In this week I carry on in adjusting the camera composition and angles with characters poses in my 3D Previs, here are some of my progression:
The beginning medium long shot starts quicker where two characters meet which audiences could see them more clearly:
I slightly moved camera in this two shot to avoid the overlap in two characters:
When the female character is observing the flying down underwear landing on the male character’s face, I changed to use the medium shot instead of the close-up:
I adjust the pose which needs more space:
Changed a few poses:
Adjusting the ending camera, and also adjusting the ending pose into a much intimate one:
In next week I will be focusing on the timing of shots and see if any of them need to be checked again.
In this week, I have kept looking at my chosen topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ and focusing on the discourses of design of anthropomorphic characters in animations by reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation:
In chapter 5, page 203- 204, it mentions about the tendency of creating anthropomorphic characters in opposite genders: the male tends to be defined as how they perform, and the female tends to be defined as how they looked like in a stereotypical way. Most of the time, male characters are more masculine, cunning and aggressive while in opposite binary, female characters are passive and sentimental.
The example of it is shown through the famous characters Micky and Minnie created by the well known Disney animator, that he described Minnie is drawn in the same structure as Minnie only she has been added more make-up on her face, and with a more female poses and costume to show her mannerisms to please audiences.
However it’s also been pointed out that anthropomorphic characters are over juvenilised through their signifiers to please the adult audiences.
Beside, there are also anthropomorphic characters interfere with the concept of ‘gender-bleeding’ shown in the animation such as Tom and Jerry, which ends up a complicating structure of relationship between characters in their story, and their sexuality becomes unstable to define the representation of genders of themselves.
in page 23 of Understanding Animation, it points out early animation uses Anthropomorphic characters include:
Gertie the Dinosaur
Felix the Cat
Mickey Mouse
Disney company has developed the concept into achieving the hyper-realism in their future work. However, scholars Patrick D. Murphy and Richard Schickel argues these characters hide their natural terrors or wildness through cuteness, joke and musical cues in the performance.
By looking at the proposal questions, I have started my response as shown below:
The essence of including anthropomorphism in animation
How anthropomorphism was structured under the cultural background
How do the anthropomorphic characters signify the meaning behind the political issue?
How anthropomorphic characters help to create gags in the film
The destabilisation of anthropomorphic characters in media studies
Brief Outline:
The use of anthropomorphic characters is commonly seen in old and contemporary media, including animation and films. This thesis will discuss the source of anthropomorphism in art history, the benefit of bringing it to the animation industry, the political meanings relating to a few anthropomorphic animated films, and the destabilisation of ethical issues potentially included in different media forms.
My methodologies include researching related articles, reading well-known novels, and watching animated films, surrounding my chosen concept ‘anthropomorphism’. Eventually I will be gathering clues and comparing each element I have used in different topics to structure a result.
Hopefully, the reader can form a good structural understanding of anthropomorphism and add it to their creation of art.
Brief Literature:
Starting from the modernism period, where more revolutions happen in people’s lives due to the second world war, more hyperrealist characters show the feature of anthropomorphism appearing in the animation industry. By reading Paul Well’s Understanding Animation and Animation and America, which provides me a concept of how these anthropomorphic characters bring new meanings and gags to the stories and audiences. Through reading George Orwell’s book Animal Farm, it displays anthropomorphic characters designed to reveal political issues of socialist revolution sarcastically. By reading the articles produced by Claire Molloy, they allow me to view potential risks hidden in the use of anthropomorphic characters in media studies.
Bibliography
Topic 1:
Wells, P., 2002. Animation and America. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Singal, D.J., 1987. Towards a definition of American modernism. American Quarterly, 39(1), pp.7-26.
The M3 Media Collection (2021) The Tale of the Fox (1937) English Subtitles Best Quality. 25 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dCvmEY_9fo (Accessed: 5 March 2025).
