We know how important this is.. how necessary it is for you to understand why your shot is in the film, and how it relates to your character’s arc and the story’s progression.  We know that without this information you will [...]]]> So that’s the big question.. How do you find the intent for your shot?

We know how important this is.. how necessary it is for you to understand why your shot is in the film, and how it relates to your character’s arc and the story’s progression.  We know that without this information you will probably spend some time flailing about trying everything you possibly can to get the shot approved.  Most likely, you’ll end up showing the shot in dailies more times than you need, and you’ll end up hearing the director repeat him or herself a few times.  You’ll probably end up stressing about getting the shot through, and you’ll be focused on just getting it off your plate instead of adding all the little bits and bobs that make the shot special.. the things that make you geek out over it after you’ve finished.

So how do we find it?

Here are the things I do to try and hone in on the intent.  I would love to hear your views on this, and any tips and tricks you have!

1) Go To Every Dailies Session

I find that the more often I go to dailies, the more my head is in sync with what the director wants.  I start to be able to guess what he or she will like, and I can get a good sense of where the story is headed.  This allows me to gain more supporting information about the whole show and the character’s motivation throughout the movie.

2) View The Sequence Before the Launch

Before launching my shot, I’ll watch the sequence in storyboard and layout.  If possible, I’ll watch the sequences before and after as well.  This will give me direct information as to what is happening and what my shot may need to convey.  I should be able to get a good sense for the rhythm of the sequence, and start to gather any questions I may have about my shot (or sequence of shots).

3) Talk To My Supervisor

If I can, I’ll talk to my supervisor (or head of character animation) about the sequence to see if there’s any additional information they might have.  Usually the supe will have met with the director before the sequence started to get a lowdown on what the point of the sequence is.  They may have some good information that isn’t visible in the boards or the layout.

4) Prepare Questions

I’ll prepare a list of questions for the director that I have ready in case the director doesn’t cover everything in the launch.

5) Practice ACTIVE LISTENING at the Launch

When the director launches the shot, I’ll actively listen to everything that they say, often repeating it to myself in my head.  I’ll watch their eyes and their face instead of stare at the screen.  I will use encouraging body language and supportive acknowledgment of what they are saying in order to draw out as much information as I can.  I will write down key words and phrases in my notebook, especially if the director says “this is important”.  I’ll ask questions about motivation, emotional state, any change of emotion, what other characters are going through, if there’s any physical needs of the shot, and anything else I can think of that will help me discover the key intent.  Finally, once the director has finished, I’ll quickly look at my notes and see if there is anything I am unsure of.  I will try and summarize the intent in a couple of words and repeat it back.  If looking at the notes doesn’t help me determine the intent, I’ll then clarify: “So, the intent of the shot is to show George’s emotion shift from sad to enraged?”  or, “Just to clarify.. the main point want to get across is chaos of 13 characters running in different directions?” or even “The key idea is that Jennifer turns on the radio.. is there any hessitation in her action due to some emotional distress?  Or is she quite happy to turn it on?”

6) Review My Notes

After the launch, I will go back to my desk and play the shot and review my notes.  Sometimes I’ll write the intent in bold on a new piece of paper, and then list the other notes underneath it in order of importance.  I’ve often found that by doing this I can quickly see if I forgot something, or if something isn’t as clear as I hoped it would be.  Note: Without this review session, you might as well not be taking notes at all.  Reviewing them will help you solidify the director’s thoughts in your head.

7) Block As Few Poses as Possible

I’ll quickly rough or thumbnail a few poses for the shot and compare them with my main intent.  I’ll then ask other animators, my supervisor, or anyone else I can if these poses or drawings fit the intent.  This is quick work, and I can quickly correct any sort of wrong directions I may be heading in.

When Lost.. Ask!

The big thing here is that even if you do all this work before you start the shot, sometimes it’s easy to get lost and loose the intent.  Or, you can become blind to your shot and not know if it’s working.  Everybody does this.  The best thing you can do is stop what you are doing and talk to someone else about the shot.  Clarify the intent with your supervisor.  Find another animator and ask “is this reading?”  Watch your shot in continuity with the surrounding shots with another animator and clarify the ideas.  And if all else fails.. ask the director.   Remember, you are both working together to make the shot work.   You both have the same goal.  If you need a question answered or clarified, get in front of them and ask.  I find that most of the time this will clarify things immensely and really help you move forward on the shot.

Anyway, those are some of the things I do to help clarify my ideas.. what about the rest of you?

But you’ll notice that the title [...]]]> The past two posts have looked at techniques I use to animate as efficiently as possible. They are common tools for time management, and can really be used for any endeavor. I definitely find them useful for managing my stress level and allowing me to crank out more footage.

But you’ll notice that the title of these posts have also included the word “Quality”. In this post, I’d like to focus on that aspect of this equation, since without quality, quantity means.. well.. poop.

Seriously.  If given the choice, I would rather have an animator on my team who created one frigging mind blowingly amazing shot than an animator who created 15 piss-poor shots.

But those are extremes, right?  In the real world, each animator can’t only produce a single shot in a film, and I certainly won’t be happy if all my animators just crank out pure drivel at a rate of 15 feet per week.  (for those of you who haven’t worked in “feet” before, 1 foot is 16 frames of film.  There are 24 frames per second,  so 2 seconds of film is 3 feet of animation.  At most studios a weekly quota for an animator can range from 3-6 feet per week depending on complexity.  That’s 48-96 frames per week of finished animation).

Crappy animation produced quickly is still crappy animation.

So how do we hit that quality mark that is so important?

Before I answer that, I think it’s important to qualify what we consider “quality” animation.

