Reverse Video Reference of Walking

Here we go:

Walk 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZhhFxtflrI

Walk 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BkSvaxadYY

Walk 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHi-IHa6r7Y

Walk 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fj2leOj1k

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe.

          Animation had been evolving so much for the last century. It went a long journey to go from a new and ambitious entertainment to a full fledged giant industry. This fantastic achievement is the result of countless effort from artists, animators, inventors and scientists. Some people might not be familiar with science being part of the production of animation; however, a good animation cannot be created without science. The law of physics for example, plays a huge role in animation. A credible animation needs to follow physical laws while an entertaining animation plays around these laws to create extreme moments, exaggeration, shock, strong impression and sense of humor, etc. In fact, animators nowadays apply their knowledge of physics to create believable characters and environment; but, for the key moments, they sometime break physical laws to achieve the feeling they want to draw out of their audience. A good example for this is "Ice Age 4- Continental Drift", a full animated feature film from Dream Works Studio.

          People who are hardcore animation fan like myself ( if you are not, why reading this anyway, right ?), they will know about Dream Works "Ice Age" series with its cast of funny cute animals/ trouble makers. And they also will notice how these movies all start out the same way with one of the most recognizable characters- Scrat. Scrat is a saber tooth squirrel who has a fierce love for acorn. He always went after his acorn at all cost and in the process messed things up big time (more like wrecking havoc…).  And this is where Dream Works animators broke laws of physics every single time by exaggerating the outcome of physical impact. In this movie, at about 1:10, Scrat was trying to bury his precious little acorn into the ground and caused the whole mountain to split up due to the expanded crack from where the acorn was. Now this is obviously not true in real life. Something that is so small like an acorn cannot cause such a dramatic effect to a mountain which is probably millions times bigger than it. An acorn will never crack the mountain up upon contact even if it is launched forward by Hercules or blasted out of a rocket launcher by me. The impact is just too insignificant due to the massive size difference. Another moment when things are exaggerated is at 1:46 when Scrat fell into the core of the Earth, ran on it and span the core so quickly and violently that it caused tremor to the Earth surface leading to the splitting of the continents. Again, we all know that this is physically impossible. A squirrel ( no matter how much love it has for acorn) cannot move some thing that gigantic even by an inch, not mentioning the whole entire thing at such frenetic speed. If what happened in this scene is possible, then we are in huge trouble. As we are moving around everyday; we will be moving the Earth all over the place ! So why did the animators decided to break physical laws so badly ? Because that what makes these scenes so hilarious. They did not just slightly break physical laws, they went overboard with it. By doing this, they made sure that the odd is ridiculously obvious even a little kid can spot them. They did it intentionally because they want things to go again our common sense and thus, we laugh ! The sense of humor in this scene could not be delivered in any better way.

          If messing around with the outcome of physical impact is not enough, the dare-devil animators at Dream Works went further and twisted some of the reaction of characters to external forces as well.  At 10:36, we notice how the deer only got his fur burned for jumping directly into an erupting flaming hot geyser. In real life, the punishment for the silly fellow must have been so much more severe. In fact, there shouldn't be any deer coming out of that geyser. But instead, we got ourselves an old school "ashed- out" deer to indicate that he has been through some sort of burning. Another noticeable moment is when Sid, Manny and Diego got blown up into the cloud by a giant tornado in the middle of the ocean at 19:28. They looked just fine after the incident while in reality, they should have suffered some significant damage from that unhealthy velocity of the piercing wind from the tornado. Furthermore, the hang time when they got out of the tornado and floated above the cloud was a little too long; especially for Manny who is a heavy male mammoth. Also, physically, they should have been crushed by gravity after making contact with the ocean after an extreme fall all the way from the cloud level. So basically, this scene doesn't make sense in so many way; yet again, it's totally acceptable. Why ? Because on one hand, everybody want to see flying sloth, mammoth, and smilodon once in a while ( it's certainly not a daily thing ! ); on the other hand, no one want to continue watching the movie without Sid and his two best friends. Especially Sid, I will not watch Ice Age if it's not because of Sid. Therefore, the animators just have to let their main characters survived the deadly situation by breaking some more physical laws.

