In the previous chapter, we took a little look at audiences and formats, and in doing, we so established the importance of storytelling to the cultures and societies around the world. One of the assertions made was that the real essence of storytelling could be summed up simply by saying a compelling story was one that had interesting things happening in interesting places to interesting characters. The key here is the word interesting. Without that interest, a character is in danger of becoming reduced to the status of manikin. At the heart of any great story are the characters that inhabit, shape, and determine the story.

This does not simply apply to performance-based stories; the same holds true of all stories based on characters regardless if this is in theatre, literature, film, radio, or animation. The most important aspect is characters, recognizable and believable characters with personality. Regardless of the exact nature of character, it is largely through those characters, though not exclusively, the narrative of the story is delivered.

We need to give some thought to the contextualization of the characters we work with and the kind of characters and personalities the stories we are telling require. Some stories of the Wild West would become almost meaningless without the context of the settlers and the conflict of cultures between the Native Americans and the largely European newcomers (the invaders). Similarly, stories about rescuing damsels in distress from fearsome dragons need knights in shining armor while the exploration of the outer reaches of the galaxy at some point in the distant future needs astronauts. However, cowboys, knights in armor, and astronauts are not exactly characters, and they are certainly not personalities; these categories only represent what these individuals are; they do not represent who they are. Strip away all of the superfluous detail that surrounds the rather facile characterization of cowboy, knight, and astronaut; and you will find personalities just like you and me. Yes, these individuals may be more heroic (or more cowardly), and they may demonstrate aspects of human nature in the extreme; but ostensibly they share with us the human condition. It is those human traits that attract us to the characters and make them recognizable, not the clothes they wear or the role they play.

I have said it before but if the storytelling is to be interesting then the characters within the story need to be interesting.

Character Development

The importance of character development in performance-based animation cannot be overstated, and it is clear that the nature of the character will shape the nature of the character’s performance. The practice of character development may begin with the concept design, a part of the process that precedes the writing of a final script and continues through the design process including storyboarding and on into production. This ongoing development may be impractical for formats such as feature films or TV series, but it may be true of episodic one-off short productions (as opposed to TV series). A good example of this may be seen to have taken place during the development of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck that appeared within a number of films over a number of years. They progressed from being characters of a rather 1D nature to become complex individuals with distinct psychological traits. For the most part, this kind of development over an extended period is impractical as characters cannot be developed over the period of a feature film or a TV series as it is important to maintain continuity throughout. Any development needs to be completed and the characters established before the production begins, or at least the parameters for the performance needs to be set. What I have covered here deals with the development of a character’s personality over a number of appearances. This is not the only kind of development that a character may undergo. These changes may happen over a much shorter time frame and may be a result of the circumstances and events that they are subjected to within the narrative. Characters that appear within longer formats will be more subjected to the kind of changes that are brought about as part of the story they appear in. Indeed, it could be argued that the very nature of feature films is to tell stories about the changes the characters undergo.

Throughout the whole of the design and character development process, the director, the producer, and the designers will normally collaborate as a team. The role of animators, if they are involved at this stage, is largely secondary. That is not to say that the animator does not have a contribution to make, it is only once the animator begins to work with a character that it truly begins to come alive. Not simply by adding movement to a character but through a skilled and creative use of animation timing adding performance.

Animators cannot simply rely on the basic instructions received from the director or the voice track provided. Of course, these make an invaluable contribution to the way in which the story is told and the manner of the performance, but it is said that the devil is in the detail, and so, it is with acting. The way actors perform will make the story come alive in ways beyond what was originally envisaged. In order to do that, it is necessary for the actors to be comfortable with the characters they are acting.

It is clear from the work of two of great cartoon animators Chuck Jones and Tex Avery that they developed real affinity with their creations. Interestingly enough, we can see how Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck developed over the years as the understanding of the characters grew. In his book Chuck Amuck, Jones talks with genuine affection for Bugs and Daffy and his later creations, Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote.

Issues such as the physicality and psychology of a character will not only determine empathy but also that almost illusive but very tangible quality that Disney termed appeal .

Formats

The different animation formats an animator may be asked to make work for will offer different possibilities and constraints for the work and for the way in which character-based animation will be undertaken. The development of the animated character may also be dependent on the format the characters for which they are being designed. TV series, one-off short-form films, commercials, features; all of these formats will place different demands on the narrative, and each will allow for varying levels of the character development. However, animation is increasingly being made for distribution across a number of formats, or at least much of it is now being repurposed for distribution using different formats. When designing new characters, artists and designers may need to ensure that their designs are suited for multiformats; large screen, hand-held devices, print, computer games, etc.

The duration of each of the formats will determine or impact the narrative structure and, in turn, the narrative will determine the character’s performance within the story. Feature films are around 80 to 120 minutes, TV series will vary in duration depending on the slots within the schedule. Products intended for preschool animation and series aimed at older children or a family audience may vary a great deal. The number of episodes that make up a series or series has varied from 13 to 26 weeks, and, quite commonly, now 52 episodes are commissioned. Animation made for the Internet varies in their duration, whereas TV specials come in at around 30 to 40 minutes.

The screen size on which the animation will be viewed will also have a big impact on the way an audience experiences a performance. Cinematography and the choice of shots such as the use of extreme close-ups panoramas, panning, and tracking will probably vary depending on the format. The director making animation intended for the cinema, IMAX, television, computers, hand-held devices, or other formats will utilize a range of different shots taking these formats into account. What works well for one format may not work so well for another.

