Unfortunately, the characters in both films look unbearably creepy due to the Uncanny Valley effect of corpse-like faces and unnatural movements, even though the AVATAR characters were generated by human actors and the ANOMALISA faces were 3D printed from real people. But why, if you were going for so much realism, leave the seams showing on the ANOMALISA faces?
It’s a mistake to think that realistic images make realistic characters. Just ask Nick Park whose stylised claymation characters couldn’t be less realistic, but their down-to-earth voices and finely observed gestures make them very human. The place for realism in animation is in the movement and in the voices.
And, no matter how moving the dialogue or profound the script, words alone will not make you character come alive either. Words are not what move an audience, it’s how they’re delivered that’s affecting. It’s the expression, the small familiar gestures that accompany them that connect us to a character on the screen. When an audience is staring in horror at Zombie faces, they tend not to even hear the dialogue.
The power of a non-human performance is all about acting with face and body done by expert animators who spend a lifetime studying human and animal behavior and movement. It has nothing to do with the photorealism of CGI or 3D printed faces of live people or motion captured by actors. Done well, any animated object can move an audience (the TOY STORIES), a drawn animal can make you cry (BAMBI) and a CGI-generated cartoon character can win Oscars and thrill a whole generation (FROZEN).
ANIMATION, STOPMOTION, CGI, UNCANNY VALLEY, ANIMATION IS A MEDIUM
7 comments:
From John Lechner @JohnLechner on Twitter:
Strange that they took so much care to make the faces realistic, yet made the line of the mask so obvious.
From @JohnLechner on Twitter:
I think it's not quite as "uncanny" as most CGI films, the stop-motion gives it a human quality, a roughness that I like.
Really? I was instantly horrified. I found Nick Park's wonderful Brazilian panther more human.
From @johnlechner on Twitter:
I didn't like the faces, but I liked the way the bodies moved, that's the roughness that helps mitigate some of the realism for me
Did you see the movie at all???
As an animator on ANOMALISA did you want to contribute to the discussion?
From @Komiska on Twitter:
A wonderful article - also an avid fan of animation for adults :)
Post a Comment