The main thing that sticks out are the poses on x112+ and around x220. He looks like he's talking to those flat shapes. If he's that much in love, I would have him gaze to the horizon or the sky, like he's on cloud 9. Also have him look more straight ahead with left/right direction changes inbetween (roughly). Right now he's a bit fixated on the screen left part.
Bee Movie – DreamWorks Animation Persepolis – Sony Pictures Classics Ratatouille – Pixar Animation Studios Surf's Up – Sony Pictures Animation The Simpsons Movie – Twentieth Century Fox
Best Home Entertainment Production
Doctor Strange – MLG Productions Futurama "Bender's Big Score" – The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
Best Animated Short Subject
Everything Will Be OK – Bitter Films How to Hook Up Your Home Theater – Walt Disney Feature Animation Shorty McShorts' Shorts "Mascot Prep" – Walt Disney Television Animation The Chestnut Tree – Picnic Pictures Your Friend the Rat – Pixar Animation Studios
Best Animated Television Commercial
CVS Watering Can – Acme Filmworks Esurance "Homeowners" – Wild Brain Idaho Lottery: Twister – Acme Filmworks Oregon Lottery "Alaska" – Laika/house Power Shares Escape Average – Acme Filmworks
Best Animated Television Production
Jane and the Dragon – Weta Productions Limited & Nelvana Limited Creative Comforts America – Aardman Animations Moral Orel – ShadowMachine Robot Chicken Star Wars- ShadowMachine Kim Possible – Walt Disney Television Animation
Best Animated Television Production for Children
Chowder – Cartoon Network Studios El Tigre – Nickelodeon Little Einsteins – Disney Channel Peep and the Big Wide World – Discovery Kids The Backyardigans – Nickelodeon
Best Animated Video Game
Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Burning Earth" – THQ, Inc. Bee Movie Game – Activision Ratatouille – THQ, Inc. Transformers: The Game – Blur Studios
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT CATEGORIES
Animated Effects
Gary Bruins – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Deborah Carlson – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Ryan Laney – "Spider-Man 3" – Sony Pictures Imageworks James Mansfield – "How to Hook Up Your Home Theater" – Walt Disney Feature Animation Jon Reisch – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios
Animation Production Artist
John Clark – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Michael Isaak – "Bee Movie" – DreamWorks Animation Hyun-Min Lee – "The Chestnut Tree" – Picnic Pictures Natasha Liberman – "Growing Up Creepie "Creepie & The Candy Factory" – Taffy Entertainment LLC, Telegrael Teoranta, Discovery Communications Inc., SunWoo Entertainment, Peach Blossom Media Jim Worthy – My Gym Partner's A Monkey "Meet the Spidermonkeys" – Cartoon Network Studios
Character Animation in a Feature Production
Dave Hardin – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Alan Hawkins – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Michal Makarewicz – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios
Character Animation in a Television Production
Elizabeth Harvatine - Moral Orel "Nature 2" – ShadowMachine Monica Kennedy – El Tigre – Nickelodeon Eric Towner – Robot Chicken – ShadowMachine Character Design in an Animated Feature Production Sylvain Deboissy – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Carter Goodrich – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios
Character Design in an Animated Television Production
Jorge R. Gutierrez – El Tigre "Fistful of Collars" - Nickelodeon
Directing in an Animated Feature Production
Brad Bird "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Ash Brannon & Chris Buck "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Chris Miller & Raman Hui – "Shrek The Third" – DreamWorks Animation Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi – "Persepolis" – Sony Pictures Classics David Silverman – "The Simpsons Movie" – Twentieth Century Fox
Directing in an Animated Television Production
Seth Green "Robot Chicken Star Wars" – ShadowMachine David Hartman - Tigger & Pooh "Turtles Need for Speed" – Walt Disney Television Animation Raymie Muzquiz - Squirrel Boy "Gumfight at the S'Okay Corral" – Cartoon Network Studios Howy Parkins – The Emperor's New School "Emperor's New Musical" - Walt Disney Television Animation Gary Trousdale "Shrek The Halls" – DreamWorks Animation
Music in an Animated Feature Production
Olivier Bernet – "Persepolis" – Sony Pictures Classics Danny Elfman, Rufus Wainwright & Rob Thomas – "Meet The Robinsons" – Walt Disney Feature Animation Michael Giacchino – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Rupert Gregson-Williams – "Bee Movie" – DreamWorks Animation Amy Powers, Russ DeSalvo & Jeff Danna – "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales" – DisneyToon Studios/Walt Disney Video/Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Music in an Animated Television Production
