My new dissertation Introduction

Below is my new introduction for my dissertation. I feel it's a lot more informative and clearly explains what is in my dissertation. It may need a bit of a less personal feel but I will work on that. I'm also starting to wonder is this is more of an abstract than an introduction so I will have to find that out.



Introduction

Anthropomorphism is when a non-human being, object, phenomena or element is given human characteristics and qualities. Anthropomorphic characters have nearly always been used in animation from Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) to The Aristocats (1970) and even in recent animated features such as Ratatouille (2007) and The Princess and the Frog (2010). The anthropomorphic characters that have always interested me are cats, from The Lion Kings, Simba to O’Malley from The Aristocats. That is why this dissertation is going to cover animation, anthropomorphism and cats. It is also so I can find out everything I should know before creating an animated short starring an anthropomorphised cat.

I am going to look at how anthropomorphism can and has been used throughout history and its uses in different styles of animation and the reasons for its use in animation. During this I will compare the advantages and disadvantages. I will also be looking at the oppositions to anthropomorphism try to relate it to animation.

Then I am going to look at how books have been changed when made into an animated film specifically looking at The Jungle Book. This is to see how and why Disney brought the characters to life with anthropomorphism and how they changed the story and why.

Finally, I will look at real cat behaviour, breeds, and body language and compare it to human qualities and acting to see how to give a cat, human qualities but still show cat characteristics, as this is the type of anthropomorphism I am after. I believe there are four kinds of anthropomorphism so I will also be covering what I they are and give examples. A lot of this will involve studying acting and the owner/pet relationship to bring my character to life and make them believable.