Exaggerated Cartoon Style Motion in Hotel Transylvania
Exaggerated Cartoon Style Motion in Hotel Transylvania
Exaggerated Cartoon Style Motion in Hotel Transylvania
4, October 2019
ABSTRACT
The fundamental principles of animation were developed at the Disney studio in the 1930s and when applied
to animation result in a recognisable“Disney” style of motion. By adhering to these fundamental principles
of animation, Animators have been able to successfully extendthe Disney style of motion to the 3D CG
medium. This papergoes beyond Disney style motion andexamines the adaptation of techniques typically
seen in more extreme cartoon-style motion and “pushed posing”, exemplified by early Warner Brothers
animated short films. This is achieved via an analysis of Hotel Transylvania by Sony Pictures Animation,
which features a stylised form of animation adapted from the extended principles of extreme cartoon-style
motion to the 3D medium.
KEYWORDS
Character Animation, Motion Style, Cartoon Style, Hotel Transylvania, 3D Animation
1. INTRODUCTION
Research and development at the Walt Disney Studios conducted in the 1930s resulted in the
development of a naturalistic cartoon style of motion, which quickly became the dominant
aesthetic of animated feature films. Twelve fundamental principles of Disney animation were
developed and taught to new animators “as if they were the rules of the trade” [1, p. 47]. Through
continued research and development, Disney animation eventually reached a point where the
principles became so refined that it progressively became harder for animators to identify each
one. However, outside of the Disney studio, others such as Warner Brothers (WB) and Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) began applying the principles in vivid displays of broad character action.
Some, such as the creator of The Ren and Stimpy Show, John Kricfalusi[2], go as far to suggest
that WB and MGM developed a style of animation that had a better application of the principles
than the Disney animators who discovered them. Other studios such as United Productions
America (UPA) took animation in a different direction by focussing more on graphic symbolism
and a limited movement vocabulary. While in Japan, manga artist Tezuka Osamu developed a
style of animation that was inspired by Disney yet significantly different in its approach to motion
and staging. Possibly due to a lack of understanding on how to produce animation and drawing
upon his success as a manga artist, Tezuka's early works combined a more cinematic layout with a
limited movement vocabulary [3, p.99]. This quickly inspired a form of animation so abundant in
Japan and recognisable as a unique style that the truncated term Anime was adopted to
differentiate it from other forms of cel-based animation. These early forms of animation clearly
had stylistic qualities that separated them,
DOI: 10.5121/ijcga.2019.9403 29
International Journal of Computer Graphics & Animation (IJCGA) Vol.9, No.4, October 2019
however, since then 3D CG animation has replaced cel-animation as the dominant form. As this
paper demonstrates via an analysis of Hotel Transylvania[4], the range of movement styles in 3D
animation has continued to expand as artists trained in traditional techniques adapt these early
movement styles to the new medium.
As my previous analysis of the character motion in Tangled[5] has shown, the Disney studio has
continued to extended traditional Disney aesthetics into computer animation [6]. Other studios
however, such as DreamWorks, BlueSky and Sony Pictures Animation tend to use a broader and
more liberal application of the principles closer to the WB and MGM movement vocabulary. Hotel
Transylvania is an animated feature film created by Sony Pictures Animation in which the
director, GenndyTartakovsky, has deliberately adapted the styles of WB and MGM into the CG
medium. This paper looks closely at the character animation in Hotel Transylvania to understand
how an exaggerated movement style has been achieved in the film under Tartakovsky's guidance.
2. PRODUCTION CONTEXT
The visual style of Hotel Transylvania owes a lot to the creative vision of its director
GenndyTartakovsky, who is well known for his distinct visual style in the 2D medium. Hotel
Transylvania is Tartakovsky's first animated feature film and his first 3D CG animated film,
however, he has directed and produced a large number of stylised 2D animated series for Cartoon
Network including Power Puff Girls; Dexter's Laboratory; Samurai Jack; Star Wars: Clone Wars;
as well as Sym-Bionic Titan [7]. Unlike the Disney naturalistic style of animation, Tartakovsky's
earlier works feature a flat, graphic angular styling with strong character posing and sharp
exaggerated movement patterns. The following images from Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone
Wars demonstrate this distinct visual style:
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The visual style of Samurai Jack and Star Wars: Clone Wars draw inspiration from the graphic
symbolism that UPA are known for with the cinematic feel of Japanese anime. In terms of
movement the characters tend to hold extreme dynamic poses and transition quickly from one pose
to the next. Recognising the visual style of Tartakovsky's earlier works is significant to
understanding his approach in the 3D medium.
Studios such as PIXAR and Disney tend to retain a consistent movement and visual style across
their films, otherwise known as a “house style”. Michelle Murdocca, producer at Sony Pictures
Animation (SPA) claims that SPA prides itself on not imposing any particular house style on its
animated films:
We give our directors the latitude to bring with them the style of the movie they're creating.
