Introduction
Giant and tiny scaled characters
have differences in their motion of movement. Additionally, the environment, such as
buildings, around them are key references. Some medias use special effects to create slow-motion
on their subject to show the difference in scale. The medias defy the physic of scale despite the usage of special effects
to show scale, but their scaled reference appeared to be physically inaccurate. I will use the examples from Johnnie Walker, Shuffle! Memories, and Media Impact.
Johnnie Walker's catwalk commercial
In one of
Johnnie Walker’s commercial, there are female models in gigantic scale strutting through
the city in a catwalk fashion. If we observe the scenes more closely,
the sizes of the women are inconsistent in different scenes, at some point they are
smaller and sometimes they are bigger. Despite their size, they strut in normal
speed as if they are not giants. This
commercial records the women’s walk and use green screen record of the real life
city. The green screen city building is
an instant point of reference to perceive these women are giants. However, in another perspective, since they
were meant to perceive to be giants, by making them walk in a normal walking motion speed of
a normal size human, the scenes may feel like they are walking on a tiny city in a
tiny land. To create an effect for both perspectives
to be correct, the commercial would have to make the women feel really giant scale by
using size measurement and slowing down the motion speed.
First, we
need to find their actual scale in each scene by using their city as a frame of
reference and make sure their sizes are consistent. There are some
measurable scene references, assuming most business buildings are 10 feet tall per
windows. Base on the first scene of the city's 16 feet tall commercial
building, they are about 150 feet tall. The
fifth city, they are about 70 feet tall. In Paris
city, their height are somewhere at the Eiffel Tower's top floor, which is 896
feet tall. They are about 900 feet tall in that
scene. In the New York scene, based on the
orthogonal I measured, they are somewhat at 80% height of the Empire State Building, which
means they are about 1000 feet tall.
Assuming
that the women do change sizes each city scene they cross; their speed in
different scenes will differ in slower motion.
We can assume their height is 5.6 feet.
Their common full strut cycle with both right and left foot is about 1
second. Their strut speed assumes to be
0.5 mile per hour (mph). We can use the
city building height reference to divide by 5.6 feet. In the
first city, 150 divided by 5.6 equals to about 28. Size equals speed, area equals scale. 28 divided by 3 equals about 9. Their strut cycle motion should look about 9
times slower to make a realistic feeling of 150 feet. Despite that, their stride still cover
larger distance and speed than the normal size.
In the fifth city, 50 divided by 5.6 equals to about 13. 13 divided by 3 equals to about 4. Their strut cycle motion would look about 4 times
slower in that scene. In Paris, 900
divided by 5.6 equals to about 161. 161
divided by 3 equals to about 54. Their
strut cycle motion looks about 54 times slower.
In New York, 1000 divided by 5.6 equals to about 179. 179 divided by 9 equals to about 60. Their strut cycle motion looks about 60 times
slower. The latter calculation may make
the women looks super slow, but they their stride moves in a large area. At least it would perceive how truly giant
they are instead of them walking on realistic miniature models. Interestingly, there is an animation, Shuffle! Memories, does the opposite
effect of this Johnny Walker commercial.
Shuffle! Memories. Episode 12
Shuffle! Memories
is a Japanese animation. In episode 12,
most of the characters were shrunk to presumably 3 inches by a culprit, an ancient
mirror. While the majority of the casts shrunk, one of the teenage girl characters, the red hair girl, remains in her normal-size which is about 5 feet tall. The shrunk boy must
try to gain attention with the red-hair girl by jumping above her on the right
time wherever she approaches beside them.
Unfortunately, the shrunk boy miscalculates his fall and fell into the
red-hair girl’s chest, which stalled their time from striking back at the culprit.
The scale
of motion speed is not realistically correct. In the shrunk characters’ point of view,
their motions are in normal speed. The
shrunk boy's fall is very slow compared to the frame he takes to fall from one
point to another. When they see the
red-hair girl, she moves in super-slow motion and her voice has very low
frequency than her usual high pitch voice. In
the red-hair girl’s point of view, all the motion speed is normal world
speed. Even if she sees the shrunk boy,
he is in normal speed. Awkwardly, the
shrunk characters does not gesture any faster.
In
perception, the sequence is physically wrong because the girl is not a giant
to begin with. Without knowing the
content of the story, we can easily perceive that the characters went to the
giants’ world like “Jack-and-the-Beanstalk” trope. The red hair girl's scale is normal-size of about 5 feet. Therefore, she should still
remain moving and speaking in her usual normal speed, not in super slow-motion. Perhaps because the other characters were
shrunk, the red-hair girl’s voice amplitude is wider. It might be fine that she sound low pitch, but
not talking slow to the shrunk characters.
There is
hardly an accurate reference to measure the shrunk characters. However, we can measure the scale from the
red-hair girl. If the red-hair girl is a
giant, we can measure the scale in reverse.
The red-hair girl is about 5 feet tall.
5 feet divided by 9 equals to about 0.5, this makes the shrunk characters are
around 3 inches. The shrunk boy can fall
down faster or slower depending on how their world’s mass work. It is most likely that their mass is small when
they were shrunk. If that is true, the
boy would fall slowly because of air resistance. Furthermore, he spreads his arms and legs while
falling. However, both point of views
between the red-hair girl and the shrunk boy should remain the same. The red-hair girl should see the shrunk boy
fall in certain speed; likewise, the shrunk boy sees himself fall in that same
certain speed as the red-hair girl sees him.
When
we fast forward the animation 3 times faster, the red-hair girl actually walks
in normal motion. If the red-hair girl
is a giant, she is simply 9 times taller of the normal-size, in which, she is 45
feet tall. We can assume why the
animators decided this effect to exaggerate how enormous the normal-size red-hair
girl is to the shrunk characters.
Media Impact's Massive series
In Media
Impact’s Massive series, in all their series, the entire female actresses roam
on a paper, plastic, miniature models with some water to serve as lake and
river. Unlike the Johnnie Walker
commercial, the background scenes were not recorded from real life buildings. These films are done by several private media
studios and community in joint collaboration using small props, special effects
for collapsing debris, water lake splash, and explosions in certain motion
speed to make the women feel really colossal as possible. Despite the special effect of destruction,
the reference scale is not correct. The destruction
are slowed in motion, but the giant's movement and their building drop speed
remains in normal-size speed.
In most perceptions, the series seem to be about adult women playing
with toy buildings and creating an illusion of being large in scale. This include their special effects looking
like decorations. To get most of the
perception of both women and buildings to be large, we must first measure their
scale. According to the average paper
buildings' window, most buildings are 100 feet tall. The women tends be more than 10 times bigger
than the buildings. Therefore, the women
are about 1000 feet. Assuming most of the women are
5.6 feet tall in normal size, they should move 60 times slower. For the buildings, they fall like a
normal-size brick drop. The buildings
should fall slower. The collapsing
debris and explosion should be slower with the buildings. Almost all debris flies out of their
explosion are 0.5 seconds pass double of the building’s height. Even if the effects are slower than the
falling buildings, it is still too fast.
This is the same for the lake splash; the water should splash up slowly
and should not shoot straight up like a geyser.
Conclusion
Both Johnnie Walker and Media Impact
left their giant characters in normal-size human speed might have intended to show that
giant women are strong enough to move in normal motion. Especially, Media Impact is to emphasize the
strength in the women's scale using many special effects to slow destruction. In Shuffle! Memories, the animation
might try to emphasize how huge the normal-size girl is in comparison to the
shrunk characters by making the normal-size moves and talks super slow. All three media in common show massive
strength and size of the female character in either scale by defying the
physical scale with effects.
