• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.30
• /
• pp.27-57
• /
• 2013

Animation which appeared with films in the late 19th century was a medium which came on obtaining nourishment from art historical style of modernism. However, the relation establishment between animation and modernism has been focused mainly on animation shapes, namely painted images. This sprang from explaining the relationship between animation and paintings, and for this reason, discussions of movements in animation were understood in tradition of chromophotograph of Muybridge and Jules Marey, or some characteristics owned by the live-action film. However, movements of animation were essentially different from the indexical sign of films or photogram, and objects of reproduction were different between them. Movements reproduced by animation are not ordinary movements, but expressions of or compressed movements and considerably systematic movements. As a result, these movements are far from reproduction of live-action film photogram. Rather, the logic of movements reproduced by animation comes near to controlling their motion scopes, time, distance etc. after dividing each part of the body. This is concluded in a standpoint of modern mechanism which is represented by Descartes and La Mettrie who tried to understand human body as a exchangeable machine. Design of modern mechanism ranging from modern society to industrial society and the age of modernism came to lead to analysis of physical motions of modern industrial society called composition of efficient movements understanding them as the law of nature rather than movements as nature. In the late 19th century, Taylor, F. W. and Gilbreth, Frank Bunker's studies of workers' working hours and 'motion study' were a way of constituting the frame of machine-human, which indicates that tradition of modern mechanism affected the entire modernism passing through industrial society. Further, we can see that motion studies conducted by them have almost similar characteristics to action analysis to study animation later in the name of 'timing'.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.20
• /
• pp.47-61
• /
• 2010

The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis introduced by a roboticist, Masahiro Mori. The theory holds that as robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act more human-like, the emotional response from a human spectator to them will become increasingly empathic, until they approach realistic similarity to humans but not quite exactly like them, when those images stop being likable and instead become repulsive and "uncanny." Although the scientific validity of this hypothesis is still debatable, it is true that many spectators has tendency to reject hyper-realistic animation. For that reason, the great success of the recent movie Avatar is remarkable. Computer animations that try to represent humans in hyper-realistic way fall into a paradox: successful result images would look too mundane and unsuccessful ones look "wrong". On top of that, audience would expect from hyper-realistic animation to see same level of acting of live-action films, which is usually not the case. The subtle differences between digital characters and real actors irritate spectators and hinder them in absorbtion. The biggest difference between Avatar and other hyper-realistic animation is the referent of their representation. While Avatar pursues a similar hyper-realistic visual style, the referents of the representation shown in this movie are totally alien to us thus impossible to compare with the real counterparts. Unlike characters in other hyper-realistic animations who had to fight an uphill battle with great actors in real life, those in Avatar have criteria of their own. That is why this movie can be free from the dreadful valley and let the audience absorb into the spectacle.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.32
• /
• pp.1-21
• /
• 2013

Silhouette Animation has been recognized as a genre of animation since the very beginning of the animation history, and also Its segmental movement and Aesthetic expression has led a variety of semantic interpretations. Especially the French animation director, Michel Ocelot, recently integrated 3-dimensional digital to the silhouettes animation, and it extended the possibility of the silhouettes animation in many aspects. In his latest animation feature, , he showed how he made changes in 3-dimension by creating and evolving his own way and style of silhouette animation. Although mainstream digital animations preferably to show realistic images and motion, Michel Ocelot used very selective movement, subjective digital colors and extended space which couldn't be expressed in the way of creating traditional style of silhouette animation. This alternative slow movement and the unique aesthetics in 3-dimension emphasize the unconscious elements of color, composition, patterns, and it provides digitally enhanced images and pictorial impression. In addition, the acquisition of digital three-dimensional use of space made possible to provides the wider formative imagination to the audience. In this paper, we analyzed aesthetic characteristics of the digital silhouette animation, (2011), specially focusing on the aspects of Movement, Image, Space, which could not be found in the traditional silhouette animation. It is significant to obtain diversity of the future digital animation and its positive development. In addition, this provides opportunity to explore Michel Ocelot's new experiments and animation philosophy.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.36
• /
• pp.303-323
• /
• 2014

After TV Broadcasting service started, American Animation Industry changed dramatically. Through 1930th to 1940th, Major Animation Studios made every effort to adapt to new Animation production environment. Those efforts led rapid improvement of Animation again by succession of heritage in the golden age of American Animation. in spite of successful outcome, some critic like Bernard Oma blamed Animation on repeated chasing pattern, glamorized violence with exaggeration and humor caused by lack of idea. Nevertheless the decade passed by, achievement of the era still have influenced today. The animated films of the age have attractive power in comparison to today's works and Chuck Jones was a glamorous one of the age-leading masters. "Tom and Jerry" series, "Bugs Bunny", "Daffy Duck", and so on, he planned, designed characters and directed those masterpieces. In this study, episodes of "Tom and Jerry" that had been directed by Chuck Jones during 1963 and 1967 are analysed in the view point of direction style. In recently, Korean Animation Industry seems to be accumulated power for rising again by showing new animations that are adapted to new media. Thus, this study aims to give an idea for the new vision of Korean Animation through analysing Chuck Jones' Masterpieces.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.349-363
• /
• 2015