To do this, I’m going to use a fun technique of organizing ideas that I learned about recently.  It’s kind of similar to a mind map, but instead I’m going to use stickies or “post it notes”.  I heard about this while listening to a class by the “sticky-note-ninja“, a woman named Kate who works at Adaptive Path, a “user experience” company.

The podcast had a whole bunch of really interesting techniques of using Post-its to come to common themes and ideas when designing user interfaces.  I think that the same idea can be used to quickly throw down a bunch of thoughts, and then organize them into common themes for further exploration for animation.

To try and see if I could use this technique to come up with a clear definition of “quality” for an animation shot, I went to the website Edistorm, and quickly threw together a bunch of “virtual post-it notes” that each had a single idea of what I thought of when I thought of a “quality” shot.

As you can see, there are just some random phrases in there like “rhythm”, “contrast”, “emotional”, etc.  You can certainly expand on this and add a few more of your own, but you get the idea.

This in and of itself isn’t very exciting.  What is exciting however is what happens next.  We take each of these “post-it” notes and start arranging them into clusters.  Pretty soon, you can start to see some patterns emerge.

We have grouped this random collection of thoughts about what adds quality to a shot into 3 sections.  I’ll color them so we can see them a bit better:

On the left we have words like “focus”, “intent”, “funny”, “emotional” “connect with the audience”.  To me, these all feel like acting and directing words.

On the right are things like “graphic”, “timing”, “arcs”, “polish”. These are animation terms.. technical and artistic things we do to make the movement look nice.

In the middle are words that I think can apply in both areas.. “contrast”, “entertaining”, “unique”.  Really great acting has to be unique to the character, just as it’s important for the rhythm of each shot to feel unique and special.   I kind of feel that these terms can be defined as over-arching themes for quality work… things I want to be thinking of while working on my two main areas of focus – acting and animation.

What interests me about this image is that even though I threw it together rather quickly, I can easily see that if I want to have a really great shot, I need to focus on both animation and acting.  I know this seems basic and obvious.  The thing is by doing this exercise with stickies I can give myself some concrete goals to focus on to MAKE my acting and animation better.

If someone says I need to work on the quality of the animation on my shot, I can look at these things specifically and say to myself “did I check my arcs?  Is my timing off? What about the rhythm?”   The same is true with acting: “Am I hitting the right emotion? Is the shot funny enough? Am I connecting with the audience?”

We’ve  talked a little bit earlier how making beautiful animation can take time.  Creating nice arcs, beautiful spacing with unique rhythm means that you’re going to have to take the time to finesse the heck out of the shot.  There’s only so much you can do there to make this process go faster, so let’s take a look at the other side of the equation..Acting.

How do we make sure that the acting we’re working on is the best it can possibly be?   There are two things we need to know in order to make sure we’re hitting the mark on this.  The first thing we have to know is who the character is.  We’ve got to understand as much about the character as possible in order to have a clear idea as to what they would do in any given situation.  What was her relationship with her parents like?  Does she have any sort of physical deformities?  If your character was once attacked by a stapler when she was a child, how do you think she would handle walking through an office building?  Does she think before reacting, or does she react and then think?  Would this cause her to lead her movements with her head or with her heart?  Is she open to new ideas?  Closed?  How would she hold her arms in social situations?  Down at her side?  Crossed?  Hand on her hip?  Does she bite her lip when she’s nervous, or pick her fingernails?

All of these things help clarify your character’s style of movement, the acting choices you might make, the way the character will react in a situation where they aren’t the main focus of the shot, the subtle shifts as another character leans in close for a kiss.  Know these answers before you start animating, and you’ll have more confidence in your shots as thus your work will be stronger.

The other thing that is imperative and is probably the most important thing you can do is clarify the intent of the shot.

This… will be the topic of my next post.

Most artists feel that it’s a see-saw.. we all want quality, which means it’s going to take time.  If you want [...]]]> I was sitting with some of the other animators at lunch the other day and the topic of “speed” came up.  Not the drug, but the eternal challenge animators face between “quality” and “quantity”.

Most artists feel that it’s a see-saw.. we all want quality, which means it’s going to take time.  If you want it faster, then the quality will have to drop.

This seems to make sense, as one of the trademark features of really great animation is attention to detail.  Massaging those arcs, making sure there are no pops in the knees, double-checking eyelines, finger contacts, pushing the spacing until it feels just .. perfect.

I don’t think there’s a single animator out there who wants anything less.  We all will take exactly as much time as we have to work on the shot until it’s literally wrestled from our hands and sent on to the departments down-stream.

There are obviously a lot more variables that go into the amount of time it takes to get a shot out the door.. there is the clarity of direction, whether or not the shot is ready, the software speed, bugs in the rigs, camera changes, dialogue adjustment, etc.. all of which are natural parts of the movie-making process.  However, all of that stuff is out of our control.  What we own.. what we work with day in and day out are the poses, the frames, the keys, the rhythm of the shot.

This passion for perfection.. that desire to make each and every frame the best possible frame it can be is what gets my blood pumping when I animate a shot I love.  It’s what drives me when I see another animator produce something that just blows my mind.  It’s what makes leaving on a friday night difficult because I can’t think of anything except what that next pose is going to be, and how would it look if I just broke the elbow for a frame as I cushioned into the next pose?

But the realities of production set in and we have to keep the shot moving, to get it going further down the pipeline.  Those downstream artists are chomping at the bit to make the shot even sweeter, and that next shot is just sitting right over your shoulder, whispering into your ear, pulling at you..

When I became a supervising animator, one of my biggest fears was the fact that I knew I would have less time to animate.  I was excited about working with the other animators, and knew I wanted to spend time focusing on that aspect of the job.. but I sure as hell didn’t want to make my shots worse.  I still wanted to produce good work, and I still wanted to do a lot of work.

