EMMA - Field Research 10

I found an extensive article concerning the 'realism in animation' subject. Stephen Rowley (I believe) writes out different notions of realism in animation. He even adresses 5 'types' of realism which he can discern from the medium.

- Visual Realism

- Aural Realism

- Realism of Motion

- Narrative & Character Realism

- Social Realism

The article states clearly that methods of 'true' reality are deliberately put aside, even in live-action (real?) cinema itself, to establish their goal. He treats animation as a 'fantasy-inherent' medium because of its construction, and therefore questions its possibility of representing reality.
This is exactly my area of research, both in the way the article is written and what it implies: animation (and thus: fiction) can be seen as reality in different ways.

'Real' reality is often never portrayed, not even in live-action films, where dead-time or unscheduled actions are not used and can undermine the goal of the film itself.

This still leaves me a bit short on the visual realism. Within this article, visual realism is judged by comparing its resemblance to real-life photographs/objects. How does this comply to fictional designs? How can you compare a fantasy castle with its 'real-life' object?



"Hah, this is fake!" I can hear you say. Easy, because blue toadstools definately don't exist. True, I edited the picture and manually coloured the red toadstool blue.
Let's head to the next example.



Is this image fake? Possibly. I edited the colours of the bracelets, but does that make them immediately fake? They still look real, are truly woven, and have bright colours just like the other one. They still resemble their 'real' counterparts.



Which one of these two images is the real one? That's right, you only know this if you know the monastery. And even then; who says there is no other monastery built with an extra floor added?
These examples touch upon man-made examples. It is always possible we could've made some monastery like that. The bracelets could've been made with that colours.
Only, this also applies to nature designs. We do not know ALL about nature, therefore strangely coloured birds, new plants or other features can be seen as real just because they appear to be: the birds have beaks, eyes, beautiful feathers and wings. The plants have branches and roots, have fruits or flowers and respond to the surroundings by growing around obstacles or rustle in the wind.

Then, real 'appearance' leaves us at the basic principles of art, I guess. Lighting, texture, colour and for humans, animals and creatures there is also anatomy. Within architecture there's structure, material and design. And maybe nature uses organic features and laws of nature.