Art through Shadows
I came across this a while ago and it's too great not to share. This art has no practical purpose and I love it. Art doesn't need to entertain or help you out in your daily life, art can be made to just simply challenge your imagination for a moment. It takes time to create something like this and if it wasn't for the patience of artists.. the world would be quite boring indeed.
Real Life is Rubbish, 2002 Mixed Media
Tim Noble and Sue Webster make piles of discarded wood, welded scrap metal, broken tools, cigarette packets soda cans and piles of trash to create amazing images! Every piece is thoughtfully put in it's place taking into consideration it's shadow on the wall. From piles of nothing come recognizable figurative images that capture your interest for more than just a moments glance. More art from these artist can be seen on their website: TIM NOBLE AND SUE WEBSTER
Dirty white Trash (W/Gulls), 1998;
6 months worth of artists' trash, 2 taxidermy seagulls
Remember that anything can be made into art! Art doesn't have to confine itself to film and drawing. I posted this because it is a good example of unlikely medium. Ask yourself, "Would you call these shadows Art?" I hope it challenges you to accept things out side the box and influences you to once in a while step outside the box as well. Keep in mind that just because a method or something isn't popular doesn't mean it's not worth anything. Let your mind wander and explore things you once thought stupid or a waste of time, you might find new value where there was none before.
The acting by Max Schreck was very specific to his personality. He was a loner and had an unusual sense of humor. He liked to spend his time walking through dark forests. Only he could of done this role the way it was done at the time.
When you start on a new movie, assignment, or project, you have to get ready to bring some new ideas to the table. For animators this might be inventing a character's personality from scratch. for painters it might be creating a mood and composition from nothing, and writers might have it the hardest, they have to create a whole world. My advice still can apply to everyone: you have to study people who can achieve what you want better than what you can.
For animators, we want to achieve a performance. An original raw performance acted out by our character that has it's own personality, life, and quarks. To get that specificity some people like to reference their favorite movies and others might search youtube for hours. Sure, those are fine but I'll share what I like to reference. Audition tapes. They are not perfect performances and sometimes the subject has to look down at their paper, but their acting is done on the spot and it's spontaneous. There is no set, there is no context or supporting actors on the side..there is JUST one actor. They have to transform on the spot into a character and make it believe able and authentic.
There are a few other reasons why I choose audition tapes and maybe you should apply these reasons when looking for something new and authentic to reference:
-I look for something a lot of people haven't seen before.
-I look for something that is done better than I could ever do on my own.
-make sure its unique enough and not just your biased choice of your favorite actors shitty performance.
Here are a few I have found. The last one is a video of the great Kevin Spacey. Watch how it's not just his voice, but his mannerisms and the faces he makes. Watch his mouth shapes and how unique each character is. Think to yourself, "Can the character you create, be worthy enough to be impersonated by Kevin Spacey??"
There are tons of other examples on the web but if I would post them all here then I wouldn't be promoting good researching skills. Hope this post was helpful to some of you.
Crunch time is over! I've been gone working at Walt Disney Animation Studios helping animate their next upcoming film, Wreck-it-Ralph. I can't say anything new about it other than whats already out there on the inter-webs but I can say that you've never seen a movie like this before. It's going to be a fun one to watch the world react to it. Already I'm starting to see a lot of Ralph around LA. TIPS FOR CRUNCH TIME:
-sanity_going out,fun and food
-drive_dont give up bc you have 2 hr of unproductiveness
-concentration-turn off internet
-strategize_when to show, control image of yourself
SANITY
Hey, remember what it was like to have a life? To go out, actually have time to sleep? Maybe even entertain a hobby?? most people who under a crunch time do not. You do not want to be one of those people. If it's a friday night, you got work tomorrow, but everyone kinda wants to go out and grab a drink at a bar... GO. BAar scene isn't your thing? Who cares, GO!! You benefit in two ways bc of this. One: you give yourself a break form the work-home-work routine. You spend some time with co-workers and keep your social skills up. Two: Remember, you get animation ideas from real life, so go out and live a little.
