I'm at the Student Level. How Many Hours Should I Practice? How Many Hours Do I Need to Work at a Professional Level in the US?

This is another difficult question, because the answer is different for everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell writes that it takes, on average, 10,000 hours of practice and study for anyone to become truly proficient at something.

For myself, I just added up on a calculator all the time I spent studying/practicing animation in school (including stuff like figure drawing), time with my mentors, and animating on my own. I added all of that up, and it turns out that my animation education time before landing my dream job at ILM was 18,400 hours.

That might sound daunting, and it clearly took me more than the requisite 10,000 hours, but really we're just talking about 5 years of focused studying in order to have a reel that got me into ILM. I have no idea if that's average, fast, or slow, but we're all going to have different speeds as we study and absorb this animation stuff.

I would guess that the number of hours "necessary" to excel in animation would be radically different from one person to the next. I think the actual number of hours is irrelevant -- what matters is how much you can focus on animation.

For me, especially during the 4 years where I was focusing the most on learning this stuff, animation was my life. If I was awake, I was animating. That literally isn't really much of an exaggeration. I wasn't going out much with friends, I didn't have a girlfriend, I was missing movies I had been excited to see, I didn't get to play the video games I wanted to play, etc. Animation was my life.

Maybe that isn't always the healthiest way to approach something, but it's probably the fastest, and certainly works.

I know not everyone has the option of focusing their whole day on animation - you have families or non-animation jobs and other responsibilities. Well, my advice then is to just focus as much time as you can. If all you can do is 5 hours every night after your kids go to bed, then start spending those 5 hours animating or studying animation.

5 hours a night is 1,780 hours per year. If you manage to squeeze in an extra 10 hours each weekend, then you're talking about 2,300 hours per year, and suddenly that 10,000 hours doesn't seem so far off!

I wish animation was something you could learn in a few months, but it just isn't. It's an endlessly complex art that takes a lifetime to master, and that first 10,000 hours will only get you to the tip of the iceberg. Luckily for us, the rest of that iceberg is a ton of fun to spend that next 100,000 hours exploring!

Hope that helps!
Shawn :)

Guest Blogger Shawn Kelly

By: Unknown On 13.51

Continue Reading

What's the Most Rewarding Thing about Being an Animator?

That's a really great question, and something I've been struggling with lately, to be honest.

I mean, there are all sorts of easy answers...The excitement of getting to work with artists who inspire you, or the joy of finding such an amazing group of friends in this industry, the thrill of sitting next to your family as you see your name in the credits, or the creative stimulation from the ever-changing challenges you're presented with...

The truth, though, is that the last year especially, I've been feeling like my contribution to the world as an animator is... well, not as great as it could be were I to jump ship and throw myself into something else. Something more "meaningful." Building houses, becoming a doctor, joining the Peace Corps, HELPING people in some way. In any way.

It seems like every other person I meet is a nurse or a doctor or a social worker or a counselor or something who's directly impacting the lives of the people around them in a tangible way. I'm so envious of what they do and their accomplishments and it really has been making me feel like our accomplishments pale in comparison in such a glaring and overwhelming way.

Don't get me wrong, I *love* animation. I'm as passionate about this stuff now as I ever have been, and know darn well that I've been blessed and lucky beyond anything I deserve in this industry. I love animating, I love talking about animation, and I love meeting and getting to know animators. This job is crazy inspiring artistically, and more fun than anyone should have in a "job."

But how can I meet a firefighter and think that what I do matters in any real way compared to the lives he saves on a weekly basis?

I won't lie – it's had me down. I don't know how many of you have felt the same way, but I suspect many of you have thought about this... We don't have a lot of time here on this ball of Earth, and I want to know that I spent it well, you know?

At least that's how I was feeling this week until I had dinner with an old friend of mine who reopened my eyes to what we are truly doing.

He reminded me of an experience we both shared. When we were 5, we both separately saw Empire Strikes Back, and it changed our lives in a very real way. It gave us a passion for storytelling, and a dream to help create new worlds.

He pointed out that while we may not be building someone a house today, we might just help inspire a whole new generation of dreamers and storytellers. That there are 5 year olds out there just like us, with piles of creativity just waiting to be unlocked by a film or TV show or game that knocks their socks off and lights a fire within them, just as we were blown away by Empire, Nimh, Jurassic Park, and Toy Story. And those 5 year olds in turn will grow up to tell a whole new batch of stories and create lasting works of art that could uplift and inspire countless others, not to mention the possibility of taking the art form we love to a whole new level as future animators.

This also got me thinking about how most animators work on projects whose primary goal is to entertain an audience, and thus distract them from their daily miseries and troubles. Storytelling in all its forms has always served to help people escape their sadnesses, their illnesses, their fears, and their disappointments. While hiding from the difficult truths that hound our daily lives isn't generally the best way of dealing with them, I do think that temporary reprieves from those troubles are an important part of coping with them, absorbing them, and getting ready to move on from them.

And so, in yet another way, storytelling does serve a very important purpose, and one we can be proud to be a part of!

On top of that, we also occasionally get to be a part of a project that enlightens. Whether it's a film helping the audience broaden their worldview, a TV show teaching children to be selfless, or even the most action-packed video game forcing us to confront the consequences of violence; all of these mediums have the potential to be powerful methods to make people think and feel.

Of course, sometimes (many times, even) a story merely serves to excite and entertain and isn't very concerned with any particular message, and that's fine too. For those projects, we can feel good about still giving people the escape they need, and hopefully the inspiration they might not even have known they needed.

So, what's the most rewarding thing about being an animator? I guess it's the chance to inspire, the chance to teach, the chance to spread some laughter, and the chance to give an escape to people to desperately need it, even if only for a couple hours.

Thanks to my friend for reminding me that animation IS more than just having fun bringing something to life. I thought others out there might need a similar reminder, and when I saw this question come through from the blog, it seemed like a perfect chance to share.

So get out there and inspire/teach/entertain/rescue someone!!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.08

Continue Reading

What’s the Most Difficult Aspect about the Animation Process?

That's actually a really hard thing to answer, because we each have our own strengths and weaknesses. What's hard for me may be easy for you, or vice versa, and sometimes that doesn't even have much to do with our different levels of experience. There are certain aspects of this art that you might always struggle a little harder with, and others that might come more naturally to you.

Judging from the vast majority of demo reels and animation clips I see, however, I would say that people struggle most with the body mechanics overall. I see a lot of clips that have interesting acting choices, or cool eye animation or whatever, but none of it matters because their weight and balance are all off, or the anticipations aren't there, or the hips aren't leading the actions, or the shoulders don't move, or the overlap and follow-through is wrong, or (most commonly) the arcs are a jumbled and confused mess with sharp angles on the paths of action of the limbs, etc.

Any or all of these (and many others, of course) can contribute to the body mechanics feeling wrong, and this is the main reason I tend to recommend that people avoid dialogue shots until they have really spent some time honing their physical skills, and have created a few really solid physical action tests for their demo reel. I recommend focusing on the "ing" for a while. Anything ending in "ing." Get some shots of kicking, throwing, punching, falling, dying, lifting, climbing, jumping, etc. "Speaking" is the only "ing" I would avoid for a while, until your other "ings" are rock-solid.

