the Plausible Impossible

yeah I know

2009-09-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted. Lots of things have been going on. I've worked on several independent projects which have been keeping me busy. These projects have me filling almost every roll from director to animator, cleanup, and color. Thank goodness for all the capabilities software allows us to do on our own these days. I've been fortunate enough to have some projects that I could have some help on.

I also have had the great opportunity to give some animation workshops in Guadalajara, Mexico to the Batallon 52 group as they work on their animated shorts due out next year.

Inspired Character Design

2008-11-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

Recently I was watching various animations and looking at character work done by other artists. It inspired me into a fit of design sketching. I have often found that somewhere down the line I might need to design a character for something I'm working on so keeping sketchbooks that have these types of design sketches come in handy.
When viewing the work of others I find that I am most drawn to designs that are easy to animate. What I'm talking about are designs for full animation. Sure just about anything can be animated these days using cut-out techniques in software like Flash and ToonBoom but personally I like to do complete frame by frame hand-drawn animation and designs that work well for that technique is what I am attracted to.
I'm not always successful in all of my designs but I find that there might be part of a sketch I like and it might inspire another design. For example take this sketch of the bird. As I began doing the body I realized I didn't like it and didn't finish it. I do however like the head and could adapt it to another body. I've written before on this blog about appealing shapes and that tends to be the key to the designs I like. Sometimes I will find a shape I like and experiment using it on different characters.

Take a look at the head shape of these two characters. Though they are similar types of characters I found a shape I liked and experimented with using it on different characters. The one on the right is more extreme than the left one but both are still based upon the same shape.
Another design element I look for is difference in size of various parts of a character. That helps keep the design appealing and makes it easier to read. Extremes in size contrasts of various parts of a character is something I experiment with. Sometimes, as in the bear below, it works best to not make the parts very extreme. that often is found in the cute cuddly type of characters.

So the next time you are watching some animation you like or seeing another artist work observe their approach to using shapes and contrasts of elements.

Keeping Busy

2008-08-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a few month's since my last post. I was doing some guest blogging for a while but now I'm back. I've been plenty busy. The image at left is from another short clip I did for the U.S.Department of Commerce. This one they requested to be done in 3D. You can see the finished clip here It's called "Mr. Fins". But don't fret, I am not doing only 3D. Matter-o-fact I am currently doing some freelance full animation on paper for a studio here in Los Angeles and having a blast. I can't reveal what it's for but it is on some familiar characters that come from a major animated film. It is an educational short. I've been busy doing all sorts of things including some digital storyboards and of course teaching. You can find out more about what classes I'm teaching at the Studio Arts website here. I am planning on doing regular updates again here so if you are still out there keep checking back.

Sketching Posture

2008-04-08T09:44:00.001-07:00

I was traveling recently and again found myself with a 2 hour layover so of course it's the perfect opportunity to pull out the ol' sketchbook and start observing people. One thing I looked for were particular postures that conveyed a personality. On the left here is a woman who needed to move past someone but as you can see she was a little hesitant for fear of how the stressed out traveler in front of her might react. I particularly liked her femininity and how she coyly asked to be excused. It's also interesting to see what many people choose to wear as they are traveling. This woman wanted to be comfortable but also wanted to accentuate her feminine attributes. Notice the slight off balance and how that helps with the attitude. Had she placed more weight on her right foot it would have given her a more aggressive attitude and lost her soft gentile manner. Even the turned in toes help.
Next there is another woman who is a little more assertive. She was standing at the ticket counter at the gate and having to get something taken care of. The legs together, leaning forward and being on her tippy toes all give a strong message about her attitude. What I like about this one is she comes across as being completely in control. You can almost see her pointing out what needs to be fixed to the airline agent. The posture has an, "I know there is something that can be done" feeling to it. I also get the notion that this woman has traveled regularly and knows the ropes. She also is dressed entirely for comfort and not for show. It's very interesting to see how different people handle similar situations. If the woman in the first sketch had been in the same situation her posture would be completely different.
UPDATE:If you haven't already visited my website go take a look at the latest updates. There is the 2008 sample reel on there now complete with a shot list. Also there are backgrounds added to the still art portfolio. Check it out at www.rustymillsanimation.com.

Classic in Digital

2008-03-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is the pencil test for the short clip I mentioned in my previous post. My goal was to make it look and animate as much like a classic cartoon as possible. It was done entirely paperless using various digital tools.

I first did a storyboard which I created an animatic from using Toonboom Storyboard Pro. Then I did the background layouts in Mirage to have a true pencil like feel. I took those into Toonboom Digital Pro and created the rough animation which you see at the top of this post. Then I went back to Mirage to paint the backgrounds which you can see one in my previous post. I did the cleanup, Ink and Paint, and compositing in Toonboom Digital Pro. You can view the completed Fox and Bird clip in color by going to my website and looking in my current work.

Sneek Peek

2008-02-28T08:31:00.001-08:00

I've been working on a short piece that is done entirely paperless but is made to look like a classic old short. The background above was painted in Mirage. The animation and compositing is being done in ToonBoom Digital Pro. Soon I will have it done and will post it both here and on my site. Everything from storyboarding to the finished composited piece has been done in a traditional way though all in a digital environment. I'm using this as a way to keep up on the newest technology.
I will be teaching ToonBoom Storyboard Pro soon and this was a way to get completely up to speed with all the features. I was able to not only draw the board but create the animatic directly from my timing slugs inside SBPro. It also integrates well with ToonBoom Digital Pro so any camera moves I created in the animatic are brought directly across and I don't have to recreate them.
When it came to the background layouts and paintings I used Mirage so I could get the feel of real pencil and paint. Toonboom doesn't give real world painting capabilities and even though the pencil in TB can have a texture it doesn't give you the ability to do smudges or any other real world techniques.
Doing the animation in ToonBoom worked well since I didn't need more than a line texture to have the feel of pencil. Also having the use of an x-sheet is very nice. Below is a sample of one frame of the pencil test output from ToonBoom.

Traditional Drawings

2008-01-15T13:17:00.000-08:00

Wow! two posts in less than a week! Today I am presenting some drawings I did for work to be used as a template background. I was asked if I could provide some images that look like traditional animation drawings. I first did some roughs and then decided to even clean these two up complete with fake charts, paint to lines, and reg marks.

I tried to think of characters that might feel right in some older classic cartoons. It's funny how I started drawing a blank (pun intended) when trying to think up some of these characters. Kind of like when you go to the video store and suddenly all the movies you had been thinking you wanted to see slip right out of your head.
These are two of the ones I left rough. I love doing these kind of rough drawings, getting a nice attitude and line of action. In a way this is how I do my thumbnails when I am animating a scene. Besides just getting the acting down an animator has to create pleasing drawings. That's where being a good draftsperson comes in. I find it's best to just get something down on paper than to sit there wondering what the best way is to start.
As I've gained more experience I've found that it takes fewer tries to get the result I want. All animators have their own way of approaching their work, some are rougher than others while some artist see it completely in their head before they begin to draw. I tend to fit somewhere between the two. If I can't seem to get the right pose I begin from a rougher state but often once I am used to a character my drawings become cleaner because I can see it before I draw it.

Lot's of Stuff

2008-01-11T09:13:00.001-08:00

This year has started off with a bang! First I am working on a quick development project that might lead to something cool. I did these three development pieces in a day and am now doing a sample animation with them. I wanted them to have a rough stylized design. I like the textured backgrounds and wanted the colors to be very bold.For the animation I plan on panning between and past the characters while the backgrounds morph from one color scheme to the other. The nice thing about this kind of style is it's loose and requires no clean-up. I'm having fun with it because it's quite different from my film and I'm able to be broader in the animation.
next week I will share with you some drawings I did to be used as part of template backgrounds on MyToons. They were done to look like classic animation drawings.

Gallery Work

2007-12-03T14:12:00.001-08:00

Once again I am participating in the Creative Talent Network's group show. I had two paintings in the show last year but this year I decided to only put one in. That was partially due to the fact that I didn't complete the second painting and would rather not rush it. I prefer to create paintings specifically for these shows and not just pull out artwork I have sitting around. Though if I ever did a solo show I would do that to help round out a collection of works. This piece to the left is called "Green Tea" and is acrylic on foam core (click the image to see it larger). Recently I have been doing these acrylic on foam core paintings because I can create them rather quickly. I usually begin with some sketches in order to get the composition set. I like doing these elongated pieces too. This one is the same size of the painting I did last year, 9 x 21.
Here is a sketch I did of the girls face in preparation of this years painting. In creating this painting I tried to think of a subject that would have a wide appeal. A piece of artwork that could be hung in a variety of rooms, from the kitchen to the bedroom. I also wanted to have a nice design quality to it. Though I liked the sketch I decided to not make her head quite so elongated simply due to the placement on the composition. Since the orientation of the painting is already elongated I felt it would feel too stretched and so I softened the design. Last year I did a painting that was very red and warm in it's color palette so this year I decided to be cooler and more tranquil with my colors.
One added feature to the show this year is that many of the artists (including me) have done a small 4x4 ornament canvas. These will also be on sale for $25 each with 100% of the proceeds going to the Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation. On the left is the small ornament canvas I did.
To find out more about the show and to see all the artists that are in it go HERE

Work On My Film Continues

2007-11-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

I continue to make headway on my film. I have posted the latest version of my film to my website which includes two newly animated scenes. This now brings me to the longest and perhaps the most involved scene of the film. It is the first time that the two characters actively engage with each other. In previous scenes one character is generally only reacting to the other. This time they exchange dialog and have physical contact. Though the big guy dominates the scene I need to be sure the little guy doesn't become stale. I'm looking forward to the challenges it presents and to sinking my teeth into it. After this scene there is really only one major scene. All the others are fairly simple and straight forward.
The two new scenes I just completed are for earthquake and flood insurance. When I originally did this film as my 3rd year student film at CalArts I removed these two scenes due to lack of time to finish them. So it is nice to be able to include them now into the film. I feel they help push the big guy over the edge and his crazed reaction in the scene I am about to start makes more sense. That is the nice thing about revisiting this film. I am now able to make it the way I envisioned it when I was a student but was unable to accomplish. That is both in my animation and storytelling abilities.

