Gertie The Dinosour Analysis

The problem in animation is that

The very first egzample of a character in animation is “Gertie the dinosour”, created by Winsor Mccay in 1914. It was a semi-live action film, where McCay stood on the stage and the screen behind him showed an animation about the dinodour. McCay preformes scenes with Gertie where he would ask her to do some tricks and she responded to his requests. The character was given human face expressions and body language wich created a connection between the Gertie and the audience. The humant traits were adopted by the dinosour in a very subtle way , she was belivable as a dinosour and her emotions understandable to the audience.

Paul Wells has summed up the principles od character design in animation. The characters

Richard Williams prooved in “The animators survival kit” that this new technique had a great impact on the development of character design. By showing an image of an old and young women, tracing the shapes of various features he explains how they can be transfered to an animated character to inform us about their condition and age. In another example Williams traces the walk of a woman and a men, noticing the key differences in their motion. Power, strenght, confidence, dynamic of a character can be suggested just by the way of walk.

Popeye and Betty Boop are the first cartoons where this new principles were applied and became real characters the audience could understand and relate to. both came out in the 1930’s and were created by the Fleischer brothers. They are great examples of how to design a human character and showing personality bu motion.

Betty Boop’s character defines feminity, she has hourglass figure, long legs, round face, big eyes, red lips. She was a dancer and the characteristic hip swing informed us about her sexuality where her face was more innocent and

When creating an animal in animation we must know it’s nature and draw it into the design. people already assosiate animals wits a specific characrter, how they behave, move and thing. Animals and other fantastic creatures play an important role in our world. They appear in mythologie, traditions, literature and are symbols and icons in many cultures. animators take advantage of when designing a character therefor its important to understand the relationship the targeted audience has with a priticular animal. Walls reffers to it as ‘associative relations’.

In the story of Adam And Eve we learn that the snake is a sly and seducive creature we cannot trust. It glides in a smooth and fluid motion, never indicating the direction it heads. For minutes it sits still and remains calm and suddenly attacks. the natural motion of this animal and the role it plays in the story were put together so well that the character of the snake instantly becomes memorable. In the Jungle Book Walt Disney took advantage of this and the motive of the snake Kaa was clear to the