I found that I had only 4 or 5 hours a day to animate vs my usual 8 or 9.  Literally half my time was devoted to dailies, reviews, meetings, rounds, and more.  Some days I would only have an hour or two to animate.  To top it all off, this was not a solid chunk of time, but sometimes only 30 minutes here and there spread throughout the day.

For those of you who animate on a day to day basis, you know that it can take 10 to 20 minutes of warming up each time you sit down to really get into the swing of things when you’re animating–especially when you’re dealing with a some complicated acting, or a technically challenging movement.  If I had 30 minutes to animate, and 15 minutes was taken up getting back into the proper head space.. well, you can guess how much I’d be able to do.

I quickly found that I had to learn some way of handling this situation, otherwise I would never get any animation into the film.

I talked to a few animators to see what their tricks and techniques were.  One of our Heads of Character Animation said that even though he only had an hour or two per day to animate, he thought about his animation all the time.  He would be sitting in meetings and would be working out his shots in his head, so that when he got to his desk he knew exactly what he was going to try and accomplish the moment he touched the keyboard.

That made sense to me, so I tried that.  I would picture my shot and try and get the whole thing in my head.  Unfortunately, I found that focusing on my shot like that caused me to have trouble paying attention to the meetings I was in.  I was distracted, because I couldn’t hold all that information and focus on the questions people were asking me.

So I tried something different.  As I was getting up from my desk to head to a meeting I would think about the very next thing I wanted to accomplish in the shot.  If it was a pose, a simple movement, a rhythm, whatever it was I would decide on a small chunk of animation that I felt I could accomplish in about 20 minutes.  In-between meetings (and while the meetings were covering things that weren’t important to me), I would try and get that next idea clear.  Because it was such a small chunk, I could “pause” my brain very easily when I had to focus on outside things, and then hop right back into working out my shot in my brain as soon as I could.

When I then got back to my desk I had a pretty clear sense of direction.  Not only did I have a good idea of what I wanted to do, but I also found that I was able to jump back into my shot really quickly!  I would sit down and within minutes would be back where I was when I left!

I then started experimenting with other techniques to keep me focused.. I stopped listening to music so nothing else was distracting me.  I used my noise canceling headphones to keep out other distractions.  I kept my thumbnails right next to my monitor and made checklists of things I wanted to do before my next meeting.  I analyzed my workflow and tried to remove any other distractions that would take me away from my work (email, web surfing, etc).  I found all of this really helped!

There’s one more thing that I tried that helped more than anything else…

and I’ll discuss that in my next blog post!

The latest trailer has come out and [...]]]> As most of you know, for the past two years I’ve been working as Head of Character Animation on Megamind.  We’ve been working hard, and it’s been a lot of fun.  Animation is cranking away, and I can’t wait to see people’s reactions to the film in November!

The latest trailer has come out and is available online now..

This has been a real epic journey, and a real learning experience for me.  It’s a joy to be able to now have some of our film out there for people to see!

enjoy!

-jason

Go straight to the page, or check out the preview [...]]]> Whew! Part 3b is up and available now! I’m finding that it’s taking about 2 hours or so to convert each section to be available for download through lulu, so at this rate hopefully I’ll be done by the end of the week!

Go straight to the page, or check out the preview video:

Jeffrey Katzenberg Plans on Living Happily Ever After | Fast Company.

This is a nice interview with JK, our main head honcho at Dreamworks Animation.

The first time I ever spoke to Jeffrey was when I was applying for a job at Dreamworks.  I was actually still living in [...]]]>

Jeffrey Katzenberg Plans on Living Happily Ever After | Fast Company.

This is a nice interview with JK, our main head honcho at Dreamworks Animation.

The first time I ever spoke to Jeffrey was when I was applying for a job at Dreamworks.  I was actually still living in New Zealand finishing up on The Lord of the Rings.  I believe it was a saturday morning, and I was at home showering before heading in to work.  I heard the phone ring & my wife poked her head in the bathroom to say “There’s a call for you.”

“Who is it?”  I asked, massaging shampoo into my hair.

“Jeffrey Katzenberg?” She said.

I nearly slipped in the tub and cracked my skull.

“WHAT?!?!”

“Yeah, some guy named Jeffrey Katzenberg.  Who is he?”

“KATZENBERG?  JEFFREY KATZENBERG CALLED HERE?”

“Yeah.. and he is….”

“KATZENBERG!  SPIELBERG!  GEFFEN!   DREAMWORKS!  SKG!  KATZENBERG!”  I sputtered and slipped and rinsed and threw on a towel and somehow managed to answer the phone.  “Mr. Katzenberg.. *squeek* Hello sir, how are you…”

We spoke for a bit about the company, what Dreamworks was doing, how exciting it is here, and other things.  I think the conversation lasted all of two minutes, but in that time I was immediately impressed with Jeffrey’s passion for animation, his excitement about the studio, and I knew I wanted to work here.

I’ve been fortunate to have been in meetings with Jeffrey a few times in my nearly 6 years at Dreamworks, and have to say that even though it’s nerve-wracking at times (he IS the big boss, after all), he’s always been really engaging, intelligent, honest, and 99.9% of the time completely correct.  I really value his notes and love the dedication he has to his staff.

Anyway, the article great read & really gives some good insight into his head.  Enjoy!

I’m not going to get into specific [...]]]> As our production has begun, I’ve been talking to our animators about my goals in running the animation department for the show. It’s been an interesting process, one in which I’ve learned a lot about myself, my values, and how I feel our department can be most sucessful.

