Animation in Entertaining and Educating Children: A Case Study on the Character Design of Lion King
Chapter 1 Introduction
Subject Matter
Animation constitutes the visual method utilizing illusion or motion by rapidly displaying a set of images in a sequence. To portray movement, every sequence constitutes a change in the characters. To show the action of walking, a change could be the lifting of one foot, placing it down, followed by the lifting of the other foot. By displaying the sequence of images rapidly, the viewer sees the illusion of movement. Animation has appeal to children because it is fun. Animation controls a number of sensory stimuli such as visualization of color, shapes, and movements as well as hearing in the case of the voices of animated characters ( 2006). As such, in animation, the lead characters are beautiful by manipulating colors and shapes and the voices are pleasant through exaggeration. As animated shows and files achieved popularity, this increased in utility to become not only children’s entertainment but also learning technique. Many animated shows and films also focused on content and meaning and balanced this with sensory entertainment. Due to the role of animation in entertaining and teaching children, character design becomes important.
Character design constitutes the process of developing the characters in animation, including the lead character, the villain if applicable, and other supporting characters. The characters could represent people, animals, plants and other objects imaginable. The concept of the characters depends on the artist. The design of the characters portrays a number of factors including the personality, attitudes, perspectives, and behavior of the characters. The characters should have unique traits so that when depicted shows a coherent story and clear relationships with other characters. ( 2006) This means that if a character is the lead, then there should be a marked difference with the villain to ensure recognition on the part of the viewers. The characters should also depict emotions aligned with their characters so that lead characters are likely to be happy, kind or pleasant while villains are sad, angry or temperamental. The effective development of characters supports not only the flow of the story to create meaning on the part of children but also constitute in them representations of good and bad, right and wrong, and other lessons intended for children viewers comprising the theme of the animation such as friendship, family, and love.
Due to the importance of animation in entertaining as well as teaching children, it becomes important to understand the role of character design in animation to identify the aspects of character design that animators should consider in developing entertaining as well as educational animation projects for children.
Focus or Angle
The investigation focuses on the character design of the animated film Lion King to assess the manner that character design incorporated both entertainment and learning in animation. Lion King is a successful animated film produced by Disney and recognized for its entertainment and educational value. The animated film constitutes an important case in determining the manner that character design supports both entertainment and learning.
Thesis Statement
Effective character design in animation can entertain and educate children audiences.
Chapter 2 Animation in Entertaining and Educating Children
Traditionally, the role of animation developed into two strands. One is the academic strand that considered animation as a tool for learning. The other is the entertainment strand that developed animation in the commercial context for the entertainment of children. (2008) Nevertheless, at present, both strands appear to have merged as many animated shows integrate both entertainment and education in shows.
Animation for Academic Learning
The academic strand of animation developed through the initiative of educators seeking to integrate the traditional academic contents into animated gaming. This academic strand revolved around the school educational setting, then to towards a stage of commercialization, and then to the use of animation for both school and home settings.
The Learning Company was one of the first business firms to venture into learning software creating a new sub-sector. The rationale behind the company is to make learning more appealing to children by using gaming to draw and maintain the attention of children. The company considered as its goal, the development of gaming software for learning that is free from the traditional schooling constraints. This is also the reason why the company focused on learning and not education to distinguish the company from traditional schooling context. The company introduced a number of gaming software during the 1980s and 1990s such as Gertrude’s Puzzles and Rocky’s Boots, the first learning games introduced using the dos system. Figure 1 below shows a print screen of Rocky’s Boots, which involves kicking out figures of difference shapes and colors to build mechanical machines. The company also introduced Reader Rabbit that has as 2007 version providing interactive activities using interactive storylines in solving mysteries using clues. The new version now operates using operating systems such as Windows and Macintosh. (2008)
Figure 1: Screen Shot of Rocky’s Boots
Another company, the Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation, also engaged in learning software with the similar intention of using gaming animation to assist children’s learning. The founder is an educator. The first software developed by the company included Number Munchers for learning math and Oregon Trail focusing on reading comprehension and analytical skills. The company also introduced Math Blaster that again focused on a fun way of learning math. ( 2008)
The learning and gaming tools developed by these two companies had one thing in common, which is the retention of the academic lessons but using tools that are more interactive. Schools or other academic institutions purchased different gaming software as a supplement to classroom teaching. As such, these software considered used the gaming technique to teach traditional lessons taught to children in schools.
