The Animation Podcast » Notebook

Entertainment: when it rings true, but new

Clay — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:49:10 +0000

In the comments on my last post, Alonso asks a great question. He wants to know more about entertainment. I don’t have all the answers but here are some thoughts…

It’s that old phrase “give ‘em what they want in an unexpected way.” Easy to say, hard to do because if you keep throwing away the obvious choices, you run the risk of just doing weird or quirky for the sake of it and maybe taking the idea way off course.

I wrote down this hypothetical for myself a couple years ago:

“If the director sees your shot and decides they don’t like your idea, what would you do instead?”

I like exploring this possibility when conceiving a shot because if this happens, you have no choice, you have to come up with something that not only satisfies the director but also your interest in animating the shot. You have to believe in the work you’re doing.

“Emotionally authentic” is what I mean by the first section of “believable performance,” so “entertainment” is something else. “Emotionally authentic” and “believable performance” is the standard. Every shot has to have that but when you push beyond believable and do it in an unexpected way, the audience gets jolted out of their boredom. THAT’S entertaining for THEM. The audience is the one who matters.

We see people being normal all day. Even worse, we see people acting normal in movies (and especially animated ones) all too much. It’s the brilliant animators/actors who turn ideas on their ear and make the audience see something that rings true, but new.

Of course, entertainment takes many forms – acting beats, timing choices, poses, etc. I always think of Milt Kahl as someone who never went for the first idea, at least for a great pose. Look at this image from Andreas Deja’s great blog as an example:

Or this Milt image from Mark Kennedy’s blog:

There are tons of examples of Milt always searching for the most entertaining and clear pose for an action. And it’s not even always crucial shots but he continually searched for a creative way to solve problems visually. That’s just one of the reasons why people still study his drawings and scenes. As great as he was, he didn’t go with his first thought.

So how to learn to be entertaining? That’s the trick, isn’t it?
It’s part taste – what do you like and what do you respond to?
It’s part personality – do you have your own take on things that other people wouldn’t have?
It’s part observation – watch people, keep a sketchbook and STEAL their behaviors for your scenes. This is why EVERY animator should have a sketchbook to record life.
It’s part discipline – don’t allow yourself to do the easy, obvious choice. Any good animator can do that so make yourself irreplaceable and bring what they aren’t thinking of.

Here’s a great compilation of Cary Grant moments. (It won’t play here, but click it then click through to YouTube.) He endures as one of cinema’s greats because he repeatedly created memorable performances by doing things with his unique spin. He was an ENTERTAINER! You’ll probably want to turn off the music, but maybe you’ll like it. Notice the parts you respond to. When do you smile? (That’s you being entertained, by the way.) I bet it’s when he does things that you don’t expect.

Some basic animation reel advice

Clay — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:32:40 +0000

First of all, hi everybody. I’m inching my way back to the site. So much clean up, dusting off and re-learning how to do things around here but that’s for me to worry about, not you. Here’s a baby step in the right direction.

I received an email this week asking for some advice on what would help someone get into the animation trainee program at Disney. My answer applies to any level of animator. Of course, I think this advice would help many people, so here is my brief, but fairly complete, answer.*

Four things that make a reel work, in order of importance:

Believable performance. Not necessarily “realistic” but believable for the style of animation and situation. This is the part that is hardest to teach. Do your characters show that they are thinking, making decisions, judgments, choices on their own. Do the expression, body posture and dialog shapes accurately reflect what is being said (or what isn’t being said)? Over acting, bad acting, unbelievable acting, and acting that does not fit the situation – those are the the biggest turn offs.

Convincing physics. Do you know how to move characters? Do they have weight? Will I believe they exist in a reality that has gravity? Do they feel like they are built of flesh and bone and not just filled with empty space? Are movements motivated by internal forces – both mental and physical?

Entertainment. Do you have original ideas and ways of solving problems that aren’t typical? Show us how you think that’s different from the crowd. Do you pass over the obvious and make choices that are surprising AND appropriate for the situation?

Polish. This is the bonus round. All of the above are most important but if you can do them along with great polish – spacing, arcs, timing, slow-ins/outs, no pops or wonkiness, obvious care in the details – then your work will stand above the rest.

You may look at your body of work and think that you’re missing some of these things. Well, what is stopping you? You have the tools to animate. You can carve out some time. Do it and animate something new that gives us all of these things and your chances of getting the position you want will greatly improve!