At the extreme ends of this format spectrum are the IMAX cinemas and small hand-held devices. The usual IMAX experience is one that deals with immense spaces, and grand sweeping movements. This lends itself very well to long shots and shows off-sensational panoramic views that no other format can quite match. The BFI’s IMAX in London has a screen of 20 meters high and 26 meters wide. Such a large screen has the effect of filling the audience’s vision and immersing them within the image. That is the point. Subjects that deal with scale such as large landscapes, space, and underwater films are sensational in this format. They provide an illusion of complete immersion within the film and use of the audience’s peripheral vision to achieve these remarkable experiences. The use of extreme close-up shots, fairly common within the context of a work of drama, will probably work a good deal less well in this format simply because of the sheer scale of the screen. An huge format shows off a landscape to great effect, but an extreme close-up of a human face may prove to be more than a little disconcerting. The reverse is also true that what makes for an ideal shot for the IMAX cinema making it such an enjoyable experience may be totally unsuitable for smaller formats. Large panoramas will not have the same impact when viewed on a screen measured in inches rather than meters. The modest screen of the mobile phone will offer less detail, but a close-up of a face will be more easily read and perhaps far less disturbing though the panoramic shot will be rather disappointing lacking the necessary scale.

Viewing Environment

When developing characters it might also prove useful to give some thought to the context in which the story and the characters will be seen. Will it be viewed in a large public space such as a cinema, within the home, as an individual experience on a computer or a laptop or will it be viewed on a hand-held devices, either alone or in small groups? Each may offer their own opportunities for character development.

While the duration of a TV commercial seems to offer little in the way of scope for character development and perhaps not much more in the depth of the performance, the skill of the animator in getting across issues such as appeal is no less important. It could be argued that the issue of character performance is even more important in commercials given the limitations of the format. The time constraints of a TV commercial dictate that the narrative must be delivered quickly, which means that the characters need to be quickly and easily recognizable and understood by the audience. Within such a limited time frame, there may not be a great deal of scope for a sustained or elaborate performance from the characters, but there is still scope for a range of characters with different personality traits.

Compared to a commercial, a TV series may present much more scope for the animated performance. There may be more opportunities for characters to be more rounded and more complex indeed if they are to sustain the interest of the audience and get them returning week after week they will need to be. Character development over time as the series progresses may be possible but difficult as the nature of the series means (mostly) that the episodes are seen as standalone events within a series. Any development over a number of episodes may present difficulties with continuity.

Feature films offer far longer periods than a single episode of TV series in which a more complex story with more complex characters may be developed. Feature films are often standalone events that provide characters with a one-off performance unless of course because the popularity of stories sequels are made and they become episodic. In such cases, character development may extend even further. I am thinking here of the Harry Potter series.

Budget

Budgets for different animation formats also have an impact upon the development of a character and will invariably determine how much developmental work has been undertaken for the characters. As a rule of thumb, we would be pretty safe in assuming that the lower the production budget, the less character development will take place.

The commercial and industrialized nature of the creation of much of the animation that we see determines the way an animator may approach acting and performance. The requirements of a format or the needs of an advertiser place constraints on the animator on how they set about exploring acting and performance. One-off films made by independent producers and auteur animators offer a wider scope but often reach smaller and more specialist audiences.

Regardless of the nature of production, if it be commercial or independent design, character, and script are critically linked in the development of the personality of a character.

Animator as Actor

The animated character may well be the concept of a writer and developed by a designer, a producer, or a director, but it is often the animator who makes the character tangible, believable, and ultimately real. The animator has the power of transforming the characters from an idea, a concept, and design into a living personality. As an illustration of the believability of characters as real personalities, I can do no better than recall for you the time when a group of young school children visited the animation studios where I was working on the TV series Super Ted. These very eager youngsters were shown around the studios and introduced to different people working in different departments where they were told something of the production process. They were very patient and seemed reasonably happy to speak with the various crew members and polite enough to show a degree of interest when shown the wonderful backgrounds and storyboards and equal attentive when touring the camera rooms and the paint and trace departments. When they made it to the animation department, the animators made a great show of presenting drawings and layouts and taking time to explain in simple terms how the animation was made. We really pushed the boat out to impress them but they seemed a little distracted and we weren’t sure why. As it turned out, while they could see that the animation drawings were of Super Ted but were not actually Super Ted. What they really wanted to do on their visit to the studios was to meet Super Ted himself, they knew he was a cartoon character but to those young children he was very real. They left quite happy with their trip to the studios, but there was more than a hint of disappointment on their faces at the explanation given by a fast-thinking production assistant that Super Ted wasn’t in the studio that day.

Creating this level of believability is the ultimate goal, though when this is not achievable characters should never be relegated to the role of walking and talking objects that do little more than wander through a film, simply colliding with, or avoiding or interacting with other walking and talking objects only as and when the script demands. If the animator fails to appreciate and explore the personality within a character, the character will never be anything other than a tailor’s dummy and not really worthy of the term character. A less than thorough approach to the development of your characters will more than likely result in an unbelievable performance, and there is nothing more certain to kill a good script stone dead than a poor performance.

Often, the source of a poor performance, other than lack of animation skills or laziness on the part of the animator, is the animator’s inability to empathize with or completely understand the character. It is evident that as animators we need to develop our animation timing and other craft skills, but far more than that we must consider ourselves as actors and as such develop those acting skills as well. Unlike the thespian, we the animators are the kind of actors that need not tread the boards or appear in front of camera ourselves, and we may rely on the characters we work with to do that for us. However, these characters are entirely reliant on what the animator gives them in terms of personality, character traits, and behavior. If we are agreed that Homer Simpson is a completely believable character, it is due entirely to the skills of the designer, the scriptwriter, the voice artist, and the performance skills of the animator. Without those performance skills, the character is in danger of becoming just another funny drawing.

