Master Courses Scholarship Competition Entry For Animation

Design Master in Milanby Cansu Polat

Ever since humankind could draw, they have tried to catch the illusion of motion. They drew on pottery, they drew on cave walls to communicate and tell a story in image form. To-day we call the act of telling a story by moving images anima-tion. The real animation as we know it started after the indus-trial revolution in Europe and North America, when machines which would make the images seem to move appeared. There are primarily 3 types of animation; traditional, stop motion and computer. In traditional animation, the animator draws every frame of the animation by hand. This means a lot of time consuming drawings. By time, animators discovered an easier way of pro-ducing animations, cell animation. That way they were able to keep the backgrounds still and only draw the moving objects frame by frame to acetate papers. But it was still taking time and was also expensive.

Brief Introduction to Animation

Stop motion can be categorized into many subcategories, but basically stop motion is photographing of any object frame by frame to tell a story. Some of the best examples to this kind are Wallace and Gromit movies. The improvement of animation from traditional to computer was revolutionary. Some 2D drawing and animating softwares were developped and that reasoned a great decrease in the production of hand-drawn animation. Nonetheless, the sector grew more with the new technology input. Now we can visualize characters and even worlds using 3D modeling soft-wares.

Bob Carr, working on Yogi Bear

There are many inspirational people in the history of animation. Regarding my concept and ideology, I have decided to limit my research to the animations with dominant women characters and/or even not necessarily the women driven shows but the ones which value them. We do not see many women animators behind the creative process for a long time in the history. Even though women were working on the field ever since the beginning they were only taking part in the production. They would help colouring in the cell animation pro-cess. Cell animation was gruelling and expensive, sometimes they needed to use the same acetate papers again and again, so women also took part in cleaning them. Of course by time women took more important tasks in the process. Women like Mary Blair, started doing concept drawings of the animations that would later become the inspi-ration for many other people. Sally Cruikshank inspired many young animators with her style and her way of thinking. Not the first but one of the very best, Ellen Woodbury got a role in some mile stone 2D animations in corporate animation field. Today, the animation sector has great women such as Kathy Zielinski, Lauren McMullan and many more.

Sally Cruikshank working on ‘Make me Psychic’Mary Blair’s concept art for Cinderella

Not only the inspirational real women, there are some female fictional characters whom footsteps can be followed. They are the perfect examples of strong women and they give hope to the girls who are watching.

Aang could not have made it without Kata-ra’s help. She is still caring, feminine but yet powerful. Because why she can’t be both?

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Sailor Moon and the rest of the Sailor Senshi were all girls, they kept saving the world

and they were never weak enough not to talk about how they feel.

Sailor Moon

Mulan wasn’t given a chance to do what

she wanted to do. So she created one.

MulanI have been planning on making an animation with a female lead character who would sarcastically “teach gender roles” to the audience. So when I remembered this scene, I decided who I should analyze.

A talk about gender roles:+Who brings money? -Dad+Who does the laundry? - Dad+Who mowns the lawn and washes the car? - Cute Bubbles!Powerpuff Girls

Craig McCracken

Growing up as a 90’s kid, I watched cartoons that inspired me to become an animator, especially the works of Craig McCracken who is the creator of The Powerpuff Girls(1998), Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends(2004)and Wander Over Yonder(2013). Therefore I would like to introduce you to the famous American animator Craig McCracken.

McCracken was born in 1971 in USA. He says he was into drawing since the age of 3[1], and he is still active as an animator and a creator. When he was asked about retire-ment, he told the audiences that he does not believe there is an age for creativity, and he plans to keep producing car-toons as long as he can able to. He has a unique sense of humour and style.

What I like the most about McCracken’s work is the creative and unusual plots. He has a different perspective and thinks outside of the box. He designs various and unexpected characters, which has not been embroidered before. Powerpuff Girls is basically an action themed cartoon, but unlike the ones we are used to see, the day is saved by 3 girls who have super powers, instead of the classic white and attractive male super hero. Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends is obvious from the title, there are all kinds of imaginary friends who are not needed anymore, so they stay at Foster’s until they are adopted. Craig says he came up with this idea when he went to adopt 2 dogs from the shelter. His latest creation and his first work for Disney, ‘Wander Over Yonder’ is about an optimist traveller helping people on his journeys between planets.

McCracken is all about the characters and their personalities. The concept is as important as the characters, but when he writes a scenario, instead of thinking the process, he cares about what would the character do at a situation as the one he is planning. He creates an environment and decides how the character should act in a situation like that. And not just the ‘good’ characters. Even the ‘bad guys’ are designed deeply, they do not only exist to be the opposite idea, they also have characters that are multi dimensional.

Wilt is nice and kind, so when in a super market, he would hold the door for everybody.

Foster’s, Season 1 Episode 1

Being evil does not take your rights away as a citizen.PPG, Season 1 Episode 10.

McCracken is a big fan of DC comics and he states that he is inspired by them. In an interview he told the interviewer that he thinks todays su-per heroes are designed too seriously, that they all wear dark leather clothes to make them look tough and cool. He believes characters still can be car-toon-like, colourful yet still cool and entertaining.[2]

This decision can be seen in all his characters. They are not trying to hide or blend in, they are proud to be the heroes.

How colorful eveyone is!

One thing that I like the most in Craig’s animations is the variety of the charac-ters. It can be observed that he cares about diversity. His shows include human and non-human characters from different ethnicities and races, who have various body types. Some characters have disabilities, and some characters are outside the gen-der norms. Childhood is the time when people develop their personalities. What we observe from the media effects our decisions and understanding of life, more impor-tantly constructs our character. This is why it is essential for children to see equality and diversity in the media.

