Do You Have Any Tips on How to Take Good Video Reference?

Shooting reference is an important part of my animation workflow. I've found that the following tips have helped me to get the most out of my reference.

Shoot at various times during the production of the shot. I like to shoot reference a few key places. I'll shoot at the very start to document my gut reaction to seeing the shot for the first time. After some planning, I will shoot some more reference to do some exploration. When I have my choices solidified I will act them out again and study the mechanics.

Switch it up between acting and doing. When I am "acting" I will try to feel the line out and see what comes naturally. When I am "doing" I'll have a specific idea in mind that I will try to imitate with my body.

Shoot with a partner- Ideas tend to develop faster when you are getting instant feedback. Bring a buddy into the reference room and take turns acting and directing.

Let the camera roll- Sometimes it takes a while to feel comfortable when acting out a line. Be patient, just let the camera roll and keep running through the material until you forget that the camera is there. That is when the good stuff starts happening.

Act through the line. Load up at least one or two shots before and after the shot you are working on to bring a sense of context to your acting. This will give you time to get into character before your shot starts and help you deliver a solid performance right through the end.

Get into character. Do all that you can to make sure that you are in the characters mindset. Use props such as clothing or a sword. Try shooting the reference in an environment similar to the one featured in the scene. If you have a friend or co-worker that fits the description of that character, ask that person to act the scene out for you.

Analyze your reference. Anyone can get jump around in front of the camera. The true skill comes in analyzing your reference, extracting the truths and tossing the dramatics aside. I like to start the editing process by cutting the reference into takes and comparing the takes to one another. I will eliminate the takes one by one until I feel like I have the best 3-5 takes. Once I have the best takes I will analyze the individual acting beats and pick my favorites.

Create super takes. If you have acting choices that you like in different takes, try cutting your favorite takes together into a super take. Sometimes this will give you the best combination of acting choices but other times you will find that a nice beat in one spot can steal the show from one of your other favorite beats.

Show your reference. A lot of animators tend to keep their reference somewhat private. Showing your reference to your peers and anim sups is a great way to get some quick feedback without investing a ton of time. 


Guest Blogger Mike Stern

Describe Your Workflow When You Start Animating a Shot. Is There a Right or Wrong Way?

I've definitely learned that there is no "right way" to animate a shot. I've seen people animate in ways that seem insane to me, but somehow they get amazing results. I've also had some co-workers look at my method with puzzled looks in their eyes, but it works for me. So anyone that tells you there is one way to animate hasn't been exposed to enough animators yet.

However, there is a right and a wrong way to plan your shots. It's very simple. ALWAYS PLAN YOUR SHOTS!!! I have been guilty in the past of trying to rush through my planning and start on a shot to save time. Inevitably, I end up wasting more time stumbling through my animation, and my work never looks as good.

My work flow has become pretty consistent since I've started working. If my shot has dialogue, I will listen to it repeatedly until I have a very solid feel for the timing and dynamics. No matter what kind of shot it is, I always shoot video reference. I try to take the time to do many different takes so that I have a lot of options to choose from. It is a lot quicker to explore ideas in front of a camera than it is to animate them. One thing I always try to keep in mind when filming myself is to try to not be too conscious of what I'm going to look like on screen. I've found that if I am thinking about how I am posing myself my reference will end up looking unnatural and will also be filled with generic animation ideas. However, if I simply try to put myself in the mindset of the character, forget the camera, and actually react to the situation in a natural way, my reference will be full of little ticks and behaviors that I probably wouldn't have thought of. It makes for more believable and interesting animation.

Once I have a direction that I am happy with, I thumbnail out my key poses and take notes for myself. I don't worry about whether the drawings are good or whether anyone else can understand my notes. They are a blueprint for me to be able to build my shot, and the process of drawing them forces me to really study what is happening in the reference. I always make sure to pay attention to not only the main poses, but how the different body parts move from pose to pose. I often find it is the spaces between the poses that can make the difference between a character feeling real or animated. Clean arcs are of course one of the fundamentals of animation, but sometimes you need a little messiness in the movement. This is especially true in visual effects animation for live action films.

At this point, I can finally jump onto the computer and start my blocking. My first blocking pass usually sticks very close to the thumbnails and reference. I personally like to have my first set of keys be a performance that I know is already solid before I start deviating. My final animation may end up vastly different than my original reference, but it gives me a great foundation to start with. Once I feel like that is working, I will begin pushing the poses, tweaking the timing, and exploring ideas. Also, this is around the point when I try to get feedback from my leads or co-workers to see what they feel is or isn't working well.

After that, it is hopefully (but not always) a painless process of getting notes and making revisions until you end up with a fantastic final product!

Guest Blogger Travis Tohill

What is your advice to a graduating student as they begin their career as an animator?

