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Essential Question:
How can animations create other realities that inspire, motivate, and evoke human emotion?
Storyboard Illustrator
Wanda Moreno-Aguilar
Senior Capstone
P. Foote
Wanda Moreno-Aguilar
P. Foote
Senior Capstone
Mysterious Faces
All humans face responsibilities in life and some people make it obvious that it can be
stressful. Others, walk around and never seem to frown. It is not difficult to identify features that
inflict a persons mood, it is in the human nature to try to understand one another, a habit adopted
since childhood. As a person gets older it becomes instinctive to notice and they can either ignore
it or help out. Yet, some such as illustrators, dedicate their life to just understanding the human
nature and incorporating into their work of art. Illustrators can then create animations that
perceptions.
coffee outside a coffee shop or answering incorrectly, a flushed face is universally recognizable,
and there are much more used through facial animations. The primary facial expressions are
separated into categories such as sadness; anger; fear; and happiness (CS 790 Independent
Research). There are more that fit into the universal expressions because they are similar in
features. For example, sadness and agony, both are hard to impersonate and it is rarely voluntary
because trauma usually plays a role and evokes the tears. In other cases, physical pain has to be
involved to make a person cry. In order to recognize sadness and agony, a character has raised
cheeks, their corner of their lips are pulled down, and the upper eyelids are dropped (Varghese,
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Siby, and Chhaya Shukla). At first, it may sound easy to accomplish, but sitting down and
practicing gets difficult: anyone can end up looking angry instead of sad.
On the other side, anger is the complete opposite of sadness. It can be easily mimicked
and the first sign is a thinning of lips. It is recognized as the area around the eyes tighten up,
eyebrows lowered, and glaring eyes (Cabral 2013). According to Laporte, an art professor at
Aquinas college, he believes facial expressions are the most powerful images observed. He
adds pain, joy, and confusion are also expressed through ones face. Indeed those are more facial
expressions and are true to his words, but it is still more likely to recognize fear.
Fear is also categorized with surprise. It has been studied more than any other emotion
and it carries temporary expressions. People recognize it with tensed lower eyelids, lips stretched
horizontally and eyes usually stare straight ahead (Varghese, Siby, and Chhaya Shukla). As a
final point, it was previously stated happiness is also universal. This basic emotion can be faked
or be sincere. It has been observed to have the lips curved upwards, higher eyebrows, and eyes
wide open (Cabral 2013). As a result of being able to identify common expressions, animators
use it to their advantage, understanding it is the most powerful mechanism for conveying
emotion (Albers, Danielle., edited by Sajika Gallege). In addition, Illustrators take advantage of
non-verbal communications which can be reflected mainly in gestures and other components.
The idea of gestures and eye movements all seem irrelevant at a moment a story is being
described, or yet it is unconsciously done, but in the world of animation incorporating nonverbal
communication captures an audience. The difficulty in that is having the patience to work
alongside technology that has not yet been perfected. Graphic designers, in particular, must use
tools that are not designed to comply with other programs, which are the programs that can add
the special effects or other necessary items to a scene. Moreover, programs or tools are designed
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with different purposes creating a bigger challenge (Gratch, Jonathan, Jeff Rickel, Justine
Cassell, Eric Petajan, and Norman Badler). The attempt of connecting verbal and nonverbal
communication is strongly intertwined on the meaning of the conversation. If that is not precise,
the meaning behind the interaction will be diminished. Equally important, timing has to be
considered when unfolding a character's conversation. It must be of quality work and accurate in
order to have the authentic feel, this can then allow people to connect to something similar in
memory (Gratch 60). Above that, graphic designers typically are people with some skills to
illustrations, but when an illustrator works as a graphic designer, their advantage is using their
personal experience, digital illustrators do have the distinct advantage over graphic designers that
have no illustration background, and If a digital illustrator understands the fundamentals and
aesthetics of 2D design, they can function quite well as a graphic designer once they understand
that role. That being said, it makes it evident that understanding art and being able to perform it
helps in the long run. Now being able to illustrate seems easy to a natural born artist, but putting
together a scheme that people can assimilate and accommodate to their memory, is the one point
to provoke emotions in animations or create new experiences for viewers (Khan Academy). Not
only is developing the environment to a scene important, the posture of a character can reveal the
truth in a message that has no words. The type of postures can be slouching, bowing, hands in
pockets, constantly turning and much more (Tidwell, Charles, and Dean Emeritus). Altogether,
being able to detect, understand, and have the skills for nonverbal communication will allow for
deeper knowledge of other aspects, that must be additionally incorporated to animations such as
perception.
