Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Animating: Simple Presentation 101

Sooo sorry for not keeping this blog up to date. Here is an email of a quick critique that I did. Very simple and just touches on basic things. hope you enjoy, and thanks for every one who sends me work, and I also apologize to every one that I do not get back to you soon enough! I was too busy watching "Fistful of Dollars" for the first time and "Bad Boys" ("83) with Sean Penn. If you haven't watched them, well now you have homework..

August 2011-
OK. long overdue EMAIL!. I'll get right to business.
Nice to see a semi finished thing instead of just an assignment exercise.  I'll go through a few things. Starting with the TITLE. Center it or at least favor it to the center instead of aiming for the upper thirds. Why leave the open space? I expect something to show up there.. like your name or something, so I would just lose it..

Issue number one, your character's hand is in his pocket. No it's not just a issue, it is THE ISSUE of the whole piece. having his hands already in his pockets would be fine.. he wasn't about to USE HIS HANDS to get money out from his pocket. By having his hand in his pocket from the get go, we never get to SEE the action of reaching INTO his pocket for money. Your piece as it is right now, just looks like your character is looking off to the side because of a stomach ache but then gets happy bc gambling is the ANSWER. then a coin appears from god and so on and so on.. I never noticed he was reaching into his pocket... You must show the action ANY ACTION as clearly as possible. So it might work out better if you started the short with the character in a different pose with his hands outside of his pockets. That way you can animate and SHOW the action of reaching into the pocket.



(you're character design: Why are his pockets in his shirt?? any way, not important but c'mon your killing me.. )

Held frames- (Is fine, but it really hurts the animation if you are holding frames while an action is happening) another way it can hurt is...

Second 6: You bring up the coin to worship or whatever, but it happens so fast. Draw more in-betweens for this action. Before this action you hold frames and after this action you hold frames... It is very jarring to the eye to all of a sudden have to follow and register these frames that pass bye so fast after you set the tone of having so many held frames before and after... So thats another way held frames can hurt you. 

Second 15: When your character finally pulls the lever, it doesn't "give" as much as it should. It is not believable that he would lose his balance when the lever only budged (slowly) a very short distance. BUT not to take away from your pretty well executed flail with the arms. kudo's for pulling that off. 



Second 20: He reacts to the results of the spin. But in YOUR animation he doesn't REACT. reaction is when you see something happen, or hear something, and then as a result you react. Your character "reacts" at just about the SAME time as the Sound. It comes off as the character already knew he was going to lose and then ends up just getting mad on his own instead of reacting and getting mad. Solution? Just delay the reaction. will help out a lot. 

And another note with your timing, the ending gag. Hold off on the gag for at least one or 2 more seconds. It happens to soon and it just hurts you for too many reasons. One reason could be logical, another could be a technically etc etc. LOGICALLY.. the character would come back for his money, he did not walk far enough away to not of heard all that money fall. Technically: bc the Character had just acted and stormed off. You do not let that action set in before you bombard us with the gag. Like i said before, these things are NOT MAJOR things you do wrong, but they don't help out your short that you are doing them. 

Try to stay away form held frames, draw your frames and in-betweens and that'll force you to develop and think more about the drawings that people over look: the non-action drawings. If you want to test yourself, do a 'waiting' assignment with NO held frames.  


As for some animation assignments you asked.. 1 is hard 2 is medium and 3 is easier

head turn.. NOT A REACTION, just a movement. (just show upper body)3
a fist slam 2
waiting 1
get up from a chair. 2
animate a smile 3
animate a person waving 3
animate a walk 1
animate a blink 3
animate a PIANO falling on a person 2
Animate a sneeze. 1
animate drinking a cup of water 1
animate a stomp 2


This should help you out for now. These are simple but I guarantee no one will do them 100 percent right

Good luck with everything!!!!
-Danny

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