COLLECTION NAME:
Graduate Thesis Collection
Record
Title:
Leveraging Plasmatic Animation to Express Inner States and Metaphoric Realities
Creator:
King, Tamarind Carolyn
Subject:
Thesis (M.F.A.) -- Animation
Subject:
Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Animation
Rights:
Copyright is retained by the authors or artists of items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Abstract:
"There is a widespread belief that hand-drawn character animation should aspire to achieve an illusion of physicality. Loss of this perceived physicality is often dismissed as amateurish or crude. However, hand-drawn animation is essentially incorporeal, since it is composed of flat images with no actual weight or depth. What if, rather than hiding this physical instability, animators were to leverage it in their character animation? This thesis adopts Eisenstein's concept of 'plasmaticness,' or corporeal instability, as a lens for its investigation. It begins by tracking the rise and fall of plasmatic aesthetics in mainstream American animation, then examines the emotional distancing effect of abstraction via the writings of Lisa Cartwright. Finally, works by animators Kovásznai György and Masaaki Yuasa are analyzed to explore how plasmaticness may be leveraged in modern animation. The paper concludes that while naturalistic animation seeks to convey emotion through clarity and specificity, plasmatic animation operates on the level of metaphoric subtext and emotion. Though the illusion of physicality can be greatly expressive in its own way, there is a risk of overlooking the expressive potential of hand-drawn animation's instability, when the illusion of physicality is promoted as the golden standard."
Abstract:
Includes the original film "Pupa Interna," which tells the fantastical story of a 17-year-old girl named April who fails to complete her drivers test because she's afraid of growing up. Produced with hand-drawn animation.
Abstract:
Keywords: cartoons, character, plasmaticness, corporeality, Disney, Fleischer, Eisenstein, Masaaki Yuasa, Kovásznai György, Winsor McCay
Publisher:
Savannah, Georgia : Savannah College of Art and Design (Atlanta)
Date:
2019-03
Format:
1 text file (thesis) : 34 pages, illustrations (chiefly color), film stills + 1 animated film (6 min.) : WMV, sound, color