Most Visited Lectures on this Blog

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Some coffee, reading material and a bagel (New York)

      They say in a past life I took care of people and worked as a doctor... Which could explain my need to always make things easy for people. I took all the (Good) lectures on this blog and put them in one spot. Enjoy reading them (Or not.. I don't care, whatevs)

Here is a link to some free lectures I did for SkillShare! 
https://www.skillshare.com/profile/Daniel-Gonzales/5374059

PERSPECTIVE 101

COMPOSITION 101: Balance

ANIMATION 101: Hands

A Closer look at GOOD ACTING and BAD ACTING

LECTURE ON VALUE 101

LETTERS FROM REAL CREATIVE MINDS

GLEAN KEANE LECTURE: Tilt, Rhythm, Twist

USING REFERENCE 101

THE ART OF DISNEY'S FROZEN

IMPROVING YOUR ANIMATION 101

GRAPH EDITOR: Offsetting

ANIMATION 101: Momentum

GRAPH EDITOR: when you are panicking (tips)

HOW I STAY ORGANISED WHILE WORKING

HOW TO ANIMATE: a First Slam

HOW OT ANIMATE: Balance and Weight

TRAINING YOUR EYE

BACK TO SCHOOL TIPS

STREET ART

MAGIC OF TIMING AND TEXTURE

The Millenial Rebuttal

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(I saw a nice video shared around the interwebs so I thought I'd like to share its message.) Millenials are of people born in the late 1900s who are growing up during the 2000's

      The Me Me Me generation. "Millinennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents." "They'll save us all" They say we are the selfie generation, and that we are lazy with no work ethics. Apathetic and willfully ignorant. They say we are too attached to our technology. Yet we see this technology doing remarking things the past generations couldn't dream of. Apperently we're all easily distracted by the next best thing.

We're consumed by our shallow social lives, yet we share great ideas faster than ever before by shooting links through facebook and twitter.

      They say we put no value on human connection and always taking pictures of our food.

     We can't put down our phones. (Even though the media gets a good heads up to big stories to cover thanks to cell phone coverage) 

      They say we think the world revolves around us and we're disconnected from our loved ones. They say we're never content and don't agree with everything the older generation say. 

My favorite reaction from  people are:

      Some are quick to shoot down communicating and living on the internet. "Go outside and do something!" we hear. "Go talk to someone face to face. have a real conversation. You can't fall in love over the internet. make a real connection." When I hear this my mind immediately goes back in time and wonders, ..what would they say that someone in the 1600's who fell in love over correspondence and love letters. Sending love notes back and forth over and over for years with out meeting! Would they say THAT isn't real love? That their bond is less than someone who actually has a face to face conversation like today?

      I think people are just afraid of change. Plato said that writing would make people dumber. If people learned to write that they will less incline to remember things. Why remember knowledge when you can write it down for later. Maybe he just didn't understand how great writing would be for us down the line..

      So for who ever gets put down for listening to "trash" and hovering over their phone all day, don't worry about it. It is proven time and time again that when people don't understand something, they attack it and or fear it. Say to them, "Get over it. You left us with a shit world, so we will do what we want with it." :)

We understand you care..

We care too..

Lol

A close look at BAD ACTING and GOOD ACTING

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"bad acting" is subjective - but there are certain repeating concepts that always seem to come up when ever we see bad performances on TV, animation, paintings. plays etc. Here's a short list of a few things I believe can be the difference between good acting and bad acting. I've been reading some great stuff about acting in articles around the web, I thought I could share! Enjoy!

Emotional armor. When I watch actors, I want to see vulnerability. I am not necessarily talking about wailing and crying. Take a look at Anthony Hopkins in "Remains of the Day" for an example.



      Some people have too much armor, the biggest hurdles some actors have is portraying the uglier sides of human nature. Others have certain feelings they'd rather not explore; some simply don't want to look unattractive, others can't imagine ever PRETENDING to hurt a child. Bryan Cranston is also great because he drops his armor, it is so good (see "Breaking Bad") because he'll do scenes in his underpants literally and figuratively.

