Now this is a fairly extreme example, one that demands too much change of a prerecorded dialogue but a less dramatic version of the same approach could still be enriching. And of course, this speaks to the ideal situation of dealing with such matters early in the process, to leave maximum room for great performance.

Speaking of great performance, Charlie Bonifacio chimes in here with yet another element that creates context: “In both the characters of Gollum and Ryan, it seems the animators engaged in the pursuit of character study and analysis and created clear pictures of a unique character. In Chris Landreth’s case the goal is an enhanced, psychological reality. It would be interesting to see if that process could extend to the development of a totally fictional character.””Here is where the downfall lies. Without an acute sense of observation, of either the real world or some other reference point, the tendency will be to create motion and gestures that are inherent to oneself. Like the abrogating of responsibility to MoCap, the animation becomes not peculiar or unique to a character but typical of the live actor or animator’s methods, preferences and approach.”

Former Disney animator Charlie Bonifacio thinks anything that strays too close to known reality will automatically be judged by that standard and in most cases, will be found wanting.

“Some of this is good and lends a specific stylized motion but some of it dulls performance if it becomes the only motion language used. In reality, the physics of motion and human range of motion is limited to certain realities. It is the individual distinctions which take some digging to find.”So now we have the three ring circus of context in full swing — in this ring, keeping what the audience is thinking in mind; in the next ring, considering the thought process of the characters while both on and off screen and in the third ring, becoming aware of what we as animators are thinking as we create performance and asking whether our own personal frame of reference is adequate to the job in front of us.

But wait, there are still more attractions to come under the big top…

I also asked Charlie what he thought was the connection between performance and context.

He answers:

“In books and radio, we create our own performance. When we have images we want the character to perform for us. We want them to be familiar but we want to be surprised.”

“With static drawings, the voice, story and image perform and we fill in the rest. When we get closer to ‘real time’ performance we judge the character based on their performance to the point where virtually real CG animation often draws our distaste and scorn because it is a lie that is too close to the truth.”

“Overall, it probably depends on the truth you want to tell.”

Shrek is exactly the kind of character who strays too close to the candle of reality and inevitably gets burned.

And that brings up the other great truth of context — that it is all always relative. From the audience’s point of view it depends on what they have previously been exposed to. People who have only seen regular TV think it looks fine until they are exposed to HDTV; people who have only see amateur acting find it satisfactory, even exemplary, until they see a truly fine professional performance that blows everything they’ve seen before out of the water. The mind only knows what it knows and the mind constantly adjusts to the standards it has been exposed to. It’s the rare mind that can imagine what it has never experienced.

But with the kind of invented stuff we deal with, we also have to keep in mind what Charlie points out here — anything that strays too close to known reality will automatically be judged by this standard and in most cases found sorely wanting.

And then there is that ultimately animated function of creating a relative truth for a world that we build from the ground up. This is where we can have the most fun of all, if we let ourselves. And often get the most satisfying results. Matt Ferguson puts it like this:

“I think something that is often overlooked in animation is the connection between character, story and design. Ideally, all of these elements should grow out of the same place. For instance, Shrek is a movie that sets out to skewer the concept of the classic animated fairytale, and while the film has characters that seem to reinforce that story (the princess, the ogre, etc.) its design betrays it. How much more successful would Shrek had been as a parody of Disney fairytales had it looked exactly like Disney fairytales? When we see how a character is designed in an animated film, we come with certain expectations; Sleeping Beauty will act one way, Daffy Duck another.””Animated characters that work really well tend to be ones that embrace or subvert the expectations of their design. A great example is in the South Park movie. The simplistic, childlike designs of the characters act as a compelling counterpoint to their vulgar dialogue and crude behavior. By expecting one thing, and receiving another, or by having the design of the characters so intrinsically tied to the story, we get characters who are more interesting and dimensional. To that end, despite all the complicated controls and full animation, I find Shrek to be a far less believable character than Eric Cartman.”

Shrek, of course, is exactly the kind of character who strays too close to the candle of reality and inevitably gets burned.