*Of course, this is my own opinion and I am not attempting to represent Walt Disney Animation Studios. With that said, I have worked there forever and I’ve seen thousands of reels and hired scores of people.

UPDATE:
Here’s a follow up post.

Q&A: Using generic rigs

Clay — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:21:25 +0000

Q. I was wondering if you had any idea about how recruiters react when seeing generic rigs in the demo reels they receive. I heard that they lose interest as soon as they see animation created using certain “free online rigs”.

A. I’ve had this very conversation during a review because I had heard that same thing. Here’s what I said:

The reason why a person would react negatively to seeing a generic rig is because so much of the animation done with the generic rigs is bad. That’s because anyone can get them and animate. It has nothing to do with the rigs. It has to do with the expectation associated with that rig. I can guarantee that if a review board popped in a reel that started with a generic rig like the “blue guy” and then from frame one it instantly came to life and was well animated and entertaining, they would not only watch it, but they would have an even stronger positive reaction to it. That’s because it would stand apart from all the junky animation tests they usually associate with that rig. It would seem even more impressive because it would prove that good animation CAN be done with that rig – and that’s certainly something that reviewers don’t see every day.

So don’t shy away from generic rigs, but run screaming from doing bad animation with them.

No related posts.

New blog section: Q&A!

Clay — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:48:22 +0000

The crazy thing about me doing an audio show is that I sometimes find it so darn tough to put my thoughts in to words and then have those words come out of my mouth. Go figure! While I will always strive to improve my “on the air” skills, I find that I receive quite a few questions from listeners that I would like to answer and share with everyone. Most of the time I try to reply to emails, but that only gets the info to one person. To do that in the podcasts would take more time than I’d like to admit. So today a new section is born!

Simply put, it’s Q&A.

When I get a question in an email or in the comments of one of the posts that is worthy of singling out, I’ll break it out and drop it in it’s own Q&A post. Eventually, there may be quite a bit of information here that many people would like to know so it seems logical to keep it under the Animation Notebook section of the site.

Look for the first Q&A later today.

Ones and Twos

Clay — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:31:25 +0000

I’ve already posted this in a comment and explained it in Show 3, but to keep things organized and findable, here’s where you can find my explanation of “What are ones and twos?”

Ones and Twos

ONES and TWOS

Here’s my explanation of ‘ones and twos.’ I also talk about it at the end of Show 3.
You can find this in the comments of one of the posts but I’ll put it here so it’s easy to find.

Film has 24 frames per second. Each frame has a different drawing, or image, and when they are viewed in succession through a projector, the images connect and create the illusion of motion thanks to what is called persistence of vision. That’s all simple enough.

If each drawing is numbered according to which frame it falls on, it would look like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 . . .

In traditional (hand-drawn) animation, every frame can hold a different image but animators realized long ago that they could get by with only doing a drawing every other frame, saving extra work. The drawings would be “held” on two consecutive frames so that in one second, instead of doing 24 drawings (one every frame) they could do 12 drawings (one every other frame).

The numbered drawings would look like this:

1 – 3 – 5 – 7 – 9 – 11 . . .

and drawing 1 is repeated in frame 2, drawing 3 repeats in frame 4, etc.

Persistence of vision comes into play again and the action still looks fluid. A drawing held for two frames is called “on twos.” Logically, when each consecutive frame has a new drawing, it is called “on ones.”

It’s up to the animator to decide when to animate on ones and twos. Generally, the determining factor is how it will look in the end. If it is animated on twos (12 drawings per second) and there seem to be gaps in the action, the animator can go in and add new drawings to make it look more fluid.

If this series of drawing doesn’t look smooth enough (between 3 and 7):

1 – 3 – 5 – 7 – 9 – 11 . . .

we can add a drawing where it is needed like this:

1 – 3 4 5 6 7 – 9 – 11 . . .

Something that didn’t make sense to me when I first heard it is that faster action should be animated on ones. I thought, “Well won’t more drawings slow it down?” Not really, since we’re not adding time. The frames stay the same, we’re just putting more images in to connect the action. You may think of it as a strobe light. If it flashes slowly (on twos) and you wave your arms around, it may be hard to follow the motion. If we speed up the flashing (on ones) the action connects visually because there are more images shown in the same amount of time.

This is REALLY hard to get across in words alone, and I know I can tend to be verbose, but I hope this helps. If you pause traditional animation and advance frame by frame, you will be able to see which sections are on ones and which are on twos. Of course if you’re looking at some Saturday morning cartoons, they get away with animating on 12s, 24s, or worse.

