Building a Scene in Maya

Science Fact or Cinematic Fiction

In reality, we usually take gravity for granted and won’t scrutinize the way things are unless something moves in a way that we won’t feel is right. That feeling doesn’t usually arise in the animated movies we watch because most often, it’s apart from our own. A truly fantastic world like the one found in Final Fantasy: Advent Children is filled with beautiful people with inhuman strength and skills. We are so caught up in the fast-paced actions and cool camera shots that it leaves reality at the door. The laws of physics can be broken for our entertainment and appreciation of a moment, yet when we watch a movie our focus is mainly on the story. If flaws are hidden well enough, they will be barely noticeable. A character will make a dramatic comeback with a surge of energy or push aside heavy stones with ease. Scenes will be romanticized to capture hearts. Sometimes I’ll unconsciously will a discrepancy to happen in order to have a story unfurl in my favor. It doesn’t matter in movies! Anything goes when it comes to making pictures come alive.

In Newton’s third law of motion, forces are always met with equal and opposing reactions. Whatever force is applied to another object, that object will have a reaction to push back. They always exist in pairs and their interactions result in mutual attractions.

There are plenty of examples in Final Fantasy: Advent Children where the action reaction principle doesn’t quite add up to its usual expectation. In many of the fighting scenes, the characters seem to suspend in air and then make thunderous impacts when they charge and collide. One of the scenes I chose is from the fight between Tifa and Lars. Lars and Tifa exchange a couple of swings and hits before I notice something funny. Lars grabs Tifa by the leg and with the effort one would use to swing a garment, swings her around and around. He swings her into the church pews and the wooden seats fly into the air as if they were made of styraphone. The reaction of the chairs against her limp body was barely there at all. It must have hurt, but her body would have been battered badly from the amount of force it took to smash through the pews without a visible reaction. Her bones would have snapped and her face would have smashed in. Lars also shows little reaction from the impact. He shows no slowing down; the consistent speed of his effort is mechanic, like his strength is made of pure robotic power. Another instance is where Barret, a big and tall man with muscles on every inch of his body. There is little recoil from Barret’s gun, which is attached to his arm. The gun is large, and contains several barrels as well as a central blaster where energy collects and launches. But for such a high bullet speed and such a heavy gun, the recoil on Barret would have been much more noticeable than what I see in the movie. Especially since the gun is attached to the arm, I would expect visible and violent recoil all on the right side of his body. There is a scene where Kadage falls over the side of the structure and Cloud follows hurtling headfirst with his sword. There is a sudden surge of power when Kadage transforms into his stronger form, Sephiroth, once he lands at the bottom. Cloud meets Sephiroth with his sword and the collision of it causes the metal under Sephiroth’s feet to buckle in and crack. Sephiroth is apparently the heavier one. Though Cloud has lesser mass he does not recoil as a result. The force seems to cancel out because instead of Cloud tumbling away he suspends in the air there, interlocked in combat with no visible recoil. According to the laws of physics, this would be impossible. Like the example of Mr. A and Mr. B, if Cloud pushes and Sephiroth holds, then both should have moved apart. Cloud being the one with lesser mass should have tumbled away. This instance of slow motion is constantly sprinkled throughout the movie because it dramatizes the moment. Sephiroth is the epitome of evil in this world. His first appearance in the movie must be emphasized. To have him staring at our hero in the face would be the cherry on the sundae. Sephiroth raises his head up slow and greets Cloud for a good 4 seconds before sending him reeling away.

In The Pirate’s of the Caribbean: At World’s End, many inconsistencies occur in the few fights scenes on sea. Firstly, the midget member of Jack Sparrow’s crew raises a shotgun onto his shoulder and fires. As I was watching this scene I was expecting the small man to jerk back, as a shotgun releases large shots at a very high speed. The man stood there, straight as a board, with no effect of recoil on his little frame. At most I anticipated a jarring of the shotgun butt against his shoulder, but the little man did not flinch at all. The laudable action of a small man firing a badass gun was too good to be ruined by recoil. As Captain Davy Jone’s ship is battling it out with Jack Sparrow’s crew, there is a scene where one of the men loads the cannon. Instead of a cannon ball, a monkey screams from the inside of the canon. The cannon fires and we see the monkey scream wildly, tail on fire, as it blasts out and over to the other ship and lands straight into the enemy’s face, biting and fighting. This example is in all ways a violation of the action reaction principle. The combined gunpowder and fire normally produces a force that propels a lead ball to a destructive speed. The blast from the canon would have ripped through the flesh of the monkey. The dense material and mass of the lead ball The monkey could not have reacted in that way given this purpose of the canon. The monkey does not have enough mass and density to exert a reaction to remain intact. The director is searching out ways to add more humor to the doomed movie. In the last battle where the pirates take on the British ship, the fight is drawing to a close. The pirates are winning. In calm surrender, the captain walks down the stairs like he is in a calm stupor. He descends down the stairs and cannons left and right are exploding the staircase. The camera zooms into where his hands are slowly sliding down the railings as he descends and the wood behind them explode with such close range. He is physically unaffected; his body isn’t thrown back with the force that the cannon’s impact explodes into through the air.