As the market sheare of the Chinese game market across the world has been largely expanded over a decade, big game exporters of USA, Japan, Korea have developed Chinese factors and promoted export strategies, that target China. The Purpose of this study is to analyze the popular game characters of USA, Japan and Korea in order to provide empirical analysis of traditional Chinese elements applied in existing games. The RPG games in USA, Japan and Korea were selected for the contents analysis of the Chinese elements to show how the existing game companies used Chinese elements. The main findings of the research from survey data are rather inconsistent with the content analysis. In particular, all the RPG game companies of USA, Japan and Korea showed a remarkable ratio of using Manzu clothes more than Hanzu clothes. But, the preference of real game users on the Manzu style were lower than Hanzu style. Moreover, Chinese users showed more preference of the game character background that users more deepen Chinese culture. We suggest that applying Chinese elements need to be more selective based on real user's demand.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.111-132
• /
• 2015

Although Rotoscoping technique has been used for a long time to mimic the natural and smooth motion since the early 20th century, its artistic value was devalued as tricks because it traces the already recorded images. But the fact that the rotoscoping images can cross the boundaries between animation and live action in an infinite integral freedom in the digital era became rather expansive new aesthetic possibilities of representation of the reality. In addition, Jonas Odell's animations such as (2010), (2008), (2006) are good example to prove that the rotoscoping images also can serve as means to enhance its narrative. This study is to analyze how rotoscoping images act as a unique role in relation with the narrative based on the said person's real stories and realistic images. I argue that his animated films constantly contain these three characteristics -Images to mediate Auditory sensitivity as a record of inner metaphysical reality, anonymous images to represent a specific existential character, and images that act as physical representation that holds the physical space/time and related memory. This reveals that rotoscoping images in this digital era went beyond reproduction for natural movements or special type of style. It rather suggests new layers of experience, and acquires new value in animation. I hope that this study could serve as a foundation to rediscover and re-position the value of rotoscoping images as well as good opportunity to introduce very talented swedish animation artist who already received global attention with his unique philosophical and aesthetic style.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.51
• /
• pp.129-158
• /
• 2018

China has had many excellent Chinese-style animation since the 1950s. These animations are of distinctive Chinese national characteristics. They have won many awards both at home and abroad, such as "Feelings of Mountains and Waters", "Uproar In Heaven", "Why is the Crow Black-Coated" and so on. But nowadays, Chinese animations that mimics Japanese and American animation are very often, and there are few animation works with rich traditional Chinese culture. There are some works in the name of Chinese style, but they have not been fully accepted by the audiences. If one wants to create animated works of Chinese style, the author must have an in-depth understanding of Chinese traditional and folk art. Animation can not be designed only on the surface. This paper mainly studies the traditional five color concept in China and its application in animation. The purpose is to provide some references to differentiate Chinese animation from other countries in terms of style and color. The main content of this paper is to understand the concept and history of Chinese traditional five color views, and to know that this color system has reflected the ancestors' concept of nature and society. On the basis of five monochromatic colors, red, yellow, green, white and black, it is a kind of complex color concept that has been developed and perfected continuously after a long period of accumulation and precipitation in the practice of life. It is the theoretical basis of Chinese traditional color system and a complete set of historical, cultural, philosophical and religious theories. Finally, this paper analyzes the colors and their symbolic meanings of the main roles in "Uproar In Heaven", a color long animation produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio, including Sun Wukong, the Jade Emperor and Na Zha. Color is the first visual language. The use of color symbols to express the inner feelings, status, good and evil of the characters will affect the audience's emotions, behaviors and opinions imperceptibly. The traditional Chinese five color concept has gone through such a long history, and its symbolic meaning has a more profound impact on Chinese people. Applying the color concept and symbolic meaning of Chinese traditional five color concept will further highlight the personalities and emotions of the roles in Chinese style animations. This paper takes the five-color view as the theoretical basis, and through the analysis of cartoons with traditional Chinese color, the author finds ways to flexibly use traditional Chinese culture.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.37
• /
• pp.361-392
• /
• 2014

