Outline of First Term Paper

Physics of Toy Story (1995)

 

I. Introduction

Toy Story over view: first computer generated (GC) feature animation.

Toy Story is a pioneer of CG animation; it applied all the principles of animation, such as, squash, stretch, follow through...However, in order to make the scene to feel more dramatic, some scenes/actions do not follow the laws of physic. 

II. Body

1. Acting - huge success, believable 

Dramatic - When Buzz finds out the he is toy, his sad reaction is very believable; everything is cracked down. (48)

·         Reaction - Woody press a button on Buzz armor, the glass disappear, Buzz react as he is about to die.

·         Acting - In a silent movement, Woody is thinking how to get rid of Buzz. Woody face expression showing the face of evil.

2. Falling, Timing, and Path of action

·         To infinity and beyond (jump) - believable; falling and timing. Buzz jumps from a pole of the bed and land on a ball, which bounces him to a skate. The skate role on the rail and gain speed, in circular, throw Buzz into the air, and land on bed.  

·         The lamp knocks Buzz out the window is wrong in the path of action. Lamp is moving in the screen and hit Buzz. Buzz should fall in the direction of the lamp (left to right), but Buzz fall from right to left. 

·         Timing for woody and the rest to come to the window, LY just barely fall off. The real timing is that he should hit the ground already.

3. Gravity and Force

·         Gravity and force - when Woody gets inside the delivery pizza truck, he gets pushed to the back when the driver step on the gas.

·         It is impossible that Woody could throw a lighting robe to the next window, (and he got in the first try). The distance from two window are very far. The weight of the string are about twice of Woody.

4. Mistakes - many mistakes can be found in Toy Story; some time it really means to make (to make the scene look better).

·         In the scene, the lamp knocks Buzz out the window, the ball (global) is rolling toward him, he runs over the pencils, falls down, and roles over to a window bar. The bar height is about Buzz size, he cannot role over it easily without a strong force;  the distance is very short. 

·         Still in this scene, the ball hit the lamp, the whole body of the lamp is moving except the base (the base is not attach to the desk).

·         Woody and Buzz are looking through the binocular by one eye, but their POV show as regular two eye. (23)

·         Sid lights the fire cracker in his backyard, the explosion cannot made the rocks to hit on the window of the next house (second floor window). (25)

III. Conclusion

            It is difficult to follow all the rules of science in a movie. Sometime physic rules need to be broken to make the scene/actions more dramatic, funny, or ridiculous. The point is to entertain and tell story.