Post #7: Windows to the Soul
Posted: March 15, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 Comments »It’s a catchy little saying we’ve been forced to hear a million times and then some; the eyes are the windows to the soul. It’s a nice allegory for life, but this saying is absolutely paramount for animators. An animation will flounder if the eyes aren’t rendered well, and an animation with well illustrated and communicative eyes will convey emotion extremely effectively.
Let’s look at two examples; the first is from the animated film Monsters vs. Aliens (look at my last post if you want to know how I felt about the movie). One among many of the films flaws was the rendering of the eyes of the alien, Gallaxhar (pictured below).
Gallaxhar has four eyes, which creates an obstacle for the viewer when they are trying to determine his demeanor. It is virtually impossible to use his eyes in the film as a measure of emotion. Furthermore, if you get a chance to watch the film you will see how the animators did not maintain his focus. This picture even shows the lack of focus a bit. An alien with four eyes might seem like a good idea (and is a slight departure from your normal comic alien), but due to the plot and poor rendering you couldn’t care less about this character by the end of the film. When eyes are done badly, there is a separation between the viewer and a character that is difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
When eyes are done well, magic can happen. The proceeding is an animated short titled Alma,written and directed by Rodrigo Blass (it’s a great 6 minutes, watch the full thing if you can):
Many animators have captured eyes brilliantly on film. Very few, however, have captured just how essential they are at the level you see here. First thing first; short films have the blessing of being able to focus in on one thing without delving too much into plot. The many eyes in Alma are all telling, and what I love about the final scene is that the viewer becomes the viewed, so-to-speak. The eyes of the dolls in the store were all communicating a pretty eery message, one that Alma caught onto once it was too late. The old saying about the eyes and the soul proved real in Alma, and you experience it in the film at a pretty scary level. The humor was a little creepy, but Blaas did a fine job of creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and intrigue with the eyes of his character and not through dialogue.
So it’s proven; eyes are important after all. Even in a film without a word spoken, the mood can be dramatically changed by a spooky set of doll eyes… it seems that 4, 8 even 100 eyes aren’t necessary when they’re done right.
Also, see my comments on the blogs of John Lyver and Katherine Danoy
It cannot be denied that without good animation, the best story will flop. But the eyes, that’s a bit specific, but from the clips you offered, it cannot be denied how important they can be. I guess I thought first of “the eyes are the windows to the soul”. Maybe the soul flops if the eyes stink.
There are a lot of animations that do not use dialogue and convey what the characters are saying or thinking through body movement and facial expression. Yet I feel that animations can be expressive of emotion and narrative without the use of eyes. For example, the animation of the lamp from Pixar that we saw in class. The lamp did not have any facial features. It didn’t even have hands or legs, yet the audience found it entertaining. I guess that’s the challenge animators have to face. Yet I do agree with you that eyes play a big role in conveying emotions and narratives. I love drawing, and one thing that I have to get right are the eyes. It is the eyes that give away emotions like fear, anger, happiness, peace, sleepiness, surprise, etc. This is done through the eyes by the way they are drawn. I also really liked the video you posted! It kind of reminded me of the feature length animation ‘Coraline.’ It is a really well done narrative and I’m glad I got to see it through your post!