Subtlety in the Face

In 3d animation, every detail can be seen. It is those small details that add a layer of complexity to our work and I wanted to talk a little about what interests me when I am trying to get that in my work. First off, not every scene calls for the smallest facial twitch. Sometimes many scene are basic and money spent on tiny details is lost. It is in those close ups that you want to add the proper amount of detail. I remember being an animator on a bugs life. John Lassiter wanted us to look at a film clip of two different eyes blinks on flick. One was a standard eye blink. It looked much like a camera shutter opening and closing. Not much ease out, the timing was the same and in general, when seen at such high rez, looked mechanical. The next example was a shot Mark Oftedahl did. The blinks he did were beautifully timed. The sides dragged , the shapes changes. They were perfectly polished and looked fleshy. Nowadays, this type of stuff is much more in the main stream of high end 3d feature animation, but back then it really opened our eyes (no pun intended). So what is in effect left in the realm of facial animation? Where can we push too? What improvements can we make? I think some of the answers lie in subtle animation. Yes, we work in a medium of exaggeration, but also one that lets us layer in detail. Of course, some of the examples I want to give are from the world of live action. Lets do a little action analysis of some of these clips…

First, lets just look at some of the “controls” our face has…

Interesting clip…. That one made the rounds in the department…

This next clip from “There Will Be Blood” Shows a lot of facial details that really add to the acting and intensity of Daniel Day Lewis’s performance. Its the stuff he does between his lines that draws you in. How he pushes his lips up, the changes and micro expression. Its a great movie to watch for acting as well as everything else.

That’s all for now. Look for some more stuff coming soon.

-Andrew

more on texture…

Here’s a scene from the Robert Altman film, The Player. I had been thinking about this post for a while and after reading Gordon’s latest I thought this would be a perfect extension of his point, but more related to dialogue as opposed to pantomime.

the-player

Watch Grant (the British dude) pitch part of his movie idea to Tim Robbins, a studio executive. Robbins’ performance is equally as interesting for all the subtext going on but I won’t spoil that for you. Here we’ll examine the texture of Grant’s performance in his body acting while he’s talking. Normally I wouldn’t advise hitting beats so “on-the-nose” as he does, as it tends to flatten a performance: why illustrate with the body exactly the words the character is saying? And certainly if all he had done was hit the obvious poses, the scene would be boring, or even worse, annoying. I want to talk not about the poses he hits, but what he does in between them that makes this scene so entertaining.

Take, for example, the first close up scene of Grant as he explains the car accident investigation. An animator would find it very easy and tempting to skip right from the “brakes have been tampered with” to the pose for “murder.” But Grant makes it interesting and convincing by doing a hilarious anticipation before the line. I broke the beat down into the five keys I’d pose for his action:

1) “brakes have been tampered with”

2) eyes close, head up

3) head down, hands up

4) hands hit down: “it’s”

5) head up to look at Tim Robbins: “murder”

(You’ll probably note that he actually hits a slightly different pose for “murder” before arriving and holding at the one I picked.)

Now he’s not just illustrating the line, he’s added a whole new urgency to it, and subtext that reads “no if’s, and’s or but’s, it’s murder!” And he’s broken up the action by having his hands follow his head as a second accent. He’s also acting within poses very economically; long holds with subtle texturizing movements. He’s covered all the principles! This whole scene is chock full of such juiciness (including preceding lines I cut for time). Look at the antic for the running action or the dramatic pause before “there’s not a dry eye…” And these are extreme examples; in animation even a two frame eye antic *before* your body antic can help show thought process and make a scene more entertaining. Bottom line: characters thinking = believability. Believability = entertainment.

Look for places to do this in your work!

-trav

Revisiting what makes a good reel

Recently, I have been involved in the process of choosing animation interns for our summer animation internship. We have had hundred and hundreds of reels. I wanted to talk about some of the things that make a reel interesting.

1) Lets talk about the most simple – make sure it works well. Believe it or not, many people dont check if it works. If possible have a back up

2) Title and format – Simple is better. white over a black background is all that is necessary. Also, organize the dvd so that I can just hit play and look at the work. I dont need 10 chapters with sub chapters. Make it easy as possible for me to view the work.

3) What to begin with – Basically, you want to grab the attention of the viewer with the best work possible. Don’t save your best stuff for last. It may never get seen. Thats not to say that you should not put good work at the end of a reel. Always start strong and end strong.

4) Same old, Same old - If I see another canned physical test I might go crazy. We see alot of the same thing over and over. Whether its an animation mentor character jumping on some poles, or the same ringling assignement where you have to model yourself and animate a piece of dialogue…. It all starts to blend in. I want to see original ideas. Stories, interesting acting. Remember, its always about the ideas and acting abilites. Polish can be taught. Focus more on coming up with original acting and good ideas. The problem with many animation schools these days is that they seem to be copying each other. We see many different reels that contain similar models. If possible, create your own character designs.

5) Cover letters and reel breakdown. Keep the cover letter simple. Don’t try and write an essay about why you think you should be the one. It will always come down to the work. The cover letter and resume are glanced at. I often find it interesting that students have business cards that say character animator on them. They are really nice and glossy. Sometime, the presentation impresses me, but what I find is that the work on the reel did not have as much put into it as the dvd case and fancy cards. Also, you are a student, not a character animator. Less is more…

In closing, animation has come a long way since I was a student. We have higher standards. The important thing to understand is that good ideas will always win out. Show me an interesting character, not the same damn thing I’ve seen over and over. Be original with your characters, ideas, acting… everything.

-Hope this helps a little.

Andrew

A Great Animation Resource

Carlos Baena just updated his website and it has loads of great animation resources…

Check it out

Carlos Website

Animation Workout.

Your animation muscles are just like any other muscle in your body. They need exercise so that you can make them stronger and less flabby. I love animation and I love animating and the thing I do most outside of work is an animation workout. It’s easy to do and doesn’t take a lot of time. Many of us get caught up in animating huge acting assignments or even longer pieces of pantomime animation. I think these types of assignments are useful and necessary on a reel, but sometimes I think a quick workout can really be more beneficial to your overall success. What I mean by a quick work out is I take one principle of animation or two and create animation to focus on them. I generally just use a prim box or sphere, that way I’m not tempted or distracted by complex humans characters. Remember the goal here is just to focus on one particular thing and animate it really well, polish the crap out of that box so much the corners become rounded. For example lets say I wanted to focus on Overlap. I could easily create a prim box, parent another prim box to it and I’ve got a rough stand-in for a chest and an arm lets say. With this built I’m off and working out my overlap. Turn the box and have the box arm overlap not that hard or is it?

Slow-in and Slow-outs no problem create a prim sphere and just have it move from one side of the screen to another and back again or have it move around the screen slowing in and out of certain key positions. Quick and easy. Want to focus on Drag create a prim box moving up and down and around the screen picking one corner or edge of the box to lead while the other end drags behind.

None of these are going to go on your reel, but hopefully you’ll get a better understanding of the animation principles. That way you can put them together in a more complex piece of animation you would put on your reel. You’ll also get a better understanding of how to use your tools. You might focus one time trying to animate the slow in and slow out of a ball moving around just with the graph editor with just keys at your main poses. Or you might animate something in stepped mode animating every frame so you get a better understanding of spacing and how that relates to the graph editor. Maybe you have a problem with things strobing all the time in quick moves. This is a perfect way to help figure out to solve that problem. Without the pressure of an acting piece or pressure from anything you are free to experiment and mess up and try again because they don’t take very long, and no one is going to see them. Just like working out it’s the end result we are working towards.Dr. Stephen G.