In this week I have concentrated on adjusting the composition of a few shots, and leaving more space for characters, in my 3D previs after receiving feedback:
I have also changed some poses to focus more on the character movement:
When the male character falls down on the floor I have tried to add a camera shake through changing the attributes and following the online tutorial below:
Plus I have also relocated the camera to face the front view of the male:
Beside, through the feedback session I have been told to be careful with the over-lapping areas and try to avoid them through moving the camera or posing the character again in the set:
In this week I have added a few point to my research and reviewed more online journeys to pursue the knowledge, Beside I have finished reading the Animal Farm written by George Orwell, which is a good piece of example to link my topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ and political issue from the last century.
About the historic background when anthropomorphic characters started appearing in the animations and films, in the journey ‘Towards a Definition of American Modernism’, page 7-8 have pointed out:
It is a culture to critique the contrast between the modernisation of technologies and dehumanisation as a representation of ambivalence.
From the same journey, page 10-11 point out:
Modernism raised early from symbolism and impressionism, which were built up through different art forms such as symbolist and paintings they emphasise on what they have been effected emotionally through the object instead focusing on the real thing. They explore beyond world structure under the positivism while sharing more unpredictable experience from human perception.
After reading journals around Animal Farm, here is what I gathered in my notes:
The characters in Animal Farm were created by the author as metaphors for the Soviet Union leaders in beginning of the 20 century. Based on the analysis of characters in the story, the writer of the journey Symbols, metaphors and similes in literature: A case study of “Animal Farm”, page 5, found the resemblances of characters of the government’s leaders at the time to the following animals found in the story.
P127-p128 points out the political meaning hidden behind the text by its author, and revealing the revolution of democratic socialist represented by the Animal farm:
In Character Metaphors in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Chapter four points out the real character which been metaphorically exposed by anthropomorphic animals:
page 135: the concept of ‘socialism’ and its danger through the whole book, its benefits overlay on top of the Russian regime:
Page 137: Concepts in the book/animation
Difficulty of the socialist revolution: ‘if people outside still thought that that particular form of revolution could succeed without betraying its goals, nothing new could be accomplished.’
Page 136:
Unless everyone makes the revolution for him or herself without surrendering power to an elite, there will be little hope for freedom or equality. A revolution in which violence and conspiracy become the tools most resorted to, one which is led by a consciously or unconsciously power-hungry group, will inevitably betray its own principles.
Refer to the book: Failing to protest when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves, the other animals surrendered what power they might have had to pig leadership. Had they been “alert and [known] how to chuck out their leaders”31 once the latter had fulfilled their task, the original spirit of Animal Farm might have been salvaged.Â
Page 137:
Conclusion:
Acceptance of the notion of class struggle could not lead to an instant transformation of society unless those who would transform it accepted also the difficult burden of political power, both at the time of and after the revolution. While the most corrupting force on Animal Farm was the deception practiced upon the other animals by the pigs, the greatest danger came from the reluctance of the oppressed creatures to believe in an alternative between porcine and human rule.
Which, the anthropomorphic pigs are a dangerous sign throughout the whole book.
Under my 4th question ‘ The benefits and drawbacks of anthropomorphism’ under this chosen topic, here is my notes based upon reading Claire Molloy’s journals:
Page 3 points out the emotions which are been added to the anthropomorphic animals are mainly working for humans’ interests of state, scientific, and commercial discourses:
Documentaries or films with subjective way of shooting are being controlled by popular culture.
She has also pointed out the representative animals in any media written by humans may not be seen their ‘reality’, their ‘reality’ is being formed through representation. It is working for culture
P12 points out the concept of anthropomorphism has destabilised the boundary between human and non-human.
P20 points out the anthropomorphism could distant the issue happened within animal rights, instead, they treat them as an over sentimental thing.
In the following week, I will be concentrating on producing the work to hand-in before the easter:
In this week, I have changed a bit structure of the story narrative after received the feedback from the lecturer. Therefore, I have added a reason for the woman character knows what is hidden in the male character more fluently:
As I decided to let the male character fall over in the beginning of the story to create the chance, here is the main reference video I checked online:
And I found instead of using Banana to slide down the male character, I could use the more common prop– Icecream, left on the ground of the park where they date:
Also, I have added more reaction shot or shot reverse shot into my 3S previs after receiving feedback, which helps audiences to concentrate more on the performance and props of characters.
