Master Courses Scholarship
Competition Entry For Animation
Design Master in Milan
by Cansu Polat
Brief Introduction to Animation
Ever since humankind could draw, they have tried to
catch the illusion of motion. They drew on pottery, they drew on
cave walls to communicate and tell a story in image form. Today we call the act of telling a story by moving images animation. The real animation as we know it started after the industrial revolution in Europe and North America, when machines
which would make the images seem to move appeared. There
are primarily 3 types of animation; traditional, stop motion and
computer.
In traditional animation, the animator draws every frame
of the animation by hand. This means a lot of time consuming
drawings. By time, animators discovered an easier way of producing animations, cell animation. That way they were able to
keep the backgrounds still and only draw the moving objects
Bob Carr, working on Yogi Bear
frame by frame to acetate papers. But it was still taking time
and was also expensive.
Stop motion can be categorized into many subcategories, but basically stop motion is
photographing of any object frame by frame to tell a story. Some of the best examples to this
kind are Wallace and Gromit movies.
The improvement of animation from traditional to computer was revolutionary. Some 2D
drawing and animating softwares were developped and that reasoned a great decrease in
the production of hand-drawn animation. Nonetheless, the sector grew more with the new
technology input. Now we can visualize characters and even worlds using 3D modeling softwares.
There are many inspirational people in the history of animation. Regarding my concept
and ideology, I have decided to limit my research to the animations with dominant women
characters and/or even not necessarily the women driven shows but the ones which value
them.
We do not see many women animators behind the creative process for a long time
in the history. Even though women were working on the field ever since the beginning they
were only taking part in the production. They would help colouring in the cell animation process. Cell animation was gruelling and expensive, sometimes they needed to use the same
acetate papers again and again, so women also took part in cleaning them.
Of course by time women took more important tasks in the process. Women like Mary
Blair, started doing concept drawings of the animations that would later become the inspiration for many other people. Sally Cruikshank inspired many young animators with her style
and her way of thinking. Not the first but one of the very best, Ellen Woodbury got a role in
some mile stone 2D animations in corporate animation field. Today, the animation sector has
great women such as Kathy Zielinski, Lauren McMullan and many more.
Mary Blair’s concept art for Cinderella
Sally Cruikshank working on ‘Make me Psychic’
Not only the inspirational real women, there are some female fictional characters whom
footsteps can be followed. They are the perfect examples of strong women and they give
hope to the girls who are watching.
Aang could not have made it without Kata- Sailor Moon and the rest of the Sailor Senshi Mulan wasn’t given a
ra’s help. She is still caring, feminine but yet
were all girls, they kept saving the world
chance to do what
powerful. Because why she can’t be both? and they were never weak enough not to she wanted to do. So
Avatar: The Last Airbender
talk about how they feel.
she created one.
Sailor Moon
Mulan
I have been planning on making an animation with a female lead character who would sarcastically
“teach gender roles” to the audience. So when I remembered this scene, I decided who I should analyze.
A talk about gender roles:
+Who brings money? -Dad
+Who does the laundry? - Dad
+Who mowns the lawn and washes the
car? - Cute Bubbles!
Powerpuff Girls
Craig McCracken
Growing up as a 90’s kid, I watched cartoons that
inspired me to become an animator, especially the works
of Craig McCracken who is the creator of The Powerpuff
Girls(1998), Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends(2004)and
Wander Over Yonder(2013). Therefore I would like to
introduce you to the famous American animator Craig
McCracken.
McCracken was born in 1971 in USA. He says he was
into drawing since the age of 3[1], and he is still active as an
animator and a creator. When he was asked about retirement, he told the audiences that he does not believe there
is an age for creativity, and he plans to keep producing cartoons as long as he can able to. He has a unique sense of
humour and style.
What I like the most about McCracken’s work is the
creative and unusual plots. He has a different perspective
and thinks outside of the box. He designs various and
unexpected characters, which has not been embroidered
before.
Powerpuff Girls is basically an action themed cartoon,
but unlike the ones we are used to see, the day is saved
by 3 girls who have super powers, instead of the classic
white and attractive male super hero.
Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends is obvious from
the title, there are all kinds of imaginary friends who are
not needed anymore, so they stay at Foster’s until they are
adopted. Craig says he came up with this idea when he
went to adopt 2 dogs from the shelter.
His latest creation and his first work for Disney, ‘Wander
Over Yonder’ is about an optimist traveller helping people
on his journeys between planets.
McCracken is all about the characters and their personalities. The concept is as
important as the characters, but when he writes a scenario, instead of thinking the
process, he cares about what would the character do at a situation as the one he is
planning. He creates an environment and decides how the character should act in
a situation like that. And not just the ‘good’ characters. Even the ‘bad guys’ are
designed deeply, they do not only exist to be the opposite idea, they also have
characters that are multi dimensional.
Wilt is nice and kind, so when in a super market, he would
hold the door for everybody.
Foster’s, Season 1 Episode 1
Being evil does not take your rights away as a citizen.
PPG, Season 1 Episode 10.
McCracken is a big fan of DC comics and he
states that he is inspired by them. In an interview
he told the interviewer that he thinks todays super heroes are designed too seriously, that they all
wear dark leather clothes to make them look tough
and cool. He believes characters still can be cartoon-like, colourful yet still cool and entertaining.[2]
This decision can be seen in all his characters. They
are not trying to hide or blend in, they are proud to
be the heroes.
How colorful eveyone is!
One thing that I like the most in Craig’s animations is the variety of the characters. It can be observed that he cares about diversity. His shows include human and
non-human characters from different ethnicities and races, who have various body
types. Some characters have disabilities, and some characters are outside the gender norms. Childhood is the time when people develop their personalities. What we
observe from the media effects our decisions and understanding of life, more importantly constructs our character. This is why it is essential for children to see equality
and diversity in the media.