THEN, and only then, are you ready to dive into the giant quagmire that is "Speaking."

Thanks for writing in, I hope that was helpful!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 11.11

Continue Reading

Animation Is a Never-ending Process, but What Are a Few Things Animators Are Expected to Know?

That's a great question!

You're definitely right that this is a never-ending journey of education. It encompasses darn near every conceivable aspect of life in one way or another, so there is just no way to "know everything" about animation.

However, there are certainly many things that any studio would expect an incoming animator to know. This would change a bit, depending on the level of animator they are hiring (they would certainly expect a much broader level of ability from an incoming Senior Animator than a new Junior Animator), but for the most part, they would be looking for different levels of experience within the same general skill set.

I would say that any animator looking for work should be expected to understand the infamous 12 principles of animation and how they apply to the medium that animator is working in. But that's only the beginning. In addition, the animators should be expected to understand how those principles all work together and interrelate. How they come together to explain and decipher "body mechanics" in general. How the concepts of internal and external "force" create momentum, and how those forces are more important to the creation of a dynamic pose than the actual body parts or "form" is.

Any professional animator should know how the body works. Period. What moves what, and WHY. Not just that the hips shift this way or the shoulders shift that way when you're lifting this or throwing that, but WHY those shifts and rotations are happening. This is key to being able to create these movements on your own, and understand how to fix your work when you get into a pinch and something just doesn't feel right.

Any junior animator should also have some understanding of acting, subtext, how to use blinks to create thought process and emotion, and how to communicate an idea through clarity, posing, and timing.

Finally, I think it's safe to assume that any studio looking for animators would expect them to be eager, easy to work with, and hungry to learn. For me, that's just as big a prerequisite as understanding arcs or overlapping action!

Hope that helps! I know that sounds like a lot of stuff to know, and in some ways I'm only just scratching the surface with the basics here, but as you say, learning animation IS a life-long journey, and you have to have a strong and solid and WIDE foundation of knowledge upon which to build.

For me, the stuff above is that basic foundation, and it's all essential stuff.

Thanks for visiting the blog!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 14.49

Continue Reading

How Does an Animation Supervisor of a Big Studio like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky Plan the Distribution of the Shots Done by the Animators?

How does an animation supervisor of a big studio like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky plan the distribution of the shots done by the animators? By sequence, by shots, by continuity shots, by animator's abilities?

This probably depends a lot on the size of the studio, the size of the animation crew, and the diversity of experience levels on that crew. The smaller the studio, the less options available to the supervisor, and the more likely it is that the animators may be thought of as interchangeable artists.

However, you ask about the larger studios, and you're right that it's treated differently.

The larger studios have the luxury of a larger animation crew, probably with a somewhat diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. The process that you're asking about (handing out shots) is often referred to as "casting" at these types of studios, and that's exactly how many of these studios approach the process.

They often view the assignment of animation shots or characters as "casting" those animators in the role that they are most appropriate for. Someone who's shown great comedic timing in the past may be cast to work on a lot of shots that feature comedy relief, for example. Or someone who's shown that they have amazing body mechanics might get cast on a lot of fight scenes.

However, many other factors come into play with casting, and it's rarely as defined and simple as I laid out above. While the goal for any of these larger studios is to use their crew as efficiently as possible, many other factors are considered. Among these would be:

• What the animator is most passionate to work on

• What the schedule and budget allows or forces

• Scene difficulty level vs. animator skill level

• What the surrounding shots are

• Crunch time

These are all important factors, and in any good studio, all would play a role to some degree in the casting of shots.

Near the end of a project, though, crunch time and deadlines increasingly become the deciding factor in crewing a shot or sequence. The project has a deadline, and when it really gets into the final weeks or months of a project, the most important deciding factor in casting becomes availability. Who is free to work on this? If the Supervisor feels that their talent level is sufficient, and they are done with their other shots, they'll probably get thrown onto whatever shot is next in line, regardless of any of the other considerations.

This is totally normal. Many projects at many studios start out by casting long strings of sequential shots to one animator, but by the end, it's natural for the schedule to force a more scatter-shot approach in order to hit the looming deadline.


Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.17

Continue Reading

Have You Ever Tried the Layered Approach with Something Where the Foot Placement Is a Little Less Flexible?

Have you ever tried the layered approach with something where the foot placement is a little less flexible? Like walking down stairs. Maybe it doesn't make any difference?

Generally, the foot placement in any scene is pretty well thought-out and planned in advance, but you're right that some scenes are more specific and others can certainly be more flexible.

However, the "hide the legs" layered approach isn't about just animating the upper body and then letting the feet fall wherever they may. You should pretty much know exactly where those feet are going to end up and exactly what your poses are going to look like. Where the layered approach helps more is with the TIMING of the feet rather than the position or posing. If the upper body feels correct in its timing, then that can help you know when to lift and plant the feet, but the actual posing of the legs should be something you've already planned out ahead of time.

Going downstairs is particularly exact, I suppose, but I think the layered "hide the legs" approach is something I would still likely use in a scene like that. I recently did a scene of a character climbing up something somewhat steep, and the foot placement was relatively inflexible, but the process seemed to work fine. It did require a little bit more back and forth than normal, though.

For something like going down a series of stairs, I would probably still hide the legs, animate the upper body going down the stairs until the timing felt correct, and then show and animate the legs. Most likely, I would have to readjust the upper body slightly here and there to accommodate the legs, so there would definitely be some back and forth, but overall I think it could still be useful, and certainly simplifies the blocking process.

And again, the "hide the legs" approach is something I would only recommend to those of you who have been animating for at least a few years already. You need the experience to be able to visualize ahead of time how the legs are going to be working, where the footfalls will likely be, etc.

Hope that helps!


Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.47

Continue Reading

How Do You Go About Planning an Action that Already Has a Camera Moving?

Ah, the camera. Sometimes it's your best friend, and other times it's your worst enemy.

The camera is a very interesting part of what we do because it's one of the things that changes the workflow between different mediums. In hand-drawn animation, you're actually drawing the camera move and having to consider that move along with your character movements. In stop-mo, you're moving that camera one frame at a time. And then in CG animation, you have in-game videogame animation, live-action feature animation (such as Transformers) and all-CG work (cinematics, feature animation, etc.).

With in-game videogame work, you often have to animate as though the player can place the camera anywhere they want! Obviously, this is very tricky for the animator, and means that you really have to work hard to make sure that your animation works as well as possible from all angles.

With live-action feature work, the camera is usually locked, for the most part. If you're putting a giant robot into a scene that has already been filmed in the real world, with a real environment and real actors, then the camera is generally impossible to change or edit. If it's important to the scene and the studio has enough of a budget to allow for an altered camera (which would mean painting in a new background frame-by-frame), then every once in a while you can add a camera move or something, but this is pretty rare.