The roles animators play in creating performances vary within the different formats they appear in and are largely dependent on how the animation is made. For small independent animation producers who may make all of the work themselves and have sole responsibility for creating an animated performance and determining the required parameters of the film, this may not be too difficult. For animators working as part of a team in which many individuals have been employed to create the work, such as in feature films, it becomes important to maintain continuity throughout different scenes. One of the real miracles of a feature film is how the entire production gives the impression that it was made by a single hand. This needs careful planning, a single vision, and a very keen eye if this is to be achieved. In no other format, it is more essential that the characters have a life of their own beyond the fingerprints of the animator. Within large production crews, the anonymity of the animator is essential; the animator must become invisible, leaving only the personality of the characters on show to the audience. Animators working within a studio environment must learn that an animator is a chameleon, able to respond to the requirements of the narrative and the needs of a wide range of characters. Continuity throughout a film may be difficult to maintain particularly if it is being animated by numerous hands. This is where the virtuosity of animators will enable them to create quality performances regardless of the character, though virtuosity for its own sake, if this descends into showboating, is likely to be at the cost of both performance and of continuity.

For figurative animation that simply requires action, it may be enough for the animator to think that this or that character does this or that action. However, for performances that require a high degree of emotional engagement and refined acting from the characters, then it may be far better for an animator to know why a character does what it does. In this way, the animator begins to understand the psychology of the character. This understanding of a character’s personality and the motivation behind its performance can be seen in the work of a number of animators. One of the best of these is the master animator Barry Purves. His expertise in animation performance and acting is underpinned by his in-depth knowledge and appreciation of the characters he works with. It is this that enables him to achieve believable and nuanced performances with a wide range of characters. In his animated version of Verdi’s opera Rigoletto (1993), we are presented with a wealth of characters that are not simply animated beautifully; they live and breathe and die. Achilles (1995), a story told in a manner that reflects Barry’s interest and knowledge of the classics and theatre clearly demonstrates his deep understanding and empathy with the personalities that he breathes life into. At his hands, puppets made of rubber and wire are transformed from inanimate objects to believable personalities capable of love, hate, and murder.

At its best, each character will demonstrate a distinct personality that shows them to be individuals with an inherent attitude that is demonstrated in their relationship to things, circumstances, and most importantly of all, other personalities. The smallest of details may provide a catalyst for a performance. A character may love carrots, hate them, or be completely ambivalent toward them. Whatever way they feel about carrots (or anything) will be an emotional response. Now, if you can capture that in your animation, then you are truly creating a personality.

As with more “traditional” actors, some animators may be more suited to a particular kind of animation and performances. Games animation requires a good sense of action timing and the economy of movement that ensures a good game-play experience. Others can handle drama very well; we have just explored the abilities of Barry Purves in this regard, whereas others have a highly developed sense of comic timing. Experience, your personal interests, and perhaps even your own natural tendencies and personality traits will no doubt shape you as a particular kind of animation “actor.”

What seems quite clear cut, at least for me is the importance for the audience to be fully aware of a character’s personality and have an understanding of the psychological state of the protagonists. It is through the personality of the character that the audience will experience an empathy with the character and their situations and then to react to them in a way that the director had intended. It is vital that the personality must be evident to the audience, not necessarily liked but recognized. If this is not achieved at best, the actions of the characters may be misread or misunderstood. Worse, the actions may appear to be almost completely random. The very early performance of Daffy Duck in Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937) is just that. Despite its popularity, the animators had yet to develop the character that would become one of the most famous icons in animation into anything other than a 1D manic fool. In his first film, he was nowhere near the complex and interesting character that he was later to become.

The personality of an animated character, if portrayed well, will not just be capable of extracting a laugh from the audience, but also, in the hands of masters, a tear. The loss that Bambi feels on hearing of the death of his mother is tangible. The animation of that sequence may be quite simple, there is no great action in it, and the characters do not do amazing or dynamic things; but the acting is far from simple. It is great timing by the animators that allow the personality of Bambi to come across, and it is this personality and his very real loss that extracts the emotional response from the audience.

Know Your Characters

In order to create those believable individuals that we all know and love, we need to start by differentiating between character and personality. The important thing here is to understand that characters, at least for the most part, are not defined simply by the way they look. It is important to know your characters from the inside out. Not from the outside in. The story may well require a character to be a cowboy, which may well define his look; the Stetson hat, the cowboy boots, the horse, and the six-shooter, but the nature of the character is determined by personality, and this is neither to be found in costume or props.

Although it is important for animators to know the character, it is perhaps less important for them to like the character. If animators were only capable of creating a worthwhile and believable performance with characters they actually liked, they would be very limited in the work they could undertake. There is no doubt that many animators do become very close to their characters they work with more so if they have created them or been instrumental in their development. It may not be necessary for the animator to like their characters, but it is rather important for the animator to know their characters as best they can if they are to get the most out of them.

It might be a useful starting point to first establish what we mean by an animator “knowing” their characters. You may say that the script and the character design would surely provide everything an animator would ever need to know about the different personalities within the film they are working on. Well, to a degree yes, but if the performance is to be fully believable, then a deeper level of engagement with the character is needed, and some further study may be necessary. This level of engagement may then lead an animator to create an interpretation of the character. As we have already discussed on the matter of feature films and the animator working as part of a team, such an interpretation will only work if an animator is to have total control over a character’s performance. Within the context of a format in which there are many animators working with a single character, this would clearly become impractical. You couldn’t have a number of animators giving their own interpretation of a character and maintain any kind of continuity.

