EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Morgan Williams: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the first podcast of Character Animation Boot Camp. Really excited to have all of you guys with us and I hope you're enjoying the class so far. I want to talk to you guys today about kind of a big, overarching idea that's really important to keep in your mind, even as you are probably, at some points, being sort of overwhelmed by the technology and the process of creating character animation. It really is a lot of process for the amount of product you create. It's sometimes easy to get kind of lost in that process. I want us to think about the big picture a little bit, so I want to talk to you about kind of a big idea I push on my first year students a lot at Ringling. That's the idea that animation is a performing art. Actors, dancers, musicians, puppeteers, and animators all share one thing in common, we all communicate through performance. 

Let's kind of define our terms a little bit here, before we move on. I pulled up a couple of definitions of performance that I felt were interesting and apt here for us. I'll just rattle through a couple of these; you'll get the idea pretty quick. One is a musical, dramatic or other entertainment and I think by other we can clearly discern that to mean film, television, video, all of that kind of stuff, and video games. A musical, dramatic or other entertainment presented before an audience. Another one here, the act of performing a ceremony, play, piece of music, et cetera. Et cetera, again, film, television. You can clearly see a lot of these definitions were probably written around the turn of the last century and they've kind of stuck on stuff like other entertainment, et cetera. Here's another one, the act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. There's that catch-all for all of our modern entertainment forms, but you get the idea.

This is what we do as animators. We create pieces of entertainment. We happen to be doing it through technology, but that's definitely what we're doing. Now animation, of course ... maybe not of course, but you should know that animation means 'to give life to'. Animation doesn't mean movement and that's the thing that, if you ask a group of grade school students what animation means, probably about half of the students will say movement. It means moving. Of course, it doesn't. Animation doesn't mean movement. In particular, it doesn't mean random movement. 

Animation means to give life to. To create that illusion of life. So what we're talking about is not random movement; we're talking about motion that communicates meaning. The meanings we're trying to communicate create this illusion of life. We try to create a sense of physics or weight or gravity, elasticity, momentum, energy, and, yes, emotion and ideas. I'm talking here about animation in general, not just character animation. I'm talking about all animation. When you make a logo feel like it weighs 1,000 tons, you're creating an illusion of life. When you make a piece of typography burst into flames, you're creating an illusion of the life of those flames. This is about all animation. All animation is about giving life to.

What are we doing this for? Why are we creating this illusion of life? Well we're doing it to create a performance. The purpose is to create that movie or that television show or that commercial or whatever or that projection. Whatever we're creating with our animation, we're creating that illusion of life to create this performance. This holds true for, as I said, all animation, absolutely, for sure, but with character animation, this connection is even more direct. 

One of the definitions I found for performance was action of representing a character in a play. Now if you substitute play for TV show, commercial, video, film, video game, right, action of representing a character. That's certainly what an actor does, but it also is what a dancer does. You could also argue it's what a musician can do, singing a song or even playing an instrument as if it's a character speaking. There are certainly many examples of that in music. The action of representing a character in a film, television show, ad, movie, et cetera, that is certainly what we are doing when we are creating character animation. Once again, we are creating a performance. 

Now a little divergence here. I think it's important to think about and talk about the immense connections- in fact, you could argue that they are literally one in the same thing- between the slightly more ancient art of puppeteering and character animation. Puppeteering, to be quite honest, was my original interest before I discovered animation. I never got very far, I was just a kid, but back in the '70s I was the exact perfect age for the original Muppet Show and the original Muppet movies. I became obsessed with the Muppets. Truly, truly, sickly obsessed with the Muppets. I started building my own puppets, I started developing characters and I, literally, wants to be a Muppeteer. I was going to leave home with my sack full of puppets and I was going to show up at the Creature Shop at Jim Henson Studios and just say, "Pick me, I'm yours." 

