Animation Research: Library Study

30/9/19

Today we were first introduced to our university library and I looked in to three books about animation, design and concept art.

Books:

• Secrets of Digital Animation
• Disney: Layout & Background
• The Art of The Boxtrolls

Artist research:

Michael Knapp

Knapp was inspired by the classical age of Disney such as Sleeping Beauty, as well as the traditional sketch art featured within the Hobbit book published through Rankin/Bass.

His area of studies surrounded him with inspiration towards the Renaissance era which he featured throughout his portfolio to represent the humble beginnings of his very simple characters. 

Though his characters have a rather complex story within their design and influence, they are drawn very simply, using loose forms to create basic shapes and silhouettes for each character. Knapp says that seeing the main silhouette helps him to see whether his proportions are to his liking. 

Lots of his characters feature small eyes, which reinforces the movement of his characters, as most of his emotions are shown in movement and not expressions.

Knapp didn't want to be a runner for a large company like Disney only to never see his work finished, so he focused on illustration and has since worked on Ice Age 3 and Dr Seuss.

Disney artists are known in their earlier works to hand paint each frame of their feature length animations. Storyboards for some of their pieces show how the artists painted one large scene and marked where they would like the pan of the camera lenses to start and end - creating a movement of multiple frames without having to redraw the same scene. Their storyboards also use arrows to represent where they plan for the lighting and or movement to go.

  

Disney often use wide angle camera shots in their scenic pieces to emphasise the size of the landscape, often to show off their stunning feats of background art within the animation. 

One of the Boxtrolls leads, Travis Knight describes his characters as "colourful", despite also saying that the grim conditions of the Boxtrolls' lives and the personalities of the humans, are reflected in the grim design of the characters.

Despite the dark setting of the night, the Boxtrolls are often shown as safe and alive. The Laika animation company use the motif of small amounts of darkness in the light to show hope; almost symbolizing guidance through the dangerous streets using street lights and windows. This strongly contrasts the bright colours of the day which show a permanent exposure of the grotesque character designs of the humans, making the box trolls look sweet and friendly and harmless in comparison - reinforcing the narrative that it's not safe to be out in the day. 

The Boxtrolls subtly explores politics and modern day corruption, most commonly shown in the discrimination towards the Boxtrolls looks. To the humans of the movie, the Trolls are the horrid looking and terrifying creatures - but the character design clearly reinforces how the viewer is meant to be able to see past the social view and see how the humans are the monsters - a lot like the lead character Eggs does.

I have learnt that the intended design created within the story boarding process can often look completely different to the final outcome of the piece, and that it is good to experiment with multiple different designs for one character, and to explore every angle of the face.