Animex - Part 02

In this post im going to focus on Rob Dressels talk on the making of Wreck-it-Ralf. Rob is a layout artist which can be described as a cross between cinematographer and screen director. Interestingly enough this poses the fundamental difference between live-action and pure CG - CG has people with specific roles but it is generally under the umbrella of a group of people making group decisions, where as live action will fall to the producer/director calling the shot. Make no mistake, this can be seen as a really naive difference between the two because live action is as much a team effort as CG and CG still has producers and directors who have the final say - but the process these movies take to make them are significantly different. This was a hot topic during the post graduate research day i had attended earlier this academic year. 

Rob showed us the design theme and colours for each world. They were defined by a shape - Fix-it-Felix was square, Hero's Duty was triangular, and Sugar Rush was circular. This informed the camera pan movements which would generally follow the angles found on these shapes. I will list the notes i had taken following a very interesting and relevant conversation between Dressel and David Au during the Q&A at the end. 

- Angelica from Rugrats? We were shown the very early drafts and evolution of the shot where Ralf leaves the game to the train station like exchange in the plug socket. There was a blurred out character because they never used it in the final clearly they did not obtain the rights. It was replaced in a later shot. It looked like angelica from rugrats to me. Maybe we'll never know.

- Layout

• Translate story from 2D to 3D
• 3D sets, props, characters, cameras
• Enhance the story though the visual language of cinemtography (if you break the rules make sure you have a good reason)
• Clarity and appeal
• Never be noticed - make camera movement invisible

- Screen direction

Bolt - traveled from New York to California so always move right to left when travelling. 

Tangled - Positive actions move right to left, negative actions move left to right.

Wreck-it-Ralf - positive action move left to right, negative actions move right to left.

David Au asked Rob during the Q&A how he would of tackeld a conversation in a car between two people using the left to right rule, assuming it would have to be broken to keep the spatial space consistant with the viewer. Rob's response was that he would use the eye to move the line of action without making it overly noticeable to the audience. This is significant considering where i am at with my artefact 09. It would seem that the eyes can hold more power with the line of action and potentially that mean that the core of the body is of lesser importance in communication - entirely consistant with the autonomous subtext attached to my artefact. It appears the line of action can be used to aid camera direction as well as a manipulation tool.