Otto's coming out party, with some back-up help from Garfo.
Here's a high-res QT version for you to download and frame through if you feel so inclined. There are some interesting things going on here. Smears, mixed 1's, 2's and even 3's, lots of kinetic transitions that aren't precisely literal, static parts mixed with moving parts, etc.
I'm really pleased with the way this has turned out. The style of animation is right in that sweet spot I've been aiming to hit for the last few years. I like how the energy comes through the rough edges. The idea is to let the viewer sense the hand of the animator showing through, to let the immediacy of the creation moment remain perceptible, even if it's not perfect.
I worked on this in my spare time over the last 3 months. Otto's rig underwent about 3 or 4 major revisions/rebuilds along the way. I'd start animating, hit a roadblock or find something that just didn't work the way I wanted, then I'd back track, gut his rig and rebuild it, move forward, etc. For example, the first singing Otto part is from a completely different rig than the second part. When all was said and done I finally ended up with a rig that's really solid and fun to work with, as well as a fun little proof of concept on the animation style.
If folks are interested I can post info detailing the animation approach.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Just for laughs
Michael Sporn posted a copy of a great, great article on his blog today. Working for Walter Lantz in the 1930's.. writen by Leo Salkin. I absolutely love stuff like this. An excerpt...
ps: this is why you don't write off good blogs, even if they fry your biscuits now and then
Out of the nonsense Walt (Lantz) would select the stuff that could be made into a film: comedy bits, funny lines, gags. The cartoons of that period were still being concocted and assembled in much the same way Mack Sennett had made live-action comedies: “Charlie, there’s some kid auto races going on down in Venice—grab a cameraman, go down there and see if you can come up with something funny.” Or, “Hey! They just drained Echo Park Lake, it’s all mud, that oughta be funny as hell!” That’s what we did. We took a locale, an occupation, a situation, or the basic premise of a popular feature and did a lot of gags, strung them together, built in a chase, and got out in under seven minutes.Go read the rest.
There was no market testing, or who is our target audience, or will a sponsor buy this? Come on, fellas, it’s just comedy. Get some laughs. Walter was the judge. What he thought was funny was what got up on the screen.
ps: this is why you don't write off good blogs, even if they fry your biscuits now and then
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
At least I'm not alone
It's nice to know I wasn't the only person underwhelmed by Up. In addition to some commenters here, Michael Sporn and Michael Barrier both were fairly critical of the film's faults. Both gentlemen have a long history of accomplishment, as well as critical thought and analysis of animation. Each have strong opinions, as well. Some say that puts them into the crumudgeon category. I wouldn't agree with that label. They are definitely fans and want animation to be great- but they have their standards and they don't waver from those. I certainly don't always agree with their views. I'd be afraid of the person that I always agreed with. Yet I find their blogs to be required reading, especially if you wouldn't normally share their opinions. Always seek out different points of view- it makes you a more well rounded person and keeps you from becoming intellectually inbred. It also makes you less likely to be used as a tool.
I'm thankful for the chance to have a different perspective. I'm finding that my own views on animation -- especially the big studio feature film variety -- have evolved a lot more now that I'm not in the belly of the animation studio biz like I used to be. That culture can be claustrophobically limited and tends to be very self re-inforcing (a dangerous hallmark of any brand of fanatacism, by the way). You always end up working with the same people, or people who know people, again and again. Everybody is one level removed from everybody else. So there is a strong, unspoken pressure to not rock the boat, to be as vanilla as possible. Keep potentially caustic opinions to yourself because you never know what thin skinned person (or friend of said person) you might offend by expressing an original critical thought. Plus there is a tendency to elevate the profession of character animation to levels of importance and significance that are, frankly, just silly. One artifact of this is to navel gaze about the smallest of details, which is tiresome to me and misses the point. There is a noble benefit to self improvement and refinement of one's craft, but do we really need to study video reference of the tongue in slow motion in order to convincingly animate an "L" sound? Really? So often CG film animation misses the forest for the veins in the leaves on the twigs of the branches of the trees.
At this point I don't feel a need to work in the big animated film biz. Been there, done that, got the receipts to prove it. I'm just in a different place. Our family loves where we live and I thoroughly enjoy teaching and tinkering with my own experiments in animation. I don't worry as much about somebody getting their tighty-whiteys in a twist because of something I have to say. I think the very fact that Barrier and Sporn have no stated desire to work in the big studio animation film biz is significant. It's good to have informed outsiders chiming in. Perhaps there are benefits to having informed former insiders who are now almost outsiders chiming in, too.
I'm thankful for the chance to have a different perspective. I'm finding that my own views on animation -- especially the big studio feature film variety -- have evolved a lot more now that I'm not in the belly of the animation studio biz like I used to be. That culture can be claustrophobically limited and tends to be very self re-inforcing (a dangerous hallmark of any brand of fanatacism, by the way). You always end up working with the same people, or people who know people, again and again. Everybody is one level removed from everybody else. So there is a strong, unspoken pressure to not rock the boat, to be as vanilla as possible. Keep potentially caustic opinions to yourself because you never know what thin skinned person (or friend of said person) you might offend by expressing an original critical thought. Plus there is a tendency to elevate the profession of character animation to levels of importance and significance that are, frankly, just silly. One artifact of this is to navel gaze about the smallest of details, which is tiresome to me and misses the point. There is a noble benefit to self improvement and refinement of one's craft, but do we really need to study video reference of the tongue in slow motion in order to convincingly animate an "L" sound? Really? So often CG film animation misses the forest for the veins in the leaves on the twigs of the branches of the trees.
At this point I don't feel a need to work in the big animated film biz. Been there, done that, got the receipts to prove it. I'm just in a different place. Our family loves where we live and I thoroughly enjoy teaching and tinkering with my own experiments in animation. I don't worry as much about somebody getting their tighty-whiteys in a twist because of something I have to say. I think the very fact that Barrier and Sporn have no stated desire to work in the big studio animation film biz is significant. It's good to have informed outsiders chiming in. Perhaps there are benefits to having informed former insiders who are now almost outsiders chiming in, too.
Monday, June 01, 2009
my review of Pixar's "Up"
Spoilers ahead, so skip this if you want to save the experience....
I'm a sucker for emotional films. I'm a softie romantic. As a kid I sobbed my way through Snoopy, Come Home. I sniffle at every single chick flick I've ever seen. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan devastated me for weeks. Literally. About Schmidt left an impact crater on my life that still moves me (It's a great film that shares a lot with Up- it's about a widower going on an adventure to find himself after his wife passes away, establishing a relationship with a young boy along the way). So films usually have a powerful emotional affect on me. But for some reason this one didn't hold. I think I must be the only human being to have experienced this (based on all the rapturous and breathless reviews I've read so far), but Up never grabbed me. It's not like I came in wanting to not like the film. I really liked Pete Docter's first film, Monsters Inc. Emotionally I found it very rewarding when I first saw it, and the scene at the end with Boo still gets me when I watch it (like I said- I'm a softie). And I'd heard how Up was Miyasaki like in many ways, so I was looking forward to that vibe. And by all accounts Pete's a great guy, too. So I was expecting to like this film. But something happened along the way to Act 2.
I got left behind.
The 4 minute Ellie/Carl life montage felt superficial, cliche'd and- frankly- rushed. It was like "Look here's the character you're supposed to care about. See how sad it is? Let that music roll over you. You want this man to be happy, right? Good. Now- let's go fly that house!" Their relationship had no real drama. Unfortunate things & disappointments happened in their life, but none of them came from their relationship. The deepest pain and the greatest joy in life come from those we love the most. What if their childlessness caused real tension in their relationship- a wounding that needed to be redeemed and resolved? Couples who deal with sterility don't sail through very cleanly with a "There, there" pat on the hand and a supportive smile. There's wounding that goes on. You could have put that in there -- even in a montage. That sincerity would make me connect with Carl & Ellie. Remember how powerful the argument scene in The Incredibles was? That sold me on those people. Film is about expressing something of the human story in each of us. Nobody lives Carl & Ellie's story. Nobody. And that's why I felt it was a hollow moment. All that aside, even if I accepted their blissful relationship at face value, I couldn't get my heart around Carl. Carl seemed merely a spectator in Ellie's life. From the moment we see her as a child she was a catalyst character, to me Carl was a cypher. Ellie lived, Carl watched and reacted. Even the most touching thing any character ever did in Acts 2 & 3 were the words Ellie wrote in her book to Carl. I found it difficult to engage emotionally with such a character. If you're going to put the character development efforts on fast forward, then you better have some meat on that bone. The blue balloon & cross your heart symbols were just too "on-the-nose" for me. If this were done in live action- shot for shot, action for action with the same memes and symbols it would be panned as maudlin and ham-handed. If performed by Will Farrell it would have been pure comedy. In Up apparently it's the height of filmmaking, I guess. For me it was just too obvious, too by-the-numbers. Like a lot of animated filmmaking done today it seemed formulaic to the core. Like I said, I think I'm the only person who experienced the film this way. Maybe I need to see a doctor.
All that aside, I was surprised by this one discovery. I found that if the film didn't grab you in that montage, the rest of it didn't hold up. That montage was an all-or-nothing moment. If you're not in by the end of that, you're out for the rest of the film. Most folks were hooked in that early montage, and that emotional investment papered over a lot of weaknesses in the film. Which is really how films are supposed to work, because every film has holes that need to be papered over by the audience. It's called the suspension of disbelief. I guess I was Up's kryptonite.
Since I wasn't emotionally engaged I found myself just watching the film without the tears I shed in Act 1 operating as a lens that affected how I saw everything that followed. I found it to be an interesting experience to see a film from such an objective viewpoint. As a result I noticed a number of things that just didn't ring true. There was a big disconnect in the film regarding pain, danger and mortality. The rules weren't the same for every moment. In one moment wounding pain is real and meant to elicit sympathy or have fear for the welfare of the character, in another it's a gag meant to make you laugh and in other moments things that should have caused significant physical pain and injury had no effect at all on characters. Normally you'd just roll with it in animation, but they purposefully chose to show wounds with blood, welts and cuts, along with the frailty of age. That's taking things up a notch. These mean things when you are trying to establish the rules for how the audience interprets your world. This inconsistency kept me from knowing what to feel about injurious possibilities. I had to wait to have them interpreted for me. In storytelling we call those "bumps along the ride". Things that toss the audience out of the moment.