Now that kind of disappeared in the craziness of adolescence and childhood. You know, those kind of childhood obsessions come and go. There was something very important in there, which was that very, very early on, I was very connected with the idea of creating characters. I did get into theater in high school, too. I got very into theater and when I first started in art school, I began, actually, and ended as a film major. My interest in creating character and creating story goes back a long way and I think the puppeteering connection is very, very important. Puppeteers do the same thing character animators do. They use a kind of interim figure. In the case of a puppeteer, the puppet; in a hand-drawn animator it's a drawing. In the case of computer animation and traditional stop-motion animation, it's with a puppet. Then we use technology to create the movement of the puppet, whereas the puppeteer uses their hand to create the movement, but the idea is the same. It's that we are using this puppet, this illusionary figure, to create the illusion of a character in a play, film, television, video, et cetera. 

I think it's important to really think of ourselves in that tradition. In the tradition of theater, in the tradition of acting, performance, dance. The tradition of puppeteering, because of it's particular connection with character animation in that we are communicating through this other figure. It's really important that we keep this idea as we are creating our work.

When we're doing character animation and puppeteering, we want to kind of think about what we're communicating. We talked before about how animation is always trying to communicate this life illusion. In character animation, we have to kind of think of it in a little more of a sophisticated way, because we're actually trying to communicate on two levels. With character animation, and, I would argue, also with puppeteering ... maybe I should just say right off the bat, there's no difference. They happen to be two different terms for, really, the same thing and just two different techniques, maybe we could say. They're really just two techniques getting at the same basic thing. 

We're trying to communicate on two levels. First, we're trying to communicate the physical reality of the figure, itself. You have to believe in Kermit the Frog, you have to believe in Bugs Bunny, you have to believe in Homer Simpson. There has to be enough of a belief in the physical reality of the figure in its space and its movement. So when Bart gets on his skateboard, sure, technically anything can happen, but there are enough rules in place that we believe that that is Bart Simpson on his skateboard, going down the street. There has to be a sense of physics, a sense of gravity, of the correct energies and forces at work. Those kind of basic things that, of course, come from our animation principles. That give us that kind of physical illusion.

That is kind of something that you have to do at the core of most animation, but with character animation, there's a second level. Maybe not in every single case, but in most cases there is a second level that you really have to think about. That's the inner life of the character. What is the character thinking about? What is the character's attitude? What are the character's emotions? That inner life, that performance, is essentially secondary to the illusionary performance of just making you believe that that thing is alive in the first place. If you think about, for example, Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny first has to appear alive before we can know whether he's happy or sad. If we don't believe he's alive, we don't even care whether he's happy or sad. We have to first believe he's alive and then we have to understand that he is happy or sad. It's kind of a two layer sort of approach to the communication that you're creating. 

This brings up a fun story. It goes back to the early days of Disney. This is before the big features and before the big, big advancements in character animation that were to come. It was one of their early seeds and it came from the wonderful animator Norm Ferguson, who everyone referred to at Disney as 'Fergie'. Fergie, who had no formal art training, created this very significant sequence of animation in a Pluto cartoon. It was just a Pluto short. At that time, I think it was not even Pluto yet; I think it was just referred to as a bloodhound who later became Pluto. It's essentially Pluto. If you were to see the cartoon now, I think you would just say, "Hey, there's Pluto." I think he might have gotten his name a few years later.

Anyway, this was a very, very funny sequence. It's a hilarious sequence where Pluto gets stuck on fly paper. Then he tries to get the fly paper off in a whole variety of ways and, essentially, hilarity ensues. Well the story of how this sequence was created is detailed in the Disney 'Illusion of Life' book. You should check that out, because there's some fun details about how the story and the scene was developed with the back and forth between Fergie and Walt and the other animators. The significant thing about this scene is that it's one of the early indications of a shift in cartoons in that time, from basically being just a quick delivery system for gags and with characters showing their emotions in an extremely crude fashion with rough mugs to the camera, big, broad frowns, 'I am sad now'. Just very crude, this character now is sad, this character now is happy, and then lots and lots of sight gags. Things falling on them, tripping, bumping, falling, et cetera. 