I’m not going to get into specific tricks and techniques for what we’re going to do (this is a public blog, after all), but I thought others might find it interesting at least to hear what I feel are the 3 areas of focus that are important to having a creative, successful, and happy team dynamic. I think that these values probably apply to almost any team dynamic.

You’ll notice that I’ve labeled each area A, B, and C, not 1, 2, 3, because I don’t think there is a hierarchy as to which area should be considered first.  Each area is of equal importance, and while not every decision one makes can have each area “win”, I believe if each area is considered while making decisions, in the long run you can achieve growth and success in all of them.

Area A: The Best Quality Product

This area of focus is on making the best quality product (whatever it is you’re creating.  In my case, the best animation and acting we can produce).  Here, all of your decisions should be focused on the good of the product.  This include things like – who do you have working on the most key components of your product?  Have you done your research?  What is the end goal?  What tools do you need to reach that goal?  What are the possible pitfalls that can get in the way?   When I started on this show I pictured the end result of what we would need to have a successful show.  What would our rigs need to do?  What specific tools would we need?  Who knowledge would I have needed to have?

Picturing the end result allowed me to work backwards and ask important questions about the features we needed.  If the rigs had to support “x”-feature, then what do I need to do to ensure that could happen?  How much planning do we need to have?  Are the tools even available to support this feature?  Who do I know that can create it?  How much time would it take?

By asking these things at the head of the show, I could build a path and plan on how to ensure we would be ready once the show started.  Knowing that it’s impossible to foresee every eventual hurdle and hiccup, we also created a plan for how to handle problems we don’t know about yet.  It’s important to realize that something will happen that will try and keep you from reaching this goal.  Instead of being surprised and reacting to it, create a plan ahead of time so when it occurs, you have a method for dealing with it that keeps everyone sane and “happy”.

Area B: The Happiest and Most Productive Team

Of course it’s impossible to create a great product without a great team behind it.  This second area of focus is all about your team and how it works together.  You have to think about what THEY need to achieve this goal.  What can you do to help the team morale (always an issue when people are working hard and putting their hearts on the line every day in dailies).  How can you help them grow together, learn to trust each other, and work in harmony?  How can you remove any of the political back-stabbing that can happen in group dynamics and help them nurture each other instead?  How can you ensure that perception of your team is one of compassion, cooperation, and inspiration?

Area C: The Individual

Of course, each team is made up of unique individuals, and if every person isn’t feeling satisfied and creative, then it’s difficult to have the team work successfully.  And if the team isn’t working, then there’s no way you’re going to achieve the best product you can.

I like to think broader than that, though.  I’m not just trying to help animators be great so this particular film is great.  I want the animators to be happy, creative, successful, fulfilled, empowered, and passionate because that’s the kind of environment that I feel is a great place to work.  I want every animator to feel like they’re growing, that there is a future for them, and that they “control” that future.  I know that I always work my best when I feel like I have a personal stake in the results of what I’m doing.  I want every animator to have goals that are greater than their current abilities, and know that they’ve got a team of people supporting and encouraging them to achieve those goals.  Knowing that it’s okay for them to reach and fall, because we’re there to help pick them up and allow them to reach again.  If your team doesn’t feel safe reaching and failing, then they’ll never reach and achieve.

Growth.. personal and professional are important to me.   That’s why we’ve asked each animator to create a list of goals for themselves.. for the show, for their careers, for their personal lives.  They can share it with me or not, but I want them to at least think about it.  Then, they should think about what the next physical action they should take that would help them achieve the goal.  This is actually something I did a few years ago when I was animating on Shrek the Third.  I had a goal to become a supervising animator, but I felt like I didn’t quite have the acting chops to achieve it.  So I thought about what I needed to reach this goal.  I wrote to my Head of Character Animation and my Department Supervisor and said that I had an eventual goal to be a supervisor, but felt like I was lacking in subtle acting ability.  In order to achieve my goal, I wanted to focus more of my animation time on subtle shots so I could learn and grow.  I wrote about what things I would be doing personally to become better in this area, and then asked for their support and the opportunity to try these more challenging shots.   Sure enough, I was given more subtle shots and was pushed beyond my comfort level.  I knew I had their support to grow, and felt okay failing because they were behind me.  It was hard, but I worked at it, and I soon became a supervising animator (and now a Head of Character Animation).

Making Decisions..

As I mentioned earlier, not every decision we make can support each area of focus.  Sometimes we have to give certain shots to animators we know can achieve the level required in the short time we have.   Sometimes we can’t afford a training class for the entire department even though it would be incredibly useful and in the long run would help everyone become stronger.  Sometimes an individual animator’s goal on a particular shot or sequence will not work with our current schedule and we can’t accommodate them.  However, we are always thinking of each area of focus with every decision.  We try hard when there are conflicting goals to find a way to still achieve a desired result by looking at things over the course of time.

Maybe this particular shot can’t go to this particular animator, but we can give that animator two simpler shots, and then on the next sequence we’ll give them the shot that will really push them, and in order to support them in their growth, we’ll make sure the supervisor has extra time put aside to help them and work with them so they’re supported and not just left dangling in the wind.

Maybe once in a while we’d have to work saturdays during crunch in order to get the show done on time, and maybe that means that parents won’t get to see their families as much.. but what if everyone in the department took a few bucks every day and put it in a pot, and then we took some money from the department morale budget and set up a family picnic one saturday every month with food and drinks and games for the kids to play?  And what if we personally thanked all the family members for their understanding and patience?

Maybe we have to make hard decisions that make some people unhappy, or it may take longer to achieve their goals.. but I firmly believe that by focusing on these three areas with every decision, and letting the teams know that we’re actively doing this, we can really help create a creative, supported, artistic, professional, forward-thinking, engaged, successful team that will produce the most amazing work possible.