I have also been told by holding ‘\’ with left mouse bottom, I will be able to zoom out the scene and see things beyond the camera:
I have also been told I can move master control to adjust the position of characters in the animation blocking easily:
In this week I have condensed my 3D Previs from last week, improved the timing and spacing, completing the character bio and fixing some shot compositions through the feedback given by the lecturer.
Here is my more comprehensive character bio:
Here is the shot list I have made before and after the feedback session based on my editing of shots:
The biggest difference between them is the current one gets rid of some confusing shots in the mental imagery:
The changed scale of park benches through scaling down their component at the same time:
As I also develop the composition of the shot, I import the PNG picture of rules of third into my camera:
And indication of how to let the underwear to follow it in the feedback, with my developed shots:
The tip of keep two characters have similar distances to the side of the frame, to create the balance of the shot:
In this week I have mainly checked two books written by Paul Well:
Understanding Animation
Animation and America
Through the help of the index, I could look straight on the paragraph talking about my chosen topic ‘Anthropomorphism’ in them. And below are the notes I have made + the relating questions I could think about to research and answer in my essay in different topics:
Key words: AnthropomorphismÂ
Potential question 1:
How anthropomorphism was structured under the historic background?
Relating to the historic background, Animation and America, p24 points out the influence caused by Second World War and modernity altered the way how humans view their physical and material world. Which encouraging art practice during the period to challenge traditional orthodoxies with constant change, to achieve the revolution and renovation of modernism.
(Quote from any book of the depiction of modernism is needed. )
Correspondingly, anthropomorphic characters support audiences to explore different scenarios through changing identities, metamorphosis, dehumanising and restructuring themselves in the story; without bounding into any industrial orthodoxies, they are living in an uncertain reality and working for the need of gags to structure more possibilities and values.
Talk about how the abstractions inspire the appearance of anthropomorphic characters. Animation and American, p20, the animator pioneers under the time experiment the limits of graphic space, ‘playing out narration of perception and memory in rapid metamorphosis.’ They play ‘lines, shapes, forms in the enunciation of time, space, weight and flow’ at the same period.
Potential question 2:
How the anthropomorphic characters signify meaning behind political issue?
Animation and American: p22, the abstraction of anthropomorphism in early American animation achieved through developing technologies in the industry, which explores the relationship between humanity and animality and the expression of humans after being challenged. It reflect the possible lack of humanity in society, philosophy and mechanisation.
Films: Bambi (1942), Animal farm (1954), Watership Down (1978), The Lorax (1972) (Understanding Animation p63) The tale of the Fox (1937).
The revolt of the toys (1945) anti-nazi film, reflecting the oppression of the wartime Nazi
The king and the mockingbird (1980).
The turning point (2020), showing the destruction of habitat through animal perspective.
Relating back to the benefits of adding anthropomorphic gags to the film to talk about why they can easily be understood. Such as building up connections through performances, no political references under the sensitive topics, animal behaviour is an internal sources to be read with foibles and flaws in the film.Â
Potential question 3:
How anthropomorphic characters help to create gags in the film??
However, their representation as ‘animal forms’ work well for gags in films.
Understanding Animation: p129: In the early ‘trick’ films, audiences were mostly unallied with characters which create random humours as gags in a story with a lack of continuity and empathy. However, the added human personalities of anthropomorphic characters allows audiences to be emotionally attached by the way how stories are being told and how their characteristics are being expressed with freedom.
Examples (Case study textual Analysis by using key elements) in early films:
Key elements of building up personalised characters in films include:
Eye contact between characters and audiences to break up the 4th wall.
Facial expressions to deliver emotions and expressions.
Recognised physical poses in the set.
Clear motivation set and acted by the anthropomorphic character itself within narrations.
Physical rhythms show indicate the attitude of the character.
The character is taking responsibility of the film as an actor.
Windsor McCay
Mosquito in ‘How a mosquito operates (1912)’
Dinosaur in’ Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)’
Meanwhile, in Disney films, Walt’s seek for anti-stereotype of traditional gags functioned through the use of ‘caricature’ and ‘exaggeration’ in anthropomorphic characters to address human flaws and human foibles. The anthropomorphism helps to build up the natural shortcomings which brings up comedy from internal sources in the film, in which this feature had extended from McCay’s animation.