Let us assume that you are developing a character and not simply working with one given to you. So, how do we go about knowing a character from the inside out?

Well, we could start by asking ourselves a few simple questions about the character, the answers we get will start to define him and through those, he will begin to show his personality. First and foremost, you should ask yourself if your character can exist off screen, is it possible for him to have a life beyond the context of the script? Consider the character as real person, with traits that are shared perhaps with someone you know or a number of people you know. These do not have to be people you know personally but may be well-known individuals that are in the public eye, or they may be historic figures or they may even be fictional. The key here is to think about the personality of these individuals not simply what they do. Starting to consider your characters as having a personality will at least enable you to “focus” on them and through that you will begin to see what is underneath the skin.

The first question you could ask yourself about your character is what you think they would do when the camera isn’t on them, when there is no audience to look at them, when they are not performing, and when they are off duty. What does your character do on his day off? Does he sleep late or get up early, does he go out and if so where? Where does he spend his day, does he go shopping, to the cinema, to the country? Does he visit friends or does he stay at home? The answers to these questions give rise to other questions such as where does your character live? What kind of house or home does he have? Where is it, in the town, city, or the countryside? How does he have his house decorated, is it old or new? Is he house proud or is he slovenly? Or is he homeless? If he is homeless, how did he get that way?

So, now we know where he lives; but here’s another question for you, who does he live with? Does he live with his parents, his wife or a girl friend or is he a loner perhaps sharing his life with a just a little dog? If he has a partner, what kind of girl would he choose to be involved with him? What car would your character drive, what drink would he order from the bar, where does he go on holiday and with whom and what kind of a holiday would he like; action and adventure or sitting by the pool in a five star hotel? What political party would they vote for? You get the idea. With all of the information, you will have made a good start on building a character with personality, but we can go further.

Now, you have a good idea about who your character is and you could start to consider who your character was. We all have back stories, and your characters are no different. This back story does not need to be pertinent to the script, or the storyline you currently have your character appearing in, though it might help. The question here is not if your character has a history but what kind of history he has? Ask yourself what was your character like as a child, what were his parents like, what was his relationship with them, did he love them, did he loathe them, did they die and leave him all alone, is he bitter about that, or does he blame himself in some way for their untimely death?

Once you have a history for your character, you might wish to look at more details of his personality. What is his temperament like? Is he calm and placid, is he nervous and edgy? If your character is angry, you should ask yourself why he is angry, NOT what he is angry about; the storyline will probably tell you such things, but what you need to know in order to get a deeper understanding of his temperament is the reason why he is angry … . or not.

Asking questions such as these is not just idle day dreaming; it will genuinely help you to create a more rounded personality for your characters. Such questions will allow you to learn quite a lot about your characters, so much so that the characters will almost start to invent themselves. Naturally, most of these questions will be completely out of context with the film your character is appearing in, and indeed, most of them may never be directly relevant to the characters, but they may well help you get a firmer grasp of your characters’ personality, and it is the personality that will provide the basis of a believable performance.

You should now have a good profile of your character. Armed with this, it then becomes easier to see them working within the confines of the script. They will have already answered the questions of how they will respond to different situations.

The importance of building a character will obviously depend on how you intend to use them. If they have a walk on part, all the above may be overkill; but if you see them as making recurring appearances such as the Wallace and Gromit characters, the time spent building a personality will bear fruit. It will certainly prepare your characters (and you) for the performances that will follow.

Physicality of Characters

As an animator working with a range of characters, the first and most obvious aspect of getting to know these animated personalities is to begin to become familiar with the outer, physical aspects of the character. It is vital to establish their physical capabilities and their limitations. This, after all, is the raw material that the animator has to work with. Any performance will come from the physical manipulation of the characters with hands, pencil, or mouse. Studying the character designs or model sheets is a good starting point in establishing what the animator can do with the animation drawings or the models. This will not necessarily place limits on the movements of the animation in any practically way as animators may choose to make the action as extreme as they like or the model and designs will allow. Getting to know your characters through exploratory play will give you a deep understanding of what your characters can do before you get down to the real business of production.

The parameters of an animated character’s movement will be determined not simply by its physicality but by its personality . Knowing a character then becomes all about knowing its personality. A careful study of character designs will help to establish what kind of actions the animator may expect to get from the character and hint toward the kind of movements such a personality would make. Of great concern to animators working in stopframe animation is the need to consider the physical condition of the models and the range of actions it can make. The strength and flexibility of the armature, the material nature of the model, how fragile or robust the model is, and the range and limits of articulation it has will determine what the animator can physically ask the model to do. This will then have a strong bearing on the type of performance, and therefore, the range of acting the animator is able to achieve. If the figure is designed with very large feet and short legs, it is obvious that even the kind of walk it will be capable of will be different from that of a more naturalistic figure. The material nature and the design may place limitations of what is possible but may also be used to very good effect. One character Talos, the giant statue of bronze animated by Ray Harryhausen in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), moved according to his physical nature, he was stiff, slow and very, very heavy reflecting the material he was supposed to have been made from. With the Medusa character he designed for Clash of the Titans (1981), he faced another difficulty in the form of her lower body. Formed from a large serpent, she wriggled and writhed her way slowly across the set with her upper torso held in a vertical position. The model may have been a little awkward for some actions perhaps, but the performance was nonetheless very convincing.

