Ramblings

Questioning Conventions 1

2008-07-09T23:33:00.003-04:00

I realized that so much of my animation knowledge is based off of what I was taught, and not from what I've personally analyzed. This is the first in a series of attempts to broaden past the base concepts.

Blinks

There is a very formulaic way to do a blink (See Example 1).

Example 1:

I have been doing variations of this blink since I started animating. At no point have I ever really studied a blink, I've just taken the word of those that came before me. Don't get me wrong, this is a very effective blink. But I couldn't help but wonder if there could be more to it.

I took some time and really tried to break down and analyze the movement of a normal human blink.

Now granted not every eye rig can do this. But understanding these concepts could allow someone to move past the standard conventions. I urge you to take the time to study blinks on your own. I think you'll be surprised with how complex it actually is. I know I was!

Just for fun..I made my drawings into an animated gif. This was not the intention when I drew the images, so the spacing isn't quite right. Nonetheless it may help exemplify the concepts listed in my notes.

It's been a LONG time since I've posted, but I come asking for help.

2007-11-10T00:51:00.001-05:00

I need to ask a favor of anyone that might still read this blog. I am looking for examples of great eye acting. (In either live action or animation.) Any ideas? Please don't just say something like "Anything in *insert pixar movie here*" I'm looking for very specific scenes that I can pull for reference. :) I will compile anything I find in with notes on what I already know about eye animation, and post it here. Hopefully with your help we can all learn a little more about animating eyes.

Thanks!!! (hopefully someone still reads this blog.)

Doodle

2006-10-20T01:59:00.000-04:00

Yay...another doodle! This one is a little less cartoony, and very rough. I did this one for the Blue Sky Challenge Blog. The theme of the week was "classic movie monster."

Crits and comments are always welcome!!!! :)

Doodle

2006-10-13T01:39:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been trying to learn how to draw in a more cartoony style, and this is my latest attempt at it. I would love it if you all could let me know what you think. :)

I'm still learing, so any crits would be awesome!

Horton Hears a Who

2006-09-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

Horton the Elephant voice by Jim Carrey

The Mayor of Who-ville voiced by Steve Carell

Images found at the following website:
http://comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=16502

More Hands

2006-08-18T10:29:00.000-04:00

These awesome hand examples were provided by Kaveh Michael. Thanks so much for sharing them. Hopefully others find them as useful and inspiring as I have.

Hands

2006-06-28T00:26:00.000-04:00

By no means am I any expert on the subject, but I thought I would share some of my current feelings on hands (I say current because every day I seem to learn something new which totally changes my perspective and understanding).

Hands seem to be an area of animation that is frequently overlooked. Hands are just as important as the face. So much of a characters personality and emotion is conveyed through the hands. A well crafted hand pose can convey if someone is nervous, confident, proud, sad, happy, angry, dainty, powerful, weak, squeamish, tense, relaxed, etc. (the list goes on and on)

I've been doing a lot of stuff with hands at work lately, and I thought I would share some of the stuff I find inspirational and useful. Below are many examples of hands, all of them are in very different styles, yet all of them are serving the same purpose; to aid in the acting, to help the audience understand the character a little more, to help get an idea across, to lead the eye within a shot, etc.

For example, lets say a character adjusts his glasses; he could cautiously places his finger tips on his glasses and adjust, he could wrap his fingers around one side and adjust, he could adjust with his index and thumb on the nose piece, he could use both hands in a dainty manner with his pinkies out, the possibilities are endless! The pose you design could be curvy and elegant, or rigid and sturdy. All of this elaborates and deepens the audience’s relationship and understanding of that character.

Milt Hands

Milt Hands cont'd.

Preston Blair Hands

Angus MacLane hands

By the way, if anyone else has any awesome hand drawings they would like to share, I would LOVE to see them!

After a long crunch I'm back.

2006-01-13T03:22:00.000-05:00

Ok..so I couldn't help but post these. I'm just super excited about the movie coming out. I found these pics on latinoreview.com. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Blue Sky Art Auction!!

2005-12-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

Please take a minute and check this out. Any money you spend is 100% for charity!

"The employees of Blue Sky Studios, with the support of Fox Animation, wanted to do what they could to help support those still struggling to re-establish themselves in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To that end, Blue Sky Studios is auctioning off original and one-of-a-kind artwork from their vault and giving all profits to charity."

Examples of stuff for sale in the auction:

Hook ups

2005-11-14T01:33:00.000-05:00

When I started working at Blue Sky, one aspect (out of many) that was brand new to me was the hook up. My entire time at school I was never exposed to hook ups, and at no point did I have to practice it. As a matter of fact, it never even crossed my mind.