This Pluto sequence was significant because the character clearly was having thoughts and it was no longer just the action or the gag that was getting the laughs, but it was actually the character's thoughts that were providing the laughs to the audience. A character, especially an animated character on a screen that can project to the audience what it's thinking, that's an extremely sophisticated performance. It's the kind of thing that we look for in great actors. We expect a great actor to be able to reveal the thoughts and emotions going on inside the character without even necessarily using dialogue. With simply body posture and facial expression and the subtle play of expression on the face that shows those wheels turning in their heads. 

Well, in this animation of Pluto being stuck to the flypaper, Fergie started to create a performance of Pluto, where you could see the wheels turning in his head. It was those moments that were some of the biggest laughs for the sequence. There's a great little quote here ... a couple of quotes from some of the Disney animation people there. I think a couple of the story guys. One of the story guys and an animator in looking at that cartoon. Oh, and I've got the cartoon title here, too. I didn't remember that offhand, but it's right here in the quote: 'Playful Pluto'. He did have his name at this time. 'Playful Pluto', so you might want to see if that's findable. I'm sure it is. It's a very famous sequence.

Here's what Ted Sears, one of their story men, had to say about 'Playful Pluto', "The flypaper sequence in 'Playful Pluto' is always mentioned as the best example of his pantomime. This is because it illustrated clearly all of Pluto's characteristics from dumb curiosity to panic. It is timed in such a way that the audience feels all of Pluto's sensations. Each hold expression after a surprise action is carefully planned and expressed some definite attitude causing the audience to laugh. Each small climax builds up into a better surprise."

Wilfred Jackson, who was an animator, also commented on Fergie's flypaper sequence and said, "You can take that same gag without running over the dog's thoughts or emotions, just mechanically doing the thing, and it wouldn't be funny." I think that's really, really significant. If you didn't have the sense of Pluto's thought process, if you didn't have the sense of him thinking, that scene would lose its comedic energy, because you wouldn't believe that that character was really in that situation, having that happen. I think that clearly illustrates how important performance is to great character animation. 

Now, Disney, at that time, also had an interesting practice, which is that when they gave animation assignments to their animators ... in other words, when they said, "Okay, Frank, you're going to take Jiminy Cricket, or whatever", they would actually use the term casting. Now, that's really, really interesting, isn't it? It gets right to my point that animators are performers. A character animator is an actor, is a performer, is a dancer. I don't know if they still use that term today, but using the term casting, to cast an animator in a role, I think really, really shows where their heads were at and where, I think, your head wants to be at, too, when you're creating character animation.

Now one of the things about creating that Pluto performance was its incredible subtlety. That subtlety is really, really difficult when you're dealing with what's basically kind of a crude figure, whether it be a drawing on a screen or a puppet that you've created in real life or in computer software. Those puppets, inevitably, are going to be more crude, no matter how beautiful they are ... and I'm not saying your puppets or your drawings won't be beautiful. No matter how beautiful they are, they're never going to capture the sophistication of a real live actor. Al Pacino can communicate with a twitch of his cheek. We don't have that kind of subtlety. We have a, in a certain sense, kind of crude toolbox, but that doesn't mean we can't create wonderful performances with our characters. 

I'll come back to the idea of puppeteering to give you guys an example of that. As I said, I'm a big Muppets fan and there's a great story about Frank Oz's amazing performances as Miss Piggy throughout the years when he performed Miss Piggy ... created and performed Miss Piggy. 

Well, Miss Piggy was, of course, one of the most popular Muppets in the '70s and she used to get lots and lots of fan mail. Also significant to think about a fictional character being seen as so real that they got fan mail. Of course, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, all these characters did. Miss Piggy used to get a lot of fan mail and one of the things that was really interesting was that there was a common comment that would come out of these letters, which would be, "Oh, I love it when Miss Piggy bats her eyes at Kermit". As soon as I say that, Miss Piggy batting her eyes at Kermit, we can all kind of see it, can't we? We can all ... oh, yeah, Miss Piggy, she's always making goo-goo eyes at Kermit. We kind of think of that as an essential essence of Miss Piggy's character.