Pushing. Stanislavsky, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski's_system the great Russian acting theorist, helped us understand that acting works better when actors pursue goals rather than try to emote. Bad actors think their job is to emote. See Mel ("Give me back my son!") Gibson and Nicholas Cage. They EMOTE and force their acting.



LOL^

Lack of confidence in your delivery. If you are an animator this relates to the confidence of your acting choices and execution. If you are a painter or drawer: it's the confidence of your lines or brush strokes.  The key to not fall apart when something goes wrong is confidence! If one night your file crashes and you lose 4 hours of work, confidence can be the difference of falling apart or saying to yourself, "Nah I can do it again... AND BETTER." Confidence is when one feels like "I actually know what I'm doing, I enjoy doing it, and I can do it any time, anywhere, under any conditions, and I can recover from mistakes."

Understanding the power of words. They are your main tools when acting. Animators and actors can emphasis words as weapons or even aphrodisiacs. 

Own the way you/or your character looks. be comfortable with your body. and if you are animating, use the characters body in their personality! Skinny, fat, tall, short, ugly, or even beautiful - these body types can influence a performance/personality. 

Planning! The purpose of prep is so your mind is ready to let go and explore in the moment of execution. Unplanned situations will have you running back to comfort zones and boring choices.

______________________________________________________

A short collection of some Great Scenes

1.  Taxi Driver -- Travis talks to Wizard, a fellow taxi driver, trying to convey the growing rage and dangerous thoughts building in his head.  ...feels so very real...



2.  American History X -- Derek sits at the dinner table with his girlfriend, his mother, his little brother and sister, and his mother's Jewish boyfriend, as they all discuss the then-recent L.A. riots in the aftermath of the Rodney King case. Edward Norton delivers an incredible performance... Also take notice how the camera shows the growing influence he is having over his little brother and the lose of control the parents have. 



The Dark Knight -- The Joker, captured by Gordon and the police, has arranged the kidnapping of DA Harvey Dent and Dent's girlfriend, Assistant DA Rachel. But the Joker doesn't know Rachel is the love interest of Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, as well. But he's about to find out. Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning performance is among the best villains in cinema history. Take a notice of Christian Bale's under appreciated performance and see if you could spot the moment he snaps. 



On The Water Front -- Marlon Brando influenced acting for everyone who came after him. Schooled in Method acting he was able to fuse vulnerability and ferocious rage (like how Ryan Gosling does in DRIVE, James Dean also had a similar style.) Check out how he listens and pursues her in this scene from "On The Waterfront."



A Single Man -- NO EMOTING EXAMPLE FOR THE WIN :) "starting the scene in one emotion state and finishing in another" is how Colin Firth said he tackled this scene. George Falconer (Colin Firth) is a closeted gay college professor in Los Angeles in about 1961. In this scene, he takes a phone call. His partner Jim has died in a car crash in Colorado while visiting his family, and a sympathetic cousin calls George to let him know. Jim's parents had not wanted to contact George, and he is not welcome at Jim's funeral. In this scene George experiences enormous emotion, and Firth conveys it while not really visibly emoting at all; he holds it together completely until he loses it completely. It's incredibly powerful. Also listen to what he has to say about his thought process through that scene. Check it out below.



Dark Victory -- Betty Davis plays a socialite, who has a brain tumor. She tries to live as much life as she can. This scene begins when she goes blind. She knows the absolute last stage of the tumor is when she loses her sight, and at that point has only minutes to live. I like how she shows hint of her subtext while her supporting actors are not. Wonderful contrast. 



Michael Redgrave's final speech in The Browning Version. His performance is simply devastating, and it comes together in this scene. The whole film is a work of genius by Redgrave. :)



The interview about the performance and acting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poEci3xFXfE

Lord of The Rings -- GOLLUM :)



Colonel Drummond (Spencer Tracy)'s closing speech in the courtroom scene from Inherit the Wind (1960) THIS IS A PERSONAL FAVORITE that set the bar so high, all court room dramas still strive to get an ounce of what was captured here. 