Alf Clausen & Michael Price – The Simpsons "Yokel Chords" – Gracie Films in association with 20th Century Fox Evan Lurie, Robert Scull & Steven Bernstein – The Backyardigans "International Super Spy" – Nickelodeon Drew Neumann & Gregory Hinde – Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure – Cartoon Network Studios Shawn Patterson – El Tigre "Yellow Pantera" – Nickelodeon James L. Venable & Jennifer Kes Remington – Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends "The Bloo Superdude and the Magic Potato Power" – Cartoon Network Studios
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production
Don Hall – "Meet The Robinsons" – Walt Disney Feature Animation Denise Koyama – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Ted Mathot – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Sean Song – "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" – IMAGI Animation Studios Nassos Vakalis – "Bee Movie" – DreamWorks Animation
Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production
Ben Balistreri – Danny Phantom "Torrent of Terror" – Nickelodeon Aldin Baroza – The Replacements "London Calling" – Walt Disney Television Animation Dave Bennett – Tom and Jerry Tales – Warner Bros. Animation Steve Fonti – Family Guy "No Chris Left Behind" – Fox TV Animation/Fuzzy Door Productions Roy Meurin – My Friends Tigger and Pooh "Good Night to Pooh" – Walt Disney Television Animation
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production
Janeane Garofalo – Voice of Collette – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Ian Holm – Voice of Skinner – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Julie Kavner – Voice of Marge Simpson – "The Simpsons Movie" – Twentieth Century Fox Patton Oswalt – Voice of Remy – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios Patrick Warburton – Voice of Ken – "Bee Movie" – DreamWorks Animation
Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production
Scott Adsit – Voice of Clay Puppington – "Moral Orel" – ShadowMachine Madison Davenport – Voice of Sophianna – "Christmas is Here Again!" – Easy To Dream Entertainment Tom Kenny – Voice of SpongeBob – SpongeBob SquarePants "Spy Buddies" – Nickelodeon Eartha Kitt – Voice of Yzma – The Emperor's New School "Emperor's New Musical" – Walt Disney Television Animation Eddie Murphy – Voice of Donkey – "Shrek The Halls" - DreamWorks Animation
Writing in an Animated Feature Production
Brad Bird – "Ratatouille" – Pixar Animation Studios James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David, Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder & Jon Vitti – "The Simpsons Movie" – Twentieth Century Fox Don Rhymer and Ash Brannon & Chris Buck & Christopher Jenkins – "Surf's Up" – Sony Pictures Animation Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud – "Persepolis" – Sony Pictures Classics
Writing in an Animated Television Production
C.H. Greenblatt & William Reiss – Chowder "Burple Nurples" – Cartoon Network Studios Gene Grillo – Back at the Barnyard "Cowman and Ratboy" – Nickelodeon Ian Maxtone-Graham & Billy Kimball – The Simpsons "24 Minutes" – Gracie Films Christopher Painter – Squirrel Boy "I Only Have Eye For You" – Cartoon Network Studios Tom Sheppard – My Gym Partner's A Monkey "The Butt of the Jake" – Cartoon Network Studios
WINSOR MCCAY AWARD WINNERS (career contributions to the art of animation)
John Canemaker - Animation historian, educator, Oscar winning filmmaker. Canemaker's tomes on Windsor McCay and Felix The Cat, his numerous books on Disney history (The Nine Old Men, Mary Blair, etc.) are essential references. Canemaker is Chair of NYU's Animation Program and won an Academy Award for his animated short The Moon And The Son: An Imagined Conversation.
Glen Keane - One of the leading lights in the current generation of Disney character animators, Keane's artistry has been the bedrock of many classic animated features since 1977. Most notably, Keane was lead animator of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, The Beast in Beauty and The Beast, and animated the characters Aladdin, Tarzan, Pocahontas in their respective Disney films. Aside from Disney he's worked on animated films of Star Trek and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
John Kricfalusi - Notorious animator Kricfalusi created the influential Ren & Stimpy Show in 1991. He restored an individual look to TV animation, pushing the envelope during the "creator-driven" movement of the 1990s. He also pioneered the use of artist-driven Flash animation. His animated films and design style currently influences a new generation of cartoonists, with which he communicates personally to through his blog.
