Anime and Games: transcending style and time in the east

It can be said, that Japanese Anime is a culturally specific form of animation that based its visual style on its early limitations. Budget and time limits ended up defining, what Lamarre calls "limited animation", in which many short-cuts where developed in order to create illusions of movement that where less time intensive to produce. Processes such as repeated loops, sliding figures across backgrounds, segmentation of body parts, and cut and paste facial features,  first developed out of necessity and later became part of the inherent style of this unique form of animation. What was a concession later became a strength. 

What struck me most about this revelation (as I admittedly, have almost no knowledge of the Anime art form) was its very marked similarity to 2D video game animation. All the limited animation processes mentioned in Lamarre's article as well as others mentioned in Mark Stein's lecture where almost identical to the techniques used in sprite animation in video games. 

While this in itself is not a major revelation, it is worth noting that whereas in traditional animation (western) as well as video games, the tendency is often to approach the cinematic whenever possible. With emphasis on techniques such as motion-capture to create realistic movements (animation and video games), removal of looping or sliding to encourage movements based on set fps fixed meter segments, or rotoscoping (drawing the animated cells over captured film or video footage), it seems like in the west we still judge movement according to "reality" which really means the cinematic. As it is commonly thought that cinematic movement is analogous to "real" movement.

Conversely, in Japan, from what I gathered from the Stein's lecture, after having found creative solutions to their limitations, the animators started to embrace these limitations as a unique style or process. They became the seeds to a new way of conceiving animation and movement. And this is strangely similar in the video game world as I mentioned earlier. While technology in video games has grown even more explosively that of film or TV animation, games in the west are still working towards the holy grail of the cinematic experience. Hardware is being pushed to the limit to allow for more polygons (triangles that make up the mesh of modeled 3d Characters), higher resolution textures and more motion-captured key frames for animation. The general feeling is that of a constant struggle to reach "real movement".

In games coming out of Japan, like with anime, this does not seem nearly so important. The concept of movement seems less rigid and more open to experimentation within the limits of the genre. In fact, it sometimes even appears that they exaggerate the limitations purposefully. It feels like a form of self affirmation. They know they are making games and they are not afraid to say so. Examples like the legendary "Street Fighter" series are still animating with sectioned, looped, pixels based character sprites like in the good old days of 8-bit systems, in lieu of more modern 3D motion capture techniques. 

Though I couldn't tell you why this seems to be the case, it is interesting nonetheless to know that culture could play a large part in how we are willing to work with movement and how we judge it in different situations. Of course I am generalizing greatly here as there are many games and animations that transcend these concerns in both cultures. I feel it is worth mentioning that there does seem to be a division in the way movement is generally expressed. I find it interesting that two vehicles (cell animation and video games) separated by over 80 years could still parallel each other so faithfully across time and culture.

plan-séquence en animation

«the essential nature of the filmed material comes out in the character of the editing»  Tarkovsky (116)

Cette citation me pousse à revenir au plan-séquence.  Un montage dans la mise-en-scène et dans le choix des cadrages est orchestré dans le plan-séquence.  Bref, par sa composition dans l'espace, le montage est présent dans un tel plan.  Plusieurs théoriciens du cinéma ont prouvé que même à l'époque des frères Lumières, le montage avait lieu, de par certains montage in-caméra.  

Je me demandais ce que serait le plan-séquence en cinéma d'animation.  J'ai tout suite pensé aux performances live de Pierre Hébert.  La gravure en direct faite par Hébert peut s'apparenter au plan-séquence.  Dans la mesure où l'image transmet simultanément le mouvement direct sur la pellicule.  Le rythme est capté à même le présent.  Certes, certains diront que le montage est encore présent de par ses choix du trait et des images dans le cadre, mais reste le seul exemple de plan-séquence en cinéma d'animation qui m'est venu à l'esprit.

Tarkovski, l’image-caractère et l’animation

Dans « Le temps scellé », Tarkovski décrit un autre type d’image : l’image-caractère. « Voilà le paradoxe : l’image-caractère est l’expression la plus complète de ce qui est typique, mais le mieux elle l’exprime, le plus elle devient individuelle et unique (p.133) ». Je sais très bien que Tarkovski est un grand fervent du réalisme et de la simplicité, mais je me demande ce qui en est de cette affirmation pour une animation plus abstraite. Une animation dessinée ne sera jamais la chose représentée, mais le caractère exprimé par l’image-mouvement et l’image-son peut lui proférer un caractère plus vrai que la chose elle-même. Par exemple, un animateur dessine des courbes et des lignes sous une musique jazz de manière que les dessins deviennent des notes. Il est évident que ce ne sont pas des notes réelles, mais si l’alliance entre l’image et le son est bien effectuée, le tout devient identifiable. Serait-ce cette fameuse image-caractère qui exprime le typique de cette image afin de la rendre individuelle et unique?

Interacting with McLaren

The handling of Norm McLaren's interview in Cinema de Notre Temps was entirely appropriate to what we've been discussing and looking at these past few weeks. It was my first time seeing it and I was really blown away with how they incorporated intervals of McLaren's own imagery and sounds into the piece. The filmmakers decision to abandon the traditional sound format and framing engaged my senses on both a conscious and a subconscious level. For most of the film McLaren's head is framed within a circle that floats around almost as if it is enticing other colors and images to interact with him. In some parts it looked to me like a cell or microorganism under a microscope growing and reacting to the other particles around it. The movement of McLaren's bubble then triggered an exterior action that the viewer is forced to process while still paying attention to the interview within the bubble. Another plateau intersects when little animated circles begin to dance around McLaren's head, and these tiny circles of motion explore the space and playfully interact with McLaren as our levels of perception continue to be challenged. This happens again when the outline of McLaren's shape freezes and the image of the man is replaced by dancing animations and sounds, while the library interview room remains as if to reassure us we haven't completely lost our sense of normality within this spectrum. Suddenly a title will confront us, "CAMERA MAKES WHOOPEE" and its forceful interruption demands we take it seriously (much like a Godard film). I thought the way the filmmakers constantly toyed with our senses was quite effective and engaging. Sound also played an enormous role in this film and it is also worth discussing in its own right. At one point in the interview McLaren says, "emotion has to be expressed through the quality of motion" and I think both Cinema de Notre Temps and McLaren's entire body of work are active representations of this statement.