Eduardo Character Design Development. He is Spanish, fuzzy and loving.

Foster’s, Taken from Craig McCracken’s Deviantart

Wilt Character Design Development. He is kind,

helpful and has disabilities.

Foster’s, Taken from Craig McCracken’s Deviantart

Him. Even though there are not any commentary about his sexuality, he is considered a transgender character.

Powerpuff Girls

McCracken works in a 2D environment. The original PPG(1998) was hand drawn[3] while Foster’s was produced using Adobe Illustrator, After Effects and Flash.[4] The characters designs are usually kept simple. Rather than the details, they have concentrated on their personalities and expressions. Simple shapes like rectangles, circles etc. are widely used in animation while drawing the characters, they are the base of the character designs. Similar to many other artists, Craig used geometrical shapes while designing his characters.

Different female characters, different body types!Powerpuff Girls

Professor UtoniumPowerpuff Girls

Similar to character designs, background designs are also simple yet distinctive. Geometrical shapes are used in monochrome colors or colors which are at the same hue, giving the image an appeal. As I have stated before, McCracken cares about his characters the most. He uses simple monochrome backgrounds so the characters are seen more clearly. Staging, one of the twelve principles of animation is used effectively, the character which should have the attention is exposed openly. Even though Bloo is also in the scene, it is obvious that they

want the audience to look at Red.Foster’s, Season 1 Episode 7

Wander Over YonderPowerpuff Girls

Backgrounds are also used to express motion and emotion, as well as the world state. The color uses remarks the time of the day or state of the scene, emotional changes of the character and movement of the character.

Buttercup is really mad!Powerpuff Girls

Blossom is moving forward while blowing ice.Powerpuff Girls

Townsville, in a cloudless nice day.Powerpuff Girls

Townsville, in a hot day.Powerpuff Girls

All of McCracken’s creations are unusual and quite imaginative. Characters find themselves in absurd situations and solve the problems in their own unique ways. The language use is almost always sarcastic, but yet educative. They use the eng-lish language effectively, and they make puns with the similar words and/or syno-nyms-antonyms. Usage of humor as a teaching method has been proven effective. People tend to remember conversations that they laughed at rather than the ones they did not. Every cartoon Craig created mostly has a ‘moral of the story’ point at the end of the episode. But since you were entertained till the end, you do not even think you have been educated until you are already educated.

“Being mean and making fun of others is bad Buttercup. Now apologize”

Powerpuff Girls, Season 1 Episode 12

Do some good and you will get some good in return.Wander Over Yonder, Season 1 Episode 4

There are some aspects I particularly like in Craig McCracken’ creations that made me choose him as an inspiration. I value his choice of characters and his openmindness. We are living in 2016. Even though we had great progresses about norms and pre-judgements in the society, some people still face problems regarding their gender. Some worse and some not but problems nonetheless. Growing up in Turkey, in a country which is between Europe, Middle East and Asia, I had observed some of the obstacles myself. Especially the ones women have faced and continue to face. Europe has proven it-self superior to the other continents when feminism is considered, yet, even to this day, prejudgements and restraints of the society is a problem for all the women around the world. According to the statics of Turkey in 2015, in all job sectors women are paid less than men, even though they do the same amount of job. Only %7,4 of Turkey’s ministers are women. Every 4 women out of 10 are harassed physically by the male individuals they have shared the house with.[5] Only in 2015, 414 women were murdered, 91 injured by men. [6]

I believe this needs to change. And change starts when the audience decides to listen and tries to understand. We can not keep living this way, we should not let the fu-ture generations to live in this society where women has no value nor rights. I believe our future is the children. If we can educate our children, tell them everybody is equal, we can demolish the norms, resulting a happier population. I would like to contribute to making the world a better place, in a way I believe I can do. I may not be able to stop this injustice, but I can help the next generation un-derstand.

This is why I present you;

Donna is an ordinary girl just like every girl. She is pure-minded, intelligent and curious. So when people says that she can not do something because she is a girl, she struggles to understand what they mean, since she can not find a logical explanation. And one day she realises she needs to do something to make things better. So she decides to become the much needed super heroine, who fights (not violently but logical-ly) against the expectations of the society towards women. As cliché as it is, she sews a cape and makes a mask for herself, and off she goes to tell people that they can not tell women what they should or should not do. Her innocent approach to the matters would make the audience laugh as her sarcastic comments will. I intend to make a cartoon series for La Donna. The first episode will be the birth of our heroine and her journey to this decision. As her character develops further, I am sure she will find her way in various situations she’ll be in. Donna will be teaching women to stand up for themselves.

References1. ^ Phipps, Keith. “Powerpuff Girls” A.V.Club interview. Retrieved 20 June 2000.2. ^ Phipps, Keith. “Powerpuff Girls” A.V.Club interview. Retrieved 20 June 2000.3. ^ Richmond, Ray (January 15, 2004). “Special Report: Animation”. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 15, 2004.4. ^ Baisley, Sarah. “McCracken’s Imaginary Friends Premieres Aug. 13”. Animation World Net-work. Retrieved 14 December 2015.5. ^ Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu, “İstatiklerle kadın,2015”. Sayı: 21519. 7 March 2016.6.^ Umut Vakfı, ““Kadın Cinayetleri”nin Haritası”. http://blog.umut.org.tr/kadin-cinayetlerin-in-haritasi.html 6 February 2016.