At least, that’s my thought.

I’d love to hear yours!

You can see the repost here:
http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/the_fear_of_moving_past_blocking/

I thought it was a great idea. I hadn’t actually re-read my post in a [...]]]> A few weeks ago my friend Eric Scheur asked if he could re-post one of my posts about the Fear of Moving Past Blocking to the awesome website http://11secondclub.com.

You can see the repost here:
http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/the_fear_of_moving_past_blocking/

I thought it was a great idea. I hadn’t actually re-read my post in a while, but was very happy to hear that it had a great influence on him & other animators he spoke with. I just read through it now & realized how much relevance it actually has on my latest “obsession”.. trying to better manage my time & prepare for production.

See the show I’m currently Head of Character Animation on starts animation production pretty soon & I’m in the last stages of making sure everything is ready for our crew so we can just kick butt the moment we get our first sequence. There are a lot of little loose ends to tie up, threads to follow, and loops to close and if you take a 40,000 foot look at everything it can become pretty daunting.

Just like trying to move from blocking to spline animation can appear daunting at times.

So I’ve been investigating various task management theories.. the one that’s sticking with me the most is the Getting Things Done methodology that was started by David Allen.  It’s all about creating a process for handling all the various forms of “input” that you get, and then managing that stuff systematically.

What I love about it is that you can take a seemingly daunting task.. say, getting your email inbox to zero, and approach it a step at a time until it’s done.

The other thing I really like about it and this method of moving from blocking to first pass of animation I wrote about is that once you fully commit yourself to this method of working, it totally relieves all your stress about the task you’re working on.  Now that I have this method of animating that I completely adhere to, the only stress I have about my shots is whether or not the animation and ideas are any damn good to begin with.  Not whether or not I have the chops to take them from blocking to first pass, which is where most of my stress was before.

So with this method of handling my inbox, as long as I completely follow it and stick to it religiously, I won’t have any stress about there being any loose ends I’ve dropped, or balls I’ve left untied.  Instead I can focus on the pure excitement of a deadline coming up that we can’t change & the knowledge that my team and I are getting ready as best we can.

For someone who likes to react to things emotionally and intuitively, this systematic stuff is actually pretty cool.

*note:  in case you’re wondering what that picture is.. It’s Alex Wong from the group “The Animators”.  He and I went to elementary school together & is an awesome musician who also likes to draw.

11 for 11 I believe!

Congrats all!!!!!

Animation Tips & Tricks.

My good buddy Kevan Shorey posted some great content on the http://animatinotipsandtricks.com website today.  It’s about using contrast in animation.

For me, contrast is best used when trying to heighten an emotional beat.  For example.. if I’m trying to animate someone being “sad”, what do I do?  How [...]]]>

Animation Tips & Tricks.

My good buddy Kevan Shorey posted some great content on the http://animatinotipsandtricks.com website today.  It’s about using contrast in animation.

For me, contrast is best used when trying to heighten an emotional beat.  For example.. if I’m trying to animate someone being “sad”, what do I do?  How sad do I go?  Does “this” pose represent sad?  What about “this” one?  It isn’t until I show a change from one pose to another that the real emotion comes out.  Sad is only sad when it’s compared to a previous pose.. or contrasted against another emotion all together.

I mean honestly.. if you look at droopy dog, one of the gags is his depressed saying “you know what?  I’m happy..”  Well, maybe to him.. that IS happy.. imagine if he were depressed!

Oh wow.. talk about a great book that every animator should get.

Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures: Walt Stanchfield, Don Hahn: Books.

As a 3d animator, I’ve had many people ask [...]]]>

Oh wow.. talk about a great book that every animator should get.

Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures: Walt Stanchfield, Don Hahn: Books.

As a 3d animator, I’ve had many people ask me what software they should learn, or what school they should go to, or what skills are necessary to be a “3d animator”.  I respond time and time again that the biggest thing they can learn is to observe others, and translate that observation.  Whether it’s acting it out, drawing it, or speaking about it we must be able to create a picture that represents the idea or emotion we are trying to represent.

Sketching is one of the fastest and most effective ways to communicate an idea.  I don’t sketch as often or as well as I should, but I can’t tell you how helpful it’s been to be able to draw to communicate over the years.  Even though I don’t draw my animation, I do use sketches and thumbnails to think about it.  I also will draw a quick eye pose to try and get across an idea to an animator when I’m giving them notes.

Even if you “can’t draw”, you should try and learn some of the tricks and tips that Walt Stanchfield talks about in his notes.  They’ll really help you communicate your ideas!

So after finishing recording of the videos, I decided to record myself creating a walk-cycle with the AFR rig.

Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zrObqm4Fm0

We’re making the most rediculous video of all time.. it’ll either be great, or.. well.. stupid.

Edit:  I finished shooting the video & editing it together.  It’s available on youtube.. and if you purchased the Animator Friendly Rigging DVD series, you’ve seen it.   Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHG0OkCWJ4

Ah, I love it when articles come out touting the awesomeness of new technology and get the facts so wonky that it makes it seem like anything would be possible, if it weren’t for those darn pesky artists!

The New York Times has a new article about Image [...]]]> Orignally posted: Monday, 16 October 2006

Ah, I love it when articles come out touting the awesomeness of new technology and get the facts so wonky that it makes it seem like anything would be possible, if it weren’t for those darn pesky artists!

The New York Times has a new article about Image Metrics, a software company that has figured out a way to make facial motion capture a thing of the past.. they’ve got some crazy 2d image mapping technology which actually captures the SOUL of the actor, not just points on the face.

You can read the article here .