During the 1990s, a change occurred in software tools because the proliferation of personal computers and consolidation of the learning software industry. At the same time, the family-oriented market also developed. As such, the growth in the market meant the greater demand for learning software not only by schools or academic institutions but also by families. During this time, distribution of learning software extended to department stores and supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Office Depot. Consolidation of the learning software industry led to the concentration of learning software development under two large companies, Mattel, a children’s entertainment company and Cendant, a computer company. Mattel eventually sold its media sector giving the industry to computer companies. As such, the focus moved towards the improvement in graphics and refinement of sound instead of developing better ways of integrating the game design with learning modules. In terms of content, the focus is on curricular lessons embedded in puzzles, role-playing stories, math and science problem-solving stories, and history maps with completion leading to rewards. (2008) The idea for learning software is to use these tools to motivate learning by sugarcoating complex lessons into fun games. The difference is that the distribution process not targeted both schools and households.
Animation for Entertainment
The entertainment strand evolved through the development of multimedia and interactive tools. The entertainment strand had a single focus, which is to provide entertainment or pleasure to children and adolescents by using interesting ideas or topics in multimedia and interactive systems.
The brothers were one of the first group to engage in this strand by purchasing Bank Street Writer, Where in the world in ?, Just Grandma and Me, and Myst. The main goal of the software was to provide pleasurable media experiences to children instead of focusing on academic content. Apple Multimedia Lab developed The Visual Almanac and other software with interesting content infused with animation, graphics and sounds. Humongous Entertainment created Pajama Sam, a series of role-playing games for young children. (2008)
The proliferation of this type of multimedia products created the broad genre of entertainment-oriented software for children. The game software titles were similar to the learning software but the difference is the loose or open-ended aspects of the games. The focus was entertainment for viewers or gamers with learning depending on their extent of cognitive processing and exploration. Unlike the learning software with goal-oriented format, the ultimate aim of entertainment-oriented software employed sandbox and click-and-explore style of learning of letting the gamers or viewers discover lessons from the entertaining outcome. A Silly Noisy House is gaming software that uses the click-and-explore approach so that selecting clickable items would let the gamer enter rooms of the house to view different rooms and hear various sounds. Barbie Fashion Designer is another example of click-and-explore approach by providing gamers with tools such as selection of clothing, shows and accessories to choose from and allowing them to mix-and-match the fashion items. Lego is an example of the click-and-explore and sandbox approach since the gamers are free to connect whichever pieces they want to build whatever object they have in mind. The lessons learned in terms of skills are indirect and subtle by depending on the gamers or viewers. Pajama Sam [See Figure 2 below] is another example of the click-and-explore and sandbox approach with a superhero as the primary animated character. A number of scenarios are provided and it is up to the gamers to determine how the superhero would act. (2008) Lessons, mostly in terms of analytical and decision skills, are indirect and subtle because these depend on the cognitive choices of the gamers as well as the choices they make during the process.
Figure 2: Screen Shot of Pajama Sam
Animation within the Integrative Strand
The integration of academic and entertainment strands, expressed through the term “edutaining” by combining educating and entertaining (2000) is a continuing process because of the deep-seated perspective on the distinction between academic learning and entertainment. The complexity of the development of the integrative strand is due to cultural factors and the mind-set that academic learning is not much fun and entertainment is all about fun by fully deviating from academics. Another factor is the division of the industry into the two separate sectors of educational and entertainment companies (2001), with the former focusing on academic learning and the other focusing on entertainment.
