Beauty and the Beast Discussion

[Scarred4life]

Absolutely amazing. One of my top five. (lol, I say that for every Disney movie.) But seriously, this movie rocks.

[blackcauldron85]

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/interv ... reas-deja/

[John Lasseter]suggested that all the characters must come out of the same universe and exist side by side. It’s an important thing because there have been movies where we weren’t as thorough on that. In Beauty and the Beast, for example, Gaston and Lefou don’t really match: Lefou was cartoony whereas Gaston has more realism to him.

An interesting point that Andreas Deja made in a recent interview about Mama Odie; does it bother any of you that LeFou and Gaston don't really artistically match? Do any of you wish that LeFou had a different design? Or do you wish that Gaston's design was more cartoony? Or do you think that they're just fine?

I can't necessarily say that I haven't noticed that LeFou is more cartoony than Gaston, but I can't necessarily say that it's ever truly bothered me. I don't think that Gaston's design needed to be changed at all- he's absolutely great as a handsome villain. And maybe it's a good thing that LeFou and Gaston are pretty opposite from each other- they balance each other out...?

[Disney Duster]

SuperAurora, please put SOME scans in a new thread s we can fix this thread, any scans at all!

Amy, That should not be done (nor is it needed to be done, who complains about this kind of thing other than hardcore animtion fans)?

Disney has done realistic humans with cartoony humans since the beginning. The dwarfs were more cartoony than the others. The stepsisters were more cartoony than others.

Sometimes, more cartoony does seem like a way of making characters less fit for seriousness and love and deep emotions. And it's also a way to make them less attractive, which works for characters like the stepsisters and Lefou when compared to their more attractive counterparts, Cinderella and Gaston.

Lefou is fine, and it would not be good for Disney to ever go more cartoony. They are known, and so much better than others, for their realism within animated.

[Kyle]

Disagree, Disney started out cartoony, with their shorts, it wasn't until they started doing full length features that they decided it wasn't good enough for whatever reason for full length stuff.

Consistency within a movie is important, and I think they need to go a lot more cartoony. Realistic characters are not a as fun to look at or as honest about how people really are, the more realistic you try to be the more soulless and wooden they tend to feel. its like the hand drawn version of uncanny valley. I think Geston could have used more exaggeration, it would re enforce how ridiculous it was for him to be so cocky and full of himself.

You guys tend to assume that more cartoony means less believable, I say cartoony is More believable because lets their personalities read clearer.

[Disney Duster]

Actually, I wrote that really late, let me say what I should have said:

The dwarfs actually felt plenty of deep emotions in the film, love for Snow White and sorrow for her death, and when they cried the audience cried.

What I should have said was that in Disney, the somehow (magically!) make the cartoony characters work well with the more realistic characters. This magical melding is good for an animated film, especially an animated fairy tale where things are real yet not real.

However, Kyle, you still know that what the company is best known for and what is considered their biggest achievement and contribution to animation was the full-length animated feature with it's more realistic characters.

How come you aren't complaining about those famous Walt films where the characters are so realistic, you know the classics? If it was good enough for those it's good enough for Disney to do today. And even if today's Disney disagrees with it, they should still do it because it is a Disney staple, it's what they were built on.

What, you think they can't find a way to make the characters realistic yet be full of soul and personality? Walt said nothing is impossible, and it was exactly those more realistic characters that drew audiences to watch and stick with and praise the first full-length animated features in the first place.

And it's probably not the design of the characters that makes you think they look stiff, but the animation. If the characters move to show their personality and express in their eyes their soul (by naturally widening them for example, not by having them huge in design), their realistic looks will be fine.

As for Lefou, the stepsisters, and the dwarfs, I personally don't view them as more cartoony than the other characters, just looking different. I feel Disney makes it seem like everything fits. I imagine that if the characters existed in the real world, there would be very little difference between that and how they looked on screen, even for the more cartoony characters, because the characters in full-length Disney features, especially the Walt or more serious ones, are still more realistic than what is in the shorts. That's just my belief and how I see the films.

