Category: Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language
After my research, I decided that my critical research should named ‘The Alchemy of the Antihero – Crafting Compelling Villain Protagonists in Animation’. It mainly focus on the character design of anti-heroes and the narrative of antiheroes.
It will be divided into four parts: The narative of antiheros, how audience reponse to anti-heroes, the analysis of two typical anti-heroes in animation, and at last, the conclusion about what a successful anti-hero character in animation needs.
Shafer, D.M. and Raney, A.A. (2013) ‘ Exploring How We Enjoy Antihero Narratives ‘, Journal of Communication, Volume 62, Issue 6, December 2012, Pages 1028–1046. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01682.x.
This research investigates how audiences enjoy narratives featuring morally ambiguous or flawed protagonists, known as antiheroes. While traditional Affective Disposition Theory (ADT) posits that enjoyment stems from positive moral evaluations of characters, it falls short in explaining the appeal of antiheroes whose actions often violate moral standards. It argues that for antihero narratives, enjoyment is facilitated not through moral monitoring as per classic ADT, but through schema-driven moral disengagement. This process allows audiences to separate their liking for a character from their moral evaluation of their actions. The findings suggest that ADT remains a valid framework but requires integration with schema theory and the concept of moral disengagement to fully account for the enjoyment of complex, morally ambiguous protagonists. Future research should focus on directly measuring these schemas and exploring their potential long-term effects on viewers’ real-world moral reasoning.
Bibliography
Miranda, L. (2017) ‘ The Self is Dead – Alienation and Nihilism in Rick and Morty’, Class, Race and Corporate Power, Volume 5 Issue 3 U.S. Labor and Social Justice, article 9. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/48645479.
Koltun, Kim (2018) “Rick, Morty, and Absurdism: The Millennial Allure of Dark Humor,” The Forum: Journal of History: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 12.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/forum/vol10/iss1/12
Who is Rick
He is a Nihilist and has Existential Crisis, he believes the universe is meaningless and life has no purpose. He only believe in science and is extremly rational. At the same time, he rebels against authority and is a deconstructor of systems. He escapes himself through adventures and creating chaos, embodying the “tormented genius.”
Rick as an anti-hero
First, he is lack of traditional heroic morality, he is selfish, dangerous. His motivation are often out of personal desires, instead of noble ideas. But at the same time, even he denies all emotions, he still protects his family (especially Morty) at critical moment, which shows there’s still humanity in his heart. Also, as a nihilist,confronts the absurd with humor and irony, embodying the “American absurd hero” who uses laughter to combat nothingness.
Still plan to do more investgating on character archetypes, protagonist, and other things relate to anti-heroes.
Animated documentary is a good way to discuss social and political issues. It gives you a distinctive way to view these serious topics. However, some may argue that animation may distance the audience from the subject matter, making it harder to connect with the reality, Animated documentaries merge factual storytelling with creative visuals, raising questions about authenticity and audience engagement. In all, the major conflict while talking about animated documentaries is whether the artistic part of animation would affect the truth in documentary. But sometimes some animation can help the audience visually see the truth when there’s lack of visual evidence, in this case animation is more of a method.
There are many animated film that are aimed at recording the reality, that can be considered as animated documentary. One example is “Waltz with Bashir” (2008, Ari Folman). It explores the unreliability of personal and collective memory. The director interviews his former comrades-in-arms, but each person’s memories are fragmented and contradictory. The animation perfectly visualizes the traumatic memories, dreams, and flashbacks of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut. It can fall into categories like Politics and war.
There ‘s two kinds of abstraction in experimental animation: formative abstraction and conceptual abstraction.
Formative abstraction focuses upon the manipulation of the visual fundamentals; color, form, space, light and texture, alongside the dynamics of movement, time, rhythm and sound as a central theme of the work.
Conceptual abstraction is the abstraction in narrative structure and storytelling, using semiotics metaphor and symbolism.
