Make It Real — Part 2: Marks in the Sand
“I’ve become convinced,” explains Bonifacio, “That to train in 2D (with pencil and paper) is still a beneficial process because, of necessity, it slows you down and makes you focus on mastering those key decision making processes. With CG, it may just be too easy to let the computer effectively take over that role but 2D training forces animators to make those decisions themselves.” ”Drawing helps develop one’s perception of axis, tilt in space or the relationships of form that create tension,” he goes on, “People who do not draw seem to be less consciously in tune with these aspects.” There’s also the issue of intimacy. “CG animators have expressed that animating on computers is not intuitive,” says Bonifacio, “Instead, it’s mechanical. But there’s an intuitiveness and an intimacy that naturally develops with 2D.” “This might change with a new generation who experienced computers at 1 year old,” he continues, “But we draw from the time we’re children -- we make marks in the sand, messes in our food- drawing is immediate and it connects to our emotional history and physicality.” “And it’s an emotionality that is totally immediate: some CG animators draw to plan, to explore a scene and tap into that intuition. Then they force the computer to follow. When you sit at a computer and animate a scene, you may or may not be able to access that intuition. It’s like when animators first start animating: they might work on a drawing for an hour and then do another drawing and it takes an hour and so on. And in the end, they’ve moved pictures but they haven’t animated.” Here, Bonifacio offers the Disney process, as a comparison. ”In the Disney process,” he says, “You do rough sketches to plan out your scene. This way, you can quickly animate a scene in one sitting and it becomes a performance.”
So a big question is can you work as quickly and intuitively directly on the computer? It’s Bonifacio’s feeling that’s it’s much more difficult. "What we need to create,” says Bonifacio, “Are not students that are locked into certain styles, but ones that have a passion for decision making. You may have to create a new way of training people but that doesn’t mean you don’t train your students to make the kind of choices that artists make, to understand design concepts, lighting, timing and how to create meaningful focus.” So for immediacy, perception and the discipline of having to learn how to make those key decisions, 2D may offer a defined edge. But when we start talking about styles- performance styles and how technically they are achieved- isn’t there a risk that starting with an orthodox 2D approach will do just that- lock the students into a certain style that will then limit what is generally attempted or even expected of CG? And doesn’t that bring up the issue that we focused on last time- the limitations of 2D and perhaps even the 12 principles and the style of acting associated with it both in its application into CG and as part of the prognosis for its own future? These are the issues that Chris Landreth brought to the forefront in Ryan. Next time we’ll look at Charlie Bonifacio’s response to all that. Ellen Besen studied animation at Sheridan in the early 1970s. Since then she has directed award-winning films both independently and for the NFB, worked as a film programmer and journalist, taught storytelling and animation filmmaking at Sheridan and given story workshops at many institutions and festivals, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival. She is the director of The Zachary Schwartz Institute for Animation Filmmaking, an online school that specializes in storytelling and writing for animation.
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