The Joy and Hardships of an Animator

Animation Perth

Photo from OOTB

Whether you want to study animation in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, or in any part of the world, you need a load of patience and unwavering dedication to your craft. We don’t need to mention being creative, imaginative and talented because these are implicit traits of an animator. An aspiring animator should have a perseverance as strong as steel to draw 50 or more sketches of the same kind. A slight movement is not from point A to B but taken from different perspectives or angles. Walt Disney Animation Studio’s Frozen is a prime example of an exemplary masterpiece and now considered as the highest-grossing animated film of all time (inflation not calculated).

Photo Credit: toysrus.com

My first impression of the movie is “Oh, another Christmas-y movie for the holidays.” The movie was released on November 2013. Well, it was full of snow and ice obviously. While the musical part occupied almost quarter of the film’s running time. I was wrong though because the story evolved between two sisters and how did they overcome the adversaries and conflicts they've encountered. Let us focus on the animation aspects of the movie, which was no doubt, simply breathtaking and beautiful. As I mentioned, snow and ice were the main elements in the movie. The animators were able to produce both that exemplified a sense of magical appeal. It was not a plain and boring all-white setting.

Photo Credit: huffingtonpost.com

Whenever we watch an animated movie, we only see the final product before our eyes sans the technicalities. Unaware that the production or development stage took 3-4 years just to complete the entire film. The behind-the-scenes or the raw material is the crucial part of the process. Do you know a one-second of a high quality cinematic animation needs 30 frames? It means 30 sketches or drawings of the same object. What more if you need to make a character walk, run, jump or slide?

To be an animator is to practice ingenuity. Yes, we already saw snow and ice in previous animated films but Disney took it to a completely new level, an awesome level I believe. We all know Disney is a veteran in the industry yet the main challenge they faced was creating a deep and sticky snow. To achieve this they created a new tool called Matterhorn. Now they have the tool, what is next?

Photo Credit: Wikipedia.org

Immersion is one of the vital techniques in animation. Visualizing the scene or action is not enough. A character must be in “character” to achieve this. It must represent a sense of realism and authenticity as if it is almost the real thing. Frozen’s Executive Producer John Lasseter “is keen on truth in the material and creating a believable world.” The animation crew visited different places because for them “to see and to feel is to believe and to create.” They went to Norway for the film’s main setting. At Wyoming, the animators literally played in the snow. They turned the Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada as an observatory for ice and snow.

The bottom-line is you must love what you do. No matter how many hundreds of same sketch you have to draw on your entire career life, especially if it is a series, you'll never get tired of it. So the next time you watch an animated film, go ahead criticize it, it is unavoidable anyway, but somehow let us appreciate the hardships an animator went through because the source of his joy and fulfillment is whenever our eyes sparks while we watch their works. Visit ootb.net.au for more information about video production and animation perth.

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Animation Perth, WA