Hence, Disney tried to adopt the working process which used by Windsor McCay in Ub Iwerks characters, instead of drawing from one image to the next one, he tended to add ‘in-between’ in the middle of two ‘extreme’ poses. (Animation and American, P21).
Potential question 4:
How do Anthropomorphic characters been designed??
P23, early animation uses Anthropomorphic characters include:
Gertie the Dinosaur
Felix the Cat
Mickey Mouse
Disney company has developed the concept into achieving the hyper-realism in their future work. However, scholars Patrick D. Murphy and Richard Schickel argues these characters hide their natural terrors or wildness through cuteness, joke and musical cues in the performance.
Understanding animation p203: character designs within Anthropomophrism in Disney filmsÂ
Potential question 5:
The benefits and drawbacks of anthropomorphism??
In next week I will try to develop potential questions listed above into a draft of the essay structure and let the lecturer to look at it to gain feedback. Meanwhile, I will be looking at specific case study with doing textual analysis to answer each question I have set. Beside, I will be looking at the other books I borrowed from the school library.
In this week I have double checked the development of my chosen story ‘Pocket Fantasy’, and here is my upgraded version for finishing the whole 3D previs in Maya. I have been given feedback of focusing on the interaction between the two main character, and how they have been balanced through the performance:
Meanwhile, due to the opening scene is a park, I have been given advice of looking at the videos below to find inspiration and reference:
In the second video of understanding basic types of shots, the male is also waiting for someone in the park. Hence, I have added similar types of shots into my creation as shown in the below:
The extreme long shot allows me to expose the whole set to my audiences, and the medium close up is good of showing my character’s action in the screen, the long shot dennotate the costume of what my character is wearing.
Due to we have been asked to do a sheet of introducing our characters in the story, here is my creation of the couple and how the love story has been triggered by their underwear:
Due to I have to finish the previs this week, I have built up a mind board for the set design:
It contains a few primary pictures I have taken in the Elephant park and the Walworth park, which give me a clear direction of what can be added to the park scene:
I used the basic tools such as simple geometries and deformers to structure the shape of green and the tree branches, giving them basic colours through assigning different Ai standard surface material:
Also, I have done a shot list to see which shot will be transferred into the female character’s brain:
In the mind scene, I have mainly inspired by the inner structure of the male’s pocket wand what could be put inside:
And eventually here is my complete previs from this week:
I used Premiere Pro to edit several play blasts together and to see the result:
In this week’s session, our lecturer roughly talked about the structure of writing the research proposal in this term and the topic we could potentially think about academically.
Here is the note I wrote in the online class:
During the class the lecturer mentioned the technical domain within 3D is not considered a topic for academic writing, hence I am considering choosing concept as my theme. For now, I am thinking of how ‘Anthropomorphism’ has been delivered through different animation films and how anthropomorphic characters relate to their mise-en-scene, connotations and story background.
Here are some case studies I was also thinking:
1: The boy and the beast (anthropomorphic animals).
2: Wall-E (anthropomorphic robots)
3: Toy Story (anthropomorphic toys)
4: Inside Out (anthropomorphic emotions)
Here are some potential topics I think can be discussed in my future thesis:
The source of anthropomorphism, early work.
The psychology behind using anthropomorphic characters.
The creation of anthropomorphiccharacterss in animation films.
Also, in the conclusion of the future thesis, I think I can use the topic to link back my own concept work.
I also found that in the book Understanding Animation, Paul Well writes that the anthropomorphism used in McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur informs the traditional animation produced by Walt Disney on page 15. Page 28 talks about how the early animation film Bambi applied the anthropomorphic character to move beyond the realistic traditions. Page 63 mentions how Starewicz used anthropomorphic characters in his film to exaggerate the characteristics of the rat and deliver a strong natural feeling to audiences’ emotional memory.
In google scholar, this concept has been referred to animation films in lots of writings which I am expect to read and research and see how the others to discuss them:
