Animation Scene Analysis Brave Acting
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Transcript of Animation Scene Analysis Brave Acting
Scene Analysis Mother and Daughter Argument scene from Brave (2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3l8ibGUEY&list=PLwcKg4VXMDJ12MA7VCXvNWmwfCYcBVIuM&index=1
Pixar Animation Studios has been recognised for its stellar character performances ever since the release of its first feature, Toy Story, in 1995. It certainly comes as no surprise that its 2013 release, Brave, is no exception. This film follows the story of a young, Scottish princess whose love of adventure and archery overpowers her desire to accept the role placed on her birth right, much to the dismay of her mother. The differing values held by both mother and daughter is the main source of conflict in the film, and we follow along the journey and witness how the characters over come their differences through perseverance and personal growth. This movie is a personal favourite of mine. I especially love the way the opposing personalities of Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor, are played out on the screen, and the scene I have chosen to analyse especially highlights the solid character performances found in this film.
The scene occurs after Merida, the headstrong female protagonist, disobeys her family’s wishes by sabotaging an archery contest intended to find her a suitor. Merida believes that she knows what is best for herself, and tried to be the author of her own adventures. This greatly infuriates her frustrated mother, who sees this childish outburst as a great disrespect to the visiting clans. Queen Elinor drags Merida inside to reprimand her, which is where this fantastic scene begins.
OBJECTIVES In the start of the scene, Queen Elinor’s objective is to reprimand Merida for her destructive behaviour at the archery tournament, and make Merida aware of the potential consequences for her rebellious actions. She reinstates her authority by reminding Merida that “I am the Queen! YOU listen to ME!” Merida’s objective is to acquire her mother’s empathy and inspire a change of mind, by persuading her that the Queen’s plans are not in Merida’s best interests. As the argument intensifies, Merida destroys her mother’s tapestry in an attempt to achieve her goal, to make her mother understand how important Merida’s ambition is.
After this occurs, the change in Queen Elinor’s demeanour reveals the development in her objective. No longer focused on verbally reprimanding her daughter, Elinor’s goal changes into a desire to punish Merida, and she tosses away her daughter’s sword and throws her prized bow into the fire. After this, Merida’s main intent is to flee from her mother and she runs out the door. Elinor, immediately regretting her rash actions, moves toward the fire and is focused now on rescuing the bow from the flames in an attempt to restore it, symbolic of her wish to undo her actions and unspeak her harsh words.
EMOTIONS In the opening moments of this scene, Elinor is clearly furious. This is displayed through her furrowed brow, glaring eyes, and the rough way in which she physically handles Merida. Her blinks are quick and spaced apart, occurring only as she changes the focus of her eyes. She slams the door with greater force than necessary, and the constant pointing of her finger and raised voice are all clear signs of rage and rebuke.
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n contrast, Merida shows signs of exasperation and chagrin. She squeals in surprise as her mother throws her into the room, her hands fluttering up and down in a manifestation of frustration.
Her fists are clenched in display of defence and confidence. As the Queen is pointing her finger at
Merida as an indication of reprove, Merida points to herself in defiance and to show her confidence in her argument. She brings her hands briefly up to her head in vexation as she says “you just don’t care how I-‐!”
Merida remains in a state of frustration as she begins to speak her mind. “Aah! This is so unfair!” she cries. As the Queen listens to Merida’s plight, her mien alters. “Ha! Unfair?” Elinor scoffs. As Merida begins her speech on how she feels restricted, the Queen becomes silent. Her squinted eyes, agape mouth, and still body are all indicators of her inward emotions. No longer furious, Elinor is now clearly feeling confused and incredulous at the words spoken by her daughter. Her eyes are glued on Merida, and they follow her as she paces about the room, swinging her sword and pleading with desperation. The Queen’s hands fly to her hips as she becomes ashamed of her daughter, and she indicates that Merida is acting like a child.
After stating her feelings and acting defensive, Merida begins to attack her mother by calling her a beast. In contrast to the scene’s earlier finger-‐pointing, the situation has intensified as Merida now uses her weapon to point. With her sword raised to the tapestry, Elinor gasps. She is shocked and surprised. Appearing afraid, she pleads with her daughter, “No, stop that!” Now it is Merida who is furious, her voice is raised, her brows furrowed deep into her head. She twists her sword into the tapestry in an anticipation of her actions. This creates suspense as the audience anticipates the climactic moment. Merida is hunched over, her arm outstretched and her eyes staring directly at her mother. She does not even look at the tapestry, indicating that her focus is not on the destruction of the tapestry but on the destruction of her mother. As she tears her sword down the embroidered work in a fit of rage, Elinor’s deportment turns to shock and hurt, signified by her wide-‐open mouth and the swift movement of her clutched hands towards her heart. This involuntary reaction shows just how deeply hurt and upset she feels.
Merida straightens, clutching her fists firmly by her sides and raising her head with lips clenched in confidence and defiance. She is firm in what she has done and shows no remorse, only pride in her rage. Elinor’s hands move from her chest down to her sides as an indicator in the swift change of emotion from hurt to anger. As she storms over, Merida begins to cower. Her eyebrows raise and her mouth opens involuntarily. She moves her head to one side in an attempt to escape from her incoming mother. Elinor now returns to the emotional state she was in at the commencement of the scene. Her raised voice, spoken with short and direct speech, coupled with her rough handling of
Merida display this vividly. In a role-‐reversal, Merida is now the one afraid as she becomes helpless against the rash actions of her furious mother.
