Part of Lesson Plan: Exaggeration

Activity Overview / Details

As students are entering the room have a loop of animations playing on the screen that represent the exaggeration principle. The animations should range in dates and styles to show the consistent value and use of the principle over time and various animators application of it. Attached is a sample loop for downloading or create your own for your particular class.

Allow the students to come in and have time to fully view all of the animations. Once everyone has seen the loop at least once stop the animation loop on a scene that represents the exaggeration principle. Listed below are the clips time code that represent the exaggeration principle;

Mickeys_Choo_Choo: Start 2:05-2:25 Eating scene, Mickey stretchy arms when he is pulling the pasta and when he is eating the exaggerated movements of his fork and facial expressions

Start 3:55 When Mickey looks at his gigantic watch and the all aboard shout he blows out his air and his stomach virtually disappears.

Also look throughout the animation at the Choo Choos puffs of smoke and how they change based on his feelings.

Bugs Opera: Start: :30-:45 and watch the singers stretchy body as he sings and how angry his facial expression is

Start: 3:45 Watch how smitten Bugs Bunny is as he flirts with the opera singer, his ears, eyes, and body poses.

The Incredibles: Start :35-:52 scroll through the video and look at the intensity of their facial expressions and the stretchiness of their movements

Start 1:27 to end of clip, scroll slowly and pay attention to the characters expressions, poses, and actions and how important exaggrration is in creating the drama in the scene

Exaggeration: The principle of exaggeration in animation does not mean arbitrarily distorting shapes or objects or making an action more violent or unrealistic. The animator must go to the heart of anything or any idea and develop its essence, understanding the reason for it, so that the audience will also understand it. If a character is sad, make him sadder; if he is bright; make him shine, if worried make him fret and wild make him frantic. 

Good animators often exaggerate the shape, color, emotion, or actions of a character. Making aspects of the motion “larger than life” more clearly communicates the idea of the action to the audience. For example, a character’s arms may stretch to the point that they appear elastic. However, exaggeration must be balanced. If used in some situations and not others, the exaggerated action may appear unrealistic and may be interpreted by the user as having a particular meaning. Similarly, if you exaggerate one aspect of an image, consider what other aspects should be exaggerated to match.

I have also attached a more detailed document that defines the exaggeration principle for your needs and the website reference. If you do research on the internet you may find some variations but the overall concept stays the same.