Because of that, part of your job as a live-action animator is to carefully create your character's performance in a way that makes it feel as though he was in the scene when it was filmed. If the camera moves, then you need to have your character move a little bit ahead of time, so it feels like the camera-man is following your action with his camera, etc. This is an art, in and of itself, and can often be an extremely challenging aspect of a scene, particularly an action-heavy scene with an active dynamic camera. It's fun, though! It's a big puzzle to put together.

For all-CG work (feature animation, cinematics, etc.), the camera is usually created by a layout department or camera department, but can also often be edited (or created) by the animator. In these cases, it is always best to try to determine your complete camera move ahead of time, and if at all possible, try to have that camera move approved and locked down.

You'll want to approach any scene with an eye towards staging and composition, silhouette and clarity. This is largely impossible to do without knowing exactly where your camera is, and how it will be moving.

If it is up to you to create the camera, then, my advice is to figure out your camera moves ahead of time (using just pawn animation, or the simplest of rough blocking), and to avoid starting any "real" animation until that camera is at least tentatively approved.

Hope that helps!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 13.36

Continue Reading

Why Don't We Teach More Styles of Animation?

Hi everyone!

Wow, can you believe yet another year has gone by? And what a year it's been! We've seen so many amazing animated projects this year, from feature films (including major stop-motion AND hand-drawn releases!) to TV to some incredible videogames. The school has continued to not only be a personal passion for me, but has evolved into the most inspiring thing I've ever been a part of. The newsletter is cooler than ever, and our Tips and Tricks blog is jam-packed with amazing contributors and great feedback from the community!

It seems like just yesterday I was trying to decide what my first newsletter article should be about, and here we are, five years and 50 billion words later (sorry), and animation remains just as deep and endlessly interesting as ever for me. Hopefully, you feel that way too!

So – if you're up for celebrating yet another year of these articles with me, here's the plan. Grab a snack, whip up a Bacardi Anejo & Coke (mmm), and clink your glass against the screen for a virtual celebratory toast!

I got a great question via the blog from someone who is a big Animation Mentor fan, but has some legitimate concerns and questions that I felt were worth addressing, so if you're up for another way-too-long Kelly article, take a big gulp of your drink and let's dive in!

Does Animation Mentor run the risk of homogenizing online animation education, or even animation education in general? You would have to concede that AM has become a huge presence when it comes to the online animation scene. And while I appreciate that the tutors come from a broad range of backgrounds (if different feature studios could be called a broad range), the information does all come through a similar set of channels and systems. In spite of the diversity it is fair to say that an AM student generally create animation with a recognizable feel to it, and I don't just mean because we all know what the rigs look like, I'm talking about the posing, timing and spacing etc. Some might argue that its just "good" or "better" animating, but I'm afraid I don't accept that, I've been around long enough to know that there are so many different ways of approaching animation and many different kinds of movement that can be considered appealing.

Great question, right?

I'll be the first to say that there are many appealing and fun styles of animation, and none is more artistically valuable than any other. While the most experimental or stream-of-consciousness styles of animation may not have much demand in the workplace (as they don't tend to be as focused on storytelling, performance, and often aren't even character-based), the art behind those abstract styles is certainly beautiful and can even be moving.

So I think it's a valid question to ask: Why do we focus on teaching the style of animation we do?

Well, I'll say this: We're here to help people get jobs. That's it. That's our mission. Our entire school is based around the goal of giving our graduates the best possible chance at competing for the top animation jobs in the world. The type of animation we teach is by far the dominant and most popular "style" of animation out there today. We teach the range of styles found in nearly every modern animated project I can think of from popular culture, from Snow White to Lilo & Stitch, from Harryhausen to Transformers, from Zelda to Assassin's Creed to any iPhone game featuring a moving character – all of these and everything in between falls within the curriculum we teach at Animation Mentor.

We teach what is classically considered "character animation," and we keep our focus as tight as possible in order for our students to get the maximum bang for their buck in the shortest possible amount of time. I agree that teaching other styles could broaden some minds and expose students to more abstract artistic approaches, but in the end, it comes down to what they want from their education.

If their goal is to work at a big animation studio, then the abstract stuff would be an expensive distraction and a waste of their time. The cold truth is that 99% of the studios out there, regardless of medium, are not looking for demo reels filled with explosions of colors flying around or short films that they don't understand. They're looking for reels filled with personality, entertaining animation choices, rock-solid body mechanics, and clear emotional performances.

So that's exactly what we teach.

The principles of animation that we teach at Animation Mentor transcend style or medium. They are applicable to the wackiest of characters and to the most underplayed performance. The exaggeration or under exaggeration of these principles is what results in the zany Looney Tunes characters, the fantastical Miyazaki characters, the more subtle Disney characters, the exaggerated motions of some European characters, and the life-like performance of a character like Davy Jones. All of these styles are done by animators employing the exact same set of principles and skills, simply using them in slightly different amounts.

It's like you have a huge set of ingredients, and you can mix and match all of them in order to create any style of animation. While some may be more tasty than the others, it's the ingredients we teach, and the particular studios and projects themselves are the chefs demanding any given recipe. And those recipes often change at least somewhat from one project to the next!

As such, we encourage our students to work in a "recipe" that is the most broadly appealing and commonly used recipe out there. (Once again, if the goal is to get a job, your demo reel better show a style of animation that makes it clear to recruiters that you know all the ingredients that go into the recipe). This style we encourage lives somewhere between ILM and Disney, but it's a nice balance that shows recruiters that the animator has the chops to handle any style.

However, that said, we don't force animators to work in any particular style. It is up to them to choose the style they would like to work in. Many of our international students choose to work in a style that is found more locally to them, and we certainly encourage that. In most cases, their first animation jobs will likely be local to where they live, and we want them to have the best possible chance at landing that animation job!

I do have to disagree with your premise that there is no "good" animation or "bad" animation. I believe that there are certainly varying styles of animation, and that "bad" animation in one style could be "good" animation in another (or vice versa. Try putting Mr. Incredible into Transformers and he's going to stand out like a sore thumb. Or go ahead and put Optimus Prime into The Incredibles – he's going to look stiff and lifeless! However, if you are talking about animation that a hopeful job applicant is going to put onto a demo reel, there is absolutely "good" and "bad" animation.

You are almost never going to be standing next to a recruiter as they review your work, so there will be no opportunity to say, "I know that looks kind of weird, but I made the character off balance on purpose to subtly emphasize their emotional imbalance." Nope. They'll see the character's balance is "wrong," and toss your reel in the "no thanks" pile.

Even if that studio miraculously happened to be crewing up for a film that actually featured a character that is off balance, I *still* think that this demo reel would be denied because they would still simply assume that you don't know what you're doing.

So, while experimental animation can be fascinating and engaging, and while there is a great diversity of animation styles out there, our school is designed to prepare our graduates for the type of animation that studios are actually recruiting for.

We're here to help them get their dream jobs, and what we've found is this: If you take some of the brightest animators in the world and have them mentor and prepare students at the highest possible level, then no matter what studio or medium they end up working in, they will be ready to hit the ground running and excel.

As for your other question of whether or not I feel that we are running the risk of changing animation education in general, I sure hope so!