That's what makes the movies we've made here different and distinctive – they don't follow any
given pattern. [8, p. 14]
With the freedom to explore new styles, Tartakovsky has used his 2D animation sensibilities to
develop a movement vocabulary in Hotel Transylvania that differs from typical Disney style
motion as well as previous SPA films. As Murdocca reinforces, “Hotel Transylvania has a very
different look and style from any of Sony Pictures Animation's previous films”[8, p. 14].Cloudy
with A Chance of Meatballs[9] is another film created by SPA that feature a highly stylised
approach to character motion, however, it is significantly different to Hotel Transylvania.
According to animators working on the film, Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs has a style that
is broad and customised to the most appropriate choice for a particular shot [10]. This left
animators to experiment with the movement style by working collaboratively with the directors to
create a complex tapestry of movement patterns. The production of Hotel Transylvania on the
other hand was closely scrutinised by its director, GenndyTartakovsky, to achieve a specific and
consistent style.
I wanted to bring in more of a Tex Avery, Warner Bros sensibility. I knew it was going to be a
little bit of an uphill climb in this day and age because people have forgotten what was so great
about that style of animation. I'm not even talking about the big bulging eyeballs or the big
crazy takes. It's more about the energy, the performance and the posing.[11]
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The “Tex Avery and Warner Bros” sensibility that Tartakovsky refers to is well known amongst
the animation community. Cavalier [12, p. 122] credits Avery and his team with reinventing
animation, explaining that they took what was known in character animation and pushed it to the
limits with “zany, exaggerated, and extreme style” [12, p. 122]. The image below demonstrates
the extreme posing that Tex Avery helped to pioneer:
The extreme distortion, sweeping lines and fluid poses evident in Tex Avery's work can be
challenging to replicate in 3D animation. The very nature of hand drawn animation supports
flexibility in the shapes an animator can create. This is not the case in 3D CG animation, which
relies upon complex controls, or “rig”, to position an articulated virtual puppet. This technological
limitation meant animators had to break the character rigs in Hotel Transylvania to achieve the
shapes that Tartakovsky hoped to achieve with the character poses. The technical team had to
create new production workflows and approaches to rig deformation to allow the animators to
respond to Tartakovsky's direction [13].
Although Tartakovsky did not animate the film himself, (a team of 3D animators did) his influence
is seen throughout the film as a result of the production process, which allowed him to critique the
animator’s work by drawing directly over the top of the unfinished scenes. The following images
show Tartakovsky's suggested pose design drawn over the top of the animator’s unfinished scene:
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The images above show how Tartakovsky was able to direct the animators to achieve more
extreme shapes that are closer to the Tex Avery style he was hoping to achieve. The process of
drawing over the top of 3D CG scenes has proven to be an effective way for directors to expand
the depth of styles being used in 3D CG animated films. In 2004, director Brad Bird inspired the
development of a proprietary tool at PIXAR during production of The Incredibles[14], which was
PIXAR's first film to feature a human cast in stylised poses [15]. More recently at Disney,
traditional animator Glen Keane worked very closely with the CG animators on Tangled to create
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character poses and motion that extended the traditional Disney style in the 3D CG medium.
Directing the film in this way allows the authorial intentions of the director to permeate the entire
production by providing animators with new creative ideas and also challenging the technologies
that make those ideas possible.
3. ANALYSIS
3.1. Pushed Character Poses
Perhaps the most obvious stylistic difference between Hotel Transylvania and a Disney style film
such as Tangled and Frozen [16]or even a PIXAR film such as Brave [17]or Toy Story 3 [18], is
the practice of exaggerating poses by distorting characters into shapes that emphasise their
emotional state. Disney and PIXAR films have a tendency to use expressive poses that stretch and
deform during moments of broad action and then settle into a pose that does not hyperextend or
completely reshape limbs and other elements of the body. In contrast to this, the poses in Hotel
Transylvania are often pushed into appealing shapes that force the characters body beyond the
limits the audience would expect from a physical being. According to Tartakovsky, this approach
allows for a wider range of expressions, ultimately resulting in improved character believability:
To me, it was always ridiculous that you can't emote if you're doing something cartoony and
exaggerated. I always argued the opposite. The more cartoony and exaggerated you are, the more
range of expression you have and it will be more believable. And so, that was the whole point.
Push the expressions. Push the animation. Push the posing to a much more exaggerated level. [19]
Walt Disney also believed exaggeration to be significant to creating effective animation. In 1935,
long before Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston listed exaggeration as a fundamental principle of
animation in their text, The Illusion of Life Disney[1], Disney had listed exaggeration as the third
most important skill of the top animators. He described exaggeration as being the “ability to
caricature action - to take a natural human action and see the exaggerated funny side of it” [20, p.