The first thing an audience experiences of any character is its physical presence. The physicality of a character has a major impact not only on how the character moves and behaves but also on its subsequent performance. It is the material nature of the character that will almost certainly determine the way in which the animators make the character act. It will also become evident that the way in which a character is designed extends beyond the mere physical attributes. It is evident that in some instances characters are defined simply by their appearance and the physicality of the design. Some characters may initially be designed for other media and purposes other than animation, and the animation characters may only be a secondary consideration. Such characters may work very well for the printed page or as a still image but are perhaps less well suited to animation. Redesigning such a character specifically for animation purposes may be possible without compromising the original design too much. However there may be limitations to the characters that are difficult to overcome, transcribing a very flat image to a 3D object may not be practical.

You should consider how the design of a character will determine the nature of the animation and therefore the nature of the performance. Abstract design will lead to abstract motion.

Character Design

Earlier in the chapter, I suggested that the animator may experience certain physical difficulties in animating with characters; but perhaps the most important question is not how the character will animate but if the character will animate. This question of “will it animate” is of paramount importance to character designers. Clearly, the design decisions made when creating a character will influence the kind of animation possible. The more restrictive the nature of the designs, the more difficult it will be to animate. The designer must be aware of the job a character has to fulfill and be aware of the difficulties that animators face in the animation process and give them at least a fighting chance to achieve the required performance.

The different processes and techniques used different animation disciplines such as cut out, CG animation, 2D classical animation, and stopframe animation will, to a degree determine, the kind of animation and performance that is possible. A physical object inherently has difficulties that drawings don’t. Simply balancing a two-legged figure in stopframe animation presents difficulties that a 2D classical animator doesn’t face. In stopframe animation, the animator has the benefit of exploiting actual materials that may be elaborately patterned. They can utilize lighting to great effect thatanimators working in other disciplines would find prohibitively expensive or just too difficult.

Naturally, all the disciplines present their own completely different set of problems. Cut-out animation is inherently flat, and the animation of characters in perspective may be more restricted than 3D or 2D animation. A head turn that may be a simple enough action in stopframe or CG animation may, using cut out techniques, involve the use of a series of replacement heads. This may then prove to be a little less smooth in its action unless very many heads are used. Alternatively, a different approach to creating the same action may need to be found. The beautiful work of Lotte Reiniger provides an excellent example of how the animator is able to work within the constraints of the discipline. Rather than struggle against the nature of the technique, she used its distinctive qualities to, great advantage, creating a work of immense sensitivity and beauty. The flatness of her cut-out shadow puppet-like figures present a very clear profile. The detail of the shapes was clearly defined as silhouettes that she often set against much lighter backgrounds and sets. The movement of the figures in the profile made for strong graphic images that were easily read by the audience. This same approach to creating clarity of an image was a technique that the Disney animators later adopted in the process of silhouetting when making 2D animation. This entailed the key frames being drawn in such a way that created a balance between the use of both positive and negative space, placing the limbs away from the body and allowing a little negative spaces to appear between the legs. The secret that Lotte Reiniger knew only too well was that if you created a strong key possess the action would be more easily read. Body language was enough to get the meaning of the performance across.

Regardless of techniques, there is no restriction on creativity. Each of the techniques has their strengths, and they all have their limitations. Good animation actors are capable of making a performance of the highest order regardless of the discipline they work in.

One of the most important questions to ask yourself when you begin designing an animated character is: will it animate? Not will it simply move, but will your character and the way in which it is animated allow the animator to get the range of movements necessary for the performance?

Naturally, this will be different for each of the disciplines and require very different technical considerations. Stopframe animation is limited by the physical constraints of the puppets and models; some of them may be very simple and inexpensive to make using basic armatures or no armatures at all. Others may be very elaborate pieces of engineering and require very specialist skills to create them. The puppets used by Barry Purves for the film Rigoletto were capable of the subtlest of movements (even incorporating a device that gave the illusion the characters were breathing).

The physique of the character, its age, size, and weight create a range of physical possibilities and limitations may determine what a character is capable of undertaking. The animated short Dot made by Aardman Animation for Nokia and billed as the world’s smallest animation incorporated the use of replacement models throughout the film. The individual models were so small (about the quarter of the size of a bumble bee) that it was not practical (or maybe even possible) for them to be articulated.

There are a number of difficulties that 2D design presents the animator, but uppermost amongst these are that drawings have the problem of representing, on a 2D plane, 3D characters within 3D environments. This often requires excellent drawing skills though these skills are no guarantee of getting around all of the animation problems, and it may be necessary to “cheat” some of the solutions by making very improbable drawings as part of the movement. As the animation is made up of drawings seen rapidly in sequence, individual drawings often pass quite unnoticed by the audience. Remember that old adage: if it looks right, then it is right.

Let us consider the design issues of perhaps the most iconic and well-known characters in the history of animation, Mickey Mouse. One of his most notable features along with his red shorts and his white gloved hands are his large round black ears. If we take a look at his ears as he moves around, they do not necessarily follow all of his actions. Regardless of the orientation of his head, the ears remain as flat circles and are read as such. They are not read as spheres but as disks that are always face on to the audience, seldom appearing obliquely. While 2D classical animation allows such difficulties to be “cheated” away, 3D design has no such opportunities.

