Good villains start like any memorable character—with humanity. A good villain is human with a fatal flaw. A movie doesn’t necessarily have to have a villain, but a really good villain can make the movie so much more interesting. The success of a protagonist is dependent on the success of the antagonist and vice versa. What a villain brings to any feature is a clear and present threat. People relate to a villain the same way they relate to religion. People want to believe bad things will happen to you if you are a bad person. We also want to know why this character wants to do bad things. The audience wants to relate to the villain in a human way. If a character wants something that would be harmful to your hero, then you need to explain why that character should desire it so and humanize his evil nature. If the villain is just a bad guy for no rea- son, then his character will fall flat and not be convincing. As twisted as the character’s actions might be perceived in a movie, the audience has to say to themselves, “I understand why he is doing it.” Ed Hooks explains why we relate to villainous characters:
A villain does not think he is a villain. Every character is a hero in his own life.
If the villain doesn’t have humanity and a valid reason behind his evil, then the character becomes one- dimensional and unappealing. When developing who your villain is and why he is that way, walk a day in his shoes to understand why he would commit such wickedness.
80
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEYRELEASED: 2001: A Space Odysseyis an influential sci-fi film notable for combining episodes contrasting high levels of scientific and technical realism with transcendental mysticism. It contained the first major use of motion control animation and won the Academy Award for visual effects.
1968
RAY TRACING IS BORN:
Ray tracing was invented. Arthur Appel of IBM devel- oped hidden surface and shadow algorithms that were precursors to ray tracing.
1968
TERRYTOONS CLOSES:
CBS Terrytoons closes the- atrical production.
1968
The same rules apply to villains as to any other character. There has to be some form of empathy for the vil- lain, just as there is for the hero; otherwise, why do we care? Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter character from The Silence of the Lambscomes up again and again as the perfectly likeable villain. He is almost charming. If it wasn’t for the fact that he dines on human flesh, you might even consider asking him to supper. A good villain is one you feel some sympathy for in his plight, one you may actually find oddly appealing.
81
What makes for a great villain? Sketch by Floyd Norman.
OSCAR FOR IT’S TOUGH TO BE A BIRD(DISNEY):It’s Tough to Be a Birdwon the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons.
1969
SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU
TV SERIES:The debut on TV of
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!was the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna- Barbera Saturday morning cartoon
Scooby-Doo. 25 episodes were ultimately produced.
1969
UNIX DEVELOPED:
The UNIX operating sys- tem was developed by Thompson and Ritchie at Bell Labs (in PDP-7 assembly code).
1969
The villain can be a simple obstacle instead of an actual character, but it is more fun when it’s someone you can actually personify. A villain can be “the system,” “the man,” fate, or luck. A good way to approach a vil- lain is to take a likable antagonist and place misfortune in front of him to explain why he wants revenge. This gives your villain the reason why he is the “hero in his own life,” as Ed Hooks said before. This kind of energy behind the villain’s intentions will justify his means for both himself and the audience. The villain is focused because of his own idea of heroism and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. And if his goal is an obstacle to the protagonist, then you have a strong villain.
82
Be sure you stay on model when drawing face charts, and watch volume to see that it’s even throughout the face. Otherwise, the shapes will look like his head is a balloon and someone just sucked all the air out.
GUI DEVELOPED:
Graphical User Interface (GUI) developed by Xerox (Alan Kay).
1969
SIGGRAPH STARTED:SIG- GRAPH (SpecialInterestGroup in
GRAPHics) is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization.The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974.
1969
OSCAR FOR IS IT ALWAYS RIGHT TO BE RIGHT(STEPHEN BOSUTOW): Is it Always Right to Be Rightwon the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. A blend of still photography and very limited animation, it looks and feels like the old UPA cartoons from the 1950s.
1970
Another great facet to a good villain is to create one who has a belief system that is completely in contrast to your own. It’s easy to despise a villain who doesn’t have any basic human morality. A villain has to have humanity to be three-dimensional, but his resistance to what we have been taught to value is interesting. If the villain has twisted what he thinks is good or bad into his own reality, it makes us want to find out how he got that way.
83
“Captain Hook is the most cold-blooded villain Disney ever had. He is a caricature,
and he has his basis in the original Peter Pan stage productions, but there is a gag
inPeter Pan that no one would ever do now, which I love. There is a guy up in the yardarm, singing badly, and Hook doesn’t like the singing. Without even looking up, he takes his pistol and BANG, he fires and you just hear the splash. Then he goes back to what he was doing. That is the coldest thing I have ever seen in an animated film, and it’s funny too. It just reveals so much about his character. He cares that little about human life that it’s offhanded and over the shoulder, and he doesn’t even have to look.”