3]. Thomas and Johnston [1]expanded on this notion when they listed exaggeration as a
fundamental principle of animation.
They explain that it created some confusion amongst animators at the studio when Disney asked
for more realism only to then be criticised for a lack of exaggeration in the character action. In
contrast, when animators created more “distorted drawings or action so violent it was disturbing.
They found they had missed the point” [1, p. 65]. Disney was not after realism, rather he was
wanting a caricature of realism that would have a bigger impact on the viewer. The result is a style
that does not distort the figure but pushes the actions and posture of characters beyond realism to
accent the character's emotion.
Although exaggeration is present in both Disney style motion and the motion in Hotel
Transylvania, it is approached quite differently. Hotel Transylvania deliberately takes the
“distorted drawings” approach by positioning the figure in exaggerated postures that break the
physical limitations of the body. This can be seen in the images below, which compare two
dynamic poses from Disney's Frozen with several from Hotel Transylvania:
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The examples shown from Frozen are visually appealing, dynamic and expressive, however, in
comparison to Hotel Transylvania they appear to remain very much constrained to the physical
limitations of the body. Even in the most comical moments, such as that shown in the second
example, the character is not stretched far beyond normal physical limitations. In Hotel
Transylvania the posture is exaggerated to emphasise the emotional state of the character with
limbs bent and fingers contorted to create interesting shapes far beyond their physical limits.
The images above are not isolated examples from the films; close analysis reveals that this
approach to exaggeration is carried throughout. In both films, moments of broad cartoon action are
significantly more exaggerated than dramatic emotional moments, which tend to remain visually
subdued and in harmony with the intension of the scene. Tartakovsky explains:
People were afraid of holding something for a long time. But it feels great because it gives you
that contrast. We have a lot of that quick zippy stuff, but when we do some more dramatic
emotional scenes, the characters are very controlled. There is nothing zippy about it.[11]
This approach to blending controlled, subdued motion for dramatic scenes with broad cartoon
motion was also used in Disney's Tangled. It not only provides contrast in the film but also
promotes authenticity in the character's action, as they are more likely to reflect the emotional
context of the scene [6]. Tartakovsky's comments about “quick zippy stuff” highlights that the
cartoon stylisation goes beyond the character pose alone. Hotel Transylvania uses fast and drastic
changes in shape to create transitions between poses that contribute to the overall exaggerated
cartoon stylisation. Again, unlike the Disney approach which tends to rely heavily up the
animation principle of squash and stretch, Hotel Transylvania exaggerates the entire shape of the
character using a “smear” frame, which is another technique pioneered in 2D cel-based animation
to achieve fast appealing motion.
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Figure 13. Richard Williams “Zip Turn” using a smear [21, p. 96].
One of the earliest examples of a prolific use of animation smears can be found in the short film
directed by Chuck Jones at WB called The Dover Boys at Pimento University[22]. The images
below show the villain from the Dover Boys, Dan Backslide, elongated as he moves quickly from
one pose to another:
As these sequences above demonstrate, the character can be wildly distorted into interesting
shapes during a smear. In his analysis of the Dover Boys, John Kricfalusi, points out that smear
frames are a “cool trick” that is wasted “if you don't have great poses to get to” [2]. Hotel
Transylvania demonstrates a well-balanced combination of strong interesting poses and fast
expressive smears, the sequences below demonstrate:
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As can be seen above, the character is typically held in an interesting pose with a strong silhouette
that easily is read by the audience before being stretched into the next expressive pose over a very
short number of frames. This approach to fast action is widespread throughout the film, however,
it is not the only technique used.
When beginning this analysis, it was anticipated that the stylisation in Hotel Transylvania would
also draw up on a common technique in cel-animation that uses duplicated body parts to sustain
the illusion of extreme speed. This technique is known as a “multiple” and can be seen in the two
images below, which feature multiple legs during a fast running action:
Figure 18. Multiple legs used to create the illusion of fast motion.
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International Journal of Computer Graphics & Animation (IJCGA) Vol.9, No.4, October 2019
Figure 19. Multiple legs used to create the illusion of fast motion.
Surprisingly, in the scenes and character actions analysed for this study, the two examples above
are the only ones in which the use of multiples were used on characters. This indicates multiples
may have been reserved for repetitive actions, such as a run cycles, while smear frames were used
between exaggerated character poses. As the images above have shown, both techniques are
present in the film and blended with a 3D motion blur effect. According to the production notes,
the mathematically calculated motion blur of 3D animation had a tendency to reduce the visual
impact of these techniques by blurring the interesting shapes that were being created in smear
frames. The technical team had to devise a method they dubbed “Genndy Blur” to retain the forms
and readability of the character's shape during fast actions [8].