A significant item that held me back from buying into Carl's story as it unfolded was that I had a hard time buying into Carl, the old man. After the first act he stopped moving and acting like a slow, creaky, feeble 78 year old widower who needs a walking cane. He became a physically strong, high endurance, highly flexible action hero who can take a beating and keep on ticking- brushing off any ill effects from a fall or being trampled, tossed and otherwise roughly handled. I get it- his adventure revitalized him. But there's a difference between a revitalized old man and a strong young man. For all the comparisons to Miyasaki that people have for Up, this is where Miyasaki handles things way better. His frail characters live their adventures in their frailty. The girl transformed into an old woman in Howl's Moving Castle moved and acted like an old woman for the majority of the movie (until she started transforming back into her younger self, that is). The children in My Neighbor Totoro were limited children the whole film, experiencing their world as children, not action heroes. Up dispenses with human frailty in exchange for action set pieces. How many hanging one hand grabs to save oneself from falling to one's doom can a 78 year be expected to pull off? How many times can they be thrown down from heights and not break a hip? (my 76 year old mother in law broke her hip falling off a bed. And she wasn't some wilting flower of a woman, physically, either). And that's only one example. There were scores of them. I'm not the kind of person who picks nits in movies over physical impossibilities (ie: the entire Michael Bay filmography), but this is the guts of Character Animation, folks. Sure the moves exhibited a form of technical polish and solidity, but they were hollow of meaning- they weren't believable in any way because they were not true to an old man in any way. It wasn't character animation (ie: within character, expressing a unique person in every way)- it was movement to keep up with the gymnastics of adventure. Aside from a spare gag or two jammed in to occasionally remind us of his age, Carl as an elderly man just didn't ring true for the last 3/4ths of the film. If you want me to buy into a character's story then I need to buy into the character's being. This wasn't a story about an old man on an adventure saddled with the limitations of his old-man-ish-ness. That would be an interesting and intriguing film if you ask me. Instead this was an action adventure flick with a strong athletic character in an old man costume who occasionally acted old for effect. Stanislovsky's rolling in his grave. Isn't this why we pan CG 'performance capture' films? Some may say I'm quibbling. Maybe I am. But that really kept knocking me out time and time again. And it wasn't just Carl who had this problem. The antagonist Muntz behaved the exact same way. Set him up as an ancient old man (20+ years older than even Carl himself), have him move like Errol Flynn in his prime. Russel was little better in his 9 year old boy-ish-ness. I will say that there was one genius scene with Russel where he's complaining about being tired of walking like a real 9 year old boy would. It was the one moment in the film that I felt like a real character existed there. I'm sorry, but for all the raves over how great Pixar's character animation is, I found this whole thing astonishing.
I thought the most honest character in the film was Dug. His mind was simple and he was really just supposed to be a comedy relief character, but everything he did and said and emoted felt like it came from an honest place inside of him. He was a dog, he thought like a dog, had dog feelings and motivations and reactions and movements. When Dug was on the screen everything about him was sincere. His scene on the porch after the house lifts off again was amazing. He wasn't just a dog, but a real character. The animators did a magical job of expressing him as a character. In other words, I bought Dug's part in the story because I believed in Dug, even though the filmmakers didn't seem to try very hard with him. But I did not buy Carl's or Russel's story, despite all the efforts to make me choke up over them.
Artistically, I'll have more thoughts on the overall aesthetic approach and how it related to the story in another post. Quite often Up was a visually stunning film.
Anyhow, let the flames begin. I expect no shortage of scorn for posting this. *sigh*
Post Script: It's been two days since I watched Up. I haven't thought about it one bit since I wrote this review on Friday. The film continues to have had no impact on my life. I can say this is not usual for me. For whatever that's worth.
I'm a sucker for emotional films. I'm a softie romantic. As a kid I sobbed my way through Snoopy, Come Home. I sniffle at every single chick flick I've ever seen. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan devastated me for weeks. Literally. About Schmidt left an impact crater on my life that still moves me (It's a great film that shares a lot with Up- it's about a widower going on an adventure to find himself after his wife passes away, establishing a relationship with a young boy along the way). So films usually have a powerful emotional affect on me. But for some reason this one didn't hold. I think I must be the only human being to have experienced this (based on all the rapturous and breathless reviews I've read so far), but Up never grabbed me. It's not like I came in wanting to not like the film. I really liked Pete Docter's first film, Monsters Inc. Emotionally I found it very rewarding when I first saw it, and the scene at the end with Boo still gets me when I watch it (like I said- I'm a softie). And I'd heard how Up was Miyasaki like in many ways, so I was looking forward to that vibe. And by all accounts Pete's a great guy, too. So I was expecting to like this film. But something happened along the way to Act 2.
I got left behind.
The 4 minute Ellie/Carl life montage felt superficial, cliche'd and- frankly- rushed. It was like "Look here's the character you're supposed to care about. See how sad it is? Let that music roll over you. You want this man to be happy, right? Good. Now- let's go fly that house!" Their relationship had no real drama. Unfortunate things & disappointments happened in their life, but none of them came from their relationship. The deepest pain and the greatest joy in life come from those we love the most. What if their childlessness caused real tension in their relationship- a wounding that needed to be redeemed and resolved? Couples who deal with sterility don't sail through very cleanly with a "There, there" pat on the hand and a supportive smile. There's wounding that goes on. You could have put that in there -- even in a montage. That sincerity would make me connect with Carl & Ellie. Remember how powerful the argument scene in The Incredibles was? That sold me on those people. Film is about expressing something of the human story in each of us. Nobody lives Carl & Ellie's story. Nobody. And that's why I felt it was a hollow moment. All that aside, even if I accepted their blissful relationship at face value, I couldn't get my heart around Carl. Carl seemed merely a spectator in Ellie's life. From the moment we see her as a child she was a catalyst character, to me Carl was a cypher. Ellie lived, Carl watched and reacted. Even the most touching thing any character ever did in Acts 2 & 3 were the words Ellie wrote in her book to Carl. I found it difficult to engage emotionally with such a character. If you're going to put the character development efforts on fast forward, then you better have some meat on that bone. The blue balloon & cross your heart symbols were just too "on-the-nose" for me. If this were done in live action- shot for shot, action for action with the same memes and symbols it would be panned as maudlin and ham-handed. If performed by Will Farrell it would have been pure comedy. In Up apparently it's the height of filmmaking, I guess. For me it was just too obvious, too by-the-numbers. Like a lot of animated filmmaking done today it seemed formulaic to the core. Like I said, I think I'm the only person who experienced the film this way. Maybe I need to see a doctor.
All that aside, I was surprised by this one discovery. I found that if the film didn't grab you in that montage, the rest of it didn't hold up. That montage was an all-or-nothing moment. If you're not in by the end of that, you're out for the rest of the film. Most folks were hooked in that early montage, and that emotional investment papered over a lot of weaknesses in the film. Which is really how films are supposed to work, because every film has holes that need to be papered over by the audience. It's called the suspension of disbelief. I guess I was Up's kryptonite.
Since I wasn't emotionally engaged I found myself just watching the film without the tears I shed in Act 1 operating as a lens that affected how I saw everything that followed. I found it to be an interesting experience to see a film from such an objective viewpoint. As a result I noticed a number of things that just didn't ring true. There was a big disconnect in the film regarding pain, danger and mortality. The rules weren't the same for every moment. In one moment wounding pain is real and meant to elicit sympathy or have fear for the welfare of the character, in another it's a gag meant to make you laugh and in other moments things that should have caused significant physical pain and injury had no effect at all on characters. Normally you'd just roll with it in animation, but they purposefully chose to show wounds with blood, welts and cuts, along with the frailty of age. That's taking things up a notch. These mean things when you are trying to establish the rules for how the audience interprets your world. This inconsistency kept me from knowing what to feel about injurious possibilities. I had to wait to have them interpreted for me. In storytelling we call those "bumps along the ride". Things that toss the audience out of the moment.
A significant item that held me back from buying into Carl's story as it unfolded was that I had a hard time buying into Carl, the old man. After the first act he stopped moving and acting like a slow, creaky, feeble 78 year old widower who needs a walking cane. He became a physically strong, high endurance, highly flexible action hero who can take a beating and keep on ticking- brushing off any ill effects from a fall or being trampled, tossed and otherwise roughly handled. I get it- his adventure revitalized him. But there's a difference between a revitalized old man and a strong young man. For all the comparisons to Miyasaki that people have for Up, this is where Miyasaki handles things way better. His frail characters live their adventures in their frailty. The girl transformed into an old woman in Howl's Moving Castle moved and acted like an old woman for the majority of the movie (until she started transforming back into her younger self, that is). The children in My Neighbor Totoro were limited children the whole film, experiencing their world as children, not action heroes. Up dispenses with human frailty in exchange for action set pieces. How many hanging one hand grabs to save oneself from falling to one's doom can a 78 year be expected to pull off? How many times can they be thrown down from heights and not break a hip? (my 76 year old mother in law broke her hip falling off a bed. And she wasn't some wilting flower of a woman, physically, either). And that's only one example. There were scores of them. I'm not the kind of person who picks nits in movies over physical impossibilities (ie: the entire Michael Bay filmography), but this is the guts of Character Animation, folks. Sure the moves exhibited a form of technical polish and solidity, but they were hollow of meaning- they weren't believable in any way because they were not true to an old man in any way. It wasn't character animation (ie: within character, expressing a unique person in every way)- it was movement to keep up with the gymnastics of adventure. Aside from a spare gag or two jammed in to occasionally remind us of his age, Carl as an elderly man just didn't ring true for the last 3/4ths of the film. If you want me to buy into a character's story then I need to buy into the character's being. This wasn't a story about an old man on an adventure saddled with the limitations of his old-man-ish-ness. That would be an interesting and intriguing film if you ask me. Instead this was an action adventure flick with a strong athletic character in an old man costume who occasionally acted old for effect. Stanislovsky's rolling in his grave. Isn't this why we pan CG 'performance capture' films? Some may say I'm quibbling. Maybe I am. But that really kept knocking me out time and time again. And it wasn't just Carl who had this problem. The antagonist Muntz behaved the exact same way. Set him up as an ancient old man (20+ years older than even Carl himself), have him move like Errol Flynn in his prime. Russel was little better in his 9 year old boy-ish-ness. I will say that there was one genius scene with Russel where he's complaining about being tired of walking like a real 9 year old boy would. It was the one moment in the film that I felt like a real character existed there. I'm sorry, but for all the raves over how great Pixar's character animation is, I found this whole thing astonishing.
I thought the most honest character in the film was Dug. His mind was simple and he was really just supposed to be a comedy relief character, but everything he did and said and emoted felt like it came from an honest place inside of him. He was a dog, he thought like a dog, had dog feelings and motivations and reactions and movements. When Dug was on the screen everything about him was sincere. His scene on the porch after the house lifts off again was amazing. He wasn't just a dog, but a real character. The animators did a magical job of expressing him as a character. In other words, I bought Dug's part in the story because I believed in Dug, even though the filmmakers didn't seem to try very hard with him. But I did not buy Carl's or Russel's story, despite all the efforts to make me choke up over them.
Artistically, I'll have more thoughts on the overall aesthetic approach and how it related to the story in another post. Quite often Up was a visually stunning film.
Anyhow, let the flames begin. I expect no shortage of scorn for posting this. *sigh*
Post Script: It's been two days since I watched Up. I haven't thought about it one bit since I wrote this review on Friday. The film continues to have had no impact on my life. I can say this is not usual for me. For whatever that's worth.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Song of the Sea
Thanks to reader/commenter Matt Pidgeon, I was pointed to this production blog about another feature film being developed by the Cartoon Saloon- the same folks behind The Secret of Kells. The blog doesn't have a lot of artwork on it yet, but what's there already has me very interested. The picture above says so much. I'm amazed at how these guys weave all those graphical elements into what they do. These celtic touches seem to whisper to the audience that something deeper is happening here. I've been in so many story meetings for features and long form DVD projects over the years and one of the driving themes in American animated film is being absolutely clear about absolutely everything. No mystery allowed. If something comes into the story it must immediately be clearly understood as to why by even the simplest of audience members. Explain everything, and explain it again- just in case. I undersdtand the advantages of laying out clear character goals and desires, but that's not the only valid way of telling a story. The result is a narrative flow that is akin to following a series of known facts leading to a climax. How much more interesting- and rewarding- would an animated feature film be if instead of following a trail of revealed facts in pursuit of a goal clearly established in act 1 we instead follow a trail of unknown mysteries trying to answer a greater mystery presented in act 1? What I can pick up on the the story about Song of the Sea reminds me of The Secret of Roan Innish a bit- which is one of my favorite films. I just love that sense of mystery and magic that all these films seem to so easily have. It lends a sense of timelessness, substance, texture. American films just don't have this at all. We're big, boom, bold, brash and (for the most part) very temporary. American animated films are like cotton candy at a county fair. Which is OK, but sometimes you want something a little... different.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Secret of Kells
I am absolutely loving everything I see about this film. I don't know how, but I very much want to see this film. Heck, I don't even know if it will be distributed in the US. Here are three sequences of it on YouTube. I don't understand French, but I understand what's going on. Certainly a real testament to the storytelling involved.
I love the sense of design, detail, suggestion and scale here...
This sequence is just amazing to me...
The imagination in the animation in this one is just fantastic -- in the truest sense of that word.
I don't know how much this film needs to make worldwide to break a profit, but I sure hope that it does because we need more animated films like this.
I love the sense of design, detail, suggestion and scale here...
This sequence is just amazing to me...
The imagination in the animation in this one is just fantastic -- in the truest sense of that word.
I don't know how much this film needs to make worldwide to break a profit, but I sure hope that it does because we need more animated films like this.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Otto's journey
Exploring the possible manifestations of an idea of mine is usually the most fun part of the process. I enjoy the journey of finding that one thing that just 'fits'. Recently I've gotten a lot of very good feedback regarding my character Otto. For a character who's never done anything yet he really seems to hit a note with people. And when I made him I knew I'd found something. He just felt right. Any deeper analysis would be counter-productive. I'm just happy to have settled on it. It took me long enough. Making appealing characters is not easy. At least not for me it it isn't. It's hard work to hit that elusive, magical sweet-spot. Just look at various CG forums and see the character designs there and you'll see that for every one good one that had appeal, there are twenty (or more) that just somehow miss the mark-- either by a little or a lot. So for the sake of documentation (and to prove that I'm no master by any means), here is the checkered development history for Otto.
About 3 years ago I made this guy...
Better, but I still wasn't satisfied. Plus he had lots of rigging issues and skinning problems I didn't want to deal with ( I HATE skinning). So I scrapped him and decided that what I wanted to do was to try and recapture the soul of this guy...
This was a character I'd made for some animation tests about 7 years ago. Unfortunately he was lost in a hard drive crash and so no version of this rig exists anymore. But I wanted to get back to that gummy, fun, round shape. So about 18 months ago that effort eventually became a character I call Garfo.
He's cool and all, but I never felt that I had found the right 'fit'- that sweet spot of appeal and fun. There was always just something about him that felt a little.. lesser. I did do some motion tests (which I will share in a little bit- maybe as soon as next week) and found he had some significant issues under the hood as far as his rigging went. So earlier this year while I had him on the operating table to solve some of those core rigging issues I figured why not see if I couldn't tweak him to be just a little more appealing, see if I couldn't get closer to what I really wanted. After a few hours of messing around that's when I finally hit upon this, Otto.
As soon as I got him I just smiled. He made me happy to look at him. I did try some additional tweaks, but they were gilding a lilly, so I just undid them and settled on him. But since I want him to live in painted worlds and not CG modeled ones (skinning is not the only CG task I hate. Modeling and texturing are on that list. And lighting is close to being on it). So I wanted to "back away" from some CG aspects of his appearance so that he could fit better in a world that was painted and not rendered. A little material and shader work netted this look, which I thought fit really well with the style of backgrounds that I want to employ going forward.
Finding this background style has been a multi-year story of its own. I'll share that here some day, too.
About 3 years ago I made this guy...
Ugly. His hands were too detailed (knobby knuckles) compared to the simplicity of the rest of the character. That 'visual harmony' thing at work again. And the big space between his small eyes and smallish mouth just ruined the emotional flow of the character. Not appealing, really. So I simplified the hands, added a nose to try and fill in the space on his face and came up with this....
Better, but I still wasn't satisfied. Plus he had lots of rigging issues and skinning problems I didn't want to deal with ( I HATE skinning). So I scrapped him and decided that what I wanted to do was to try and recapture the soul of this guy...
This was a character I'd made for some animation tests about 7 years ago. Unfortunately he was lost in a hard drive crash and so no version of this rig exists anymore. But I wanted to get back to that gummy, fun, round shape. So about 18 months ago that effort eventually became a character I call Garfo.
He's cool and all, but I never felt that I had found the right 'fit'- that sweet spot of appeal and fun. There was always just something about him that felt a little.. lesser. I did do some motion tests (which I will share in a little bit- maybe as soon as next week) and found he had some significant issues under the hood as far as his rigging went. So earlier this year while I had him on the operating table to solve some of those core rigging issues I figured why not see if I couldn't tweak him to be just a little more appealing, see if I couldn't get closer to what I really wanted. After a few hours of messing around that's when I finally hit upon this, Otto.
As soon as I got him I just smiled. He made me happy to look at him. I did try some additional tweaks, but they were gilding a lilly, so I just undid them and settled on him. But since I want him to live in painted worlds and not CG modeled ones (skinning is not the only CG task I hate. Modeling and texturing are on that list. And lighting is close to being on it). So I wanted to "back away" from some CG aspects of his appearance so that he could fit better in a world that was painted and not rendered. A little material and shader work netted this look, which I thought fit really well with the style of backgrounds that I want to employ going forward.
Finding this background style has been a multi-year story of its own. I'll share that here some day, too.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
One more...
One more Ringling undergrad film, by Gianna Ruggiero. This one has some technical glitches in the playback. Stuff like 8 minutes of black at the end and it hangs up during playback sometimes. Still, it's an interesting study in the mix of media and finding a harmonic style using CG as a tool. Usually the CG-ness only becomes apparent in the motion, but even then it doesn't feel out of place.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Dog and the Butcher
More visual harmony from another Ringling graduate film, this one by Jonathan Holt. I really love the look of his shaders here. Not just the painted textures (though they're wonderful), but the actual way the shading on the surfaces works. It's not flat, but it's also not highly specific in its gradation of light and shadow. It definitely works in pushing things back into a more interpretive space. As a result he has found a lot of leeway in making the motion less than literal. I think the style of the motion fits the visual style of the film perfectly. The way the dog walks is really whimsical. Lots of appeal.
While the general story telling in Ringling films is not nearly as kinetic as the French school Gobelins' works (it seems nearly every celebrated Gobelins student film in the last 5 years is built around a hyper-kinetic speeding chase through some environment), Ringling continues to steadily turn out some very nice student work. In the past much of the focus has been on a more typical CG approach, but it seems in recent years there's been a shift away from that toward more artistic visualizations. This is a tribute to the great work that the CG Animation Dept. head Jim McCampbell and his faculty are doing.
While the general story telling in Ringling films is not nearly as kinetic as the French school Gobelins' works (it seems nearly every celebrated Gobelins student film in the last 5 years is built around a hyper-kinetic speeding chase through some environment), Ringling continues to steadily turn out some very nice student work. In the past much of the focus has been on a more typical CG approach, but it seems in recent years there's been a shift away from that toward more artistic visualizations. This is a tribute to the great work that the CG Animation Dept. head Jim McCampbell and his faculty are doing.
monetizing "Sita Sings the Blues"
Over on Cartoon Brew there's an interesting, intelligent and civil debate regarding Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues- and specifically the challenges of making any money from a feature film that is given away freely via a Creative Commons license.
Copyright is at a crossroads. The very foundation of its power has been destroyed- namely, the ability to control when, where and how a work of art is experienced by the public. The crack in the armor of copyright has existed for decades. People have been making bootleg VHS tapes or DVDs of movies and cassette tapes and CDs of music for 30 years. But the internet has taken this crack and blown it wide open into a massive gaping wound. People now have a cheap and worldwide distribution channel to send those copies - at high quality- all around the world with a few simple clicks. Pandora's box is open. As a broadcast and distribution system the internet is over 15 years old and still nobody has found a way to successfully tame this beast. By now it is beyond control. Tip at those windmills all you want, Don Quixote. They will not fall. Content will find it's way 'out there' no matter what. From the perspective of building an audience and a following you couldn't ask for a better scenario. From the perspective of making money, you couldn't ask for a worse one.
There are probably a billion internet users in the world- all consuming media and just about all of them doing so for free. The internet has tattooed the idea onto the cultural subconscious that media is free for the taking and requires no tangible expression of value in return. We can try to find a way to change this (and lots and lots of folks are really trying), but I'm about 97% convinced that it is a lost cause.
So what's left? The business model for creatives in an online world consists of a few loosely connected constructs. Selling artifacts of the creation, selling some kind of a personal experience or relationship with the creator and basically relying on the charitable kindness of strangers. Will this be enough? Ancillary merchandise is indeed a money maker, but is it a core money maker? Is it enough to keep the business moving forward as an uninterrupted going concern, making new works of art and being a viable entity in the marketplace? I have my doubts. If this were a viable core business model then Disney would issue free admission to every movie they make and set up toy stands and trinket carts in the lobby and pay the theater owners from those proceeds.
Currently the most common (and successful) business model comes in the form of parlaying our personal reputations as creators into something people really value (ie: PAY FOR), while we make our art in our spare time. Nina's monetary success or failure with SSTB is a very big test case. The real litmus test for me will not be if she makes a nominal profit from SSTB. The real test will be whether or not the funds from SSTB will afford her the opportunity to make another film in the near future, and then another after that. The world is a better place when Nina Paley is making films, not when she's doing 'other things' to pay the bills. I'm pretty sure she believes the same. I spend the bulk of my time running a teaching business for animation, and precious little of it actually animating or creating new films. 15 years ago as an aspiring animated filmmaker I worked a day job and animated on my films at night. Today I still work a day job and animate at night. I just like my day job better now, that's all. ;) However my concern is that the internet will reduce filmmakers, artists and creators to perpetual hobbyist status. We'll all end up virtual street performers, our PayPal Donate buttons the digital equivalent of a hat on the sidewalk.
Copyright is at a crossroads. The very foundation of its power has been destroyed- namely, the ability to control when, where and how a work of art is experienced by the public. The crack in the armor of copyright has existed for decades. People have been making bootleg VHS tapes or DVDs of movies and cassette tapes and CDs of music for 30 years. But the internet has taken this crack and blown it wide open into a massive gaping wound. People now have a cheap and worldwide distribution channel to send those copies - at high quality- all around the world with a few simple clicks. Pandora's box is open. As a broadcast and distribution system the internet is over 15 years old and still nobody has found a way to successfully tame this beast. By now it is beyond control. Tip at those windmills all you want, Don Quixote. They will not fall. Content will find it's way 'out there' no matter what. From the perspective of building an audience and a following you couldn't ask for a better scenario. From the perspective of making money, you couldn't ask for a worse one.
There are probably a billion internet users in the world- all consuming media and just about all of them doing so for free. The internet has tattooed the idea onto the cultural subconscious that media is free for the taking and requires no tangible expression of value in return. We can try to find a way to change this (and lots and lots of folks are really trying), but I'm about 97% convinced that it is a lost cause.
So what's left? The business model for creatives in an online world consists of a few loosely connected constructs. Selling artifacts of the creation, selling some kind of a personal experience or relationship with the creator and basically relying on the charitable kindness of strangers. Will this be enough? Ancillary merchandise is indeed a money maker, but is it a core money maker? Is it enough to keep the business moving forward as an uninterrupted going concern, making new works of art and being a viable entity in the marketplace? I have my doubts. If this were a viable core business model then Disney would issue free admission to every movie they make and set up toy stands and trinket carts in the lobby and pay the theater owners from those proceeds.
Currently the most common (and successful) business model comes in the form of parlaying our personal reputations as creators into something people really value (ie: PAY FOR), while we make our art in our spare time. Nina's monetary success or failure with SSTB is a very big test case. The real litmus test for me will not be if she makes a nominal profit from SSTB. The real test will be whether or not the funds from SSTB will afford her the opportunity to make another film in the near future, and then another after that. The world is a better place when Nina Paley is making films, not when she's doing 'other things' to pay the bills. I'm pretty sure she believes the same. I spend the bulk of my time running a teaching business for animation, and precious little of it actually animating or creating new films. 15 years ago as an aspiring animated filmmaker I worked a day job and animated on my films at night. Today I still work a day job and animate at night. I just like my day job better now, that's all. ;) However my concern is that the internet will reduce filmmakers, artists and creators to perpetual hobbyist status. We'll all end up virtual street performers, our PayPal Donate buttons the digital equivalent of a hat on the sidewalk.
Monday, May 11, 2009
"Anchored" is quite harmonious
An example of a short that has pretty solid visual harmony- Ringling senior thesis film by Lindsay Olivares.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Visual Harmony
As a teacher, I often find myself in search of new terms to define things about animation that haven't been talked about very much. One such item can be summed up like this:
Always the one to try and boil things down into simple to digest nuggets, I've settled on the idea of calling this principle Visual Harmony. It's instinctually understood by just about everybody (even those not trained in animation), though I don't see a lot of discussion about it. Some cursory searches on the topic (or other similar ideas) yields very little. I'm not an art historian so those of you who know about such things are more than welcome to ed-yoo-kate me on any theses, papers or books written about the subject that I have missed. All I know is what I have discerned with my own eyes and this thing I've discerned is definitely present. Basically, visuals and motion and shapes and forms all desire to be in harmony. When they are not then a discernable (if not defineable) dischord occurs.
Over the years here I've talked about all manner of things related to how animated film and motion work together. Recently I've written about the general preference for CG films to engage in a kind of exaggerated naturalistic motion. Aside from some controversial suggestions about the future methods for best obtaining that style of motion, I want to point out that I'm not for or against the style itself. As people like to say these days "It is what it is." In fact if we look at the salient technical and visual developments in CG over the last 20 years we can pretty much conclude that exaggerated yet naturalistic motion style (and character design) pretty much has been demanded. Anything else would have been 'wrong'. The driving force was this unspoken, ill-defined concept of visual harmony. Once you ramp up one area of the visuals into a higher order of complexity (say, lighting or texturing) then all other areas need to rise accordingly to maintain that harmony.
From the very beginning the chief developments and advancements in Cg have been to recreate some aspect of nature. Today we like to remember Pixar's first short "Luxo Jr." for its quaint story telling, but those who go back a little further remember all the excitement over the chief technical accomplishment of that film- self shadowing. Technological advancement in reflecting some aspect of the world around us with varying degrees of versimilitude was Pixar's big selling point in those early short films, and still remains a stated goal with their current shorts. Thus as these visual abilities matured they demanded ever increasing refinement in all other visual elements in order to maintain that strong sense of visual harmony- including the motion. The motion simply must "match" the visuals. This is why old classic Golden Era cartoons from the 1940's can get away with motion styles that - if transliterated without interpretation- would look absolutely out of place in your typical, "hyper-real", textured, shaded, lit, detail oriented CG film. Folks have tried to marry the two with limited success. The reason for the lack of pleasing result is simple- the two styles are not harmonious. You can't put new wine into old wineskins. The stuff's gotta match. From the start CG has this domineering way of making everything look 'realish'. Even if you dial back the textures the very shading algorithms themselves create a kind of realish-ness. Early NPR efforts (non-photoreal rendering) rang a sour note because we had a type of simulated rough analog visual medium (oil paint, pastels, etc.) being employed in expressing very smooth animated motion on 1's on models that did not vary in volume or line width. The dis-harmony was very apparent, which is perhaps why NPR never quite caught on. When viewed as a still the visuals said "hand made". When seen in motion too many elements said "brought to you by a machine". The stuff just didn't fit together. So far the most successful adventures in defining different motion styles in CG have been done by reducing visual elements. Pocoyo removes everything but the characters and primary props. The reason this is successful is because the motion does not need to live in harmony with any other visuals. In musical terms they can just sing the melody because there are no other parts to be sung. It's an extremely clever solution. Another successful result was Marc Craste's Pica Towers from earlier this decade. By removing color and subtlety of shading (much of it is very stark with little gradiation in values) he simplified the visuals which allowed him to employ a more limited motion style. The result was immediately satisfying to behold. The harmony was a mystery to me back then and it is no less striking today.
For me this is more than an academic exercise. I want to make quality animated products, using CG, but I want to do it in a way that actually lets me make more films faster, in a more fun and interactive manner. But the fact is that the predominant CG feature film style (as first defined by Pixar and subsequently copied by everybody else) is orders of magnitude too complex to pull off with anything less than a veritable army of artists, animators, technicians and machines. The style complexity - reflected in its realishness- absolutely demands visual harmony on all levels. Drop the level of complexity in any area and you create a sort of "off-key" feel to the animated film. General audiences understand this. When the visual harmony is well done they immediately perceive the animated film as having 'quality'. In the past we've made the mistake in thinking that this complexity was itself quality. This is a false dichotomy which has been bashed into our heads for almost two decades now. There is such a thing as animation that lacks complexity or realism or literalism but yet still has a high degree of quality, simply because all the pieces 'fit'. So complexity or literalism is not the equivalent of quality- visual harmony is. If you want to make something of real quality, then make something harmonious. In this light many of the 'rules' and 'principles' that have lorded over animation fade into their proper place. The limits are removed and whole new possibilities emerge.
The visual style of rendering, light, shadow, detail, texture, material, shape and form as expressed in an animated world (regardless of medium - 2d, CG, stop-mo, paper cut out, oil on glass, etc.) demands a harmonious matching in the design and motion of the characters that live within that animated world.
Always the one to try and boil things down into simple to digest nuggets, I've settled on the idea of calling this principle Visual Harmony. It's instinctually understood by just about everybody (even those not trained in animation), though I don't see a lot of discussion about it. Some cursory searches on the topic (or other similar ideas) yields very little. I'm not an art historian so those of you who know about such things are more than welcome to ed-yoo-kate me on any theses, papers or books written about the subject that I have missed. All I know is what I have discerned with my own eyes and this thing I've discerned is definitely present. Basically, visuals and motion and shapes and forms all desire to be in harmony. When they are not then a discernable (if not defineable) dischord occurs.
Over the years here I've talked about all manner of things related to how animated film and motion work together. Recently I've written about the general preference for CG films to engage in a kind of exaggerated naturalistic motion. Aside from some controversial suggestions about the future methods for best obtaining that style of motion, I want to point out that I'm not for or against the style itself. As people like to say these days "It is what it is." In fact if we look at the salient technical and visual developments in CG over the last 20 years we can pretty much conclude that exaggerated yet naturalistic motion style (and character design) pretty much has been demanded. Anything else would have been 'wrong'. The driving force was this unspoken, ill-defined concept of visual harmony. Once you ramp up one area of the visuals into a higher order of complexity (say, lighting or texturing) then all other areas need to rise accordingly to maintain that harmony.
From the very beginning the chief developments and advancements in Cg have been to recreate some aspect of nature. Today we like to remember Pixar's first short "Luxo Jr." for its quaint story telling, but those who go back a little further remember all the excitement over the chief technical accomplishment of that film- self shadowing. Technological advancement in reflecting some aspect of the world around us with varying degrees of versimilitude was Pixar's big selling point in those early short films, and still remains a stated goal with their current shorts. Thus as these visual abilities matured they demanded ever increasing refinement in all other visual elements in order to maintain that strong sense of visual harmony- including the motion. The motion simply must "match" the visuals. This is why old classic Golden Era cartoons from the 1940's can get away with motion styles that - if transliterated without interpretation- would look absolutely out of place in your typical, "hyper-real", textured, shaded, lit, detail oriented CG film. Folks have tried to marry the two with limited success. The reason for the lack of pleasing result is simple- the two styles are not harmonious. You can't put new wine into old wineskins. The stuff's gotta match. From the start CG has this domineering way of making everything look 'realish'. Even if you dial back the textures the very shading algorithms themselves create a kind of realish-ness. Early NPR efforts (non-photoreal rendering) rang a sour note because we had a type of simulated rough analog visual medium (oil paint, pastels, etc.) being employed in expressing very smooth animated motion on 1's on models that did not vary in volume or line width. The dis-harmony was very apparent, which is perhaps why NPR never quite caught on. When viewed as a still the visuals said "hand made". When seen in motion too many elements said "brought to you by a machine". The stuff just didn't fit together. So far the most successful adventures in defining different motion styles in CG have been done by reducing visual elements. Pocoyo removes everything but the characters and primary props. The reason this is successful is because the motion does not need to live in harmony with any other visuals. In musical terms they can just sing the melody because there are no other parts to be sung. It's an extremely clever solution. Another successful result was Marc Craste's Pica Towers from earlier this decade. By removing color and subtlety of shading (much of it is very stark with little gradiation in values) he simplified the visuals which allowed him to employ a more limited motion style. The result was immediately satisfying to behold. The harmony was a mystery to me back then and it is no less striking today.
For me this is more than an academic exercise. I want to make quality animated products, using CG, but I want to do it in a way that actually lets me make more films faster, in a more fun and interactive manner. But the fact is that the predominant CG feature film style (as first defined by Pixar and subsequently copied by everybody else) is orders of magnitude too complex to pull off with anything less than a veritable army of artists, animators, technicians and machines. The style complexity - reflected in its realishness- absolutely demands visual harmony on all levels. Drop the level of complexity in any area and you create a sort of "off-key" feel to the animated film. General audiences understand this. When the visual harmony is well done they immediately perceive the animated film as having 'quality'. In the past we've made the mistake in thinking that this complexity was itself quality. This is a false dichotomy which has been bashed into our heads for almost two decades now. There is such a thing as animation that lacks complexity or realism or literalism but yet still has a high degree of quality, simply because all the pieces 'fit'. So complexity or literalism is not the equivalent of quality- visual harmony is. If you want to make something of real quality, then make something harmonious. In this light many of the 'rules' and 'principles' that have lorded over animation fade into their proper place. The limits are removed and whole new possibilities emerge.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Friday, May 01, 2009
Interesting article on Tex Avery
From the TAG blog...
Bright Lights Film Journal article reviewing Tex Avery's career.
A little over-wrought on the verbiage, but kinda cool. The writer does a fairly good job of summarizing a lot of how the overall style of cartoons developed back in the day. His observations on the evolution of the Disney style are quite solid. He contrasts this evolution to the way Avery turned those conventions upside-down for comedic effect.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Hedgehog in the Fog
This is a pretty good quality copy of Yuri Norstein's short film.
There are times I'm mystified by how he does what he does. His technique is just amazing- the visuals are wonderful. I'd love to just watch how he makes some of these scenes. If Norstein ever made a "How To" DVD I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
There are times I'm mystified by how he does what he does. His technique is just amazing- the visuals are wonderful. I'd love to just watch how he makes some of these scenes. If Norstein ever made a "How To" DVD I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Monday, April 27, 2009
"Our jobs"
David Levy, president of the ASIFA-East in NYC, has a wonderful blog called Animondays. Each Monday he holds forth on the life of a freelance animator & teacher in the Big Apple. David's insights are always interesting and very well expressed. This week he touched on a number of topics, but one stood out to me. Here's a sample of what David had to say...
I have had the unique pleasure of having many students from around the world taking part in my APT online animation training program, as well as benefit from my video tutorials in the VTS. Occasionally somebody asks me about my feelings regarding training folks over seas to take 'our jobs'. I've usually replied "Who said that only westerners can have animation jobs?". Nationalism is a dangerous mindset often found at the root of many evil deeds. Americans lament that over 4,000 US servicemen and women in the armed forces have died in Iraq since 2003. Most Americans haven't spend two seconds of thought over the 80,000+ Iraqis who have died as a direct result of our making a mess of their land for no justifiable reason. This parochial value-ism is immoral. A person is a person whom God made and that's that- no matter where they live. By my way of thinking I don't see the life and career of an American animator as having any greater or lesser value than an animator in Singapore, Mumbai, Seoul or Beijing. Both are human beings, both have hopes and dreams, both love what they do, both want a chance to succeed and-- if they are of suitable skill & talent for the tasks available to them- both can and will succeed. If you can't compete on price, then it's your job to provide value (tangible and intangible) that cannot be matched elsewhere. This requires you to be creative, to think, to grow and improve, to find new ways of getting things done. If the dinosaurs step left, then be nimble enough to know how to scamper to the right. The world is never static and nobody ever promised that everything will stay exactly the way you like it to (oh, how I wish it would have sometimes!). Adjust with the world or get left behind, because the world is not going to stop just because you're comfy with where it is right now.
Furthermore at the panel discussion, some wondered what will happen as India and South Korea (and others) gear up to build strong animation industries. "They're going to take our jobs," many worried. I say, that's only possible if there's such a thing as "our jobs." I argue that there is NOT. There are no agreed upon jobs that are ours for the taking or that can be reserved for us like a rental car. Not on an individual level, nor a city-wide level, nor a national level. We have to reach out for those jobs...to create them ourselves. There's no such thing as entitlement. Just because we decided to be journeymen animation artists doesn't mean the industry owes us squat. This can be empowering if you let it. That's how I think. Who can say I'm wrong? It's my view of the universe and it holds true in my own head, and it helps me survive and navigate this difficult industry.
I have had the unique pleasure of having many students from around the world taking part in my APT online animation training program, as well as benefit from my video tutorials in the VTS. Occasionally somebody asks me about my feelings regarding training folks over seas to take 'our jobs'. I've usually replied "Who said that only westerners can have animation jobs?". Nationalism is a dangerous mindset often found at the root of many evil deeds. Americans lament that over 4,000 US servicemen and women in the armed forces have died in Iraq since 2003. Most Americans haven't spend two seconds of thought over the 80,000+ Iraqis who have died as a direct result of our making a mess of their land for no justifiable reason. This parochial value-ism is immoral. A person is a person whom God made and that's that- no matter where they live. By my way of thinking I don't see the life and career of an American animator as having any greater or lesser value than an animator in Singapore, Mumbai, Seoul or Beijing. Both are human beings, both have hopes and dreams, both love what they do, both want a chance to succeed and-- if they are of suitable skill & talent for the tasks available to them- both can and will succeed. If you can't compete on price, then it's your job to provide value (tangible and intangible) that cannot be matched elsewhere. This requires you to be creative, to think, to grow and improve, to find new ways of getting things done. If the dinosaurs step left, then be nimble enough to know how to scamper to the right. The world is never static and nobody ever promised that everything will stay exactly the way you like it to (oh, how I wish it would have sometimes!). Adjust with the world or get left behind, because the world is not going to stop just because you're comfy with where it is right now.
Friday, April 24, 2009
9
Check out a clip from Shane Acker's animated film "9".
This looks interesting. From a visual construction standpoint the characters could stand out from each other and the environment a little better at times. A small color adjustment in their design would accomplish that. The animation works because the style of the world is visually detailed, but subjectively fantastical. This gives the animation some room to breathe- it doesn't have to be as tight or as highly polished as something that looks more 'normal' or recognizably real-ish. This was a very wise choice for a lower budget film because that other high polish style of CG animation is very expensive. The visual world and the motion work well together in a more interpretive and fantastical way. Never under-estimate the power of visual and motion harmony. Story-wise this isn't your typical fluffy talking animal movie. Which is a good thing. It remains to be seen how that fact will impact it in the box office. If it can make Coraline or Despereaux kind of money then I think it's a success and will mark the continuing expansion of what commercially viable CG animated films can be.
Behm's book
Friend, colleague, artist and animator Mark Behm has a book out called Nightwork. It's a collection of his paintings and such- all of which make me sick with envy and admiration.
Mark is also interviewed on the StrutYourReel website. In the interview he touches on a lot of topics, several of them directly about animation, even touching on photo or video reference and his preference to avoid using it. Having worked with him a few times over the years I know that Mark rarely ever used video reference of himself as the basis for his animation. The result is a kind of signature approach to his work. There are times I can pick out Mark's work from the films he's worked on. There's just a certain kind of "Behm-ness" to them that I recognize, not unlike being able to pick out the work of a 2d animator. I think that's a good thing- being able to see the artist coming through. It's such a hard thing to have happen in CG.
Exaggerated naturalism (part 2)
A pretty good example of what I call exaggerated naturalism in motion (excluding facial animation)....
An example of motion that is not what I'd call exaggerated naturalism...
And an example of the two mixed together... (hint: Collette yes, Linguini no)
An example of motion that is not what I'd call exaggerated naturalism...
And an example of the two mixed together... (hint: Collette yes, Linguini no)
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Exaggerated naturalism (part 1)
In a comment on my post on Henson's Sid the Science Kid, reader Mike said...
Interesting. I think it's safe to say that the goal for many Cg animators is to achieve a kind of 'hyper-real' sense of motion. I'll call it exaggerated naturalism. It seems obvious that this has been the prevailing trend in CG films for the last 15 years. Some films have done a better job of hitting that bar. None has done it consistently, but most aim for it (although occasional exceptions do exist).
When I see the work of a Henson puppeteer transposed onto a CG character, I see this exaggerated naturalism nearly perfected. It is exaggerated because a puppeteer has a keen sense of how to stage and present a performance in a way that reads clearly, pushes things a bit and is entertaining to watch. But due to the fact that it is mo-cap all the elusive goodies of natural motion -- things like barely noticeable weight shifts, subtle footwork, living holds, micro gestures, a sense of muscularity in action, a sense of physical presence (ie: weight), etc.-- these all come along for free. Meanwhile, to achieve something that even comes close to this many animators are relying on working from video reference of themselves acting out the scene. The basis of the performance and motion are highly derived from the video source material (we'll take up the artistic flaws of this approach in another post). But even if the animator is skilled enough to capture the nuances of the motion convincingly (based on a lot of scenes I see in films that is a mighty big "if"), it is an extremely time intensive task. This poses an interesting question: If the end result of animation taken from video reference is similar to well performed motion-capture, then why have animators animate from video reference? Why not just hire seasoned, trained stage performers to do the job in suits? The goal is naturalistic motion, right? (or an exaggerated variant thereof). Not only is it faster, but the physical performer can do many takes before lunch, providing the director with choices as well as the opportunity to improve on the performance quickly. Contrast this against having a highly skilled hand key CG animator do one take of similar quality (if they're really good) in about a week. Or longer, as is often the case. And I think it's a valid argument to say that if exaggerated naturalism is indeed the goal, then the resulting motion from the puppeteer is qualitatively superior. I've seen many a scene in high budget CG animated films from the biggest studios that would have been MUCH better had they been mo-capped by a Henson body puppeteer. Seriously. The goal of the scenes was to have a human(ish) character move in a slightly exaggerated, yet still highly naturalistic manner, doing some physical action. In every CG film there are any number of scenes where the animator was not able to meet that goal half as well as a Henson puppeteer could have. And the times they did match that goal with equal success, they did so at 50-100x the time investment.
In the past a major argument against mo-cap was that it didn't match stylistically to the types of motion and performances needed in animation. There was a time when that was a valid argument. But life is never static. As time has passed animators themselves have kept creeping ever closer to the very style of motion that mo-cap actually does better! Thus when you consider the continued improvements in mo-cap technology, plus improvements in understanding what kind of performance is needed for mo-cap to work, combined with mainstream CG animators' blind march toward an exaggerated naturalistic style of motion- that 'style-gap' has narrowed. Before much longer it will have narrowed to the point of insignificance.
This is why I think the current popular trend for exaggerated naturalism among CG animators is creatively a dead end street. Where you want to end up, a puppeteer already lives. The technology will only get better and the physical performers will only become more savvy as to how to use the medium. Time will not march backward just to appease our predilections. The question you might ask yourself is this: Do I want to be relevant as a performance artist, or do I just want to work on Hollywood 'animated' films? I firmly believe that if a CG animator wants to remain relevant as a performance artist in the years to come (relevancy as a performance artist is not the same as being employable in the animation business, by the way) they're going to need to develop a style of animation that cannot be achieved any other way than to hand key it. It may sound crazy now, but the time will come when I really do believe I will be proven correct.
I think it's a fun show and have watched the animation in detail trying to determine if it was mocap or taken from video reference.
Interesting. I think it's safe to say that the goal for many Cg animators is to achieve a kind of 'hyper-real' sense of motion. I'll call it exaggerated naturalism. It seems obvious that this has been the prevailing trend in CG films for the last 15 years. Some films have done a better job of hitting that bar. None has done it consistently, but most aim for it (although occasional exceptions do exist).
When I see the work of a Henson puppeteer transposed onto a CG character, I see this exaggerated naturalism nearly perfected. It is exaggerated because a puppeteer has a keen sense of how to stage and present a performance in a way that reads clearly, pushes things a bit and is entertaining to watch. But due to the fact that it is mo-cap all the elusive goodies of natural motion -- things like barely noticeable weight shifts, subtle footwork, living holds, micro gestures, a sense of muscularity in action, a sense of physical presence (ie: weight), etc.-- these all come along for free. Meanwhile, to achieve something that even comes close to this many animators are relying on working from video reference of themselves acting out the scene. The basis of the performance and motion are highly derived from the video source material (we'll take up the artistic flaws of this approach in another post). But even if the animator is skilled enough to capture the nuances of the motion convincingly (based on a lot of scenes I see in films that is a mighty big "if"), it is an extremely time intensive task. This poses an interesting question: If the end result of animation taken from video reference is similar to well performed motion-capture, then why have animators animate from video reference? Why not just hire seasoned, trained stage performers to do the job in suits? The goal is naturalistic motion, right? (or an exaggerated variant thereof). Not only is it faster, but the physical performer can do many takes before lunch, providing the director with choices as well as the opportunity to improve on the performance quickly. Contrast this against having a highly skilled hand key CG animator do one take of similar quality (if they're really good) in about a week. Or longer, as is often the case. And I think it's a valid argument to say that if exaggerated naturalism is indeed the goal, then the resulting motion from the puppeteer is qualitatively superior. I've seen many a scene in high budget CG animated films from the biggest studios that would have been MUCH better had they been mo-capped by a Henson body puppeteer. Seriously. The goal of the scenes was to have a human(ish) character move in a slightly exaggerated, yet still highly naturalistic manner, doing some physical action. In every CG film there are any number of scenes where the animator was not able to meet that goal half as well as a Henson puppeteer could have. And the times they did match that goal with equal success, they did so at 50-100x the time investment.
In the past a major argument against mo-cap was that it didn't match stylistically to the types of motion and performances needed in animation. There was a time when that was a valid argument. But life is never static. As time has passed animators themselves have kept creeping ever closer to the very style of motion that mo-cap actually does better! Thus when you consider the continued improvements in mo-cap technology, plus improvements in understanding what kind of performance is needed for mo-cap to work, combined with mainstream CG animators' blind march toward an exaggerated naturalistic style of motion- that 'style-gap' has narrowed. Before much longer it will have narrowed to the point of insignificance.
This is why I think the current popular trend for exaggerated naturalism among CG animators is creatively a dead end street. Where you want to end up, a puppeteer already lives. The technology will only get better and the physical performers will only become more savvy as to how to use the medium. Time will not march backward just to appease our predilections. The question you might ask yourself is this: Do I want to be relevant as a performance artist, or do I just want to work on Hollywood 'animated' films? I firmly believe that if a CG animator wants to remain relevant as a performance artist in the years to come (relevancy as a performance artist is not the same as being employable in the animation business, by the way) they're going to need to develop a style of animation that cannot be achieved any other way than to hand key it. It may sound crazy now, but the time will come when I really do believe I will be proven correct.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Otto
Somewhere just a little north of a Muppet and VeggieTales, but well south of Ratatouille lies Otto.
click to see bigger-ish
click to see bigger-ish
The parameters for success for me are:
- appealing & simple character design
- minimal visual & technical fussiness
- fun to animate (fast rig)
- reasonable expressive range without adding too much complexity
- basically, this needs to be the Anti-Fool's Errand
click to see bigger-ish
The rig still need some adjustments to get just a tiny bit more emotional range. Motion tests coming soon.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
More Italian tutorial translations
Many more thanks go out to Andrea Perrone for translating two more tutorials into Italian:
Exploring Power Centers for Personality
and
Cartoon Snappy Motion
So pour yourself some vino, relax and enjoy some animation tutorials in Italian. Ciao!
Thursday, April 09, 2009
This totally makes sense
And, no- I'm not joking.
Leaving behind the overly sweet and condescending kiddie nature of the show and performances, I think this is a sensible and successful use of full body puppeteering applied to CG rendered content. The conventional wisdom on mo-cap has been that it was only good for realistic stuff like VFX and for Zemeckis' zombies, and that it looks like crud when applied to a more cartoony style. And true enough there have been very poorly performed mo-cap driven CG shows and projects over the years. But sooner or later I knew we'd see somebody do it right. Henson's artists have been performing in body suits for 40 years and they know what they're doing. You can't play the old bitter animator card and say that it's done by a bunch of talentless hacks, either. Anybody who's ever seen the muppeteers at work can attest that they are performance artists of the highest order. I worked at DNA a few years ago with Karen Prell (an animator who was a former Henson muppeteer). On those occasions when she would walk around the animation department with a puppet it was nothing short of pure magic to behold. In general Henson's pupeteers are great performance artists. And that's what the audience buys into- the performance. By merging the pupeteers' skills and talents with the CG rendering you can start to feel the humanity and the individuality involved. A sense of human weight and presence begins to shine through. That has a kind of appeal that's attractive.
Leaving behind the overly sweet and condescending kiddie nature of the show and performances, I think this is a sensible and successful use of full body puppeteering applied to CG rendered content. The conventional wisdom on mo-cap has been that it was only good for realistic stuff like VFX and for Zemeckis' zombies, and that it looks like crud when applied to a more cartoony style. And true enough there have been very poorly performed mo-cap driven CG shows and projects over the years. But sooner or later I knew we'd see somebody do it right. Henson's artists have been performing in body suits for 40 years and they know what they're doing. You can't play the old bitter animator card and say that it's done by a bunch of talentless hacks, either. Anybody who's ever seen the muppeteers at work can attest that they are performance artists of the highest order. I worked at DNA a few years ago with Karen Prell (an animator who was a former Henson muppeteer). On those occasions when she would walk around the animation department with a puppet it was nothing short of pure magic to behold. In general Henson's pupeteers are great performance artists. And that's what the audience buys into- the performance. By merging the pupeteers' skills and talents with the CG rendering you can start to feel the humanity and the individuality involved. A sense of human weight and presence begins to shine through. That has a kind of appeal that's attractive.
Monday, April 06, 2009
APT Student Profile: Gary Macarevich
Here's another look at a student of my Animation Personal Trainer program (see previous APT student spotlights here, here and here). This time I want to highlight the work of Gary Macarevich. Gary had been working as a professional animator, but wanted to improve his skill level. He first took the APT last summer and then took a follow up session in January. His progress has been steady and solid and his hard work has been well rewarded. First here's a quick sample of some of Gary's work before he participated in the APT...
I determined that Gary needed to work on loosening up his characters and add weight to the animation-- a problem all too common in CG animation. Stiffness and a lack of weight tend to go hand in hand. Thus the plan was to liven up his character's movements by adding more drag and overlap, putting some balance and weight in the torso posing, along with cleaner arcs. Gary also wanted to focus on acting since his reel was a bit short on that. So by putting all that together we made a custom curriculum that targeted Gary's weaker areas while developing his acting skills at the same time. After his time in the APT here's what he was able to accomplish...
Definitely solid improvement. There's a lot more weight and flow in the performance. The tracking on the arcs are clean and add a lot of strength to the motion. The torso is looser and filled with a sense of life. His drag and overlap are much better and the acting picked up, too. As with everybody (myself included) there's still room for improvement, but Gary is definitely on the way.
Gary's progress shows why I enjoy coming up with customized lesson plans for each animator that comes to the APT. Targeted training is a powerful teaching method and I think it's a great way to get a lot of growth and improvement in a short amount of time. Here's what Gary shared with me after his second session..
If the Animation Personal Trainer sounds like the kind of animation training experience that you'd like to try, now is a great time for you. I have a new session starting in a few weeks, and due to some late cancellations I have a few spots available. So if you're interested take a moment to email me to learn more about getting involved in the next APT session.
I determined that Gary needed to work on loosening up his characters and add weight to the animation-- a problem all too common in CG animation. Stiffness and a lack of weight tend to go hand in hand. Thus the plan was to liven up his character's movements by adding more drag and overlap, putting some balance and weight in the torso posing, along with cleaner arcs. Gary also wanted to focus on acting since his reel was a bit short on that. So by putting all that together we made a custom curriculum that targeted Gary's weaker areas while developing his acting skills at the same time. After his time in the APT here's what he was able to accomplish...
Definitely solid improvement. There's a lot more weight and flow in the performance. The tracking on the arcs are clean and add a lot of strength to the motion. The torso is looser and filled with a sense of life. His drag and overlap are much better and the acting picked up, too. As with everybody (myself included) there's still room for improvement, but Gary is definitely on the way.
Gary's progress shows why I enjoy coming up with customized lesson plans for each animator that comes to the APT. Targeted training is a powerful teaching method and I think it's a great way to get a lot of growth and improvement in a short amount of time. Here's what Gary shared with me after his second session..
I've noticed an improvement at work and find myself finally realizing why my lead was getting frustrated trying to explain and re-explain concepts that just weren't sinking in. Some "ah ha" moments for sure. Thanks so much Keith, please keep me in the loop on upcoming APT's... I'm definitely interested in doing this again.
If the Animation Personal Trainer sounds like the kind of animation training experience that you'd like to try, now is a great time for you. I have a new session starting in a few weeks, and due to some late cancellations I have a few spots available. So if you're interested take a moment to email me to learn more about getting involved in the next APT session.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Sheep-imation!
Any attempt on my part to describe this will ultimately fail, but I'll try all the same.
Sheep, LEDs, time lapse filming, Pong, fireworks and the Mona Lisa. Just watch, you'll love it. I promise!
Sheep, LEDs, time lapse filming, Pong, fireworks and the Mona Lisa. Just watch, you'll love it. I promise!
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
We're all doomed
http://www.xtranormal.com/
You can kiss your comfy animation job good-bye, kids. Once the execs get a hold of this you'll be out on the street. And you TDs better not get all uppity, either. Even mo-cap can't compete with this.
You can kiss your comfy animation job good-bye, kids. Once the execs get a hold of this you'll be out on the street. And you TDs better not get all uppity, either. Even mo-cap can't compete with this.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Dragon
Another DrawerGeeks, another entry. This one is a little more 'artsy'. Several comments/emails on my previous DG effort referenced a lack of artistic acumen on my part. So I figured I'd dust off my old artist's hat and wear it for a spell.
By the way, this marks a turning point in world history- I have submitted two DG entries in a row after averaging one every three years. Stock up on canned goods, liquor and ammunition folks- the end is nigh.
click to see it larger
By the way, this marks a turning point in world history- I have submitted two DG entries in a row after averaging one every three years. Stock up on canned goods, liquor and ammunition folks- the end is nigh.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
New tutorial translation: Power Centers- now in Chinese
Big thanks go out to Victor Luo for his Chinese translation of my older tutorial on Power Centers and Personality. It's been available for a while, but I'm finally getting around to posting it here.
I am always humbled and thankful when folks translate my writings into other languages. Honestly I never would have imagined that my various ramblings would have been quite this widely translated back when I wrote them. Heck, I never even thought about translating them at all! Goes to show how little vision I have. heh. You guys make me look better than I deserve. :)
I am always humbled and thankful when folks translate my writings into other languages. Honestly I never would have imagined that my various ramblings would have been quite this widely translated back when I wrote them. Heck, I never even thought about translating them at all! Goes to show how little vision I have. heh. You guys make me look better than I deserve. :)
New tutorial translation: Italian
With special thanks to Andrea Perrone we now have an Italian translation of one of my older tutorials, Life After Pose to Pose. For all of you who might benefit from some Italian tutorializing, this is your lucky day.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Silhouette
Just a quick peek from something I'm working on right now.
Never under-estimate the power of clear, strong silhouette. I think we should do everything we can to make it flow so as to maximize the appeal of a pose. I often work in silhouette when I'm polishing my poses. It's a great way to visualize things for readability- even something as simple and seemingly nebulous as a 'squash' shape on a fast inbetween is good to work out this way.
Never under-estimate the power of clear, strong silhouette. I think we should do everything we can to make it flow so as to maximize the appeal of a pose. I often work in silhouette when I'm polishing my poses. It's a great way to visualize things for readability- even something as simple and seemingly nebulous as a 'squash' shape on a fast inbetween is good to work out this way.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Ninja
This week's DrawerGeek theme was Ninjas (click the link to see all the cool entries). For some odd reason I decided to whip up an entry. Don't know why really- maybe it was the moon phase? Anyhow, this brings my total submissions to about 4 drawings in the 7 years I've been a 'member' of the DrawerGeek club. Yeah, I'm not a high volume kind of guy. Sadly I can't say that I've been saving all that effort in order to make sure that I deliver higher quality.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Anime
Tom Sito's blog re-posts an eye opening article on the future viability of anime as a going business concern. While the points on the long term surival of anime may or may not be valid, the points in the article that stood out to me were the stories of what life is like as an artist in the anime animation business.
Full disclosure- I've never been a huge fan of anime. I mean some of it's OK, but a lot of it is violent, disgusting and mysogenistic. But there are some pieces that can be rewarding, yet there's a nagging nag in the back of my mind that always keeps me from enjoying it fully. I have a hard time appreciating the product of an industry that is as blatantly exploitative as the Japanese anime industry is. Anybody who has paid attention over the years has heard the horror stories of working hours and disgustingly low pay. In the article noted they tell of a young lady making 80,000 yen per month working 60 hours a week drawing inbetweens. 80,000 yen per month comes out to ~$800, or €635 euros. These folks aren't working in some dusty little village in po-dunk East Asia. This is the wage paid to people working in Tokyo, the 4th most expensive city in the world. I'm willing to bet that people working at McDonalds get paid better. But it's not like anime as a selling product is a dud. The article also notes that global annual sales for all anime products runs in the 200 billion yen range ($2 billion per year). That's not chicken scratch. That so little of that lucre finds its way to the bottom of the production chain is appalling. It has been and continues to be an exploitative industry. This one fact alone dampens my appreciation for the work of people like Miyazaki, et al.
Full disclosure- I've never been a huge fan of anime. I mean some of it's OK, but a lot of it is violent, disgusting and mysogenistic. But there are some pieces that can be rewarding, yet there's a nagging nag in the back of my mind that always keeps me from enjoying it fully. I have a hard time appreciating the product of an industry that is as blatantly exploitative as the Japanese anime industry is. Anybody who has paid attention over the years has heard the horror stories of working hours and disgustingly low pay. In the article noted they tell of a young lady making 80,000 yen per month working 60 hours a week drawing inbetweens. 80,000 yen per month comes out to ~$800, or €635 euros. These folks aren't working in some dusty little village in po-dunk East Asia. This is the wage paid to people working in Tokyo, the 4th most expensive city in the world. I'm willing to bet that people working at McDonalds get paid better. But it's not like anime as a selling product is a dud. The article also notes that global annual sales for all anime products runs in the 200 billion yen range ($2 billion per year). That's not chicken scratch. That so little of that lucre finds its way to the bottom of the production chain is appalling. It has been and continues to be an exploitative industry. This one fact alone dampens my appreciation for the work of people like Miyazaki, et al.
time you won't want back...
I spotted this on the Drawn blog, so I'm assuming many here have at least seen its mention. However if you didn't take time to watch it, or if you don't keep up with Drawn, then really- just watch this. It's 8 of perhaps the stupidest minutes of your life that will indeed be wasted, but I'm willing to bet that you won't care.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The devil's in the acting
Michael Sporn in a recent post on his blog highlights some really beautiful drawings by Bill Tytla. He was the key animator for the devil character in Disney's Fantasia, the Night on Bald Mountain sequence that I have embedded above. Watch the clip. Definitely go see the drawings. Sporn's admiration is well founded. Michael has this to say about the Night on Bald Mountain sequence-
Art. What else need be said?The drawings are masterful. It's an amazing bit of animation, the motion is great and the imagination regarding the devil's hands conjuring the flames into different forms is second to none. There are some awe inspiring poses and timing- it's all thrillingly well done. I'm not sure I'd say the piece is 'brilliantly acted', though. Just my opinion. The devil is a cypher to me. Like so many Disney characters over the years, this devil character leaves me cold. I'm not saying it sucks, I'm not saying I can do better (obviously I can't and I never will) and I'm not even saying it's old fashioned or whatever. I see it as a beautiful dance, as well animated as anything ever put on screen, but not necessarily great acting. Perhaps that's a distinction in semantics. I dunno.
The individual drawings are stunning, and they’re
in service to a brilliantly acted sequence.
It will never get better.
Call me an uncultured swine. *shrug*
comedy
If you want your daily dose of pure unintentional comedy, then dial up this recent post over at Michael Barrier's blog. I won't bother refuting the various uninformed assertions in the post because I don't have the time, nor the energy to bother. Let a man have his fun, I say. Still, I figure somebody out there might find the irony of it amusing. His site is still interesting if you're into the minutiae of old Disney info (admittedly not my cup-o'-tea)
Monday, February 23, 2009
APT spots open...
hey folks,
I'm beginning a new Animation Personal Trainer (APT) session next week, but a couple people have had to back out. So I have 2 spots open. This is an open call for folks to get in on the action. If you're wondering what this APT thing is all about, check out the FAQ and read some previous posts talking about the training (along with student examples) here, here and here..
Email me if you're interested in taking part in this upcoming session.
I'm beginning a new Animation Personal Trainer (APT) session next week, but a couple people have had to back out. So I have 2 spots open. This is an open call for folks to get in on the action. If you're wondering what this APT thing is all about, check out the FAQ and read some previous posts talking about the training (along with student examples) here, here and here..
Email me if you're interested in taking part in this upcoming session.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Credit Crisis Visualized
Hey, it's animation related. And it's good to know, too. This is a very well done visual explanation of the reason why the economy is in the toilet- and how we got there. Animated in a simple, yes elegant way. Great design.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Masks
A few days ago Patrick Smith, indy NYC animator extraordinaire, put this quick teaser on YouTube for his new film project, Masks. I like the idea behind this- Patrick visually following the lead laid down by a challenging audio track put together by Karl von Kries. The abstract audio would be challenging to anybody, but Smith looks to be up to it. Patrick Smith's stuff is very solid, his films always a visual treat and his passion contagious. I like that his films are kinda raw- not raw as in gory or in poor taste, but raw in the sense that there's not a lot of emotional space between Smith and his animation. Any perceptive person can see that the stuff on the screen comes from a place that's not very far from the man's heart. His film Handshake (below) is one such result.
Check out his blog, his Flickr set, his Blend Films site and look for more of his films on the tube of you's.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Girl's got legs....
Coraline's second full weekend in the cinemas held up very well. The Laika stop-mo flick pulled in nearly $14.8 million for the weekend, representing only a 12.2% drop-off from the opening week. That low drop-off means that Coraline will likely enjoy a 4x multiplier of the opening weekend's box office rather than the typical 3.5x multiplier. If a 4x multiplier holds then Coraline will pull in closer to $70mil in domestic box office.
Another recent animated film that had a small drop-off from opening week to second week? The Tale of Despereaux dropped only 11.6% during its second weekend. In fact TTOD had such great legs that it enjoyed a 5x multiplier (opening weekend of $10mil, ended up with $50mil in total US box office). If Coraline enjoys similar run then Laika has more than a gusty breeze at its sails for a second film- which is a good thing.
Who knew straying from formula could be so... profitable?
Another recent animated film that had a small drop-off from opening week to second week? The Tale of Despereaux dropped only 11.6% during its second weekend. In fact TTOD had such great legs that it enjoyed a 5x multiplier (opening weekend of $10mil, ended up with $50mil in total US box office). If Coraline enjoys similar run then Laika has more than a gusty breeze at its sails for a second film- which is a good thing.
Who knew straying from formula could be so... profitable?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Offset Keys vs. Changing Shapes
A student emailed me and asked about how to handle the spine for overlap & such. He was seeing so many fellow animators using the 'offset keys' approach in their efforts to try and get drag and overlap in their movements, but he felt it created more problems than it solved. I have to agree with him.
For the un-itiated, 'offset keys' is a technical approach in CG to try and achieve an organic solution of weight. The basic idea of the offset-keys approach is as follows: The character moves from frame 1 to frame 10, frame 10 being the pose you want to move into.
The offset-keys technique in theory is very logical. The idea is that if the hips hit at frame 10, then if the mid-spine hits at 11, the up-spine hits at 12 and the head hits at 13 then you'll get good overlap.
The key to good weight in a move is to get a sense of drag during the move. This is done not by some math trick but by making the changing shapes work as the character moves. When combined with some overlap at the end of the move things look much better and are a lot easier to clean up. If there's one thing CG animators need to do it is to start thinking about changing shapes in motion and to stop thinking in terms of moving parts. Moving parts are technical. Changing shapes are organic. All animation - regardless of media - is a 2d image on a screen. CG animators just use a puppet to create those visual shapes on a 2d plane. The visual impression of shapes changing in 2d hand-drawn animation will work in CG. We need to shift our thinking to how to make those shapes work for us. The key comes back again to making good breakdowns. Breakdowns are the secret to the shapes, the secret to getting clean motion with weight.
Here's a quick visual that might help.
What's really ironic is that many, many 2d hand drawn animators forget this when they get on a computer (I have my theories as to why). The result is the same weightless movement we associate with CG.
Really the problem is all in our heads.
UPDATE: Commenter Jim notes that offsetting keys is very useful in the polishing stage of a shot. I agree. At the final polish stage I offset keys quite a bit, sometimes on a per channel basis. Key offsetting is a perfectly valid technique as a tool for polishing the motion because at that point it's all fine detail modification. However key offsets are unsuited as a technique for building the fundamental motion to begin with.
For the un-itiated, 'offset keys' is a technical approach in CG to try and achieve an organic solution of weight. The basic idea of the offset-keys approach is as follows: The character moves from frame 1 to frame 10, frame 10 being the pose you want to move into.
The offset-keys technique in theory is very logical. The idea is that if the hips hit at frame 10, then if the mid-spine hits at 11, the up-spine hits at 12 and the head hits at 13 then you'll get good overlap.
Like I said, logical in theory. But weak in practice. At best - when the technique works perfectly- all you get is some overlap at the end of the move, but you get absolutely no drag in the middle of the move. Drag during the move is where the weight comes from. Simply overlapping parts at the end of the move is not enough- it's a cheap trick that doesn't solve the problem. And the technique rarely works perfectly. Due to the way each object in CG works mathematically you end up with all kinds of unintended consequences when you use the offset method. The most common result is a funky hitch in the motion due to the way the math mixes at a given frame for the combination of controllers. (compare this non-offset animation to this one that uses offset keys. Note the junky bits of motion.) These unintended consequences make cleaning up the move much harder and often leads to the animator setting a ton of extra keys all over, tweaking a bunch of f-curves, making dozens of playBlast previews all in the effort to get rid of the hitches in the motion. The animator's energy is spent on removing motion problems introduced by the offset-keys trick, not on building good animation.
The key to good weight in a move is to get a sense of drag during the move. This is done not by some math trick but by making the changing shapes work as the character moves. When combined with some overlap at the end of the move things look much better and are a lot easier to clean up. If there's one thing CG animators need to do it is to start thinking about changing shapes in motion and to stop thinking in terms of moving parts. Moving parts are technical. Changing shapes are organic. All animation - regardless of media - is a 2d image on a screen. CG animators just use a puppet to create those visual shapes on a 2d plane. The visual impression of shapes changing in 2d hand-drawn animation will work in CG. We need to shift our thinking to how to make those shapes work for us. The key comes back again to making good breakdowns. Breakdowns are the secret to the shapes, the secret to getting clean motion with weight.
Here's a quick visual that might help.
Really the problem is all in our heads.
UPDATE: Commenter Jim notes that offsetting keys is very useful in the polishing stage of a shot. I agree. At the final polish stage I offset keys quite a bit, sometimes on a per channel basis. Key offsetting is a perfectly valid technique as a tool for polishing the motion because at that point it's all fine detail modification. However key offsets are unsuited as a technique for building the fundamental motion to begin with.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Solid opening weekend for Coraline
Coraline had a $16.3 million US domestic box office for its opening weekend. Not a block buster, but not bad, either.
If you apply a 'standard' multiplier of 3.5 (opening weekend x 3.5) they're projected to bring in about $55-60 million before the film leaves US cinemas. The film reportedly cost $60 million to make. Anytime a film's total domestic box office covers its production costs you are in a great position. Add in international box office and DVD sales and any merchandizing and things add up nicely. While certainly not Shrek-like profits, this is a solid win for Laika. They have gained enough of a toe-hold as an animated film studio to warrant a second film. Too bad their sophomore effort got scuttled, but I expect with the encouraging results for Coraline that they'll redouble their efforts to get film #2 (whatever it may be) up and running. This is a good thing. The animated film marketplace needs a studio that is willing to make films like Coraline. And I hope that Framestore in the UK can also keep in the game and make more films. Critics raise valid points regarding the lost opportunities and narrative stumbles of both Coraline and The Tale of Despereaux, but those stumbles endear the films to me. I'm always partial to value the journey over the destination. I far prefer the early unsure efforts like Disney's Dumbo & Pinnocchio over the polished and formulaic films that followed. It's more inspiring to see folks striving to find something than it is to see someone try to recapture and repeat a previous success over and over again. May there always be new studios trying different things, stumbling their way to find their own voice in the wilderness. They may not produce perfection, but then who ever said perfection was a sensible goal anyhow?
If you apply a 'standard' multiplier of 3.5 (opening weekend x 3.5) they're projected to bring in about $55-60 million before the film leaves US cinemas. The film reportedly cost $60 million to make. Anytime a film's total domestic box office covers its production costs you are in a great position. Add in international box office and DVD sales and any merchandizing and things add up nicely. While certainly not Shrek-like profits, this is a solid win for Laika. They have gained enough of a toe-hold as an animated film studio to warrant a second film. Too bad their sophomore effort got scuttled, but I expect with the encouraging results for Coraline that they'll redouble their efforts to get film #2 (whatever it may be) up and running. This is a good thing. The animated film marketplace needs a studio that is willing to make films like Coraline. And I hope that Framestore in the UK can also keep in the game and make more films. Critics raise valid points regarding the lost opportunities and narrative stumbles of both Coraline and The Tale of Despereaux, but those stumbles endear the films to me. I'm always partial to value the journey over the destination. I far prefer the early unsure efforts like Disney's Dumbo & Pinnocchio over the polished and formulaic films that followed. It's more inspiring to see folks striving to find something than it is to see someone try to recapture and repeat a previous success over and over again. May there always be new studios trying different things, stumbling their way to find their own voice in the wilderness. They may not produce perfection, but then who ever said perfection was a sensible goal anyhow?
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Coraline? Thumbs up! 3D cinema? Thumbs down!
The clan Lango all trundled our way out into the spring-like warmth of a sunny Saturday afternoon to take in the visual feast that is "Coraline". Go see it. It's NOT your typical animated film at all- and that's the best thing about it. Laika nailed it. There's things in this film that you'd never see from the big studios because they'd never dream of trying it. And by being bold they managed to do something that has been a rare accomplishment- every single member of our family loved it. Including my wife- who is certainly not your target audience for this kind of film. She finds most animated films to be a waste of time. Can't blame her, really. But she really liked "Coraline".
However this whole 3d cinema thing is for the birds.
It's not that I'm a fuddy-duddy who hates innovation. I think it looks great. It's a cool effect and it's really quite impressive when used right- but it hurts. I've seen "Chicken Little", "Meet the Robinsons", "Ant Bully" and now "Coraline" in 3d. Each time I was left with a head-ache for the rest of the day. And I'm not alone. Everybody in the family had a head-ache after the film, from the 7 year old to the old man. In fact we chose the theater because we thought it would be a 2d showing (since they didn't advertise it was a 3d screening). We were disappointed when we saw that it was a 3d screening. We knew we were in for pain. As it was I watched at least half the film without the glasses because my eyes were suffering.
Look, I like neat-o things like anybody else, but I hope this 3d thing dies out like it did in the 50's. Either that or they need to come up with a way to do this stuff that is completely different than the way it's done now. Our family can't be the only ones thinking this 3d cinema thing is little more than a painful gimmick- right?
If you can endure the 3d thing, definitely see "Coraline" in 3d. It looks nifty. But it's so well done and such a gorgeous film that even if you skip the whole 3d 'experience' it's still a real treat.
However this whole 3d cinema thing is for the birds.
It's not that I'm a fuddy-duddy who hates innovation. I think it looks great. It's a cool effect and it's really quite impressive when used right- but it hurts. I've seen "Chicken Little", "Meet the Robinsons", "Ant Bully" and now "Coraline" in 3d. Each time I was left with a head-ache for the rest of the day. And I'm not alone. Everybody in the family had a head-ache after the film, from the 7 year old to the old man. In fact we chose the theater because we thought it would be a 2d showing (since they didn't advertise it was a 3d screening). We were disappointed when we saw that it was a 3d screening. We knew we were in for pain. As it was I watched at least half the film without the glasses because my eyes were suffering.
Look, I like neat-o things like anybody else, but I hope this 3d thing dies out like it did in the 50's. Either that or they need to come up with a way to do this stuff that is completely different than the way it's done now. Our family can't be the only ones thinking this 3d cinema thing is little more than a painful gimmick- right?
If you can endure the 3d thing, definitely see "Coraline" in 3d. It looks nifty. But it's so well done and such a gorgeous film that even if you skip the whole 3d 'experience' it's still a real treat.
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