Abstraction in Animation

What I love most about animation is it's ability to articulate complex ideas and messages through abstraction and excess. Think about the cartoons you watched as a kid, how in moments of reactions characters faces would fill up the screen often to a disgusting degree to capture how they personable reacted to the events before them.

Take for instance captain K'nuckles in this clip of Flapjack. See how this joke wouldn't play out as well if this was live action. It's not just the hi-res reaction that makes this clip, but also the distortion of time we here in the Capp's voice. He is truly enraptured by the maneuvers of this  playful pup.

Now on to another example. There are many parts of the animation posted below that I think are executed flawlessly. The restricted pallet, the movement and design of the Jumper, the expressions of his face. This to me represents a near perfect execution, and the best part of it all is that every single detail is an abstraction of reality, and yet all the while we are able to form a cohesive narrative from it. 

 

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Title Sequence

Today in class we wanted the title sequence of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" which is one of my favorite books.  I did not see the movie for fear of it not sticking with a book, but watching the title sequence alone gave me the sense that the movie captured the essence of the book.  Instead of putting a title sequence together with cookie cutter like shots, instead the director David Fincher chose to do an abstract and surreal sequence which in my opinion was an amazing choice.  The main character Lisbeth is not a character who the reader can categorize and put in a mental box.  She is permeable and adaptive, never solid in emotions or actions, which the title sequence captured perfectly since the book series and the movie is really about her.  Anyways, the title sequence is below and you should totally take a look at it.