Research
Now that we've discussed a little bit of the context behind what I'm trying to achieve for this project, we can now dive into the research phase, here I'll be looking deeper into the practitioners and history of animation and the techniques used (as well as doing the odd bit of experimentation here and there), so without further ado let's dive right in
Animation Techniques
In terms of Animation, there are lots of ways you can give life to the story you're trying to tell with each one having its own strengths and weaknesses to set them apart from the rest. For example, in 2D and Stop Motion (to a lesser extent), you can get away with having characters hold the same pose for a couple of frames where as in most computer animated productions, the characters would have to keep moving slightly in order to maintain the illusion of life or else they'll look more like statues than living breathing characters
Hand Drawn Animation (AKA 2-D Animation)
Hand Drawn Animation (or simply 2D Animation as it's more widely known) is about as old as animation itself, this style of animation involves using a pencil to draw every single character and object one frame at a time. for your average 2D movie, the entire process tends to take around 4 years on average.
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That being said, there are many benefits to working in 2D as a pose to CGI. For example, as a result of everything being drawn with pencils and cels (or computer and mouse if you're doing digital animation, which can actually take less time than traditional animation), you only have to worry about drawing the parts of the character and/or object that you want the audience to see, unlike with CGI where all parts of a particular character exist at all times whether we can see them or not (meaning in 3D, characters have to look good from all possible angles) a good point of comparison for this would be Classic Sonic in 2D vs 3D:
Image sourced from SoaH City
Image sourced from The Sonic Fanon Wiki
As you can see, in the 2D image (pictured above and to the left), when Sonic's arm goes behind his hedgehog quills, the part of the arm that isn't currently visible simply stops existing, meaning the artists don't have to worry about parts of the character clipping through each other, unlike with the 3D render (pictured above and to the right) where every single part of the model exists all at once even if we can't see them in the final product (I.E: we can only see 3-4 quills on the back of his head, but all 6 get rendered at once due to said quills also being part of the 3D model, the same goes for his arms and even the quills on his body), this means the people in charge of making this render had to make sure that the pose they chose for Sonic would look good from all possible angles instead of just the one angle we can see him from which can add to the total time it takes to make the render because the artists and animators have to make sure that no part of Sonic's model can be seen clipping through other parts of itself.
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Another major benefit of working in 2D is that because the characters can only be seen from a singe angle, it allows the story tellers to draw the characters in a way that plays to that specific angle. A classic example of a 2D character being drawn in order to play to the specific angle is Mickey Mouse, specifically the way they draw his ears in order to make him more recognisable from all angles:
Video uploaded by Mickey Mouse
during this cartoon short (as well as whenever the character appears on any form of branding), you may notice that the position of Mickey Mouse's ears (as well as Minnie's ears too) changes depending on the angle the camera is currently facing. For example, whenever Mickey Mouse is facing the front, his ears will appear on top of his head like in the image below:
Image sourced from Wikipedia
but whenever his head moves to the side, his ears change position so that one of them is actually on the back of his head:
Image sourced from Disney Wiki.Fandom
This may not make logical sense (at least from a realistic point of view), but the reason they do this for characters like Mickey is in order to maintain a recognisable silhouette no matter what angle you're looking at him from, because all they need to do is draw 3 circles and boom! We instantly recognise it as Mickey Mouse even if it's just his silhouette (this is a technique they've been using for a very long time):
The main drawback when it comes to 2D animation (specifically if you're drawing everything frame by frame) is that it can take a really long time to do just a couple of seconds of the film. For example, it would take about a day or two to create just two to six seconds depending on how complex the scene is:
Video uploaded by Netro Man, The part where the camera spins around is a perfect seg-way into the next major downside with 2D Animation
The reason for this is because this seemingly simple camera spin was actually one of the most complex parts (besides the massive wildebeest stampede scene) to animate due to how literally everything from the characters to even the smallest of rocks would need to be positioned consistently relative to where it would be at that angle in order to maintain the illusion of depth, because if they changed the relative position of anything in the shot, the illusion of depth would be completely ruined (not to mention this is a rare instance where the background layer needs to be moved in any significant way, but with all that considered it's impressive these seasoned animators were able to pull this off):
15 "in-film" seconds later
In 3D meanwhile, camera movements like this one (which by my estimates took the original animators at least 4-6 months to create) would only take a few minutes to pull off (with maybe a few hours being spent to perfect it) as you don't need to worry about keeping everything consistent within the frame because the environment and characters will have all been modelled (and in some cases even animated) before hand as you're about to see in this rough experiment I put together in about twenty minutes:
It's a bit rough but still better than the "live action" remake.
A little bit of experimentation
For the experiment you see above, I decided to recreate the "everything the light touches" scene from the original Lion King (because the remake is trash) in order to communicate my point about how easy you could recreate this scene in 3D. the main focus for this particular experiment was the camera, which is why the "characters" and "environment" look the way they do.
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For the environment, I simply took the default platform you start off with when making things in Dreams and then I moved it down and made it way bigger in order to make Pride Rock (but now it looks like the super-flat worlds from Minecraft), I didn't bother to add any real detail because I wanted to get the basic framing of the scene cobbled together as quickly as possible so that I could focus more on animating the main attraction, which in this case was the moving camera, although upon looking back to the production stream (which I've been doing in order to evidence my work as it's being done so that I can reflect on it afterwards, like I'm doing right now.), perhaps I could have at least populated the main rock the Simba and Mufasa stand-ins are sitting on with a few smaller rocks as well as the odd cut in the rock itself in order to further drive home the point.
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For the two main "lions," I opted to use a pair of blank puppets a stand in for both characters. I decided to use a single keyframe to make the sitting pose for the bigger character and then once that initial pose was finished, I simply cloned the "Mufasa" stand-in and make it 50% smaller in order to create the "Simba" stand-in, the reason I made the Simba stand-in a smaller duplicate of the "Mufasa" stand-in is because then it would also duplicate the keyframe inside the puppet's microchip (which I did a clean sweep on beforehand in order to avoid any gameplay shenanigans), thus allowing the duplicate to keep the same pose as the original and saving me a good few minutes at the very least. I did have a little bit of a technical hiccup involving conflict with the procedural animations the puppets use by default, but I was easily able to fix this by turning off all the procedural animations (after a little bit of fumbling around in the puppet's tweak menus that is)
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After the stand ins were done, it was a matter of getting the camera moving, so I placed in a camera and an animation timeline so that I could stick 3 key-frames in, the reason I did this was so that I could do a little bit of blocking for the key angles of the shot (which were the initial position behind the characters, the side view, and then the low angle where we look slightly upwards at the front of the characters), the reason I did this was so that I had a vague idea of where the camera should be before I do the movements.
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Speaking of the camera, I was able to simply resize the keyframes and move them further apart from each other that way I could activate the tweening lines in between all the keyframes, which I did by hovering in between each keyframe and hitting L1 and X on my PS4 controller (because as I've been constantly mentioning at nauseum throughout this academic year and last, Dreams is a PS4 game), it did take a little bit of a re-jig in order to get the movement of the camera to closely approximate the movement in the original. (because how are we supposed to compare two versions of the same thing when one of them is radically different)
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Afterwards, I decided to re-create the lighting from the original scene by whipping out a sun and sky gadget and simply placing the sun at an angle where it would put the shadows at as similar of an angle to the original film as possible (that way it'll be easier to compare it to the 2D version) and then I played with the tweak menu in order to make the entire sky look what you'd see during sunrise and afterwards I put in a grade and effects gadget in order to up the saturation and get rid of the motion blur, overall I'd say doing this was really easy because of the fact that I was using specialised gadgets in order to change the look and feel of the entire scene.
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Afterwards, I decided to import the original audio by connecting my PS4 controller to my phone via an auxiliary cable I own, although looking back, I think I should have imported the audio BEFORE doing anything else because I ended up having to do a little bit of a further re-jig of the camera key-frames in order to line it up with the audio, but luckily it didn't take much time to do, as all I was doing was changing where each keyframe was on the timeline in order to change how long it takes to get to each one. but importing the audio before hand would have save a little bit more time, but regardless, I was pretty much done afterwards
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Overall, this experiment was really easy to do because of the fact I didn't need to constantly re-draw everything over and over again like I would for a 2D animation, and believe me, the last time I tried to do 2D animation ended with my biggest failure yet, but I digress. Looking back, it's funny, I thought this experiment would take me at least half an hour to do, but it only took about 20 minutes to put together, which goes to show that what would take a 2D animator months and months of work, only took me about 20 minutes to do in Dreams PS4 (but to be fair, in a real CGI production, a lot of those months would have been spent modelling the characters and environments instead)
Ok, Gaming Shenanigans Aside, Who Are/Were Practitioners Of 2-D Animation
In this section (and other similar sections for the other forms of Animation), we'll be looking into past and present practitioners as well as various techniques they liked to use throughout their work, so without further ado, let us start our journey with...
