Character and Narrative: Study Task 3 - Article 1

Character and Narrative

Study Task 3 - Article 1

• For the first article I decided to research storytelling/narrative and the use of aesthetic and visuals. I started by looking at how the 2D animated aesthetic affects the narrative and found a lot of research into the Synchronic Narrative. A lot of what I looked at was more theory based than analytical, which provides an in-depth exploration of narrative theories and they could be applied to future animation projects and to the current main studio brief.

 Figure 1

Figure 2

Due to the 2D medium chosen for our response to the main brief in this module, the aesthetic and style decided for the medium must reflect the narrative and appeal to the audience. Herhuth, E. (2017) references chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, John Lasseter, stating that, “Lasseter’s emphasis on believability over realism echoes the “illusion of life” approach articulated by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas,” meaning that the visuals of the characters and their movements are believable and captivating, that audiences are able to forget that the world and narrative is fictional. This can be done through synchronic narrative, which is a theory developed by Levi-Strauss, C. (1955), which is demonstrating all narrative contexts at one time. Collington, M. (2016) states that, “Animation studios often use [...] synchronic methods for devising a range of alternatives for a single image to best represent [...] an overall sequence, scene or even a narrative stage.” It represents the narrative or series of events which can be established in a single image. An example of this would be in Figures 1 and 2, as the aesthetic and elements of the scene is conveying narrative in a single screenshot from the short animation. The best storytelling and aesthetic can encapsulate narrative and appeal to audiences at the same time, which can be done in the 2D medium. 

Sources:

Herhuth, E. (2017) Pixar and the Aesthetic Imagination: Animation, Storytelling, and Digital Culture. Oakland, California: University of California Press.

Collington, M. (2016) Animation in Context. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955) ‘The Structural Study of Myth’, The Journal of American Folklore, 68 (270), pp. 428-444.