GIANT -- James Dean



^Coolest Exit ever..


        I have many more clips, I guess I'll have to do a Part 2 of this post pretty soon. I hope you guys liked all these great insights and clips I've gathered from around the internet. Remember I didn't do the raw studying of these clips and I didn't come up with these acting theories myself. I'm just passing along information and I hope it reaches who ever is looking for it. Enjoy the rest of the week!

MOMENTUM 101

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Momentum! aka INERTIA

      Always remember my advice and views are just one possibility. Chocolate might not be the best ingredient for every cake... This post is less of a lecture but more of a bunch of tips put together that have helped me out over the years. 

     When animating things move you must establish a force. Ask yourself: what is making this object/body-part move? Can you 'see' that visually?
For example: if you are observing a body is walking across the screen you could ask yourself: what is making it move? You answer: The legs. Can you see it? Are the legs moving the body realistically?.....

     Believable Animation always dies when things move for just the hell of it. When your object moves realistically, the viewer then has the freedom to observe the story/character instead of wasting time figuring out why the animation looks so weird.

small ball vs. BIG BALL
     Heavy objects take longer to accelerate and decelerate but they can move just as fast as anything else. (the ease in and ease out will just take more frames!)
      Now for CG animators we have to translate this knowledge into the all mighty graph editor (DUN Dun dun) That might sound like a scary task so I made a cheat sheet for you. Some teachers might just say, go explore the graph editor and figure it out for yourself. Why waste your time when i have the answers right here. Leonardo Davinci would have his students copy to learn! And they all ended up as great accomplished painters in their time.
      Below check out how the small ball has short ease in and ease outs. Smaller things usually have less mass which equals less momentum when it's moving around. Heavy objects will have longer ease in ease outs.

On the left is the graph editor for the small ball and the right side has the graph editor for the heavy ball. 

MORE TIPS
-Make sure anything pulling something heavy has a 'straight' line in it
-In a walk cycle: heavy spends more time at the bottom

The Balloon Exercise 
-will challenge you to: animate something light with little momentum, perfect your bouncing ball skills by forcing you to animate the same pattern upside down. Animate a ballon bouncing across the ceiling!

Remember this is just like a bouncing ball but upside down. 

Shapes
         When looking at your animation you should be able to pause it and still see what direction the momentum is going in the object that is moving. Moving your characters and objects around isn't the whole story. You must construct appealing shapes that communicate where the momentum is going. The silhouette can say so much about what direction your object is going.

You should always tell where the mass is at in soft objects. 

-Just in case I didn't make it clear enough, here are the definitions of the concepts I am typing about.

MOMENTUM from wikipedia
In classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg m/s, or equivalently, N s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. For example, a heavy truck moving fast has a large momentum—it takes a large and prolonged force to get the truck up to this speed, and it takes a large and prolonged force to bring it to a stop afterwards. If the truck were lighter, or moving more slowly, then it would have less momentum.

Issac Newton on INERTIA
"The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line."

Animation 102: General Polishing Notes..

     So here is an email of a critique I wrote out. I thought it had some useful elements  to it and decided to share! Context: They is about to wrap up on this and has a little less than a week to finish. So I pointed out the major things that catch my eye and overlook the little things so they can make the best use of their time... enjoy

Hi _______,

     Lets get down to business shall we? I'll try not to be that harsh :)

     So, contrast... everything needs some sort of contrast, it just makes things look texturally more interesting, agree? So your animation is great, but as bad ass as it is, in the beginning it's still sort of, smushy, water smooth... (and I understand he's sneaking) but none the less the characters movement is a bit swimmy.

     The Culprit: The FLASH LIGHT. The flash light moves way too much and at the same pace and style as the body, if you would just view the flash light and hide the body, it will look like the hand of someone high, or drunk, or just someone waaay too relaxed. It has tooo much over-lap (up and down), the head and the body go up and down already, no need to go overkill and do the flash light as well, it's like you want me to watch your assignment while nodding my head up and down the whole time. if you're more a percentage kind of girl, I would tell you to take it 80% down...