Nevertheless, the recognition of the lack of conflict in integrating both academic and entertainment values in animation is slowly building an integrative sub-sector. This constitutes a broad sector with some animated project leaning more towards academic learning or entertainment but nonetheless combining these two values. Commonly, the point of convergence is the use of entertainment to express goal-oriented lessons. In the case of games, exemplifies the integrative strand by combining entertainment in role-playing games with learning goals including decision-making, socialization, and artistic design. However, this focuses more on building analytical and skills building and does not focus on a particular academic lesson.
Figure 3: Sims2 Castaway
Recent animated shows and films also reflect the integrative strand by consciously incorporating academic lessons in entertaining stories. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, a Nickelodeon television series and movie [See Figure 4 below], integrate lessons in science, gadgets and inventions in solving mysteries. Dexter’s Laboratory shown in Cartoon Network [See figure 5 below] also contains a similar theme, that of using science and innovativeness to solve problems. These increase the appeal of science and laboratories to children as well as providing subtle science lessons on the galaxy and other topics.
Figure 4: Jimmy Neutron Figure 5: Dexter’s Laboratory
Chapter 3 Character Design in Animation
Character design refers to the process of defining the perspectives, personality, and traits of a character in animation games or films. This commences with the conceptualization of the character in terms of gender, age, race, height, body build, and other identity factors. Two factors are for consideration, the physical traits and the personality (2005). The determination of these factors relies on the planned story or the story could revolve around the character. The succeeding considerations involve various factors such as function and aesthetics. Character design is a key part of animation for entertaining and educating children. However, character design is not as simple because of the need to incorporate both artistic and technical factors ( 2006).
Character Design as a Creative Process
As a creative process, character design could reflect personality. A basic creative standard is the use of proportions to reflect different personalities with sharp features for male characters with brute strength or gruesome features for villains such as witches or evil stepmothers. Designing a character could also be for its own sake to express unique forms and images even without a story in mind. Artists can use references in creating characters. Many known characters or images find bases on real life people or objects, although exaggerated to develop personality. Once a character has been conceptualized based on references, the next step is to refine the design by considering whether the design is capable of development into a full-blown animated character given the purpose and the allocated budget. ( 2006)
There are two basic character design options. One is realistic characters and the other is stylized characters. In the case of realistic characters, digital animation technology allows animators to create realistic characters or mimic actual individuals or objects. Nevertheless, this involves a greater price. The closer the character mimics the real thing, the harder it is to accomplish because of the need to consider details of the real thing and more costly. It is also challenging because audiences have personal knowledge and experience of human features, expressions, emotions and movements and realistic animations receive greater praise when the characters closely resemble the real thing. (2006) Even children can recognize disparities in animated characters and this could affect the quality of their experience with the animation. There is risk in using realistic animations but the reward is also great. In the case of stylized characters, this involves more freedom for animators to create unique features and the audience is willing to forego differences from the real thing. This is the preferred option since animation works best by creating its own reality. ( 2006)
Figure 6: Photo-Realistic Character Figure 7: Stylized Character
The next step is to consider the physical and functional features of the character by identifying the features of the face such as the distance between the brows, the chin, and shape of face. The body structure is also considered. ( 2005)
After this stage, the last step is the finalization of the character by defining the emotions and movements and placing the final changes including the colors and sounds.
Character Design as a Technical Process
There are also technical considerations embedded in the artistic or creative process. The first technical consideration is modeling to transform the character into a three-dimensional character. Modeling is digital sculpting by manipulating surfaces. Surfaces could be patches involving simple and flat surfaces and polygonal involving more flexible and complex surfaces to fit the anatomy of the character. If the character mimics a human, it helps to have knowledge of the human anatomy to know the places to make surface indentations to form the human body but also the places to manipulate to create movement. ( 2006)
Figure 8: Example of Modeling
The second technical consideration is texturing or the use of colors and surface features to distinguish character features such as rough hair, silky eyes, solid teeth, and smooth skin. Texturing also covers the clothing and other accessories. This uses brushes and colors palettes to make the distinction. (Maestri, 2006)
Figure 9: Example of Texturing (Spiderman)
The third technical consideration is rigging or the integration of movement into the character. Manipulating polygonal models would provide complex movements of the joints to show walking and the arms to express movements such as carrying an object or brandishing a sword. Techniques in rigging include the use of skeleton chains, layering, rotation planes, sliders, pole vectors, clusters and lattices, and other systems that mimic kinetics and movement. (2006)
Figure 10: Example of Rigging
The appeal and ability of animation to convey messages depend on the effective consideration of these technical factors in character design. The technical aspects of character design should coincide with the creative aspects to create characters able to communicate to the audience in themselves.