Visible blurring or “motion streaks” along the trajectory of fast moving objects is a natural aspect
of human perception [23]. This effect is replicated on film when an object moves during the
capture process. A longer exposure time for each frame or an increase in an objects speed will
result in more visible blurring in the captured image. Audiences are therefore naturally accustomed
to experiencing motion blur in objects they see in their environment and on screen. In 3D
animation there is no pro-flimic event to record, therefore, motion blur does not naturally occur
and must be simulated within the computer. Motion blur is important to 3D animation because it
contributes to at least two important aspects of the final imagery seen on screen; it reduces a
possible strobing effect for fast moving objects by visually connecting images across frames and
simulates natural human perception.
Although necessary to creating appealing 3D animation, motion blur caused some problems for the
visual style Tartakovsky was trying to achieve in Hotel Transylvania because it reduced the visual
impact of the character poses,he explains:
That whole issue of motion blur was basically my enemy because it blurs all these great drawings
away. So, we had to find a system that retained some of the fun and energy of the animation
without it blurring away to nothing. Not to get too technical, and I didn't even know this, but the
animators had sub-frames in between frames. So, we'd go in and add extra poses in the sub-frames
and that tempered the motion blur a little bit.[11]
This idea of “tempering” the motion blur was aimed at reducing the transparency and streaking of
the images when characters move very quickly. In the filmmaker’s commentary on the DVD
release, Tartakovsky expands upon the technique when he mentions that multiple passes (renders)
were created and then blended together to create clarity in the poses. In a short documentary
explaining the technique, Sony Pictures Animation describe their approach to handling the motion
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International Journal of Computer Graphics & Animation (IJCGA) Vol.9, No.4, October 2019
blur as “Genndy Blur” due to the use of “additional key frames between poses, frame specific
motion blur and a lot of artistic blending” [24]. The image below features Dracula doing a front
flip during a dance scene before and after motion blur has been applied:
The application of motion blur clearly decreases the clarity of the character shape as the image
becomes transparent while streaked in the direction of travel. The image below offers a side-by-
side comparison of standard motion blur and the improved result of using additional poses to
reduce the effect of motion blur:
These two examples clearly demonstrate that more clarity was achieved by “tempering” the
motion blur. Two brooms are also used in the top two images; this is another example of using
multiples (although not on a character) for creating high-speed cyclic motion.
The image below shows an example of an elongated pose blended with motion blur in such a way
that it retains the facial features and shape of Dracula's head but allows the body to blur.
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In the filmmaker’s commentary, visual effects supervisor, Daniel Kramer explains that along with
doing multiple passes with varying amounts of motion blur they would also “bias the motion blur
toward the front of the character line” to retain the silhouettes that Tartakovsky wanted to achieve.
Overall the approach allows for the successful combination of extremely pushed poses and very
fast motion in a 3D animated film.
4. CONCLUSIONS
Animators such as John Lasseter once argued that traditional animation principles developed at the
Disney studio could and should be applied to the 3D CG medium [25], [26]. Since then, traditional
animation principles have successfully been adapted and applied to creating believable 3D
animated characters and creatures. This aesthetic progression has very much focussed on
extending the naturalistic Disney style to the new medium. In cel-based animation, however, the
principles of animation were not always used to create naturalistic movement, other studios such
as WB, MGM, and UPA pushed the limits of animation and created a diversity of movement
qualities that often operated outside the limitations of the physical world. The range of movement
styles in the 3D CG medium has continued to broaden as animators experienced in these other
forms of animation, such as GenndyTartakovsky, bring with them a desire to create 3D animation
that reflects their own animation sensibilities.
As this study has shown, Hotel Transylvania in an excellent example of how the diverse
movement styles that developed in cel-based animation have begun to expand the 3D CG medium
beyond the dominant naturalist style of Disney and PIXAR animation. GenndyTartakovsky's
exaggerated animation sensibilities were able to shape the movement style of the film because of a
production process that allowed Tartakovsky to literally draw over the top of the animation created
by 3D animators. This approach to critiquing their work, helped guide the 3D animators toward
creating the shapes and postures that Tartakovsky wanted to see in the film.
Hotel Transylvania uses exaggerated character poses inspired by old WB cartoons and animation
pioneers such as Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. There is a deliberate focus on creating interesting
shapes and fast staccato movement rather than physically accurate postures and motion. This is
combined with smear frames that allow characters to move quickly between extremes positions
while retaining a certain visual clarity. Frame specific motion blur has been combined with
additional key frames and extreme poses to ensure the interesting shapes created during fast
movements would retain their silhouettes. Not all actions are exaggerated and fast; Tartakovsky
has created contrast in the movement vocabulary by combining moments of extreme cartoon
exaggeration with very controlled and subdued movement for dramatic moments. Tartakovsky and
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the animation team that worked on Hotel Transylvania havesuccessfully extended the exaggerated
cartoon style of studios such as WB and MGM into the 3D CG medium.
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Author
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