Life is indispensable to the animator's art. Animators look to our physical world to gain insights into how movement occurs. Often animator's employ live action reference, the study or analysis of movement on film/video, as a tool to uncover the subtleties, variations, and complexities found in movement, that on first glance may otherwise be invisible to them.
In viewing live action reference the animator must identify the distinctive elements of the movement and then interpret those elements in the movement of their animated characters. But how does the animator identify these elements? Animators have utilized a subjective process in identifying these movement qualities, but this process can yield unsuccessful results given the lack of a formal system of analysis, particularly with beginning animators.
The major contribution of this thesis is the development of an alternative approach for the observation and analysis of human movement for animation utilizing Laban Movement Analysis' Effort, a framework for observing the quality of movement. With this Effort based approach the beginning animator is presented with several benefits: they are given a vocabulary by which to communicate the expressive language of a movement, they are provided with a concise system of analysis, and this system grants them more liberty in breaking from the live action reference but still retaining the quality of movement found in the performance.
The animator utilizes the Effort vocabulary in interpreting the overall quality of the movement in the live action reference. These qualities form the foundation of the animator's movements. The animator begins to animate in a normal or traditional approach but the Effort functions as a conceptual guide for how the character moves.
This thesis is focused toward the beginning animator who has had some exposure in the technique, terminology, and basic processes of animation. Expressive human (human caricatured) movement will be observed and interpreted in this thesis. The movements will be external bodily movements. The type of expressive movements that will be discussed will be based upon three emotional states: anger, joy, and sadness.
To demonstrate how Effort can be utilized in the creation of animation, actors create several expressive movements. These movements function as a live action reference to be analyzed using Effort. Following the Effort analysis, the Effort qualities found in the actors' performances then are applied to an animated character. The animated character then is animated in light of the Effort qualities, thus conveying an interpretation that expressively resembles the actors' intent.