You might ask, "What is a hook up?" Well basically in a movie you get a shot to animate. That shot is one of many that make up a sequence. That shot's starting point and end point have to match up with the shots before it and after it. The matching of start poses and endposes between shots is called a hook up.

So what makes that so hard? Well sometimes you get a shot where the shot before yours, and the shot after yours has already been animated. So now the first pose and last pose in your animation has been predetermined by someone else. That makes for limiting factors in what you can do.

It also makes for a bunch of interesting challenges. For example, how do you convey the message you need to convey, in a believable way, with the starting point and end point predetermined? Is there anyway that I can change the pose and still have it read as a hook up? What are the main things the audience needs to read for it to feel like it flows believably between shots? How much leeway do I have in my hook up if there is a cut away shot between the hook ups?

Something to think about I guess...

Pure Gold

2005-11-01T01:31:00.000-05:00

Soooooooo...... I found this drawing from a few years ago. A friend and I drew it together during one very long and boring class. All I have to say is...PURE GOLD!!!

Holy Crap!

2005-10-29T03:51:00.000-04:00

How is this possible?!?!?! Believe it or not this is oil and acrylic on canvas. Check out more amazing work from this awesome (yet somewhat twisted artist) by the name of Gottfried Helnwein.

(Detail)

Hmmmmmm

2005-10-29T01:05:00.000-04:00

So something I have been thinking about lately. How much detail should be put into an animation, and where should that detail be placed?

I'm curious how other people work. Personally, I try to put as much detail into my shots as I possibly can. I like to try new things, and experiment (something hard to do in the middle of crunch time.)

I think sometimes people don't always agree with my approach of going into uber subtle detail. You know...the kinda stuff that isn't even really noticeable on the computer unless you zoom way in and focus on one area. By no means do I think my approach is the only way, and heck for that matter I have no idea if it is the right way at all (still my first movie) hehe. But my thinking is....those things may go unnoticed on a computer screen, but when they're like 20ft tall in a theatre...things could look different. *shrugs*

I am starting to learn that you can't put the same amount of detail everywhere...well umm I mean you can, but ummmm I don't know. My experience with doing that has been that things become too busy. I think perhaps you need to think of your animation as a moving picture. Before you go "DUH THATS ALL ANIMATION IS...A SERIES OF MOVING PICTURES" hear me out. :)

When you draw a picture..I mean really draw a picture, you think about your staging and your composition. You think about how you can lead the eye where you want it to go...nothing is left unplanned. Why not put that in your animation. Of course there is staging and composition in your overall animation and posing, but why not also lead your viewers eye around with where the detail is emphasized. Think of it kinda like a moving composition that's purpose is to lead the eye where you want the audience to be looking. What are your thoughts?

Spline Doctors

2005-10-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

"Pixar Animators by day and Academy of Art Teachers by night (well Tuesday night anyways)."

Sweet rubber chickens!

The people that pretty much taught me everything I know about animation just started their own blog. Check it out...

The Animators involved:

Scott Clark
Andrew Gordon
Stephen Gregory
Angus MacLane
Billy Merritt
Mike Venturini

...

2005-10-14T21:22:00.000-04:00

SCRAMBLES ARE HARD!!! :)

Observation

2005-10-09T16:19:00.000-04:00

It was watching Dirty Jobs and I saw something interesting. If someone is experienced at climbing ladders they grab the ladder from the side as they climb. This allows them to keep their hands on the ladder at all times (for safety). A less experienced person would grab each individual step with their hands as they climb.

So if you ever have to animate someone climbing a ladder, you can ask yourself, the supervisor, or the director. Is this person experienced on a ladder? The answer may dictate the way he climbs the ladder, and where he places his hands.

"Postural Echo"

2005-10-08T18:16:00.000-04:00

Examples of Postural Echo from Manwatching by Desmond Morris:

Ok so, I was looking over Manwatching by Desmond Morris again, and I happened across something interesting that may aid in animation. He calls it Postural Echo.

Have you ever noticed that two people sitting near each other sometimes seem to mimic each others pose? This is postural echo. It tends to happen mainly in friends and companions. The closer the friends are the stronger the postural echo. “There is a good reason for this. A true bond of friendship is usually only possible between people of roughly equal status. This equality is demonstrated in many indirect ways…In this way the body transmits a silent message, saying: ‘See, I am just like you’; and this message is not only sent unconsciously but also understood in the same manner.”

