Psychoanalysis: How it can Apply to Animation

This is a very deep and complex look at how humanity functions beyond our animalistic desires, and how we differentiate to each other. I can't exactly summarise everything beyond the great Sigmund Freud's amazing "Mind's Three Structures" theory - Id, our deep and natural desires as a species; Super Ego, what we call our conscience, basically governs how we act socially and what we see as right and wrong; Ego, how we act consciously depending on what the super ego convinces us - but it is very important as a tool for understanding characters and being able to write them in such a manner to make them realistic.

There are multiple versions of this metaphor that depict the position of the super ego differently.

Of course, naturally the human psyche is split into far more elements than just those three, but this is just a summary, following the rule of thirds, that shortens them down to three. How this applies to animation is not really any different to any form of media. As I said, characters are far more engaging within a story when the character is written with their psyche in mind. If a character has this level of depth, audiences will engage with them far more and understand their actions. 

Psychoanalysis can also be applied to stories depending on their genre. A psychological horror like the Silent Hill games for example will take advantage of the character's emotions, desires, and nature. They also tend to adapt to the player's gaming habits and use them to affect the story and scare them. Movies and TV shows use the human psyche for surrealist purposes, like portraying characters as unconscious beings within a dream-like atmosphere. Un Chien Andalou, for example, is deliberately made to resemble a dream, and they do so by having no consistent narrative structure or characters, but the characters act like they lack any ego or even super ego and therefore act very strangely. This is basically showing how people would act given the mentality of the unconscious mind.

I will definitely be incorporating Psychoanalysis to my future projects, as I am very enthusiastic about the idea of making psychological horror/thrillers. It is also useful to me for satirical purposes, as I feel like psychoanalysis factors a lot in most of the issues we face, and I enjoy poking fun at human nature because it's something we can't control.