     Solution: Hold it reletively still in the direction it is in now, towards the opposite wall where he is heading towards. and if you are feeling daring even put a lil frequency vibration in it to show shaking, but DONT MAKE IT look like he has tremors! This will contrast the slow cat like movement of the body. make it look like he's holding the Flash light with a purpose and not hold it as if it was a prop.

     POSES: On frame X78 is very natural and realistic. Not bad, but tell me one thing...  which one is better.... im just asking.. you know... just take a look and let me know...

        You see? Just always push things a little more and make sure you are selling the pose. Never forget to check if your silhouette value is the best and clearest it can be. Is it telling the whole story? is it appealing? What might it be mistaken as? how do i make it fool proof? And don't start saying that it's not physically possible with the model. "but Dannny, it wont let me, It doesn't want to bend that way, it's too hard..."  FORCE IT. Do not compromise with the computer, do not meet it half way, don't let it decide how far you can push your art. It does what you tell it to do, don't pitty it. The moment you start to let it tell you who's boss, that's when we all lose and then movies like Terminator 2 and the Matrix become reality. Always keep the computer in check. :) It's just waiting for you to let down your guard..... haha

Frame X78- X104
       After you hit that pose you start to turn, BUT EVERYTHING TURNS WITH EACH OTHER FAIRLY AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!! You do have a teeny weenie bit of an off set, but that's only because I had to look for it. How about you hold the head staring towards Screen Left for a while longer and hold the flash light there too. Make the body turn first then around X92 start the head turn, try that out see if it feels right and adjust accordingly. Break it up, make it feel natural.

       Ok this next one is a big one, you might hate me but i can afford you to hate me, what you CANNOT afford is sub par problem solving skills!
-Flip through Frames X105 to X110.. then continue flipping to X115. Doesn't it look like he's bouncing off those boxes? Like in a bad action film sort of way? X110, that character definitely broke it's back on those boxes.. I drew something that might help you out:

 

      So you see what I did, I also moved your last pose a little screen left. This way not only is it a reaction, but VISUALLY he is moving away from the ghost as well. It makes the head ARC less spontaneous and it's easier to follow along with the eyes. But that means reworking the animation before and after it and making it work, re-look at the physics my pose change demands and make it work. it's going to be tough but try it out. It will definitely be challenging.

     Your ending, I'm going to acknowledge it's subjective. Because I too watched cartoons when I was younger I could recognize what you were doing (scared stiff and the fainting) but if I was living in a cave my whole life or from Antarctica, I would have no freaking idea what the hell was going on, "he stopped, then moves again and stops again... then he MOVES again to fall down... and then the ghost looks at me??" WTF is going ON!!!!!!????? lol. your animation is nice. I'm just letting you know you are relying on the audiences background knowledge of cartoons to sell your idea.

      So I hoped this helped you out, Let me know how it goes, your animation is very nice and it doesn't look messy at all. Good job staying organized. Notice how most of my notes were on choices and not fundamentals. That's perfect since you are in the polish stage. If you would like me to check it out again let me know and I'll gladly do it. Touch on these notes then I can look deeper into your timing and spacing after there is nothing to distract my eye. Keep on going!

-Daniel Gonzales

A Thinking Mind pt 3/3

So this is the 3 part of 3 in my rant about art. enjoy...

-Concepts In Art

        So in the last posts I spoke of how (fine) art cannot just look good but also needs have a thought behind it. You cannot just make pretty muffins as an artist. There is no message or thought in your product. The same goes with concept making, you cannot have only strong concepts and not be able to communicate that through your art. If a fine Art piece requires an artist statement in order to understand it, then the aesthetics are off thus failing as art.. Remember your work must be able to please the sences and at the same time make the audience think specifically what you intend them to think.
       You can't just be making concept after concept as if you were a philosopher then try to make art by slapping some dog shit on a canvas and then say, "This represents how the industry treats real artists..." That, I hope everyone would agree, is just a pile of crap on a canvass....  literally.