JUNE FORAY (significant and benevolent or charitable impact on the art and industry of animation)
Jerry Beck
UB IWERKS (technical achievement)
Jonathan Gay, Gary Grossman and Robert Tatsumi – the creators of FLASH computer software
SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT ANNIE AWARD
Edward R. Leonard - promoting the Linux open system for animation in animation studios and gaming software development
CERTIFICATE OF MERIT
Marcus Adams Jo Jo Batista Steve Gattuso Jon Reeves Gemma Ross Woodbury University
There is a really great DVD set called "The Animal Motion Show" (Vol. 1 & 2) and "The Human Motion Show". They are very expensive at $60, so if you can rent them or borrow them, it's probably better, but it's still a good investment though, just eat and drink less for a week then you can buy it. :)
Go to Rhino for more information about the DVDs, but like you saw in class, they are very nerdy and detailed.
Saw it last week-end and it was great, very charming, funny, the songs were great and the 2D animation was fantastic. Screw CG, there is a life to drawings that CG just doesn't get (yet?). One shot had her walk then kinda run towards camera, with her hair and costume flowing and billowing. There was so much volume and weight to it, ahhhh, fantastic. A nightmare to do in CG and most cloth and hair is simulated to look and move realistically, there is no rhythm and flow... sigh... Anyway, good to see 2D again and the movie was great.
Got this email. Please let me know if you are going to attend and don't just ditch the class. If you don't show up I won't mark you absent as long as you let me know AND send in your workbeforehand.
Please join us on Thursday, November 29, 2007 for this presentation: TIME: Reception 7:00 p.m. Event 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. WHERE: Academy of Art University TheatreMorgan Auditorium, Post & Mason 491 Post StreetSan Francisco, CA. 94102
We are honored to have Artists from one of the leading visual effects studios, TheOrphanage, present an inside peek into the animation process for both feature films andtelevision commercials. Creature Supervisor Corey Rosen and Animation Director DavidAndrews will treat the audience to some of The Orphanage’s most recent work with aspecial focus on two projects – this summer’s blockbuster Live Free or Die Hard andDirector Genndy Tartakoysky’s commercial for Nicoderm. For Die Hard, DavidAndrews will discuss the pre-production in Houdini and the process of animating thatwork, with specific attention to the creative challenges of translating pre-viz to finalimagery. Corey Rosen will use a recent Nicoderm spot as a case study, analyzing howThe Orphanage created a new aesthetic using the iconography of traditional 2D for 3Danimations.
There will be no more printed syllabi for on-site classes. Syllabi will be available for students – and yourselves – in the Student Pickup drive. [ANOTHER UPDATE] So far we will meet in room 805.
CA3D 686.02 MS: Character Animation for Grads, Monday 7-10pm
Sounds like the class is already full, but will have more details soon.
[UPDATE]
For those students who signed up (and if you didn't but know people who did, please pass this message along):
I HIGHLY recommend that you DON'T take this class if you are:
- enrolled in Animation Mentor at the same time - taking any Pixar class at the same time - working or somehow too busy to attend and/or complete the assignments given in class
Due to recent experiences with students being too busy because of above mentioned reasons I highly discourage you from taking this class, because it's unfair to the other students if you're taking up a spot and then are not doing any work for that class, while other people would gladly work their butt off but can't because the class is full.
I don't know why I never thought of it, but the "Employee of the Month" doesn't really work, since he's the manager. Wouldn't it be really funny to have "Manager of the Month" instead? Since he's the only manager, he'd always be manager of the month! :)
Posing wise it's all good but the pen click at around x158 looks too deliberate and draws a lot of attention to itself. I would just switch the pen from his right hand to his left in a causal way. The other thing is the part from x270 on til "I'm sorry". It's just too busy. Keep all the business til then (with the above mentioned change), but after x270 I would keep it very contained, especially during the silence. When I watched it the first time I really wanted to look at his face and his eyes and see how bad he feels. The pen business takes away from it. I'd try two things. Put the pen behind his ear DURING the I'm sorry part. And then another version with no pen business at all. He just says I'm sorry to the guys. I'm curious which one has more impact.
Alright, here we go, let's look at it in passes (chest, arms, etc.)
First off, start the walk earlier so that when you cut into shot he's already moving. Right now it looks like "And...ACTION!".