We commented about The Thief and the Cobbler in Show 2 because Richard Williams prefers to animate nearly everything on ones.

CG is nearly always done on ones. In Fantasia 2000 some of the Tin Soldier sequence was animated on twos, but that is a rare instance.

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Principles of Animation – Planning

Clay — Thu, 26 May 2005 03:51:55 +0000

From time to time between ‘casts (believe me, it’s a lot faster to write than to cut a show) I’ve decided to start posting some animation notes I’ve collected/written for myself over the years. I won’t commit to how often or in-depth this will be, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right?

I’ll start with some notes I put together for a talk I gave about the fundamentals of animation. They may not be the same as someone else’s list, but they are the things I wouldn’t animate without. Rather than just dump them all at once, I’d rather post one at a time and hopefully you’ll have a chance to read through them and add thoughts or ask questions.

Here’s my list of the can’t-do-without Principles of Animation:

This list isn’t a how-to, and it’s certainly not all-inclusive. It’s more of a “how-I-think-about” these principles.

It’s an outline for a talk, so, as you’ll see, the notes are fairly brief. I’d love to hear what you think about these things, and I’ll try to clarify whenever it’s not totally explained in the outline. Although I’m not posting the clips I showed to illustrate my points, I still think this outline is a worthwhile read. And, of course, I want to learn too, so if you have something to add or take away, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Eventually these principles will all be compiled on one page. For now, here’s…

PLANNING

Ask yourself: "What would I like to see on the screen?"

Give people their money's worth: "If I were paying good money to see this, what would I expect?"
Imagine in your mind: "the ideal version of this shot" and aim for that
Entertainment
- It's the relationship with the audience that makes entertainment work because:
  - They have an expectation and it's our job to give it to them in an unexpected way
    - Applies to all forms of storytelling and animation is a part of that
    - If you have a shot of someone picking up a box and it's done exactly like you'd expect, there's no entertainment
    - The movie Jaws (or any great movie) is an excellent example of this:
      - As the audience we know there's a shark and the expectation is obvious – the humans will win (at least we hope). Then why is it entertaining and why don't people just walk out before it's over when we know WHAT will happen? Because they want to see HOW it happens. That's the part they can't predict. That's where we have to be creative, surprising, inventive, and original. When's the last time you heard someone say "Oh you've got to see that movie, it's so predictable!" This is how we should approach every aspect of a film – from the story, to the indiviual acts, to the sequence, to the scene, all the way down to the individual shot.
Three types of reactions according to philosopher Arthur Koestler – HA! HA!, AHA!, & AAH!
- HA! HA! (humor) we laugh when we unexpectedly see the same thing in two frames of reference (there's "the expected in an unexpected way" again)
  - In it's broadest sense – this is why jokes are funny
  - First frame of reference: “Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas.”
    Second frame of reference: “What he was doing in my pajamas I have no idea.”
- AHA! (insight, discovery) combining two different things so that the sum is greater than the parts
  - This is why mysteries are so popular – they provide built in insight
- AAH! (self-transcending) lose yourself in an experience; when you find yourself transported to another frame of existence
  - Some movies get to this point, but not most. These are the moments that have the greatest effect on people.
  - Some animation moments I can think of where I lose myself in the movie:
    - The dwarfs crying in Snow White
    - The Beast's transformation in Beauty and the Beast
    - When the Iron Giant says, "Superman"
    - When Dumbo flies
    - Gollum arguing with himself
    - Mufasa's death in The Lion King
    - Moses discovering the burning bush in Prince of Egypt
    - The chase in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
    - For me, all of Peter Pan
- To me, every moment should be one of these three
  - If a shot doesn’t accomplish one of these, or at least lead to one, I question whether it is worth anyone’s time.
  - What they all have in common is that they allow the audience to feel smart. This is one of the most powerful tools in making movies, when the audience feels like they've made a connection between two seemingly unrelated ideas. It happens all the time and if the filmmaker has laid in all the clues in a sneaky (not obvious) way, it engages the viewer and keeps them hooked. The audience is actually participating in the film instead of it being hand delivered to them.
If you can imagine what you want to see, half your work is done
- Picture it in your head – close your eyes and see the edges of the screen, the set, and what the character is doing. It takes practice, but it's a skill that can be developed.

Thumbnail – they don't have to be works of art, they are just a map

They are your storytelling poses (key poses of the shot)
Work out the best poses and, if needed, how to get from one pose to another (breakdowns)