Every now and then I check out John Nevarez' site and as always you're given a ton of really inspiring sites to go through. Check out his site if you haven't already. Some of the blogs don't have the "older posts" options, so you have to go through their archives. Here are some of my favorites:
Head over to synchrolux, specifically to the post Eye Movements 3 - Saccades and Fixations, for those interested in why and how eyes move. Don't stop there of course, make sure to check out the rest of the site (via categories)/ - pic source
Cartoon Brew had a post about "Oktapodi" a while back. It also points you to Quentin Marmier's blog, which has an awesome collection of production images.
But make sure to click on "older posts" in order to see all the other cool artwork.
According to Shawn, watch from 1:30 to 6:00, so I did. And holy moly it's AWESOME! Go to this youtube page for "Orgesticulanismus" (embedding is disabled). It's a short movie by Mathieu Labaye. Here's what the youtube movie info says:
Great tribute to his father Benoît Labaye, suffered from a multiple sclerosis at 29 years old. Benoît Labaye had been confined to a wheelchair since age 40 and died at 55 years old the 04.22.2006, as a result of a pneumonia.
In the movie, you can hear Benoît Labaye speaking:
"I think it's by the movement you appropriate your own life. By the freedom to come and go, to have gestures of love, tenderness, anger, whatever. When you are deprived of movements, as I am and as a lot of other people are, I think if you want to survive, you must reinvent the movement differently. And so what happens inside my head isn't purely brain, purely intellectual. It's a way of recreating an inner space which is also my freedom."
"When you live a severe handicap, when you live absolutely still, dependent, you live, in fact, something that can't be shared, that can't be easily expressed, which you can't easily talk about. Because when two people talk, to be able to understand each other, they need to have a minimum of common experience between them, to speak of something they both know from some form of experience."
"Sure, the stillness, the handicap, brings you to the conclusion and to the gradual acceptance that there's a certain number of things that you can't do. But conversely I think it opens a whole bunch of new possibilities, notably with inner freedom, inner space, but also with the way you can come in contact, in relation with others. I think there is in the handicap, in the disease, a lot of potentiality. The human being is inexhaustible at the level of desire, of energy, of inner strength. Ans it's something you discover with maybe more urge, more intensity, when you're deprived of movement."
I've never gotten any email or comments about how I could improve this site. Since I want this to be a good resource for my students and anybody else who reads this, please let me know what you would like to change, add, remove, etc.
Please leave a comment to this post with any suggestions. Don't be shy, it's for your own good. :)
Head over to Carlos Baena's site to check out his post on Shapes and Lines. Awesome image of Medusa he posted, look at that pose! Make sure to check out all his tips & tricks and resources while you're at it.
I'm not a big fan of posters nowadays, they seem to be more cut/paste photoshop works as opposed to creative and original ways of getting you excited about a movie. BUT. What I wanted to point out in this Hulk poster is the asymmetry in both Edward Norton's and the Hulk's body. Even though both just stand there, none of their arms have the same pose, same for the hand, fingers, shoulders and even the head favors one side. In animation you want to avoid twinning, so says the common rule, although I think twinning can be effective if done right (with a slight offset so it's not completely mirrored). Someone had a great post about that, but I can't remember who, it was a clip with Simon Pegg in it, anybody remember?. [It can be found here, thanks Jeff!] But again, as a general rule you want to avoid it and Shawn Kelly has a great article about it @ Animation Mentor, check it out.
But let's get back to Asymmetry. Draw a line in the middle of this poster and look at how each side is slightly different. Hulk's screen left shoulder is up, which helps with the different position of his arm, the head is tilted screen right instead of just staying in the middle, etc. It's a lot more subtle with Edward Norton, but each side is still a little bit different.
Let's look at the image if you'd mirror one side. Not that exciting to me and just like the title says, I would call it "Huuh???".
So keep that in mind when you get to a moment and pose which looks too mirrored or twinned. - poster found @ impawards
The last hero of the Nine Old Men died at 95. It's a sad day for sure.
If you're wondering who he is then please head over to Animated-News and get all the details, same with Cartoon Brew which has a ton of good material (as always).
And if you don't own "The Illusion of Life", you should get it, it's a must have.
I might be stating the obvious but make sure to check out Cartoon Brew. I'm sure you guys got sites that you visit daily, so if you haven't already, add this one.