During the standing around moments, make sure to have some keep alive in his body with gentle swaying left right (super subtle, you don't what it to look swimmy and floaty). The body move from x196 to x202 is a bit fast. I would slow it down and mix it in with his upper body movement until x217.
The upper body could rotate back after x65 to x80. There's a very isolated and fast turn on x92 to x94. His head and arms move with it at the same time, make that more organic. What part of the body do you want to lead the rest of the body? The arms will be a bit delayed after the upper body turn. The arm swing around x100+ would influence his upper body, having the arm swing so isolated looks weird. Same goes for the arm movement around x180. Always think about what part of the body gets affected by moving another one. Again during the sword grab around x230 til x270. It gets better at the end.
Bend his arms a tiny bit on x59. When both arms are swinging it feels very stiff. Screen left arm goes up in a very mechanical way and then sticks there at around x79, same with the other arm x84. Delay his arms during the body turn around x90. His arms would just re-adjust or stay in his defiant pose, they wouldn't really swing. The "regret anything" screen right arm swing is way too big and feels a bit over acted. Keep it small. I'm always in favor of eliminating gestures and have it all in the face. But give it a shot with a much smaller arm swing, let's see how much you can get away with. The arm gesture around x175 is very big, very fast and very isolated. Pretty much all the movement is in the forearm. Think about the upper arm, shoulders and chest. Now, the gesture itself is very non threatening, mainly because of the pose around x192. The way he points forward but then brings his arm/hand/fingers back is not very warrior like. He has to be intimidating at all times. The screen right arm move to his weapon towards x205 is also too fast. Fast movements don't work with his voice, he seems very threatening, sure of himself, calm, serious, etc. any fast movement takes away from that. So keep it slow and controlled. Again with the screen left sword handle move at x232. At least the upper arm moves as well, so it's not completely isolated to the forearm, but think of the shoulder and chest, they will have to move as well. Your sword is moving without being touched at x237. Make it clear that something is influencing the weapon in its movement, keep it slow and threatening. His head is very fast and stops like it hits a wall at x94. Tone down the movement as well. Same goes with the whole taking sword (or should it be Katana?) out and fight stance part. You got giant movement from x284 to x288. Keep it elegant, slow, threatening. Find reference of people doing that.
Watch Samurai movies, really study the movements and focus on showing the intensity and threat in his face.
This stick figure animation tool called "Pivot" by Peter Bone is the best thing ever!! Apparently there is a version 3 coming out soon, but I haven't found anything about it yet. I'm really missing a previous/next frame button to check out your animation (instead of clicking on each drawing), but I also only spent a few minutes with it so far. I love it though, it's really neat. Download the freeware here.
That was in my mail box and I need to let you guys know about it:
Just a reminder…. The Academy’s Fall Animation Festival is this Monday, November 19, at 7pm. It’s happening in Morgan Auditorium at 491 Post. Animation by Academy students, fresh popcorn(!), and guest speaker Tom Bancroft (animator on Aladdin, Lion King, etc.).
[Instead of having you guys wait until I fix my stupid computer and post the whole thing, here's what I had so far and the moment I get more I'll post it]
My workflow
First, I obviously think about what I want to do. A clip I wanted to do for grading examples was a guy crawling on the ground or climbing up a hill, so I could show details in terms of hands and fingers and physical strain reflected in his facial performance as well as how the environment gets affected by his crawling around and vice versa. So for this demo I started with that idea and thought about adding sound so I can really nerd out and use all the sound cues to my advantage. Going through my audio library (which is getting bigger and bigger - you can find a good audio piece in most movies, start building a library yourself), I wanted an action piece with lots of sound and little bit of dialogue/monologue. I wanted to do animate something like that for a while so I already had recordings from "Saving Private Ryan". Famous movie, so you can't pick obvious and well known parts from the movie. I just wanted firing and shooting and screaming, which "Ryan" has plenty of and I'd hope wouldn't work against me (like picking "Choose the red or blue pill" thingie from "The Matrix" - THAT will work against you because it's so well known, you will fight against people's preconceived ideas and memories of that movie and the actors in that scene). I also wanted to include that sweet spaceship model we saw in class (from your rig library). That would also help me changing the setting a bit. I don't want to make the characters and the set look like what they are in the movie, so no WWII stuff. I love sci-fi, so something futuristic look-wise will do and I can use the said space ship. Yes, I get into Starship Troopers territory, so I need to avoid that look as well. What I also like to do is to re-edit the audio. Most of the times I cut and paste things together, to further distance myself from the original and because I also have the freedom to do so. Exploit that freedom as a student or when you do your own animation at home. Once you are in a work environment, you’re stuck with the audio, the frame range, the live-action background plate, etc. etc. So I went through my "Ryan" clips and was looking for something short so that I can polish it and have it ready for you guys in a timely fashion. I found one with lots of shooting and screaming. I listened to it over and over and picked out a few things I could combine. There's something at the end where you can hear a faint screaming and before that, maybe a spitting? I couldn't remember what it is in the movie so I checked, which you should do anyway. If you find a piece of audio online, always check from which movie it is. If you happen to have the same ideas as the director and your shot/sequence looks like the one in the movie, people will think you just ripped it off, you're unoriginal, etc.
