Don Bluth's Animation Academy

Character Clean Up

CLEAN UP

THE ANALYSIS OF ACTION

There are two types of action in nature: real and apparent. A man riding a bicycle down the street is in real action; he is changing position in relation to fixed references, trees, fences, etc. But from his point of view, the trees and fences seem to wheel past him. Although they are motionless, rooted in the ground, they seem to move. These are apparent actions.

All real actions are manifestations of force. The sailboat scudding across a lake changes position because of force of the wind. The leaf falls to the ground because of gravity. The man on the bicycle moves his legs through muscular contraction. The realization of action as a manifestatin of force is one of the main keys to its understanding. It is a constant

Real actions can fall into two classifications: 1(Primary Actions, or those that are not caused by other actions; and 2)Secondary Actions, those which are the result of other actions, of causes outside the object in action. A walk, a run, a sniff or a sigh are primary actions. A bouncing ball, a spinning top and a swirling skirt are secondary actions.

The titanic forces of nature manifested in sunlight and moonlight, lightning and thunder, in floods, tides and earthquakes, are beyond the control of man. Actions resulting from them seem spontaneous. With the exception of gravity, they usually resolve themselves into primary actions.

The forces of life and death, growth and disintegration, also manifest themselves as primary actions. Though we frequently tend to ignore these vital forces except when they intrude on us in some dramatic way though novelty or shock, they are of great importance.

Many actions seem to be almost automatic. A flick of a finger on a switch lights up a room, a touch of a button sets as complex machine in action. A little flame ignites a forest. Because the cause of the action in such cases seems out of all proportion to the result, the actions may be considered primary.

To the Animator, no motivating force is as important as the thought process. The actions of his characters must seem to stem from thoughts or feelings. All actions genenrated by thought processes are primary.

Locomotion, the visual sign of self-determined actions, reflects more than the blind, unpredictable forces of nature or the slow inexorable forces of growth and disintegration. From the flowing movements of the amoeba to the intricate steps of the ballet dancer, locomotion is a reflection of a radically different kind of force - a force generated from withn.

A vast number of living forms, although capable of locomotion, are unable to form any but the simplest concepts, if indeed they can be called concepts. Insects, birds, fish, animals, act on insinct, rather than reason. But these instinctive or intuitive drives to do something do originate in the individual animal and result in primary action.

Animal actions usually are distinguished by class or group characteristics rather than by individual traits. One chicken walks much like a million other chickens. One bee flies like a million other bees.

A cat may purr when content or hiss when angry. Its actions express change of mood, but they are also instinctive.

One bull may be mild by nature. Another may be fierce. Although their actions express true characteristics, they are still instinctive.

Intuitive or instinctive actions give us little or not information about the character as an individual. The bloodhounds in Chain Gang had great reality but little personality.

But the action of man has special meaning. Because man is able to form complex concepts, to think and reason, he moves ahead of the animal kingdom into a new field of action. Even without speech, man can express his thoughts and emotions in terms of body action or pantomime.

This has profound significance to the Animator. Instead of action which is merely instinctive or intuitive, he creates action which is in the truest sense a meaningful reflection of the actor's mind. The thinking animation character becomes a personality.

Speech, with its unlimited possibilities for expressing shades of meaning and subtleties of thought, gives an even greater extension to action.

Secondary actions are always the result of other actions or of aforce external to the subject moving. Of these external forces, none is so persistent as that of gravity.

All of us are familiar with theresults of gravity, yet few realize how intimately our lives are bound up in this mysterious force. We extend our arm, relax our muscles; the arm falls because of gravity. WE lean forward as we walk, our body starts to fall and is caught by the forward leg; and then we fall again because of gravity. We are like pendulums constantly falling then regaining position to fall again.

About us we witness the ever-present evidence of life and action, and the less noticed manifestations of disentegration and action. Life ceases, the leaf falls. Teh elements weather, actions are the result of gravity and are secondary. Much of the action around us is like that of a river - a continuous falling until finally gravity ceases to act.

At times special physical properties of a form may be exploited and an action motivated. We stretch a rubber band; release it, it snaps back into position. We achieve a bounce in a dropped ball because of its elastic or recoil nature reacting to a resisting surface. The balloon rises, the float bobs. Buoyancy - like elasticity -bakes possible many actions - secondary actions.

When we move, our clothing moves, sometimes as fixed units - armor, hats, buckles, bows; sometimes as responding units to the enclosed form - boots, gloves, sweaters and hose. These are the result of body actions and are secondary.

Flowing drapery reflects not only body actions but gravity as well. The skirt follows a pattern deternimed by the action of the hips and legs in conjunction with iths weight and weave as it insists on falling. Often other types of forces - water or air resistance or wind - complicate the action of drapery which is always secondary in real material.

Through the Animator's knowledge of actions - primary or secondary - he is able to bring new meaning to his animation. Primary actions are clarified as such. The characters are presented as thinking, reasoning beings.

Sedcondary actions are made convincing as familiar occurances or purposefully given new meaning. Through animation alone can secondary actions be transmuted into primary actions. Inanimate objects may be vested with the power of instigating primary actions.