Now I’ve never seen the software work, so I can’t give a “yay” or “nay” either for nor against it.. but I can look at quotes like this:

In a C.G.I. film, he said, “every time someone would say something, banks of people would have to figure out how the lips move, how the eyes move — and it’s not even that good.”

“Now we don’t have to spend three years having people meticulously hand-animate Charlie Sheen’s lines,” he added. “He says, ‘Food fight!’ in real time, live action, and it’s applied, via Image Metrics technology, to the character.”

So whereas a film like “Cars” cost $120 million and took dozens of animators five years to make, Mr. Kasanoff says that “Foodfight!,” which has not yet begun production, will be finished by February.

.. and immediately assume that either the author of the article mis-quoted Kasanoff, or that he really doesn’t understand what it takes to actually create an animated motion picture film.

First of all.. I’m not even going to dignify comments like “banks of people would have to figure out how the lips move, how the eyes move — and it’s not even that good.” with a statement other than “if you hired people who WERE good, then it WOULD be good.”

If you want quality, hire quality.  You’re not going to hire jim-bob-jimmy-hossenfifer to have a major role in a feature film if he can’t act.. why hire crappy animators who can’t act and then be suprised when the work is sub-par?

Second, facial animation is NOT the most time-consuming part of an animated film.  What about art? story?  Layout? Modeling? Rigging? Texturing? Lighting? Rendering?  Effects? Compositing?  Sound? Editing??

Or can we blame the cost of CG movies and the time it takes soley on the animators?

I highly doubt that a film like “Foodfight!” will finish by Feb if it hasn’t begun production yet.

And if it does.. I highly doubt that it will make the money back that it claims it saved by getting rid of a few animators.

BESIDES the fact that you’re immediately going to run into problems when the director decides they want a different “take” on the line than what the actor performed.. which they inevitably do.  What happens then?  Do you get someone else in to act it out?  What if their performance isn’t right?  What if the actor isn’t available?

Sigh.

EDIT: This post was originally written in 2006. It’s now 2009.. I heard that the movie was completed in 2008.. looking forward to seeing it!

My answer, of course, is “you think my acting ideas are good? aww, shucks!”

Actually, coming up with ideas is one of my favorite parts of the animation process. It’s something I [...]]]> One of the things I get asked about quite often from new animators is “how do you come up with good acting ideas”.

My answer, of course, is “you think my acting ideas are good? aww, shucks!”

Actually, coming up with ideas is one of my favorite parts of the animation process. It’s something I think a lot of animators don’t spend enough time focusing on in the beginning of the shot-making process. They’ll usually spend a few minutes thumbnailing ideas, maybe acting things out in video reference, but they won’t really explore the multitude of possibilities. This is especially the case in production where you usually have a very limited amount of time to work on your shots.

What I recommend is trying to set aside some specific time to think about all the various things your characters can do before you even start thumbnailing or shooting video reference.  One way to do this that I heard about from legendary animator Simon Otto is to play the game of “What If”.

What is this magic game, you ask?  Simple.  It’s a technique used to help you free your mind (woah) and think of all the potential possibilities of any situation.  Let’s say, for example, you have a shot where your character has to tie their shoe.  You can either animate the character bending over to tie the shoe and be done with it.. or you can make it really special.

Here’s one way it could go.

What if the character were really old?  What if when they bent down to tie their shoe, their back went out?  What if they were then frozen halfway between standing up and sitting down?  What if just at that moment, a really beautiful woman walked by?  What if they tried to stand up, but only hurt themselves further?  What if they fell over?  What if they didn’t fall over, but fell on the beautiful woman?  What if instead of a beautiful woman coming by, their bus came?  What if A bus came, but they couldn’t tell what bus number it was?  What if they were trying to read the bus number?  What if the bus door closed, just as they realized it was their bus?  What if they were trying to run after the bus, but then tripped on their shoelase?

See how it goes?  Your mind just starts going crazy!  The cool thing is that many of the ideas won’t really be useful, but the exploration, the exercise of opening your mind most definitely will be.

So along with exploring the idea of playing “what if”, I’ve also been looking at using various mind mapping tools to do it.  If you’ve never used a mind mapping tool, they’re pretty cool.  Basicaly a mind map is a diagram representing a series of ideas or thoughts.  Check out more about them on wikipedia.  I’ve been looking into using them to play “what if”.  It’s actually really fun!

As a test, I spent 5 minutes on http://bubbl.us coming up with a quick mindmap for an example where someone drinks a cup of coffee.

As you can see, some paths I explored more than others.  It’s a pretty rediculous situation, but it does a really nice job of letting your mind kind of explore all options.  The cool thing is that you can really adjust the granularity to whatever makes the most sense for your situation.  For example, with the bending down to tie the shoe exercise, you can simply do:

See?  Some much more simple options.

In the end, you may end up making the exact same choices you would have made without this exercise, but at least if you do, you will know that you explored other options and really came up with the best solution.

Ah, and as an added bonus.. here’s a really cool blog conveniently titled.. “what if”.  It’s got some fun ideas, I recommend checking it out!

a number have people have suggested that I repost something I wrote way back in november of 2005..

so here it is..

November 16th, 2005

The more you know, the more fear you have.

Seems [...]]]> Hey folks!

a number have people have suggested that I repost something I wrote way back in november of 2005..

so here it is..

The fear of moving past blocking..

November 16th, 2005

The more you know, the more fear you have.

Seems to be a rule true of many things.. tree climbing for example. Before you know about gravity and how much breaking an arm can hurt, you really don’t worry that much about falling out of the tree, you just sorta climb on up there and monkey around. It isn’t until you see your friend slip and fall and break her arm when you think “ohh.. wait.. this can be painful…” and you start to worry.