As you can see, it's a blow on the mirror, not a spit. Now, given the sound and words, it dictates a bit your surrounding, meaning that the clip will include shooting, screaming, probably a war type setting, etc. You could have guys playing a war type video game or something more creative and technically that’s what I should do, but I always wanted to a war scene a la Starship Troopers, so here’s my chance. What I had in mind is a guy crawling on his belly towards his military objective, trying not to get shot with all those bullets flying around. There’s a close-to-camera-ricochet sound and I wanted it to be a shot to the ground close to him, spilling up dirt and stones and have that hit his face (maybe he even gets wounded a little bit). So with all that in his face he spits out the dirt/blood and continues crawling forward. Then more shot impacts close to him but this time passing by and hitting a fellow soldier in the background. In "Ryan" it's just a moan/scream off-screen, but I wanted to show the guy being hit. The main guy looks back, sees that, gets furious/panicked and starts shooting. That's it. It was about 4 seconds long, nice and short. But then again, I really liked the "Covering fire!!" part, so I edited the whole thing around and ended up with a 10sec. piece (damn it, that always happens, I never settle on something short...). So here’s the audio only:
Now that I have the sound in place I listen to it over and over until I see the whole animation in my head. I really can't draw, so any thumbnails wouldn’t be able to reflect whatever I thought of or only in a very limited way. So I plan it out mentally until I have a clear image of what I want to do. BUT. I would still act it out so I can get a feel of what's going on body wise and film it so I can see how I'm acting out the whole situation. So for this clip I let the sound play over the speakers and started to make a fool out of myself. I can only speak for myself but I need to do it over and over in order to forget that I am "acting". That way I get the happy accidents and the more natural spontaneous stuff.
What I imagined for the shot is still better (hopefully) than what I acted out, but there's some interesting stuff here and there that I could use. I like the different variations of “Cover fire!”, the way I react to the bullets, cleaner silhouettes as I roll over, etc.
So to give you guys a visual idea of what I’m thinking of, here’s combination of things that I liked and elements I want to include.
Now it’s time to translate all that into Maya and a working animation environment. First a little rundown of my Maya settings and tools that I use:
- scene is set to 24fps unless told otherwise - animation curves are defaulted to “linear” - hotkeys are set up for nurbs curves visibility on/off & previous/next frame - dry erase marker is ready - autokey is on
Let’s elaborate on those:
In film you work with 24fps, so whenever I work at home, I do the same. I don’t see why I should use 30fps unless told by the client.
During my blocking phase I set all my keys to linear, no spline, no stepped, etc. because that's how I learned it at first and haven' t really liked working any other way since. That's obviously very subjective and I'm not enforcing this method in any way. I don't want the animation to be pose to pose through stepped keys, because I like to see how long it takes going from one pose to the other and what the whole thing will actually look like early on. With a character popping around I don't get that. Yes, you can just add more breakdowns in order to get rid of this but I want to keep the amount of keys to a minimum (at least at the beginning). When I'm happy with what I'm seeing I convert specific areas to spline.