Too many students at too many schools are throwing their money away on educational programs that are not preparing them in any way for today's high-level job market. In some cases, we're talking about students losing US$100,000 or more, which really makes me angry considering the shockingly small amount of actual animation instruction they received for that amount of money, and the sad state of the demo reels they leave their schools with.

Sure, there are very few experimental abstract animators out there who are happy to pay for a non-traditional animation education, knowing full well that while they may not be truly trained to work in today's animation industry, because they will be pursuing a personal artistic endeavor instead. I think that is fantastic, and will be eager to see what these artists create in the coming years. However, the people that can afford to pursue a style of art that will at best severely limit their job options, are few and far between, and are just not the students that are interested in attending Animation Mentor.

Experimental and abstract animation is a worthy pursuit, but Animation Mentor is not a hobbyist school. We aren't here to teach people who are casually interested in animating in their spare time to create pieces they only show to their moms or submit to the occasional film festival. There's NOTHING wrong with that, but that just isn't what we're here for, and it isn't what our students are paying for.

We're here to teach people who have a passion to reach Disney or ILM or Valve. We're a serious school teaching serious students, and I just don't think it'd be right to slow down their education by distracting them with types of animation that there is sadly little demand for in the job market.

I'd encourage any student to pursue any art or style or medium of animation that interests them, but for us to force our students to spend a single day on something that doesn't take them a step closer to their dream job is just something that I think is fundamentally wrong, even immoral! We would be sinking to the level of the schools who are only in it for the money, and it would make us no better than these schools that we are specifically trying to be a positive alternative to.

Thanks again for the great question! I love that you guys all care so much about not only our school, but about this amazing art in general!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.37

Continue Reading

How Does an Animation Supervisor of a Big Studio Like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky Plan the Distribution of the Shots Done by the Animators?

How does an animation supervisor of a big studio like ILM, Pixar or Blue Sky plan the distribution of the shots done by the animators? By sequence, by shots, by continuity shots, by animators's abilities?

This probably depends a lot on the size of the studio, the size of the animation crew, and the diversity of experience levels on that crew. The smaller the studio, the less options available to the supervisor, and the more likely it is that the animators may be thought of as interchangeable artists.

However, you ask about the larger studios, and you're right that it's treated differently.

The larger studios have the luxury of a larger animation crew, probably with a somewhat diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. The process that you're asking about (handing out shots) is often referred to as "casting" at these types of studios, and that's exactly how many of these studios approach the process.

They often view the assignment of animation shots or characters as "casting" those animators in the role that they are most appropriate for. Someone who's shown great comedic timing in the past may be cast to work on a lot of shots that feature comedy relief, for example. Or someone who's shown that they have amazing body mechanics might get cast on a lot of fight scenes.

However, many other factors come into play with casting, and it's rarely as defined and simple as I laid out above. While the goal for any of these larger studios is to use their crew as efficiently as possible, many other factors are considered. Among these would be:

• What the animator is most passionate to work on
• What the schedule and budget allows or forces
• Scene difficulty level vs. animator skill level
• What the surrounding shots are\
• Crunch time
  

These are all important factors, and in any good studio, all would play a role to some degree in the casting of shots.

Near the end of a project, though, crunch time and deadlines increasingly become the deciding factor in crewing a shot or sequence. The project has a deadline, and when it really gets into the final weeks or months of a project, the most important deciding factor in casting becomes availability. Who is free to work on this? If the Supervisor feels that their talent level is sufficient, and they are done with their other shots, they'll probably get thrown onto whatever shot is next in line, regardless of any of the other considerations.

This is totally normal. Many projects at many studios start out by casting long strings of sequential shots to one animator, but by the end, it's natural for the schedule to force a more scatter-shot approach in order to hit the looming deadline.

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.44

Continue Reading

How Do You Animate a Fight?

How do you animate a fight? Do you animate both characters at the same time, or one and then the other?

This is a great question! As with any question regarding workflow, there's no "etched-in-stone" answer, just personal preferences and opinions...

However, for me, I'll tackle a fight scene with a mix of methods. My workflow would assume that you have referenced characters you can turn on/off, but you could also do something similar by importing one character into a scene, saving it, and then deleting him and working the other character for a while, re-importing that first character, re-saving, etc.

Basically, I would first do all my reference, study, and planning. Ideally, I'll already know the timing, actions, and fight choreography before I fire up my computer at all. I highly recommend careful planning in all scenes, as you all know, but especially for multi-character scenes with complex choreography. And if those characters are going to physically be interacting with each other? Holy moly - unless you've been animating professionally for quite some time, I really recommend some serious planning before stepping into that minefield.

A fight scene is about as complicated as you can get with physical action, because not only do all of your characters need to move believably, with solid body mechanics and weight, but they will need to each be reacting to the other - both physically and emotionally in the performance.

Obviously, with the complexity here, it's natural to wonder which character you should animate first, or how to approach this scene in the first place.

For me, I start with both characters at the same time, but would use a more limited blocking method to begin with. I'll have both characters in the scene, but I wouldn't block in every key and breakdown yet. Instead, I'll first block in any key moments where the characters interact (getting hit, kicked, throwing, landing, falling, facing off, etc), and otherwise I'd keep things really rough.

Once you have both characters roughed in - with a careful eye towards composition and clear staging - now you can ditch one of those characters and get to work really fleshing out one character at a time. They should generally be in the correct position, so you're pretty safe to really block them in and work out all your keys and breakdowns.

Once your first character is looking pretty good, it's time to bring in his opponent and check your staging. Make any necessary adjustments to get your second character repositioned or retimed to match your new animation, and then go ahead and hide or remove the first character.

The goal here, of course, is to have a scene that you can interact quickly with, and the more characters you have in a scene, the slower it's going to be to work with.

Get that second character fleshed out, and then bring back in your first character.

Now it's all about getting into the nitty gritty details of how the two are interacting. You'll probably need to keep both characters open during this phase, and really work out the precise contact points, timing, reactions, etc. This is when you'd really flesh out any constraints and physical interactions between the two.

That'd be my workflow - hopefully it's helpful!


Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.30

Continue Reading

Do All Animation Principles Apply to All Types of Animation?

Yes!

That's the short answer, but if there's one thing we've learned over the years here, it's that I can't just give short answers, so here's some rambling for ya...

Animation is an art, and what you're talking about (the principles of animation, such as arcs, overlap, path of action, etc) are the foundation of the ART behind bringing a character to life.

When you say "types" of animation, I assume you are referring to the different mediums of animation, such as CG, hand-drawn, or stop-motion. I'd even argue that performance-capture is evolving into its own medium, with its own set of challenges, nuances, and workflow necessary to turn performance capture into something that feels alive and entertaining.

All of these mediums are simply different tools that animators use to create their art. That's all they are - TOOLS. They are the means to an end for the artists, and the storyteller chooses whichever medium will best serve the story (or the producers choose whichever medium will best serve their pocketbooks, in many cases).

