tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post6742796401430118488..comments2024-03-24T16:25:05.751-04:00Comments on Mayerson on Animation: Six Authors In Search of a Character: Part 5, Character DesignMark Mayersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00065971589878678848noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-12839749775219564792009-06-18T23:53:34.553-04:002009-06-18T23:53:34.553-04:00The character designer has done more than design a...<i>The character designer has done more than design a look; the designer has provoked expectations. Presented with these designs, the animator must deal with the expectations or risk alienating the audience.</i><br /><br />Interesting. I've never actually thought about that way, but it makes total sense. A chubby character and a skinny character will move appropriately, and if they didn't, credibility would be lost (unless the aim is irony).<br /><br />I think this also addresses a common complaint of John Kricfalusi's (among other things) of how contemporary character designs don't say a single thing about the character's personality, and then that the animation, stock or generic, does nothing to help. It can, as it did in <i>Ratatouille</i>: I agree with John K. that the designs are mostly generic (excepting Anton Ego), but I still think the animation saved much of the picture.<br /><br />This is also a complaint about most anime, in which characters are generally distinguished by age, hair, and costume alone. (And some of that hair and those costumes are pretty radical.) Physique also always says nothing. In the best cases (e.g. nearly all of Miyazaki's films) the actions and not the performance tell us what we need to know to accept the characters as living beings. In Miyazaki's case, though, his animation is skillful enough to warrant performances, rare as they are.Steve Spiegelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14923450668149200380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27501132.post-4732640139344496752007-05-26T08:05:00.000-04:002007-05-26T08:05:00.000-04:00"Animators not only lack the unity with characters..."Animators not only lack the unity with characters that live actors have, they also lack the physical identification with a character. The animator’s physique is does not have to relate in any way to a character’s physique. It is possible for a single animator to deal with a range of characters, regardless of their appearances, and the animator must collaborate with designers who shape audience expectations as to how a character should move and behave."<BR/><BR/>I think the only reason live-action actors have to look like the right "character design", is for the audience. I think it's very possible for actors to act like a different character design though. Good examples are for example Gollum, or the faun in Pan's Labyrinth, or characters with physical defects, like the wonderful performance of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, or (as I read in "Hirschfeld On Line") Zero Mostel transforming into a Rhynoceros on stage without costume. That physical unity is of course useful for actors, but I wouldn't overrate it either.<BR/><BR/>I think that's something that could be very important to realize for animators. Perhaps something that would improve on animated performances... if you learn how to act (on all levels) like the character, than you can really get into it. If you get to that point, you don't have to act "like yourself" - only aiming for hitting the right emotions, etc - and then add the character's physicalities to it; it could all become united.<BR/><BR/>Of course, this is something that requires a lot of acting skill and intuition, and a lot of focus, so it would be nearly impossible to do this for TV, or even for more than 1 character (or a few max) on a feature film.Benjamin De Schrijverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04113326323094548928noreply@blogger.com