My grad film became a bit of a nightmare project; loads of characters, a linear plot, lip syncing etc. While I was working on it, I started thinking about the movement that one decides to have in a cartoon. I say “decide”, because in this post-post-modern era, I believe we are free to opt for a more or less naturalistic looking animation depending on the aesthetic we want to achieve. In my movie for example, sometimes I wanted the characters to move in a cartoony way that would not give the impression of being “real”.
Some other times I had shots where I wanted the character to feel more naturalistic and therefore I used LAVs (live action videos) as a reference. However it is quite hard to mimic an overweight soft body if you have only bones and bitterness in you.
In this sense, choosing how naturalistically our character moves, is analogue to any other artistic choice in between poles such as abstraction vs representation for visual art or traditional tailoring vs de-constructivism for fashion design, linear narratives vs non linear narratives in storytelling. The list goes on and on…