Narrative Animation Planning Process
All of Disney's animations are all narrative based, whether it's short or a full animated movie. Like any other story, a narrative animation is divided into three acts: First act introducing characters and their world and then the character gets into a dilemma, it also clearly lays out the rules of the characters' world. For Beauty and the Beast, the first words you hear in the prologue are the rules "You must learn to love another and earn their love in return before the last petal falls. Then the spell will be broken." The second act develops the plot, shows the characters motives and their relationships in much more depth and would usually end with a problem that looks like it can't be fixed. Act three would show their courage despite odds, and usually includes the 'undoing of evil', victory of good and the arrival 'home' which would be different and sometimes better than the 'home' they started off with (unless it's a horror or some sort of thriller). The narrative of the animation has to be decided first to make sure it flows and makes sense before spending a lot of time animating. However the three act structure is only a guideline that is used in most stories/films/plays etc. it can be broken.Act 1: Shows setting of the world and rules, ends with a problem as Belle's father gets lost and captured by the beast and then she comes and rescue him but is then taken in his place.
Act 2: Reveals motives of characters and relationships. At the end of the act hope seems lost. There is a huge character journey in this act, as Belle goes from seeing Beast as a monster to seeing him as a loving friend.
Act 3: Reveals courage despite the odds and 'the undoing of evil'. Beast fights Gaston, when Belle shows up Beast shows mercy to Gaston, but when he turns his back Gaston stabs Beast before losing footing and falls to his death. Beast was dying in Belle's arms until the last rose petal falls, and all seems lost but the spell was broken by Belle and Beast's love and the whole house hold was turned into humans again.
The short ones such as this very famous animation from Disney also have narratives but are less thought out than the long movies in having a complex, meaningful story. However this animation does include showing the setting, relationship with characters and dilemmas,
Storyboarding
A series of drawings is created showing each main stage of a scene - usually of a cut, change of angle, or dialogue. This is known as a storyboard. They are usually rough sketches but some end up a bit more developed when the idea is finalised, to help show what they want to achieve to be clearer. When the story board is planned out it is then pitched to the director and story crew. The story artist has to stand up in front the storyboard with a pointer and walks through the scene one sketch at a time. I the sequence doesn't work there it means it's not going to work in the film. The old way of presenting the story board was to pin in to a board so the pitch could be shown in a comic-strip fashion, nowadays the artists would work digitally and would either present their drawings one at a time on a screen or put them on a power-point. The typical sequence would go through a lot of corrections, redraws, throw-outs, rethinks and re-dos until it is perfect for the director. Also what works on the written page doesn't always work when it's drawn and then what works on a storyboard might not work on a movie screen with dialogue, so it would all change again when the work gets edited onto a 'story reel'.When it comes to creating an animation many drawings of frames are involved. The animator would draw a stack of frames that when played as a film is viewed 24 frames per second to help create an illusion of life, and seeing that films would be roughly one and a half hours long there would be a lot of frames. In early days of Walt Disney Studio when personality animation was big, the animators rough drawings was filmed as a 'pencil test'. In a modern studio, the pencil drawing of the animators are scanned onto a computer and played back on the monitor. They can then sync the drawings to the sound track, make adjustments to the scenes timing, then show the director before making corrections the scene needs. When the scene works well in the rough stage, it moves on to be cleaned up for the final line drawing that will appear on the screen. Because there's a team of animators working on one animation, they all have there own style. So to keep the animation to one style there is a supervising animator who draws a series of 'model sheets' for the other animators to work from. Some animators have a loose, sketchy style so it's up to the clean-up artist to make sure that every drawing produced is 'on-model'- meaning that it looks like the model sheets.
Comparing old to new
I've decided to look and compare two of Disney's princess films to see the differences and how the plot and animation style has evolved over the years: Snow White (1937) and Tangled (2010). In both films the princesses represented women of the era it was made in, so Snow White was like women from the thirties in how she acted: helpless and kind, and Rapunzel as the modern day women: ambitious and have there own dreams. However there are similarities in how both the characters act: both of them happen to be caring and rather ditsy.
In these two clips you can tell what differences these characters have though the way they act in dangerous situations: Snow White is easily scared and runs waving her hands in the air, whereas Rapunzel would be quick thinking and not only get herself away from danger but manages to save her friend.
Both scenes are meant to be intense but out of the two Tangled is a lot more light hearted as Flynn would make a lot of jokes - has the audience grown to want more humour?
With climatic endings both these animations have someone who died and then brought back to life with love. However they couldn't be done any more differently.
Snow White dies and it's a prince who comes and kisses her which wakes her up and she then rides away with him into the distance.
In Tangled however, both Rapunzel and Eugene shows bravery and sacrifice: Eugene is hurt by the witch and Rapunzel tells her she'll go quietly if she can go and save him with her magic hair. Eugene then sacrifices himself by cutting Rapunzels hair so the witch will die and she can be free. When Eugene dies its Rapunzels tears and song that brings him back to life. It goes to show how it is changed how women/princesses are presented in Disney's animated films when it comes to hard situations. Also there are differences in the other characters as well, for instance the love interest in Snow White is a prince whereas Eugene is a thief. This suggest how ideologies have changed throughout the years: you don't need to have a prince/rich man, you can fall in love with anybody.
In all of these clips of the two movies you can really see how animation has evolved over the years with how it is done.Snow White is hand drawn and very faded and poor in quality, whereas Tangled is very sharp in detail and computer generated. With Tangled they put the smallest of detail in everything, from the individual hairs of eyebrows to the lace in clothing.
