I hate computer animation. Something about it -- perhaps the unnatural way things move -- almost always nauseates me. But not only did the animation in The Incredibles not nauseate me, I found it entertaining and fulfilling. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on what made it so good, but after some reflection, I came up with the following elements:
1. Lifelike construction and movement in people, especially in the shoulders and hair. Hair usually looks bad in animation, but I thought the characters’ hair (especially Helen Parr/Elastigirl) looked and moved naturally. As a barbershop quartet performer, I’ve been told that the shoulders are “barometers of emotion” and that I should move them expressively to illustrate the mood of a song. I think the characters’ shoulders were used as barometers of emotion in the film. Compare how Bob Parr looked when he was beaten-down at his job with how he looked after defeating the first robot -- much of the change was in the shoulders. And even better, think of how defeated Mr. Incredible looked near the end of the film when he told Elastigirl that he wasn’t strong enough to risk losing her again -- the emotion was in the shoulders.
2. Incredible depth and detailed backgrounds. The backgrounds were never washed out or blank colors as they often are in animation. And think of the layers of movement in any of the scenes where people were flying. And all of the scenes with water, especially at night with the moon on the waves, were incredibly realistic.
3. The animators clearly prided themselves on small details that were probably labor-intensive but which added emotion and realism to scenes. For example, there’s a scene where Bob Parr is sitting at his desk and the scene is about to end and it is dark and the angle is from overhead and is backing away when he knocks over a cup with pencils in it and they spill on the floor. Because the shot is from far above and is backing away, the pencils are tiny, but they are the only thing moving in the scene at the time, and they add to the sense of futility that the scene painted.
4. The colors are vibrant but not oversaturated or garish.
What are your opinions of the animation’s strengths and weaknesses?
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7 comments:
Indeed CGI is usually worse than lame and has made a joke out of the already dubious genera of action movies.
One thing that works in “The Incredibles” favor is that it is trying to be an animated film instead of a “real life” film. They put together a consistent detailed world and never tried for a realism that was beyond their capabilities. And Ben, I think you are right to focus on the emotional expression. The characters end up seeming much more real not because they look life-like but because their emotional expressions seem life-life. In fact, they are slightly exaggerated in just about the same way as the good animation from the 30s.
A couple of other things -- I saw a very interesting video clip of Brad Bird giving a pep talk to his animating team on this film. The talk was about trying to get the shoulder and neck area more lifelike. I think the video is on pixar.com.
Also, I wanted to mention how much I liked the non-lifelike parts of the animation -- Mr. Incredible's body shape, Frozone's face shape, the impossible technology at the volcanic island, etc. You make a great point that it is trying to be an animated film rather than a real life film -- and they did a great job of it. The movement was natural and realistic even though some things were shaped funny (like Edna!) and the emotions were slightly exaggerated.
The animation was stunning, I thought. And I agree that it struck the perfect balance of realism and cartoon.
Oh, another thing I noticed while I was watching was Syndrome's mannerisms. They were so life-like and perfect for the character. They had to have been modeled off someone.
Probably so. I remember watching something about the making of “Snow White”. They filmed an actress acting out Snow White’s parts so that the artists would have that kind of subtle detail about movement and mannerism. This would be even easier to do in a CGI set.
Not only was the animation gorgeous to look at (Ben, I agree especially on the nighttime and water scenes), but I thought the animators worked a lot with proportion, too. Mr. Incredible complemented his big-city adventures at the start of the film, and then, when he became a middle-level bureaucrat in hiding, he was too big for everything around him ... his desk, his car, his office. It was an effective way to show how trapped he had become.
I liked that too. It was one of those touches that you can do in animation, but wouldn’t work out in a live action movie—unlike say, flying, plenty of actors have been flown around in their movies. Pixar does have a good sense of what they can get out of animation.
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