This postural echo even goes beyond mimicking a pose. Frequently they will synchronize their movements as they talk. For example, “when one uncrosses his legs, the other soon follows suit, and when one leans back a little, so does his companion.”

So what happens when people of different status meet? One will take the dominant position and one will take the subordinate position. “Whenever a dominant and subordinate meet, they signal their relationship by their body postures and it is a simple matter for a subordinate to manipulate such a situation. Just as the dominant doctor deliberately climbed down from his high status role by echoing the patients body posture, so a subordinate can, if he wishes, unnerve a dominant individual by copying his body actions…Even if verbally he is politeness itself, such a course of action will have a powerful impact…”

In the 1970’s they researched the subtle changes in posture with slow motion cameras, and they learned that “there is even a ‘micro synchrony’ of small movements, so sensitive that it is hard to see with the naked eye. Tiny momentary dips and nods of the head, tensing of the fingers, stretching of lips, and jerks of the body, are all beautifully matched when a pair of friends are in a condition of strong rapport…the movements they make as the speak and listen is often perfected to within a 48th of a second. When film is shot at 48 frames per sec is analyzed frame by frame, it is possible to see the way in which sudden, small movements start simultaneously, on exactly the same frame of film, with both the speaker and the listener. As the speaker jerks his body with emphasis he makes on different words, so the listener makes tiny, matching movements of some part of the body. The friendlier the two people are, the more their rhythm locks together.”

“An important discovery was made when similar films were taken of conversations with mentally disturbed patients. Here there was little or no body synchrony-the echo had vanished and with it the rapport. And it was this particular quality that contributed so strongly to the feeling of ‘strangeness’ when encountering and attempting social contact with these patients.”

There is a lot of useful info in that. I think there is definitely something in there that can apply to your acting and animation.

LOST

2005-10-06T01:05:00.000-04:00

Lol I know this has nothing to do with animation, but omg LOST has to be the best show on tv. If you haven't seen it, I strongly urge you to rent or buy the first season. Every episode manages to top the episode before it. * for those that haven't been watching the show...possible spoilers below*

What the heck is going on...what's going to happen...what's up with the island...who are The Others...did you see the symbol on the shark fin...what happened to Walt...did you see the part in the first episode of the season where Walt was soaking wet in the field and speaking weird words that make no sense, did you know that if you play it backwards he says "Press the button. No button's bad."...what's up with the numbers? omg tell me, tell me, tell me...must watch. Yah...I know...it's an addiction.

My hat's off to all the incredibly talented people that make this show possible. Sooo ummm go watch it now!!! hehe

Yay Subtlety!!!

2005-09-15T00:29:00.000-04:00

If you haven't been able to tell already, I'm a sucker for the subtle stuff. Some people are all about the big movements, the physical stuff, etc..but me...give me a scene of subtlety.

It doesn't even have to be a long shot for me to be happy. If I can convey one emotion in a subtle way people can relate to, I'm one happy camper. I want to explore everything about conveying an entire emotional thought process with only the eyes and slight head shifts.

Like everyone, I'm still learning. There are a lot of times that I study life and see an amazing level of complexity in the movements people make with their head, their blinks, their eyes, their mouth, etc. I notice it a lot more when the person isn't acting for a camera...when they are being "real".

A lot of that complexity doesn't make it into animation. I think a big reason is it's really hard to plan for that stuff, and even if we shoot video reference of ourselves we tend to think about the action we have to do more than just being "in the moment." This creates a simplified more rehearsed look to our acting.

I feel that animation is too perfect. In real life we fumble, we make simple foot adjusts, we miss steps, our eyes double blink at random times, our eyes dart off in random places, our hands will miss their target, things slip from our grip, our head jerks, our brows will twitch, our mouths open and close when we aren't planning on it, etc... I think we can convey the feeling of witnessing a spontaneous action by releasing our hold on perfect movements.

If done correctly, I think these things should add a level of pleasing complexity to the overall feel of the animation. It should help cascade the viewer into a relationship with the character.

Have you ever had your head incased in Jello?

2005-09-04T01:15:00.000-04:00

Well I can officially say that I have!

I doubt there are many people that can say that lol. Tonight I went into the city and saw the Blue Man Group. I got pulled onto the stage as the "victim" for the finale of the show. They put me into a jump suit, put a motorcycle helmet on my head (I was blind inside the helmet..I think they painted the visor opaque). I was led downstairs..covered in paint, tied by my feet, pulled into the air upside down by a rope, and slammed into a giant canvas a couple of times. I guess it was called living art or something like that.