Do the principles of art employed by a good photographer (including lighting, shadow, angles, composition, exposure, focus, etc) change depending on their camera? Do they use their same knowledge of exposure and focus on a digital SLR vs. a traditional 35mm camera? Of course they do. They're an artist simply using different tools to tell the same story through their art, using the same exact artistic skills they've honed throughout their career.

Are there different technical details they need to learn, though? Sure there are! Each camera will work a little bit differently, the glass in the lenses will react differently to light, the functions, dials, and buttons will be placed differently, etc. However, learning the location these buttons and controls is easy compared to the years of dedicated practice and learning required to truly master photography.

Animation is exactly the same. Each medium has its own technical challenges and unique workflow, but the art - and more importantly, the principles behind that art - remain exactly the same.

Even if you only look at CG animation as an example, you could still compare it to the challenges our photographer faces when picking up a new camera. If you're newer to animation, you have maybe only learned one 3D animation program so far, and the idea of being thrown into an unfamiliar software package probably scares the pants off of you. But guess what? It's just like the cameras we discussed, and learning a new program will be nothing more than relearning the location of all the same buttons and functionality, which will essentially remain the same.

You'll need to relearn how to move your character, how to save keys, and how to edit those keys. These are software-specific methods you could learn in a matter of hours, or at worst, a few days. A trifle compared to the years necessary to master the fundamentals of animation.

Comparing mediums is very similar to comparing software packages. Each medium requires some serious dedication to learn the intricacies of that specific medium (you won't be able to do strong 2D animation until you master drawing, perspective, form, etc), but the fundamentals of the art remain exactly the same. The principles that take so much study and practice do not change between mediums.

Animation is animation, regardless of the medium or the tool. If you're new to this stuff, my advice is to choose your favorite medium, choose your favorite program/tool, and then just dive in and ignore everything else until you've mastered the ART. Then you can start fiddling around with different tools and mediums again.

The important thing as a student is that you learn the fundamentals of body mechanics and performance and storytelling. Once you have armed yourself with these skills, you can learn any medium or software package in relatively short order.

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.10

Continue Reading

What Is "Layered" Animation and How Does It Work? Is It Good / Better for Human Characters?

Layered animation generally refers to the idea of blocking in one part or section of the body at a time. One example would be animating the up/down of the hips in a walk first, and nailing down that timing since it's going to affect every other aspect of the walk. Once you have that, you could then do another "layer" of animation by animating the torso of the character. Maybe then you'd do the feet. Then the arms and wrists. Then the head.

All of those layers will combine to form one walk.

The trick here is to do it in such a way that the overall finished walk feels like ONE character. You want all these different "layers" of animation to come together to form one cohesive action, with the different parts of the body being driven, pushed, pulled, and rotated by the other parts of the body.

Our bodies are incredibly inter-related and connected throughout. You cannot do a big and fast arm motion without moving your shoulder, chest, head, and probably your hips and other arm.

There is nothing wrong with the layered approach, but it requires a very deep understanding of the way the body works together (something I often refer to here as "body mechanics") in order to have a finished piece of animation that feels like one cohesive body. It requires careful planning, reference, observation, and a fair amount of adjusting the different layers to work properly each other.

Personally, I use a layered approach when diving into a scene with a lot of action. If a character needs to walk a long way, climb something, and then jump down - I'll probably use the Glenn McIntosh "hide the legs" approach, which helps me not get too distracted when I'm working in a layered way. (If you haven't read my article about hiding the legs, you can read it here and then come back!)

Basically, I'll create a new layer in Maya, add the legs to it, and hide that layer. Now I've got a floating legless character. I'll grab that character by the root or whatever it is that moves the character but not the legs, and animate just that thing through the whole scene. I'll work on just that root node until the general timing is worked out as far as where that character will be, when the general up/downs will be from the footsteps, etc.

Then I'll leave the legs hidden, and pose the upper body (torso, arms, head, etc), knowing in my mind or from my thumbnails how I'll eventually want the legs to work in that pose. Remember - this is all largely planned out ahead of time, and I'll know 100%, at least in my head, what that pose is exactly going to look like when it's finished. I'm not "exploring" at this phase, I've already made most of my animation decisions and am simply inputting them into the computer.

Last, I'll turn those legs on, and the leg animation is much easier than normal now, since their movement and timing is completely dictated by the body animation whose timing I already am happy with. If the leg is about to hyperextend, then that simply means it's time to lift it up off the ground and do a step. There will obviously be a bit of back-and-forth here, touching up the timing and placement of the hips to make sure everything is just right, but overall this method has served me well for action shots.

The whole point of the method above is to block in the part of the body that will define the movements of the rest of the body (the hips and torso), as well as whatever part of the body audience will see most - you do that FIRST, in the layered approach.

For any scene where the character stays generally in one area of the frame - smaller actions, acting, etc - in those scenes I'll do a pose-to-pose approach where I'm posing out the whole body and saving a key on every possible controller on those key poses and breakdown poses.

In my opinion, the layered approach is far more difficult for newer animators, and my advice to anyone who hasn't been professionally animating for a few years already would be to stick with the pose-to-pose approach, using heavy reference, research, thumbnails, etc.

However, I will say that for more advanced students or professional animators, the layered approach is worth trying to see if it's something you connect with. Be extra vigilant, however, that the end result doesn't feel like a bunch of disconnected body parts that have been animated individually! You want one cohesive character as your end result, and don't give up until you have it!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.51

Continue Reading

Do You Need a Formal Education to Get Work as an Animator?

Do you need a formal education to get work as an animator? Does it help if you have a college degree?

Note: A college degree can be very helpful (and often essential) in securing a work visa when moving from one country to another. The below article is primarily meant for animators looking for work in their home country, or countries where they are free to work. :)

I hear questions like this a lot, and usually tend to avoid answering them on the blog because the answer sounds so self-serving as a co-founder of an online school, but I hear it so often that I guess it deserves a spot on the ol' tips and tricks blog...

First, I'll say this: having a college education is great. It sure doesn't hurt you in any way, may open your mind to new artistic avenues you may not have found otherwise, and a degree does at least show that you have the tenacity to finish a challenging task that you started.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for college graduates.

That said, at least in the US and at most major animation studios worldwide, your chances of being hired as an animator are dependent entirely on your demo reel, your interview, your reputation, and your geographic location for certain countries or studios.

I would say that 95% of the time, the recruiters and animation supervisors couldn't care less where you went to school or if you finished. What they care about is that your demo reel is jam-packed with jaw-dropping animation and that you will be easy and fun to work with.

Some schools enjoy a very strong reputation which does help recruiters stand up and take an extra bit of notice, and I'm proud to say that Animation Mentor has become foremost among them. Having AM or another well-respected animation school's name on your demo reel can help get that reel into the right hands or get the recruiter to pop it into the dvd player, just as a strong credit-list on a resume will help move your reel to the top of the pile. However, there is no school you can put on your resume that will even slightly overshadow poor animation on your demo reel.

It's really ALL about your demo reel.

I would say 90% of whether or not you get a job is based on your reel. The other 10% is your reputation, interview, and geographic factors. I would say your college degree will affect the job position at major animation studios in the US by roughly 0%.