          Now, looking back at Scrat epic fall toward the center of the earth, we will again spot another "error". We all know that scientifically, the inner Earth is filled with hot lava and the closer it get to the center, the higher the temperature get. No organic form should be able to survive in such environment. Yet, our little Scrat somehow managed to make his way through the magma layers to get to the Earth core without a scratch. More impressively, he didn’t get hurt from the fall at all and still had the strength to wreck havoc down there with some terrific athletic footwork. At this point, I think I should do a research into acorn to see what magical substance in there that can drive a saber tooth squirrels so crazy. Maybe we can use it for energy drink. So basically, the animators once again crossed the line to create humor to their film. They intentionally wanted Scrat to be the reason for all these catastrophes. Thus, they just have to put him into these ridiculously dangerous and awkward situations without him dying no matter what. Nonetheless, the audience is fine with it because they love Scrat and the hilarious explanation to natural disasters that related directly to his silly actions.

          Last but not least, I've never known of squirrel under water super ability until i watched this movie. At 23:00, Scrat went after his acorn... again. This time all the way down to the bottom of the sea. Without any diving equipment, he dived right into the water and went all the way down to the bottom without being crushed by the deadly pressure. This is impossible for squirrels or any small terrestrial animal in general due to their physiques. Squirrels are too small to handle the tremendous pressure under water and their lungs are not big enough to maintain oxygen supply to stay in the  water long enough to reach the bottom. Even human with bigger size and proper diving equipment can only reach about 800-900 feet deep. Nonetheless, Scrat made it with only his body deformed !  Although he showed some sign of running out of oxygen, he came up with an unrealistic but super hilarious solution- reusing the bubbles he emitted for oxygen source. Again, this is also scientifically wrong as the air that terrestrial animals breath out contain mostly CO2. In summary, this is just another goofy moment of the movie to generate some pure fun for everyone. And again, the animators have done a good job of wisely challenge the laws of physics at the right time to achieve what they want from their audience out of the moment.

  

          In this fantastic film, physical laws are intentionally broken here and there. Even though as audience, we're aware of these errors but most of the time, tolerate them because it's appropriate for the meaning/mood of those moments. We will not feel the same way for the scenes if the animators strictly follow physical laws.  One can argue that if breaking physical laws can make animation better, then that means physics is not that important in animation. This is wrong because in order to intentionally play around with physical laws to make a scene better, one needs to know the laws well inside out so that they can use that knowledge as a foundation to make their goofy stuffs. Same thing apply to the audience, they need to understand physics to some degree to recognize the “odd” moments when physical laws are bent. It’s like the case of you need something right as a standard to rule something else wrong. Without knowing physical laws, the shock factor of seeing something “unlawful” doesn’t exist; thus, there’s no fun. Furthermore, an animated film cannot go full length with all these physically broken moments. That would be an overdose and make the movie negatively weird to watch. In Ice Age 4, the animators only twisted physics at the funny or extreme moments to deliver the feeling they want from their audience. The movie is a good example of how to balance “good physics” and “bad physics” to make a good impact on a movie. Well done Dream Works !

First Term Paper Outline

Introduction:

1. Introduce Animated Feature Film " Ice Age 4 -Continental Drift "

2. Thesis: Law of physics is being pushed in order to create a sense of humor and entertaining
animation. However, the film still appears believable/ acceptable because of the contest of the animation itself is unreal and took place long time ago (Ice age and talking animals)

Body:

1. Super exaggerated consequences/ damages due to small physical impact:

 a. Scrat in the process of chasing his acorn, caused dramatic consequences to the Earth. He accidentally pushed  the little acorn in to the ground which made little crack. But then the little crack expand to the whole surrounding area causing the entire mountain to split in half. Or, when he pulled the acorn out of the well at the squirel paradise at the end of the movie causing the whole ocean to drain and turn to desert in just matter of seconds.

 b. When Scrat fell into the inside of the earth to reach the core, Scrat is too small to be able to rotate the earth core which is basically millions times bigger than him. Furthermore, Scrat was able to move the core at such a speed fast enough to cause the surface of Earth to crack and lead to the splitting of the continents.

2. Unrealistic reaction/ consequences due to strong physical impact/ Characters in the movies survived the most extreme, deadliest situation :

a. Scrat didn't get burned to ashes when falling toward the core of the Earth which is know to be filled with hot lava. 

b. Deer only lost his fur after jumping directly into a boiling spur.  

c. Sid, Diego and Manny looked just fine after they got blown away by a tornado and then suffered an epic fall from up above the cloud straight down to a raging ocean.

3. Squirrels are known to have super ability under water ???

Scrat without any diving equipment, went down all the way to the bottom of the ocean without being crushed by the extremely high pressure. Instead, he only got deformed. Also, he spent an awfully long amount of time under the water just by using water bubble as a source for oxygen.

Conclusion:

1. The laws of physics were challenged from time to time in this movie.
2. However, physical laws are only broken at some climax. Only by making things a little bit out of the norms can animators deliver a lot of fun, thrill, unexpected and entertaining,
etc factors to the moments.