Do not underestimate what your body can handle. You can easily go to sleep at 1 and wake up at 7:30 to get up and go to work. 6 hour sleep is just fine to recharge.
DRIVE
Working hard all day, 6 o'clock hits and you still have a lot of work to do... so you stay 2 more hours and you realize you're not getting anything done. Now you have a choice: the tempting, "I should just go home and tackle this in the morning, I've been staring too long at this." Or my choice: you put your head down and power throw this 2 hour artist block bc sooner or later your mind gives up on procrastination and says, "FINE DANNY, I'll work I'll work just as long as you promise to go home after this" Sometimes I have unproductive hours but I dont give up, I work through them and sooner or later I get a second wind and complete a lot of work!
Remember all your work pays off. Pull your weight, you are now part of a team
CONCENTRATION
You don't have time for a 2 hour artist block? Your shot is due in an 1 and a half hours and you barely finished blocking???? I go into a code red mode, I turn all chrome, safari, internet explorers OFF. emails turn off, iphones go in the drawer, heads phone go in the ears but have no music (keeps people from talking to you and block out noise) ..This is my code read I have to get shit done mode. Its not fun but you turn up your productivity 200%
STRATEGIZE
Probably one of the most important topics in this post, you only learn this through experience but I'll try my best to explain this.
You are in control of how people see you and your work. Here's an example of bad control: You might be a perfectly capable animator but you show too early all the time. Then you do not show until you have polished your shot.
I would say this is a bad strategy. Here is why, when you show early and its too under-baked, this is the image and memory you are leaving your supervisor with. And even if you turn your animation into a wonderful finished piece a week later, you left them with all that time with an image/memory of crude bad animation. The memory of the wonderful animation you just turned in will be erased once you show blocking two days later and its crude and too early once again.
Another tip, Do not have facebook up when people walk by, let them see you working THEN bring up your facebook page even if they are there. These might be little differences but it can mean the difference of - "oh he's always on facebook and only works when im around." or "he's always working, ah he's just checking facebook. cool"
-Always show strong work, with a lot of information and breakdowns. Give your supervisor as much information in your animation as they need so they can give correct accurate notes. Do not be afraid of doing a lot of work and then changing your animation. Do not be afraid of doing surgery on your splines and blowing stuff away and redoing it. Its your job. Don't treat your animation as if it's precious, it's the directors idea so be ready to change things at a moments notice. Always do your best. If you ever have a bad dailies or a bad drive by, make sure the next time you show makes up for that, make sure its GOOD. You don't want to be the guy who always has problems with their animation.
be aware of where you fit in your team. are you helping out, are you dead weight? Do they really need me? What am I bringing to the table...
Thanks for reading. We wont be starting on the next film for a while, expect a lot of new posts weekly and please don't be shy in sending new me work to check out! Whether its animation, short stories, drawings etc!
If you haven't noticed I have not posted in about a month now. This last month has been quite a bit crazy for me. Disney is going strong with their movie WRECK IT RALPH. Which I just say it's teaser... AMAZING. I definitely look forward for all of you seeing it. The animation is top notch and this film will look amazing. On the side I also got to get my hands on the Rapunzel and Flynn rig and do a dialogue test with them.
but for now for the real reason that I've been so busy...
Directing
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
In November/December I jumped on board a project my friend Ted Hayden was thinking about, it was a live-action short film. (In our business we say LIVE action or Animated film as to not confuse the two)
In this post I'll share with you the madness, sweat, and insight I had being an animator in a live action production.
NOVEMBER: Ted Hayden,
he's a guy I met in college, he moved out here to LA a little while before me and since then has worked on sets and done a handfull of short films of which a few he has earned awards for in festivals and awards.
Ted asked me to help him on his next short, he wants to focus on being a DP (cinematographer) and doesn't want to worry about anything else. which is where I come in, he wants me to direct. "What do I have to do?" Ted says to come up with a story and help out with shots and design. "OH, story board the film!!??" ted says.. um yes. Story board. Like how the Coen Brother's do it...