Which I guess brings up the question of whether or not you can learn animation without a formal animation education at all.

The answer is yes - you can learn animation without going to school for it, but you better be remarkably naturally talented, heavily plugged in to a lot of animation resources, and willing to spend three or four times as long learning this stuff. It can certainly be done, but without a mentor or solid animation curriculum being taught by very experienced animators, it's going to be slow-going to the point where most people will give up before reaching their goal.

Animation is unbelievably intricate, to the point where a lifetime of study will still only scratch the surface of this stuff, so if you have the option of attending a school, I'd strongly recommend it as long as their animation program is well-respected and you will have teachers and mentors with a lot of experience actually working in the field.

If that is simply not an option, then the next best thing would be to plug yourself into some online animation communities such as CG-CHAR, the 11-second club, and so forth. Find people who you can get feedback from (and give feedback TO, which is JUST as important to your education!). Pick up some great animation books, find some free characters you can work with, and create a disciplined schedule for yourself that will push you and give you the time and opportunity to practice, practice, practice!

At the end of the day, that animation job is going to based almost entirely on whether or not your demo reel knocks their socks off, and they most likely won't care a bit whether or not you have an official college degree.

You can take it from me. I'm a college dropout.

Yup, that's right - I don't have a degree either. I saw that my college wasn't teaching me what professionals were telling me I needed to know in order to work as an animator, so I got the heck out of there, found a mentor (thanks Wayne!!!!), and got to work learning this art the way it's meant to be learned.

Anyway, if you want to be an animator, you know what you really have to do? Animate. That's it. Everything else is just helping you do that one thing better and better, but the key is to sit down and ANIMATE. Bring a character to life, and then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again. Each time, the character should feel more and more alive, as you learn from your mistakes and successes.

I won't pretend that trying to do this on your own will be easy or fast, or that Animation Mentor wouldn't accelerate your learning by an incredible margin, but there are self-taught people out there who animate circles around me, so it's certainly possible!

Whatever you choose to do, know that you don't have to spend a fortune on a degree to succeed in this business. What you need is a demo reel that will stand out above the crowd with perfect body mechanics, dynamic scenes, emotional and communicative acting performances, and entertaining and memorable scenes!

There are many paths that can lead to that demo reel, and it's up to each of us to find the path that best fits our own needs and time-frame. For some of you, spending the next 6 or 7 years learning on your own is a fine pace, and that's great for the few of you who are naturally gifted enough and disciplined enough to pull that off! For others, you need something more immediate and guided, such as one of our experienced mentors eager to pass their knowledge along to the next generation of animators.

Each of these are merely different paths, hopefully leading eventually to the same result.

Wherever you guys happen to be on that path, best of luck, and I hope you're having half as much fun as I am with this animation stuff! :)

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.05

Continue Reading

What’s Been One of the Most Challenging Projects You Worked On?

The single coolest thing about working in the animation business is that every project is jam-packed with its own set of challenges to overcome. Every sequence in that project has its own group of characters and performances and obstacles. And each shot within that sequence is overflowing with its own dizzying array of decisions, choices, and difficulties.

As such, this job never gets boring. Not even a little bit! You're constantly learning about new things that apply to one scene or another - be it dance, kung-fu, acting, car-racing, or how airplanes work. This is a career where you are basically signing up to be a student of EVERYTHING for the rest of your life, so buckle up for a nonstop adventure of new ideas and topics to research!

That said, if I had to choose one project as the most challenging, I think I'd have to pick Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I worked a lot on a character called Devastator, and figuring out how he was going to form together, rise up, and head off to rip down the pyramids was easily the most complex thing I've had the chance to work on, but also one of the most fun things I've ever animated!

Luckily, ILM has some absolutely incredible creature rigging geniuses (a word I don't use lightly) such as Kaori Ogino and Keiji Yamaguchi. Kaori rigged the creature, probably the most complicated rig ever done in CG, and Keiji was instrumental in helping animate some of the actual transforming geometry of the tractors coming together to form our big baddie.

Of course there are a lot of other people who come together to create something like Devastator, it certainly wasn't just the three of us, but I really felt the pressure on that character, both internal and external (I wanted it to be as cool as possible, just like everyone else did!) and as such, I have to say it was the biggest challenge I've faced.

But how cool is animation as a career when the biggest challenge is also the single most fun experience you've had in that career?

Man... sometimes I really love this job.

Thanks for the fun question!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 10.04

Continue Reading

How Do You Traverse the Fine Line of Always Creating New and Interesting Poses but Keeping the Actions as Simple and Readable as Possible?

How do you traverse the fine line of always creating new and interesting poses but keeping the actions as simple and readable as possible? How do you know if you have done “too much” and need to simplify?

Interesting, exciting, emotional, communicative, dynamic poses should ALWAYS be your goal in every scene. That's the absolute core of what we do, so it's great to aim high and shoot for the stars when it comes to poses that will communicate the character's emotions and actions as best as possible.

However, you bring up a good point that it's SO easy to go overboard! Creating poses is so much fun that the simplest of actions can turn into the wackiest animation in history if we aren't careful.

The trick is learning how much is too much. How far is too far?

Truthfully, your sense of what will "read" best to the audience will continue to improve as you get more and more experienced with animation. However, there is one trick that you will always continue to rely on to some degree, and is the best rock-solid way to find out if you have pushed your poses and ideas too far:

ASK SOMEONE!

Sounds simple, right? You'd be surprised how many students and newer animators avoid this absolutely essential step in their animation process. Feedback is the key to not only learning animation, but excelling in it, and there really is no other way to know if your ideas and poses are reading clearly than to ask around and see what people think!

Remember, your animation is being created to be experienced by an audience of people with vastly differing backgrounds, beliefs, senses of humor, moods, etc. The eventual audience is completely unpredictable in their makeup. Because of that, there is literally no one who doesn't have a valid opinion on whether or not your animation makes sense to them.

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston write in the Illusion of Life that they would sometimes even show their animation to the janitor if they were working late at night to get an opinion on the work. That janitor didn't know the first thing about overlapping action, squash and stretch, force, or arcs, but he sure could tell them if he understood whether or not the character was sad, or what actions the character was meant to be doing.

Anyway, when it comes to poses, I come from the school of thought that says to exaggerate something more than you think it should be exaggerated, and then double it! This has helped me a lot to push my ideas (particularly the timing and poses), but the reality is that it usually means I need to tone things down here or there in order to make things more clear or to fit the style of a project. Luckily, poses are always much easier to tone down than to push further, so it's best to go a bit too far than to have to shove your animation further in tiny incremental steps over and over until your supervisor is pleased.

So I would certainly recommend that you aim high when searching for fun poses, but be prepared to tone them down when necessary, and actively seek feedback from your peers, your family, your supervisor, or even the janitor, because every single one of them is an invaluable resource to find out when you've gone overboard!

Hope that helps - thanks for swinging by the blog!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 11.58

Continue Reading

What Are Some Extra Goodies to Add in Polish to Make the Animation Stand Out Even More?