Hotkeys: one great time saving hotkey is the nurbs toggle on/off move fingers around in order to access the functions, I rarely lift my hand off the keyboard. So nurbs on/off as well as stepping through frames is quick and easy. My "Undo" is also on on "u" and not "Ctrl+z". Click here for the tutorial on how to set it up and here for the previous/next frame hotkey. Dry erase marker: super handy tool to check your spacing. Yes, there are scripts that do this as well, but not every computer is set up for it or you get plagued by technical issues. The marker is uncomplicated and works everywhere.
first off, I would start with the other guys' hands off screen or at least have them come into frame, then push the guy. The reason is, I always watched it with the first frame visible, then clicked play, etc. so you see the hands and you know what's going on, but when I play it at work the clip just shows up and plays and then that action gets lost quickly. Think about if you have that clip on your reel after another one, people won't look at frame 1 for a few seconds. After that, you have him stumble forward and kinda look around, but what is he doing? Is he checking out the bowling field or is he trying to look back? I would have him look back at the guys with a "Why are you doing this to me?" look on his face. The walk towards the bowling balls feels weird, especially with that double step thingie at x65. It feels like he's on a cliff and slipping away. You're also overextending his legs a lot from the beginning til here. Frame 1 already his legs are totally straight, then the right one snaps into a bent position on x3 and moves until x5, stops moving while the body continues and gives you an overextended left leg at x8. x47 has another left leg overextension, same at x65. Overall those steps towards the ball are very awkward. Avoid sudden and separate movements with the body and the legs. Around x111, as he picks up the ball he takes a little step. I would wait with that. Since the ball is so heavy, he needs all the stability and leg pushing he can get in order to pick up the ball. Taking a step won't help him. Plus the step gets a bit floaty towards the end. From x124 to x135 his right leg takes a big slow step, plus his left leg is sliding forward. On top of that the ball goes from the edge of the ball-holder-thingie down towards his knees in a very linear and diagonal way. Imagine the ball is way too heavy for you and rolls over the edge of that holder-thingie. Gravity will pull the ball straight down and pull his hands with it. He then holds on to it tighter and the ball and his arms will swing back towards his legs. That's what the motion should be. Right now it's too soft and too slow. You also go from pose to pose with the ball and his body stopping at x133. The momentum and gravity would have the ball/arms swing back between his legs a bit, not hitting a wall type of thing. From x105 til x202 or so, his head looks very looked, there is no drag no overlap, no leading, no strain, no nothing, so loosen it up. Grab something heavy and act it out, I doubt your head would move like that. x213 you're overextending his right leg. Look at x210 til x245, his upper body, head, arms and ball move down and up as one unit, which makes it very robotic and there is not weight to it. Again, act it out, see how your body and arms are adjusting to lifting something heavy and how you get ready for a swing. His arms stay in that 90 degree pose til x340 or so, which is too stiff. You're also overextending your leg at x339. Unless you think that this is okay, you should not have those overextensions in your clip. If you see something that looks wrong, then fix it before you present it. And again, act it out so you get a feel of what the motions are. Take frame 339 for instance. His pose is very awkward. Grab something very heavy and then stand exactly how he is. You'll quickly realize that it is not right. When he starts the swing, his right arm lets go off the ball at x343 and x344. If you're holding something heavy with both hands and you take one hand away, the other hand has twice as much work to do, so there will be some adjustment. In this case it looks like his left hand can easily hold that ball because neither his arm nor his hand are moving or adjusting for the support change as his right arm goes down. His body also stops the forward translation from x343 to 345, keep it going. His right arm stays in the same pose from x346 til x366, his upper body does not change rotation (take x354, with his left arm swinging back, that would pull his shoulder and upper body back as well), upper body with arms moves as one unit around x355, you overextend his left leg from x358 to x364 and his body moves up til x382 or so in a very slow and linear way. I know I sound like a broken record but act it out, study reference, examine each part of the body and think about the effect and relationship between each part as it moves. Be careful to not have one frame movements like his right arm at x413. Unless it's a shaking, a high frequency tension thing, stuff like that, bigger objects like an arm won't travel big distances from one frame to another. Ants would, but the smaller the object the more believable. You also have quick movements during the kissing-the-audience part (with another overextension at x447). The end reads more like a shock than being embarrassed, and give the acting some time, don't rush it.
You really need to study reference for movement. I just went to youtube and looked for "bowling", which is pretty broad, so I did a search for "bowling lesson" and got those:
There is good stuff in there and definitely something you need to incorporate in your animation.
I don't know if you guys ever played with Flipbook, but looks like Benetton has a Deluxe version, which, according to Alex Orrelle, has now color functions and duplication of the last drawing. Have fun! (And no Floyd, this is not my drawing, it's just the first image I found through google...) - pic source
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