[IagoZazu]

I think Gaston and Lefou looked great as a villain and henchman. Villains usually have that more serious look to them. Henchmen are more cartoony looking because they act silly like Lefou, Iago, or Smee. It makes a parallel between the deadly villain and the goofy henchman to create an odd but effective partnership.

[Kyle]

How come you aren't complaining about those famous Walt films where the characters are so realistic, you know the classics?

Actually, I am. I cut them some slack because the medium was still new and growing then, but I do think a lot of those "classics" have design issues too. When it comes to human characters I don't think they pushed the design as far as they could. Its not impossible to animate "realistic" characters well, but its so much more of a challenge that it almost never happens. Even Fantasia is guilty of this. The results don't justify the the immensely complicated design. I don't think theres anything wrong with designing the character around their personality more. Their more functional as an animated character that way, easier to work with, and reads clearer.

I don't think its a great idea to continue doing things old way just to protect some legacy the company once had. Its time to branch out more. take advantage of the medium and what it can do for your characters.

Anyway, what were we talking about? oh, right, consistency. Well there's not much else for me to say, but can you imagine if, say, the mice in cinderella had gone the more realistic route? it wouldn't be pretty. and you had the prince, the worst offender of going too realistic. If I had to pick one to change (for consistencies sake), it would be to make the other characters more cartoony, instead of the mice more realistic. and the same goes for beauty and the beast.

[Disney Duster]

Well, I don't think it's good for Disney to change sooo much. Disney tried new styles with Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians, yet the animation still looked very Disney and had a realism to it, that was changed after Walt died, with the newer teams coming in and deliberately wanting change. But Disney can't become just any other studio, it can't even just be good, it has to be Disney, and Disney good.

And I actually would not mind if the mice and any other characters had been a little more realistic. And since so many people think Disney films are for kids or not serious enough just because they are animated or "cartoony", I definately wouldn't mind them going a tad more realistic with all of them, as long as the animation stayed the same, including the movements only possible in animation. If that's impossible, or would look too uncanny, then there was nothing wrong with the perfection that was there originally in the designs that made them classics...

By the way, one thing Ward Kimball, who did the mice, said he enjoyed, was how they could do more realistic mice, not like Mickey! Just a tidbit of info related to the topic at hand.

But as it is, that's why I think Cinderella and other films pulled off something magical: the realistic married with the exaggerated, and making a perfect fit. Only an animation snob here or there seems to complain and say the different designs don't fit together. But if you don't agree that under Walt such a magical thing was done, I don't even know why your here...or maybe you just prefer new-getting-less Disney by the minute Disney...and Pixar.

And Gaston needed to stay as realistic as he did because just like the Beast showed what he looked like had nothing to do with his inside, Gaston needed to look like a serious suitor on the outside, despite being not so on the inside.

I'm actually rather bugged by the big-eyed more cartoony style Disney's designs had taken since The Little Mermaid, or even a little earlier than that after Walt died. They could use a bit more realism, but they are classic as they are. I'd certainly not stand seeing them be any more cartoony, though!

[ajmrowland]

I think much of the animation still looks very disney today, with the exception of Atlantis and Treasure Planet, and Tarzan to an extent.

[Disney Duster]

Well ajm you hope to be right, and you may be.

I just do not think that the new team at Disney took into consideration trying to keep more similarites to Disney's previous work, to find something that all his previous films had in design and animation. I didn't realize till later they went for more cartoony, exaggerated looks, esepcially starting with The Little Mermaid, and I wish they tried to keep more the same to how Disney had been before. Their big eyes really bug me, lol. Walt's Alice had big eyes but they weren't exaggerated like Ariel's for instance.

And I was saying 101 Dalmatians was an example where the style changed...but the designs still looked somehwhat realistic and...I dunno, Disney.

[Kyle]

I certainly wouldn't be here if I didn't like Disney's work, but its also no secret really that I prefer post Walt stuff a lot of the time. I just call it like I see it. No classic is immune from these types of criticism. I like certain aspects while others feel like missed opportunities. I have similar problems with Pixar believe it or not.