What are some extra goodies to add in polish to make the animation stand out even more (eg. head squash and stretch…)

For me, the single biggest thing is pushing my arcs into something clear, fun, and pleasing to the eye. There's nothing like some beautiful arcs on the wrists, feet, nose, props, etc., to really bring a scene to life and take it from looking acceptable to looking great!

Other than that, especially in visual effects animation, which is the medium I've mostly worked in (animating characters who need to live in the same frame as live-action actors), the key is subtle complexity. It's finding small ways to add little secondary things that bring the character more fully to life.

Things like having a character swallow, and the intricate neck muscle movements that go into a swallow, for example. Or putting in breaths into the scene - expanding the chest a bit, etc.

As you say, you can also get some great extra mileage out of squashing and stretching the head slightly, if the style of the film is appropriate for that. In a more realistic film, you could get that feeling out of squashing/stretching the fleshier parts of the face while keeping the skull itself more rigid, but it's the same idea - giving the overall character a heightened feeling of being organic and fleshy.

All of these sorts of things - micro eye movements, muscles flexing/relaxing, ear twitches on an animal, toes squishing against the ground, etc - these all can add to the overall complexity that will help the character feel even more alive without sacrificing the subtlety of the performance!

Shawn:)

By: Unknown On 12.31

Continue Reading

How Do You Find Reference for an Unusual Four-Legged Creature?

I got a great question from Sergio, who wrote in to ask: "How do you find your reference for an unusual four-legged character and how do you do your planning for the movements?"

Hi Sergio! First off, thanks for the great question!

I know that's a tough thing that a lot of newer animators struggle with. You have to animate a dragon or a dinosaur or a centaur, but for some reason, there just aren't any centaurs to be found at the zoo.

Well, this is one of those times that you're going to have to put your animation imagination into overdrive, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't study any reference!

What you want to do is look for animals that have a similar physical makeup to the creature you will be animating. Sometimes this means studying multiple creatures.

An example that comes to mind was Eragon. When we were animating Saphira the dragon, we noticed that her body was very similar in proportion and design to that of a lion, and her wings were designed very similar to eagle wings.

We got right to work amassing a lot of great footage of lions and eagles and started studying the heck out of them, looking for concepts we should be using in our work, and studying how their body mechanics worked. When Saphira was on the ground, we tried to take inspiration from the movement of the lions, and in the air we animated her wings in an eagle-like pattern and fashion.

So just take a long look at your character, and see what it reminds you of, and start investigating the animals out there that might be similar. You can find great reference on Animal Motion Show (Rhinohouse Dvds), youtube, documentaries, movies, BBC motion gallery, etc.

The important thing is to base the movement (and acting) of your creature on REAL LIFE ANIMALS so it will have believable body mechanics that an audience can relate to and accept easily.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.28

Continue Reading

Could You Please Explain the Animation Term Pendulum?

Hi Drhuv! Thanks for stopping by!

A pendulum isn't really a "term," it's an object. A pendulum is basically a weighted object hanging from some kind of base. If the base is moved, that weighted object is going to swing side to side. Many clocks are pendulum clocks (such as "grandfather clocks") which you'd recognize by the swinging pendulum beneath the clock face.

We use pendulums in our animation exercises because the idea of a pendulum clearly illustrates the concept of "successive breaking of joints" and overlapping animation.

Let's simplify the idea of a pendulum and imagine a base and a weighted object hanging from the base, with two joints connecting the weighted object to the base. Well, let's say someone kicks the base. What's the going to happen to the weighted object? Well, nothing at all, at first! First the base must move, which will move the first joint hanging down. Then the next joint will get moved. THEN the weighted object will get moved. The energy needs to travel down that chain of events to finally reach its destination at the heavy object, right?

This idea is something that we use throughout the body when animating. The spine is, in a way, in inverted pendulum rising up from a "base" (the hips). The arms can be thought of as pendulums hanging from the shoulder in certain circumstances. The tail of a critter is kind of a pendulum hanging from their backsides. The way a tree sways in the wind might be like an inverted pendulum connected to the ground.

The pendulum movement teaches us about a wave action that happens in any multi-jointed or organic object, and that's why you probably see it mentioned around animation sites.

Hope that answers your question! Thanks for writing in, Drhuv!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 09.53

Continue Reading

Blinks in Animation

I've been getting some questions about blinks, so I thought I'd reprint this ancient article, first carved into a cave wall way back in November of 2004 in one of our first newsletters, in case some of you hadn't had a chance to see it! Hope it's helpful!
=================

I feel like writing about blinks today. Why? I just saw a commercial on TV (name of product withheld to protect the innocent) starring a character who had a severe blinking problem.

Now, I don't mean the character blinked too much. I don't mean he blinked too fast. I don't mean the character's blinks were too far offset, too slow, or too few.

No, this character was plagued by a disease that has been running rampant through animation (particularly student work, though not AnimationMentor students, of course. Everything they do is perfect and wonderful in every conceivable way... Well, okay, that's not exactly true, but I haven't actually seen it as a problem in the school. Probably because we harp on stuff like this ad nauseum).

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the disease...

Let's call it "Randomblinkitis."

Many animated characters currently living out their lives on demo reels around the world suffer from this terrible disease, causing their blinks to feel random and meaningless. While some characters use their blinks to convey thought process and emotion, these poor Randomblinkitis victims are forced to slog through their daily existence unable to properly communicate their emotions and thoughts to each other, let alone to recruiters around the globe.

It's a tough life for them, folks, so let's do something about it!

See, the medicine for this heartbreaking disease is observation. It's easy to do, and it'll mean so much to your animated characters (and to the recruiters forced to have to try to communicate with your characters!) if you can just take a little time to observe the blinks of your friends, your family, your co-workers, your favorite movie star, and yourself before you start plowing ahead into acting scenes.

Listen, I know about the whole "I just discovered animation a month ago and must do an acting scene IMMEDIATELY!" thing. I know you all want to do acting scenes. I know you think they're the most fun. I know you think they're your ticket into Pixar. And I also know that for some of you, all the "honestly, spending six months practicing basic body mechanics and force will give you far stronger acting scenes than you'll ever be able to do without that foundation" advice in the world isn't going to keep you away from playing with some acting shots...

So, if you absolutely must do some acting shots (or, better yet, are advanced enough to do acting shots properly), then please, give some attention to the eyes of your character.

We've probably all heard people say "90% of acting is in the eyes" or something to that effect. Shoot, some of us have said that ourselves. And I actually think that's true, and is great advice (aside from the fact that if you don't sell the acting with the body first, all the facial stuff in the world isn't going to save your scene), but when you hear that "90% of the acting is in the eyes," I know most people immediately jump to "eye darts" and "eye direction," etc., completely skipping over one of the most essential acting tools you have - the blink.

When I was in school, I was told that "animated characters should always blink every two seconds."

Well, that's just about the worst advice I ever got, other than some advice I recently was given during a trip to Singapore, which was "giant fish eyeballs taste really GREAT," but animation-wise, I think the "blink every two seconds" is probably the worst. Actually, both of those pieces of advice are equally true (or rather, equally completely-and-utterly-untrue!).

