“Is that it?”
I remember one summer day, my family asked me to show them my school projects I’ve done for my 3D animation program. I’ve shown my mom my projects before, but my sister has never seen any or almost none of my works. The project I showed them was a ballet scene I made at the end of my third semester. It turned out very nicely, it was a total of around four to five seconds. When it ended, my sister asked: “Is that it?”
So, what’s the deal with animation and why is it that complicated? Basically, animation takes an enormous amount of patience and hard work. Whenever you do anything at all, using reference is always a good idea. Whether you’re doing art, sport or math, using something that already exists can help you understand the subject. Same thing goes for animators, most of the time they don’t animate from the top of their head. They use reference, or they get up and act it out, or even film themselves. Similarly to a painter who does a sketch of the person he’s drawing before painting it, to comprehend the shapes. As a boxer who watches footage of his opponent to understand his movements, to get the timing of his hits right. The boxer would know when to use jabs against his opponent, since he has studied him, he would know what feels right or wrong in the fight. Same for animation, reference is important to get your timing right to make a nice natural art piece, because nobody wants to see a fight where the boxers aren’t trained, a bad painting, or a bad animation. Not using reference can result in an unnatural scene, like a ballerina who decided to do a robot dance. All this to say that just acquiring reference can take hours, especially if its something very specific you must film yourself. It requires a lot of passion and hard work, since the whole process is very long and tedious sometimes. Animation teachers say that in the industry, five seconds of animation usually takes about a month to complete.
A difficult part of animation is to actually comprehend what you’re doing. If you’re animating a ballet dancer, you need to learn how ballet dancer moves. A good animation is a researched one. You won’t get as good of a ballet shot from someone who’s animated clowns before, than from someone who has researched and learned about ballet Detailed knowledge on a subject leads to a smooth emulation of movements that fits the attitude of the character. That’s why when you watch a well animated movie, it seems natural and flows nicely. Animation isn’t something concrete you learn, like maths or science, it’s an art. You can never know how to do something perfectly. What I mean by that is that you do learn the basic principles, but its also an art, which means every animator has their own unique way of animating. Like some may be more exaggerated and cartoony than others, or some may have a more humorous style. Since human behaviour is so complicated, there is always a different way to animate a same scene.
Take a walking scene for example. Every animator learns in school how to make a 3D walk. What they need to learn with experience is in what manner are they walking. Is the person walking angry? Is he excited? If so, what are the small details you need to add to demonstrate that emotion. That is what makes the subject so complex, you always need to keep learning, as well as having the ability to empathize to understand the feelings you create for your characters. Every little micro expression must be present for the character to look realistic, so the animator really must be experts on emotion to be able to translate them from real life to a virtual one.
Even the best animators struggle sometimes. Mike Hollingsworth, supervisor director for BoJack Horseman, said that his most difficult moment was when he needed to recreate a speedboat race. It was a very specific thing to animate, not something you learn in school. Naturally, he had to look for reference and apparently had to redo the same scene twelve times over. This happens to every single person in the industry, amateur or professional.
For example, Lino DiSalvo, the head of animation for Frozen and supervisor for on tangled, and Bolt, said that there was a very challenging scene in Tangled where Flynn is dying in Rapunzel’s arms. He said that he thought he was good at recreating subtle emotion, but that was on another level. Another example, David Stoddolny, animated a 3 second shot that took a month. It was an elaborate fighting shot with Po and the wolves from Kung Fu Panda.
All these examples really demonstrate how much work is put into some animations for even very short scenes. Some scenes that last a few seconds can take weeks or months to make. When even some of the most respected and talented animators like Lino DiSalvo find animation complicated, you know that it’s a skill that takes a lifetime to perfect and should be appreciated a little more.
Some people think animated movies are too childish, and don’t belong alongside live action movies, and not beautiful enough to be considered fine art. It has started to change in recent years and get more noticed, but most people don’t see animation as something ground-breaking or true art. They are only able to appreciate the aesthetics of the film. Even kids’ movies have deeper meanings. Like the Iron Giant which contains emotional depth; a giant robot with a gentle soul, a giant who is misjudged by many for being violent but is only defending himself. Animation needs to not only be more appreciated, but not seen as only for children. Hundred of artists that work years on a feature length film go unrecognized.