A Légy (The Fly) (Ferenc Rófusz, 1980)
Categorization: It is a 2D animation. This animated short film is presented from the subjective point of view of a fly. The topic is probably about the inescapable misfortune; make you feel trapped and vulnerable.
Form and Function: The artist’s objective is to explore the limits of animation in creating a purely subjective visual experience. He attempts to make the audience “become” a fly, seeing through its eyes, moving in its way, and feeling its fate. The function lies in creating an unprecedented immersive perceptual experiment rather than telling a story.
Process: It is a 2D hand-drawn animation, with a black-and-white sketch style. It adopts a continuous, unedited first-person perspective long take, give the audience a immerse experience as a fly.
Formal Elements: there’s no background music, only the noise made by the fly, feels very realistic.
It is not merely a story about a fly; rather, it is an immersive installation art piece centered on perception itself. Through meticulously calculated, subjectively animated movements constructed frame by frame in hand-drawn animation, the technical process itself becomes the film’s theme and philosophy: How do we experience and define existence through motion and vision? Stripped of all narrative superfluities, it goes straight to the core of animation art—the creation of movement and transformation. Its profound experimental nature lies in proving that animation can serve as a pure tool of visual psychology. By manipulating space, perspective, and rhythm, it evokes intense, wordless empathy and fear within the audience, achieving an absolute cinematic experience of “what is seen is what is.”
Narrative structure is the key aspect of storytelling. While telling a story, there should be beginning, middle and end. One of the structures is the Three-Act Structure, it has three parts, act 1 is the setup, act 2 is the confrontation, act 3 is the resolution.
The reason of Editing is to create narrative progression and maintain coherence, and to convey character emotions and actions visually.
Characters are a major part of storytelling. In films there are different character archetypes, including villain and hero, also characters play different roles in storytelling, like protagonist, antagonist, sidekick, mentor, and love interest. Those character roles drive the narrative.
The Film I pick is Fight Club (1999). The main character isThe Narrator also can be called Jack.
1. Story Arc
You — The narrator lives a numb, consumer-driven life: with a corporate job, an apartment filled with Ikea furniture, suffering from insomnia, feeling empty and meaningless.
Need — He needs to feel something real. He wants freedom from consumer culture, also wants relief from emotional numbness.
Go — The explosion in his apartment leads to him going to Tyler Durden, who represents rebellion, masculinity and freedom. He moves into the dilapidated house, and step into chaos and rejection of society’s rules.
Search — They start up the Fight Club, and the narrator feels alive again. Physical pain replaces emotional emptiness, the masculinity and violence become more intense. This phase feels empowering but unstable.
Find — Project Mayhem begins. The narrator believes he has found purpose. He thinks Tyler has created something meaningful. He gains status and respect.
Take — The narrator pays the price. People are injured and killed. The major revelation occurs: Tyler Durden is not real.
Return — The Narrator tries to undo Project Mayhem, and stops Tyler. He realizes he must destroy the illusion, not run from it, so he shoots himself to eliminate Tyler. This is symbolic self-sacrifice.
Change — Tyler is gone. The Narrator reconnects with Marla, and watch the world collapse.
2. Character Archetypes
The Narrator is the fragmented hero, Tyler Durden is a trickster, Marla Singer is s catalyst
3. Timeline of the Main Character
The narrator grows up conforming to societal expectations, suppresses anger and dissatisfaction and finally develops insomnia due to emotional repression.
He attends support groups to let out emotion, faked his own misery. He meets Marla, who disrupts his coping mechanism. Then Tyler appears.
The Fight Club forms, they use fighting to let out emotions. Project Mayhem starts to form and escalates beyond control.
At the end of the film, the narrator learns Tyler is a projection, he tries to stop the destruction by committed suicide to eliminate Tyler. At the end of the film he holds Marla’s hand as the old-world collapses.
Art is made of 7 elements——line, shape, form, value, space, color, texture. As an art form, while making animations, It is also important to pay attention to these elements. Another useful rule while making animation is the golden ratio, meaning the rate 1:1.6, which can be used for balance and aesthetics. Following this rule can make the shots pleasing to eyes.