(this was my first animation reference. Story boards are a huge huge part of animated films as well for animators when they do them in thumbnail form. Storyboarding is doing many drawings of your film in it's entirety from concept to individual shots. A lot of Live action isn't done with a lot of story boards)
DECEMBER: I draw out the film and we meet at least once a week to discuss things I really have never dealt with before. Here is an example of a miss communication.
-'Budget' ted says
"What the hell do you mean budget? Are you hungry? I could spot you for lunch..."
-"No haha, I mean how much money can you throw down on this film??"
You see... being an animator, all I need is a pencil and some animation paper, and if im poor at the time, then just blank sheets of paper. I dont really have to spend more than $40 but here we are talking about props, renting out lights and equipment, food for people, gas to drive out to location, money money money....
And the most obvious one that hit me hard, we have to pay to feed people and reimburse them for any expenses they make while working with us...
WTF! I yelled.. and when Ted added up and started trying to list all the things we were going to need to do and get, he started going bald and dropped to the corner in the fetal position... Then he said we need a production manager! Enter SUNDAY WANG.. We could of not done this short with out him. He was amazing. I would say something like, 'I need our bad guy to wear this that and this, I need wine glasses and a fully dressed diner table for this scene and by the way, we need to find more drivers to carry the equipment tomorrow. OH AND did you find the location for the final sequence of the movie??"
-"yes, i got it, don't worry about it."
Sunday was also our Stunt double...
Thats all he would say. Sunday was a BOSS. He's very good at what he does (which is that he wants to produce) He really helped smooth out the production in this short. It was still crazy for me even with Sunday handling a lot of the stressful things. Such as when I had to decide camera shots and what color should our heros jacket should be and when Sunday would ask, 'what hair style do you want the actor to have... My responce was: askdhalsdkjhfldaskj ! shit i don't know, um.. as long as it's not dreadlocks?? but I had to choose because as director you have to decide every little detail or at least give the OK on it.
In animation it's much easier to make decisions, all I have to do is draw and color with pencils and I'm done. So from time to time when I couldn't talk camera equipment language, I would draw something and tell Ted- use what ever lens gets you THIS SHOT/ or make sure you get the lighting that looks like THIS... It really did feel like two people speaking two different languages at some points during this process..
JANUARY: We did our location scouts, we got out actors, we have our equipment ($40,000 worth of equipment if we broke it or lost it all...) and everything else we might need... time to start shooting..
OUR FIRST MISTAKE and many other difficulties...
(thinking we could EASILY finish shooting over 2 weekends..) Which we did finish but we should of done it over 4 weekends! It was really cool working with Ted and the cameras, because you can immediately play back something you shot on film and see if it was right or not. And if it was right, then
that was it! 10 seconds of film done! (in animation this would take weeks, so i was very pleased)
BUT... When preparing a shot, I would be very eager and say, 'ok, so this one is easy! Lets do it real quick to move on!" So I would run to the location where the camera was suppose to be and start directing ted where to point and what to capture with his camera. Little did I know he was still back by the car messing with his camera.."TEEEDDD, what are you doing, come over here lets shoot!"
-I'm getting the FILTERS ready and setting up! these things TAKE TIME!
-Fuck! How much longer??
-Just HOLD ON.. so then after 10 long minutes he would set up his sticks (tripod) and set the camera where it was suppose to go...
-Ok ted ready? Ok lets do this!
-WAIT, im not ready.. im setting my marks and focusing...
By this point I think regrettably punched a cactus or something... In animation I am use to just diving right in and drawing at a moments notice and start working on a shot.. In Live action it takes an awfully painstakingly long time to prepare for a shot, EVERY DIFFERENT SHOT! But I learned and got use to it.
I also got use to 16 hour work days and being very tired all the time...