The same is true about animation.

When many animators first start animating they just move things around willy nilly, making things go this way.. that way.. etc. They have no fears, they just move things.

Granted, their animations may looks like ass squished up against a large pile of roadkill, but at least they have no fear.

Once an animator learns about the various stages that professional animators use to work through their shots.. i.e. blocking, first pass, second pass, and polishing.. that’s when fear starts to set in.

It’s a pretty frightening prospect to spend a lot of time getting a blocked animation to look right.. make it feel perfect, get the timing all snappy, the poses to sing, and the intention to come across.. and then convert everything to spline and suddenly it feels like total poop.

So many animators have a really hard time making the transition from clean blocking to clean first pass animation.. it’s easy to become overwhelmed and just start throwing keys in randomly to try and make things look good, but they have no plan.. no process.. they know the stages, but they don’t know how to use the stages to their best advantage.

What I like to do is think about animating like painting a room. You want to be creative, but it’s important to be creative within the confines of what the client wants.. and give them the right information at the right time.

For example, if the client says they want a warm room with an accent wall that really brings out some dramatic intensity, a painter wouldn’t run to the room, grab a few buckets of paint, and start mixing them on the wall right away to try and get the right look. If they did that, they wouldn’t be able to guarantee the right color, the right walls that the colors would be on, they’d get paint all over the fixtures in the room, and the client might be pissed off.

No, they’d block things out first.. they’d find the right colors for the walls and show color swatches to the client in the environment they’re looking at. Then once the colors were approved, they’d tape off the fixtures and floors so they don’t have to worry about getting paint on them. Then they’d prep the walls, then paint one coat, then a second coat, then remove all the taping.

They would work in stages, so at the stage they’re currently at.. say painting the first coat of paint.. they’re not worrying about things they should have focused on earlier.. whether or not the paint is the right color, or if they’re getting paint on the floor, or if the walls were prepped. They work systematically.

Animation works the same way.

When we block our shots, what we’re doing is telling the director “This is my intention. I want the character to be here.. thinking this idea.. at around this time. Then they’re going to be over here.” Some shots require more blocking and explanation than others.. but in the end, the whole idea is to let the director know what’s in your head, and make sure that what’s in your head matches what’s in the director’s head.

When you move from blocking to the first pass of animation.. this is where a real systematic approach comes in handy. It’s what allows you to animate quickly and with consistent results that will help the director trust you.

What I like to do is first break my shot up into distinct beats. This doesn’t mean that the shot will stay in this pose-to-pose style.. what it means is that I’m simply breaking my shot down in to easily discernable chunks. All I want to do at this point is move from a step-curved blocking method to a clean, easy-to read first pass. So my shot is of a character sitting who then reaches over to pick up a glass & takes a drink, I’d break up the shot into three sections. Maybe frames 1 to 20 are of the character sitting. Frames 21 to 28 are of him reaching forward to get the glass. 29 to 35 are the character bringing the glass back up to his lips, and 36-45 of the character taking a sip. Now in the final animation, a lot of this motion will be blended together to feel like one solid action, but at this point my desire is to make these general sections feel right.. I want the change in direction to work, and the arcs to work, and I don’t want to be distracted by trying to animate the whole shot the whole time.

So I’ll shorten my timeline from 1 to 45, down to 1 to 20. Then I’ll look at what’s driving the motion. Usually this will be the torso… so my first step is to clean up the torso’s motion and make sure it’s nice and clean.

So I hide the arms and legs. I know that in the end I’ll need them to work correctly, but because what the body is doing affects them, it’s really easy to become distracted by their motion when I really should just be focusing on what the body itself is doing and making that clean.

Then I’ll convert the body curves to “clamped” or “spline”, whatever I feel is going to work best for this motion. I’ll analyze what it is I want the body to do & make notes before starting to move keys around. This way I have a plan. Then I’ll go through curve by curve, adjusting them as necessary to get the feel of the body moving forward to work correctly just for the lean forward. I can’t stress this enough. While I know the whole animation consists of a lot more than just moving forward, that’s all I’m focusing on at the moment.

I’m breaking down the motion into easily digestible chunks.

Once the body is working correctly for that section, then I’ll show the arm which is reaching forward and work with the animation of just that arm for those first 20 frames.

Now this may or may not be the final animation that I’ll be keeping.. all I’m doing is making sure that this section is clean and easy to work with.

Next I would move on to the next section of animation.. say frames 21 through 28 when the character leans back with the glass. So I’d change my frame range to start at 20 and end at 28. Then again, I’d hide the arms and legs and just get the body moving correctly. Then I’d show that main arm and get that working correctly just for the section.

Once those sections are working, I’d move onto the next one.. and continue until I have the animation clean for each individual section. Then I’d playblast the entire thing and watch the whole animation, making notes of what changes I’d need to make for the transitions between sections to clean them up. Maybe it involves delaying the arm, or adding more overlap into the body, or changing a pose, or adding or removing some time.. but at this point it’s easy to make these changes because we’ve gone about the whole thing systematically.

So if you can learn a technique like this.. or come up with something that works for you.. you can start to reduce the fear of going from blocking to first pass animation.. and begin thinking more about acting and the art of animating, instead of sweating the technical details.

I was making a bottle for toby this morning while simultaneously holding him and trying to clean his nose and I realized that ever since I became a father I [...]]]> Along with focusing on time management, becoming a better supervisor, and prepping for the holidays, I am thinking a ton about character development.

I was making a bottle for toby this morning while simultaneously holding him and trying to clean his nose and I realized that ever since I became a father I had picked up a new skill.. Doing complicated actions with one hand.

