Blog 5

In chapter 5, when Disney says "the mind is the pilot. We think of things before the body does them." This coincides with Disney's thoughts from chapter 4 where he is becoming more concerned with characters becoming as lifelike as possible. This isn't only directed towards human like movement but characters being illustrated to look as if they are thinking. Disney wanted his characters to convey to the audience what they were thinking and how they were feeling on the screen as if it were a real life movie. The book uses an example of Disney explaining how dogs act and the funny things they do when their sniffing things. Disney would sometimes act these things out to animators to show them how a dog may sniff something they are on the trail of and then look up and out into space as though they were thinking and sorting things out in their head. He wanted these acts to be drawn out so the audiences would recognize that the characters are thinking. In this Pinocchio video, you can see the facial expressions in the characters, specifically the cat. The cat is a good example of a character thinking because it only has one form of communicating and it is by facial expressions. The cat has various expressions of happiness, annoyance, physical pleasure from being pet. At 5:18, Pinocchio is petting the cat but then leaves to go see the fish. The cat falls over and exemplifies some displeasure and maybe even jealousy that he has been left for the fish.