Regarding works that express objects realistically in painting, Gustave Courbet advocated realism in the mid-19th century, France, resisting the then academist style of painting, and works in realist style were produced in earnest by painters such as H. Daumier or Jean F. Millet, who went along with him. Later, realism has expanded into the realm of general literature, including fine art, which has had profound impacts on works of art and literary works. In comics, too, in the same historical context as a form of painting, realistic comics began to be produced by painters or cartoonists at the time. These realism comics are those dealing with stories based on facts, and in terms of contents, objective description and representation of the social realities of the times is one of the most important objectives, but it could not be concluded that in their visual aspect, that is, that of expressing the objects, they were realistic. In the meantime, a graphic novel was born, which was the intermediate form between comics and novels around the United States and Europe since the 1980s. Graphic novels appeared in forms and styles with strong literary and artistic values in the comics market in the U.S. which was full of the superhero genre (comics around heroes), and their major characteristics are very realistic expressions in terms of contents and visual aspect. They are complex and delicate and even have artistic, literary values as if readers read a fiction or literary work of which its narrative structures or pictures are produced with graphics. The characteristics of realistic expressions shown in graphic novels are very different from the previous works of comics. It is noteworthy that they began to be acknowledged as works of art like painting or illustration, thanks to their features of strongly individual auteurist painting style, a fairly high degree of completion of the works, and creative and experimental expression techniques or methods, instead of following the fashion of the times. In recent years, in South Korea, Hollywood blockbuster films have been released one after another and become box office hits, there are increasing interest and demand for the original graphic novels. Accordingly, many original graphic novels have been translated and started to be sold, and keeping pace with this global flow of fashion, some writers in Korea began to produce works of graphic novels. However, to look into the domestic works produced claiming to be graphic novels, there are various opinions on their format and authenticity. In this sense, this study focused on Ga-ya Kwon's Namhansanseong, one the representative works of Korean style graphic novels, and in particular, it attempted to analyze their characteristics and commonalities focusing on the visual aspect of realistic expressions of objects. It is expected that there would be an opportunity to seek for ways so that Korean style graphic novel can be further developed as a genre of comics, with competitiveness by looking back on the identity and present state of domestic graphic novels and developing and applying Korea's original subject matters differentiated from those of graphic novels in the U.S., Europe or Japan through this study. In addition, it is desired that they will be a new energizer for the stagnant domestic comics market.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.34
• /
• pp.219-235
• /
• 2014

The term 'noble savage' is a literary stock character that expresses the concept of an idealized person who has not been corrupted by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Fictional noble savage characters that are raised by wild animals such as Rudiard Kipling's Mowgli or Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan were created over 100 years ago but are still repeatedly reproduced as movies and TV series. Since films that depict noble savages tend to criticize civilization, popularity of these film could be due to the hidden anxiety of masses towards civilization and technology. Characters in commercial films about noble savages tend to be leveled, sharpened, and assimilated as Allport and Postman argued in The Psychology of Rumor. It is probably because films, as mass medium, need to be understood easily to the public. Characters in animations with cartoon style images are more likely to be leveled, sharpened, and assimilated even further than live-actions. Films show social stereotype of the time through assimilation process. Comparing different versions of film based on the same novel about noble savage how those social stereotypes such as gender roles and idea of evil change.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.41
• /
• pp.153-168
• /
• 2015

In Kyung-GI DO, An-sung, Each local autonomous entity developed the character design to inform the public relations and revitalize local economy and culture. consequently, These have got benefits with marketing local speciality related to their an-sung character; we call it name is arum, pung-mul, duck-bugi who korea traditional face characters. On the contrary, Most of old characters which have been fallen off their formative qualities became a reason that unfit (4D,3D) special film at local doom movie theater. This thesis aims to study on the character of 'namsadang' group what have been produced in ansung-si, that the show up to people about an-sung 4D Contents what local actually character and to make it more competitive through 3D,4D spacial character project developing process. It is need for new various characters, that (3D,4D-VFX) -Graphics of new an-sung'namsadang' group. that will be total different and new development. total VFX; 4-Dimantion visual graphics released in next an-sung local festival, Business prospects are bright and receiving benefits are increasing. As seen in the case of the character of in 2015, it can be a measure to earn benefits as a higher value-added business if it is managed in the local autonomous entities. In this thesis, I propose what the of character in the local special graphics; VFX style characters design. also I was show up to '4D contents character;' ; 'namsadang' group; creative processing including planing. It is possible to be ranged from special 4D series animation, a feature-length special effct cartoon film, character products, and even local doom Theme parks show up film. which are all expected high profits. These profits will be returned back to the an-sung local autonomous entity, who can use them to develop new contents, one of foundations in local economy. As a result, it is helpful to make local traits and effective tourist attractions.