[COP3]semi-final project proposal

Topic:

The performance of Characters: Comparing anthropomorphic and human character.

Purpose of this questions: 

Anthropomorphic characters exist for a long time. Except the animation making them the main characters like Aristotle cats, Toy's Story, finding nemo etc. There are only very less films that make a non-human character the hero when human characters are around. Theoretically, creating a anthropomorphic character needs more creativities and practises and I want to know the difference between the performance on both types and which one would contribute more to empathy in animation. The limitation and the strength of being an anthropomorphic character and the techniques to create them.

What I want to achieve:

I hope to understand the essence of these two types of characters and discover the techniques and knowledge to conduct to the best performances from anthropomorphic character through practical. Hence challenge the traditional performance and discover more innovative way in non-human character design.

Who are the target audience:

 I aim for new animators like myself. Allow them to create more diverse non-human characters and understand how to approach the best performance of them.

Approaches:

1. I am going to watch a lot of animations that have include both anthropomorphic and human character. Looking at performance and body language at different area for instance dances, puppetry and theatre art.

2.Reading and quoting. Read lots of animation books that explain acting in characters and how to apply these on object characters.

3.Contacting Professionals

Pratical:

1. Experiment on anthropomorphic and human character with similar quality and outlook. Practise different performance according the 12 principle of animation, analysing the drawing techniques and the different when drawing them out on paper or digitally. Evaluate the pros and cons and the major differences in between. This allows me as a practitioner to understand the actual production of both characters and understand the elements that need to take into account in order to accomplish a finalised characters in both categories.

2. According to Hook's principle of Acting. Design a Scenery with script, staging and an event for both characters to perform. Compare both performance within the scene and identify audience's reactions and analyse it. By this point, I hope I could have a clear picture of the differences in performance between anthropomorphic and human character on stage. Partially comprehend which is more able to generate empathy with audience, allow them to feel interested, partially increase the knowledge of creating a successfully anthropomorphic character.

Limitation/Obstacle:

Not enough sample, the practical has not conclude everything I mention in the essay, not enough time, not enough skills, not enough primary resources

I still need to confirm this with Mike. Hope he replies soon!