Taking away or toning down a cartoon's cartoonyness is apologizing for what it really is.

[ajmrowland]

Yeah, I often prefer post-walt stuff too.

[Disney Duster]

Of course you two do...

Just one last thing, and that's that Walt was trying to show anything could be done in animation, even realism. Having the characters be realistic, but also use animation to make them look perfect, or move a way that couldn't happen in real life, especially involving flying, transforming, or fighting a dragon, something magical or impossible, made possible for "real" people, realistic figures, in animation. Also with animation you can control everything the way you want, another reason for animation besides, what, exaggeratedness? Who sees an animated film because they consciously are thinking they want to see something exaggerated (unless maybe it's a comedy, you probably prefer comedy, too!). Maybe exaggrated emotions like a drama, but Disney isn't exactly doing opera, and usually such exaggeration is a turn-off and not what certain awards and guilds like and what Disney is going for. Walt wanted realism, and that included in emotions. If today's Disney goes for something different...it's changing Disney, it's not being Disney. I think Walt started animation to make the impossible, particularly fantasy and talking (realistic!) animals, possible. That's what animation can do.

And by the way, these are not necesarily cartoons. They are animated features. Animated doesn't mean cartoony.

[Kyle]

I don't see this kind of change as a bad thing, more of a natural evolution.

And I also find it kind of humorous that you would use "realistic" and talking animals in the same sentence. I get what you mean, its just the idea of talking animals are funny by default when thinking about them realistically.

The reason I'm more pro exaggeration is that in animation, or art in general you inevitably lose something in translation when depicting life. Exaggeration compensates for this. There are so many subtlety's in acting that you simply don't get in animation. You can get a bit more of it in 3d animation, but even with that you still need to push the animation and design more to get the same amount of emotion on screen as you would in live action.

Your right, most people don't go in expecting exaggeration, its not a conscious thing. All they expect is to be entertained.

As for whether or not Disney's full length features are cartoons, I used be like you. Their not cartoons, I would say. Their animated features! But lately Ive come to realise that's just silly. Their cartoons. We animation nerds tend to think of the term as a patronizing pat on the head "well ain't that cute? The little guy thinks he's a real movie". But it doesn't have to have that negative connotation that is associated with the term. I think the dictionary definition would still describe animated features as cartoons. If you wanted to use some other term as padding to make this sound more dignified to your average person, fine by me. But inside the animation community, I think cartoon fits.

[Disney Duster]

Well the fact that the talking animals like Bambi, Lady and Tramp or Pongo and Perdita are not laughed at but done very seriously, matched by their realistic designs, just says something.

You would need to prove to me that 3D animation gets more of that subtlety there, because I (and I believe the majority of people, at least on this forum) will always think hand-drawn actually gets more subtlety in it. And some reasons are because you do it by hand, you have more direct control of what goes on. The computer is more limited, actually. You can go anywhere with a pencil, but the computer is made of pixels and you build the character and push it and pull it instead of just drawing the emotive pose or line of action first and then adding the details. I will always believe, and think I'm right and that it's just plain true, that you can get more subtlety and emotion and acting in hand-drawn animation than CGI animation, because after all it's more directly human, it's human hand-drawn, there's no computer with it's pixeled limitations in the way. For instance, nothing on the computer can be truly round because it's made of tiny sqaures. Of course hand-drawn gets converted to the computer these days, but they still do it drawing with their hand and the pencil going directly to the drawing not pulling and prodding on some built figure with a mouse and an arrow. Of course when you put your heart, soul, emotions and imagination into CGI or hand-drawn you can still make it come through and anything is possible.

No painting or computer or mand-made anything should be able to get everything real live people can show, anyway. Just enough to move us, you know.

Wlt Disney himself sometimes referred to his features as "cartoon pictures", still not quite calling them cartoons. A cartoon really applies more to a short or tv series and really people mostly use the single word "cartoon" to refer to animated films in a different, derogatory sense than the words animated film or cartoon feature would mean, so...I'm going to keep using the subtle difference in meaning or sense by using those different words.