Wilt Character Design
Development. He is kind,
helpful and has
disabilities.
Foster’s, Taken from Craig
McCracken’s Deviantart
Him. Even though there are not any
commentary about his sexuality, he is
considered a transgender character.
Powerpuff Girls
Eduardo Character Design Development. He is Spanish,
fuzzy and loving.
Foster’s, Taken from Craig McCracken’s Deviantart
McCracken works in a 2D environment. The original PPG(1998) was hand
drawn[3] while Foster’s was produced using Adobe Illustrator, After Effects and Flash.
[4]
The characters designs are usually kept simple. Rather than the details, they have
concentrated on their personalities and expressions. Simple shapes like rectangles,
circles etc. are widely used in animation while drawing the characters, they are the
base of the character designs. Similar to many other artists, Craig used geometrical
shapes while designing his characters.
Different female characters, different body types!
Powerpuff Girls
Professor Utonium
Powerpuff Girls
Similar to character designs,
background designs are also simple yet
distinctive. Geometrical shapes are used in
monochrome colors or colors which are at
the same hue, giving the image an appeal.
As I have stated before, McCracken cares
about his characters the most. He uses
simple monochrome backgrounds so the
characters are seen more clearly. Staging,
one of the twelve principles of animation
is used effectively, the character which
should have the attention is exposed
openly.
Even though Bloo is also in the scene, it is obvious that they
want the audience to look at Red.
Foster’s, Season 1 Episode 7
Powerpuff Girls
Wander Over Yonder
Buttercup is really mad!
Powerpuff Girls
Blossom is moving forward while blowing ice.
Powerpuff Girls
Backgrounds are also used to express motion and emotion, as well as the world
state. The color uses remarks the time of the day or state of the scene, emotional
changes of the character and movement of the character.
Townsville, in a cloudless nice day.
Powerpuff Girls
Townsville, in a hot day.
Powerpuff Girls
All of McCracken’s creations are unusual and quite imaginative. Characters
find themselves in absurd situations and solve the problems in their own unique ways.
The language use is almost always sarcastic, but yet educative. They use the english language effectively, and they make puns with the similar words and/or synonyms-antonyms. Usage of humor as a teaching method has been proven effective.
People tend to remember conversations that they laughed at rather than the ones
they did not. Every cartoon Craig created mostly has a ‘moral of the story’ point at
the end of the episode. But since you were entertained till the end, you do not even
think you have been educated until you are already educated.
“Being mean and making fun of others is bad Buttercup.
Now apologize”
Powerpuff Girls, Season 1 Episode 12
Do some good and you will get some good in return.
Wander Over Yonder, Season 1 Episode 4
There are some aspects I particularly like in Craig McCracken’ creations that made
me choose him as an inspiration. I value his choice of characters and his openmindness.
We are living in 2016. Even though we had great progresses about norms and prejudgements in the society, some people still face problems regarding their gender. Some
worse and some not but problems nonetheless. Growing up in Turkey, in a country which
is between Europe, Middle East and Asia, I had observed some of the obstacles myself.
Especially the ones women have faced and continue to face. Europe has proven itself superior to the other continents when feminism is considered, yet, even to this day,
prejudgements and restraints of the society is a problem for all the women around the
world.
According to the statics of Turkey in 2015, in all job sectors women are paid less than
men, even though they do the same amount of job. Only %7,4 of Turkey’s ministers are
women. Every 4 women out of 10 are harassed physically by the male individuals they
have shared the house with.[5] Only in 2015, 414 women were murdered, 91 injured by
men. [6]
I believe this needs to change. And change starts when the audience decides to
listen and tries to understand. We can not keep living this way, we should not let the future generations to live in this society where women has no value nor rights. I believe our
future is the children. If we can educate our children, tell them everybody is equal, we
can demolish the norms, resulting a happier population.
I would like to contribute to making the world a better place, in a way I believe I
can do. I may not be able to stop this injustice, but I can help the next generation understand.
This is why I present you;
Donna is an ordinary girl just like every girl. She is pure-minded, intelligent and curious.
So when people says that she can not do something because she is a girl, she struggles to
understand what they mean, since she can not find a logical explanation.
And one day she realises she needs to do something to make things better. So she
decides to become the much needed super heroine, who fights (not violently but logically) against the expectations of the society towards women.
As cliché as it is, she sews a cape and makes a mask for herself, and off she goes to
tell people that they can not tell women what they should or should not do. Her innocent
approach to the matters would make the audience laugh as her sarcastic comments
will.
I intend to make a cartoon series for La Donna. The first episode will be the birth of
our heroine and her journey to this decision. As her character develops further, I am sure
she will find her way in various situations she’ll be in. Donna will be teaching women to
stand up for themselves.
References
1. ^ Phipps, Keith. “Powerpuff Girls” A.V.Club interview. Retrieved 20 June 2000.
2. ^ Phipps, Keith. “Powerpuff Girls” A.V.Club interview. Retrieved 20 June 2000.
3. ^ Richmond, Ray (January 15, 2004). “Special Report: Animation”. The Hollywood Reporter.
Retrieved January 15, 2004.
4. ^ Baisley, Sarah. “McCracken’s Imaginary Friends Premieres Aug. 13”. Animation World Network. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
5. ^ Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, “İstatiklerle kadın,2015”. Sayı: 21519. 7 March 2016.
6.^ Umut Vakfı, ““Kadın Cinayetleri”nin Haritası”. http://blog.umut.org.tr/kadin-cinayetlerinin-haritasi.html 6 February 2016.