Post #10; Animating the Inanimate
Posted: April 4, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments »Welcome back! I took a week off to work on my project (with my wonderful partner Alissa), and now we’re done (almost)! So I’ll get back to posting again.
This week I’m looking at inanimate objects; rocks, cars, houses, etc. etc.. I’d like to observe them as they are animated in feature films in particular, because more modern full-length animated features have begun to use inanimate objects as characters unto themselves. There are examples of this in some of the finest recent animated features, and I would like to explore some of those here today. One additional note before I dive in; all 3 films I’m looking at are from Pixar (the studio who’s logo is an inanimate object, a desk lamp).
The first film I’d like to look at (and the oldest of the 3) is Cars. The inanimate objects here are pretty easy to identify; they were cars. Pixar is smart. They took an item that really typifies the American way of life, and created a world where those items (cars) roamed and attempted to better themselves. Their formula worked to the tune of $244,082,982 of lifetime gross. The movie-goer ate it up. Clearly the viewer can relate to an inanimate object when it is animated to think and act like them. Throw in a hefty dose of nostalgia and American values and you might be on your way to earning hundreds of millions of dollars. The key here is that it worked; Pixar was able to make characters of non-human objects and still hook the viewer.
They explored the idea more in the film WALL-E. WALL-E and his robot cohorts were all non-human, seemingly inanimate objects. Again, Pixar was able to turn them into characters that the viewer related to on an emotional level. Unlike in Cars this film used some animated humans as well, but in WALL-E the animated people did not “save the day” so-to-speak. It was again the inanimate robots who were ultimately responsible for allowing the people to return home (where they all lived together happily and peacefully).
The last film I’d like to look at is Up, which is (as far as I’m concerned) one of the finest animated features of all time. In contrast with the other two films we’ve looked at, the characters in Up were largely animated animates (that sounds like a Jeopardy category, right?). There is one exception though, and that is the house. A house is inanimate, but the animators did an amazing job of giving it a character that made it almost larger in emotional scope than any of the animated characters. It came to symbolize a static life being uprooted and then exploring previously unimagined possibilities. While the human characters in the film were important, the house characterized the most poignant idea that Up conveyed; that is the idea of defying all odds.
I know that last statement sounded a bit cheesy, but it shows how far animation has come in the past decade or so. Since we are able to create characters from things that seemingly could not have emotion, we can create more complex characters, ideas and statements through animation.
Until next week…
Also, see my comments on the blogs of Alissa and James.
I have to say that I think Pixar is one of the only animation studios out there that can animate inanimate objects on such a believable scale. I had never thought about the house becoming a character per say in Up, but you raise (no pun intended!) a great point about how just every little part of the house, although it may not be moving, gives personality to the house, and to Carl as well.
It is quite interesting when you look at the popularity of personified characters in animated children films. The element of personification isn’t anything new, but the levels it can be brought to nowadays thanks to CG is really something to behold. It really takes a keen mind to give something like a house (as you mentioned from Up) such deep character. Whether its a structure, a race car, or a robot, the art of personification can only grow from here.
You know, that’s a really good point about how animation is moving nowadays. So many animators are going outside the box to find new ways to entertain, and new ways to make their stories worth watching. As far as animating inanimate objects, with all my Lego/Brickfilm watching lately, I was floored how some of those people got their Lego cars to look more alive. doing a frame or two where the headlights pop out and waggle (Lego headlights mind you) is pretty impressive thinking. Still, great blog post!