Out Sketching Again

2007-11-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy month or so around here between the panels, presentations, teaching and family I've been here there and everywhere. My son's school puts on a Halloween carnival every year and this year I went with him. As a parent of a 10 year old that basically means I sit around while he goes off with his friends and has fun. For part of the time I sat and sketched. Often I like to sketch people around me but in this case I just didn't feel it was a good idea. So I let my mind wander. The village is a painting I have in mind to do and thought I'd get it down on paper to work out some of the angles. When I do more stream of conscience type of drawing I usually start with a shape and build from there. Nice thing about this way of sketching is I get a lot of characters out of it. I suppose that's because it's the same approach I take when designing a character. Lately I've been using these sketchbooks that have a thick paper that has a tooth and little particles in the paper. The roughness has a look and feel I like. It also works well for markers and brush pens, allowing you to layer color in an almost painterly way. I posted some painting sketches I did several months back using this same sketchbook. I find it interesting how often certain shapes and characters tend to show up in my sketches when I work in this way. I wonder if it's because they are shapes I like or that I am comfortable with. If I notice it while I'm sketching I will make a conscience decision to change the shape and hopefully come up with something new. In this case I actually saw a man walk by that had a fun shape to his head and so I used it. Thought the character doesn't look like him at all it gave me an nice base to build a character on. I do find that sitting down and sketching often takes a bit of a push to get started. It's that blank page syndrome. That's why I do these kind of sketches...they are something to just get me drawing. I even have done this type of thing when working on projects. Just start sketching out of your head to get your artistic and creative flow working.

Another Event

2007-10-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

I will be the presenter at the November 4th Animation Army meeting. This is a great group to be a part of. Come out and network with all kinds of animation people. It's all free and some great people. They will be meeting at the Bigfoot lodge in Glendale this month. I will be presenting about pitching and sharing some of my work. Hope to see you there this Sunday. You can get full details by clicking on this link, Animation Army November Event.

Participating on Panels this Month

2007-10-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

I will be on two different panels during the month of October. The first is Sat. morning Oct. 20th at the Los Angeles Animation Festival (LAAF). It is a panel about how to get a career in animation. We will be discussing everything from interviewing for a job to pitching ideas. This should be a very informative discussion and hopefully spark a few ideas on advancing yourself in the animation industry. Plus it's being held in the very cool silent movie theater on Fairfax in LA. The whole festival should be a blast with some very exciting panels, screenings and parties. Check it out at www.laafest.org.
The other panel I will be part of is for the October 26th meeting of Women in Animation being held at Dreamworks. This panel is titled, "So you wanna make a short?" and is to discuss not only how to approach the process but also what you can do with it once it's completed. Be sure to visit their blog to read more about it and for information about attending.
Hope to see a lot of people at both of these events.

2007-09-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

I've updated my site with the latest version of my film. You can find it under current work. Unfortunately I am right at the limit of my websites space so the compression is not the best Update:I was able to adjust the compression and now it looks great!. But you can see how it's coming along. The next couple of scenes should go rather quick and then I come to the longest scene in the film and the one time the two characters really interact with each other. Though I've worked on some 3D I have kept up work on this film even if it's slow going. The scene that is pictured above is the one I just finished and it took me a while to get it done because I started over on it several times. The original dialog I used didn't give much to work with. It was too straight forward and so the acting wasn't very interesting. I felt it needed something else since the line itself isn't that funny. So I went back into the recording and found a version of the line which was flubbed. putting this together with the original one gave me the acting I desired. It helped bring out his frustration more and makes for a more entertaining scene. This is where doing your own film really pays off. You can change and adjust different parts of the film until you get the result you are looking for. Sometimes that change my be in an unexpected part such as in the dialog recording. What's interesting about this is that it's real frustration from when I flubbed the line and I feel it breathes a lot of life into the scene. So check it out on my site at www.rustymillsanimation.com

A 3D Diversion

2007-08-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

I've been dividing my time up a little more on my film so I can teach myself Maya. I am using a rig we had at Summer Arts so I can learn how to animate in Maya. Even though I have delved ever so slightly into modeling and rigging I really don't want to get into that aspect of 3D. I have done animation in Lightwave before and just barely in Maya so I decided to really jump in and work it all out. It's mostly getting used to where the different controls are in Maya as opposed to Lightwave. Maya does have better animation controls just like Lightwave has better modeling. It also helps to have such a nice rigged character as this one.

I also did this walk, which was to try and have him pulling something along. This is a nice challenge in 3D to keep the hands holding onto the same object while still walking the character and giving him a little resistance. I Plan on doing some more scenes as well as working with some of the texturing and effects.

Busy and Updating

2007-08-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

I have updated my website with a few sketches I have done recently in my sketchbook. Since returning from our road trip to TX I spent one week at home before going to be a guest artist at CSU Summer Arts with some great animator friends,
Andrew Gordon, Mike Wellins, Brian Boyd, and Chuck Harvey. Rick Vertolli from CSU Chico heads up the animation program. This year we concentrated on character development. One of the coolest parts about it is in the same room we had 2D and 3D animators doing the same assignments but in their chosen medium.

Students got to have 3 days of acting
classes which helped them develop their characters. They then did poses, walk cycles and scenarios which were animated in either Maya (3D) or Mirage (2D). They also got a nice tour of Pixar and were treated to some of Chuck Harvey's great collection of animation.

All together it was a great time and some incredible work came out of there. You can see some of their work at MyToons.

Road Trip

2007-07-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

The family and I just did a 9 day road trip from here in So Cal to San Antonio, TX via Albuquerque, NM. It was a business trip for me to make my regular trip to MyToons . We decided to take the northern route via I-40 through Arizona in a single 12 hour drive. We stopped at the Meteor crater along the way. We spent a couple nights in Albuquerque and went up to Santa Fe one day. Then we did a one day 11 hour drive down to San Antonio where we spent 5 nights (including the 4th) there. While I went to work for three of the days my family took in the sights (such as the Alamo). We headed back and drove 9 hours to Lordsburg, NM and spent the night. Then home the next day. Sure they were long drives but it gave us more time at our destinations. During the leg between San Antonio and Lordsburg we had some great rain storms so I pulled out my sketch book and did some quick sketches of the vast planes and great rock formations. Because all of these areas have been getting a decent amount of rain there was green vegetation mingling among the rocks and across the plains. Though you often hear people say what a dreadful drive it is across the southwest I have to say there are some very beautiful and interesting places. Plus in this day and age it is nice to see there are vast areas that have not been taken over by development. It is interesting how practically every major city you travel through seems to be the same. They all have Wal-Marts, Home Depot, and many of the same restaurants. I would recommend a nice road trip for everyone to get away from our metropolises and experience the world.

New Online Portfolio

2007-06-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

I don't often use this blog to talk about other sites but this happens to be my new online portfolio site. I've been working on this for a while during my spare time between spending time with my family and working on my film. I like to always keep my portfolio up to date and the online one I had was getting rather old and didn't reflect the things I have been doing lately. I didn't even point people there much simply because this blog was more up to date than it was. But the problem with a blog is each time I put in a new up to date entry things scroll down. So I felt I needed a more permanent place to showcase my work. My old site had been done completely in Flash but I felt I wanted something a little more classy and accessible. So this time I used Dreamweaver with some Flash elements. I'm sure I will be tweaking it slightly to take care of mistakes but this is the most comprehensive display of my work I've ever put together online. Even at that it still was hard to pick and choose what to include and what to leave out. The nice thing is it includes a good variety of my work, not just animation. Although there is plenty of animation work there too, including the latest work reel of my film and my 2007 animation reel. So go and enjoy, there's plenty there to see at www.rustymillsanimation.com

Weight in Animation

2007-05-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult things in animation is to give the true feeling of weight. This seems to be especially true in 3D where characters often feel like they float rather than have any effect from gravity. The particular pencil test presented here was done for a promo for a show called "Sherlock Holmes in the 21st Century" that Filmation was pitching back in 1986. The assignment, as it was explained to me by the director, was that this was the climatic scene in the show. It had to play well and give a true feeling of struggle and doom. This is Moriarty dragging Sherlock Holmes, who is unconscious, to the edge of the top of a large tower in order to throw him off to his death. At the last minute a beam of light shines down and blinds Moriarty who drops Sherlock and he himself trips and falls off the tower.
I acted the scene out many times trying to imagine how I would drag someone about my own size. The idea that having him pull, twist, and hesitate because the weight kept pulling him back down seemed, to me, to give more of a feeling of desperation and dramatic build up. I also thought that having Moriarty hold him up and talk right into his face just before he was about to plunge him over the edge gave a nice revengeful feeling to Moriarty's character. Having the cape blowing in the wind also added to the drama.
Though I had done plenty of scenes where weight needed to be considered this was truly the most difficult scene I ever had to do where not only did it have to be considered but it played a crucial roll in how effective the scene was. It also was one of the rare times when a director told me to take the time I needed to get it right. I worked on this scene for 2 weeks (10 days) and when I turned it in the director was thrilled and personally took it to the assistant department to be sure it was handled by the best people.

Greedy as Daffy Duck

2007-05-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

I've been reading so much about the Summer box office lately that I finally had to write my commentary about how greedy studios are getting. Sure it was pretty funny when Daffy Duck was claiming all the riches for himself in "Ali Baba Bunny" but that was because he brought out that inner greed we all have inside us. But these days studios greed for more and more money is only rivaled by the oil companies. I can't believe all the stories I'm reading about how Spiderman 3 dropped 62% in box office take in it's second weekend. I don't know maybe it's just me but I think most anyone should be happy with making $60 million in the second weekend regardless if it was a drop or not. Has anyone ever considered that since it made so much in the first weekend most of the people who wanted to see it saw it then? I mean come on people let's have a reality check here. So many naysayers are claiming that Spiderman 3 brought down the rest of the box office with it...WHAT? I'm sorry but I don't know of anyone who thinks to themselves, "since fewer people are going to see that blockbuster movie this weekend I'm not going to go to the movies a all". Give me a break. Sure, I like the next person understand the need for movie to make a profit but the one thing studios seem to miss so often is the notion that keeping your budget under control in the first place will result in more profits at the box office. I also know that you have to spend money to make money. Believe me I've dealt with productions that had high budgets and even went over budget but there are ways to plan the production in the first place so they will stay closer to the original budget. Here are some sure fire ways to do that.
1. Let the creative people do their job and quit trying to second guess them.
2. Involve the creative heads (directors, producers) in creating the budget.
3. Design the production around the budget.
4. Hone your story before you begin production.
5. Coordinate so no one is sitting around.
6. Make sure everyone in the production knows that throwing up a red flag because of a problem will not cost them their job.
7. Lastly keep salaries reasonable but not undercut.

Sure there are other things that can help but from what I've observed these always work well. So let's stop attaching box office intake to whether a film is good or not and just rejoice when it does do well. It seems to me that it is true that whenever someone is on top there's always someone else who wants to drag them down. And Studios, if you can't be happy with anything less than $100 million perhaps that money should be shared with the rest of us who would like to be making a film for millions and you can only get what the picture makes once it hits that magical mark.

Oh, and as for Spiderman 3 I haven't seen it yet so I have no comment about how good or bad the film is.

