The Laws of Physics in the Animation Universe Term Paper

Stephanie DeGiovanni

The Laws of Physics in the Animation Universe

Term Paper

Physics of Animation in the Paranorman Universe

In 2012 Laika animation studios, released Paranorman, a 3d stop motion animated feature, about a young boy who had to save his town from zombies rising from the grave. This movie was very different from those before it from its original story line to its advanced stop motion techniques. Like many stop motion films before it took years to complete the pose to pose animation, with the detailed puppets. Paranorman takes on many challenges that are even more difficult than 2d animation, with intense action scenes and characters moving through the air. These difficult sequences are successful and make the audience believe what they are seeing is believable in the world they are watching. It is however, with a closer look that we see these actions in the world as we know it are not possible, due to the laws of physics of the real world. Animation traditionally has bent and broken many laws of physics, but they are broken to allow for more entertaining yet still believable animation. When it comes to things like anticipation, balanced and unbalanced forces and gravity, Paranorman has created its own laws of physics for the sake of a better story and interesting animation.

Anticipation in animation is used to allow the audience to see and understand what the character is going to do, or what the movement is going to be. There are more frames added before the action happens, instead of the action starting before the audience can understand what is going to happen. Not only is anticipation used for clarity but for comedic or dramatic timing of an action. In Paranmorman there is a scene early on where Norman starts to see visions of the dead rising from the grave. He is located on a stage but is scared and ends up running off the edge of the stage. In the air at the start of his fall there is a bit of hang time before he ends up crashing down to the ground. There is anticipation before Norman makes his fall as he starts to accelerate, however it is the added hang time in the air that does not follow the real world physics.

 Another scene with comedic anticipation and timing is when Norman has to retrieve a book from the clutches of his dead uncle’s body. The dead character is a large and very stiff body which Norman ends up wrestling, the body ends up on its feet and rocks back and forth staying up until it lands on top of Norman at just the right time. This added hang time and slow out to a fall is exaggerated compared how a real body would act in fall. It is moments with such timing and anticipation that give Paranorman a cartoony feel at times.

 There is a lot of great subtle animation going on as well which is a great accomplishment for stop motion, but it is the comedic cartoony moments that stand tend to stand out. Such as the scene where Norman runs into the bully Alvin with his bike, who the proceeds to fall to the ground spinning, something that would not be a reaction in the real world. This spinning choice in movement shows the audience that the character has fallen in an interesting way and makes them perceive Norman riding much faster than he actually is.

When a movie is about zombies coming to life and attacking a town, it is expected that this world will have to make up its own rules of how it works. There are no zombies to research from, they need to work is completely made up, yet these rules still need to be consistent throughout the story and rest of the world. There are times in the film that the zombies rotting body parts are very weak and just fall off or dangle in places, yet in times of action they seem to have superhuman strength and can break through wooden doors and vehicle ceilings. These inconsistencies are noticeable, but still accepted because they are creatures that wouldn’t exist in the real world. The fictional zombie characters super human strength that is plausible due to magical elements, however there are rules that are still broken dealing with force with non-paranormal entities.

 The high speed chase between the kids in the van and the police women on the scooter break real world rules. Again for comedic purposes, the police women rams herself up against the large van trying to get the van to stop, but instead causes the van to almost tip over its side, even though the van is going faster and is much heavier.

 There is then another scene with a large women who is so frightened by a zombie, that she runs away fast enough to go through her wooden fence and leave a hole in the shape of her body.

                With the exaggerated actions and anticipation, it is also the rules of gravity that are bent and reinvented for this fictional world. In the van chase scene the van ends up tipping over and rolling down a hill at a high speed; it makes many rolls and bounces down the hills side. The characters and items in the van seem to act correctly at times in the falls, yet at the end of such a dramatic crash and may rolls, the van lands upright in one piece and all the characters walk away completely unharmed.

 It is actually until much later for the timing of joke that the van falls in into a bunch of pieces after the crash. Another unrealistic fall is when Norman climbs the tower of the town hall to try and confront the witch. He ends up getting struck by lightning and starts to fall but he is then found to have somehow fallen back inside of the building, not fallowing the path of action or arc of such a fall. There is a magical element that propels the story that changes the normal laws of gravity that even Norman is not used to. At the climatic confrontation of the witch, Norman ends up having to get to the witch by floating and jumping on flying pieces of ground that crumble around him without falling. These pieces of the ground just float and rotate in space as if there were no gravity.

In animation, and stop motion in particular it is important to not just tell entertaining stories, but to use the medium to its full advantage and tell stories in a visually interesting way. A lot of the time this is done by making up entirely new worlds that have their own rules and laws of physics. This is the advantage of animation, to be able to push and exaggerate what already exists, to break rules that are otherwise impossible. The paranormal powers such as zombies and ghosts have their own laws of physics that have to be made up yet still believable to the audience. It is its use of anticipation, unbalanced forces and skewed rules of gravity, that allow Paranorman to be a fun and entertaining animated film.