CG animation faces its own difficulties not least among them has been the quality of the textured surface. Up until quite recently, there was a definite “computer look” to all CG animation, good texturing and modeling was difficult. With the latest modeling tools, it has become somewhat easier to create more organic shapes with believable textures. Having modeled the characters, these need to be built and rigged in an appropriate way to create the necessary articulation. The appropriate controllers for the animator need then to be provided to make the animation process as easy and as intuitive as possible. The easier it is for animators to gain full control over a model, the more convincing the movements and the performance will be. Good acting skills are linked directly to other discipline-specific technical skills.

When designing characters for animation, you must keep the animation process uppermost in your mind. Naturally, the designs must be appropriate to the concept, the narrative, and the characters, but you must consider the consequences of your designs.

As we have already discussed, the psychology of a character cannot be entirely divorced from its physical appearance. A character’s appearance and its personality cannot be restricted to the physiognomy of the figure. What it wears, the props it carries, and a range of other things that may be associated with it (car, house, boat, horse) help define and contextualize the character.

There is an old expression that states clothes make the man and it cannot be denied that what we choose to wear says a great deal about who we are. For many people around the world, our clothes are the outer expression of our inner selves. From them, we can get a good idea of age and gender, where we are from, our cultural background, and our social status; it may even give an indication to what we believe in, what our religion is, our political leanings, and our sexuality and sexual preferences. You tell a lot about a person from what they wear. One needs to be careful not to depend entirely on costume for the development of characters. Stetson hats may characterize an individual as a cowboy, but it may be a simplistic characterization. It was only in the very early days of the movies when one could tell the good guys from the baddies by the color of their hats. Good character design cannot be dependent on simple stereotypical features. For completely believable performances, we need believable characters, and for that we need explore different possibilities. Characters that do not conform to the obvious physical “types” may be all the stronger for that; not all heroes are strong and muscular, not all villains are dark characters with an evil glint in their eye.

Character development extends well beyond the physical aspects of an individual and includes the voice. Indeed, many characters are primarily defined by their voice and in some instances not just what they say but the manner in which they say it. Once sound became the norm within cinema, the importance of a character’s voice was very quickly understood. So an important issue was the voice in establishing a character that Disney himself took on the responsibility for voicing his most famous cartoon creation, Mickey Mouse. His now very familiar tone has become as much a part of his personality as his physical appearance.

This was not a one-off and all production studios understood the importance of developing the right voice for a character. The voice talents of Mel Blanc, probably the most famous of all voice artists, did as much if not more than the graphic artists and designers in defining the personality of a host of cartoon characters. The lisp of Sylvester, the cat, and his catchphrase “suffering succotash” and similarly with Daffy Duck’s “you’re despicable” typically become an instantly recognizable feature of their persona. There are many more, Foghorn Leghorn southern booming voice and repetitive dialogue, Bugs Bunny’s “Nyaaa, what’s up doc?” have become firm favorites with audiences around the world. We will be covering this in more detail in Chapter 9, Sound.

Given the different physical designs and vocal characteristics of different characters, the animator may need to have a separate and distinctive approach to creating lip sync. By this I do not mean the mechanics or technicalities of lip sync, they will stay the same, but rather a creative approach to lip sync as part of acting and performance. A personality may not simply be recognized by their voices but also how they speak and the way they uses their mouth. More often than not, speech is accompanied by movement. Look around you, and you will see plenty of examples of hand gestures, shrugs, and movements of the head, arms, and, sometimes, the entire body to emphasize the dialogue. I encourage all of my students to consider the use of body sync when dealing with dialogues before they even make a start on the actual lip sync. Much of the meaning in dialogues is understood through body language and body movements. Threats may be delivered by a character through angry gestures and loud angry voices. They may also be delivered through complete stillness and a voice that is barely audible. Context is all important here. Some personalities in some instances would rant and rave; on other occasions, they would perhaps be more reserved and controlled and as a result perhaps even more threatening. The great Disney animator Ward Kimball understood this very well. On animating the Cheshire cat character in Alice in Wonderland (1951) he said, “Here I learned a big lesson in that actions that are supposed to be violently crazy are sometimes not as mad as more subtle, underplayed treatments. My animation of the Cheshire Cat was my masterpiece of understatement.”

The Animation Bible

In large production teams on longer format productions where the continuity of the character performance is essential; the use of the animation bible becomes a very valuable tool. Used as guides for the production crew, the animation production bible not only covers the physical attributes of a character but also the relationships to one another. They not only show the character in various poses, they may also provide information on the range and kind of movements the character makes and the way in which it performs them. The bible may contain model sheets, height relation charts, action sheets, and even color charts. Not all of the information may be directly relevant to the animator, but the bible is intended to be a useful tool in establishing the design and animation parameters for a number of individuals with different roles within the production crew.

Character sheets and model sheets are often used as a way for all of an animation crew to gain a better understanding of the physical traits of a character, and, through this, infer some of the behavior and even psychological traits of different personalities. Although it is clear that model sheets help determine the way a character is drawn, the same may not apply to other forms of animation: CG or Stopframe. Character designs are obviously of great use to model makers and riggers that are concerned with physically making a character for animators to work with and may influence the way a character appears on screen, but they do perform the same function as with 2D animation. Action sheets created to illustrate poses and dynamics may provide a useful range of possibilities for animators. The important part here is the establishment of a range of actions that are common to all animators within a more industrialized context of production.