Basic Elements of Character Design
There are also basic elements of character design. One, more or all of these elements could occur in an animation and although standards in animation are flexible, these elements support the development of effective animated characters in providing both entertainment and learning.
First element is function or the form and construction of the character. The form of the animated character should take a logical form. (2005) In creating a giant, the idea is to stack shapes to create bulky character. In addition, function also pertains to practice movement in space. Moving characters should move in space and there should be modes of movement such as the curves of a rolling ball, feet for humans, and legs for animals. This involves using angles in a plane and more angles means more complicated work in creating movement (2006). Moreover, the character should be repeatable since movement involves the same drawing with changes to indicate movement.
Figure 11: Examples of Functional Characters
Second element is aesthetics (2005). This means that the character should express balance in terms of forms or shapes regardless of whether the character is the lead or the villain. Much like an architect designing a building, the initial consideration is a design that would stand followed by the succeeding consideration of ways of making the visual impact pleasant by combining and manipulating shapes, curves and lines.
Figure 12: Example of Animation Aesthetics (balance)
Third element is distinction and recognition. Even if the character is stylized, the audience should be able to recognize the character and distinguish this from other characters (2005). By manipulating proportions and shapes, the characters should become distinct. Even if most characters utilize generic surfaces and shapes as the starting point, the outcome should have a distinguishing mark.
Figure 13: Example of a Distinguishable Character
(Mickey Mouse as a mouse)
Fourth element is personality ( 2005; 2006). This constitutes the most important but difficult to integrate into the character design because this comes from the contribution of many people involved in the animation such as animators, storyboard artists, animators, and the director. The physical feature of the character already exudes character for substantiation by movement and voice. A humorous personality finds expressed through the eyes and mouth as well as body build and clothing.
Figure 14: Example of Differences in Personality (woman scaring a girl)
Fifth element is originality so that the character should be something that the audience has not seen before. Although this is difficult to achieve since most characters evolve from stereotypes or generics, originality means showing characters in a different light (Patmore, 2005). Without originality, gamers or viewers would relate the two characters leading to confusion. In games, originality depends on the theme and character profile such as skills and weapons while in animated shows or films, this find expression in character features, voice, and personality.
Figure 15: Example of an Original Character (Betty Boop)
These elements are important but not exclusive considerations in developing animation that integrated both entertainment and education. These elements guide character design so that the animation that affectively mixed entertainment and education evolved the characters, more or less, using these standards.
Chapter 4 Case Study of Character Design of Lion King
Background on the Lion King
Disney released the animated film Lion King in 1994 after more than four years of collaborative work with scriptwriters, animators, creative artists, and directors (1994). The story revolves around the coming of age of Simba a young lion whose birth made him the heir to the throne of his father, King Mufasa, and making his Uncle Scar second in line. Scar, wanting the throne, joined with the hyenas to plot the death of both King Mufasa and Simba. Scar killed King Mufasa but made Simba believe that it was his fault and urged Simba to run away and never come back. Simba ran away in Shame until he reached the place where Timon (a meerkat) and Pumba (a warthog) are living. They take Simba into their hakuna matata (no worries) lifestyle. When Simba was older, he met Nala, a childhood friend, who was running away from the oppressive leadership of Scar. Upon learning about this, Simba decides to go back. Timon and Pumba came with him to honor their friendship. Simba challenged Scar and learned that it has his uncle who caused the death of King Mufasa. This gave Simba strength and made Scar recognize him. The hyenas upon learning of Scar’s defeat turned against him. Simba took over the throne with Nala as his partner and a son to succeed him. His family and friends, Rafiki the wise man, Timon and Pumba, and the other lions as well as the other animals in the safari surrounded Simba.
