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Richard Williams

Richard Williams is the Oscar-wining Director of Animation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His influence has spread round the world through his Animation Masterclasses and through his manual of methods and principles of animation: The Animator's Survival Kit.

Here's what he has to say about realism in animation:

"The big question is: How much Realism do we want to achieve?

This debate has been going on for nearly 100 years, but it is all being brought to a head by today's tremendous 'realism' advancements in computer-generated imagery and motion-capture technology.

Producers nowadays say:

"All we have to do is decide what to do, because now that the technology exists, we can do anything!"

Here are the arguments (as I see them).  Draw your own conclusions.

Let's start with classical 2D history and work up to today's motion-capture.

In 1916, animators already said – "If people can do it – don't do it."

In the 1940s, Director Tex Avery said – "You can do anything in a cartoon!"

Animator Art Babbitt said – "We can accomplish actions no human could possibly do. It's the fantasy/imagination/caricature which separates animation from live action."

Back in the 1930s, Walt Disney was developing the medium by pushing his animators for more believability - not realism as such - but striving to have his imaginative characters move believably.

For this, they naturally turned to live action for study. Disney said, "I definitely feel we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real - unless we first know the real."

He also said, "Don't duplicate real action or things as they actually happen - but give a caricature of life and action...our work is a caricature of life."

Disney called it the 'plausible impossible.' The characters could do impossible things, but it had to appear convincingly real.

The undisputed master of realistic characters at Disney was Milt Kahl: "We used to use live action a lot for reference.  I used it myself, but not blindly. I'd just use parts of it, parts that I thought were pretty good, and it saved me time."

Of course everybody these days (classical, digital, stop-motion, or games) uses live action reference to some degree – and with considerable effect. But the successful development of motion capture leads us into strange and unknown territory – where we literally capture realism and morph it onto a computer-generated character.

I told the 90-year-old Grim Natwick (animator of half of the Princess in Snow White) that I had a favorite shot in Snow White where the Princess runs down the stairs – which I always felt somehow opened the door for a way to handle realism convincingly. "Hey" Grim yelled, "That's my favorite shot too!  And that was the only one where I threw the live action reference away and just went ahead and did it my way – swooping her down!"

We know that cartoon or slightly abstract figures (the Simpsons, Wallace and Gromit, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny) create immediate empathy. We can go increasingly realistic and believable without losing empathy – but at a certain point when it gets too much like reality, there is a sharp drop, a plunge into eerie unacceptability and we recoil uncomfortably.

Audiences of 2D classical animation always preferred the more cartoony to the more realistic figures – the princes, the princesses. Pixar and other leading producers today keep their human figures quite stylised for this reason.

Back in 1937 Walt Disney predicted – "Someday our medium will produce great artists capable of portraying all emotions through the human figure – but it will be the art of caricature and not a mere imitation of great acting on stage or screen."

We don't just try to take a pencil and trace a subtle expression of emotion from live action (or use a mouse with a 'mocap') but somehow we try to find the graphic equivalent for an emotion. We're exaggerating what's important in the scene and leaving out what isn't.

My conclusion:

You want enough realism to be convincing, but you don't want so much that you ask - Why don't you take a photograph?"

Extract taken from The Animator's Survival Kit, Expanded Edition: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators by Richard Williams (Faber & Faber, 2009)

Richard Williams

Richard Williams is the Oscar-wining Director of Animation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. His influence has spread round the world through his Animation Masterclasses and through his manual of methods and principles of animation: The Animator's Survival Kit.

Here's what he has to say about realism in animation:

"The big question is: How much Realism do we want to achieve?

This debate has been going on for nearly 100 years, but it is all being brought to a head by today's tremendous 'realism' advancements in computer-generated imagery and motion-capture technology.

Producers nowadays say:

"All we have to do is decide what to do, because now that the technology exists, we can do anything!"

Here are the arguments (as I see them).  Draw your own conclusions.

Let's start with classical 2D history and work up to today's motion-capture.

In 1916, animators already said – "If people can do it – don't do it."

In the 1940s, Director Tex Avery said – "You can do anything in a cartoon!"

Animator Art Babbitt said – "We can accomplish actions no human could possibly do. It's the fantasy/imagination/caricature which separates animation from live action."

Back in the 1930s, Walt Disney was developing the medium by pushing his animators for more believability - not realism as such - but striving to have his imaginative characters move believably.

For this, they naturally turned to live action for study. Disney said, "I definitely feel we cannot do the fantastic things based on the real - unless we first know the real."

He also said, "Don't duplicate real action or things as they actually happen - but give a caricature of life and action...our work is a caricature of life."

Disney called it the 'plausible impossible.' The characters could do impossible things, but it had to appear convincingly real.

The undisputed master of realistic characters at Disney was Milt Kahl: "We used to use live action a lot for reference.  I used it myself, but not blindly. I'd just use parts of it, parts that I thought were pretty good, and it saved me time."

Of course everybody these days (classical, digital, stop-motion, or games) uses live action reference to some degree – and with considerable effect. But the successful development of motion capture leads us into strange and unknown territory – where we literally capture realism and morph it onto a computer-generated character.

I told the 90-year-old Grim Natwick (animator of half of the Princess in Snow White) that I had a favorite shot in Snow White where the Princess runs down the stairs – which I always felt somehow opened the door for a way to handle realism convincingly. "Hey" Grim yelled, "That's my favorite shot too!  And that was the only one where I threw the live action reference away and just went ahead and did it my way – swooping her down!"

We know that cartoon or slightly abstract figures (the Simpsons, Wallace and Gromit, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny) create immediate empathy. We can go increasingly realistic and believable without losing empathy – but at a certain point when it gets too much like reality, there is a sharp drop, a plunge into eerie unacceptability and we recoil uncomfortably.

Audiences of 2D classical animation always preferred the more cartoony to the more realistic figures – the princes, the princesses. Pixar and other leading producers today keep their human figures quite stylised for this reason.

Back in 1937 Walt Disney predicted – "Someday our medium will produce great artists capable of portraying all emotions through the human figure – but it will be the art of caricature and not a mere imitation of great acting on stage or screen."

We don't just try to take a pencil and trace a subtle expression of emotion from live action (or use a mouse with a 'mocap') but somehow we try to find the graphic equivalent for an emotion. We're exaggerating what's important in the scene and leaving out what isn't.

My conclusion:

You want enough realism to be convincing, but you don't want so much that you ask - Why don't you take a photograph?"

Extract taken from The Animator's Survival Kit, Expanded Edition: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators by Richard Williams (Faber & Faber, 2009)