APPEAL

An animator that is able to fully grasp the idea of warming the heart is Fred Moore. His ideas lead to bringing forth Disney's appeal that would be used to create films that would last a lifetime. Fred Moore did not follow severe scrutiny of how people move or walk or talk. He was able to show things from facial expressions to changing the shape of a character in order for them to have accurate “human-like” movements. Fred Moore showed accurate and realistic character movements within his work , something that came natural to him in his drawings. The warming up of the heart analogy versus “dumbding down” is a way Disney was able to allow the audience to relate and sympathize with the character, even though the character is not real. Moore knew that the audience was interested in seeing the characters think and feel as humans do and in order to make this happen the audience had to establish a relationship with the character which leads to the warming o the heart. One of the 14 points of animation that was a chart constructed by Moore relates to the “dumbing down.” Point 7 of the 14 principles reads “Is this the simplest statement of the main idea of the scene?” This is not because the audience as a whole would not understand, but it was made simple so that the age range of the audience would be greater and the message would be sure to reach everyone on the same cognitive level. Although adults may understand situations and plots in a movie, the children who are also a target audience should also be able to understand and enjoy a movie.

Mood

Walt Disney said, “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.” The Disney artist meant that the mood is what creates the flow of the character. If the character is in a happy mood then his personality will be much more accepting and he will have a positive attitude. Because emotions stem from the mind we therefore think before we give action. A person is in a good mood and is happy, the mind then gives off a signal to the mouth telling it to smile, thus being the driving force or pilot behind the outwardly shown good mood of a character. On pages 100-101 of "The Illusion of Life” there is a sequence of drawings that shows Pluto’s mood which is portrayed through his actions. At the top of page 100 Pluto is standing in a crouch position while smiling. He then sits down and is smiling for the next two frames. He then realizes he sat on something that is stuck to his bottom and has a look of shock on his face. In the next fram his ears are pointed straight up showing his alarmed face. “

The real and realism

“I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real.”- Walt Disney. What Disney means by this is that nothing great can be done that is based on reality if one does not understand the concepts and foundation that makes something real. An example of this is trying to create a character that audiences can relate to. Say that the audience an animator is trying to reach is that of the age group 5-8. The animator cannot create relatable or real characters that will appeal to this audience if they do not first understand what it is real to this age group. A character that can be real and relatable to this age group could be a princess who is friends with a hyperactive dragon with whom she goes on many adventures with. I do not think that this conflicts with the argument made in Chapter two because using emotions and characteristics that are real to humans and applying them to animation is what makes it successful and viewable to a widespread audience.

12 Principles of Animation

1. Squash and Stretch- its purpose is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. An example of this is a bouncing ball.

2. Anticipation- is used to prepare the audience for an action, and to make the action appear more realistic.

3. Staging- Its purpose is to direct the audience's attention, and make it clear what is of greatest importance in a scene.This can be done in different ways such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, and the angle and position of the camera.

4. Straight ahead action / pose to pose- means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, while "pose to pose" involves starting with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the intervals later.

Pose to pose-

5. Follow through and overlapping action- "Follow through" means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates. A third related technique is "drag", where a character starts to move and parts of him take a few frames to catch up.

6. Slow in and slow out- The time it takes for the human body and other objects to accelerate or slow down. This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate, moving objects, like the bouncing ball.

7. Arcs- Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. 8. Secondary action- Adding secondary actions to the main action gives a scene more life, and can help to support the main action. A person walking can simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his pockets, he can speak or whistle, or he can express emotions through facial expressions.

9. Timing- refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film.

10. Exaggeration- is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons.The classical definition of exaggeration, employed by Disney, was to remain true to reality, just presenting it in a wilder, more extreme form.

11. Solid Drawing- means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight.

12. Appeal- in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor.

Caricature

Caricature is an exaggerated rendition of an image and its features. I believe that caricature is more real than realism because an artist can evoke more feelings from his or her audience through exaggeration. These emotions that are provoked from the animation are real which then makes the caricature real. The artist can show emotions, feelings, and fear by not limiting the actions of a character. Through satirizing the artist can take something like a lamp and give it human qualities. It is these qualities given to the object that makes the object real: The “art of animation had the power to make the audience actually feel the emotions of the cartoon figure” (Thomas and Johnston 15).

Communication

One of the key principles that stood out to me from class is that based on McCluhan’s quote that “the medium is the message.” With animation being the form, it can interlace itself in the message that the writers and or animators are trying to get across. An Example of this is seen in Walt Disney’s “Education for Death.” This film is used to highlight some of the most difficult times in history. This film uses a sensitive subject such as the Holocaust and incorporates the story of a young Boy who grows up and becomes less of an individual by attending Hitler’s school for young boys to breed into a Nazi Solider. In the end, Hans and the rest of the German soldiers march off to war. They fade into indistinguishable rows with nothing on them except a swastika and a helmet perched. This concludes Hans's “education for death."