Progress is Inspiration

2007-05-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've uploaded much of my film I've been steadily working on. So upon some proding from various friends and viewers of this blog I put together three of the more recent scenes I've completed in rough animation and am presenting them here. The second scene you might recognize as one I wrote about several posts ago. It was a nice acting scene that I could sink my teeth into. I enjoyed working it out and especially enjoyed seeing it all in-betweened. One item of note in that scene is what the little guy is doing. I've always had the philosophy that you shouldn't over animated secondary characters unless their movement is imperative to the main character of the scenes action. I feel it distracts too much. Especially when you really want the audience to watch the main character. I works very much on the same principal as a magician's act. Guide your audience to where you want them to look. I've often shown students of mine this principal with a simple disappearing coin trick where it looks like I take the coin out of one hand and poof it's gone in mid air. Put when I do this trick I am really leaving the coin in palm of the hand that originally holds it. When I do it for students I leave the coin clearly visible yet strongly direct my look at the other hand. What it demonstrates is that even though the coin is still visible I, as the performer, guided my audience to where I wanted them to look. So enjoy the scenes. I will try to post more as they get done.

Painting again

2007-04-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my friend Bob Foster and I went out painting again. We found a spot that had a nice shaded road which is exactly the kind of place we like to paint. I find that contrast is the hardest thing to be sure and keep constant when painting. Bob pointed out an interesting thing about the shadows on the road and the hill to the right side. If the shadows on the yellow dirt of the road are blue why are the shadows on the green of the hill dark green. It's an interesting question and one of the many things I struggle with and also enjoy about plein air painting. I find that the time constraint requires that I make a decision even if it isn't right. On the other hand I am constantly improving my artistic eye simply because afterwards I can rethink those decisions and incorporate them into my next painting. I am finally beginning to get some reflective light in my paintings as can be seen in the tree to the far left (it's easier to see if you click on the image). All in all I feel it was a successful study and I would like to go out painting again soon.

Never Seen Animation

2007-02-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that there are various things I've animated on that never saw the light of day. Here is a simple scene for a series called "BugsBurg" that I animated while working at Filmation in the late 80's. Filmation was bought during the time we were working on this show and shut down in a single day. They literally called all the animators into a conference room and said go home. There was this and another series called "Bravo" that we were working on at the same time. Both had nice squashy-stretchy characters and were fun to animate on.

I'm glad I saved some of these animations and can share them with you now. some of these scenes are just story continuity scenes that were just meant to help tell the story. Sometimes these scene pose little in way of acting but can be fun action. As I look at them now I like the simplicity of the action which was a direct result of having to be economical in the animation. This particular scene is a good example of timing in drawing. What is meant by that is that even if this scene was played all on twos the animation of his spin seems faster simply because of how it was drawn. I'm amazed at how little you see blurred or multi-image drawings in animation these days. And when I have worked as a timer on various series we have to direct the animator to animate it with multiple images.

T. Hee design instructions

2007-01-30T10:54:00.000-08:00

Here is a rare opportunity to get some design instructions from T.Hee
He was one of my teachers when I attended Cal Arts and on one particular day in my freshman year he sat with me and did these sketches and writings in my sketchbook. These are basic design concepts but so simply illustrated through his unique style.
Since that day I have always looked at all of my character design and staging with these concepts in mind.
T. was one of those people who could place the pen on the paper and practically do the entire drawing without lifting the pen. He definitely saw the image on the page and simply traced it. It was not only an inspiration to get these instructions but a joy to watch him sketch them. So click on the images to see these in better detail and enjoy. Thanks T.!

Along the top of the above image are various shapes to consider when designing. Directly below are how those shapes are represented in the third dimension.

On the right is a nice example on using dynamic and passive areas within a complete image. Notice how he is able to draw you eye right to their faces and the argument that is going on.

T. was a master of character and caricature which can be seen through this last piece (above left). He was illustrating how by taking the same character and altering the angles you can alter his attitude.

Maltese camera angle

2006-12-18T22:38:00.000-08:00

I have been watching John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" on the new special restored edition DVD that Warner Bros. putout this year. First off it's a superb set which includes the two previous versions of the film along with many other extras. The quality of the print and transfer is worth it alone.
There is this one scene among many other gorgeous shots that I found particularly interesting. I have done a sketch of it above. Though over-the-shoulder sots are often used in film noir I found the use of the foreground character's (Boghart) body cutting across the frame to enclose the background character (Mary Aster) intriguing.
To setup the shot, Boghart was first sitting back against the couch then leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees in a very natural action.
I love finding places where through natural action or gestures you can find anew camera angle or acting on a character.

Found Treasure

2006-12-01T10:34:00.000-08:00

I recently was going through some old things of mine and came upon this story I wrote for an assignment in high school. After reading it I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. I did this drawing above after reading it. So sometimes you might find inspiration in places you don't expect. Oh and by the way I got an A on the paper. So enjoy the reading.

Chase
by Rusty Mills

He was a dark skinned, medium built man. His face was rough; he walked like a half dead animal and hadn’t shaved in several days. The clothes which he wore were torn as if rats had eaten on them. Darkness had fallen down so his face could not be seen. The temperatures were high, despite the darkness. Sweat ran down his face like dew running down the leaves in the mourning. The forest which he was in was darkened from the moon at night and the sun at day.
Four days had gone by since they had shot his brother. What did they want with him? This he had been murmuring for the last eight days, since he had been running from them.
Their fire glowed in the darkness and popped as logs fell. The men were sitting around it eating. The food which they ate could not be identified by its looks nor its taste. The rough flowing river could be heard in the background. The men were dark-skinned and from the land across the boarder. They were mean and somewhat mad in things they did. Their clothes were uniforms from a national army. They carried large rifles with them.
Then came the final stretch of his journey, a mountain twelve hundred feet high. On the other side of the mountain was the free land he came from. There he couldn’t be pursued.
The men knew that if they waited til daybreak, he would be across the boarder. They started their rough journey after they finished eating. They crossed the river by jumping from stone to stone. On the other side was the steepest mountain ever to be seen. A narrow path wide enough for one man led up the mountain. After every man had crossed the river, they started up the path consecutively. The path wound in and out of the mountain.
The man by this time was half way up the mountain. On one side of the path was a cliff, on the other, a steep hill of trees. His legs were weak and shaky. He would fall, get back up, just to fall again.
The other men were overtaking him because they had eaten and were much healthier than him. The man was weakening fast and the men were coming up faster. The man was coming to his last hill when five consecutive shots rang out in the mountain air and echoed from hill to hill. The man fell backwards and off the cliff, hitting trees and the hill on his fall down. At the bottom he laid in a lake of blood with dirt mixed in it making it blacker. The men turned and started down the mountain and an uncounted number of shots rang our through the wilderness. The five men fill like buildings crumbling. Everyman had been shot several times. Blood ran down the mountain like a waterfall over a cliff.
The mountain was quiet with sounds of animals running through leaves. At the top of the mountain stood a row of men. These men were from the army of the free land. The man that was shot and now lying at the bottom of the mountain was their colonel.
The sun by this time was just beginning to rise over the mountains. This left a silhouette of the men at the top of the hill.

Ahh My Scene of Scenes

2006-11-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to get to this point in my film since I started. This is not only over half way through the film it is also my favorite acting scene. When I had done my original student film version of this I always felt this scene never quite had the guts in it that was needed. Not only was the acting not strong enough but I cut away to a reaction shot from the little guy mid way through this great dialog. My staging was not as appealing and left the big guy in profile too much. So when I approached this scene in my new storyboard I fixed the staging and also gave myself some space at the head and tail to completely give the big guy his chance to act.
Generally I have not done a film in chronological order but decided to do it that way this time to help keep the continuity right. It has helped me notice when I need to lengthen scenes or change start and end poses. Because of that I have had to wait before I got to this juicy acting scene.
I find that I always tend to have certain scenes that I look forward to doing. I think it's a healthy way to approach making a film because if I'm not thrilled with any of my film then how can I expect anyone else to be. I have several other scenes throughout the film that I am anticipating and some that I've already done. Having this type of excitement for my film I believe will show on the screen.
Feel free to get a better look at storyboard for this scene by clicking on the image above and viewing the larger one.

Camera Motivation

2006-10-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Often I find that camera moves in films are too obvious or jarring. That's generally because the camera move is not motivated by anything. By this I mean there should be a reason for the move. It can be as simple as a head turn or reach for something but there should be a reason. I have included two samples here. In both the I shaded in the starting position with green and the ending position in red. The first one above is a reveal. We begin on the woman and truck out as the shadow on the floor comes in and to finally reveal the sinister character in the doorway. Revealing camera moves can be used for comedy or drama. Essentially it is used in a situation where you don't want you audience to see something right away. The speed of the camera move also comes into play here. More comic reveals are usually faster than a dramatic reveal unless you are trying to scare your audience.
On the left here is a follow move. The motivation here is obviously the action. Camera moves such as this help bring excitement into the film. Imagine seeing a car chase where the camera stays still. Seeing the cars race in and out of the scene isn't as exciting as having the camera travel along with the cars. This helps bring the audience into the film. It also helps clarify some of the action. These types of moves are especially helpful if you have dialog or particular acting you want the audience to see while the action is taking place. Again speed is a crucial part of these moves so the action feels natural to the characters.
Other types of moves that help convey particular moods is truck in's and out's during dialog lines. Moving in can help give the feeling of concern or surprise. Moving out can give a feeling of loneliness or being overwhelmed. And remember just because the camera is moving doesn't mean a character can't move into or out of the scene ahead of the speed of the camera.
These days I often see storyboard artists using camera moves to compensate for their inability to make a good composition or to keep a drawing of a character inside the field. This usually results in a camera adjustment which is completely unmotivated. Make sure your camera moves are well planned and the audience will generally be unaware the camera is moving. Just because you are working on a 3D film doesn't mean the camera has to keep moving all the time. Don't let camera moves lose your audience.

Back to the Blog

2006-10-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

After a bit of a hiatus I'm back to the blog. Between my daily work, other projects keeping me busy and my slow internet connection, updating my blog became a little difficult. Well, I've gotten a handle on my schedule and next week I am having a hi-speed connection installed in my home. You see I live in an area outside of L.A. that is very rural. We don't even have cable or DSL available here. My TV is by satellite and there is very little available for hi-speed internet. Yes, there is satellite but it's very expensive and the speeds vary upload and download vary so much it just isn't worth it to me. However, the newest thing available is perfect. It's fixed wireless. The upload and download speed are the same.

Plus it's just a small unit, about the size of a VHS video tape, mounted on your house instead of another satellite dish. So after next week it will be much easier for me to continue my entries on a more consistent basis. I have some great things planned to talk about so continue to tune in.

