Hindsight

The animation on the Gallery Of Doom was a bit more involved than I anticipated. The deadline had been moved to today, Oct. 8, and I turned in the final shot last night. In hindsight, I've learned a lot - about animating with ToonBoom, about communicating with the director, and about how I work.

It was an incredible challenge for me to work the animation in with the shots involving a live actor. I have all the more admiration for a film mixing the two, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I thought those shots wouldn't be too hard because I would be able to see on the screen where everything is supposed be at a particular point in time. Mechanical, connect the dots, right? Well I encountered two huge issues: one, since each live action shot was changing every frame (fast-action shots that involved running), there would be more drawings than I anticipated and two, since the camera moves/angles were fairly dramatic, I had real trouble figuring out the perspective and keeping it correct on some of the drawings.

Patrick had the foresight to give me reference video, as himself playing the character, so I could see what the character was supposed to be doing - where he was coming from, at what angle, where he was going, any special action, etc. and what props were in the frame that the character had to deal with - like a door. That helped tremendously when discussing the character action with him.

This was a good project to work on in anticipation of AnimationMentor. Patrick was patient and gave me great feedback on the work I was doing. I have more confidence now to tackle those drawings that I think I couldn't do - things I just had to learn myself. I couldn't just tell Patrick that I couldn't do a shot - I had to figure out a way to make it work. This also combats my tendency towards procrastination - instead of worrying and over-thinking a drawing, I'm learning to just get on with on it.

Serendipity

Soon after my last post, I began work on the animation of a 2D character for a short film that a co-worker of mine, Patrick, is producing and directing (and animating, and compositing...). I have 27 shots to complete, the longest of which is 250 frames, the shortest 16 frames, with most under 100 frames. I'm trying to have all my shots finished by Oct. 1. (that's 2007 not 2008). I'm working in Toon Boom and am fully animating the character. For some shots, I'll be able to use cycles of various lengths. The film is a live-action/animation mix. All live-action photography is complete so I'm able to use the actual film as reference.

Joining this project has proven to be the kick in the pants I needed to get animating again. Funny thing is, the project found me. While discussing the film class I had just completed, Patrick and I got around to talking about animation. Before long he told me about this project of his and was asking me to animate one of the characters. I said yes and the next day I was looking at concept art that had been done on the character.

I admit I'm really out of my comfort zone doing this because of the aggressive deadline (we're trying to have it ready for a puppet festival in late October - one of the characters is a puppet that was filmed live with the actors). I'm very skeptical and worry constantly about the quality of the animation I'm turning out. But I love doing it! In the end, it's Patrick's film and as long as he keeps accepting the shots I'm giving him, I'm going to keep moving forward. I've been working practically every night on it and words fail me to convey what a great learning experience it is.

I was going to start bearing down on completing the FAS course but that's taken a back-seat to this project. I still plan on completing the course but you know what they say about plans... In any event, my burgeoning library now includes Loomis' Figure Drawing For What It's Worth and Graham's Composing Pictures, two books I'm chomping at the bit to start studying.

I'm signed up to start Animation Mentor this January. It's a big commitment in many ways, but it's a worthwhile solution to what I feel I need to do to keep my animation education moving forward. I've got a lot of work to do since now it's crept into my mind that I'd like to be paid to do this someday. But such work has never been so much fun!

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Figure Sketching

A great quote from the introduction of an inexpensive book I'm starting to read that touched me:

No matter how rough a sketch, how poor its technique, or how weak its composition: if it is not alive, it is a failure. In drawing there is design, technique, and life, and the greatest of these is life.

Your aim must be to make a drawing life-like. This does not necessitate a lot of finnicky detail; in fact the most life-like drawings are the simplest and least finished.

It is the artist who can draw vitality who commands the highest price for his work, and how is this quality of life to be attained? By going direct to life, that is to say, making your sketches from the living personalities around you.

Do not let your desire to render a pretty drawing swamp the importance of retaining the essential life and character of your subject.