Character Types

It is part of human nature to categorize things and place them neatly into nice convenient little boxes. It’s a way in which we make sense of the world. The way in which we tend to place people into boxes is no different. I am making no judgment one way or the other regarding this tendency; indeed, in order to develop characters, this simplistic approach of categorization may prove to be a very useful shorthand device. Of course, the danger with this kind of labeling is the stereotyping of individuals. However, if we like it or not, stereotyping does play a role in informing our views on people, groups, and even entire cultures. This “view,” however ill-informed or perfunctory, may translate itself into our acting and performance. This may not prove to be such a difficulty if all we require is a stereotype or a very rough sketch of a character. It may be enough to define a cowboy as someone riding a horse, wearing a Stetson hat, and walking around in cowboy boots.

It is often convenient to divide groups or individuals into a goody or baddy camp. This may work in stories where armies are pitted against one another and clear divisions are possible, though when dealing with the main protagonists the range of “types” of individuals extends beyond the simple hero and villain partnership. We may at least gain a basic understanding of the animated character in terms of what the character does, and by doing this we can go on to make assumptions about them. Teacher, butcher, soldier, mother, farmer, thief, may all be assumed to be character “types” and provide an indication as to their personality, but it cannot entirely define it. The dysfunctional Homer Simpson has a highly complex personality, one that simply can’t be summed up by the role he plays as a power plant technician. In Homer’s case, the job he does may add depth and color to his character, and it certainly provides some interesting scenarios, but it does NOT define his personality.

Character and Personality

The size and shape of a character is important, but it is not so much what’s on the outside of a character that is all important, it’s what is on the inside that counts. The temperament and psychological characteristics and makeup of the character combine to form the personality of an individual. It is these character traits that an audience finds attractive or repulsive and it is these characteristics that determine the nature of the acting. Remember interesting stories told by interesting people. The inner condition of an individual differentiates them from the stereotyped character. It is possible to differentiate between a personality and a character; they are not the same. We’ve explored the idea of character types, perhaps, we should take a closer look at personality.

We have already established that the character design may determine the performance. We must now look beyond that and turn our attention to the importance for the animator to fully understand the character not simply as a figure to manipulate but as a “real” character with a personality capable of emotions. For a character to be fully believable, it is necessary to discover what motivates them and their interrelationships with each other in order to extract the best possible performance from each of them. I have said elsewhere that timing gives meaning to motion. Perhaps we can now take this further and claim that personality gives meaning to performance.

A good illustration of the differences between characters with real personality of those that simply fall into the categorization of “type” might be a comparison between the demon that appears on Bear Mountain in Fantasia (1940) and the evil showman Stromboli from the film Pinocchio (1940). The demon is a good example of a character “type,” there is no doubt that the evil being creates a large presence on screen, but ultimately it is a simplistic and 1D character. By contrast, the villainous Stromboli has a real depth of personality. Their performances could hardly be more different. The demon makes his appearance and provides a fearsome apparition of evil, very effective and most appropriate within the context of the film. The evil that appears far more real is in the deception, greed, and murderous intent of Stromboli. His threat of violence to Pinocchio is very real and all the more horrific as it follows his offer of friendship. He throws Pinocchio in a cage with a threat of enslavement and a promise of murder to come. Following this extremely violent outburst Stromboli slowly turns to Pinocchio and mocks him by blowing him a tender kiss and wishing him a goodnight. Some may find this sequence a little over animated. I think it is one of the best pieces of character animation that has ever been undertaken. The animator not only demonstrated great skill with animation timing and dynamics but also as an actor who clearly had the ability to get into the character’s personality, extract a great performance from the character, and place it on screen for all the world to see.

Some animation personalities seem to develop beyond the scope and range of the circumstances they find themselves within the script. An average bad guy, if there is such a thing, may be capable of almost any kind of devilry to achieve their aims but stay within the limits of self-preservation. This trait may put a constraint on what they are willing to do. In some characters, feelings can be so strong as to overpower any other concern, including self-preservation. The level of enmity felt to protagonists on their part may be so great as to drive a character to the point of self-destruction simply in order to see their nemesis destroyed or brought low.

The development of personality within a character is perhaps the most complex of all the requirements of acting, which makes the process so engaging to both the animator and the audience.

Relationships

It is possible that if you work with the same characters for long enough you may begin to develop a relationship with them. Developing an affinity with the characters may result in animators ensuring they are able to sustain believable performances over very long period. Of course, this is not always necessary or even possible. Depending on the nature of the work, an animator may only get to work with a character for a very short period. Working in commercials or other one-off short-form films may only offer very limited scope for working with a character and the production period may be very short, and in such circumstances, there may be no opportunity to develop much of an affinity for your characters let alone a relationship with them.

The format of an animation may also negate such a relationship. The animation of characters within many computer games mostly focuses on action and not personality, and many of these characters lack any emotional depth. The principal factor in this kind of animated performances is not so much acting within a narrative but simply action-based dynamics. The kind of character-based animation in games presents its own difficulties. Game-play is all important and all manners of “ordinary” actions such as walking, running, jumping, striking, and falling. May take on a very different aspect within the context of games animation. An continuous action demands that the dynamic of these movements may be slightly at odds with the same actions made by a similar character within a narrative-based animation. They may be faster, snappier, and executed over a shorter number of frames in order to maintain the pace of the game-play. There is no doubt that animators become very skilled at producing this kind of animation and as such have an intimate understanding of them and of their dynamics.

There are many productions that do offer the opportunity for animators to build a relationship with their characters, and there can be no better example than Chuck Jones. He once said that working with characters was like a marriage, it took a while for a relationship to develop and flourish. If his work with Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner and Coyote are anything to go by, it is evident that he had a very good point. Other animators worked with Bugs and Daffy, but for my money none of them managed to get to the “real” personality in the same way as Chuck Jones.