Design of Lion King Characters
There are a number of important characters in Lion King. The development of these characters took years to realize not only because of the number of characters but also because of the need to create different but balanced characters playing parts in the story. However, the creative team had room for imagination and innovation because the story was original and not based on previously published stories. The creative process of the animated film involved 600 artists, animators and technicians producing more than 1 million drawings including more than 2 thousand hand-painted backgrounds, and 119,058 individually colored frames of film (1994).
The characters expressed both creative and technical aspects of character design. In relation to the creative aspect, all the characters were animals but presented in a stylized manner as opposed to picture-realistic manner. The intention was to mimic reality but present this in the animated world. As such, the creative team visited Africa to observe the safari environment, the weather, and behavior of animals. Even if the creative team did not target to achieve picture-realistic characters, there was an attempt to present the stylized characters close to the real thing to support audience recognition. Lion King relates ‘the circle of life’ story and the audience should be able to recognize, differentiate, and understand the characters and the relationship of the various characters via character design. The figure below shows clearly showed African animals and landscape including male and female, young and adult lions, hyenas, warthog, meerkat, baboon, and bird. These characters are easily distinguishable.
Figure 16: Animal Characters of Lion King
With regard to the technical aspects, modeling, texturing and rigging, these became apparent in the design of the characters and helped in enabling the characters to express life. Modeling is apparent by using clay models of the animals based on watching documentaries of African animals and the trip to Kenya. Capturing real animal form and shape into the clay models led to the design of the characters of different animals. There are a number of exaggerations to make the characters more pleasant and express different personalities. Pumba has an overly huge and rounded head, an overly huge task, and thin legs to support his cheerful character [Compare Figure 17 and 18 below]. This is very different from the physical features of a real warthog.
Figure 17: Real Warthog Figure 18: Pumba (left) and Timon (right)
Young Simba and Nala have huge round eyes, which is very different from the eyes of real lion cubs [Compare Figure 19 and 20 below]. The young cubs in the animated film have more tame looks than the real lion cubs that already look like wild animals even as cubs.
Figure 19: Real Lion Cubs Figure 20: Young Simba (left) and Nala (right)
The hyenas’ also have large rounded yellow eyes, menacing teeth, and large pointed ears to create a look for protagonists [Compare Figure 21 and 22 below].
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Figure 21: Real Hyena Figure 22: Shenzi, Banzai and Ed
The form and shape of the characters distinguish the different animals as well as set out the protagonists from the antagonists. Even by just viewing pictures, the personality of the characters and their part in the story becomes apparent.
Texturing or the consideration of color and other texture details is also apparent in the design of the Lion King characters. The characters all exude color contrasts pleasing to the eyes. One example is the King Mufasa with reddish mane in contrast to his orangey earthy body. This has a huge difference from a real lion, which only hues of brown and cream. In addition, Mufasa’s main also hangs down much like human hair but this together with the contrast in the rougher texture of the hair with smooth skin shows provides a regal look for Simba’s father. [Compare Figure 23 and 24 below]
Figure 23: Real Adult Lion Figure 24: King Mufasa
Other examples are the characters of Rafiki and Zazu, which have a similar color contrast schemes of yellow, red, blue and white. The similar contrast in colors suggests the protagonist roles of these characters and the similarity of their position in the movie, with Rafiki as the advisor to King Mufasa and Zazu as King Mufasa’s majordomo. [See Figure 25 and 26 below]
Figure 25: Rafiki Figure 26: Zazu
Rigging refers to the embedding of movement into the characters. This happens by mimicking the movement of real animals and manipulating the points of movement such as joints to create movement. An example is the rigging of the hyena characters. Originally, a single model and texture applies to the three hyenas. However, rigging depicts differences through movement, which in Figure 25 below involves movement in the eyes and mouth or tongue. In Figure 22 above, different movements of the neck and head also create three hyena characters.