One bit of advice I would give an animator starting out is the same advice that one of my mentors, Gleen McQueen (from Pixar), gave me.

(Paraphrasing) “Get out there and get work… anywhere. Get your foot in the door any way you can – it’s much easier to work your way to where you want to be from within the studio than from the outside. Don’t be overly particular about where you are working when you’re first starting. Any experience is good experience.”

There is pretty much nothing in life that you can’t study and put your observations and experiences to good use in animation. It’s really quite a renaissance art; you need to be constantly observing life in general to create great stories and characters, and you never know when you’ll find an amazing story in any experience. So even if you can’t get work as an animator initially, use whatever you DO end up doing in the meantime to build up your arsenal of skills! If you’re working at a physical job, like landscaping or something like that, just imagine all of the great observations you’ll be able to make about body mechanics, lifting heavy objects, and even just paying attention to what your own body is doing as you are working. If you are working in an office, pay attention to the different personalities and dynamics at play. Watch people interact with each other, pay attention to nuances of body language, the differences in the way individuals stand, walk, gesture. It’s a totally different way of “seeing.” And all of the experiences you have, whether in an animation studio or somewhere else, can be used to make you a better animator.

The other bit of advice I would give is PERSISTENCE. Just because you don’t get accepted to the first batch of studios you apply to does not mean you should give up and find something else to do. It means you keep working on your skills, adding new shots to your reel, getting rid of old work, and send those reels back out again! Studios will keep files on you, and watch your progress. And don’t think that they won’t notice your enthusiasm either.

Guest Blogger Dana Boadway

What's a Typical Day on the Job Like For You?

I come in to work a little before 9 a.m. in order to check my work email so that I'm up-to-date with the schedule in case dailies are happening at a different time or if there are any meetings. Then depending on the schedule, I might have dailies, where we review shots with the supervisor or we are in a video transmission with the client or any other form of shot review. If none of this is happening, I continue working on my shots until lunch. Depending on the show schedule, it can be a full lunch at the dining commons with fellow animators, or, if it is really busy, I take the food to-go and eat at my desk.


The afternoon is kind of the same as the morning. If the schedule is quiet you work on your shots, and if not, you spend time in transmissions or afternoonlies (the afternoon version of dailies).


If it's crunch time, you may have to work late into the evening. In that case, the production crew of the show you're on makes sure that you get dinner -- which is awesome!


Sometimes the afternoon gets broken up with Ergo Breaks, which is organized by production, and you usually head to the production office and have drinks and yummy snacks with your co-workers and relax for a bit (I love it when they bring in Indian food; so gooood!).

That's the work schedule; I also spend at least half the day laughing. I'm surrounded by so many great people and there are always jokes flying around or funny instant messages popping up on your screen. It's a great mix between hard work and fun.

Guest Blogger Jean-Denis Haas

What role does music play in a scene? Is it important?

Let me start by saying that I have never had the opportunity to actually animate to a music track. For that reason, I am not going to try and explain the process by which animators will work to a pre-scored track. I highly suggest you read the chapter on “Disney Sounds” in The Illusion of Life if you want to get a more concrete idea of how to animate to music.

There are some films that have such an impact on us that even decades after seeing them we can easily hum the music before recalling specific images in our minds. The amazing music that helped to make some films famous becomes ingrained in our consciousness. To quote The Illusion of Life, music “becomes the soul of our memory, forever coloring our impressions.”

I remember when I was nine years old and living in the Bahamas, on the coast of Nassau. There were only two VCR tapes where we were staying: Rock n' Roll High School, starring the Ramones, and Jaws. While living there, and even up until this very day, I have had a fairly strong fear of the ocean. Actually, just this past year, while living in New Zealand, I got my scuba diving certification specifically to combat my fear of deep water. You see, I blame that fear on the movie Jaws. When I'm in the ocean, I can hear the film's score in my head, and it sends shivers up my spine. I don’t think about the images of the shark killing the woman at the beginning, or the little boy with glasses disappearing in a pool of his own blood in front of all the people on the beach. I hear the music. Anyone who has watched this movie can quickly start humming the music. Go ahead, do it right now. Bom Bom......Bom Bom......Bom Bom Bom Bom....Ban na na! So thank you, Mr. Spielberg. This is what your film did to a nine year old boy living on the coast of a Caribbean island.