Despite the fantastic stretches of physics in Aladdin, it works for the outrageously expressive style of the characters and story. The most fun is probably when the soldiers were chasing Aladdin, and he manages to elude their clumsy clutches at every turn. When the soldiers are trying to catch Aladdin, he slips up and away on a rope and all the soldiers bonk into one another; recoil is instantaneous. The collision of the 7 soldiers sends them all into the air flying, making a hard hollow inelastic sound at impact. Swords shatter and their bodies make a neat arch backwards into the air. The exact opposite happens when soldiers fall into a rickety wooden cart. The cart is made to recoil and to our surprise has an elastic reaction. It bounces dramatically to show the impact of the weight. In reality it would have split into pieces, as the collective weight of the soldiers would have broken the reaction from the cart. When Aladdin is imprisoned in the dungeons, Jafar disguises himself as an old man with a cane. He needs the boy to help carry out his plan and when Aladdin questions how they will escape, Jafar simply reaches over with his cane and with a fluid motion, moves the heavy slab of rock out and over. There is barely any resistance, despite how heavy the rock may be. If Jafar is able to push the block of rock out that easily, I would imagine a full body slam could crumble the entire wall in an instant.

The discrepancies are more fun and more obvious to pick out from movies like Final Fantasy: Advent Children and Aladdin. The worlds in each of these movies are wholly different, though each one (I don’t know about Pirates) is a pleasure to watch. They are well disguised into the hype of the story. We appreciate these free falls, superhuman strengths, or humorous surprises as the memorable scenes, the ones that we won’t get to see in real life.

Outline of the Second Term Paper

Introduction-Science Fact or Cinematic Truth

II- Final Fantasy: Advent Children

- Fight between Tifa and Lars: Tifa smashed into church pews. The pews break, but there is no visible recoil on Tifa from the pews.

-Tifa is thrown toward a wall at a high speed, but manages to land lightly. There is hardly any momentum in her leap forward.

-little recoil from Baron’s gun, which is attached to his arm.

III. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

- Crabs carrying ship over sand dunes effortlessly. Inconsistent in that the weight of the ship would have buried the crabs into the sand.

- Ship on the sea hits a wave, dipping forward. Yet Will and Elizabeth, who are both locking lips don’t seem to react with the dip.

-Two ships fire at another on sea and the captain walks calmly down the stairs as the stairs on either side are exploding from canon fire. Such close range should affect the captain, but doesn’t.

IV. Aladdin

-Aladdin slips up on a rope and the soldiers collide into each other, recoil is instantaneous and makes a hard hollow sound.

-Soldiers fall from a building and all land in a rickety cart, which is made to recoil with more elasticity than normal.

The magic carpet can be soft and malleable sometimes, and then it doubles as stairs or a hard surface. It interacts with the action with suited reactions.

V. Conclusion

Extra Credit Survey

"This is to certify that I completed the anonymous mid-semester survey for Art/Physics 123 and am requesting the five points of extra credit.

As a student at San Jose State, I understand the university's Academic Integrity Policy (http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/catalog/rec-2083.html)."

Stop Motion Character Animation

Rory spells trouble with an A-X-E. O Rory you Rascal, you.

I wanted to work with a character with hard movable limbs and a prop, so I used this unpainted munny. Yet I am a little disappointed munny doesn't have movable feet. I tried to experiment different walks with it anyway: stepping, sliding, skittering. I taped his axe to his hand so it wouldn't fall all over the place. For close shots, I put a piece of tape on the table which kept the camera tilted, but secure.