Realism?

      To be or not to be. To be real or not to real. To emphasize the real or exaggerate it. In The Illusion of Life:Disney Animation by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston two chapters seem to contradict themselves when discussing animation. Chapter 2 of the book focuses more on the caricature and exaggeration of the real while chapter 4 focuses more on realism. Walt Disney said, “I definitely feel that we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real, unless we first know the real.” I believe he means that to create realism in animation one must know the real. At the same time to create caricature one must also know the real. In the two chapters how much realism to put in animation differs.

      Chapter 2 discusses the caricature of realism in animation. To move with exaggeration while still making it believable to the audience. Caricature better showed personality of a character. Base the action on the real but the action did not have to be completely real.

      Chapter 4 was more about moving away from gags. A good story was most important and it has to be based on real emotion to bring the audience in. Artwork was closer to storybook animation and more real and real sounding voices were to be used as well. Realism was the foundation so the audience could understand and relate, situations were clear, and a character’s personality reminded the audience of real people in their lives. Little things could add enough appeal and emotion to a character. The chapter ended with saying a animated feature film “would not be a cartoon. It would be ‘theater’.” For “this world of fantasy would have to be a real world”. 

To reconcile the two chapters I think one should see that both ideas from the chapters are based on realism. Chapter 2 just doesn’t stick as close to realism as chapter 4. In other words they both start or have the foundation of realism. They just went in different directions after that. Both chapters also discuss captivating the audience with emotion. Again they just went in different directions. Chapter 2 better showed emotion and personality with caricature while chapter 4 was about adding subtle, more real life action to show emotion.   

In the following clip from Snow White, the ideas from both chapters are seen:

Caricature and exaggeration as well as realism are seen here. Caricature though the dwarfs and realism through Snow White. Snow White is drawn to look like a real woman. None of her features or movements are exaggerated but are more close to real life. The dwarfs on the other hand are exaggerated through their actions and facial features. All the dwarfs have big noses, cheeks, and eyes. The dwarfs actions as they ask Snow White about the prince before she begins to sing are exaggerated. There arms movements are extended as well as their hand and head movements. As they listen to Snow White putting their hands on their cheeks emphasizes how big they are. At the same time the dwarfs would not have captivated the audience if they were like Snow White. Caricature was the best way to show their emotion and personality. The dwarfs are based on personality, its how they got their names. Snow White on the other hand is better being more real because she is the beautiful Disney princess. In order for the audience to relate to her she had to be more like them and more subtle to evoke the sweet personality that she has. 

     

      From the clip one can see that both chapters discussed were right. Animation does not have to be exaggeration or more real, it can be both at the same time. As discussed before animation is based on realism in life as well as real emotion. There are different ways to show realism. One can put real live actors with animation if they wanted.