Lighting and Animation

I stumbled across an interesting Ted Talk about how lighting plays a very crucial role within animation. In the Ted Talk, Danielle Feinberg discusses her career at Pixar and how her work at Pixar has made her dream of having art as a career possible. She speaks in depth about how lighting has the potential to drastically change the feeling of the film as well as bring a scene or character to life. Lighting is such an important characteristic to not only cinema but animation as well and I suggest you all take a peek at this Ted Talk, it is around 12 minutes but I promise it is very interesting!

Character Animation

I often find that a lot of my classes are connected in ways that aren't super obvious. Other than Motion Graphics & Animation, Program Development is the only other Park class I'm taking right now. In my class we come up with ideas for television shows, movies, documentaries, web shows, and many other types of visual media that can be sold. One of the fundamental elements to any story is character--people know this from a very young age. What I didn't realize was how much character affects every process in an animation.

This video gives a brief behind the scenes look at the making of the 2012 Pixar movie Brave. The narrator of this short video describes how every movement Merida makes reflects her character. I thought this was really interesting. I mean, it obviously makes sense but I guess when I'm watching the movie I'm so absorbed in the world that I'm not analyzing or thinking about things like that. I believe this is what makes an animated character seem so real and likable. The same goes for Anna in Disney Animation Studio's Frozen: Anna is energetic, quirky, and awkward so she does things like jumping on couches, stumbling around the castle she lives in, and accidentally throwing a bust into a cake. This part of an animated film is so essential and specific. A director can't rely on his actors to move like the characters, rather each movement has to be created. I guess my question is, whose job is that? Is it the responsibility of a person involved in the actual animating process, or someone involved in the writing process that works with an animator? 

Oops

ELI5: The Pixar Theory Part 1

It's been widely rumored for years the all the Pixar movies are actually in the same universe, but at different points in time. Pretty awesome, right? So let's get started!

The first film in the theory is none other than Brave. Brave introduces us to Merida, a red-haired princess in the Dark Ages of Scotland who tries to change her fate with the help of a witch. The witch helps Merida change her fate by turning her mother into a bear. What help that is. It's easy to believe that the witch had practiced turning humans into animals starting with Mor'du, the villain in Brave.

It's important to note that this theory is based off three groups all fighting for control and power: humans, animals, and machines. We see animals coming to their rise over the next three films, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille and Up.

Finding Nemo is about a clownfish that is able to swim across the ocean and back in search of his son, Nemo. What makes this so important is that he saves his son from humans.

In Ratatouille, Remy is an amazing chef, a job that only humans have. He actually does his cooking by controlling a human. Humans are also starting to see that animals are a lot smarter than they first thought. Also, Remy's ability is so incredible that word of his skill travels all the way to Charles Muntz, the villain in Up.

Charles Muntz, in his search for a rare type of bird (you would know it as Kevin), takes what he knows about Remy and invents dog collars that can let dogs speak with humans. We're also introduced to BnL, or Buy n' Large, the company that tries to buy Carl's house in the beginning of the movie (it's also the company that makes batteries for Buzz Lightyear).

That'll do it for this part. If you're interested in this theory, you can check out these two great videos that sum up the entire theory by SuperCarlinBrothers and Bloop Animation.

The Technology Behind Brave

As one of the biggest movies released in 2012, Brave attracted a lot of attention from moviegoers and did fairly well in the box office. Whether it was the storyline, action, or cool special effects that maintained the viewer's focus, the film was sure to satisfy any craving. But few viewers actually know the history of the film's pre-production planning and final execution. As a student of motion graphics, I was speaking to one of my former professors regarding the influence of after effects on the movie production industry. She told me that I had no idea how important the growth of technology is to a film's final end date.

The pre-production animation for the movie, Brave, originally began in 2006; six years prior to it's cinematic release. After the release of the Pixar favorite, Monsters, Inc., the animation standard rose much higher. Simulation supervisor, Claudia Chung, wanted to create such realistic, "curly hair that almost defied gravity." The two dimensional designs were difficult to create, but the animation, however, was a completely different story. In order for the goal to be achieved, Chung's team needed new technology in order to process all of the three-dimensional information. In 2009, the animation simulator, Taz, was designed in order to form individual coils around computer-generated cylinders of varying lengths and diameters. As a result, each length of Merida's hair consistently snapped back into place as soon as stopped moving. Chung also mentioned that after adding "a little randomness, some gravity, and more than 1,500 hand-placed corkscrews and flyaway wisps," the viewer is left with textural hair with a depth that the audience has never seen before.

Whether you've seen Brave or not, the film stands as a major feat for the animation and movie industry. But the majority of the credit goes to Claudia Chung; she could see the end goal and knew that the technology would finally be available when her team needed it the most. Talk about a risky but fruitful outcome!

Good Hair Everywhere

I am taking a moment to appreciate 3D animated hair and fur.

Take Sully’s fur from Monsters Inc., for example. Just from looking at it, we are able to imagine what it feels like. We have a good idea of what Sully would feel like if we were able to pat him. The fact that we can compare a real textural feeling to something animated by a cold, hard computer is pretty amazing.

Hair is pretty cool too. Merida’s hair from Brave is probably the most beautiful hair in the entire animated world, as far as I’m concerned. It’s wild and big and out of control and probably took so much memory to create. But every curl behaves like we would expect hair to behave. It moves so naturally in relation to Merida and adds character to her character. It must’ve taken a lot of work to control every curl in order to make her hair look uncontrollable.

 

Another set of good hair is Rapunzel from Tangled. What’s really amazing about that animation is the sheer amount of hair that had to be considered. The hair at least 10 times longer than Rapunzel herself and it’s used as a prop throughout the movie—it’s a lasso, it’s a rope, it’s a ladder… In animating this hair, utility had to be taken into consideration all the while keeping things silky, shiny, and smooth.

This video showing a variety of hair related goofs with Rapunzel’s hair gives a little bit of insight into the physics of good hair.

Brad Bird on Directing

Lately I have focused my attention to the job market for after my departure from school. Past classes in the Park School have required me to Produce, Direct, Edit, and Film short films. Taking this class has made me investigate the roles of Producers and Directors for animated projects. Although its still a movie, the direction and leadership required of some of these roles is quite different when working completely digitally. I found this cool video of Brad Bird a director at Pixar. His work includes Brave, Toy Story 3, and UP. He also has past work on the Simpsons. Its pretty interesting to hear about his management style and he has some good advice for future professionals.

Check out this clip (embedding is not allowed): Pixar

His IMDB can also be seen Here