The 12 Principles of Animation

WALL-E: A good example of animation.

The 3D animated feature film WALL-E, by Disney and Pixar animation studios, shows excellent examples of many of the '12 principles of animation'. These are:

-Squash and stretch

-Timing and motion

-Anticipation

-Staging

-Follow through and Overlapping action

-Slow in and out

-Arcs

-Straight ahead action and pose-to-pose action

-Exaggeration

-Secondary action

-Appeal

-Personality/solid drawing.

An example of squash and stretch in WALL-E would be the big, round, wobbly future people flopping over their chairs. In the Scene towards the end of the film, when Eve is trying to find the plant among the chunky people, sliding downhill in a tilting environment, there are several occasions where their big boneless bodies are squashed against glass, making them bulge at the sides, or stretched against chairs, only to revert back to their original, nearly spherical, shapes.

This scene also shows a fantastic example of staging, anticipation, slow in and out, timing and motion and arcs, all in the scene where the babies are sliding down the slope. The event is staged as the camera shows the audience, first, the female character looking up, and then the babies beginning to slide. She then slowly and heavily begins to swing the male character towards the babies trajectory, creating a level of anticipation, where they both grab the kids and slide down the slope. The swinging motion has a real 'slow in and out' motion, as the characters have to accelerate and decelerate. They also swing in an arc motion, and the timing of their movements is slow and heavy. This all gives a real sense of just how heavy and wobbly they are, which is hugely important to the comedy in this scene.

The whole film is full of personality and appeal, as the characters are designed to be brilliantly lovable, as they have a huge amount of facial expression (including the robot characters), which is often exaggerated to make for more appealing shots. The designs of the characters are fantastic, particularly WALL-E and EVE. WALL-E has this futuristic yet aged look, where his design appears to be focused on hardware and machinery, whereas EVE appears to be designed around software, and is encased in a clean and new looking white plastic shell. This appears to signify the move from machinery to technology which appears to be happening at the moment as more and more electronic equipment is built into our cars and appliances for example. There is also a sense of user friendliness in that EVE appears to be designed to look good, and has cute little power up sounds, whereas WALL-E appears to be built simply for a purpose (waste disposal). In fact, they kind of remind me of PC and Mac.

Wallace and Gromit

I found Wallace and Gromit, by Aardman animations (also made 'Morph') and then DreamWorks, to be a fantastic example of many of the '12 principles'. It is also a different form of animation (stop motion clay/plasticine animation), which I find to be incredibly enjoyable to watch, especially when you know how it was shot. It requires careful camera tricks to create the illusion of size (as the models are considerably smaller than the characters they are playing) and movement, as elements of film which help to portray movement, such as motion blur, aren't present in stop motion pictures.

In the 30 minute film 'The Wrong Trousers', the scene where Wallace is asleep, being remotely driven around in his robotic trousers, is a fantastic example of secondary action, as his unconscious body flops ungainly around while the trousers move jerkily. Similarly, later on in the film during the model train chase scene, the continuing momentum as the trains change direction or crash gives the characters and objects following through and overlapping action, making a seamless illusion of movement. This is all the more impressive with stop motion plasticine animation, as there is no motion blur. In fact the background in this scene is made of an image of a blurred photograph of the model kitchen where large parts of the show are usually set.

Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus: A not-so-good example of animation.

I don't wish to sound like I am slating the film, as I happened to find it very amusing. I've never seen a comedy that is so effective you find yourself laughing at massive scale civilian casualties (Was it a comedy? I think so). So hopefully it will be clear that all is said in good humour.
 

There are elements of the animation in the film which demonstrate unsuccessful examples of some of the '12 principles'. The best example is, in my favourite scene of the film, where the Mega Shark jumps several thousand feet in the air, and snatches a 747 out of the sky. I guess to start with, the staging is non-existent (Unless shouting “Holy s**t!” counts) and 'slow in and out' motion of the shark is lacking completely in the 'slow in' part. It just simply is moving. Also, although the natural arc movement of the shark appears to be relatively successful when it actually contacts the aeroplane, its movement as it approaches the plane, however, is a direct straight line, as if it chose to ignore gravity.

 

The general appeal of the octopus and the shark is a little lacking. Their colours are neither realistic or exaggerated, unfortunately, especially when the creatures are under water. They appear to become 1 shade of grey. This makes them neither terrifyingly realistic or full of character. Instead, their movements are wooden, with the appearance of plastic.



Internet links:
http://disney-clipart.com/Wall-E/Wall-E.php
http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/films/wrongtrousers/gallery.html
http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2009/05/mega_shark_vs_giant_octopus_tr.php

WALL-E, (2008) USA, Andrew Stanton, Pixar Animation Studios
Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, (1993) UK, Nick Park, Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations
Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, (2009) US, Jack Perez