Rubber Hose Animation

Swing you Sinners by Max Fleischer 1930


Rubber Hose animation was dominant in early (american) animation. Although the rubber hose style takes away the articulation of the joints, the limbs still retain an essence of naturalistic movement. The simplified forms still follow the arcs that natural movement follow.

Belleville Rendezvous by Sylvain Chomet 2003

This is a modern interpretation of Rubber hose animation by Sylvain Chomet. I think it was a clever technique to reference an old style of animation in order to represent the sequence being in the past as it contrasts to the main style used within the film.

slow in and slow out

slow in and slow out is important for realism in animation. All moving objects start slowly and finish slowly so its important to take this into context when animating making sure there are more frames at the start and end than in the middle, it also helps in recognising the object because if the object is moving fast from begining to end you have less time to figure out what it is.


Tootles   :-)

Appeal

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.

For example, traditional Disney went for an aesthetically pleasing look with their Princesses and creatures such as Bambi and Thumper.

Aimed primarily at children this 1940s classic is a product of its time, from the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves several years beforehand, the animation forefront had only began to pick up.

What amazed the audiences at the time was the reality of creating this fluid animated feature and these passive cute characters where more sociallbly suitable to the more censored society of the 1940s.

Taking a look at  modern day Disney Pixar characters such as Carl an Russell

With the development in animation, audiences are less intrigued by simply the process of animation, this encouraged Disney to rethink their appeal. For their characters to rely on their aesthetic appeal was simply not enough anymore, hence why films such as The Aristocats and Oliver and Co where not as successful as expected. Disney needed to create personal appeal through familiarity, Pixar achieved this through cultural allusions, things in our culture that we can relate to. My example is Carl and Russell from Up!
Russell is a boy scout and pixar really plays on this theme from his outfit to his actions ( helping the elderly, demanding to build a fire) we empathise with this character and appeal greatly to his realisticness as we picture this character in our own lives. Carl (the protagonist) is grumpy and imperfect with prominent attitude throughout, this is in stark contrast to the early Princess characters of the 30s-50s who remained passive and polite throughout their films.

Moving away from Disney (because frankly I think we spend too much time there!)

Warner Brothers apply a entirely different approach to appeal, avoiding realistic characters, they manipulate animations ability to distort reality to their advantage.They envoke the 'cartoon' feel playing on exaggeration and repitition to create humour.

"What's up Doc?"

With short animations like Looney Tunes, the audience build a relationship with these characters over time, repittion of says like "What's up Doc?" makes the animation, more rememorable and easy to mimic. With the taunting of the Hunter adds a flare of cheek to their characters giving Warner Brothers a more rebellious edge on their Disney competitors.

I hope this makes relevant sense!

Nibbs X

a little more ...

Another useful reference to the pros and cons of straight ahead and pose to pose:

Animating: Pose to Pose + Straight Ahead

Both have their advantages and problems. The best approach, then, can be to mix them:

Hibrid method

1. start with Pose to Pose;
2. in one of next passes, maybe only for certain key parts that don't look good with software interpolation, return and fill in between the already keyframed poses, animating straight ahead, substituting the interpolated data by new keyframes.

Good points:

• unites the best of both worlds;
• avoids the main problems with each method when used alone;
• can give a wealthy mix between tight control and creative freedom.
• Pose to Pose is a good overall method, but Straight Ahead is better for faster actions (so an animator may end up doing frame by frame on such parts);
• Straight Ahead is not a good idea for mechanical motion and anything that can be interpolated well with animation curves, for which Pose to Pose works very well.

Bad points:

Actually, nothing not present already in the two methods:

• requires planning for the Pose to Pose part;
• it's probably slower than using Pose to Pose alone;
• gives a little more chance for pitfalls in the Straight Ahead parts, though probably in much smaller and easier to fix steps than when using Straight Ahead alone.

taken from : straight ahead and pose to pose

Stretch and Squash

This drawing technique gives the illusion of mass and volume to a drawing.
By stretching a character the animator can create the illusion of weight being moved to different parts of the body.

Notice how the body shape squashes down as the weight is on the floor.

The form is then stretched (and so is the weight more evenly across the body) as the figure leaps in to the air,

exaggerating the action through movement of weight.

Squash is used again to emphasise the peak of his jump symbolising the slowing of direction and showing the movement of weight back to the centre of his body.

As the boy's movement changes direction, a further use of stretch is applied to the drawing to emphasise his fall into the water.

This diagram is an example of how stretch and squash are almost used in balance with each other, to mimic the fluidity of natural movement.

When an object moves, it's movement indicates the rigidity of the object.

object is a hard solid material= less use of stretch and squash applied when animating

object is a malluable/squidgey material= more use of stretch and squash when animating

'The most important rule to squash and stretch is that no matter how squashed or stretched an object gets, it's volume remains constant.'

Nibbs X.

Secondary Action

This is a motion or movement that is very subtle, to add realism to an object or character. When a character turns for example their hair will swing, if some one gets up their head might move. The motion won’t be exaggerated, the motion should be visible, but to the audience should be taken as second nature. Realism was not to be noticed for its individual motion.

Another example are clothes on characters, when they walk an item like a long coat will sway gently. 

Secondary motion is a key to executing realistic motion, when it is done wrong it is clear to the audience that something is wrong. So it must be done with the understanding of what the animator is animating and how it might possible move in real life.

EXTRACTS - from 'The Illusion of Life'


Secondary Nature, Page 63, 64


Often, the one idea being put in a scene can be fortified by subsidiary action within the body. A sad figure wipes a tear and turns away. Some one shakes his head as he gets to his feet.


This example of secondary action comes in many forms. From the eye on Boo's costume to the hair on Sulley when he turns or moves.  There are many examples in just a short clip. This is taken from Disney and Pixar's feature animated film 'Monsters, INC' 

Older examples of secondary Action go back to early Disney in such animations as Fantasia. This clip Mickey The Sorcerer's Apprentice has many examples especially in he wizards robes as he mixes the potions,

  


- Curly 

Exaggeration.

The distortion of motion, actions or objects, But when animating not to over exaggerate, taking the animation out of proportion. It might stand out too much and if everything is blown out of proportion it will come across as unrealistic.

This quick example was taken from ‘Ren and Stimpy’ and shows and exaggerated reaction of shock and fear in a character, a very cartoon reaction with humour to make sense of this over exaggeration of such a character.

Animation can bend and push the motions and shape of the object or character 


EXTRACTS - from 'The Illusion of Life'


Exaggeration, Page 65, 66


If a character was to be sad, make him sadder. bright, make him brighter; worried, more worried; wild, make him wilder. Some of the artists thought that "exaggeration" meant a distorted drawing, or an action is violent and disturbing ... When Walt asked for realism, he wanted to caricature of realism. One artist analysed it correctly when he said "I don't think he meant 'realism' I think he meant something that was more convincing, that made a bigger contact with people, and he just said 'realism' because 'real' things do ... Every so often [in the animation] the character would do something unconvincing, or to show how clever the  animator was, and it wasn't really, it was phoney"  


This early Tom and Jerry Cartoon is a good example of exaggeration especially when Tom becomes over emotional during the end, and when Tom burns his tail on the fire.

This other example is a shortened episode of Cow and Chicken, but there are still many examples of exaggeration in the clip.

- Curly