Figure Sketching for Beginners / Len Doust / 0486450953

Storyboards From Film Class

The Basic Film and Video Production class that I was taking ended last month. Our final project involved the whole class with the instructor assigning a film production role to each person. The instructor was the executive producer and then classmates filled roles such as screenwriter, director, editor and so on. There were about 15 of us in the class so each of us had a role. I volunteered to be the storyboard artist. The story is a comedy about a person who takes diving "lessons" from a unqualified scuba shop employee. I didn't receive much guidance from the director while creating the boards so I just followed the script and tried to "direct" it myself. In review, I see that some of the drawings imply a higher camera angle than I meant them to. Below are some of the storyboards:

I'm again hearing the siren song of animation in the form of a character that a co-worker has asked me to animate. This is going to be a single character that will be composited into a short, live-action film that he is working on. I'm really looking forward to working on this. The character design (already done) is simple, something straight out of Samurai Jack.

Detour Ahead

I dedicate this post to JK. From the start, he has offered his help and been very generous with his time and sharing his experience. JK, I appreciate the huge favor you have done for me by helping me focus on what I'm doing. I've arrived at this point a lot sooner than if I had been completely alone.

I started working on an anticipation/follow-through exercise, but I've gotten to the point where I have to really push myself to sit down and practice. For the amount of time that it takes to become a skilled animator, shouldn't I at least look forward to practice?

I'm afraid that concentrating on the technical aspects of animation have started to overwhelm a more basic desire: telling a good story. In other words, I'm getting hung up on the small details before having giving enough thoughtful consideration to the big picture. I don't feel like I've put in enough time and practice with the things that go into making solid animation (drawing, writing, acting, filmmaking). I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of animators feel the same way, but I also am finding myself more interested in the story aspect and how to tell it than in the actual creation of the animation itself. It recently dawned on me that most of my browser bookmarks are to the websites/blogs of story artists, not animators.

I guess what I'm saying is that it seems that most, if not all good animators come from an artistic background first instead of the other way around. I know that there's a low barrier to entry with Flash and the Internet and I've heard it said to just get something up, just do it.

But to me, that doesn't feel right.

So I'm closing Tony White's book and shutting down Toon Boom. For now.

Currently, I'm in a basic film/video production class at a community college here in Orlando. Aside from learning from the course itself (camera operation, lighting, sound, editing) and projects we've worked on, it's also allowing me to connect face-to-face with people that share similar interests as me - something that was missing from studying on my own. This fall I'm going to take a screenwriting class to learn dramatic writing.

I plan to continue on learning the crafts of drawing and filmmaking. For starters, I will complete the FAS course, if for no other reason, than just to complete it. In the near future I would also like to start creating storyboards for local filmmakers (and maybe not-so-local too) to get additional practice and meet more people.

If I could make a wish: I would continue to sketch and draw on my own but attend film school full-time. Not because I have dreams of becoming the next big director or screenwriter but to simply immerse myself in the filmmaking craft and work with and learn from people like me but not like me.

Snap, crackle, pop.

Back in reality, my top priority is my young family. But I'm restless. The challenge is to reconcile my responsibilities while honoring my personal creative desires. Nothing new there - that's something I know many people struggle with every day. So, taking a class when I can, along with the FAS course, and drawing and writing on my own, is my attempt at meeting that challenge.

I end with a quote from Bill Watterson, lifted from a post on Do It For The Fat Lady:

"The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few."

Thanks for reading.

Run Example

Below is a ruff 14-frame run cycle I created based on the 8-frame example in Tony White's book. My aim here wasn't to create any particular effect but just to practice inbetweening and try different timings, in this case slowing the action down a bit. My result here is basically a slow-motion run but after watching it a bit, I imagined the character struggling to finish a race, out-of-breath. I'll be working on the chapter exercise next. It'll be my first performance-type piece: the character runs off the screen, walks back in, pauses and then runs off again.
(right/control-click on the movie and select Play)

Walk Exercise

Below is my ruff animation for the Walks chapter assignment of Tony White's book. The assignment was to create your own walk cycle using guidelines from the chapter. I created a 12-frame double-bounce cycle looping it for 5 seconds. No doubt that you could spend an eternity just animating different walks but I had to stop somewhere.
(right/control-click on the movie and select Play)

FAS Assignment 3 Response

Got the assignment back from FAS a few weeks ago. I did very well on the this assignment except for the last part, the shape design. My design wasn't what they were for looking for. The feedback/drawing was extremely helpful on what I should have been doing.

Down on the Passing Position

Another walk experiment where the body is going down, instead of up, on passing position. I added a slight hold on the keyframes to emphasize the action. My ruff drawing here doesn't show it very well, but the figure is standing on his toes in the up position.