It is important to know what your characters are capable of, at the very least their physical abilities. This should be quite straightforward, understanding their mental capacity and their emotional range, as Jones said will take time. Some animators have developed such a strong bond with a particular character that other animators find it difficult to extract the same kind of performance from them. This could prove to be problematic if a number of animators working with the same character within the same film didn’t have clear guidance as to the nature of the performance. Naturally, this then falls to the director to corral these separate performances into a coherent whole.

Managing teams of animators and their individual performances is no mean feat. Naturally, animators vary in ability but they also vary in their preferences. Some animators may prefer to work with certain character types that offer different possibilities and opportunities for certain kind of performance, dramatic, comedic, physical performances, or emotionally charged ones. Villains, comedians, and clowns often offer the greatest opportunity for animation performances. They may be larger than life characters with a wider range of actions available to them. Hero’s, good guys, and victims often have a little less dynamic range. I offer this up as a huge generalization of course. Consider for a moment the film Snow White (1937). Even though Snow White is the main character I would argue that she is not necessarily the most engaging. The wicked queen and the old witch are far more interesting as are the comic antics of the dwarves. As far as the prince is concerned, well perhaps the less said about him the better.

It is the personality of a character that has a lasting audience appeal. The term appeal is very import in character-based animation. Characters without appeal are just extras. Set down as one of the principles of animation by the Disney studios in the 1930s the Nine Old Men of the classic period of animated film making spent so much of their time and effort trying to perfect appeal. We should take care not to misinterpret the appeal of a character to be merely cute. Yes, there are plenty of cute characters that do indeed have appeal, but cuteness and appeal are not the same thing.

Appeal is what all the great character personalities of animation possess, we see it in Buzz Lightyear and his buddy Woody. It is appeal that Yuri Norstein gave to the little hedgehog in his marvelous film Hedgehog in the Fog (1975). It is also not restricted to the “good” characters. There are plenty of screen villains that have plenty of appeal. Appeal does not mean that the audience empathizes with them or agrees with their morals; it simply means they find them engaging in some way. Appeal may be shared by goodies, baddies, and all of those personalities in between.

Dynamics of Character Interaction—Every Hero Needs a Villain

I think we have established that the development of personality of an individual character is important to build a performance. However, individual characters do not make for a strong storyline at least for the most part. It is important if you are to create interesting stories that you populate them with individuals with different personalities that make for interesting relationships. Contrast is all important in building a performance between different characters and personalities and developing believable relationships between them. If all of the characters that appeared on screen were of a similar nature, it would make for a pretty dull performance. Every hero needs a villain in order to be heroic. Every villain needs a victim; otherwise, the character would simply not be villainous. It is this contrast between personalities and how they behave around one another that attract us to the performance and make us want to get to know what makes the characters tick. Individual personalities acting off one another create dynamic performances and work together in a complementary manner to build an overall group performance.

If you are designing a number of characters, you should perhaps consider the following questions: Do the individual characters work with one another? Is there a dynamic between them, how do they react to one another, do they change their behavior when they around one another? Is one character superior to the other or is there a pecking order within the group? Having them all the same will never do; even in a group of like-minded individuals there will be a group dynamic.

The greatest challenge for the animator is to deal with the interrelationship between characters. None of us live within an emotional vacuum, and most of us come into contact with other people on a regular basis. At some point, these various contacts make for tensions, jealousies, and love. Such relationships and emotional dynamics are the basis of good storytelling. Characters can really only be appreciated within the context of the narrative and other characters. What you have already come to understand about your characters’ personality and both the storyline and other characters they work alongside will have already given you some idea of their likely behavior.

But once again it may be useful to consider asking a few questions. Are your characters driven by common goals and mutual respect or is there enmity between them? Are the characters working as a team or against one another? Do they want different things from one another and if so how do they go about getting them? In short, how do protagonists work against one another?

Usually, characters play to one another and not to the audience though in some films a character “breaks the fourth wall” and addresses the audience directly and takes the audience into their confidence. Consider how characters in some of Tex Avery’s films turn to the audience to deliver a punch line or gag. In Little Rural Riding Hood (1949) one of the main characters, country wolf voiced by the famous voice artist Pinto Colvig, turns to camera having had an accidental encounter with a farm animal to confess, “Kissed a cow,” very funny. Usually, it is only the main character that steps outside of the action in this way, but in Avery’s films almost any character can do this.

Summary

We have looked at how the practical aspects of character design not only have consequences for animation production and shape the personality of a character but also how it can help the animator to create a performance. I was asked in an interview recently what I thought was most important aspect of animation, the story, or the characters. I immediately thought about John Lasseter’s comments about the three most important parts of a film being script, script, and script. A very good point but a story is surely only as good as the characters that are telling it, and an animated character is only as good as the animator’s skill at acting and it is from the character’s performance that the animator gives it that a character draws his personality.

On a final note, there is something I would urge you to do something before you begin animating with a character. Something that will give you the best possible chance of putting in a good performance. THINK. The first thing you should do before animating is to think. I know this may sound a little obvious but just take some time to ask yourself a number of questions. What are your characters like, not just physically but psychologically? What are you asking them to do within a scene? How are the characters likely to react? Who is a particular character working with or against and how do these personality dynamics work? And, finally, perhaps the most important question is what do you want your audience to feel? I have seen too many young animators working with characters that simply move about like so many manikins neither acting nor performing, just moving. Take some time to consider what we have covered above and avoid falling into this trap.