My animations would definitely be closer to snow white rather than Tangled because of the lack of time, skill and programs. I'll still be drawing on the computer but it would be closer to a hand drawn appearance rather than a refined 3D outcome.
Stop Motion
Another way of animating is stop motion. This means the animation uses no drawings but instead uses models and objects that are moved slightly by hand for each picture. This would be both easier and harder compared to drawn animations. Pro's: you don't have to redraw everything as you just have to take pictures, Con's: if you wanted it to something unusual like fly, sew or something it gets fiddly. A well known stop motion done by Disney is The Nightmare Before Christmas.
After the pre-production (design and story development) the first production step is constructing the set. Unlike a live-action set where it can be flimsy and temporary, a stop motion set has to be strong enough to survive abuse from the animators and camera crew. It has to be solid enough to withstand stress of long days and lights. If the set is damaged in anyway such as melting or falling apart then they'll lose many hours of the animators work, as it would then not be smooth because they won't be able to make it perfectly identical to how it was before. The sets have to have access for the animators to work on so hidden trap doors is normal. The sets are also scaled to fit tabletops however the size depends on how much of the set they want to show on film. For instance an for an aerial shot the set would have to quite large. For detail of buildings they'll put a lot of care and time in the places that will be filmed close up but keep the parts where they are only filmed briefly as a long shot simple. Most of the props are custom made and scaled down to fit the set."There is an energy with stop-motion that you can't even describe. It's got to do with giving things life, and I guess that's why I wanted to get into animation originally." Tim Burton
For the puppets/characters it is priority to try and bring them to life. Like most things it starts off with design drawings based on the story. The sculptors then create a clay version of the character, which is known as a maquette. In 2D and 3D animation the maquette is used mostly for reference, but in stop motion the maquette is used as a final representation of the character fully in detail. There is also a skeleton made based off the maquette called an 'armature'. They are made of steel or aluminium, along with wire or other materials that are needed to support the puppet. The makers of the armature puppet start off by researching how the character needs to move. It needs to be able to smoothly move its joints and pivot points that will help make it completely flexible to use on the puppet. The armature also has to be able to hold its position without moving or falling over. When the character eyes are built into the armature it also has to be able to blink or move, so they would have screws or control points either in the hair, ears or under the clothes so they are hidden but easy to get to. Multiple armatures are made for each character for the production in case something goes wrong or two animators need the same puppet at the same time. Once the details of the armature is settled the characters sculpture is then cast and a mold is made, typically out of plaster but sometimes made out of fibreglass. When the mold is created the armature is placed in it and sealed. Foam latex is then injected into the mold which would completely cover the armature, creating the exact replica of the character but with a movable skeleton inside.The casting of the puppet is then taken to get dressed up and groomed. For long hours being under lights and being handled by the animators the puppets require the paints and costumes to be very sturdy. Some clothes are painted on, others require an elaborated wardrobe. For final touches the eye lashes and each strand of hair is put on one at a time. The hair is then styled and then the puppet is ready for action."Jack's heads were all replaceable. Animators had to select the correct head for the attitude of dialogue and expression."
Some props are also rigged to move too. The Santa's Naughty or Nice list looks as though it's written on paper when really the list was made with a sheet of aluminium foil between two sheets of thin paper. This was done because they didn't want to have the paper flopping uncontrollably when changing each frame.
Lighting is vital for stop motion as it helps bring the mood together - very much like live action. The cinematographer and help from the electrician that's known as a gaffer, begins by placing lights around the set ready for shooting. These lights would create an ambient lighting for each scene. However when the camera moves for a close up or changes angle, the lighting has to be adjusted so the new angle could work. Much like live action, the lights can be covered with coloured gel or cropped with 'flags', 'gobos', 'snouts' and 'barndoors'. All these tools are used to help focus the light on parts of the set. If the story wants a certain atmosphere like fog or rain, the crew have to plan what effects can be done on the set and what would need the aid of special effects in post-production.
As soon as the puppets and sets are prepared it is then time for the animators to start making the animation. Animators would start with a 'pose test' (or can be known as a 'pop through') of the scene, the the character would be held for 10 or 20 frames for the path of action to be established. After a discussion with the director and thinking and planning, the very long precess of capturing every movement one frame at a time begins. It is typical for the animators to work 12-14 hour days of physical labour to film and only get a few seconds of actual animation. There are also frequent checks on the set to make sure nothing has burnt out or anything that would ruin a scene. To achieve a solid and even camera movement there is a motion-control computer. However, sometimes it may be more ideal for the camera to be moved manually, frame by frame to track the action.
Early stop motion had no preview feature and the animators would usually have to wait a day for the film to be processed and returned. For modern stop motions however, they are shot digitally at a high resolution and during the shot the frames are uploaded to a computer screen so they can see it immediately. Unlike a 2D or 3D animation, if something was wrong with the scene the animator would have to scrap the entire scene and start all over again if there is something that needed improving or corrected. Once all the scenes are done all of the frames are taken to the post-production team, which is basically the same as the finishing process of 2D and 3D animation.
I would love to create a stop motion animation as the final film it creates has such an amazing appearance which you can only just admire, but I have very little time on this animation project. maybe I can still try it out but only have very short ones that aren't a fluid as professional stop motion.
From researching briefly into animation done by Disney and the process it has to go through - old and new - I have now gathered enough inspiration to now come up with with my own animation. I am thinking for my short/first animation to be simple and to be about something growing. For my main animation I would like to focus on animals, as I quite liked the look of the animals in Snow White. For research for this I can visit the zoo and take videos, drawings and notes. Also researching into stop motion has helped me think about lighting and mood and how it would affect the setting.
The Alchemy of Animation: Making an Animated Film in the Modern Age
By Don Hahn
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