The Angle on Angles

2006-09-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

One of the ways you can change the mood of a scene is simply by changing the angle of the camera. In this post I have presented the same basic scene from 3 slightly different camera angles. I purposefully kept the camera on the same side of the character to help show how the change can effect the feeling of the scene. To begin with I have a level camera to the character. Here you get the feeling the lady is remembering something or someone. A scene like this often is accompanied by a camera move either in or out depending upon the point in the story that it appears. Next I have a low camera angle that give a more heroic or dramatic feeling. With this type of camera angle give the character a sense of accomplishment. Either that they will be able to overcome or have already have triumphed. It's basically putting the character on a pedestal. It harkens back to the age of Kings and Queens standing on their balconies looking down upon the peasants. Of course this camera angle can be pushed to the point that a character appears taller than they are. Even old propaganda posters used images of people from low angles. Accompanied with harsh shadows can make it even feel sinister. Often you will see films in which a character that is in a desperate situation use low camera angles with harsh shadows. The opposite of this is the downshot or high camera angle. It gives a sense of bewilderment or loss. That perhaps the character didn't get what they were after. Like the first example you will often find a shot like this accompanied with a camera move out. It can also be pushed to give a stronger feeling. A downshot also helps to give scale and place the characters into their world. In many live action movies a crane is used to bring the camera to this angle. No matter how you use these angles it's always good to keep in mind that the angle should not feel out of place. I find it is always best for you audience to not be so aware of the camera. This included camera moves.

Staging and Story pt 2

2006-09-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Often I find that the point of the story is being lost simply by unclear staging. To the left is an example of a scene in which a boy is showing his mom he got an F on a paper at school. The boy is giving excuses at this point in the story and fearful of his mom's reaction. Though the staging is interesting the focus has been put on the mom. This is a great opportunity for some acting on the boy but it's missed and most likely will have a long paragraph worth of dialog assigned to this single panel. Many times I will see a panel like this with both the boy's and the mom's dialog set to it. No matter if you are creating the dialog or it's coming from a script, you need to look for opportunities for acting where you can give the audience a chance to know your character.
To the right is an alternate staging for the same scene. It gives the boy a chance to act and it's easy to tell right away what the scene is about. I would probably add several panels of acting in this same staging.
Now you don't always have to be so blatant as this but it works. The best would be a combination of the two shots presented here. Start with the boy and cut to the mom's reaction. Even better would be to have the boy turn away from the mom in the shot where we see the mom. This could give him some good acting where he is making outlandish excuses that we know are lies. Then the mom could call him on it.
Some board artist also tend to misinterpret things like Over-The-Shoulder (OTS) shots, thinking in means the foreground character has their back to the camera and the character in the background is facing the camera. It really just means that one character is in the foreground(possibly partially cut off by the edge of the field) and the other in the background (or other action is in the background). Try to think of alternate ways to stage a scene so it's clear. Sometimes even simple straight on flat staging will make the scene clearer and actually more interesting. Especially if you've been doing more dynamic shots one after the other.

Staging and Story

2006-09-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm going to spend a few posts here to talk about staging and story. Because I deal with a lot of storyboards I find that although there are a number of good artists out there, few of them stage their scenes in an interesting way or even clear enough to understand the story point. Here are a several rules that I always follow to ensure successful storytelling:

1. Can I clearly see what is going on?
2. Is the camera angle motivated by the story point?
3. Number of characters in the scene, do they all need to be here)?
4. Can I tell where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going?
5. Has the staging become too obvious?
Over the next 5 posts I will discuss each of these rules. There is not always one way to successfully board a scene or sequence but these rules should apply to any and all ways it is done. They are great to keep in your head or to post on the wall to constantly remind yourself. If you get stuck they also can help you get out of a bind. You should always fall back on the simplest way to fulfill the story point. You can always expand on that.

The story panels I have included here are from a test I did for Dreamworks. Each gives you a particular feeling even though you don't have the dialog. Besides the way they are dressed you can tell simply by the staging who the sarge is and who the private is. The downshot above is an interesting way of showing the sarge is addressing a platoon without cluttering the scene too much.
So get ready for some storyboarding 101!

An American Tail

2006-09-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

Click to Play

Deleted Scene I animated

Over 20 years ago I was a new animator with vigor and an outlook to be a master animator. During that time I was hired to animate at Don Bluth Studios on "An American Tail". The first few scenes I was given to animate where on a section of the film that Don had not finished storyboarding yet. Some of the scenes had gone through layout and were ready to be animated. They were at a section of the film where the family was boarding the ship for America. As happens with many films the scenes get altered and some scenes get removed. Above is one of these scenes. Fievel in his excitement has stopped the line boarding the ship and Fievel is looking at the fish in the water below. He is holding onto his dads tail and his dad starts walking pulling Fievel along. In the final film the scene was extended and widened to include the other mice.
Though it is a short scene and my drawing skills have improved greatly there are some points about this scene that are worth looking at and reminding myself. Look at the weight that is due to both the timing and the poses. The slow start to his walk gives the feeling he's being pulled by his dad. There is a simple main action that takes place but other secondary actions and overlap were added later. These secondary actions give a life to the scene. His look back at the other passengers behind him gives a nice sense of a little boy.
Because the scene is so short he doesn't change his pose too drastically helping make the action and gesture read.
Sometimes it's good to look back at work you've done that either you like or others gave you a good response to. Analyze them and see what might be the reason they worked. It's easy to lose sight as to why a scene is successful. It's also easy to get wrapped up in deadlines and frustrations and lose the life the scene requires.

Ahh the Walk Cycle

2006-08-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Next to the bouncing ball, the walk cycle has to be the most rudimentary of animation assignments. Yet, with it, an animator can define their ability to create life and personality. It combines the ultimate challenge in a single animated movement. In a couple steps the animator has to show distinct personality and attitude, give the feeling of weight, and use fundamentals of animation like overlap, archs, and follow through. Sometimes the walk cycle will be a change in attitude from what you've previously seen in the character. That can be quite a challenge because now you have to make it feel like the same character yet you can't use their signature attitude. And with all this to keep track of you also have the mechanics to plot out. Generally a walk cycle is figured out by having the character walk in place which means you have to keep the steps working to a moving background so the character doesn't feel like they are sliding. Yes the ol' walk cycle does come with it's challenges but when you get it working it can give a lot of reward within a few drawings of animation.
I'm about to embark upon the scene shown above which is a turning point in my film. It is about half way through the film and leads into some of the stronger acting scenes. With this scene I have to show this guy has just about had it, yet there is quite a bit more for him to have to endure so I can't take him to far over the top.
So if you are looking for something to animate that can show your skills or help develop your skills as an animator try doing a walk cycle.

Unique to Yourself

2006-08-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

Often I see scenes that make me say, "ahh they looked at Milt Kahl's animation or Chuck Jones design, or Frank and Ollie's work". Although this is the best way to learn there does come a point where you realize it wasn't though out from a true acting standpoint. Though all of the master animators who came before us should be studied I offer up a new idea on the subject. Rather than directly follow how they acted their characters or actions they derived I suggest building your own style based upon your own observations.
When I was at CalArts the first thing the teachers had us do in animation was to inbetween some classic Disney scenes. For the least experienced of us it was a lost lesson. Those scenes really only helped me later in my studies there when I could truly understand what the animator was doing. What it did do was give you a great big boost of confidence. Because no matter how crappy your inbetweens were the scenes always looked gorgeous simply because the animator had but so much there already.
My point here is you need to make your work unique. All these master animators did that. And I can hear you now saying, "well yeah, they were the masters". Ahh but they weren't always the masters and though they did follow some masters of their own, they built new ways of creating their animation. Even though they each have specific styles to their work they approached each new character and sequence with a uniqueness that shows in the final work. To do this they got up and acted it out. They looked in the mirror. Observed their friends and families. And yes, they had their own frustrations. Most of them would admit feeling like they couldn't get something right, or the character was so boring they had a hard time thinking of some interesting way to make them act.
So if there is any cue you should take from these masters it's do you own acting and observing and bring something new to the table.

A Small Painting

2006-08-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd break away from animation and share some more of my "plein air" painting with you. This painting I did a few months ago while there was still some green in the hills around here. The day was great because it was somewhat overcast and so I was able to get some good atmosphere in it. I also used the opportunity to exercise painting small with a large brush. I've always been fascinated by paintings that when viewed at a distance have greater detail than when viewed up close. The only way to achieve this is to paint with a large brush and larger strokes. This painting is only 7"x12" and most of it if you look close is not very detailed but from a distance it all falls into place.

The Start of Design

2006-08-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Whenever you begin a project the design has to start somewhere. For me it is usually the characters that start the design then the environment. I have worked in many different styles and like to pattern the design of a film or series around several different criteria. These are:
Animation
Budget
Genre
Medium
By animation I mean, full animation, or limited animation. I prefer to make the type of animation part of the style of the show/film rather than the cost. That brings me to budget, if you know where the project is going to be done (i.e. what studio) you can probably get a good idea of the types of budgets they will give to the project based upon their previous work.So there's no reason to design a high budget film/show and squeeze it into a low budget. When I was on "Animaniacs" and "Pinky and the Brain" the accountants would always want to cut the budget down to half. I would tell them that if they still wanted it to be the same show it would work. Instead of having the show come in closer to budget it would be over budget. Instead I would offer to design a different show that would fit their budget.Genre refers to your audience. The design should feel friendly to them. Some what familiar but with a twist. Take a look at films/shows that fit
your target audience. What are they used to seeing? This doesn't mean you can't take your design in a new direction but your audience must be able to relate to it in some way. Often these days I see shows that seem to think characters with very little expression or even ugly designs give it a "fresh" new look. I also see shows that leave out all fundamental elements of design. This can make for compositions that are too busy and make it hard on an audience to follow. Especially if you happen to be designing a show for Pre-schoolers.Finally be aware of the medium. Is it going to be animated in Flash? Perhaps it's going to be done in 3D. Whatever the medium it's going to be done in it's a good idea to designing with that in mind. Make that part or your decision on how the characters are styled. And it certainly will have an impact on the environment. Certain textures might be available to you when working in a particular medium and others might not be.
All of these need to be considered when designing. They all impact each other and in many cases are good items to know when pitching a project. You might get asked about the genre and the budget and even the medium.
I have spotted this post with various designs I have done but either the pitch didn't get picked up or I never used them.

Why Design?

2006-08-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

The style of your film or project can make all the difference in the world. Here's a concept; how about let the film dictate the design! To often I see projects being done that are the same design as the previous project done by that studio or person. I've always felt a film should be a total artistic experience. From the composition on screen to the color to the characters. Right now the film I'm working on has an old Disney / Warner Bros. feel to it and it fits the story. My next film I plan on having a very different style. Sometimes combining styles can give an interesting approach to the film. Take the illustration I did above. It combines a flat style on the character with a textured painterly style on the background. One thing to always keep in mind though is to not let the design overwhelm the story. I've seen plenty of films that make me say..."It looked nice but not much of a story".

