Review of animation and live-action cinema: similarities and differences

Abstract

This article aimed to present a survey on the similarities and inconsistencies between an animated work and one made in live-action. The article considered relevant questions about the characteristics of Animation and the direct photographic capture of images (in live-action), which challenge the canons of Film Studies: presenting movement as a fundamental element of Animation and not of Live-Action Cinema. Animated techniques and their differences were also analyzed, as well as the relationship between Animation and photorealistic image (according to Roland Barthes, André Bazin, and Edgar Morin), considering the sense of illusion. The studies of Edmond Couchot and Jean Baudrillard are fundamental for the analysis of Audiovisual simulation, as well as the works of Christian Metz and Jacques Aumont, for the evaluations of verisimilitude, the impression of reality and the suspension of disbelief, for these two types of images. The sense of “fiction” of the naturalistic and connotative images is also evaluated, both by Animation and Live-action Cinema, also considering the studies of Norman McLaren and Andrei Tarkovsky. In the end, the article concludes that the animated image is more untrue than the filmed image, always linked to the sense of everyday materiality. It evaluates the way of obtaining both images, the power of Animation, and the historical contradiction of the photorealistic image of what is known as 3D Animation. The text also ends with a summary of the entire analytical process through a framework of the characteristics of the animated and filmed images.