Walter Elias Disney (AKA, Walt Disney)
I know it's a bit of a cliché to start off with this guy because he's really famous and all that (heck, I've even used him as an example previously), but he can give us a look into a variety of different styles of 2D animation all at once (which is important because I've only got 2 weeks left to do the research after this week is over, so I'll take whatever time save I can get)
Image sourced from Disney Wiki.Fandom
For those of you who are new here, Walt Disney was the founder of what would eventually become the Walt Disney Company, but there's a whole lot more to his story than the creation of Mickey Mouse and Snow White (which is the first American animated movie ever), as even in his early years during his career, he had a tendency to experiment with the medium of animation which could be seen as early as the series known as "The Alice Comedies," which was a series that features a live action girl wondering around a cartoon environment:
For these, what they would have done is that they would shoot the footage of Alice first, and then afterwards they would ink the cartoon characters into the existing footage after they converted it into still images via development, they'd ink the cartoon environment (and the cartoon characters) into the footage in order to complete the effect. This was seen as revolutionary back in the day because no other animator or even animation studio thought to try mixing the live action footage with cartoon characters in this specific way. (at least that I currently know of anyway)
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You may notice that the character of Alice actually moves around significantly more than her cartoony friends, the reason for this is because when you're animating a cartoon character (especially in 2D), you can get away with having the characters hold still for long periods of time (I.E: about 6 frames or so)
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Eventually in 1927, Walt would move on from Alice in order to create a series of more traditional cartoon shorts staring a character called "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit," which he made under contract for a guy called Charles Mintz (the man who was the inspiration for "Charles Muntz" from Pixar's Up), but before we analyse our Oswald example, it's about time that...
We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update
Ok, so right now I'm currently looking in to Walt Disney and some of his work (specifically from the Alice Comedies era to the when Snow White got made), things are going somewhat smoothly, but I feel like I'm starting to fall behind a little bit because I'm technically still on the 2D animation section and I feel like I really ought to be at least talking about CGI by now, but I've still got to finish looking at Walt Disney and add in a second practitioner. (unfortunately, it'll have to be 2 practitioners per medium because I feel if I add the usual 3-4, I'll end up running out of time)
We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Program
By the time Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's run started in 1927, the rubber-hose style of animation (where all of the characters have rubbery arms that allow them to do all sorts of unrealistic things) had firmly planted itself as the main industry standard, so all of the Oswald cartoons ended up using that style, so without further ado, let's take a look at one of Oswald's first cartoons to see what makes it tick. The example we'll be looking at is 1927's Trolley Troubles. (which as a "silent" short, will mean that the assorted video may have a different soundtrack to the original, so be sure to bare that in mind):
Video uploaded by slpenwell01
Now the first thing I want to talk about with this short is actually the title card:
The reason I want to talk about the title card is because this was actually quite a common thing to include back in those days, the reason for this is because they were quick and easy ways of introducing the audience to the characters while telling them what the film in question is called. Much like the cartoons themselves, these title cards are drawn on a piece of paper, but the difference is that these parts actually get filmed and that footage (which would have come on large reels) gets physically stuck to the same reel as the actual cartoon, and as you'll see below with two of the other title cards I chose to use as examples, this particular trope is actually still used in cartoons today:
Image sourced from Pinterest
Image sourced from The Internet Animation Database
Image sourced from The Internet Animation Database
Image sourced from Wikipedia
but enough about the title cards (because I actually want to get this done on time), let's get into the cartoon itself:
In this screenshot, we can see that Oswald has just finished cleaning his trolley using a rag (at least we're supposed to think it's a rag), but once he goes to put it away, it's then revealed that the "rag" was actually Oswald's tail the whole time, the reason I point this particular gag out is because it was quite common for cartoon characters like Oswald (especially if it was a cartoon done by Walt and his buddies) to be able to pull themselves apart and even have certain parts of their bodies stretched to ridiculous lengths (although like Roger Rabbit says, they can only do such things if it's deemed funny):
Image sourced from Feeling Animated.Wordpress
As you can see in this frame from Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse gets his torso stretched by his nemesis Peg-Leg Pete in a manner that wouldn't be physically possible in real life. (at least not without really clever special effects and/or technology that film-makers wouldn't be able to utilise at the time due to it not existing back then) I quite like these gags, as they let the animators play around with the characters body in order to facilitate specific gags that can't be replicated in any other medium (besides video games), I.E: being able to use one of the characters as a sling shot to fling another character somewhere or even tying the characters around other parts of themselves.
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In fact, gags like this one are still used to this day (albeit not as often as they used to given how some cartoons put a little bit more focus on the story than the gags) and in cases such as 2019's "Gone to Pieces", it's the entire premise:
Video uploaded by Mickey Mouse
This ability to pull the characters apart also facilitates a funny moment later in the short where our good friend Oswald is praying to god and kissing his own foot (because a rabbit's foot is considered to be a good luck charm):
and what's even better is that the beginning also highlights another trope that was common back in the 1920s:
In this screen Shot, we can get a glance at another common trope from the rubber-hose era which I'll call the "sentient rubber" trope (because I feel the name explains what the tropes all about), what this particular trope refers to is the fact that every object is able to be stretched about as if it were made from elastic rubber (much like the characters themselves), often this rubbery nature goes really well with the objects themselves being sentient (well, sentient to a certain degree) as seen here with the trolley raising its wheel so that Oswald can give it a good oiling.
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This isn't the only example of this sort of thing happening, as we also see the trolley itself get stretched and it even contorts in order to fit the ever changing rail conditions:
it's also here where we realise that size isn't everything, as that kid is able to stop an entire trolley right in it's tracks
in these conditions, no real trolley would make it past the first bump on the road, let alone stretch itself out
This phenomena isn't limited to just objects or the characters, as two years after the release of Trolley Troubles, Mickey Mouse would go on to stretch a horse's neck because he got annoyed by that horse's tail in 1929's "The Barn Dance"
Video uploaded by CartoonStation
One thing you should notice about Trolley Troubles (and some of Walt's other cartoons I've presented as examples thus far) is that when you break the story down, you'll find it's just about a guy who runs into trouble while he's trying to get a bunch of people somewhere using his trolley. Plots like this would have been seen as quite relatable to audiences of the era (considering how steamboats and trollies were once common ways that people would get around), but these stories may not be as relatable to the modern audiences of today (ironically, it's more likely that people learn what a steamboat is by watching cartoons such as Steamboat Willie), although there is one more thing I should talk about before I finish with ol' Walt, and that's his version of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs:
Video uploaded by MOV Clips
Ok, so before we begin talking about this clip, I need to give a little bit of context.
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The year is 1937, synchronised sound had already become a baseline standard for cartoons ever since Steamboat Willie popularised the concept in 1928. Yes, the correct word is "popularised" and not "invented", as Steamboat Willie wasn't the first cartoon to use synchronised sound, that title actually belongs to Max Fleisher's "My Old Kentucky Home" in 1926. Meanwhile, Ub Iwerks had already produced the first full colour cartoon with 1930's "Fiddlesticks" starring a character called "Flip The Frog" (who I've never heard of until now, so hey there's something new) thus causing black and white cartoons to eventually fall out of fashion in 1932 thanks to Walt Disney's "Flowers and Trees" cartoon popularising the concept, so in other words, Disney steals the credit again. (so every image I use from here on out will be in full colour to represent the transition on this very website) But the jokes on them as in 1934, they're not actually making as much of a profit on their short films as they were previously, so Walt had the bright Idea to get to work on the first ever animated feature film. (in America)
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Since this was the late 30s and something like Snow White had never been attempted, a lot of the film industry and even the newspapers were quite sceptical of the idea of a feature length animated picture. How sceptical were these industry heads? They went as far as calling Snow White "Disney's Folly":
Image sourced from CNBC
Well to be fair, the production did end up going way over budget, but eventually after 3 long years of work (as well as mortgaging his entire house and selling his car in order to keep production going), 1937's Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs would go on to become a big success making a grand total of 185 million dollars, thus changing the tune of the entire industry and setting the foundation for what would end up becoming a booming industry even 80 plus years later:
Image sourced from Timetoast
Now that you've got a little bit more context as to why Snow White is so important, let's analyse how they would have animated Snow White and friends in this little clip I found:
The first thing I'd like to discuss here is the way that the dwarfs themselves are animated and designed, as they've been given a more cartoony art style with their large heads and exaggerated expressions, the reason they're animated like this is because throughout the movie they get themselves in to all sorts of wacky hijinks (I.E: in this scene they're plotting to kill what they think is a monster but then they scramble once they realise it's actually Snow White), so naturally, they'd be given a much more "animated" style that isn't quite as rubbery as the rubber-hose style (because here, the limbs move with some vague semblance of realism) but it's still quite cartoony. I actually much this style of 2D because it allows the animators to really exaggerate a character's movements to the nth degree:
Gif sourced from Gifer
Image sourced from Amandatoryrant.com
As you can see from the examples above, The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are able to move different parts of their bodies so fast that the animators have to draw multiple copies of those same parts (whether it be Road Runner's head or Coyote's legs), another way to communicate speed (as see with The Road Runner's legs) is that the animator simply represent the legs as just a squiggly circle to give the impression that Road Runner's legs are moving so fast you can't even see them as anything more than a blur.