Perfect Timing pt. 2

2006-08-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of my key timing antidotes:

1. Anticipation
2. Contrast in Action / Timing
3. Slow-in / Slow-out
4. Overlapping Action
5. Arch & Linear Action
6. Dialog Timing
7. Expression Timing
8. Tension

I have chosen the scene at the left here to illustrate many of these key timing principles. This animation is a simple reaction to something happening behind him. The animation for the most part is on 2's accept for the actual stretched take which is on 1's. This is another principal I have; use both 1's and 2's were needed. I do not use 1's just to smooth out the animation but rather to enhance particular actions. So here is an explanation of each of the items on the list.
Anticipation
Generally whenever a character is going to move they either need to anticipate the action or slow into it. In the case of this scene you can see the extreme of the anticipation by the 3rd drawing. Though this is more extreme than in real life you can see these type of anticipations throughout the day in movements people and animals make. The amount of anticipation depends upon how extreme the action will be and what your character is like. More realistic characters use less anticipation than cartoony ones.
Contrast in Action / Timing
This is when you vary the speed of actions to help give interest to the animation. If the timing is always even then it will be boring. A character runs fast towards a street corner then skids on one foot as they turn the corner. Giving the character more time in the skid will give the feeling that they were running so fast that the momentum almost didn't let them get around the corner.
Slow-in / Slow-out
Using this ease into an action can sometimes take the place of anticipation. It is also used to cushion an action as it comes to a stop. I've often heard animators refer to a character hitting a wall when there's not enough cushion at the end of an action. In other words the action ends too abruptly. I even use this in anticipations sometimes. In the scene here you can see the slow-out at the end as he comes to a stop in his pose.
Overlapping Action
Notice the action of the hand holding the paper. It follows behind the main action and the paper follows behind the hand even more. This is overlapping action and helps keep the the characters alive. It's also where you might overextend and settle back into a pose as is the case in this overall take...He goes out to the extreme then comes back down into the final pose.
Arch and Linear Action
Most actions move in a natural arch. If you follow the motion of the characters head here up into the take you will see it arches down into the anticipation and up into the take. Even the hand move in an arch. Linear action is usually used on inanimate objects but there are times when using it on a character can be useful.
Dialog Timing
If you have dialog use the accents in the reading to give your characters accents in their movement. You have to be careful not to over do it though so pick out the major accents. Also a quick tip...If a character is going to open their mouth wide for dialog it is usually best to pop it open wide and settle it back down. This helps give punch to the dialog. Try to give head movements that match the dialog such as moving the head up when the mouth is opening wide. Most of all beware of flapping mouths(i.e. open, close, open, close..etc).
Expression Timing
There's no better way to give a character personality than to change their expression. How fast you change it can also give a feeling of their personality and/or emotion. Think of the slow burn. If you did that same action much faster you'd get the idea the character is ready for attack. A child's eyes slowly welling up with tears in contrast to a quick blast with tears flying out. Sometimes just giving a beat of time on an expression will give your audience an idea of how a character is feeling or what they are thinking.
Tension
Slowly moving towards a closed door can give great tension if your story has placed a character into an unknown environment. Frantic movement around a room can also give tension when contrasted with another character standing still. In "All the Cat's Join In" there is a great scene where kids in a car are speeding along and the suddenly slow down and drive by a policeman then speed up again. The contrast in the timing gives tension while they pass the officer.

So keep these in mind when you are animating. It doesn't matter if you are doing 2D or 3D, these same principals apply. Always be sure it is you making the decisions about the timing and not the computer.

Perfect Timing pt. 1

2006-08-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Last year I was one of several guest artists for 2 weeks at the Summer Arts festival held at Fresno State Univ. The animation students completed three short films, two in 3D and one of which was 2D that I directed called "Bass Akwards". The image above is the simple model sheet we used for the main character. These students were new to animation but did an amazing job on their films. While there I gave a lecture to the students about timing. So here is that the first part of that lecture.

Animation Timing
Most new animators always ask the question, "How do I know where to put the next pose or keyframe and how many frames apart they should be"? My answer to them is "you don't", until you have either experienced, observed, or experimented. Timing has the ability to create tension, humor, surprise, emotion, escentially it gives the sense of life. Without timing there would be no tension in the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Wiley Coyote falling off the cliff might be gruesome instead of funny and the scenes you animate might not read.
As a Producer and Director I spent a lot of time in editing retiming the animation by cutting out frames or adding frames. You don't want your director to have to retime your scenes in editing so take your chance now to get it right.

So back to the original question, "How do I know where to put the next pose or keyframe and how many frames apart they should be"? Use a stopwatch, act it out, have someone else act it out, sketch! observe! I always hear complaints about sitting behind a computer for hours. Get up, act it out create some video reference of your self or others. Discuss your scene with other animators, get their thoughts on your approach. If you truly feel it won't fit into the time allotted talk it over with the director or your supervising animator. Often you will find your approach is wrong. But sometimes you will find the director will open up the time for you.
You must be sure the timing you are putting on the character(s) you are animating matches the timing throughout the film. This doesn't mean they can't suddenly change due to circumstances in the story but it still needs to feel right to the character. That is how a character maintains their personality. Think of the timing of a walk and run on a particular character. Had it been different it would change the personality of the character.

Tomorrow I will continue with my notes from my timing lecture.

Getting in the Groove

2006-08-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

As I continue to get into the freelance groove I will share with you two items. First this drawing of a Parrot named Socrates who was one of the characters for a show I pitched together with a couple writers (Charlie Howell and Grant Moran) while still at Warner Bros. The show was about 3 animals, a cat, a dog, and a bird, who were left abandoned at their home when the owners were abducted by aliens. They had to make it seem like humans still lived there to keep from being taken by animal control.
I had wanted to have this brush pen style to give it a unique look. But alas the show was not picked up. The Backgrounds had a nice textured style to them. I will put those in a later post I have planned about background painting.

The second thing to share goes along with the post about animating groups as a single shape. It was requested that I share the animation with the dogs overlaid on top of the shape to further illustrate the method. Remember that these dogs appear in silhouette in the final scene. They also move across the scene and are much smaller in the frame. Often I find that if I animated a cycle larger then reduce it down for the final scene it will have a better feel. Today it's much easier to do this in the digital medium.
Click here to view the animation

On the Move

2006-08-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

I have finished my work for Disney TV Animation and am moving over to do freelance timing for Universal Animation Studio. I will be working out of my home for now until I am called back to Disney later this year. I've been getting myself settled in. Whenever you leave one company for another you have to switch gears and get into the new groove. Especially when it's making the transition from studio to home. So I apologize for the lack of posting for the past couple of days. I will be continuing my posts about my film tomorrow.

Everyone Gather Together in a Group

2006-08-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Frank and Ollie write about animating groups of characters as a shape in their "Disney Animation: the Illusion of Life" book. This technique helps keep a uniformity to the characters even if the action is more sporadic. In the scene I'm working on I have a group of dogs who chase one of the characters. The dogs are also going to be in silhouette which makes it even more difficult to read them as dogs. So I go to the technique the experts have given us. This involves animating a shape first, then conforming the characters to that shape. I used a bean shape which has a movement similar to a single dog running. Giving it this type of action will help sell the fact that they are dogs. Together with the sound of barking keeps me from having to be sure the silhouettes read in every frame. It also helps get the overall timing of the action because when you have characters of different size and shape they tend to run at different paces and that can impede the group moving together.
After animating the shape I placed the three dogs into the shape. Not only will it make them move together more smoothly but it allows me to make more pleasing overall poses. Had I Just animated the characters singly I know I would have made the timing of each much slower. Using this technique I am able to make more comical timing. The same could have been true if I needed it to be more dramatic. Simply by adjusting the timing and design of the shape. Notice how the shape is simply a guide. I don't have to be exact in matching the dogs to the shape.

Bad Animation is OK

2006-08-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

First off there are different types of bad animation. The closest to hand is the animation you yourself create that isn't working. You know that scene, that no matter how hard you work on it there doesn't seem to be a solution that will make it work. Then there's the "quick and cheap" animation we see a lot of on TV and the internet. And finally there are those animated films that have everyone asking the question, "why did that ever get made?"
Well, I made a TV pilot that falls into the last category making those who have watched it wondering why it ever got made. In this case it was killed by the writer and the executives who accepted his script. The designs here are what the show was built around. These are what got it optioned, yet the writer decided he couldn't understand why there wasn't a "floor" in the image inside the tea shop. So the style got lost to more conventional walls, floors and ceilings. This series was also designed to use limited animation yet it was written dialog heavy which in my opinion doesn't work when you already have characters that aren't going to move too much.
So back to the subject of this entry. Why would it be okay to have this bad animation around? It's my philosophy that without it there would be nothing to let the good animation shine. We have to get the bad out of the way. I look at every experience I have in this industry as furthering my animation education. Sure I've worked on some of the worst dreck that's ever been produced but it taught me what not to do. For myself I always do my best on any job I work on. When I watch a film that has me questioning why it was made I look at what's not working. As much as we need to study the good films we should also study the bad. Understand it so you don't make those mistakes.
Look at the "quick and cheap" shows and find why it's not working. Doing animation for a small budget doesn't mean you have to reduce your standards. It means you need to design for that budget. Think about who you might be pitching a show to. If it's going to be done for a small budget then design it that way.
In your own work don't despair when it's not turning out how you want it to. Take a breather and come back to it. Sometimes discard it and start over using a different approach. Now that you've gotten the bad out of the way then you know what not to do and can change it.

That's a Fine Silhouette

2006-08-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Silhouette is something you hear talked about a lot in animation circles. Many times how it applies to animation gets misinterpreted. Often animators think it means to be sure arms and legs need to be put out to the side in order to get a good silhouette. I call this a “flat” silhouette. Although that does work and should be looked for it can become boring and can cause your animation to lose it’s dimensionality. To get a good silhouette might mean you need to utilize certain aspects of your characters design. For example if they have a large torso area, placing the hand in front of that area could make it easy to read.
It is most important to have good silhouette in your final pose of an action. This means that the inbetween poses might be weaker in their silhouette but as long as the over all action can be read this is okay.
Another area animators tend to forget is to not only make sure the overall pose works in silhouette but individual parts of the character need to read. Hands, arms, legs, feet, heads, etc need to have good silhouette on their own.
I am starting a new scene on my film that is the ultimate type of silhouette. In this scene the characters are solid color so the action needs to read well. In these types of cases it is often good to blatantly pose the characters in a flat silhouette.
When storyboarding a film you need to be careful when planning these types of scenes so by the time they get to animation the action isn’t going to get lost. Certain cheats can be used in cases like this. For example in my scene I have gotten rid of all extraneous objects around the house in the background. If you use silhouettes in a shadowy setting, place a solid area of color behind where the character will be to help them read. Perhaps a pool of light or a solid wall.

Direct Yourself

2006-08-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult things when animating your own film is being your own director. There is always a tendency to let the scene go as it is. It's amazing how easy it is to overlook the flaws when you don't feel like redoing any part of a scene. Of course I can also be pretty brutal to myself and over criticize the work. There has to be a happy medium, otherwise the project will drag on and I'll face the possibility of never getting it done.
I'm fortunate enough that I have been a director with a budget and a schedule. This has given me a nice balance between getting it done and making a quality film. So I switch hats and look at my scenes with that directors eye. What instructions would I give that animator? Simplify the action; Punch up the dialog to match the track; Stronger poses where needed; Slow down or speed up the action; Give a breather in the action; Eye direction; etc. These are all directions I might give to an animator so I look at my own animation in the same way. When I do it gets better and I feel like I'm getting the quality I want.