Among this week's posts you got news about Pixar's Presto, their new short in front of Wall-E directed by Doug Sweetland.
Next up are the "Geri's Games" remakes, which are pretty cool.
This is a question I got and I thought it was a very good question:
Hey JD,
I was reading Cameron Miyasaki's interview and there was this one thing he says "make sure you animate emotion and attitude and not action. More important than what the character is saying is how the character is saying it. It's a subtle difference in the way you approach a scene, but it's the difference between just simply animating and acting."
This might be a silly question, but I dont think I quite get what he is saying. Could you explain it a little further?
I really want to make a longer post about it with examples, but that will take some time. In the meantime, here the gist of it (at least how I see it):
- how you say something makes a world of difference. Take "I love you.", which I say to my wife a thousand times a day. :) But she can exactly tell what I mean and how I mean it by the way I'm saying it. It can be a heartfelt and honest way, it can also be in a "Yeah, sure, whatever you want sweetie." way. It can be a "We're still friends, right?", or "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." way. It all depends on the tone of voice, the emotion and attitude behind it. It can vary depending on how I look at here with just my eyes, or a head tilt, or a hand gesture.
So when you have a dialogue piece, you have to think beyond the mechanics. It's more than just "Okay, he's saying "NOW!" so I have to get an "N" shape, mixed with a wide "AH" and transition that into an "OO". That's just animating. Go rent "24" and watch how Kiefer Sutherland says "Now!" (you can't miss it). In fact, every character yells "Now!" at least once. But it will be different for each character.
Or watch this funny clip of Shia saying "No" over and over:
Even though it's repetitive, there are differences. The action is the same, but once you start changing emotions and attitudes, the meaning will change.
And that goes beyond what the character is saying, it's important for all the actions of your character. That's why I ask you guys all the time why your character is lifting the box (or whatever other action your character is doing), has he done it before, who is the guy, where is he, etc.? You have to make a decision about who your character is and in what situation because that will determine his emotion and attitude. A guy lifting a box of beer can be animated differently. It could be a delivery boy and he's tired of lifting those heavy boxes all day and doesn't care about the alcohol, or it's a guy arriving at a party and he can't wait to get drunk. The way they will handle the box will be completely different and that's what your animation has to show, it has to show acting instead of just action.
If you haven't done so already, go to CG-Char and read through the "Ask the Pro" sections, there are a lot of goodies in it. What prompted this was an email from Sow Hussein Dembel, giving me a best-of from the Mike Belzer questionnaire. Thanks!
Mike process:
As far as process goes I think the number one thing to do is be clear about your actions/ideas. If you are not clear than your character and your audience will not see it either. So take time to figure the best way to approach your shot. Understand the story of what is going on, where are you coming from and going to. Act it out, thumbnail, video reference. The point it do more than go with your first impression of what you think the character should do. Don’t cheat the audience by taking the easy way out. After I thumbnail, act out and sometimes video record I’ll do a phrasing pass. This is where I block in the key poses to the shot to see how it is working. I’ll most likely go back in to strengthen the poses later but this will be the building blocks of the shot. I work linear but shoot out my images with keys only. This way I see it in what looks like stepped mode but once I put breakdowns in the linear process gets me closer to the poses I’m looking for. From here it’s adding breakdowns, refining main poses and adjusting timing. Once I feel it’s pretty close I switch to spline mode and spend a fair amount of time cleaning up the crap that the computer gives me. Then it’s onto the final steps of finesse and refinement of poses and checking arcs and whatnot. That’s it in a nutshell as far as my approach. That said I don’t thing there is any one way that is right or wrong. If the results are on the screen, that’s all that matters. As far as inspiration… it comes from so many places for me. My children are a constant library to draw from. I can’t get enough film… watch all kinds of films. Live action, animation and don’t forget CHAPLIN!!! I get inspired from his work every time. For animation specific… I just love doing it and constantly pulling people in to help better my work. I’m also very inspired by students. I teach at Animation Mentor.com and I’m constantly blown away at both he quality of work and pure energy that comes from that school. I also love going to different festivals, schools, and studios and just geek out and talk about animation. I don’t grow tired of this art form. When I do I guess it’ll be time to go into another line of work. Till then I’m loving animating.