Look around. Do you see anyone who is blinking every 2 seconds?! (If you do, please report them to your government, because chances are they are some kind of android spy from Mars or something.) People don't blink on any kind of set time schedule anymore than giant fish eyeballs taste "great" (and for all of you out there who maybe think fish eyeballs DO taste great, probably because you have some kind of steel-reinforced taste buds like the Singaporeans I was with at that restaurant -- which I do admire and am completely jealous of, by the way-- then that's fine to like your giant eyeballs, but just trust me on the blink thing anyway, okay?)

People blink for a reason.

- Blinks are so much more than any kind of physical dry-eye response.
- Blinks are the key to selling many emotions. Fire up some of your favorite films and study the eyes of good actors.
- When do they blink?
- Why?
- What does it feel like?
- How does it make you feel?

Right off the bat, the number of blinks can affect emotion in dramatic ways. Rapid blinks can make a character feel shy, nervous, uncomfortable, relieved, or like they are about to cry. Not blinking at all can feel angry, stoned, dead, or super intense.

Check out Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump when he's meeting his son for the first time. As soon as he realizes it's his son, he stops blinking completely. He's transfixed. Tom Hanks holds back his blinks to communicate the idea that his character is THAT intense about what he's realizing. Then a blink, and boom - he's on to his next emotion, which is guilt. He feels guilty. Shouldn't he have been there to raise his son? Did he do something wrong? The blinks are coming fast and furious now, to indicate his discomfort, his worry. Then a thought occurs to him: "is he slow, like me?" He doesn't say it right away, but you can feel the exact moment that crosses his mind, because suddenly his blinks stop again, and he's back to that intensity, and finally he works up the courage to ask Jenny his big question: "is he smart, or is he...?" Huge eyes, locked on, almost afraid to hear the answer. "He's the smartest in his class." And the blinks are fired back up again, which communicates his relief.

That whole scene is amazing for eye stuff. He even asks "can I go see him?" using only his eyes! Sure, his head moves barely as well, but it's 90% just his eyes, and you totally know exactly what he's saying. He delivers a line without ever opening his mouth. And it feels so real. To me, that's a great scene, and something we should all aspire to in our work.

So your first set of big blink questions is this: "what's my character's emotional state right now? What are they reacting to? How is that making them feel?" And your second set of questions, just as important (if not more so) is this: "well, how do I blink when I feel that way? How do my friends blink when they're in that situation? How did my favorite actor blink in that amazing scene I saw the other day?"

Figure out the emotional state of your character, go observe that emotional state in as true a form as you possible can, and then study the heck out of those eyelids. Better yet, act the scene out over and over and over until you aren't thinking at all about what the actual dialogue lines are anymore, and all you're thinking about is the emotion you are truly making yourself feel, and the context/subtext of the scene, and videotape it, and study it!

OK, so blink frequency (how many) have piles of meaning all on their own, but what about the spacing of when those blinks happen? That's probably kind of random, right?

No way!

A good general rule of thumb is to never animate anything without a reason. Never move ANYTHING on a character unless you know exactly why you're moving it. So if anyone ever tells you to animate something randomly, unless it's the tiniest subtle "add a little 'dirt' to this movement so it feels a little less smooth" type of thing, then you should probably say, "No way!" Unless he's your animation director. Then you probably shouldn't say, "No way." That might be a really bad idea. You should instead say "Right away, no problem!" while you silently think "man, I wish my animation director would take some Animation Mentor classes..."

Where was I? Oh yeah - nothing is random. Well, neither are blinks.

The most important use of a blink is to show thought process. We do blink sometimes just to wet our eyes, and we blink on a rapid head turn, we blink on a major change in eye direction, and all those other "blink rules," but in my opinion the most important time is when we have a change in our thought process. When we're having an idea, or when we're switching from one emotion to another, or when we're realizing something. Those are the gold-mines in terms of blinks - that's when a perfectly placed blink will take a scene from being merely "good" and make it "great."

There's a great book called "In the Blink of An Eye," by Walter Murch, who is an amazing film editor, and a part of that book is about his theory that we blink to edit the film of our lives. We blink throughout the day to cut from one scene to the next to the next to the next. And he uses that theory in his film editing. He looks for when the main character blinks, and often uses that as his cutting point, figuring that it's probably the most natural-feeling place to cut for the audience.

As animators, we can hijack his theory and apply it to our own work and our acting. We can study the same phenomenon that he noticed, and we will all find the same exact result - people blink when their brain shifts from one thing to another, whether it's an emotion or a thought.

Wow. That ended up about 5 times longer than I thought it would.
Sorry, I get all excited about this stuff and can talk about it forever! I'll try to be shorter in the future...
(I keep saying that, don't I?)

Let's see, to recap:

1. Blinks Have Meaning!
2. Skipping a strong foundation in the basics in order to get to acting scenes quicker shoots yourself in the foot.
3. Never animate anything without a reason.
4. Don't say "No way!" to an Animation Director.
5. We blink to cut the "film of our life."

That's five tips for the price of one. I better start being stingier or this'll be a short-lived column!

Hope you found it helpful. See you next time!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 14.42

Continue Reading

Could You Explain the Animation Terms Cushion and Settle?

Saral wrote in to ask: Could you please explain the animation terms cushion and settle?

Hi Saral!

These terms are used almost interchangeably, and mostly they just refer to how a character's movement is going to come to a stop.

Cushion is pretty much the same as "ease in" or "slow-in," animation terms used to describe the way a character will "ease" into a pose or "slow" into a pose. You could also say that a character should "cushion" into a pose - it's pretty much the same thing, as far as I know.

The point of those terms, by the way, is to help sell the organic nature of the character or object. Very few things in nature come to an instant stop on a dime, mostly things more in organic arcs and need time to "cushion" into the final position of their movement. For example, if you were walking quickly and came to a stop, no matter how hard you try to stop instantly, you simply cannot do it. Your body is going to have to recover from the movement and part of that is going to be easing into that final stopped pose (and probably going THROUGH that final pose into an overshoot, and then arcing and overlapping back into the final pose).

"Settle," to me, is very similar. I hear people use that term to describe all of those little overshoots and arcs that eventually run out of steam and lead to the character being still. Picture again someone coming to a stop. Well, their hips are going to keep going until their weight and angle of their body slows them down. The hips will probably sail right through that "stopped" pose and go a little too far before your body says "hey hips! Come back here!" The hips are then going to arc back and go into a bit of tiny spiral that will eventually get them into a stopped position.

Force and general body mechanics tell us exactly what will happen next, which will be a subtle wave action through the spine, causing overlap on the arms, successive breaking of joints going all the way down to the wrists, probably a bit of overlap on the head, etc. - all moving in related arcs in multiple axis, though offset from one another, and so forth.

To me, all of that "stuff" that is happening - all of that is the "settling" of the character.

Other folks might use these terms differently, but those are the ways I've heard them used around the studio. Hope that helps!

Thanks for writing in!

Shawn :)

By: Unknown On 11.48

Continue Reading