The Danish Poet and The Old Mill

The two animations this week were made in very different time periods and with very different styles, but still conveyed the same animation principles.  The two animations viewed were Disney's The Old Mill (1937) and The Danish Poet (2006).  

The Old Mill really used the principles of animation to express the feeling of a place, in this case it was a mill.  If we look at the three principles, anticipation, exaggeration, and follow through we can see it in the event that took place.  The beginning scenes of the mill gave a feeling of the place with all the different animals, not just one main character, and the simple movements that gave each character their own personality.  As the story continued an intense storm took over the mill, which would be the exaggeration portion, and the follow through demonstrated the aftermath of the storm.  Each small motion of the individual characters came together to create one large scene with details really bringing it alive, and the final addition of music gave a final touch that really enhanced and brought it all together.

The second animation, The Danish Poet, was created with the look of a much simpler animation.  The backgrounds were not as complex and the movements were much more simple, however, with less complexity the main story line and character personalities were able to be conveyed much clearer.  There were multiple characters once again which helped to bring the story together as a whole, and really demonstrated how all the characters in a story interact with one another.  A lot of the time we think the more complex an animation is the better, however, this shows that simple animations can be more effective because by exaggerating simple movements the same idea can be conveyed as a complex animation.