Stop_Motion Animation

Mid-semester 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)."

Analysis of Walking

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe.

Law of Physic and Gravity in The Matrix
The principles of physics and animation has been used in making movies, especially in action fantasy movies that the stories are based on imagination. To make the scene look convincing to audience, movie makers need to use the good combination of fantasy and reality to apply their movie. In The Matrix, the movie has used special effects to help make the movie exciting and dramatic. There were characters using special power such as running along walls and jumping across buildings. They were running in super speed and dodging bullets, yet we still believe what the character did in the movie are realistic. What we have seen in the movies are all the imaginations that are considered impossible. The director’s task is to make these imaginations look real and convincing to audiences. However, most of the time we see characters break the rules of physics, like in The Matrix, the director did not follow every rule for dramatic purpose, but many scenes in the movie still look very convincing as if it is possible in reality. Therefore, we can say that, in The Matrix, the director has bended all rules of reality for adrenaline pump ups while still maintaining a balance of realism.

In the Matrix, for excitement purposes, the movie does not always follow the laws of physics. Main characters in the Matrix have super power. They can do things that normal people cannot, one of those is super speed. Characters like Neo and the Agents have super speed. They can move so fast that they can even dodge the bullets. One scene in the movie, Neo dodged the bullets shot by an Agent. He lean his body backward until he was parallel so that he may dodge bullets that were fired at him. In reality, bullets travel too fast for the human body to react. The only way Neo can dodge the bullets is to move before the bullet is being shot. We heard the sound of gun shots before Neo moved his body. That means, in reality, he was not supposed to be able to dodge those bullets. However, he moved in super speed but we still can see him because the scene was shot in super slow motion. This technique of shooting makes the scene believable. Another great example of not obeying the law of gravity is in the scene when the characters do super jumps. Normally in physic, jumping is done by pushing downward on the ground as it pushes upward on you. Push force determines how high you could jump. According to the third law of Newton, to determine the average force exerted when jumping is Jumper’s weight. In the first chasing scene on the rooftop between Trinity and an Agent, jump Magnification occurs from the jumper crouch (squash) and then jump. Assume that his push height is 1, he jumps 10 feet in the air, so his Jump Magnification is 10. The agent’s weight, let’s say, he has just an average weight of 150 pounds, so his jump force is 1500. We saw the Agent did not crouch before he made the jump, therefore, he should not be able to jump 10 feet high because crouching is essential for jumping to make the force reaction from the ground. The same rule applied to Morpheus when he is fighting Neo in the training room. He jumped about 10 feet in the air without crouch. Without crouch, the body cannot make action force to the ground. Without action force, there is no reaction force back to the jumper.

Another example of the movie not obeying the law of gravity is in the opening scene when Trinity performed her signature move. She jumped straight and kicked away a police officer while she is floating in the air. This scene, it looks convincing and audience cannot really notice. She kicked the officer and the officer’s body is pushed away by her kicking force. While we are seeing his body kicked away, Trinity is still floating in the air at the same position. This scene is wrong from the rules of gravity. According to the rule of action-reaction of mutual repulsion says “for every action force there is equal reaction force in the opposite direction.” When she kicked the officer, there is action force to the officer, and there is also reaction force push back to her at the same amount of force. Her body was supposed to have moved back in the opposite direction. The same rules also applied to the other jump that I have mentioned before. Another example in the movie that falls into the same rules of action-reaction principle, for instance, punching through walls. In reality, when you punch or push to a wall, we exert push force onto the wall. There will be reaction force push back to you. However, the wall has greater mass, so normal people cannot destroy a wall with their bare hand. Back into the movie, a character is able to punch through wall. That means the push action force that he send to the wall has greater force than the wall’s mass. That’s why the wall was destroyed.
There is some exception in some scene that the movie did not really follow the physic’s rule but still look convincing. The scene when Neo doing the first jump and he fell to the ground from the height of 40 to 50 story high building. In the movie, it takes him about seven seconds in the air before he hits the ground. The movie using slow motion and bird eye view composition (looking down from the top of the building) for the scene so the audience sees him falling away to the ground. According to the Odd rules of gaining acceleration in animation, the speed of falling is suppose to increased by odd numbers in every progressing frames. In reality, he would have fell faster than what we have seen in the movie. However, for dramatic purposes, the director used slow motion to slow down the falling speed a bit and yet the falling still looked convincing.

Many scenes in The Matrix bent the rules of physic and gravity, but to maintain the reliability and believability to audiences, the movie has to obey the rules in many situations. The characters in the movie have super human power. They can jump super high, move super fast, and super strong. These imaginations would not look convincing if the movie has not followed some rules of physic, for example when Trinity jumped across the building, those buildings really far from her jumping point. To convince the audiences to believe in what they are seeing, she has to run to accelerate the speed that would allow her to have enough action force to jump across to the building to the other side. Another example from the same sequence when she is jumping across the building, she flies through a window and land onto the ground and continues rolling on the ground before she could get up. The law of Inertia says that “an object moves with constant, uniform motion until acted on by an unbalanced force.” If she jumped through the window and landed on the ground without rolling, it would not look convincing to the audiences because the audiences could not feel the pull of gravity and push force of gravity on her body.

Another jumping scene that looks convincing to audience is in the last Neo’s fighting scene with Agent Smith. Neo did a backwards somersault jump about 10 feet high into the air and leave agent Smith hit by a train. According to the natural motion of jumping, swinging the arms raises the center of gravity. That means if the jumpers swing the arms when they are doing a jump, they can jump higher and further. This jumping scene in the movie followed the law of motion and gravity, therefore Neo’s somersault looks really realistic and convincing.

In most action movies, to make the movie more exciting and more dramatic, they exaggerate the actions, just like in the principles of animation, they are using slow motion and squash. Many principles of animation are applied in the movie to support the believability and made the movie more excited. In the Matrix, the movie uses a lot of super slow motion when characters moving in super speed. Movie maker uses squash when their characters jump and land on the ground. They can punch through walls and dodge bullets. Although these action sequences are impossible in reality, but when the movie makers has combined the principle of animation and then exaggerate it, if it is used properly, it adds believable to those actions. For instance, when Neo performs super speed dodging bullets from an Agent, we cannot see the movement if it actually happens in reality because the motion would be too fast. We could not have seen what is happening. Therefore, using slow motion and animation is very important in these kinds of scenes, yet the movie maker also cannot forget to apply the laws of physic as well, which makes these action scenes look convincing. Exaggeration is also used in jumping scenes. When an agent jump across the building, even though, he did not crouch and the path of action of his jump was a little awkward, it still looks convincing. That’s because when he landed, it shows his impact and squash and exaggerate by break the ground causing by his action force of landing.

Physic of gravity is very important and essential in making a movie. If the director wants the action scenes in the movie look convincing, they need to apply the law of physic into their movie. However, if the movie follows every single rule, it would lack of excitement and drama. In term of telling the story, for instance we have super human characters who can break all rules of gravity, the director do not have to follow the rules. They just have to make sure that each scenes and sequences are convincing enough to make the audiences believe on what they are watching.