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All films have a scene, whether it is interesting or boring, no character is walking around
in a white screen, unless that is what the filmmaker is going for. Well constructed animations are
always accompanied with a particular perception. There are many different types of perceptions,
to narrow it down, it can go from visual to simply the viewer's experience. Filmmakers are
responsible for what is shown in a scene and cutting through scenes can engage the viewer.
develop a story, leading to predictions of the outcome, that's until the filmmaker incorporates a
plot twist: engaging the audience even more (Brunick, Kaitlin L., and James E. Cutting).
Regarding visual perception, visual is the ability to see and interpret an environment,
while perception lets an audience take in the environment. Together, it prompts a great outcome
to a persons emotions. In fact, there is more to visual perception, it consists of visual memory,
visual discrimination, and visual closure, all concepts that interact in recognizing objects via
memory when looked at (Vision Therapy). By far, it is clear animators take into consideration a
lot of psychological aspects when creating their animations (Brunick, Kaitlin L., and James E.
Cutting). In articular, lighting can be used to control the depth of objects in scenes, causing
illusions and special effects, which can give the surreal sense of an interaction, but it can also
alter its interpretation of an object or person (Albers, Danielle., edited by Sajika Gallege). Above
that, the views experience can also impact the emotions that are triggered when watching an
animation. If a viewer has experienced a similar situation within a scene, and the animation
reconstructs that event precisely, it tremendously impacts the viewer because they were able to
connect a memory with a scene. Some viewers, especially elders, have more experience and
likely to gravitate towards animations that others may not find pleasure in. In certain cases,
animations that require background knowledge beforehand can also cause confusion,
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misunderstanding, and different emotions. Overall, sometimes it is not the animators poor film it
can be the audience, another reason why films have a system called MPAA, Motion Picture
Association of America, that rates movies but definitely not mandatory by law (Rialto Cinemas).
perception play a huge role for animators to create animations that evoke human emotion. It is
clear animations are time-consuming, but they really leave an impact on the viewer, when the
Work Cited
Albers, Danielle., edited by Sajika Gallege. Perception in Film and Animation The
Brunick, Kaitlin L., and James E. Cutting. "Coloring the Animated World: Exploring Human
Color Perception and Preference through the Animated Film." Cognitive Media Theory,
2017.
https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/cartoon-fundamentals-create-emotions-from-simple-
CS 790 Independent Research. "Project Deidre (||)." Modeling Six Universal Emotions,
https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/OldStudentProjects/cs490-95to96/HJKIM/emo
Gratch, Jonathan, Jeff Rickel, Justine Cassell, Eric Petajan, and Norman Badler.
Rialto Cinemas. What Determines a Movie's Rating? Rialto Cinemas | Frequently Asked
http://www.rialtocinemas.com/index.php?location=sebastopol&page=faq.
Tidwell, Charles, and Dean Emeritus. "Non-Verbal Communication Modes ." Andrews
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2017.
Varghese, Siby, and Chhaya Shukla, Facial Expression Presentation., Linkedln Corporation ,
2017.
Vision Therapy. Advertisement. Advanced Vision Therapy Center, Advanced Vision , Jan. 2017,
www.advancedvisiontherapycenter.com/services/assessments/