Tilt! Tilt! Tilt! Tilt!

2006-08-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how the smallest things can sometimes have the biggest impact on a scene. Years ago I learned about using head tilts. Tilting a characters head either up, down, or to the side helps clarify the attitude and expression.
Using head tilts together with a strong body gesture will strengthen your animation. Always consider 3D space when using a head tilt. Look at the drawings I've included with this post. The head is often tilted in a combination of directions. Using the same drawing and simply angling it up or down is not a true representation of expression. It's only action so a character doesn't freeze.
Take a look at the difference between the upper poses and lower poses in this drawing on the left. See how changing the tilt in 3D space makes a difference even though the expression has stayed the same. Sure the upper poses can work in many situations but look at how much more the lower set accents the look simply by giving the head a tilt in 3D space. Granted my character designs lend themselves to work in 3D space but often I find people making stylized cartoons take the lazy route of saying "well my cartoon style is flat". To me this is just a lack of trying. Even the stylized cartoons of UPA and Disney used head tilts. Experiment with your characters and see how you can make them expressive while still fitting into the design of the film. Sometimes a head tilt can become part of the style of your film.

Past and Future

2006-08-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

In this day and age of new media, 3D animation and digital 2D animation we must always look back to the past and obtain knowledge then apply it to our chosen medium. With programs like Mirage, Photoshop, Painter and others being used to create digital backgrounds it's nice to look back at artwork created by the traditional mediums. Here is a painting done by Annie Guenther when she worked on my crew at Warner Bros. This painting was originally painted for the Tiny Toons Halloween special but due to my fault it needed to be redone to make the time of day as midnight. Annie being the great person she is said no problem then went off and did a new painting. These days those type of changes can be handles much easier without having to repaint. I was able to later use it for the opening titles of the Pinky and the Brain Halloween special. Looking back at work like this or some of the classic Disney and Warner Bros. and UPA films can help keep that life that is often missing in newer animation. There is still high style and design in these works and one hurdle I often have a hard time getting over when viewing newer work is the design. It often overwhelms the viewer to the point that it's difficult to follow. There is always room to experiment and I love see something new and different but not when I get bored due to lack of restraint. All of these Studios as well as others tried new styles and mediums from limited animation to stop motion. One thing we can learn from their work is how they animated high style designs without losing the style but still keeping the motion clear.
I'll share with you drawing I did when we were looking to create parents and possible other relatives of Pinky and Brain. This is what eventually became Pinky's father. The little guy though cute was never used because the style didn't match the show. Besides a script never got written that included relatives other than his mom and dad. I keep a file of all this artwork along with copies of old Disney and Warner Bros. animation for reference. Sometimes even some of your old artwork can be inspiring.

Shapes for Another Day

2006-08-01T11:23:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that I often sketch out ideas that perhaps I'll use on another day. Here is a character design I had done with a writer for a series idea. We did do a couple of pitches for it but nothing came of those pitches. I felt the concept needed more work before it would ever be pitched again. The image here is a refined design from when we did the original pitches. I often find that ideas like this will pop up in other designs or stories I do. It even shows up in my animation sometimes.
When I was at CalArts I had a design teacher named Bill Moore. While I was struggling through the first semester of his class, like most of the other students, I found myself wondering exactly how this pertained to animation. Once I started grasping his design concepts I could see that it would be used for character and background design and color. It wasn't until I was in my second year with him that I began to see that it also should be used in the poses and action I put into my animation.
Strong shapes and design help make the action read well and give the audience a visual feast.

Adapting to Digital

2006-07-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

Teaching a class in using digital media to replace traditional means has shown me how much creatures of habit we humans tend to be. The students that pick up the process fastest are those who have been using software for a while. The menus and interface become easier when you already have a sense of how computer software works. But there is one area that everyone has a hard time and that's adapting your work habits to unfamiliar software.
The drawing above was done to mimic pastel on paper. When I did it I had to adjust how I would usually work with pastels. The blending was very different and getting different looks for the edge of the pastel took a bit of tweaking. However once I got the technique down it went smoothly. I have had animators ask about using an x-sheet in Mirage (my software of choice for my film). They wonder how I am able to do my animation without a traditional x-sheet. In a sense I do have one, it's the timeline. It only takes a different way of thinking about the x-sheet to make it work. I still think the same way about my planning and animating. The only difference is how I place them on the timeline instead of an x-sheet.
Being in the digital world means I do have to think differently about the numbering on my drawings. Digital work requires sequential numbering so skipping numbers can be a problem. Once the drawings are done or if you've figured out your timing already you can place your key drawings at your chosen frames. So essentially you are numbering like on an x-sheet.
I find most often though that I do my animation by timing and feel so all I really need to know is how many inbetweens are needed to get my desired timing and action but not the drawing numbers.
Adapting to the medium that is the hardest to overcome. To do that you have to be willing to accept change. If you approach new software by wondering why it works the way it does you will have a more difficult time. Mastering software is done by mastering how it allows you to get your desired results.

Note: listen to self!

2006-07-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

As I began to work on my next scene I was looking forward to it so much that I had all these ideas in my head. In my excitement I decide I would just jump straight into animating. After all I had all the ideas already in my head so it's got to work. Sure I have always stated that it's a good idea to do thumbnails first but after all I'm an experienced animator and don't need to do that, right?
(buzzer goes off here)
Well, this proved that no matter what, you need to listen to your own words of wisdom. I spent a couple days agonizing over this scene only to watch it over and over and realize it didn't work. Though the action worked it was so over acted and complicated even I would watch the scene and wonder what was truly going on.
I grinded my gears into reverse and spent the next train ride thumbnailing out the scene. Wow, look at how much better these thumbnails are then anything I did in the scene. And I can tell what's happening. Now the thought is clear in my head. I not only have an idea of where it's going but I have a visual reference of it to. The basic poses have now been worked out. His change of attitude is clear.
Now that I've begun the animation again the drawings are better and the line is more confident. Believe me, animation has not begun before you've worked it out in thumbnails. And that's the bottom line!

A World of Motivation

2006-07-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Animation film making and storytelling should always involve motivation. Too many times it seems that I see it missing in so many places. Take for instance a simple pan. To me a pan needs to me motivated by either the action or story point. Often I see storyboards where there's a slight camera adjustment simply because the artist couldn't keep their drawing inside the field. Camera adjustments should be to help reveal something or to include another character. For example, in the image presented here, the gag would be made funnier simply by starting on the smaller character then pulling out to reveal the bear getting ready to kick him. Remember in the haunted mansion ride at the Disney parks. The elevator at the beginning has paintings that seem to stretch. Each of those paintings reveal a gag once they are fully stretched out.
Motivation should also be what makes a character do what they do. Here is a simple list of questions to help understand the motivation in a scene.
1. Who or what are they reacting too?
2. Why does this scene exist?
3. How does the character feel about what just happened or is about to happen?
4. How does their environment effect them?
I always ask myself these kinds of questions when working on a scene either in story or in animation.
I wonder why more people don't look for the motivation behind the story points in a film. Convenience is not a motivation but rather a easy way out. It's used way to much in stories these days. Figuring out the proper motivation may take a little research or perhaps a new story point elsewhere in the story.
Let's analyze a quick idea here. Say we have a super-hero with extraordinary powers. There is a love interest who is in the proximity of a car and truck that are about to collide. The super-hero goes to prevent the accident. What is the motivation? The motivation might be to save the people in the car and truck. Or it might be to show off for the love interest. Depending upon the motivation will depend on how the super-hero feels, reacts, and even the out come of their actions.
So even a simple walk needs a motivation to know how the character will walk. And remember motivation isn't always positive.

Funny appealing shapes

2006-07-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

Shapes are very important in helping define the look and personality of a character. Whenever I am designing a new character I try and find shapes that help give the audience a first idea of what a character is like. These same shapes need to allow the animator to easily pose a character to show specific attitudes and gestures. Sometimes certain folds or patterns in clothing, hair, and even skin can help the animator move the character. Appeal doesn't necessarily mean likeable but interesting. Even some of the best villains are appealing. You want you audience to be able to watch your characters no matter what role they play. Each of the characters and hands above are derived from appealing shapes. Though these are quick sketches you begin to get an idea of what each of these characters personalities are. The gestures in each of the hands even tell a story. These shapes are exaggerated versions of real world shapes. So go out to a park, the mall, an airport and find the shapes in people and animals.

Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain DVD's

2006-07-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Well, finally Warners got past all their legal deals with Amblin and have released the first volumes of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain to DVD. I haven't said much about this since they began talking to me about them last year. I'm very happy that so much of my work will finally be available in this way. It's too bad Warner's wouldn't put more into the extras. It's great to have the interviews and all but so much artwork exists and little if any is included. Hopefully on future volumes we will be able to include some of it. For most of the 1990's this was my life and an extraordinary run it was. Like many things it was the right time, place and people who made it happen. I recently was told by one of the people putting the extra material together that the diversity in people who were involved is pretty amazing. I believe that's why it worked so well. From the voices to the writers to the artists involved everyone cared about what they were doing. We would have regular screenings of new shows that had been completed and the crew was always laughing. I knew things were working well when the same people who had written, drawn, and directed the show were still laughing at it after having seen it over and over. The Emmy's I won from these shows hold a special place in my heart. It was nice to be recognized for doing something I loved. After having directed so many of the first Animaniacs it was nice once in a while to be able to step back in as Director after I had become the Producer on both shows. It was especially nice on the Pinky and the Brain Christmas show which is included on this first volume. Here's a little behind the scenes goodie for you that probably isn't mentioned in the extras.
There is a part in the Pinky and the Brain Christmas episode that accidentally got left out. Pinky and Brain are attached to the reindeer rig of Santa's sleigh. Santa walks up and inquires about them. One of the elves says "that's one of those noodle noggin dolls." As it exists now Brain just winces. Well, there was a different reason he winces. Originally Santa then lifted Brain's tail and said, "Where do you put the batteries?". This little bit of business got left out when the storyboard was duplicated to send overseas to TMS for animation. It wasn't noticed until the show came back and by then there was no time to correct it and still get it on air. So it stays the way it is for history.
I hope everyone who enjoyed these when they aired gets to enjoy them again and share with a new generation of viewers.