Music in a film, when done right, has the power to become its own character. As a tool it serves a number of important roles. Music is given the job of emphasizing critical points in the narrative, such as love between the heroes, for example, when Jake and Neytiri fly for the first time together in Avatar; or the death of a major character like when Angie Dickinson gets sliced up in Dressed to Kill; it could be an amazing accomplishment or pivotal feel-good moment, like when Daniel kicks Johnny in the face and wins the Karate tournament; or a very special kiss like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr on the beach in From Here to Eternity. Music also serves to enforce the overall ambiance or theme of a film, and therefore connects strongly with the film genre. If I play you the music from the movie Suspiria by Goblin, I guarantee you will know Suspiria is a horror film. There are countless films that have successfully used music to elevate the emotional impact of the entire film. The Godfather (Love Theme - Nino Rota), Laurence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre), Rocky (Gonna Fly Now – Bill Conti), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Battle Without Honor or Humanity – Tonoyasu Hotei). In films such as these, music is used in an almost Pavlovian way. By first associating it with a character or a strong emotional moment, it will later be repeated at critical moments as a way of re-introducing the same emotional arcs to the audience.

Another important device for music is to be associated with a particular character. “1, 2, Freddy's coming for you...” was Freddy Krueger's theme, or Darth Vader's theme (The Imperial march – John Williams). One of my favorite films of all time is Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time In the West. In that film, each character has their own music. Whenever Charles Bronson is in a scene we can hear the soft hissing of a harmonica. When Henry Fonda shows up, the most menacing music is introduced. The heroine Claudia Cardinale has her own music, and Jason Robards has his. Like Fantasia, the score was written and composed before filming began, and Leone would play the music in the background during shooting so the actors could feel the emotional arc of their character.

What are some other examples you can think of where the music, first used as a tool to move the narrative forward, can become so powerful that it takes on a life all its own. How about Hitchcock's Psycho? Anyone who has seen this film had shivers run up their spine when they heard the sharp scream of the violin while “mother” stabs away. In fact, for many of us, the sharp repetition of that violin is the first thing we recall when thinking about Psycho, not the images themselves.

So where does that put music when we think about animation? Well, like any live action film, animation is about narrative and performance. So in the same way, music's role is to enforce the power and emotional impact of either the character, the scene, a story point, or an all-encompassing theme. Music can even be associated with a physical action in the animation, such as Tom the Cat tip-toeing across the kitchen floor as he hunts little Jerry. Each step he makes is accompanied by a musical note, increasing in pitch. “dum dum dum dum dum.”

When I think of music associated with certain animated characters, I think of the Seven Dwarves “Heigh Ho” theme and how beautifully it painted the persona of the dwarves; or the French accordion-style music associated with the romantic Pepe Lepew; or how about Sebastien's pseudo-Jamaican rhythms. Music is so woven into the fabric of Disney films, that the animation performances, while still brilliantly executed and capable of pushing the narrative forward all by itself, are elevated to a much more powerful emotional level because of the music and lyrics. In fact, music is so intricately woven into the characterization and emotional development of the narrative of so many animated films, that one could hardly even imagine watching Beauty and the Beast without Belle or Lumiere singing. Imagine other animated films with music intricately woven into the emotional arc of the narrative, such as Mickey Mouse in Fantasia which was animated entirely to a pre-existing score.

Music is a directorial device that connects us emotionally to a scene; Walt Disney believed its importance was paramount. Historically, it has been a part of film since almost the very beginning. I hope one day I'll have the opportunity to animate to a music score. If anyone has had some experience animating to an existing score, please leave some feedback and let us know what kind of experience you had doing it. I would love to hear from you!

Guest Blogger Aaron Gilman

Do You Have Any Tips on how to Take Good Video Reference?

Here are a few tips:

1) Try a few takes, but try not to overdo it. In my experience, the first few takes will feel more natural and spontaneous, but if you record the same reference 20- 30 times, it will start to feel repetitive and the acting will not flow.

2) Sometimes I ask friends to do a take or two for me. Sometimes other people can come up with surprising acting ideas for a shot, things I would not think of by myself.

3) The other important thing is to get all the technical stuff out of the way: make sure the camera is well positioned on a solid tripod, the angle is good (similar to the shot), there is enough light, etc. It's hard to get good acting when you have to stop all the time to fix the lights, the camera angle, the tripod, etc. Take enough time to set up well, so later you can forget about it and just focus on the acting.

4) Try to get some acting experience! It can be a lot of fun. Improv is probably a good way to start, but there are many ways to get some acting training, which can help an animator hugely! And it's also fun!

Guest Blogger Raquel Rabbit

Can You Discuss the Pros and Cons of Being a Specialist such as a Character Animator, Versus Being a Generalist?

When I started working at Rainmaker, I was told that they didn't have the luxury of hiring specialists and that everyone was expected to be generalists.

My first task was texturing teeth. I had no idea what I was doing and I nearly lost my job. No kidding. Fortunately for me, as talented as the artists at Rainmaker are, I learned what generalists generally lack are decent animation skills.

Animation is just such a demanding discipline. Movement is something that is either right or wrong, not much room for artists who can “kind of animate.”

That said, there is nothing wrong with building your skills across the board. I don't agree with the idea that artists can't learn how to script, for example.

Guest Blogger Mark Pullyblank