Appeal is quite a hard principle to 'pin down.' It could be argued that there are no right or wrong techniques of appeal as everyone has their own personal tastes. However, when dealing with animation, and especially when attempting to create a style that will be liked by a mass audience, there are a few traits that seem to work.
Character Analysis:
Tinkerbell from Disney's Peter Pan (1953)
One of the best sources that I have found for developing my understanding of the principle 'appeal' is the blog by John Kricfalusi:
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/12/disney-principles-appeal-1.html
In this blog he has taken the 12 original principles laid out by Frank Thomas and ollie johnston. Using their theories of appeal, he has broken down the factors that he thinks affect an audiences regard for characters.
John Kricfalusi summarised the style of 'Disney Appeal' being based upon 'infant, baby animal and feminine traits... Big heads, big eyes, soft flesh - but wrapped around good construction and perspective.'
<This is an illustration by Fred Moore. It is interesting to note the similarity between his own illustrations and that of his work for disney.
The style of his drawings represent the era that they are from as well as Moore's ability to make an 'appealing' drawing. Part of the appeal is from the link to children and what was perceived as fashionable during the 1940s/50s. During that time, children's dolls were stylised in a similar way. As can be seen from the 'Maggie' doll from 1950's the faces were very round with large eyes and 'button' noses.
I think that one of the reasons why I enjoy the aesthetics of 'Peter Pan' is because it carries the ideologies of the time it was made and when the original story was written. There is a history within the style of the images.
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| This is an image of Margaret Kelly, the reference model used for Tinkerbell. |
On Kricfalusi's blog, he talks of a decline in appeal. That in animation today, a lot of artists are veering away from 'cute' disney style animation and turning to new styles that wouldn't necessarily appeal to a large scale audience
'If you grew up in the 70s or afterwards, you've probably come to accept ugliness and lack of sensory pleasure in all the arts: music without melodies, sloppy illustration, icky fine art, ugly cartoons both on TV and in feature films. A small handful of today's cartoonists look back to the 1930s to the 50s and see that obviously everything was more appealing to the senses back then, but most people today just accept ugliness in art matter-of-factly. Anything obviously appealing, like an old time melody is automatically written off as corny and unhip.
At one time, the "look" of a cartoon was its main factor. It drew you in to find out what it was about just by being so much fun to look at. Now watching cartoons is an acquired taste. It has to be learned (like eating broccoli) because cartoons aren't attractive anymore. They actually hurt your eyes and you have to train from youth to ignore the physical pain before you can accept cartoons for some other reason than that they are cartoons.
There are more executives in charge of animation today at each studio than there ever were, and they equate "appeal" with "too cartoony". They all want to be taken seriously as filmmakers, so to them the uglier, blander, more detailed and less fun to look at their characters are, the more "realistic" they are. "Realistic" equals "quality" to the sensory deprived.'
'If you grew up in the 70s or afterwards, you've probably come to accept ugliness and lack of sensory pleasure in all the arts: music without melodies, sloppy illustration, icky fine art, ugly cartoons both on TV and in feature films. A small handful of today's cartoonists look back to the 1930s to the 50s and see that obviously everything was more appealing to the senses back then, but most people today just accept ugliness in art matter-of-factly. Anything obviously appealing, like an old time melody is automatically written off as corny and unhip.
At one time, the "look" of a cartoon was its main factor. It drew you in to find out what it was about just by being so much fun to look at. Now watching cartoons is an acquired taste. It has to be learned (like eating broccoli) because cartoons aren't attractive anymore. They actually hurt your eyes and you have to train from youth to ignore the physical pain before you can accept cartoons for some other reason than that they are cartoons.
There are more executives in charge of animation today at each studio than there ever were, and they equate "appeal" with "too cartoony". They all want to be taken seriously as filmmakers, so to them the uglier, blander, more detailed and less fun to look at their characters are, the more "realistic" they are. "Realistic" equals "quality" to the sensory deprived.'
Director of Coraline, Henry Selick stated, "Tadahiro's heavily influenced by late ['50s] and early ['60s] American illustration, the kind that's portrayed in Mad Men, back when photography wasn't the first place you'd go to solve things... It's a fresh, illustrative style, very graphic, but he adds a touch of soul -- a tiny bit of reflection in a water surface, a shadow, a disturbance of atmosphere. His work breathes."
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| designs by Uesugi for the lead character Coraline. |
Like Tinker Bell Wendy has a certain amount of feminine charm she has the classic over size blue eyes and a slender body but in comparison to Tinker Bell her appeal is more of a subtle innocence this is noted by the fact she has little or no bust and although she is probably in her teens she is still on the child end of teenager.
Another good example of appeal would be the Pixar animated film WALL-E in which they give human quality’s to robots I find WALL-E’s charm in his expressions especially the way his binocular looking eyes are slightly drooping which just his a kind of sad or inquisitive look.
In general I find the humanising of objects and animals gives them appeal and it is something of a recurring theme in Disney with such examples as ’Beauty and the Beast’ and more recently ‘finding Nemo’. I think the idea of looking for character in something you would not usually find it is something that everyone dose even if its just finding a smiley face in a random object for example a light switch.
Character Analysis of Captain Hook from Peter Pan
Appeal is a hard principle to define, because appeal is based on the characters personal appeal so arguably its entirely subjective on the viewer, as its personal opinion what is visually pleasing and not. Although this explains the wide variety of different styles of animation and character types we are provided with, if we all liked the same things, say timid animal characters shot in stop motion, there would be little demand for abstract animation, hand drawn, action scenes etc, making all animation rather one directional.
However with the diverse opinion in what is 'appealing' the industry is encouraged to develop new ideas and specialise in styles to create a familiarity with their audience.
His aesthetic appeal-
-regal clothing and perfectly curled hair suggests he is not only a man of vanity but of importance too,
His extravegant movements and constant overlapping action of his feather plummage makes the eye fixate on him and humour is created through the constant flopping of a feather over this proud character.
Again it is hard to create appeal for a villain, as the whole point of them is to be disliked, by creating situations which reveal Hook's more human side he is a far more relatable character. This is expressed in several points, most obviously Hook's fear of the tick tock crocodile, displaying vunerability in his character. Another point I picked up on was the attention the character made to his appearance, suggesting that he has insecurities in his appearance- another thing we pity him for, battle scars of not the guy only has one hand!
And lastly, he's a property owner, in today's economic climate, this is very appealing! :)
"Purves has created a memorable gallery of characters who are so close to real, despite the artificial trappings, that disbelief is willingly, happily suspended"
As mentioned before that people are appealed to personification of objects, so are they to highly accurate depictions of reality, such as the quote above mentions. My personal appeal to these puppets comes from their fragile yet natural timed movement and their sheer believability that these are emotional operatic characters.
Check out this bad boy