In simple terms, an action resolves itself into three parts: 1) the preparation for the action, 2) the action proper, and 3) the termination of the action. Strangely enough, the actual action presents the least trouble to analyze or to execute in animation.

The preparatory actions which make possible the action proper are generally referred to as "anticipation. This broad term can be used to describe several distinct facets of the preparation.

In one sense it is the anatomical provision for an action. Since all muscles in the body function through contraction, each must first be extended before it can contract. A foot must be pulled back before it can be swung forward to kick a ball. This backward action of the leg is referred to a physical anticipation. Although such actions are at times imperceptible, they often are exploited by the Animator for humorous effects of clarity. Without some provision for such wind-ups many actions would be abrupt, stiff and lacking in rhythm. On the other hand, to overstate physical anticipation may result in either a burlesque of an action (which may or may not be desirable) or be ridiculous. For a whole crowd to anticipate an action would be either a gag or preposterous.

Through anticipation, a preparatory action is often used to explain what the true action will be. The tortoise through his anticipation tells us he us about to run. Gideon's raised mallet tells us that a blow is to be struck.

An inhaled breath tells us that the wolf is about to blow.

Anticipation then, is a device to catch the audience's eye and prepare it for what is about to happen. It also may be used as a directional device to point out the object of an action. An anticipation before picking up one of many forms directs the eye to the particular subject.

Anticipation used in a dramatic (or melodramatic) way may be a clear indication of character.

A menacing character takes on new meaning through anticipation.

Subtleties of emotion - love, gaiety, interest - may be clarified by anticipation.

Extreme of preposterous anticipation often results in a laugh.

Once an action has been established through anticipation of one kind or another the action proper is in many cases self-evident. This is particularly true of fast or moderately fast actions.

In such actions the story usually is told in the anticipation or in the result of the action. In slow action the anticipation is often minimized and the menaning carried in the action proper.

Within the action itself certain conditions must be respected. An action once started must complete itself. At times the action is purposefully stopped incomplete as a gag and then terminated.

In all other cases the parts in action follow prescribed paths which usually resolve themselves into arcs. These arcs - the visual paths of action - in nature are the most economical routes by which a form can move from one postion to another.

In animation such arcs are used extensively, though they may be carried to an extreme. In certain cases an arc may resolve itself into a straight path - a falling sphere - but usually even in a straight line action the object rotates.

In many cases the action is carried past its actual termination point . after releasing a thrown ball, the hand comtinues past the actual point of release. In swinging a bat the action is continued until dissipated. If the ball is missed, the bat may continue moving until it comes to rest in back of the batter. These visual paths of action called follow through, are often emphasized broadly and at times even suggested with blurs or speed lines in cartoon animation. Much of the rhythmic flow of slow moving parts in the humanized characters is directly attributed to skillful use of visual arcs.

The termination of the action has great informative value to the Animator. An action may just dissipate itself: the marble stops rolling, or the object in action may disappear into the distance. When we drop a brick on the ground it stops. In many cases, however, the end of one action is the beginning of another. The squash of a ball is the anticipation of the rebound. In a walk the fall is the anticipation of the lift, or recovery.

Just the denial of this suggests lack of life.

Like anticipation, the resultant action or reaction has great story telling value. It tells us what has happened. It answers what the anticipation action has suggested, or completes its meaning. And, like anticipation, it is often a substitute for the action proper. One character draws back his fist, strikes. The other character reacts to the punch. The actual action of punching is not as interesting as either the anticipation or the result. Except in continuous actions, running, walking, etc., most actions can be implied through either one or the other or both. Few story sketches show action - they show anticipation or th result of the action. The resultant action in many cases resolves itself into a resultant pose or tableau which explains what has happened.

Some actions are characterized by their progressive nature: a dropped ball, the trajectory of a bullet. Others by their reverse nature: one part going one way; another part going in the reverse direction, like a whip or a hula-hoop®. Body actions are characterized by this reversible type action. As one hand swings forward in a walk, the other swings back.

Since body actions are not simultaneous, some part of the body of necessity must start moving first, like the engine in a train. This is called the "lead". In a walk the action starts in the hips. AS one hip swings and falls, it sets in motion the leg. The hip "leads", the leg "follows". As the hip twists the torso follows; then the shoulder follows, the arm follows, the wrist follows and finally the fingers.

Having once started the action of the torso, the weight shifts to the opposite hip and the action is reversed. The result is a smooth weaving action, hips going in one direction, torso in the other. This is called "overlapping action". Although most large body actions start in the hips, the wrist will lead the fingers in a hand gesture and the eyes usually lead the head.

Not only does one part of a figure overlap in action that of another, whole phases of action overlap to give us a flow and continuity of many actions. Disney puts it simply, "it is not necessary for an Animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he's going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind. For example: say the mind thinks,'I'll close the door, lock it, then I'm going to undress and go to bed.' You walk over to the door and before the walk is finished you're reaching for the door, before the door is closed you reach for the key, before the door is locked you're turning away, while you're walking away you're undoing your tie, and before you reach the bureau you have your tie off. In other words, before you know it you're undressed - and you have done it with one thought: "I'm going to bed."