Expression by Shape

2006-07-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

When I was in school at Cal Arts we used to get the "flour sack" (some of you might not realize that flour used to be sold in large sacks) lecture all the time. Through the years I find myself still coming back to the principals set forth in that lecture. Basically the lecture showed how you could take an old flour sack and get expression simply by how you posed the sack. I've done a similar thing above but through a simple bean shape. You can see how with a simple shape you can express emotion. Even complex ones can begin to be betrayed with the initial shape you put down on the paper. Now you may look at these shapes and think 'but my character is not that shape". Even so you can take your character and break it down into the most fundamental of shape(s). A realistic human can be divided into about 8 shapes. There are times where I have figured out my initial action simply by animating a single shape. Then I can begin to bring more details of the character into the scene. This can help with overlap of action and secondary motion. Drawing simple shapes are a great way to start when designing a character. I'll write about that subject in another post.

Criticize Yourself

2006-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I have completed 10 scenes of my film in rough animation. As nice as it is to move on I find I constantly have to look back over my work with a critical eye. This is a constant struggle. Because it's always easy to find fault with your own work while at the same time not wanting to redo what you've already completed. I realize I will have many more chances to refine these scenes but at this point I need to be sure it's flowing as a film and inside individual scenes I need to be sure the acting is coming across. As I completed this 10th scene I felt that even though the hand action is working it needed a little more of the frantic feel that the dialog has. It's a short line in which he says "No, no, no...don't say it" very quickly. I knew the facial expression couldn't change too drastically in order to make it read. So I looked at the hands and saw that I could push the action further.
In order to be sure I didn't lose the original I animated the hands on a new layer then once I was satisfied I erased the old hands and merged the new ones into the same layer as the rest of the character. I ended up doing a few more tweaks beyond this that helped with the overlap of action even more.
I like the way the actions overlap even though the entire character flows as one. With the overlap in timing it helps a bit with the frantic nature of the scene. You can watch the scene here

More on Clean Up

2006-07-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

The above drawing is from a scene of Brom Bones by Milt Kahl. I've included it here to illustrate how cleanup has changed over the years. When Ichabod Crane was done the process included inking, a technique that has not been used much since ink and paint has been done on computers. Even when the Xerox process was used there was still portions of a character and especially special effects that were still being inked by hand. Having work a little bit on projects that were inked I know that the cleanup artist only had to concentrate on the drawing and not the line quality. The line quality came from the skilled inkers who put the images onto cells. These days clean up in my opinion has gotten too clean. Shows that use software to give their animation a good line many times lose out on the freshness of the drawing. Even once Xerox came into the process many of the animators drawings were lost since studios manly considered the finished scene worth saving. A few enlightened people save some of these roughs and they still exist for us to see and study. This Brom scene shows how the earlier work still has the animators work directly under it. I look at the digital process of a way of keeping the animators roughs while still having a clean version of the scene.
When I approach a clean up I try to concentrate mostly on the drawing and then on the line. If this means doing a blue semi-clean drawing first then I do it. The best way to do this is by not using a light table too much if at all. When you use a light table you tend to draw just lines instead of shapes. In the digital realm I do use a light table but turned down so low as to look no different than if I was seeing through a sheet of paper. This emulates exactly what I would see if I were using paper on an animation disk. The only time I find I must use a light table is when the inbetweens get so close it's hard to see the different lines. In that case I use the table only to get the placement of the lines but make sure I finish the drawing off without the light table to be sure the drawing looks good.

Clean up or Screw up?

2006-07-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have had a request to post about my "philosophy" on cleanup. I will be writing about clean up for animation but this could be applied to any sort of drawing cleanup. First off let's look at what the job of cleanup is for. Getting the animation ready for paint is the main function of clean up. It is also a way of giving a consistency to the characters in the film. When approaching a clean line you must first understand how the animator has approached the scene. If by talking to the animator or if the animator is you the action needs to flow and there needs to be an understanding of why a line is were it is as well as which line might be the right one. You are drawing shapes not single lines. Every line you put down needs to help define something on the screen.
Often I have found cleanup artists who just "trace" over the animators drawings without observing if the character is on model. The problem here is you can lose a consistency to the film. An animators concerns are with getting the action, acting and expressions. The clean up artists concerns are with bringing those factors to the screen. I was once told by Eric Larson, "a clean up artist can kill, in one stroke, what took you hours to put down on paper". This was in response to my question to him on how an animator can be sure anyone who do follow up work on a scene will do exactly what you wanted. He went on to say that it's up to the animator to provide as much information as possible without going overboard. This is why if you ever see a completed rough scene there are sometimes partial drawings. These drawings show particular actions that may differ from the timing charts on the extremes. I remember on one particular project I was working on years ago where I had animated a scene of this cartoony bat jumping of a chandelier. As he came forward his wings bent backwards as he zipped off screen. When the clean up artist did the scene they corrected the backwards wings to be more anatomical. The director called me into dailies and asked what happened to my scene because now the character strobed as he came forward. I had to take it back to the head of clean up and have the clean up artist re do the scene to follow the animation. It was a classic example of how a clean up artist might put a beautiful line to the drawing but ruin the animation.
It doesn't matter if the style of the show you are working on has heavy lines, think and thin, or razor thin lines, you have to use those lines to help define the form. Overlaps such as in the girls hair and in the way her ear overlaps help that definition. Eye direction and expression is crucial. The eyes are generally the first place the viewer looks on a face. Even if I am doing my own clean up I still clean up the scene in stages. First I do the extremes then the breakdowns and inbetweens. That is why I put the timing charts on my own animation. So later when I come back to clean it up I know what my thoughts were when I animated it. It doesn't hurt to jot down some notes on the first drawing of a scene about particular things you need to remember. And if you are doing clean up for someone else, talk to them if you need to get a clearer understanding of the scene and it's particular needs.
I will be writing more about clean up in future posts.

The Technology Pillow

2006-07-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of inquiries about what I'm using to do my film. Some of the questions are from people who are seeing me work on it. As I've stated before I work on the film while I ride the train to and from work. In order to do this I am using a TabletPC which allows me to draw directly on the screen and thus gives me greater control over my lines. I am using a tablet made by Motion Computing. I am doing all of the animation and color work using Mirage made by Bauhaus Software. I often get asked "how can you draw on the train with all the bumps?" Well it comes down to focus. Even with all the distractions I focus on my drawing. Sure there are times I have to undo or erase in order to correct a line but it's just not as difficult as people think. I do my editing using Premiere Pro 2.0 by Adobe right on the tablet. I am creating the film in 2K resolution which is another reason I can keep the lines steady. It does take some getting used to in order to go all digital but it's not that bad and if you give yourself time to get comfortable with the technology it will begin to feel more natural. Many people expect that the reason they don't pick up new software quickly is because they aren't smart enough. Generally it's that they won't take the time nor will they allow themselves to adjust their work habits. Even in the digital world each person will work differently. It's finding that comfortable way to work inside the digital realm that you have to achieve before you begin to see results you like. So work with it until it feels right...just like you do when you buy a new pillow. It's always the pillows that have been used and kneaded a bit that feel the most comfortable.

More Inspiration

2006-07-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

More images from my sketchbook. This is a group of drawings from various times that I did while visiting various places. It includes central park in NY and places in San Diego. Some of the people come from various bars and coffee shops which are great for doing quick sketches of people. Most are real media with the exception of the woman with the towel which is digital. When I visit places I try to sketch things that I can later pull out of my memory when needed. Sometimes it's the place, an action, expression or just the way I handled the color. Or it might be how not to do something. Either way the short time I took to sketch was well worth that later benefit.

Color Keying

2006-07-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today I'm sharing with you some of the color keying I've been working on for my film. This is often called a workbook and is created under the supervision and sometimes by the art director of the film. This is a great way to work out the color of the film or a sequence of the film. Especially if there is changing color through out as is the case with my film. Slowly the film gets darker through out but not due to time of day. It is done to help drive the idea that things are getting and will continue to get worse.
I love to work with color which I guess comes from my fine art background. Using color to help evoke a feeling can be very rewarding when it works. Though I enjoy color, using black and white can be just as powerful. Truthfully it's really a grey scale unless you're talking about comic style inking or even hi-con film. No matter the choice they all can have a distinct visual impact even if it's not noticed by the audience. Sometimes the impact you want is for the audience to feel comfortable and to invite them in.
This painting of the houses of parliament by Monet illustrates how the use of color can change the way in which you look at a subject. It is obviously the houses of parliament in a haze but look at the palette of colors monet uses to pull you into it. This same approach can be used in film to help bring your audience in. If you're clever enough with your color you can completely manipulate your audience without them hardly realizing. These days with the ability to manipulate the color in life action films, director's are using this same technique that animation has always had the ability to do. Bambi is a great example of how color was used in animation to help drive the story and evoke certain feelings in the audience.
So when working out the color of my films I make decisions based on the story, emotion, and character and color keying is the best way to do this.

Utility Scenes

2006-07-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Click here to view the scene

Sometimes there are scenes I like to refer to as utility scenes. These are necessary scenes that are needed to keep the story moving by helping to establish location or to transition between scenes. Often these tend to be the more boring scenes for me. But they are necessary and can be a great place to hone your skills of simplicity. I like many animators tend to over complicate a scene by adding in extra action that doesn't help get the story point across. I constantly find myself simplifying my actions.
Above is the scene I am currently working on presented in it's roughest stage. Some of the inbetweens are even missing as well as one of the characters. In this scene the insurance salesman approaches the door again, knocks, and steps back ready to pitch his next form of insurance. I have already taken this scene further by adding the inbetweens and eliminating some of the walking to the door. There is a wipe at the beginning of the scene starting from the left side so much of the walk will be lost. I also decided the walk was a little to brisk for this point in the story. So I eliminated part of the walk and slowed it down.
Even though I find this scene boring to animate I know that not giving it the proper attention can make it weaken the entire film. I have even combine actions to help keep things moving. He pulls out the insurance policy as he steps back so the audience won't get bored watching him pull the policy out in the next scene. This is the setup for the next scene in which he starts to offer Auto insurance. There is no need to do any more than the setup. He knocks and the other character answers the door. Because this scene doesn't make a big story point it's best if the audience doesn't notice it so there's no dialog, no funny expressions, and no extra action.
So if you find yourself doing utility scenes do a great job on them by not drawing too much attention to them.

Letting the Audience Ahead

2006-07-05T09:52:00.003-07:00

While reading Jenny Lerew's Blackwing Diaries
blog I began thinking about how story in silent and early sound films sometimes utilized a method by which you let your audience get ahead of the main character or characters. This was especially true in comedy. Notice in the picture above from Laurel and Hardy's "The fixer uppers" how letting the audience see the villain behind Oliver Hardy makes the look on Ollie's face much funnier.
Today's stories often misuse this method and instead of letting the audience ahead they make the situation too predictable. That's because the story point is lost. In the situation presented above the story point isn't if Laurel and Hardy are going to get caught but rather how are they going to get out of the situation. It's built around the characters.
Sometimes it's the surprise that comes from letting the audience ahead that makes it work. My film is setup early and leaves the audience ahead of the characters until near the end when an unforeseen gag leaves the audience wondering what's next.
Through most of the film the audience knows that each time a type of insurance is presented that situation will happen.Here the salesman offers Auto insurance. We as the audience know something is going to happen to the car. It's the surprise in how the gag is delivered that makes it work.