It’s true.. I can now hold a squirming child with my right arm and with my left I can pour a hot coffee, mix in milk and sugar, put on a lid, and drink away all without dropping the child or spilling my hot tasty beverage.

IF one of the kids does a massive crap (if… I mean WHEN), I can somehow hold them down, distract them with a toy, take off their pants and diaper, keep their feet and shoes OUT of the crap-filled bundle of fun, grab another nappy, shove it under them, hold a doll in front of their face to distract them and keep them from rolling over, grab some wipes, clean up the poo, fold up the old nappy and poo and wipes, put on a new nappy, and redress the child all with far too few hands.

It’s a new skill!

So what does this have to do with animation?

Well, now that I recognize this skill, if I were to be animating a parent, I would know that parents can do more with one hand than non-parents.. So if given the opportunity, I should use that as an actin choice to make the character more believable.

It’s all about making the right acting choices for each individual character.. And the only way you can find out what those acting choices should be is to either live it, talk to someone who lives it, observe someone doing it, or really think about it.

Another thing I can’t wait to try and add to a shot of a parent… The daddy/mommy sway. If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I mean.

<br /> <img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=jasonschleifer-20″ mce_src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=jasonschleifer-20″ alt=”" /><br />  

One of the things I’m working on in my position as Head of Character Animation is learning how to straddle the roles of being a “Coach” and a “Player”. You see, as an animator, my role was to be the best animator I [...]]]>

One of the things I’m working on in my position as Head of Character Animation is learning how to straddle the roles of being a “Coach” and a “Player”. You see, as an animator, my role was to be the best animator I possibly could be. To learn, to grow, to develop as an artist. Sure I would try and help out others as they needed, but mostly I was judged on one thing – my shots. The better I did as an animator, the better I was seen at work. This is pretty common in pretty much every job.. you do your job well, you succeed.

When I got promoted to being a supervisor, I understood that my role had changed, that now I was being judged not just on how I was doing as an animator (since I still had to animate), but also on how my team was performing. If I was kicking-ass and doing great shots but my team was struggling, then I wasn’t doing my job well. I had to learn how to manage and develop my team, help them grow as artists, and help them achieve the results the studio required of them. This meant developing more management skills. An incredibly helpful man told me that a manager’s job is to basically identify and remove the roadblocks and problems that are inhibiting your team from getting their jobs done.

This is the roal of the “coach”. The one on the sidelines doing everything in their power to help their team be the best they can possibly be.

The problem here is of course that it’s difficult for artists to make this transition. When you’ve worked your entire life to become a skilled artist, to feel success when you create a meaningful performance it can be hard to suddenly change your view of success to be that of your team creating great work. It doesn’t sound difficult.. it sounds like what you would expect any manager to do. But it is difficult.. subconsciously you will look at their work and even though you can be proud and satisfied when they do well, there’s a tiny part of you that goes “oh man, I wish I could have done that shot..”.

You won’t be thinking this because you think you could do it better, or because the person didn’t do a good job. You’re thinking it because you miss animating. You miss being able to put 100% of yourself into a shot and get mired in the gritty details.

I’ve seen people respond to this in a number of ways. One way is to completely stop animating and just become a manager. To focus only on supporting your team. To just be a coach.

Some people try and animate through their team. They will give note after note that reflects not necessarily what their animators are trying to achieve, but what they want.

I have found that both of these solutions cause problems. If you’re just a coach, you’re not really supervising and leading your team. Part of being a good supervisor is understanding what it takes to get a shot to a certain level. You have to stay in the game to do this, you need to be animating to keep up your skills. You must be able to give a detailed note of “this finger needs to be delayed by 2 frames, and push the arm here to get this silhouette.”

If you try and animate through your team, you’ve got another big problem.. you’re not letting your animators bring anything to the table. You’re treating them all like assistants. This can work for a little while, but it’s important to remember that your animators are artists. Your goal as their supervisor is two-fold. One, to make the best possible movie ever, and two, to help them grow and achieve their dreams as animators. If you’re just pushing your ideas through they will grow weary, loose interest, and never learn to develop ideas on their own.

The best solution is to be both a “coach” and a “player”. You need to be a “player” (animator) so you can keep up your chops. You need to be able to create animation yourself to be personally artistically satisfied. You also need to be a “coach” (manager) and help your team deliver top quality animation that makes them satisfied. They need to feel supported by you, that you’re helping them achieve their goals and reach their vision. You need to talk to them about what they want to achieve, and then work with them on a long-term plan to reach that goal.

You also must be able to take pride in the work that they achieve that has nothing to do with you. I don’t mean you should take ownership, I mean that you should be satisfied and happy when people on your team perform well. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be able to present the work of a member of your team to your director and say (for example) “Here’s a shot that Bryce has been working on. He and Carlos were talking about how the character would react in this situation, and they came up with this idea. I think they’ve got something exciting going here, what do you think?” and have the director say “That’s GREAT!”.

You may have had nothing to do with this specific shot that bryce and carlos are working on, but by being a supportive and collaborative supervisor, you’ve given them the space to be the best possible artists they can be.

And THAT is something you can definitely be proud of.

Oh, and as for the book listed at the top of the post.. this has been one of the best books I’ve ever read and has really helped me develop as a supervisor and manager. I highly recommend it to anybody who works with other people.

Check this out if you own a chicken!

See more funny videos and funny pictures [...]]]> This is crazy.. it may be something that only animators & riggers get, but check out this crazy chicken-head-ik action. I never knew that chickens worked this way.. I wonder if other birds do the same thing??

Check this out if you own a chicken!

Went to the animation department bbq this weekend.. and aurora got.. well.. filthy.