“Tarzan” (Chris Buck and Kevin Lima, 1999) featured a new technology for projection painting for its time that allows dynamic camera movements without compromising on the classic visual style. Especially invented for “Tarzan”, the purpose of “Deep Canvas” is to create a painted image with depth perception which allowed the virtual camera to move into and turn around inside the painted backgrounds. What really distinguish the use of “Deep Canvas” contra the use of plain 3D backgrounds for the 2D animation, like those found in the demo of “Where the Wild Things Are”, is that they try to keep the feel and illusion that it’s all hand-drawn and painted even though it’s all computer generated. In short, they try to blend together a 3D virtual camera with the hand painted style of traditional Disney animations.
The story of “Tarzan” (Conan Doyle, 1912) was first printed in a magazine in 1912 and has since then been a target for many film adaptations. Disney’s version distinguishes itself by using the limitlessness of animation together with a liberated virtual camera moving through 3D space, to show Tarzan as an athlete and a superhuman adapted to life in the jungle as described in the original publication. This shows that the freedom of virtual camera opens up new narrative possibilities in storytelling, and that it can contribute to new cinematic grammars beyond working as a special effect tool.
Like “The Matrix”, “Tarzan” suggests new cinematic grammars for the virtual camera through “Deep Canvas”. But as with “The Matrix” it does not use the free roaming behavior of the virtual camera as a part of the generic narrative in the film, but more for helping to show off the acrobatic moves of the protagonist in the action sequences. Most notably in the scenes where Tarzan swings and slides through the jungle. “Deep Canvas” is also used to give an extra dramatic impact on certain scenes, like in the scene with the elephant stampede when the gorillas comes moving against the camera at the same time as the virtual camera is moving the camera backwards.
Like “Tarzan”, “The Matrix” uses the extraordinary camera behavior to emphasize the superhuman actions of the characters in the movie, but in “The Matrix” they also use it as a part of the narrative to tell the audience that what we see on screen is a virtual reality as well. They want us to know that the virtual camera is a virtual camera, because what we see is a virtual reality. But in “Tarzan” the goal was to not let the movements of the 3D virtual camera stand out from the rest of the movie, but rather to blend in with the rest of the narrative.
What is common with “Tarzan” and “The Matrix” is that they both use computer technology to open up the opportunities of playing with spatial dimensions in their respective traditional mediums. They both use virtual camera to emphasize space and movement. This shows that the unique narrative quality of a digitally constructed space is that it liberates the camera to do movements that that would be impossible to replicate in traditional mediums.
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