The Artists Block

2006-07-03T10:33:00.001-07:00

Like many artists I often find myself unable to get past a particular spot. Sometimes it's a single drawing of a scene or perhaps the entire scene. It might be one panel of a storyboard. No matter what the situation is I find that moving away from the problem is the best remedy to getting past the problem. I start sketching anything other than what I'm currently working on. Just let the pencil flow. I have accumulated quite a few drawings just from doing this. Sometimes I will sketch an idea I've been having in my head and have hesitated to work on because I have another assignment due. That might literally be the block. You see I feel that if there's something else I have ideas for floating around in my head it sometimes gets in the way of what I'm supposed to be working on and seems to block the flow. So if I get some of it out of my system I might be able to move past the block.
Many of these sketches give me new story ideas or character designs or environments. I find it helps to try and sketch situations. Small single sketches that tell a brief story or give a particular attitude. There are times that doing this makes me realize the initial approach I was taking was wrong and that is what caused the block. I remember one of my teachers at CalArts, T.Hee, saying that perhaps if you draw it with your other hand, or upside-down , or sideways you will get past the block. The point is, look at it a different way. I've even taken the same situation and played it out with different characters that are different sizes from the ones I'm currently working with. Then there's always outside input, from a friend, spouse or even child. Ask them how they'd do it. Even if they don't give you the exact idea they might spark a new one from you.

Inspiration from John Lounsbery

2006-06-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

I find my animation inspiration from many places but my favorite animator is John Lounsbery. To me his animation always had a freshness no matter how similar the scene was to a previous scene he animated. Here today I present a few extremes of his from a scene in Robin Hood which was replaced. Seems Milt Kahl was directing this sequence and when he found out there was a Shakespere line of dialog that Robin Hood would deliver he threw out this beautiful scene of Lounsbery's and redid it himself. You will notice the design on Robin Hood is slightly different than the final design we see in the film. Notice the overlap of the head to the body movement and the hat and ears to the head movement. These kinds of extra movements are what give the true feeling of life to the animation. Because of this I find many times it works best to get the major movement pinned down then build upon that. This might mean I have to go through my scene several times but the result is worth it.
Another thing to notice is the amount of squash and stretch given to the character. Depending upon the style of animation you are doing will depend greatly on how extreme you will want to go with distorting the character. By constraining this (without eliminating it) you will come closer to getting the feeling that there is a solidity to the character or object. In this scene you can just feel his cheeks and without drawing each individual hair you can feel that he has fur above a solid structure.
In this simple movement the animator has also kept solid arcs in his motion. When flipping the individual drawings the head moves in a nice arc up to the highest point. Notice also that he leads the arm with the elbow instead of just dragging it behind. This gives it a deliberate action so you know the character meant to do what he's doing. Closing the eyes as he moves up then opening them at the top of the action gives accent to the action and can help punctuate the dialog.
Although I have a collection of inspirational scenes that more closely match the characters in my film I find that sometimes it's best to study scenes that aren't so close. It can be very easy to fall into the copy trap. In order to keep things fresh I can study scenes like this and refresh my animation rules without getting lost in how the character is drawn. Sure, I can look at the poses and gesture but I find it best to not copy them directly. This freshness is what I strive for in my work. To me the audience should enjoy the film and not directly notice the animation. I would prefer them to be entertained and later notice that it was animated nicely too.
Robin Hood images ©Disney

A Quick Trip

2006-06-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Over the past week I was on a trip to Illinois with my family. Seeing the wonderful green vegetation made me want to pull out my paints and fill one canvas after another. I had a wonderful time with my family and relatives. We went to a cousin's wedding where they had a reception on the shores of the Fox river. It was also my parents 50th anniversary and we had a nice party for them. After that we spent a couple of days in Chicago and visited several places including the Field museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. As a relief to the extreme heat here in Southern California it was nice to have rain showers and lightning storms while we were there. Of course the trip wasn't long enough. I did get to finish another scene to my film while on the plane and have started a new one.

Idea for another day

2006-06-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

As I get ready for a vacation I always pack my sketchbook so I have a way to jot down ideas. Not to mention airports or train stations, even truck stops are great places to sketch people. On one such trip (though not a vacation) to Tokyo I spent my time planning out a film. I boarded the entire film in a scketchbook during the two 10 hour flights there and back. I will eventually do this film but at least I got the idea down. I find that sometimes it's best to just get the feeling of the film and actions though not nessesarily the complete comosition. So here you see not only some composition ideas for some scenes but just some sketches of the relationship between the man and his dog. The nice thing about working like this is it allows a more stream of conciousness way of getting the ideas down. Ideas can be arranged and changed at will. Once the ideas are down they can be brought into a program and arranged or altered as needed. I always liked the feeling I got in these drawings and will probably do the film somewhat in that style. I may have done this 7 or 8 years ago but the ideas are now down on paper and the drawings still feel fresh.

Building a Scene

2006-06-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Click here to see Sc-6 Story Reel
Every animator has their own method to get to the end of a scene. First there is usually a story reel / animatic/ leica reel of the scene. This comes from shooting the storyboard drawings at the proper time to the sound track. Having the storyboard in this form helps give a good idea of how the cuts are working and if the basic acting will play out clearly. Above you can see the leica of Sc-6 from my film (the term leica comes from the name of the camera which used to be dedicated to filming the story boards). It it you can clearly see the character is looking behind him to an offstage voice. At the proper time you can see his reaction to the O.S. character and finally his reaction to an O.S. snap sound. It is clear that he knows there is a pending problem.
Click here to see the Rough Animation
Here you can see the completed rough animation of the scene that is based on the storyboards. See how I elaborated on the acting. I also turned him around more giving a feeling of space beyond the frame of the film. I also was able to play up the contrast between his anger and his reaction to the O.S. snap. The pose at the end of the scene is more natural and I didn't have to make him look directly towards the sound. Previous scenes and the scene that follows gives the audience a clear placement of where the sound is coming from.
As I started this scene I headed in the wrong direction and ended up scrapping the first version. The actions were not natural and where too predictable. By this I mean the acting felt too much like something I had seen before. I always try to think of a different way to act the scene so it has a fresh feel. This can sometimes be difficult because you run the risk of making it feel forced. It helps sometimes to think of a particular person or actor when planning the action of a character. Sometimes it's the voice actor who can inspire it. In this case I've had Lewis Black in mind. This character gradually gets more and more angry as the film progresses and I felt Lewis Black personifies that type of personality.

Am I pursuing my art?

2006-06-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

When I find myself in this conundrum or in a discussion regarding a fellow artists questioning their own artistic endeavors my first suggestion is to step back and look. Of course there's the "be thankful for what you've got" feeling of guilt when I even question my current state of work. I do agree with the fact that you should feel thankful. Having been in the situation where I was unable to pursue animation work I definitely am thankful that I do get work in my industry of choice. I also realize there are many more people in the world who don't get to choose their career. So for this, yes, I am certainly thankful.
But that doesn't answer the question that titles this entry. To come to a conclusion I still have to step back. This entails examining what I am trying to pursue. Of course for each artist this will be different. Pursuit means you must have an end point or goal. Much like constructing a good story. It's best to know where you are headed in the end before you start. Otherwise you tend to wander aimlessly and lose track. With a clear goal you can always focus again on your end point.
I can choose to be lazy about the answer and not really examine my goal by saying, "my pursuit is to better my art". If I BS myself with this kind of lame answer then I might as well give up and wander aimlessly. What specifically is the goal, for example specifically for myself I want to work on refining my abilities to see the drawing on the page before pen or pencil touches the surface. Building these skills will help me see the forums and structure better. This type of skill can be worked on no matter what it is I'm drawing. So even though the work you are doing at a job on a daily basis may not seem to be helping you pursue your art you can find ways to use it to help pursue your art even though it's not your own personal work.
And of course always keep sketching!
A recent sketchbook page I did while riding the train. The sketchbook has heavy paper and I use mostly brushpens but also some pencil.

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

2006-06-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

"Yeah, I got a film I wanna do about...", "Wish I had the time to make a film", "That'll be great when it's done...", "I'm jealous". I'm sure I've uttered these words just as people have to me since I started working on my film. People I've known or know that have completed their own film find the time and make the commitment. Sure, family and other interests take up a lot of my time but the battle really isn't finding the time but being willing to allow the time. What I mean by this is to not expect it to be done now. I work under deadlines and schedules all week long so why put that kind of pressure on myself. Many people may argue that without a schedule they'd never get done. Hey, if that's what it takes to get you to do the work you never really wanted to do the project in the first place. Oh you might want the elation of having a completed film but you didn't want to do the work. Now I'm not saying it's all easy to do. There are certainly times when I'm tired or decide to do something else but seeing various parts of the film get completed drives me to do more.
I have included here a few of the storyboards from my film. I created them using Mirage by Bauhaus Software. I am creating the majority of the film in Mirage. The first big milestone of my film was when I did one complete scene. I did this before the storyboard (I already knew the shot and had an old track from my student film). This scene gave me my production pipeline. It helped me figure out exactly how I was going to work and also that it would be possible on my Tablet PC. It also was a great boost because I could show it to people to get reactions. You can view the scene here:
Animation Sample

Jump Start

2006-06-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

I've decided to jump into the world of Blogging. Hey if Eddie Fitzgerald can do it I figure I can too. I have several reasons for doing this blog but first about the name. The term Plausible Impossible is often used to describe certain abilities in animation. For example the idea that a character will hesitate in mid air until he realizes there's nothing below them and then fall. Walt Disney even did an episode of "the Wonderful world of Disney" built around this term. So because it describes so many things I do it felt right.
Now some of what you'll see here on my blog:

First I've been working on my own paperless 2D film as I ride to and from work on the train. Everything is being done on my Tablet PC. I've gotten far enough into it that I thought it might be interesting for others to see my progress. So periodically I will post some images and status of my film named "Gotcha Covered". It is a remake of one of my student films I did while at CalArts. Like most animators I looked back at the old film and saw how I could make it better. The story I thought was good and funny but I wanted to put back in some pieces I had to leave out when trying to make the end of the year deadline at school. I also felt some of the staging, acting, and timing could be better. So I started from scratch and redesigned, reboarded, re-recorded it and am now reanimating it.

Second I do plein air painting with friends of mine and will be posting some of that work. I hope it will help me paint more. My preferred medium is oil on canvas. I also tend to like the "widescreen" (can you tell I work in the motion picture industry) format. I also tend to like to paint larger but recently have worked on smaller canvases in an attempt to not get lost in the detail.

And finally I plan on posting thoughts and artwork I have collected over the years. Some will be mine some will be by friends and some will be by artists who helped define their genre, both fine art and animation art. I plan to post at least once a week and hopefully more. So I hope you'll want to spend some of your bandwidth here on occasion.