There are ranging opinions on the recent film Where the Wild Things Are. Some call it brilliant and some call it neurotic. You can find the reviews...

One reviewer puts it:

"Those hoping for a fun-lovin' romp through the kooky world of Max and his zany monster pals are likely to be disappointed."

It's true, and while I would be more likely to side with the "brilliant" reviews of the movie, I understand that this is not the feel good movie the children's "genre" is so often expected to be.

As an adult, I loved the movie because it so clearly put me in touch with the emotions I had as a child. It was uncomfortable, it was painful, and it was wonderful.

Recently I heard an interview with Spike Jonze (the director) and he spoke in length about choosing actors for the Where the Wild Things Are. The film had three passes on acting. There were the actors in monster suits that walked around in the live action set. There were the voice actors in the sound studio. And finally, there were the animators for the monster faces (and some other selected shots).

You can listen/read the whole interview here.

The following is an excerpt of what Jonze had to say about choosing actors:

"One of the things that happens sometimes in puppeteering and animation- that works for a certain type of story, but wasn't appropriate for [Where the Wild Things Are] - the performance becomes very broad and indicated. And the way somebody animates a character sometimes, their entire body is saying a word."

I think that warrants repeating:

"Their entire body is saying a word"

There is certainly a place for the kind of acting where everything in the shot is saying the same thing, but it seems far too prevalent in the professional animation community. Why do we animators tend to make patronizing acting choices?

Perhaps it is because we CAN do it. We animators are pretty obsessive- if we can make a character say he is angry with his words, his eyes, his hands and his toes- why not?. It seems like we are often thinking "what else can I move? Oh! there are some eye twitch controls- I'll just wiggle those angrily- Now every part of my character looks angry."

The resulting animation is often nonspecific and overstated. It is like building a bridge by dumping every sturdy material at your disposal into a river until people can cross. Beautiful suspension bridges were born out of scarcity- an architect was forced to be creative and use less and less materials.

Similarly, an animator who uses the least moving parts will usually have a more creative solution than an animator who uses as many as possible. Such an animator is also more valuable, because their solution will be cheaper as well as more unique.

Tom