—Eric Goldberg
Even though the villain is most successful when defying our own morality, he still requires a definite motive to survive. That reason should drive his meaning of life and need for air to breathe. Scott Holmes has more on successful villains:
It helps if your villain has a reason to exist—then the villain is consumed with that reason. The witch in Snow Whiteis obsessed with her beauty over all others. When Snow White becomes the most fair of all, the witch goes off on a binge to destroy the person in the way of her obsession. She is a well thought-out villain in that her evil is driven by a need or motive.
Remember, a good villain is human with a fatal flaw. The villain is a hero in his own world. His own obsta- cles should be just as relatable to the audience as the hero’s obstacles. Finally, the villain’s belief system will be different than our own, but we will understand it because of the human nature involved. This belief sys- tem is what drives the villain to do the things he does.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF UNCLE SAMRELEASED:
This film was an Annecy Grand Prize Winner and an original and sophisti- cated animated film with strong pop art and surreal influences.
1970
THE ARISTOCATS20TH DIS- NEY FEATURE:The Aristocatsis noted for being the last film to be approved by Walt Disney himself; he died while the film was still in early production.
1970
OSCAR FOR THE CRUNCH BIRD(MAXWELL-PETOK- PETROVICH):The Crunch Bird
won an Academy Award winner for Best Short Subject: Cartoons.
1971
Design
Actual design of a character in general for CG or for 2D holds the same main objectives. There are basic rules handed down through the years, such as making the character readable from all angles. But one of the best ways to make a character who is unique and also memorable is the same way caricature artists work. They choose one single part of your face or body that is a little bigger or smaller or different-looking, and they make that part the focus. This is how your character will stand apart from the others. Dave Zaboski uses the genie from Aladdinas an example of good design:
What do you want people to look at? It’s the same when you meet someone. They might have a feature that you just can’t take your eyes off of. What is it? Find that one feature and make it clear. The genie designed by Eric Goldberg is a good example. The eyes and nose had this relationship that was clear and recognizable. Then you could make him into anything and it was readable. He even became Jack Nicholson, and it was still the genie. That’s brilliant design.
This kind of design and appeal can be an intangible thing that you have to create by drawing many iterations of a character. Does the design convey the intention of the character? A good design should also aid the needs of the character in the story. If the character needs to perform very physical tasks, you should proba- bly not dress him up in elaborate, restrictive costumes. Design can also reinforce character if it goes in con- trast to the character’s personality. A villain can be extremely handsome. A hero can be an ogre. You can contrast an archetypal personality by using character design and body type. Keith Lango shows us how:
Another design aspect is personifying the character in his shape. I’m a big believer that if you’re going to animate something, you’d better have a good reason why. One of the biggest reasons is to form the actual design of your characters to accentuate their overriding charac- ter traits. You can even play games with it. A big, tough, muscular guy who’s afraid of the dark is funny. His design can trick you into thinking one thing, and then we pull the cover off his character for something different. Design plays a huge role in understanding your character—or fooling you into thinking you do.
84
FRITZ THE CATRELEASED; X-RATED ANIMATION:Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Catwas the first animated feature film to be rated X.The movie was a box-office hit, drawing in audiences as much for its shock value as for its appeal to the “love generation” of the 1960s.
1971
ROBERT ABEL & ASSOCIATES BEGAN:Robert Abel & Associates was founded by Bob Abel and Con Pederson. Abel joined Pederson to adapt the camera sys- tem used for 2001to general film effects work. Abel & Assoc. was one of four companies contracted to do graphics for the Disney movie Tronin 1982.
1971
This is where story, character, and design all come together. But how do we sustain the appeal when we move from a concept sketch to the computer? It takes both a great understanding of appeal in design with pencil and paper, and an understanding of how to apply the grace of drawing to a CG model. A modeler in CG is worth his weight in gold when he knows how to lay down the topology or little lines that describe the surface of the model effectively. Those little lines can make or break your character when it moves in 3D.
85
Draw as many emotive states as you can so that the rigger will understand what you expect out of the puppet he builds.
UB IWERKS DIES:Ub Iwerks dies (1901–1971); he was considered one of the greatest animators ever.The first few Mickey Mouse cartoons were animated almost entirely by Iwerks. He spent most of his career with Disney and developed some of the most important tech- nological advancements in animation. Later, he left Disney to start an animation studio under his own name.
1971
THE ANDROMEDA STRAINUSES COM- PUTER ANIMATION IN FEATURE:The first film to make use of digital animation for special effects wasThe Andromeda Strain.
1971
THE POINTIS FIRST ANIMATED FILM TO AIR ON TV:The first hour-long animation film on US TV was The Point,
first aired as a “movie of the week.”
1971