Elinor throws Merida’s precious wooden bow into the fireplace. Merida’s hands rush to cover her mouth; her eyes are wide open in incredulity. Queen Elinor faces her, brow knitted in fury. Merida retreats backwards, going through a range of emotions. Her face contorts as she holds back tears. She slightly shakes her head in disappointment and distrust. She runs from her mother, visibly upset. As Merida escapes the room, Elinor turns her attention to the fire in a swift change of emotion as she immediately experiences regret at the rashness of her actions.
VISUAL ACCESSING CUES The scene opens with the characters’ eyes focused intently on each other. Elinor looks away only to
slam shut the door. Merida breaks the intensity by looking down and to the left, indicating she is accessing her feelings and emotions, (“you just don’t care…”) and then down and to the right (“…how I-‐”) which is a sign of internal dialogue.
She speaks out loud but it is evident by her eyes that this is almost more to herself than to her mother. Their eyes return to each other as the arguing continues. When it becomes obvious that they are getting nowhere, Merida sighs in frustration and rolls her eyes. Looking down and to the right, she says “this is so unfair!”, as though this is internal dialogue spoken out loud, more out of pity to herself than to inform her mother. Elinor scoffs, “Ha! Unfair?” She looks briefly across and to the right, demonstrative of auditory remembrance. Perhaps she is reminded of a time in her youth when she heard herself say the same thing, and possibly even had the same argument with her own mother.
“This whole marriage…” Merida begins. She looks down and to the left (feelings/kinaesthetic cues). This demonstrates that Merida’s arguments are based on her feelings and emotions, as opposed to logic and reason. THOUGHTS AND INNER CONFLICT For the first 18 seconds of this clip, the characters are both speaking all of their thoughts out loud in vain attempts to get the other person to listen to them. The Queen is the first to realise that this is futile and is silent at Merida speaks. Now that she has ceased talking, we can see, purely through her actions, how she is feeling and what she may be thinking. Her eyes give away the confusion she is feeling inside. As she listens to Merida, her eyes follow her daughter and she squints them in surprise. Through the small nuances in her eyes, it becomes clear that her daughter’s dialogue has caught her off guard. Her body is very still and it becomes apparent that she believed she knew how her daughter must have been feeling, but she is now hearing the contrary and it has caught her off-‐guard.
After the ripping of the tapestry, Merida becomes confident in what she has done. Her poised stance and raised head reveal that, internally, she is standing by what she has just done. In her mind she believes that this will convince her mother that she is serious about her right to have a say in her future. Her stance further expresses her defiance which was displayed through the destruction of something her mother held dear. It is probably that she is thinking about how Queen Elinor will surely take heed of her claims now.
At first, Elinor is clearly shocked. Her expression, particularly the raised eyebrows, wide-‐open mouth and clutched hands, show her inner pain. The swift change to a hard expression reveals how swiftly this inner pain turns to anger as she uses her dominance to reclaim her authority as mother and decider.
As she approaches Merida, we can see how the daughter’s inner thinking also takes a swift turn as she begins to cower, illustrating her fear at how her mother will retaliate. No longer holding a confident stance, it becomes evident that she begins to doubt her dramatic behaviour and out-‐of-‐line destructive actions.
After Merida runs from the room, Elinor immediately realises what a mistake her retaliation was. She rushes to pull the bow from the flames, showing that she wishes to undo her mistake. Her eyes swell with tears, her mouth contorts into twitching shapes and her hands cover her face as she weeps, all clear signs of the inner distress she feels.
POWER CENTRES In the opening moments, both characters’ power centres are in their heads as they lean in towards each other and argue.
As Merida begins to flail her arms around, her power centre shifts to her shoulders and hands. This is then transferred into her sword as she begins to swish it around in characteristic attempt to release her frustrations. The Queen places her hands on her hips, which retains her presence as mother-‐figure. As Merida moves towards the tapestry, her power is shown through her shoulder and extending sword. Elinor’s power centre is displayed in her outstretch arm as she begs Merida to stop the destruction of her handiwork
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The animators who created this scene used many acting techniques and psychological references in order to create an entertaining scene filled with realistic acting, and which demonstrated some insight into who each character is. In an animation, every scene should answer a question about the character. In this particular scene the audience is shown many aspects of the character and personality evident in both Merida and her mother. The level of detail in the nuances found in the faces, as well as the idiosyncratic hand gestures played out through Merida, combined with the attention to detail in the eyes all unite to create a fantastic scene that is filled with dramatic tension and suspense.
REFERENCES
Brave. California: Pixar Animation Studios, 2013. DVD. Hooks, Ed. Acting For Animators. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. Print. Hooks, Ed. 'Disney’S ‘Frozen’: The Acting And Performance Analysis'. Cartoon Brew. N.p., 2014. Web. 2 May 2015. Oatley, Chris. 'Tips For A Competitive Visual Development Portfolio (Part 2): Be Friends With Your Characters'. Chris Oatley 2015. Web. 31 Apr. 2015.