[ajmrowland]

I have to completely disagree with Disney Duster on the subtleties thing. With CGI, you actually get more of it because they're puppets. They ma be pixels, but those pixels have thousands of controls to manipulate even the smallest thing.

I point out some scenes here. Some involving subtle eye-movements.

Monsters inc.-when Sulley says goodbye to boo, look at his eyes. If you look closely, you can see them beginning to water and even shiver a little bit. Mike's one big eye in the cave scene when Sulley leaves is also good.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: In the dead marshes, and in the end at Osgiliath, There are close-ups of Gollum that have really good, subtle acting. It really looks have if those pixels are actually thinking and feeling, and there's little else moving outside the face, which isn't completely contorting itself. In the Return of the King, when he..........well, you see some really good stuff there too, and not just in the face either. The body movement is just right.

This is the sorta thing you have to see to believe. Some other good ones are Syndrome's introduction in the Incredibles, any Final Fantasy game(after 7), and even Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with Dobby. No, wait, that's not a good one. Um................Toy Story Between Buzz finding out he's a toy and the chase scene. Everywhere inbetween that.

[Disney's Divinity]

Walt's Alice had big eyes but they weren't exaggerated like Ariel's for instance.

That's strange. Most people I know of have said Ariel was modeled heavily on Alice. The eyes are slightly larger and exaggerated, but not abnormally so. Ariel looks normal within the context of her film, and that's really all that matters. I couldn't imagine any of their characters pre- or post-Walt standing right beside me, but they fit within their films.

I think it's perfectly okay to take liberties with design. If they could only go for a realistic look, we wouldn't have stylized films. And I prefer those most of all.

[Disney Duster]

Ajm, then if that is so, then what on earth prevents hand-dawn films from doing such acting when they have even more control than that? And that is where saying 3D animation can do more subtle acting than hand-drawn is incorrect. Hand-drawn can do it just as much or better.

Divinity, yes, I too have that "How to draw The Little Mermaid" book, and looking at the pictures they provided of Alice and Ariel...yea, they really derided from the amount of realism Disney had before. Of course that's a more surprised look on Ariel's face. But I looked at other pictures of Ariel, like the front cover, and still saw it. That's why I specifically said that Alice's eyes were big...but not exaggarated beyond that. Ariel's eyes were big and exaggerated further than Walt's animator did. And it's not just Ariel, it happened to Belle and Jasmine, too.

Also, maybe you didn't notice how I pointed out Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmatians were very stylized Disney films, but they still had more realism and didn't go as far as The Little Mermaid or Aladdin or Hercules and on. I believe there's still a Disney look to all the films Disney has done in 2-D except maybe Home on the Range and a few others, not sure, but today's Disney artists could have kept closer to how under Walt there was stylization but a certain amount of realism, so that today's artists could keep the look the studio was founded on and also make it easier to tell "this is Disney" for every film.

[Kyle]

ajmrowland pretty much hit on everything I was going to say on subtlety.
See, while 3d animation might have more trouble matching the crazier broad sweeping hand drawn stuff, its great at subtly because you have the ability to show more restraint. As mentioned, the ability to change mere pixels. With hand drawn stuff you always get a certain amount of wobble from frame to frame, even from the best of animators.

Brad Bird talks a lot of this with the movies he directs. Things like the lips sticking together for a split second after Bob and Helen kiss in the Incredibles. You simply wouldn't get that in hand drawn animation without an extreme close up or more pronounced movement. If you tried it would likely look like a mistake. A wiggly line that shouldn't be there. You get more information from a variety of things, the increased frame rate, resolution, etc.

[ajmrowland]

The thing is this: Hand-drawn animation looks better when simplified, because simpler movement is what it excels at. Like Kyle said, you'd need a close-up to get finer detail(like the Beast when he takes Belle out of the tower). With CGI, you have puppets, and therefore a degree more control over what the character is capable of doing.