Animated movies are for both kids and adults. Many of them win Oscars, for being brilliant movies. Almost every Pixar film has won Animated Feature Film. Many 3D animation movies have underlying messages to them. Zootopia is a message about two natural enemies teaming up to defeat the bigger evil. Another movie, like Wall-E can have a message about pollution. Shrek covers the journey of someone being able to accept himself. Inside out tackles how emotions affect a person psychologically. There are also some adult jokes slipped into kids movies most of the time. Animated movies are always fun to watch as an adult, and shouldn’t be considered as only kids movies.
All that being said, some of my friends still think that animated movies are for children. I remember wanting to go see frozen 2 at the theater one time, but they refused to go because they thought it was for little kids and would rather see an action movie. As much as I understand their point of view, I believe they are mistaken, and even if it was a children’s movie, it doesn’t make it an non-enjoyable one. It’s like judging a book by its cover. Its not because the book has a colorful and fun cover that its contents wouldn’t be any interesting for someone over the age of twelve. There is always something that can be pulled from an animated movie, whether its simple enjoyment from a good story, learning something new, or seeing a message in it.
When I explained all of this to my sister, she seemed to grasp the concept a bit better. Even though she doesn’t watch animation or plays video games regularly, she was able to see the amount of work that was put into my project. I’m glad that she could understand the concept, and I wish to do the same with anyone else who has read this article. Hopefully the next time you go see an animated movie, or play a video game, you can see it for what it is and appreciate it a little bit more.
Cover letter
The final draft turned out well, I think I did a better job explaining the bigger picture ideas and I corrected most of my mistakes I made in the second draft. I am most proud of the many analogies and examples I gave throughout the text. They made my story clearer and much more interesting and relatable to the public. I do think I have improved as a writer; I have learned many things this semester. Such as including emotion, or something the reader can relate too is much more powerful than just describing something. I’ve learned to use more imagery to illustrate my points better, like analogies, metaphors, similes, etc. I also noticed I have a tendency to repeat myself or repeat a word often, so I will look out for that in the future. A writing lesson that will stick with me is to find something personal about your reader and include it in your text to make your point much stronger. For example, during the semester we were writing a pretend letter to the minister of education to reduce school hours or something. I had the idea that bringing his children into the argument will make him much more compliant. Saying something such as, imagine your child having to go through so on and so forth. An aspect I always want to improve is my vocabulary. The vaster it is the more eloquent I can sound in my writing, improving it many times over. What I have also learned during the semester is the ability to be convincing in a story. To sound the most convincing, you must know what you are talking about, meaning research has been done using reliable sources. Using research in your story is always a good way to look convincing and explaining something in depth by using figures of speech and examples gives the same effect. I’ve learned that giving a story a full circle is a good way to write. For example, in my story I start and end with my personal experience with my sister. All of these things I have listed are meaningful to me, because I have always enjoyed writing, and whatever can improve it makes me happy.
Sources:
Alan Beesley, “Animation – A Study and Comparison of Concepts and Software Issues” Digital Commons, 2004, https://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.ca/&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=honors.
Alex Dudok De Wit, “Animators Share Their Thoughts On The Hardest Shots They’ve Ever Done”, Cartoon Brew, 2020, https://www.cartoonbrew.com/educational/animators-share-their-thoughts-on-the-hardest-shots-theyve-ever-done-186107.html.
Iphigenia, “Appreciation For Animation”, Odyssey, 2017, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/appreciation-for-animation.
Nathan Gilbert, “Are 3-D animation movies garbage because they are only aimed at children and are not for adults?”, Quora, 2017, https://www.quora.com/Are-3-D-animation-movies-garbage-because-they-are-only-aimed-at-children-and-are-not-for-adults.
Rebecca Alter, Brian Moylan, “The Hardest Thing I Ever Animated”, Vulture, 2019, https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/the-hardest-thing-i-ever-animated.html.
Sílvio César LizanaTerra, Ronald Anthony Metoyer, “A performance-based technique for timing keyframe animations” Science Direct, 2007, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1524070306000646?via%3Dihub.
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