Q: I love to draw and it is a massive part of my process I believe in great design and character, yet I hear advice given to "CG" animators to only concentrate on animation like it is a seperate thing.
WRONG!!! It certainly is true that you need not be the strong draftsman that you need to be in 2-D but there is so much to communicate with drawing. To be able to explore your shot before staring thumbnails is so important. This is a weakness of mine and I wish someone had told me “LEARN TO DRAW!!” To be able to communicate a quick idea to a co-worker, supervisor or director is very important in this visual world we work in. Also if you =ever get in the role of supervising a character it is very important to communicate what you want the character to move like for rigging, facial shapes for modeling/rigging. Talking about them can take you so far but as they say a picture is worth a 1000 words. Right now my pictures are only worth about 89 but I’m continuing to work on it.
Q: I believe drawing and "seeing" enrich animation and should not be discarded. It seems to be a product of the CG age.
Agree with this as well. I believe through drawing you learn anatomy, composition, line quality for posing out a character and appeal. It’s such a rich tool it should not be discarded because you are in CG or even puppet animation for that matter .
Q: I know the CG process is a long one so even more reason to have a strong sense of design and character I feel. People may misread this advice "only concentrate on animation."
To be a well-rounded artist will only strengthen you. I thin those who say you don’t need to draw have issues themselves with drawing. Again I am one who struggles with drawing… but I see the great importance it has in a visual medium that we work in.
Q: You mentioned before to watch all kinds of movies, specially Chaplin, but I usually get a little lost in what to study in those films, can you give us some advice for some key elements that I should look for in movies? Again, thanks a lot.
Be open and be a sponge and soak up all that film has to offer. Look at the film as a whole. Look at it frame by frame, in slow motion, without sound… these are all ways to see things in different ways. One other trick that is interesting to try is listening to a film without looking at the picture. Plan it out in your minds eye as to how you would approach a scene and then look at how the actors chose to act it out. The results will surprise you.
Q: Do you do any 3d modeling and rigging? Do you even have time for personal projects at the moment?
I wish I did now how to do that kind of stuff. I have an understanding of it so that I can communicate my needs but not enough knowledge to actually do it. As far as a personal project… I am in the process of creating some DVD’s that I believe will be of great interest to animators and students especially. No firm date as to when they will be done. I’d like to do a short film one day but with work and family it’s a tough balance to find time. Perhaps more coffee and even less sleep. Thanks for the questions. Mike.
Q: Hi there Mike,Thanks a lot for staying with us for a bit.My questions would be: 1: Why and in which conditions animators use linear interpolation in a Final Shot? 2: Far too many times in various animated movies I have noticed that Body Language,Head Tilts,Expressions,even Poses...etc...are dramaticaly over used.....or who knows...reused....just like a stencil. If you know what I mean. Lately,the animation didn`t evoluate for a bit.Only got polished. Is that the Students are molded in that manner and they`re just happy they can emulate X or Z animator? I know the fight with the clishee is not easy,but is not imposible either.
Hey Cristinel Using a linear interpolation for final shots would come in two areas that I can see. One is that is that if the style of the show wanted that harder edge feel (which I don’t so much care for) or if they basically key frame just about every frame. This is where I’ve seen success. If the animator is keying every frame it does not matter if it is spline or linear because the end result from frame to frame is controlled. This is a lot of work with my workflow so I don’t work that way.
I don’t see this as an issue with the medium more than it is with the animator. The same held true back in the golden age where you had say 9 incredible animators at Disney and others who may have been good but not up to that same level. Not cheating the audience and coming up with fresh new ways to show an action or pose is key. I think many animators today go with their gut reaction and animate what first strikes them. The need to thumbnail, act out and look at reference is something that is not always done. Yet it’s through this labor intensive process to determine what the best action for the shot is what can separate some good animators from average ones. I hope that addresses your question. Thanks for the questions, Mike
Latinoreview has the "Ice Age 3" trailer which played in front of "Horton". Notice how the head is in front of a lighter background, giving the silhouette a contrasty push. Can't wait to see dino action courtesy of Blue Sky. HD version here. - found @ Animated-News
Animation Director at Lucasfilm Animation / worked at Framestore, Blizzard Entertainment, Nickelodeon Animation, Warner Brothers Animation and Industrial Light & Magic / Teacher @animationmentor / @academy_of_art / @spungella Animation Workshop