You must be both, the philosopher and the muffin maker to make a working aesthetic piece and have a concept.

summery- if the concept is strong- but it is presented badly... then FAIL. If it looks good but has no concept. .. why do you even bother creating things??

-More than a Concept
        It is not that simple just apply a concept and be done with your pretty piece.. Here's where I going to get a little dense. Regarding concepts and ideas pertaining to one's piece of art:
 -A piece of fine art induces much thought. BUT does not yield to the possibility of a definite thought, if it's just one idea then it's just a concept.

         Meaning, if your art piece says what it is meant to say right off the bat then the art piece is weak as a whole. The piece of art must invoke images and themes in your mind which surpass the ordinary experience. Remember a good piece of art you find yourself thinking about for a while. One doesn't need to be blunt and have that shock value in order to get one's thought across to his or her's audience. One doesn't need to spoonfeed their audience ideas, you let the art do the talking indirectly.

-You as an Artist
        As artists you might of notice sometimes we don't think the same as the general public does. In our minds there is cognition and imagination. In normal people cognition is the the regular, but not so in us, imagination is dominant. So think about what that allows you to do...

      -As Animators can create an emotion and a thought by just using body language. WALL-E did this for the whole first half an hour flawlessly.
      -As painter can make a composition and with a few colors you can set the whole mood of the painting.. Look at Van Goughs last painting he made before he committed suicide and I dare you to tell me there was no forshadowing...


'Wheatfield with Crows' - by Van Gogh, 1890: last weeks of his life

      -As a musician you can create great wonderful pieces with only six strings. You can create so much emotion with just sound...
And all the other artists out there are capable of so much as well. It is our imagination that allows us to do that. We can recompose the things around us, this allows artist to change the world around them. This is how humans surpass nature. With science, nature is never surprised by what we discover, but with Art nature is dumbfounded in our ability to create wholly never before seen things.

      Not only do we make concepts but we make them into experiences for others to feel. Thats what Art is. All together it becomes more than a concept, it becomes an aesthetic idea.

      A culture is only as great as it's artist and a civilization lives on through it's ideas and art. That's right. Feel that pressure. There are a lot of bad artist out there but nonetheless they are trying. It is up to you to bear humanities future in your creativity with simplicity and elegance.
     One last note before I end this, do not undervalue your personal tastes. 'Taste clips the wings of geniuses' Kant said this and rightly so. You can't just make pure imaginational nonsense. Your taste needs to be the deciding factor when trying to decide when a piece of work is done. When you are judging what stays and what goes, that's is your taste at work. The ability to stand back and evaluate your own art to your liking and from others perspective is crucial. Because it's useless if you have a million ideas but can not reflect on them, if that was the case you would forever combine all ideas all the time and make pure nonsense as long as you live.
So there.
     I hope I gave you enough to THINK about and that it helps you develop your own understanding about what it means to be an artist, to create art, and the idea of beauty.

     Now you should have a good understanding why 'Avatar' was beaten by 'The Hurt Locker' for last year's Best Picture Award at the Oscars. Avatar was about concepts, (the movie told us 'this is good, this is bad' etc etc) as good as the film was made, it had bad aesthetics when compared to the Hurt Locker. It was all on the surface.. Hurt Locker on the other hand went MUCH deeper than Avatar. It showed you a character and gave you the experience and emotion he went through. How he thought, what he felt, all the grey areas with all of life's complications. It made one think about what we value in life. Hurt locker deserved to win and the Academy members saw that as well. So kudo's to Cameran's ex wife for making The Hurt Locker. I bet that stung him a little...

-Daniel Gonzales

PS. I should be responding very soon to your emails if you have sent me one. And if you had given me a business card I going to give priority to the ones who have emailed me first (because their work is usually linked in the email.) So if you gave me a business card I would advise to email me if you want a speedier response. Other wise I will get to you eventually. As for what I will speak of next? Leave a Comment about what you would like to hear. From Blocking in animation, to a little rant on composition. What ever you would like to see. If you want me to publicly critique something for all to see or watch a step by step progress of how I do my work. The sky is the limit. Thanks.