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Before I move on, I also want to mention the way the background is done in 2D animation (before I forget about it later), as a lot of the time the backgrounds are done in a slightly different style to that of the actual characters (in the case of Snow White, the backgrounds are all beautiful water coloured paintings), the reason for this is because often the backgrounds are stationary, and thus they don't need to be done more than once, where as the characters need to constantly be re-drawn every frame (or every two frames if you're animating on 2's), so it's much easier to use pencils and non-water coloured paint to animate the characters, and the reason the characters (and the objects they interact with) get to keep their outlines to help then stick out to the audience (which is important as those things are usually the focal points of a particular scene)
Skipping ahead a little bit (because we'll be here all day if I don't), we can see that when the animators were doing the animation for Snow White, they decided to take a much more realistic approach for her, likely because she's the main character who's meant to be relatable to the audience within the world of the story. In order to give Snow White's movements a sense of realism, they first had to bring in real people in order to get live action reference footage for the character of Snow White (as well as the other human characters such as the evil queen and the random prince):
Video Uploaded by Jack Elias Disney (I know this video covers other Disney movies too, but the point is that it was first used in Snow White)
Effectively, what this reference footage consists of is the models acting out all the moments their characters are on screen and then after they're done, the animators then get to draw over the footage in order to animate the human characters. If this sounds familiar and/or you've watched films like Chico and Rita, then what I've just described is known as "Rotoscope Animation." The Rotoscoping process is like the 2D animator's equivalent to the motion capture technology films such as The Polar Express would use to make it's characters move realistically.
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Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the more realistic animation because in my opinion, if you're going to go through all those lengths to make your character move as realistically as possible, you may as well just make a live action production at that point because you're not taking full advantage of the benefits of the medium as much, but that's just me, let's get back to Snow White.
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Another way they make her and the human characters more realistic can actually be found in the hands:
I'm bringing up her hands for one simple reason, she has 5 fingers (this count includes the thumbs) on each hand. The reason this is such a big deal is because a lot of cartoon characters (including the seven dwarfs from this movie and a lot of my own characters) are designed with 4 fingers instead, because it saves time and money when animating the characters, even to this day:
Image sourced from the Cuphead Wiki
Image sourced from Wikipedia
Ok, that's enough about Walt Disney, as I've already been doing him for the past week and I want to get this questionnaire started soon. so let us move on to our second practitioner for this medium.
Charles Martin Jones (AKA, Chuck Jones)
Image sourced from Newsweek
Now unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to go into as much detail with Chuck as I did with Walt Disney (because if I do, I'd likely be doing this research well into the Easter break), but this man was especially famous for his work on a lot of the golden age Looney Tunes shorts such as the Duck Season, Rabbit Season trilogy, Duck Amuck and the Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Speaking of Wile E. Coyote, Chuck Jones happens to also be the creator of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner:
Video uploaded by WB Kids
Of course, Chuck Jones would make a lot of his more famous works (I.E: The Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons and even the Duck Season, Rabbit Season trilogy) in the 50s and 60s, so while a lot of his cartoons would still emphasise rounded designs, you can see that the characters have gained a few pointer edges, especially with Road Runner's beak and his feathers and even Coyote's claws.
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The thing that makes Chuck Jones' cartoons stick out from that of his contemporaries is his mastery of visual humour. What do I mean by this, lets take a look at a moment from "Chariots of Fur" (I know it seems like I'm fast tracking this section [probably because I am], but the reason for this is because after this week, I've only got one shot left to do the questionnaire, so I kind of want to get on to that part as fast as I can at this point)
Video uploaded by India Forever
Before we begin the analysis, I just want to establish the formula of the whole series for those of you that are somehow new to the series. In a typical Wile E. Coyote cartoon, Coyote tries to capture the Road Runner by using gadgets he purchased from the Acme corporation, however, it never ends well for Coyote due to his misuse of and/or defects with the products he buys. Now that all that's been cleared up let's get looking:
The first thing I want to discuss is the establishing shot where we focus on what product (or in some cases, multiple products) Coyote's bought this time. In this case we can see he's bought a load of Lightning Bolts, like the ones Zeus is always throwing around. what makes this particular bit funny is the fact that it implies that Acme have somehow figured out how to turn lightning bolts (which are just bolts of electricity that try and strike as close to the ground as possible) into a product you can throw at your enemies in order to smite them, thus giving the audience a little chuckle in the process (but the joke doesn't stop there):
Afterwards, Wile E. Coyote decides to demonstrate the power of these lightning bolts (while making sure to wear his rubber gloves, because as we all know, rubber is totally impervious to bolts of pure lightning) by throwing one of them at a random cactus (which is conveniently labelled as a "Practice Cactus"):
The reason Wile does this is because it helps Chuck Jones to quickly establish the stakes of what will happen if The Road Runner if he can't think of a way to outwit Wile E. Coyote before the lightning bolt gets him, thus adding tension to this particular situation. The reason for the tension needing to be built first is because much like with those pesky horror films, good comedies often rely on building tension in order to prepare the audience for something grand. The main difference is that with a comedy, you're building tension so that you can give your joke a grand punchline that'll release the tension with a massive wave of laughter, while with horror films, you're building tension in order to frighten the audience (so in a theoretical sense, horror and comedy are one in the same when it comes to their tricks):
Right afterwards, we hear the Road Runner coming towards Wile, so he diligently jumps into action and throws his lightning bolt towards the blue speed demon. Of course, the Road Runner eventually sees this coming and decides to skedaddle on out of there.
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It's at this point where the audience is beginning to anticipate how this attempt to catch the Road Runner will blow up in Wile's face, as the Road Runner is darting around all over the place with the lightning bolt hot on his tail, because as we all know, once they've been thrown lightning bolts are just nature's homing missiles (I learned that totally real and not at all made up fact during year 5's science lessons):
But after they go through the second tunnel, we see that the Road Runner has managed to turn the tables, as now he's the one giving chase to the lightning bolt. This throws the audience off guard because we don't ever see how Road Runner managed to pull this one off, all we know is that when they entered the tunnel, the lightning bolt was behind the Road Runner but when cut to them exiting the tunnel, the Road Runner is now chasing after the lightning bolt. The audience will end up laughing because of the sudden juxtaposition of this new situation where the chased becomes the chaser for a brief moment. Of course, after a brief moment the Road Runner does his classic "meep meep" in order to get the lightning bolt's attention. (which frustrates it greatly, because as we all know, lightning bolts are super emotional)
after the chase gets reversed, we then see that The Road Runner takes a detour as the lightning bolt zooms straight past him, expecting our road running friend to still be going straight. (because as we all know, lightning bolts can't comprehend the difficult and complex strategy of going in a different direction) As a direct result of this, we then swiftly recieve the punchline, where the lightning bolt unintentionally changes targets from Road Runner to Wile E. Coyote, as it chases him into the sunset giving him the occasional zap every now and then:
Most of the comedy from the punchline actually draws upon the audience seeing the stark contrast between Wile's smug satisfaction from his practice run when compared to how he's currently running away in fear of his own weapon (thus adding an extra bit of oomph to his catastrophic failure):
This is important because if we only saw one or the other, the audience wouldn't laugh as hard because now we'd be lacking crucial context (I.E: if we only saw the punchline on its own, Wile's failure wouldn't be nearly as funny, the same holds true for Wile's successful practice run), luckily for us, Chuck knew the importance of giving context in situations like this, or else people wouldn't laugh at his cartoons as hard as they did (and like wise, we wouldn't still be talking about them today)
Before I end this section on Chuck Jones, I'd just like to address something very important. I've been talking about the cartoon known as "Chariots of Fur" assuming it was from the 1960s (like a lot of his more famous works), but when I took a look at the end card and noticed it said the short had 1994 written down as it's copyright year, I was confused, so I decided to look up when "Chariots of Fur" actually came out, and I realised I'd screwed up big time:
That being said however, I think the fact I managed to confuse one of Chuck's cartoons from the 90s with one from the 60s is a testament to just how timeless Chuck's style of humour is (and definitely not me covering for my own stupidity as a supposed cartoon enthusiast), because when looking at Walt's cartoons, you can usually tell what time period they came from thanks to the art style alone. (as well as the humour being slightly different between decades) So as much as it pains me to say, I'll have to close the book on ol' Chuck in favour of getting started on the Questionnaire. (don't worry, you'll still get the CGI section)
But First, A Little Experimentation
This time around, the experimentation will revolve around trying to make something using only monochromatic colours in Dreams PS4, mainly because last night I realised that if I didn't do anything soon, I'd be spending time tinkering with everything if the characters became too difficult to see (and as I've learned while doing all that research on 2D Animation and then having to fast track the end of it, you've got to use that time wisely or else you'll end up rushing like I did):
So for this experiment, I could have taken one of two paths. I could have either made everything in colour and then used the grade and effects tool in order to remove the saturation of the entire scene, or I could simply create everything using only the monochromatic colours (Black, white and grey) and leave the colour saturation alone. (because at that point, it would have no effect on the already black and white environment) I decided to go with just doing everything in black and white because I figured it would be better if the environment is always black and white.
