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How to Make Animation More Alive?

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How to Make Animation More Alive? LIMS/Agape Modular Certification Program 2011-2013 How to Make Human Animation More Alive? Viewing Human Animation through the Lens of Laban Movement Analysis August 11, 2013 By Sandra Hooghwinkel Software Developer, Dancer and Movement Analyst Advisor: Karen Studd Co-reader: Leslie Bishko How to Make Human Animation More Alive? Viewing Human Animation through the Lens of Laban Movement Analysis 2 Final Project LIMS/Agape CMA Program 2011-2013 Sandra Hooghwinkel THANKS Hereby I wish to thank the people who have coached, advised, supported and inspired me: Karen Studd, CMA and teacher at my CMA Program in Agape, Belgium, for advising on this project, her profound insights in movement analysis and her helping me to also keep looking at things from a Macro perspective. Leslie Bishko, CMA and animator, for supporting me in this research from her own experience in this field and whose writings on the subject were very inspiring to me. Karen Kohn Bradley, CMA and coordinating teacher at the CMA program in Agape, Belgium, who not only inspired me in the realm of movement analysis but also opened up the road for me to find the overlapping field between movement and technology and who stirred me to find this connection within myself. Other teachers of the CMA Program in Agape, Belgium: Sabine Fichter, Ciel Werts, Rena Milgrom and Stephanie de Bruijckere. Wim van der Plas, director of ISEA, Robin Noorda, audiovisual artist and Alicia Zwart, 2D animator, for sharing their own experiences in working with animation techniques, thus giving me great background information, which often confirmed my thoughts on what makes animation come alive. Roy, Daan and Bente, for giving me the space, time and support to follow this Program, despite them missing me quite a bit every time I was away. Thank you!!!!! 3 How to Make Human Animation More Alive? Viewing Human Animation through the Lens of Laban Movement Analysis CONTENT Thanks ........................................................................................................................................ 3 Content ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5 Brief History of Animation in Film .............................................................................................. 8 Selected Movies and Characters .............................................................................................. 11 Starting Point And Methods ..................................................................................................... 14 Movement Signatures .............................................................................................................. 21 Thoughts on Important Issues in (Modern) Animation ........................................................... 47 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 61 References ................................................................................................................................ 65 Appendix I – Coding Sheets ...................................................................................................... 67 Appendix II – Arguments for Fair Use ...................................................................................... 73 4 Final Project LIMS/Agape CMA Program 2011-2013 Sandra Hooghwinkel INTRODUCTION Nowadays modern computer techniques offer many more possibilities in animation than before. But even though vegetation, backgrounds, lighting and environments often appear very realistic, the characters do not always, especially in the way they move. The movements often seem mechanical and disconnected, fragmented and lacking coherence. I notice this, because when I watch a film, I watch ‘with my entire body’. My kinesthetic sense (see Starting Point and Methods) is one of the most important senses for me and while watching a movie, I tend to move ‘with’ the characters a lot. This happens unconsciously, but when I experience movements that are ‘not right’, I notice this immediately. And because of these discrepancies, it is sometimes hard to connect to, or empathize with the characters, which I then regret, especially when I am really drawn into a movie. I believe it is the movements that make characters in animation films ‘alive’ as well as believable – or not. In this project I analyze and describe, through Laban Movement Analysis, what I perceive as lacking in modern character animation that would make the characters more alive and credible. Comparative Analysis In answering this question, I present an abridged comparative analysis of three different kinds of animations: - Classical animation - 3D computer animation - Motion capture My analysis addresses general differences between the different techniques used, but also looks at the common ground and nature of animation itself. 5 How to Make Human Animation More Alive? Viewing Human Animation through the Lens of Laban Movement Analysis So far I have no experience myself in animating nor with motion capturing, nor in translating motion data into (animation) software. In that sense, the analysis for this project is from a purely experiential movement point of view. However, I did start looking further into animation techniques to form some thoughts of where my results of the LMA analysis meets the restrictions and/or possibilities in the techniques used. A real attempt to identify these restrictions and possibilities will need more research though, so for now I leave it with just some thoughts on this in my conclusion. Combining Movement and Technology I first came to the idea of this project because, being a software programmer for about 13 years now, I never had thought that dance or movement would ever be part of my life again. I was trained to be a dance teacher and both performed and taught dance for about 5 years. Then, for several reasons, I decided to switch careers and re-trained to become a software programmer, which for many seems an unexpected step to say the least, but has been a completely suitable choice for me, as I can be analytical and creative at the same time in this profession. Movement-wise I always kept thinking about myself as a dancer, gladly making a pirouette in the hallway of my office every now and then. Nonetheless, my life grew very functionally around my office job and my family, erasing dance and movement from my life more and more. So meeting LMA again in 2011 has been a huge gift. It reconnected me to who I am as a whole: a mover and an analytical mind at the same time! At first the CMA Program was just something to do for myself, as an Expressive Recuperation from being so Functional in my daily life. But when Karen Bradley, CMA and Director of LIMS, suggested that I join her for a Movement Capturing Symposium of the London Knowledge Lab in January 2012, a whole new world of possibilities revealed itself to me. I then realized that there are areas that deal with both movement and technology, such as animation and gaming, but also other technological developments including ergonomics and robotics. And suddenly I felt a new goal developing of what I would like to do with my life. 6 Final Project LIMS/Agape CMA Program 2011-2013 Sandra Hooghwinkel I am now hoping to find ways to use my movement expertise to help develop and enrich technologies that involve movement. Being familiar with computers and knowing the world of programming languages, but at the same time embodying the world of dance and movement, I hope to be able to add something to the mutuality of both realms, using LMA as a tool and language to bridge between the two. With this project I am taking my first steps towards finding out more about these overlapping fields. I chose the subject of human animation because this was the first idea that occurred to me at the symposium on motion capture in London. On seeing all kinds of demonstrations of motion capture techniques, I immediately felt there was so much to say about it from a movement perspective that I chose this subject for my project to find out if I could indeed identify some of the discrepancies I felt then. 7 How to Make Human Animation More Alive? Viewing Human Animation through the Lens of Laban Movement Analysis BRIEF HISTORY OF ANIMATION IN FILM The Latin root of the verb ‘to animate’ is ‘animat-‘, meaning ‘instilled with life’, from ‘anima’, meaning 'life, soul'. To animate means ‘to bring to life’, ‘to make lively’. Animation in film is to give a film or character the appearance of movement, using animation techniques. (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013) Animation is about creating the illusion of movement, by displaying many still images – called frames – together in rapid succession in which every image is slightly different from its predecessor, suggesting the progressive development of movement. The more frames are being played per second, the more seamless the movement will appear. To get completely fluent motion 24 frames per seconds are needed. History Early animations, which started appearing around 1910, consisted of simple drawings photographed one at a time. It was extremely labor intensive as there were literally hundreds of drawings per minute of film. The key drawings were produced by artists, and assistants took these drawings and created
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