Here's the thing that's really interesting about that. The Miss Piggy puppet does not have moveable eyes or eyelids. Look carefully. Miss Piggy's eyes are fixed. They don't even have moveable pupils. They're basically painted ping pong balls. So when people say, I love it when Miss Piggy bats her eyes at Kermit, what they are doing is they are responding to the incredibly talented, subtle performance of the amazing Frank Oz, creating the illusion that Miss Piggy is batting her eyes at Kermit. Simply, I'm guessing, with a little gentle twitch of his wrist in that beautiful puppet and a certain way he leans her and gestures with her eyes that creates that sense that she, quote unquote, batted her eyes at Kermit. 

I can't think of a better way of showing how you can't let a simple puppet or a crude rig or anything like that get in the way of your job. Your job, as a character animator, is to make that character come to life and life and breathe for your audience. When we think about that, you want to think about the great examples of this. One of those would be Miss Piggy, of course, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Homer Simpson. What's really significant about them- and if you take a minute and think about these characters- is that they really live in our minds. We think of Bugs Bunny as a person who would react to things a certain way. We know what Bugs Bunny would do. We know what Homer Simpson would do if he saw a plate of donuts. We know what Homer thinks about donuts. We know him as an actual character, creating that sense of life.

When Chuck Jones met one of his young fans once, his mother introduced him and said, "This is the man who draws Bugs Bunny." The kid looked at Chuck and looked at his mom and said, "No, that's the guy who draws pictures of Bugs Bunny." That's a significance difference. He draws pictures of a real person called Bugs Bunny. I think that's a great little story. 

So how do we create these wonderful performances with our characters that I'm talking about? First of all, we want to study the principles of animation. That's what they're all there for. The principles are there to help us create this illusion of life and create these wonderful performances. The 12 principles, since they were originally written for character animators, many of them are really bent, very directly, towards that purpose. We also want to think about studying acting. Study, or use as reference, performances and films and theater, dance, even music. If you really get into character and you really want to make this a big part of your life, take some classes in acting and movement; that can be really fun. Just take a fun community college class. That could just be a really fun thing to do, anyway, but, I'll tell you, it'll make your character animation better. It might even make your motion graphic animation better, too.

The other thing that I would recommend, and I'd recommend just this in general, is ... and I always tell students this. When you're creating a piece of animation, you have the greatest reference possible, which is yourself. Get up and act your scene out. See what you do. See how you move your body in reaction to the things that your character has to react to. If you think that's a little silly, it's a little goofy, I will tell you I've spent a long time in animation studios and I don't know a single good character animator that doesn't get up and jump around and act like an idiot once in a while in order to help create or perfect a performance. If you watch the wonderful film 'Frank and Ollie', which is, essentially, the companion movie to Disney 'Illusion of Life' book, you'll see two 70-something year old men talking and acting like little bunny rabbits. Again, because that's their job. 

Their job is to create a performance and they have to perform as a bunny rabbit. Now, they may be performing through a drawing or you may be performing through a puppet, but you are still creating that performance. In many ways, you have to internalize it and embody it. At the minimum, you have to close your eyes and imagine yourself, what would I do if I was a little pink, fluffy bunny? Better yet, get up and be that pink, fluffy bunny and do what that bunny would do and use that in your character animation. Anyway, it's fun. It's one of the great excuses that character animators have to act like goofballs and children. You get that advantage, as well.

I hope this has given you some idea of kind of the big picture here. I know many of you maybe just want to add some character skills to your repertoire as a motion designer and this isn't going to be your life's passion, I totally, totally get that. You should still think about how your character performs, because if you want your clients coming back to you for this kind of work, you want to focus on performance. If you take a look at the best and most successful character animators out there, their characters really perform. Those characters live and breath and come alive in front of us on the screen. That should always be your goal.