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So after I made that decision, I got right to work placing down a blank puppet and making it and the scenery black and white by using the spray-paint tool in sculpt mode while also making the sky white using the sun and sky tool (because a blue sky would stick out like a sore thumb if everything else is black and white), the reason I went with a blank puppet instead of designing a character out of it is because I still haven't designed my main character yet (so I defaulted to a blank puppet that vaguely resembled Mickey Mouse's body type:
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Image sourced from the CharacterRealms Wiki
Afterwards, I added a grey box in order to represent a generic building, that way the blank puppet would have something to stand in front of and I could use it to experiment with letting things in the background be a little bit looser, thus putting Dreams' painterly look to proper use for once. (even if it's only the environment) Why do I describe Dreams as having a "painterly look"? well you see. every object, character and environment is made out of little strokes called "Flecks", the more flecks an object is made of, the more detailed that object is. (which means that more detailed objects take up more of the graphics memory, so for creators like me, it's in our best interest to strike a balance between objects looking detailed and keeping the graphics thermometer down) These flecks also mean that Dreams doesn't need to use polygonal models (as claimed by Media Molecule), which actually makes the load times quite fast, but I'm getting off topic.
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So after I made the Mickey Mouse facsimile (or as I'm now going to call it, Ficky Fouse), I decided to play around with the grade and effects tool in order to see how I could further push the old school aesthetic. Eventually I landed on just a subtle hint of grain and an even more subtle scan line effect (despite the fact these old cartoons were designed to be projected in front of large audiences in a theatre rather than on a small TV using Cathode Ray Tubes), because I felt it would look best if those effects were subtle.
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At one point I even experimented with making the character super shiny because of the way the circular highlight looked on his shoes, but I decided against it because the shine would end up being too distracting (not to mention out of place due to what I'm going for)
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While I was messing with the grade and effects (which is essentially the post processing), I decided to also experiment with changing the way the flecks look on the building and the floor in order to make them look more like a painted background which in turn, would help me re-create the way the characters look slightly different from the background so that the audience can distinguish what the characters interact with and what's just part of the background once I reduce the detail, (thus also allowing me to save a ton on the graphics thermo) and I've got to say, I quite like the way everything looks once I loosened it out because now the background objects look more like they were painted into the scene, much like in the old cartoons where the backgrounds were painted while the characters were drawn and inked on to animation cels (thus creating a slight contrast between the two styles while still looking like they're part of the same world)
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Overall doing this experiment was quite fun, as I got to test out whether or not I was going to be able to re-make the black and white style (which I was to an extent, as I still haven't designed any of the new characters) and I even got to properly utilise the painterly look of Dreams itself in order to improve the background, which I never actually did before, as the game merely served as just a game where I could make cool stuff (and I also bought the early access because I'd been looking forward to the game since at least 2015, with no idea that it would be the key to me doing reasonably well academically)
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But alas, now's the time for me to actually get on with the questionnaire, which if I can just be honest for a moment, I'm not really a fan of. The reason I'm doing a questionnaire in the first place is so that I can have a piece of primary research that isn't the experiments (which I think are better because they give me more insight into the tools I'll be using to create the project), but I don't really want to do a focus group either, so the questionnaire will have to do, (but while I wait for feedback on that I can get started on the CGI section) so while I understand the importance of knowing what the audience wants, I'm mainly doing the questionnaire as a formality.
The Questionnaire
Alright, now it's time to stop playing around and get that questionnaire into gear. but first, we've got to ask. "What is a questionnaire?" Well you see, a questionnaire is a series of question that you ask people in order to serve as a guide in what you should try and aim for with any given project, I.E: if you were doing an animation and wanted to survey people on whether they liked Mario better than Sonic and more people said "yes", then you'd aim to make your work have a similar appeal to Mario rather than Sonic. The reason questionnaires are often used is that the studio (or whoever's commissioning the work) wants to know what similar products their target audience likes so that they can replicate said works to enough of an extent where a lawsuit can still be avoided. That being said, relying solely on these things can be quite detrimental, as the data you collect from said questionnaire is meant to be a guide and not the blueprints (at least in my opinion), because if you don't put your own spin on whatever idea you're trying to replicate, the audience will see right through what you're doing and not even bother checking out your work. (due to the obvious attempt at pandering to the audience) So with that said, let's get started.
Last time, I created a separate document where I would plan out each question before hand, but this time I think I'll be a little bit more off the cuff, although I do plan on doing at least 6 questions for this one (most of which will have a correct answer because I'm doing this to gauge how knowledgeable people are when it comes to cartoons from that time), and the questions themselves will mainly be based on the research I've already done thus far (that way I can have at least some basis on what I'm doing):
at this point, I just have to think of what I want my 6 questions to be, so I'll be sure to screen-shot everything once I add in the first question:
So for this questionnaire, I've decided to have the options appear underneath the question in a left to right format, that way I can save vertical space and minimise the amount of pages this whole thing will take (despite the fact I plan on sending it digitally and not physically, although it'll be nice if the questionnaire has a small file size):
For question 4, I decided to base it on the release date of "Chariots of Fur", mainly because I thought it would be fun to base one of the questions on a grave error I made, although saying that, I can't really call this questionnaire "the big black and white questionnaire" anymore, as now one of the questions is related to a cartoon that was created in colour (so I may change the name to something along the lines of "the big old school cartoon questionnaire")
And with that, we've officially finished work on the questionnaire
So How Was Making The Questionnaire?
To be honest, making this questionnaire was actually quite easy, as once I created the first question, I was able to copy and paste it all throughout the questionnaire (effectively saving me a ton of time having to re-type the format each and every single time), so now all I need to do is send the questionnaire through to teams, do this reflection piece and then I can finally move on to looking into the medium of CGI animation.
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That being said however, I probably wouldn't want to go out of my way to do another questionnaire (unless it was out of formality) because while I can get a bit of insight into my audience with theses, I just don't find them as fun as doing actual experiments (even if I don't get much insight into my audience this way, I do get insight as to what I could do, which is a little bit more important to me because I'm the guy that's making something, and I'll actually have more to say once each experiment is finished), that's not to say this wasn't fun in and of itself (my personal favourite question I came up with is question 4, because it'll allow me to take my original error and put it to good use), I just think the experiments are better.
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So without further ado, it's finally time to look into the medium of Computer Generated Imagery (I can reflect on the results of the questionnaire once everyone's responded)
Computer Generated Imagery (AKA, CGI ANIMATION/3D Animation/Computer Animation)
CGI Animation (or Computer Generated Imagery) is where animators work on a computer in order to animate 3D models of characters and objects within 3-dimensional environments. This style of animation was first used more as a special effects tool in live action films such as Jurassic Park (1993), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) and even Tron (1982):
Video Uploaded by Movieclips.
Fun fact, this stained glass knight was actually the first computer generated character ever made, predating Woody Pride and Buzz Lightyear by an entire decade.
It wasn't until a man named John Lassiter would come in and help create the world's first computer animated movie with 1995's Toy Story that CGI really started to flourish as a form of animation in and of itself, and boy would it flourish, especially in the 21st century where it would become the dominant form of animation in the west.
Video uploaded by Movieclips Classic Trailers
The main advantage of working with computer animation is that you don't have to worry about constantly re-drawing the characters over and over again because you're working with 3 dimensional models of the characters rather than 2D images. This can help save the animators save time in the long run because while modelling the characters might be expensive at first, you can keep re-using the exact same model for any future projects starring that particular character (at least until the model becomes dated, but even then, they'll usually just modify the existing model to be more detailed), I.E: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 1 and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 more or less use the same model for their main characters:
Video uploaded by Movieclips
Video uploaded by Movieclips
As you can see in these clips from Cloudy one and Cloudy 2, the character of Flint Lockwood looks more or less the same (albeit with a different shirt on due to the two scenes taking place at different points in their respective movie), the reason for this is so that the people involved don't have to waste time re-modelling the same character for the sake of the sequel, the only times you would need to re-model all the characters is if the old models are no longer compatible with the computers you're using (which is what happened during the making of Toy Story 3) or if the characters themselves have gone through a redesign process. I.E: The Sonic in the opening cutscene of the game Sonic Unleashed looks different to the one used in Sonic Boom, which will probably look different to the one from the upcoming Sonic Prime series (which will use the current design from the game):
Unleashed Sonic
Boom Sonic
Another major advantage of working in CGI (as we've seen from my recreation of a famous scene from 1994's The Lion King) is that the camera is much easier to manipulate than it is in 2D, the reason for this is due to the fact that the environments and characters are all 3D models rather than 2D illustrations, which allows the animators to use virtual cameras that can be placed anywhere in the scene and moved about according to what the scene calls for. (I.E: if you were to have a shot similar to that of The Lion King where the camera orbits around the characters, you'd simply animate the camera orbiting the characters using keyframes, much like how you'd animate the characters themselves)
We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update
Ok, so I managed to finally get the 2D section finished (albeit at the cost of fast tracking the research on Chuck Jones), but now I've only got one week to do the entire CGI section (because working fast isn't my greatest strong suit when it comes to writing), so I'll simply cut back to the chase and get on with it.
We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program
Another Major benefit is that because you're working with 3D models, you can quickly change elements of the scene more easily than you can with 2D animation (I.E: you can easily change the textures or even the lighting or a scene in order to see how it would look, unlike with 2D animation where you'd need to plan everything out before hand), especially in the early stages.
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This concept can actually be used to explain why sometimes the trailers for computer animated movies will use slightly different versions of some sequences from that of the finalised release one such film this happened with is 2010's Toy Story 3. (although in that case, they also changed the placement and animation on certain characters such as Stretch the Octopus and the toy chips):
Beta Footage
Video uploaded by Walt Disney Studios
Finalised Footage
Video uploaded by Crazy Buzz fan
Its not just Toy Story 3 either, as The Lego Movie also did a similar thing between its initial teaser trailer and the final movie with the scene where Emmet first meets "Wyldstyle" at the end of his work shift:
The Trailer
Video uploaded by Warner Bros. Pictures
The Final Film
Video uploaded by Elaynus Maximus
I could go on and on, but I'm getting off topic.
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The main disadvantage of CG animation is that you can't cheat the camera as much as you could with 2D animation (at least, not without a lot of work), the reason for this is because when parts of the character are no longer in view, they don't just disappear into the aether like they would in 2D, as such the animators constantly need to make sure that their characters and the movements they do can look good from all angles and not just the ones the audience ends up seeing. (as a pose to 2D animation where the animators only have to worry about one angle)
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The main reason they have to account for this is because they're trying to avoid something called "clipping", which is where certain body parts of the characters pass through each other and/or the environment (think when you're playing a video game and you get the character to stand in such a way where certain parts pass through the level geometry) due to a how the characters and environment don't usually come with collision detection the only time there is actual collision detection is whenever there are physics objects involved, as seen in the scene where Officer Earl is running away from a food avalanche in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 1:
Video uploaded by ImageworksVFX
The reason CG animators try and avoid clipping as much as possible is because if the characters are left unchecked, the many instances of clipping that would occur would kill the illusion that these are living breathing characters. (because no matter how hard we as a Species try, we can never walk through solid walls)
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In contrast, 2D animators and stop motion animators don't have to worry about their characters clipping through the floor, as 2D animators usually work in layers and stop motion animators work on sets that are built in real life (and thus the "collision detection" already exists, so the characters never pass through the floor)
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Now that we've established some of the principals, it's time to see who does this for a living, but before we can discuss any of the practitioners, let's see how that questionnaire from earlier went
Checking Back On That Pesky Questionnaire
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Originally, I wanted to have the questionnaire be done digitally, but my support worker convinced me to print out multiple copies instead, needless to say, I managed to get a good 7 responses from people. I guess you could say they're the 7 chaos responses. (ba, dum crash) Bad Sonic jokes aside, let's average out these responses to see how people did. (I've taken on each questionnaire and then moving on to to next one), the finished aggregation document and the questionnaire are both available for you to look at yourself if you want to, but I'll be going through each question one by one (although I'll be keeping everyone anonymous for the sake of identity protection):
For Question one where I asked when Mickey Mouse was first created, most people were able to get this one right (saying he was created in 1928), there was only one person that got it wrong but they were very close. (because that person said 1927, just one year off from when his was actually made) This was to be expected, as Mickey Mouse is known as one of the most recognisable cartoon characters on the entire planet, so it would figure that most people would at least know when he was created due to his massive popularity (which at one point, got eclipsed by Sonic The Hedgehog in the 90s, but Mickey was able to climb back to his spot on the top)
In question two, where I asked who created the first cartoon with sound, the results were a little bit more interesting, as three people said that Walt Disney did it first, another three stated that Max Fleisher did it first. (the Fleisher people were correct by the way) This intrigues me, as I wasn't expecting as many people to know about Max's work considering how little we see characters that aren't Betty Boop in modern culture. Although saying that, Max Fleisher himself was quite a famous animator back then, so I probably shouldn't be surprised One person broke the mould and stated that Chuck Jones did it first which I wasn't expecting. But hey, it's interesting that someone came to that particular conclusion, even if it was wrong in the end.
For Question three where I ask who originally owned the rights to Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, I managed to catch most people out, as everyone either Walt Disney or Fleisher Studios. I'll admit, Fleisher Studios was quite the wild card, as more people said that than I'd anticipated (because more than zero person circled that as their answer), one person said that universal owned Oswald, which was the correct answer, but another person actually said Winkler Productions, which might seem like the logical answer considering their name was in the title card as well as Universal and Disney's, so it makes sense someone would come to that conclusion, even if it was wrong in the end.
As for Question four, where I ask when Chariots of Fur was released, I was able to find a little bit of solace in the fact that I though that particular cartoon came out earlier than it did, as 5 people ended up mistaking which decade the cartoon actually came out in with some saying the 60s, the 70s and even the 50s, only two people managed to get the year of release right (which makes them both smarter than me when it comes to Wile E. Coyote), overall I'm happy I'm not alone in getting the time period mixed up because if everyone else got it right, I'd look even more like a big fool for getting it wrong.
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Ok, forget I said that, as I decided to look up when Wile E. Coyote first appeared, and it was at that moment I realised I'd screwed up even worse than I'd originally thought
So kids, the moral of this story is always double check your facts, even if you know the characters decently well, as if you don't do this regularly, you'll end up making the same mistake I did in assuming I knew the characters well enough to do accurate research on their creator (when it has become clear I didn't), but let's get back to the questionnaire
When it comes to Question five, where I asked when the character of Felix The Cat was first created, only two people managed to get the question right. Although saying this, I had a feeling that Felix might have been somewhat obscure among some of my peers, as one of them didn't know who Felix was (because it's not like DreamWorks is currently doing much with the character outside of that fashion brand), so this was a case where I more or less got what I expected. (that being very few people getting the answer right), although three people thought he was actually created in 1920, which was close, but there's no cigar.
Finally we come to question six, where I asked people where cartoons would premiere in the 1920s, most people said they first appeared in theatres which was actually the correct answer, although some people actually said they premiered on television. I wasn't sure why, so I decided to look up when television was invented to make sure I wasn't missing out on a potential bit of history I didn't know about, and thanks to Mitchell Stevens, I found out it was actually invented in 1927 (so it'd be pretty interesting if something from 1925 was airing on technology that wouldn't be invented for another 3 years), but I think the main reason those people said television is because I wasn't clear enough on what I meant by "Theatres" (perhaps they assumed I meant traditional theatres rather than movie theatres), so maybe I could have been more clear on that front.
So What Did I Think Of Doing A Questionnaire?
if I can be honest, while it was much quicker to make than other questionnaires I've done in the past, I'm still not a huge fan. Don't get me wrong, I can see why they're important, what with companies wanting to know more about who their audience is like so that they can cater to them, but I would much prefer to simply create something I enjoy making and then present it to audiences hoping and preying that they like what I've created as much as I did actually making it in a similar vain to people like Alvin Earthworm. (the creator of the influential internet series known as Super Mario Bros Z) As such, I would ONLY do another one of these if it was absolutely necessary to getting my next project off the ground, because otherwise I'd rather just do lots of research into a topic I like, develop several ideas off the back of said research, decide which idea I like most and then get to work creating the project. So with that being said, I'm glad I can close the book off this part and move on to talking about the practitioners of CGI. Starting with...
P.I.X.A.R. Animation Studios
Image sourced from Vocal.Media.com
That's right, we've switched from talking about individual people to talking about the studios they work at. (because I can't be trusted with individuals apparently)
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So P.I.X.A.R Animation Studios are currently the oldest studio that specialise in making computer animated features, as such we'll be able to chart the evolution of the entire medium as we take a look at their work.
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P.I.X.A.R's story actually begins with a man named George Lucas (the creator of the Star Wars franchise) who in the late 70's, wanted to form his own computer effects group, so he hired a man named Ed Catmull so that he could lead the new division, which George creatively named "The Graphics Group." The purpose of this particular division was to develop brand new technology that would allow for computer graphics to be used more often in the film industry.
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Later, in 1982, the graphics group would get to work on a fully computer animated sequence for a film called "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan", in this sequence, we get a conceptual video for something called "The Genesis Effect" (or as I erroneously like to call it, The SEGA Genesis Effect, because references are fun), where a desolate planet is transformed into a place where one could feasibly live:
Video uploaded by Gorkab
Two years later, the group would go on to create their first ever computer animated short with "The Adventures of Andre and Wally B." This short was created to show off a new computer they created called The P.I.X.A.R Image Computer, which they were trying to sell to others within the film industry:
Throughout The 1980s, they would go on to create the stained glass knight in Young Sherlock Holmes, as well as other shorts such as Knick Knack, Luxo Jr and most notably, Tin Toy. Why is Tin Toy so notable, well it's because it would eventually serve as a basis for the concept that would eventually become Toy Story. in 1986, one year after the graphics group made the stained glass knight from Young Sherlock Holmes, a man named Steve Jobs would purchase Lucas's computer division and then re-name it "P.I.X.A.R." (after the Pixar Image Computer they created)
Video uploaded by DING TIME
After their work on Tin Toy, Pixar managed to land an agreement with Disney where Pixar would make a half hour Christmas special based around Tinny from Tin Toy, but the Idea got scrapped in favour of a feature length animated picture that would feature Tinny getting lost and meeting a cowboy rag-doll named "Woody Pride" (keep the cowboy in mind, he'll come up later) as they go on an adventure to get back home, only to find a day-care centre where they'll never get out grown. (a concept that would later be modified for use in Toy Story 3)
Image sourced from The Disney Wiki
Eventually however, Tinny would end up getting replaced with a brand spanking new space toy named "Lunar Larry", although later his name was changed to "Tempus from Morph", but eventually the team settled on the name "Buzz Lightyear", all the meanwhile The cowboy ragdoll would evolve into the Woody we know today:
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Image sourced from Retro Junk
After around 4 years and an infamous black Friday reel, the film we know as "Toy Story" would come out and change the the history of animation as we know it by introducing the world to the idea of computer generated feature lenght animation, much like how Walt Disney introduced the western world to the idea of a full length animated picture with Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. Funny how the final decade of the 20th century would end up mirroring the third.
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Now that we've established how P.I.X.A.R. came to be, why don't we take a look at their works and see how they've improved over the years (I know we didn't quite do this for Walt or Chuck, but it's the only way I can squeeze in a bit about how CGI has improved over the years)
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The first scene I want to analyse is the scene in Toy Story where Buzz Lightyear is falling with style around Andy's Room:
Video uploaded by Jack Wojno
In this classic scene, Buzz Lightyear sets out to prove to Woody and the others that he can actually fly (even though he just ends up falling with style), here we'll be talking about how the camera is used in this scene:
The first shot I want to discuss is actually this first person shot where we get to see Buzz climbing up one of the edges on Andy's bed. The reason they chose to put this first person shot here is so that we can get a good sense of how small Buzz himself actually is because up until this point in the scene, the audience may have put that fact in the back of their minds for the time being, so this shot is there to both remind them of how small Buzz is and to foreshadow the part where he ends up on the track with the ramp (thus also foreshadowing how he'll end up "flying" later on in the scene)
Once buzz makes his big jump, we start off with a low angle to make Buzz's jump seem much grander and more dramatic that it actually is, thus allowing us to feel the dramatic weight of Buzz's actions from the perspective of a character of that particular size. Once he bounces off the classic "Luxo Ball", we cut to a high angle shot in order to add weight to Buzz's next jump.
I just want to briefly go over Woody's reaction here, as I think it's an important shot that shows that Woody is kind of jealous of Buzz's big stunt (which helps put his jealousy into perspective a little bit more once it crops up again later on in the film), but I also think that he's secretly a little impressed due to the way his face seems to carry a shocked expression. But at the same time however, I believe that it shows Woody being concerned that Buzz might break himself and/or something important.
Moving swiftly on, when Buzz Lightyear hitches a ride on top of a hot wheels car, we eventually cut to another first person shot, the reason Pixar went with a first person shot this time was not only to give the audience a blistering sense of speed like you'd find on a roller coaster (or by playing a Sonic game), but it's also a clever way to avoid letting the audience see Buzz Lightyear clipping through the loop. (because with a toy that's Buzz's size, the animators would have no choice but let him physically pass right through the loop) It's shots like this that your average 2D animated feature would have a much more difficult time replicating, as it would take a really long time to draw everything slightly differently with each frame (even if you were working in twos it would still be a challenge), where as Toy Story could pull it off with ease (thus showing off the potential for CGI as a film medium)
After Buzz launches himself off the ramp, we cut to Slinky, Rex and Mr Potato Head, who are all looking on in awe as Buzz effortlessly swoops through the air like an acrobat. The reason this particular shot is so important is because it lets the audience that they aren't the only ones impressed by Buzz's shenanigans, which further drives home the idea that this new guy commands a certain level of respect from his peers (well except Woody, because the story's about his jealousy towards Buzz)
afterwards, when Buzz is spinning around while attached to a toy plane that's hanging on the roof (which we inexplicably never see again in the entire series), we get multiple shots of the plane gearing into motion, including two where the other toys are watching in awe as Buzz takes a flight on what I'm going to call the "stringers airways" plane, and then afterwards we get a close up on Buzz as he's zipping around:
This helps the audience compare and contrast between what Buzz thinks he's doing and what the other toys are actually seeing while cleverly incorporating Andy's wallpaper in order to foreshadow Buzz finally getting to fly near the end of the film (or at least fall with a little more style than he did before):
Image sourced from Pop Culture Studies
After a quick spin, Buzz lands back on the bed safely to a massive round of applause from everyone except Woody, as the space ranger rubs his supposed successful flight attempt in Woody's face. (much to the cowboy's dismay) I would continue analysing the scene, but unfortunately due to time, we'll have to end it there, but before we go I should discuss how Pixar's animation has evolved ever since Toy Story.
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You see, a part of the reason their first movie was about Toys in the first place is because early CGI made everything look like it was plastic, which made doing human beings rather difficult to animate at the time, but this plasticky look ended up working in the movies favour for the most part, as most of the cast were all toys anyway. (although saying that, the graphics on this film haven't aged the best over the years, but they were great at the time)
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Six years later in 2001, they would go from animating characters with little to no fur to animating the likes of Sully, who had a lot more simulated hair than all the other Pixar characters from around that time:
1995
Image sourced from The Disney Wiki
2001
Image sourced from CNN (the second scourge of news behind FOX News)
Much like characters with fur, human characters were also very difficult for the team that made Toy Story to get right, so the only humans we see in the first Toy Story are Andy, Sid, Andy's mum, Molly and Hannah, (in fact, a lot of P.I.X.A.R's early work minimised the amount of humans as much as possible by instead focusing more on the lives of other creatures such as ants, monsters and even fish) but by around 2004 when P.I.X.A.R would release the first Incredibles movie, the human dial would be cranked up to eleven due to the better technology allowing for more complex human animation:
2004
1995
Image sourced from The Toy Story Wiki
Image sourced from CinemaBlend
Nine years later (after a lot of films featuring everything from talking cars to robots that fall in love and even old men sending their houses into the air), P.I.X.A.R would introduce a new lighting trick called "Global Illumination", better known as "Ray Tracing" (or "RTX" for short), especially recently with the mythical release of a supposed gaming console called the PlayStation 5 (though I haven't found one for sale in the wild, so I've got the forensics team working to verify its existence), which essentially allows for the lighting team to get their virtual lights to bounce off of surfaces in a more realistic way that they could in films such as Toy Story and the first two "Cars" movies, this trick was first introduced with 2013's "Monsters University" (although P.I.X.A.R didn't invent the idea of ray tracing, but they were the first to utilise it)
2001 (RTX Off)
Image sourced from Blu-ray.com
2013 (RTX On)
Image sourced from The Disney Blog
1995 (RTX Off)
2019 (RTX On)
Image sourced from NME
Right now P.I.X.A.R is currently gearing up to release their latest fill known as "Luca", it has a similar aesthetic to that of 2009's "Up", but now the characters are all super detailed and expressive thanks to the incredible leaps and bounds in computer technology over the past 26 years:
Video uploaded by Pixar
Now that we've talked about P.I.X.A.R, it's time to move on to our next practitioner, which is...
Sony Pictures Animation
Video uploaded by EnormousRat
The reason I want to talk about this particular studio is because make their movies using completely different art styles to that of your average P.I.X.A.R flick, because while P.I.X.A.R (and the grand majority of other CG practitioners) chooses to put a lot of detail into the environment and characters, Sony Pictures Animation instead experiments with different art styles with each new intellectual property (of course with sequels they'd keep a similar art style to the original) as we can see with these posters of films they made within the ever popular super-hero genre:
Sony
Image sourced from Rotten Tomatoes
P.I.X.A.R
Image sourced from IMDb
In a way, you could say that Sony Pictures Animation is like the P.I.X.A.R of the cartoony aesthetic, even if it comes at the cost of having an inconsistent track record when it comes to their movies.
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In 2001, The people over at Sony were trying to sell off Sony Pictures Image-works (or SPI for short), which was their currently failing special effects devision who were responsible for the special effects for films such as the then upcoming Stuart Little 2 (keep that film in mind, it'll play an important role later), a year later, after Sony failed to find a potential buyer, Sony Pictures Image-works would end up getting re-worked into an animation studio after Sony (their parent company) ended up being impressed with their work on Stuart Little 2 (told you that film would come back) as well as seeing how much much money films like P.I.X.A.R's "Monster's Inc" and Dreamwork's "Shrek" ended up bringing in during their theatrical runs (back when cinemas were the only way to see a new film on release day), and on May 9th, Sony Pictures Animation would be born (while SPI would take over all digital production for them)
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The first shorts that SPI and Sony Pictures Animation would produce in order to test their strength and weaknesses would be both "The Chubbchubbs!" and "Early Bloomer":
Video uploaded by Imageworks VFX
But it wouldn't be until 2006 when the company would release their first motion picture with the movie, Open Season, A movie about a bear named Boog who's trying to get back home with the help of a one horned buck named Elliot while they learn to become friends along the way, all the meanwhile the titular open season is approaching, which will allow a bunch of hunters to kill the main characters.
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You might be thinking that this is a similar set up to what happens in the movie Toy Story, and that's because you're right (except the part about the hunters), as Toy Story's plot is all about how Woody and Buzz have to learn to work together in order to escape Sid's house get back home to Andy before he and his family move out of their old house. Now while the concept might seem familiar, the execution for Open Season is slightly different, as instead of sticking the characters in a small confined room for most of the film, Sony makes Boog and Eliot explore a big forest in order to find their way home (thus making it more of a road trip movie) and then it ends with Boog and Eliot deciding to stay in the forest with all their new friends unlike Toy Story, where Woody and Buzz achieve their original goal of getting to Andy.
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But it's not Open Season I want to analyse for this section (as much as I enjoyed watching it when I was a kid), as that title actually goes to 2018's "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse", particularly the scene where we get introduced to Spider Man Noir, Peni Parker and Spider-Ham in the Spider-Shed (I know I skimmed over quite a bit of Sony Pictures Animation's history, but it's not as extensive as that of P.I.X.A.R's history from it's formation to the creation of Toy Story):
Video uploaded by Jess Maron
The reason I've chosen this scene in particular is because it showcases how multiple styles of animation, from Noir, Peter, Gwen and Miles' more subdued and realistic movements to Spider Ham's more over the top cartoony style of animation, can come together in ways that never would have been possible during the time the first computer generated films were coming out (I.E: Toy Story 1, Antz and A Bugs Life) due to the limited (by our modern standards) technology of that time, so without further ado, let's dive right in:
So the first thing I want to quickly mention is the excellent job the animators have done to capture the comic book style, as this single shoot looks like it could have been plucked out of a marvel comic, given how the style is a lot more exaggerated than what you'd find in a typical P.I.X.A.R movie:
Image sourced from Pinterest
But I'm getting off track.
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So the first thing we see in this clip is that our heroes are figuring out how they're going to beat Kingpin and get Peter B. Parker and Spider Gwen back to their universes, but after Miles realises they're going to be out numbered, Aunt May then decides to give our heroes name tags and pens and tells them "you're going to need these" with a particularly confident look on her face. This tells us that right now, Aunt May knows something that the main characters and the audience don't, but we quickly learn shortly after Gwen, Miles and Peter's spider sense ability kicks in:
It's here where we start getting introduced to the other "Spider-people" who until this point, aren't known to the audience yet (unless they've seen the trailers, because the marketing team rules all apparently), so it's a big surprise to learn that there are even more Spider-People than just Gwen, Peter and Miles. That being said however, the introduction of the other characters isn't completely out of left field, as when Kingpin's collider is wreaking havoc across the multiverse, one of his assistants explicitly mentioned that there were five different dimensions opening up at the same time, thus meaning their sudden introduction makes sense in context with what's going on:
Video uploaded by Jess Maron.
Fun fact, the dimension IDs shown here are actually the same dimension IDs that are used for those characters in the actual comics (for example, we see that the Earth 1610 is the main dimension the film takes place in. That dimension happens to be where Miles is actually from in the comics), but that's a whole can of worms even I don't know much about because I don't read enough comic books:
The reason I'm pairing these two together is because of how they both get similar introductions, but their contrasting personalities help the two stand out from one another, because while Spider-Man Noir (who is actually black and white because he's in part based off of old detective movies) takes himself very seriously and quotes how wherever he goes "the wind follows", thus explaining why there's a breeze inside the Spider-Shed. (it also helps that his black and white nature allows him to seem more like he's in the shadows) Meanwhile, Peni Parker (whose entire art style and animation style are heavily influenced by anime and mangas such as Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball) gives the others a friendly greeting before she and her Spider robot (who's called "SP//Dr") jump towards the ground (complete with the blurry backgrounds you find in a lot of actual anime and anime inspired shows):
Image sourced from The Spokesman Review
and then after those more intense introductions, the audience expects Spider-Ham (who is the best character in the entire movie) to get introduced in a similarly intense way, but in a brilliant subversion of expectations that ruiner of Star Wars Rian Johnson wishes he could pull off, this happens instead:
That's right, he just shows up and comments about his hands being wet because he "washed his hands". This then gets the audience to chuckle because of the stark contrast between what we were expecting (an epic introduction with epic music) and what we actually got. (which is a little cartoon pig waddling over with music that fits the small scale of his introduction) The reason Spider-Ham is my absolute favourite character in the entire movie is in part because despite being a three dimensional character in a three dimensional film, he's animated as if he were a 2D character instead. Heck, the animators did such a good job that when I first saw Spider-Ham in the trailer, I though he was actually animated in 2D due to the authenticity of his animation (this just goes to show how far CG has come since Toy Story, as a character like Spider-Ham would have looked totally off in those old films if they attempted to do his cartoony movements), which even extends to some of his poses looking slightly different depending on which angle we're viewing him from:
Not to mention how sometimes his arms will bend like that of the old rubber-hose cartoon characters of last century:
After the new spider-people introduce themselves, we go into a lightning round of their variations of the prototypical Spider-Man origin story all at once because they've been introduced significantly later than Peter B. Parker and Spider Gwen and they basically have the same origin story anyway (except Spider-Ham, he was a spider that was bitten by a radio-active pig and then he turned into a pig himself), so this lightning round serves to get their origin stories over and done with as quickly as possible. Also I should mention that while we're in their universes, the entire aesthetic changes to reflect where they came from, I.E: Spider Man Noir is in a black and white world, Peni is in a futuristic world and Spider-Ham is briefly animated in actual 2D, I say "briefly" because for some reason, Spider-Ham becomes 3D again when he's taking pictures. (it's just his universe that happens to be flat)
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I quite like this scene overall because of its immaculate pacing (what with how quickly we move through their origin stories) and the fact that it's where a lot more of the other animation styles blend together in a manner where it still manages to be cohesive with the rest of the film's comic book aesthetic, thus allowing animation enthusiasts such as myself to put the progression of CGI as a medium for story telling into perspective, as we've gone from films looking like this:
Video uploaded by Movieclips
To this in the span of about 22 years (this count goes from 1998's Antz all the way to 2020's Soul):
Video uploaded by Pixar
And with that, I think I'll officially conclude the research phase here, because if I don't I won't have any time to actually design my new characters or decide on the plot for my new cartoon, so if I conclude now, I'll have time to develop all that stuff over the course of the next few days.
In Conclusion
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed looking into the history of animation and finding out more about all the advantages and disadvantages of working in 2D and 3D animation as well as looking into the various practitioners of both forms of animation, but let's face it, for as much as I managed to cover over the past three weeks, there was still so much more I could have (and quite frankly should have) discussed during this phase. I.E: I could have looked into the medium of stop motion animation, Walt's work on films and shorts such as Steamboat Willie and Sleeping Beauty, Chuck Jones' Duck Season Rabbit Season trilogy, the film Surfs Up and its unique documentary elements, Ext.
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Speaking of things I could have delved deeper into, I wish I'd taken a little bit more time to actually look into Chuck Jones and "Chariots of Fur", as if I'd have done that, I wouldn't have realised that my entire timeline was all wrong, and when my tutor mentioned that I could have compared Charoits of Fur to Chuck's earlier work, I was already getting started on the CGI section (so I was trying to prioritise getting that done), but I really should have done that. (although I blame how long I took doing research on Walt Disney for that blunder)
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Although with that being said, I do have an idea. You see, I'm going to be using Dreams PS4 to animate this cartoon. The trouble is that I can only use the game at my house because the college still don't have any PS4's (and I don't think my current tutor has one either, unlike last year where I would have also got to use my other tutors PS4 at college until Covid changed everything), so it would have meant I'd be left twiddling my thumbs doing nothing of value at college on the weeks I'd be in. (which isn't a very productive use of my time) But one night, I had an idea that I could do during the animation phase. What if during the weeks when I'm in college, I were to expand on the research I did over the past 3 weeks, and during weeks where I'm at home, I could get right back to animating the project, thus allowing me to kill two birds with one stone. I was feeling delightfully devilish that night.
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So overall, I enjoyed doing this phase, but I can't wait to to trial this new idea soon, but just so you know, any potential new research that I do will go below the button that takes you to the practical skills page.
The Small Research Expansion Pack
Hey all, future me here. I've finally hit that roadblock I was talking about where I can't actually do any animating due to the fact that the college STILL haven't got PS4s for me to use (and I don't think any of my current tutors have PS4's and/or a copy of Dreams), so for the time being I'll have to work on this research expansion pack until I can get home and continue animating (so in other words, with Dreams I get speed at the cost of being able to use it in multiple places at once), to start off, I'll be going back and amending what I said about Chuck Jones (since that's the part that inspired me to plan this part in the first place)
Charles Martin Jones (AKA, Chuck Jones): Revised Edition
Image sourced from Newsweek
Ok, let's do this one last time. Chuck Jones is a famous cartoonist who is mainly known for his work on the golden age of looney tunes shorts (I.E: The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons, the Duck Season Rabbit Season Trilogy and even Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century), as such his more famous work was actually from the 40s and 50s. (although he did produce quite a lot of stuff in later decades too)
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(although he did produce quite a lot of stuff in later decades too) Since I already took a quick look at an example of his work on the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Cartoons (even if it was one of the ones from 90s), I'm actually going to take a look at a scene from "Rabbit Seasoning" (because then I'll have looked at both his visual and more dialogue based humour):
Video Uploaded by ariel141
In this scene, Bugs Bunny uses his wit to trick Daffy Duck into begging Elmer Fudd to shoot him multiple times because Daffy didn't quite catch how Bugs Bunny managed to change the target from himself to Daffy (thus meaning Elmer ends up dislocating Daffy's beak multiple times), unlike the Road Runner cartoons where the visuals have to fulfil both the set up and the punch line, the dialogue in this short can be used to set up the joke while the visuals can form the punchline of the joke (I.E: Bugs asking whether Elmer wants to shoot him now or wait until he gets home, afterwards daffy would demand that Elmer shoots him now, after which Bugs scolds Daffy and says that Elmer doesn't have to shoot him now, but Daffy insists that Elmer has to shoot him now. So Elmer shoots Daffy instead of Bugs because Bugs managed to change the target):
for the set up, we can see that Daffy is scolding Elmer Fudd for not knowing a rabbit when he sees one because earlier in the short, Bugs interacts with Elmer while he's hunting rabbits. This is the first building block that Chuck puts to set up for when Bugs eventually messes with Daffy's words later on in the scene
Afterward Bugs decides to admit that he's in fact a rabbit and then asks if Elmer would like to shoot him now or wait until he gets home. This helps set up the contrast between Bugs' calm and collected response to the situation and Daffy's anger at Elmer (both in this scene and the rest of the cartoon), which will allow Bugs to use Daffy's anger to his advantage later on in the short:
Here, we get the most important part of the joke (besides the punch line), as after Daffy Duck tells Elmer to "SHOOT HIM NOW, SHOOT HIM NOW!" Bugs Bunny Chimes in and tells Daffy to "Stay out of this, he doesn't have to shoot you now" (keep that pronoun in mind, it's going to come back soon), to which daffy ends up responding "HE SO DOE'S HAVE TO SHOOT ME NOW! SO SHOOT ME NOW!" This is funny because of the way Bugs Bunny manages to trick Daffy into demanding Elmer shoots him. He does this by telling Daffy "He doesn't have to shoot YOU now" instead of "He doesn't have to shoot ME now", but because Daffy's too angry at Bugs and Elmer to notice Bugs' little switcheroo, he ends up falling into Bugs' trap. (thus completing the set up for the joke where Elmer ends up shooting Daffy instead of Bugs)
Before we do move on to the punchline, I just want to highlight the way Daffy looks just before he gets shot at, as it highlights how Daffy thinks he's got Bugs beat, but as you're about to see in the next screen-shot (or if you've seen the original cartoon) that's not quite what happens next:
Here we get the climactic punchline of the entire joke, as Elmer Fudd shoots Daffy Duck right in the face, thus robbing the gullible duck of all his satisfaction (and also inexplicably causing his beak to end up in a different part of his head), it's here where the audience would start bursting into tears of laughter because of how Daffy Duck ended up getting his comeuppance for his arrogance from earlier. This joke is actually a good example of the rule of three (not to be confused with the rule of thirds), which is a rule in story telling that state that three of something. (be it acts in a story, magic McGuffins or variants of the same jokes) is usually the best number to go with in any given situation (I.E: Three trials the heroes must face, three magic diamonds to prevent the world from going into another ice age and even three main characters in a story) The reason this joke is a particularly good example is because of how each variant is set up quite differently, as the first variant involved Bugs tricking Daffy into demanding that Elmer shoots him, the second variant is actually Daffy's fault because of the way he points out Bugs Bunny's "pronoun trouble", only to end up shooting himself in the foot as he still ends up begging Elmer to shoot him. As for the final variant, that one actually involves Daffy trying a different approach where he asks Elmer a series of questions about his hunting career, only for Bugs to interject by asking Elmer "if he were a rabbit what would you do?" This causes Daffy to ask "yeah, you're so smart. If I were a rabbit, what would ya do?" After that, the punch line comes in again, as Elmer responds by going "Well I'd..." and then he proceeds to aim his gun and shoot daffy once more.
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What makes each variant work is that the set up is always different while still drawing on the way Bugs and Daffy are characterised in this short. Speaking of characterisation, it's Chuck Jones that would go on to make the most commonly used interpretations of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, with Bugs Bunny being a rabbit who uses his wit to get himself out of a jam and Daffy Duck being the gullible ego maniac who always gets his comeuppance for his arrogance. These characterisations are still widely known and used today, as seen in "Looney Tunes: Back In Action" (which is an underrated classic in my book because I grew up with it and wouldn't find out about Space Jam until later on):
Video Uploaded by Movieclips
Overall, I do quite like Chuck's work in the animation industry, as without him we wouldn't have the modern characterisations of Bugs and Daffy, and he's responsible for classic characters such as Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew (may he rest in piece) and even Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. So now that I've given him the amendment he deserves, I'll have to end this section here for the time being, as it was actually arranged for me to work from home in order to finish this animation, so I'm afraid that's all folks. (for real this time, maybe)