All in all there was many little things like that that would pop up once in a while. there was a lot of improvising when a reflection of the sun glasses prevented us from getting a close up shot of our hero because our reflections would be in the shot.. that was frustrating. There was this one take that took us 4-5 hours to take and we did it 30 times.. that was a hard day. But we had an amazing crew, Ted did a great job realizing all my story boards and my vision and solving ways to do my impossible camera shots. (even doing a dangerous hanging out the trunk while driving 50 MPH with only a rope holding him in place..)
We are still editing the film as I type this post and probably will not be done until another 3 weeks. I'm excited to see the film finally start to come together. It was a huge learning curve to deal with lighting a scene and figuring out what the hell was a kino and a flag.. Why do we need sand bags, the pain of being your own grips, and also learning to hate the words,'Don't worry about it, we'll put it in the budget.!'
I will keep you updated on the progress of this film because we will eventually send it to festivals and try very hard to make it look like a very well done film. Wish us luck!!!!
Currently I just started working at Disney Animation studios. there is a lot of work on my plate and I apologize in advance for the lack of post for the next 2 months. I will revive this blog soon, but not for now, expect very very short posts in the near future. I'll fill you in on what I'm doing here really soon.
A teacher or Mentor would give you the following video and say study this... what they need to say... HOW TO STUDY THIS..
FIRST: A Rant On 'The Responsibility of the Animator.."
I see a lot of green animators having a hard time animating balance and weight, but here we see ROBOTS are great, mastering it, with 1,2,4 legs.. I bet they can also do it with 8. Very sad when a robot can learn to walk before you can learn to animate a very convincing gait. If a robot can do it, so can you! but do not take for granted the work you have to do. If you think your job should be easier, bc you think all you have to do is drawing, while that robot calculates all day since morning, then it is not alarming, that you darling, are have such a hard fucking time day in and day out with that mouse in your hand the pencil in your mouth, animating. :)
Just because you made a life choice, to do your part and make some art, it does not excuse you to be ignorant. So here is my rant about give learning a chance and learn that the world has more to it than what you take in from first glance. Your job as an artist is to observe the world around you carefully, just looking doesn't count, and memorizing patterns is such a wasteful account, you need to learn the fundamentals to understand reality. WHY and HOW should be the basis of your new philosophy.
Your an artist but more than that you are a human being.
-'but danny I do art bc math and school were just not my thing"
Then you should not be doing art, bc in school 'Learning' was the trick. And learning in ART, is just as hard! ..if talent was not given to you as a natural gift. It is hypocritical to say you are going to learn art and animation inside and out, but when told to deal with the Math of a walk cycle, with it's frames per seconds and spacing, you start to groan and shout.
imagine how much potentially better work can be with a little more understanding and knowledge.
Now: A Non-Rhyming Rant On "Weight, Balance, and Forces":
There is no weight, there is no balance, those are descriptions. It is GRAVITY. You are not "selling" the weight.. Nor are you making the balance "work"... What you are trying to do is convince me that gravity EXIST and is acting upon your character or what ever you might be animating. So when a teacher says, "it needs weight.." it should be translated to, 'Your gravity is not convincing.'
Look at the video around ( 0:18 seconds) here is a one legged robot doing a nice job keeping it's balance. It lands it's leg exactly where it needs to be to counter the gravity that is always pulling down on it. Here are WRONG drawings of a robot trying to keep it's balance...
This is wrong because the robot would still fall over.. the placement of the 'foot peg' DOES counter the gravity but not the Momentum the robot has moving towards the Left... so not only does the foot need to be under the robot, but it also needs to be opposite of the direction that the momentum is going. This will counter act it and result in the robot coming to a stop...
Here is how it should be..
This is much more physically correct, and thus believable.
It's all about knowing what forces are acting upon the thing you are animating. That is it. All 4 basic forces work either as a push or a pull. Electro Magnetism, Gravity and the Strong and Weak nuclear forces all either push or pull. This is 7th grade physics. Every day, all day these forces act as either a PUSH OR PULL, (note to get diagonals and arcs, multiple forces have to be in play..more on that later) there are no flying or side-ways actions, gravity doesn't say 'im tired, im not gnna work today'. Even when your character or object is doing nothing, gravity is still happening...
-So direction of force is a key concept to move any object... You can push in the opposite direction of where you want to go (hmm this sounds familiar.. what is is called.. can this be ANTICIPATION????) So if you are going to the LEFT and down.. you want to push to the RIGHT and UP. NOTE: ever see something over animated? most likely they are using too big an anticipation (force) than the action needs in real life.
Gravity, is a PULL. The more you pull at something the faster it will go as long as there is nothing pushing or pulling in the opposite direction... THIS TIES IN WITH SPACING: when something falls it gradually will pick up speed... (the spacing of your frames will get bigger and bigger)
Gravity pulls on everything equally. unless there is another force at work. So the spacing of a bowling ball falling and a ping pong ball falling ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. a body falling from the sky, a dinosaur foot landing in a walk cycle.. the SPACING WILL BE THE SAME period. (Galileo 101 people.. jeez..).
The only difference is the bounce UP.
-The ping pong ball, having more elasticity, can Push against the floor resulting in high bounce. (you see this as squash and stretch)and all the bounces after that work the same.. THE BALL NEVER BOUNCES GREATER OR BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL HEIGHT. Each bounce being smaller than the last because the energy is being lost as movement and heat while the pull of gravity never lets up.. resulting in smaller bounces..)
-The bowling ball on the other hand cannot squash and stretch as much and there for the Push off the floor is not as strong. BUT like a smart logic seeking student you are, you ask, 'Where did the energy go?" It transferred as heat and vibrations. The ground where the bowling ball hit immediately after the bounce is slightly warmer than the surrounding surface.
If you do not believe me or SCIENCE in general.. Fine, You can test this out your self by bouncing a basketball over the same spot of an extendent amount of time.. you will then feel the heat on the bottom of the ball and on the floor.
The sooner you learn to see these forces as clear as you see how fast food is made from the shittiest quality food EVER... then you it'll be very very easy to tell if something animated is not 'feeling' right. :)
An Example of pushing:
-when you stand you are pushing. your foot is not resting in it's natural shape. It is pushing against the floor.
-A very nerdy way of thinking of animating is that animating is The Controlling and Manipulation of Directional Energy. ..add some knowledge of texture, principles and timing to this along with a concept and acting choices and.. HEY, you might be making ACTUAL art!..
shocking..
-Remember that things need directional forces to move. and in order to CHANGE direction: one force must be greater than the other.. The greater the inequality the faster it can change direction. Visualize: A five year old trying to tackle you... you won't budge more than 2 inches. Now imagine a whale tackling you.. ..Exactly :)
Thought Exercise: In any action it can be very helpful to break down what forces are happening. For example: Raising your arm to point to the TV screen..
Is this a push or a pull? WHAT is pushing or pulling? It will be the shoulder muscles and some triceps (lets just say elbow) But more shoulder than elbow. The shoulder will LEAD the movement and everything will follow. this is how you would show that the elbow is pulling
The pull of the shoulder is a force, but do not forget there are other forces at work here. Gravity will be fighting against this movement of the shoulder. the easiest path of compromise between these two forces is this ARC..
This looks natural and effortless.Any other arc would be wrong, unless it's done on purpose. You would need a stronger pull from the shoulder (bigger anticipation) then you can get a showy showman gesture like this,
So This is it for my rant. I hope this gave you insight on a new way to think about animation and the world around us. To show weight is to show gravity. It's not magic, gravity is not the weight of god's expectations on you, haha, it's good old fashion space time distortion and it's effect on you. Think that's just some fancy explanation scientist just made up? no way, gravity affects lots of things. Even time: farther away you are from a gravitational mass, the faster time seems to pass. So this means the clock in a satellite ticks faster than the one of your wrist. GPS satellites are well aware of this and have compensated for the different time speeds. Did you learn something new? Good, I hoped you liked it. Now go get lost in wikipedia.. all human knowledge at your fingertips.