Figure 27: Rigging of a Hyena in Lion King
Movement of the other animals is also apparent especially in the gait or walk of the lions, with paws gracefully touching the earth. There is also a difference in the movement of King Mufasa and Uncle Scar, with the latter moving in crouched position (much like a lion about to spring) as opposed to the tall and regal walk of the former. This expresses Uncle Scar’s scheming and treacherous character. The movements of the hyena also show their predator roles. Rafiki’s movement depicts the character of an old and wise baboon.
Figure 28: Uncle Scar
There are exaggerations especially in the movements such as the almost standing position of Rafiki and Zazu as well as the human expressions of the animal characters but these creative and technical factors substantiates the story. The design of the characters expresses in themselves the personalities and the story.
There are also specific standards in character design. First is function with all of the characters being functional because these express the form of the animals mimicked as well as the movement. Although the creative team experienced challenges in working with animals with four legs making it more difficult to adjust movements of four legs instead of two for human characters, the form and shape of the characters supported movement. Second is aesthetics particularly balance on the character designs. The team-up of Pumba the warthog and Timon the meerkat [See Figure 18 above] expresses balance of form, shapes and color albeit in contrast. The Lion King characters are aesthetically and visually pleasant because of the combination of various elements of design. Third is recognition and distinction. The characters are clearly distinguishable especially the lions, with the most number of characters, from the female to the male adult lions and cubs to the protagonist and antagonist lion. The other animals were also recognizable in terms of the real animals these mimic. Fourth is personality, which is distinct in the case of the wise Rafiki, the happy Pumba, the regal King Mufasa, and the treacherous Uncle Scar. Fifth is originality. The characters are not original in the technical sense because these mimic real animals but original in the animated world because the characters were not based on a previously published story or television show. As such, the design of the Lion King characters aligned with basic standards of character design to come up with characters that in their personality express a story.
Entertainment Value of Lion King
Due to the design of the characters, Lion King has a high entertainment value expressed through the number of viewers and phenomenal gross income obtained by Disney from the animated film. Since entertainment means fun and easy recall, the fact that many children in 1996 still remember the film even in their adolescence and adulthood and remember the characters, story, and theme song. The younger generation also knows the Lion King through the release of the sequel and storybooks. This is the first Disney animated film without entirely animal characters and the appeal to children is likely the design of the characters as pleasant by not posing any threat to children unlike real wild animals in zoos requiring parental or adult supervision and involving warnings to approach cautiously and not too closely. The hakuna matata song and dance number of three friends, Pumba, Timon and young Simba also creates delight and fun for children and even adult audiences.
Educational Value of Lion King
As part of the integrative strand or ‘edutain’ approach to animation, the educational value of Lion King is positive but indirect and subtle, and clearly deviating from the traditional classroom lessons. Nevertheless, it was apparent that the character design and the emerging plot tell the story of African animals. The focused subject is science. The ‘circle of life’ is akin to the ecosystem and life cycle, which are lessons in biology and zoology. The ‘circle of life, portrays the symbiotic relationship among animals. Although there are preys and predators operating in defined territories, these are necessary to support balance. This also expresses the life cycle of animals with the younger generation eventually taking over the protection of the territory and procreation. However, by deviating from the typical classroom lessons, the entertainment value overshadows the educational value in the animated film Lion King.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
By focusing on the design of characters in animated films, these can provide entertainment and educational value to children. Animated films now reflect the integrative or ‘edutain’ approach to animation. To express the entertainment and educational values, character design becomes an important element. Character design comprises the entirety of the creative style and technical design expressed in the form or shape, color, movement, and emotions of the characters. The consideration of the design of the characters of Lion King exemplifies the importance of character design in considering the values of entertainment and education. The design of the characters in itself tells a story with elements of fun and subtle lessons in science.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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