LOL

Then I was crammed into some small box and had to stick my head inside of a giant piece of Jello that was covered by a bucket. It was crazy. It was actual Jello. I was surrounded by it. It was cold and sticky and it was so close to my face that my nose was touching it. The box with the Jello was brought onto the stage and the blue men took the bucket off and revealed the Jello. Then they started poking and hitting at the Jello...ya know playing with it (btw my head was still inside of the Jello....lol it was very disorienting). Then they broke open the Jello and pulled my head through it. LOL...what a night.

Anyways, as odd as my night was...The Blue Man Group was kick ass, and I totally recommend it to everyone!

Wandering Eyes

2005-08-28T01:53:00.000-04:00

So I happened across this picture in a recently purchased book, Manwatching by Desmond Morris.

It seems pretty bad ass. It is an older book (from the 70's) but it has a wealth of knowledge on human behavior, gesture, etc. Anyways the picture.... ummm here it is....any second now...there we go!

Ok...so now that you see the picture..what the heck does it mean? Well I might as well just quote from the book.

"When we stare closely at a human face, we do not remain fixated on exactly the same spot for any length of time. Our eyes scan the features of the face, but concentrate most on the eyes and mouth, as revealed by this experimental record of eye-movments made by a subject staring for three minutes at a photograph of a young girl's face."

It may be something to think about while we figure out how we are going to animate our characters in close up shots, where to spend our time (if we are on a tight schedule), and/or how we will stage things.

I think this helps show us that the audience will focus mainly on the eyes and mouth. They will take other things in, but the main attention is in those key areas. Hmmmm if I was to make a bold statement I bet the audience will spend more time at the eyes than the mouth. That's my guess, what do you think?

Cartoony 3

2005-08-27T10:33:00.000-04:00

I was surprised to find an email from a woman by the name of Megan Hobby. She had read my blog entries on cartoony animation and had gone in search of animations that would exemplify what I said. She then compiled a group of frames from an animation, and sent them to me to see if it was an example of what I meant. She had found a perfect example...so I thought I would post it here for all to see.

The images happen to be from one of my coworkers, Aaron Hartline. If you haven't checked out his stuff you really should! It's kick ass!

So as you can see it has a slow out on the first four frames....then on the fifth frame it goes through the entire motion and overshoots the final pose, then on the last three frames it slows in to the final pose.

If you would like to see it in motion here is a link to the animated shot.

A big thanks to Aaron Hartline and Megan Hobby for making this entry possible. :)

Less is more...

2005-08-26T20:39:00.000-04:00

You know what? I'm beginning to think that sometimes less is more. There is a time when you want to go all super crazy, but I also think there is a time when not really moving at all is more appropriate, and possibly equally as difficult (harder in my own opinion). Because how do you animate it if it's not moving? You would be surprised at how much animation you have to do to make something look like it isn't moving (yet still alive)

For example:

Maybe accenting only one thing. All the rest is subtle eye accents and changes..maybe a little breathing... mouth stuff... cheeks... nose... slight keep alive on the body! I dunno...the possibilities are endless!

If you design your main pose carefully, do most of the main acting with the eyes/brow and a slight head accent, do all the other little subtle movements, etc. You may be surprised... it could easily be more powerful then all the fancy patterns in the world. (hmmm of course this applies when the scene calls for such things.)

Relating to a character

2005-08-20T16:10:00.000-04:00

"How can we relate to the character?" That's a question I ask myself a lot.

I think a big part of it is finding those little moments that we can all relate to. For example. Lets say you have someone cleaning their ears with a q-tip (random I know)...

Now you could approach the scene by having that person put the q-tip in his ear, swirl around, pull it out, and throw it away. Simple enough, and gets the job done.

OR

You could have him put the q-tip in his ear, swirl around, pull it out, look at the q-tip, than throw it away.

It seems like such a subtle difference right? To me that subtle difference adds oodles and oodles of thinking and life to the character.

Here is another example. Lets say you have a guy falling down...

You could have him fall down, stand back up, and then keep walking.

OR

You could have him fall down, stand up, look around slightly to see if anyone saw him fall, and then keep walking.

These subtle differences bring us closer to the character. They let us relate.

Joe Ranft

2005-08-18T08:04:00.000-04:00

Joe Ranft, a legendary story artist and a founding member of Pixar's creative team, passed away on Tuesday. I did not know him personally, but I, like the rest of the animation community, mourn his loss greatly. My deepest sympathies go out to his family and friends.