greater believability.

You can tell not just from his expression, but also from
the way his posture is drawn that he is a proud, happy character.

Big Bad Pete on the other hand, is drawn a lot sharper  on the edges, giving the impression of a more rough and rugged character. The face helping to top him off as the villain.

A quote of John Lasseter’s from the ‘Pencil to Pixel‘ helps to back this up. “It’s (Animated films are) successful not because of the quality of the draftsmanship, or the look of things, its successful because of the personality of the characters. people are looking beyond the actual drawing itself, and just falling in love with this character, wanting to see him/her again and again”.

Question 5:

What are the differences between Miyazaki's films and Western animation? Miyazaki celebrates the quiet moments of a film. What does it mean? Discuss.

Answer:

  The main difference between Miyazaki’s work and those produced by western studio’s is he will construct the film to move in a pacing equivalent to that of a book/storybook, where the viewer is allowed to be near totally absorbed into not just what the characters might be doing, but also everything else around them, very much like being given a long written description of the scenery in a novel. Most western animation will tend to draw your attention with fast pacing, so that your attention is always fixed on only what the characters are doing at every moment.