By: Kenny Roy, AnimationMentor.com Mentor

Animation is the latest world-wide artistic medium.  Established schools and programs in dozens of countries churn out quality animators each year, and with the advent of distance learning, schools like Animation Mentor have closed the gap for eager animators around the planet.  However, in other mediums of art, individuality is not only encouraged, but inherently essential to a learning curriculum, and ultimately the market place.  With feature animation on the other hand, the curriculum emphasizes animators' responsibility to adhere to a certain aesthetic and style on a film.  So how do you add your own personal flair?

I dare say that individual style can be your break into the industry.  From an employer's perspective, seeing a distinct individuality to a demo reel is a breath of fresh air.  It demonstrates a certain above-and-beyondness to the animator's training - unique choices punctuated by fine details.  That a candidate demonstrates a working knowledge of current styles is paramount to being a hire-able artist; but developing one's own distinguishes you as an innovator, a problem solver, and a confident actor.  The bottom line is, resisting the strong urge to emulate the wildly popular styles of Disney, Aardman, or Tim Burton is a feat in and of itself, and indeed a noble one for students.  

Disney is perhaps the mostly widely recognized, and therefore copied, style in animation. For instance, the construction of nearly all the animal characters in the early Disney universe starts with the same few lines.  This uniformity of style during Disney's long history of success established a likeness that audiences come to cherish.  As far as the motion goes, Disney was founded upon the principles of animation (heck, they invented them), and has long stood for integrity in animation.  Scrutinizing the performances in Disney films of the 60's and 70's, it would come as no surprise that a number of human performances were entirely rotoscoped in the early classics; the flowing lines in performances such as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty mark so much a style it's an approach.  Skip ahead a few dozen films and the same attention to flawless flow is seen.  Until some of the newer films, (Lion King, Pocahontas, Emperor's New Groove), stylization existed within very "Disney" boundaries, in design and motion.  And that's not a bad thing. In fact it's a good thing.  Again, recognition is the main ingredient sought after in developing a brand.

Aardman also has artistic and animation styles that cannot be misplaced.  The torus-shaped mouths with Chiclet teeth, round eyeballs set in a singular depression in the forehead like peas in a pod, or the entire lack of nostrils all give it away.  And the movement!  Even in a CG film, (Flushed Away), the stop-motion snappiness of Aardman's claymation roots shines through.  It's a style that without a doubt works.  The wonderful pose-to-pose acting in Flushed Away was some of my favorite last year.  Full action sequences rendered in the claymation 'framey-ness' (like the band of French ninja frogs that attack the steamer) create an intensity in the film that make the audience forgets it's watching animation.  The creatives under that roof are true geniuses; action with that snappiness is almost too fast to follow, an effect that was used masterfully to keep a viewer on the edge of his seat.

So in examining how style is used, we observe that Style is but another tool animators use to create an effect.  But what effect?  Some styles are established and well known, evoking a very predictable response (Disney evokes deep emotion, Aardman evokes silliness with a moral twist) but when creating one's own style, how does one construct a desired effect using only flair? To you, the young animator, what can style help you achieve?  Plenty!

Imagine you have decided for an assignment you are going to create what amounts to pretty realistic animation.  In the scene, a downtrodden female character, tired from a long day of work, enters a room to find flowers addressed to her waiting on a table.  How does she approach them?  Does she walk happily, in a bouncy trot?  Does she run as fast as she can, skidding past the table only to grab onto the edge, catching herself?  Or does she wind up like a baseball pitcher in the doorway, wiggle her rising foot, and ZIP to a perfect stiff-as-a-board attention pose, the card from the flower vase already in hand?  These are stylistic choices, all centered around a single acting choice.  That acting choice is of course "glee", and stylistically you can go far to prove your performance prowess by flourishing in this one moment. In this scene with a lovely surprise, most animators will recognize that it is a moment to create a very broad reaction to a wonderful situation, and that getting the happiness of receiving an unexpected gift across to the audience is the ultimate goal.  What only a few animators will realize is that there is no better place to exhibit some personal style.  Consider a final idea - The girl sleeks up to the table, whisking in one huge arcing movement a flower from the vase up to her nose.  She immediately begins inhaling and flapping her feet, and as she does, she comes off the ground as if her wobbling Reeboks are enough to paddle her to the ceiling.  She finishes her huge inhale and lands, exasperated and delighted at the experience.  What I've done is create a motion that, surrounded by animation that is for the most part realistic, will stand out stylistically and make a statement about my choices as an animator, but also my understanding of emotion as a human.  Imagine how much more I am saying about the elation (elevation?) one feels by breaking physics in this scene and making my character float with glee, than if I had stuck to the strict realism of my previously decided-upon style.

From a recruiting perspective, I can say with confidence you will turn more heads with well animated stylistic choices over well animated homogenized animation, even if the animation director does not agree with the particular stylistic choices you've made.  To create your own style, you must think long and hard on the acting choices that you have made in a scene, and then experiment with different ways to create the same effect with the audience.  Fight the cliché!  Resist homogenization!  Create your own style.  It exudes confidence, speaks towards your individuality, and most importantly, is more fun to animate!

Look forward to working with you,

Kenny

Email Kenny: kennyskorner (at) animationmentor.com

About Kenny Roy - Kenny has over 10 years experience in the animation industry. Starting at a very early age of 15 as a 'dustbuster' on a 2D animated feature, he discovered immediately a passion for great performance. Climbing the ranks of the industry since, Kenny has animated on dozens of projects, ranging from widely acclaimed feature films, to TV, commercials, and beyond. After a string of successfully supervised animation projects in 2006, Kenny founded his very own animation studio, Arconyx Animation Studios, LLC in sunny Santa Monica, CA. As director, Kenny commits his company to work solely on high performance character projects, and looks to the future of developing an in-house feature animation.