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Re: animation vs. the real thing
On Sat, 30 Mar 2002, Kelvin Bailey wrote:
> There are sooooo many elements in a live action film that don't come in
> to play at all in animation.
The great, intriguing, ambiguous thing about most films is that they live
in a state of tension between the world of fiction and the world of
documentary -- as Salon put it in their review of Catherine Breillat's
_Romance_, you can say, "That's Nicole Kidman's naked butt!" but you can
also say, "That's Nicole Kidman's character's naked butt!"
One thing you can do in live-action films that you *can't* do in animation
is discover things in front of the camera that you simply couldn't have
planned for otherwise. There's a famous scene in _Citizen Kane_ where one
of Kane's friends has become disillusioned with him and is having a
falling out with him, so he gets drunk and asks to be re-assigned to a
newspaper in another city; he suggests that he become the drama critic
there. The actor playing this part had pretty much no sleep the night
before, so his speech was slurred and he seemed kind of groggy, and at one
point, when he meant to say "criticism", he said "crimitism" instead --
and then he caught himself, but he stayed in character and excused himself
by saying, "I *am* drunk." Orson Welles, who was directing the film as
well as playing Kane, broke into a small smile at that point, but he
didn't say "cut", so they went on to play the rest of the scene. So the
moment now resonates on two levels -- on the real-world level, Orson
Welles is getting a kick out of a fellow actor flubbing his line, but in
terms of the fiction, the scene now plays like the last gasp of unguarded
friendship between these two characters. The moment works perfectly for
the story, and it comes out of the authentic interaction between two real
people in front of a camera which records the moment as it unfolds.
That's a far cry from animation, where everything is so controlled, the
actors rarely interact with each other even in the recording studio.
Basically, live action is open to the moment, whereas animation controls
the moment. Nothing wrong with either method, but it takes a special
skill to be open to what's available to you and to make it work (hmmm,
"There's nothing harder than learning how to receive", maybe? :) ).
Not that live-action footage can't be tinkered with -- witness how George
Lucas digitally "fixed" actors' performances in _The Phantom Menace_. :P
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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