Make It Real — Part 4: The Missing Factor
Be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series Make It Real.
Great animated performance doesn’t happen in a void.
Up to now, we’ve been exploring the relationship between animation technique and real performance. But besides the issues generated by photorealism versus classical versus cartoon, etc., there’s another factor, which affects performance in all kinds of animation.
Consider this — the high-end CG performance of a realistic human character can seem real but so can the performance of a classically animated sack of flour or a very cartoony rabbit or, for that matter, a pixilated kitchen chair. So realism in movement and design is not the only factor which makes a performance “real’ in the audience’s mind.
Before we think about what else might be at work here, let’s consider what we mean by the term “real.” Besides movement, which takes physics into account and therefore makes things LOOK real, there are other factors that make things FEEL real. And feeling real is very much a product of context. In other words, rather than being a hard and fast comparison between what is on the screen and physical factors in the real world (as happens with realistic movement), “felt reality” is surprisingly subjective and therefore malleable.
From this vantage point, you can have a very stylized performance, which might feel more real than a classical or photorealistic performance. Why? The swing factor would likely be the context: if the first example is set up properly and the second isn’t, we might find the first one more believable even if its animation is inferior.
How so? It’s not that the audience has suspended their critical faculties while watching the stylized performance — audiences are always in a process of comparison when watching any kind of media. In fact, comparison is an essential part of how we communicate and understand things.
It’s more a matter of what they are comparing the performance to and that goes beyond simply comparing how well the animated movement simulates real movement. When we look deeper, we discover there are multiple comparisons going on at any given time — some of them between the characters and the audience’s own experiences and some of them between the characters and their created circumstances. Together these elements create context and that is, in fact, our big missing factor.
Charlie Bonafacio has mentioned context and its importance to the animator, such as how it affects our perception of broader, more cartoony performance versus our perception of a more classical approach. But this technical aspect is only one facet. Context can also mean story, design, underlying analogy, character development, voice performance, other sound elements etc. And all of these things affect how well even the most talented animator can do his/her job.
“First off, if we are lucky, there is a team of story people that have a great time unearthing that primary understanding of character from the events of their lives,” says Bonifacio, “And the unique situations of the stories that will be told. We create characters when we tell stories. As to the animators, they can find some of those qualities themselves and contribute to the growth of a character throughout the film. Many choices aren’t made until the animator bangs their head against the scene. Much of it is a process of discovery, the character telling you who they are.”
“Concept is ESSENTIAL!” he continues, “A character with a clear distinction of personality before the animation begins probably has a much greater chance at being successful.”
But what gives a character that clear distinction of personality? Why do we root for Homer and Bart Simpson or the kids in South Park and have emotional responses to such Disney characters as Stromboli, Dumbo and Sleeping Beauty?
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