Oops! Or Maybe Not...

'Oops. Looks like someone messed up.

How do you screw up a drawing like this so much? Did the printer do a weird number on the paper?'

Ha.

Oh you foolish mortal.

This, my dear friends, it called smearing. I'm a huge fan of smearing.

A smearing fan, am I.

The use of a smear brings great joy to my heart.

'But it just looks like the printer screwed up the picture. It'll just make the movie look weird.' You might say.

Once again, oh you foolish mortals, you. I love you to pieces.

Here, let me explain. Since I have 'Poor Unfortunate Souls' already downloaded onto my computer, get ready for some more Ursula. (Can you tell she's one of my favorite villains?) 

Just to clarify, there's a difference between what you NEED in animation and what you WANT in animation.

All right, we've got our clip. Woohoo! Now, there's another aspect of animation I could get into on this, but I'm going to leave it be for this post. (Look I can have mercy on your souls.!)

To show you how much I love you all I'm going to take a shot of each frame, and tell you how long each of the frames stayed on 'camera'.

This means get ready for a long, long, long, long, long, LONG clump of photos.

WOAH. All those for like two seconds of movie? Yep.
Not even including the 'holds' where the frames were shown more then once to time the scene.

Now, what exactly does the weird distorted images give us in these two seconds of movie? What's the effect? Watch the clip over again. Wait a minute? What's the weird little zooming action Ursula does? It seems a bit.. odd doesn't it?
Yes, why yes it does.

These exaggerated smears not only bring a kind of exaggeration to the story, it also brings a bit of life to the character. Ursula suddenly becomes even more invasive and pushy in our eyes. Why? Well, there's a long hipster like explanation for that, but I think I'll spare you the experience and let you answer that one for your own.

For the sake of time, (this is was supposed to be up in February) I'm going to wrap this up rather quickly.
Animation is about capturing life, or from a more clinical way of looking at it, it's about making lines move to make it look like something's living. Smear help accomplish this in more of an abstract sense. You don't see people's faces moving like this in the real world, (if you experience things like the pictures above, please call 1-800-GET-HELP) so it's not copying real life.

'So what's it doing?'
'Wait, doesn't this kinda relate to the whole uncanny valley thing?'

Kinda. That applies more to CG animation. Another post for another month.

What we're getting here is a simulation. A caricature. An EXAGGERATION.
Ursuala isn't moving because she 'NEEDS' to, she's moving because she 'WANTS' to. She pushing herself at Ariel to make her seem more imposing. The animators are giving her life by exaggerating life and pushing the limits of the media to try and give something a little unexpected, just like in real life.

Also it goes better with the music.