How Does the Character’s Motivation Affect Its Body Mechanics? (How Do You Determine the Initiation Source for the Movement of a Character?)

Every character is different,and they all have their own unique backstory and history which will affect their decisions, acting choices, desires, and so forth, but if we're talking about body mechanics, there are many things that are simply right or wrong, independent of that specific character's traits or motivations.

Timing is something that will be affected greatly by motivation - a character going up some stairs will certainly climb the stairs at a much different speed if a Tiger is chasing them than if the authorities are waiting at the top of the stairs to arrest him - however, the actual body mechanics would be pretty much the same.

When we talk about body mechanics, we're basically talking about how the body works together. What moves what, and why. These things are based on our anatomy and the physical rules of our universe (gravity, physics, etc), not on personality traits or situations.

The man running from the Tiger and the man about to be arrested both have the same basic body mechanics. Each must put his right foot onto a stair, anticipate down and shift his weight to the right, rotating his chest in all three axis subtly as his left arm starts to move back, all of which allow him to start to raise his left foot to the stairs.

Tiger-Victim will be moving through those motions much faster than the Accused Criminal, but essentially they'll be doing the same thing with subtle differences. Tiger-Victim, because of his velocity, will have his weight much more forward throughout his flight up the stairs, and will have less up and down to his steps, and less obvious weight shifts, probably. Accused Criminal's slow and fearful ascent will be characterized by much more deliberate and obvious weight shifts, body weight that is strictly above the feet, and a much more upright posture.

But these are small differences within the basic body mechanics required to climb a flight of stairs. They're doing the same thing, just at different speeds, and the different speeds demand slight adjustments to the poses, but the basic foundation of what has to happen is still there for each of them. In some ways, Tiger-Victim is simply exaggerating some of the mechanics while toning down others - but the mechanics remain.

As for the general idea of initiating movement, it's usually a good general rule to think of the hips as the engine of any internally generated large body movements for your characters. It tends to be the first thing we move, probably because we can't move anywhere until we unbalance ourselves, and the hips are the center of our mass and weight. In order to move (take any steps), we *must* become unbalanced, and the only way to do that is to move your butt!

Of course, externally motivated movements are a whole other matter, as a frying pan to the head is going to cause your character's head to move before the rest of his body!

So, in closing, I guess I'd say to move your butt and avoid frying pans.

Good luck and have fun!

Shawn :)

Could You Provide Some Tips on Animating Dialogue?

The key to creating a successful dialogue shot, in my opinion, is always recognizing that the character within the shot doesn’t know what he or she is going to say before it is said. I like to advise my students to study the great actors, because they have an uncanny ability to fool an audience into believing they are coming up with the words as they go, unscripted. Another important facet of a speaking performance, is that your character’s body language will first and foremost display how complete the idea is that sparked off the sentence. For instance, if your character is blaming another character for something bad, they might be slowly raising their finger up and backwards in a long, slow arc, anticipating the quick point at the end of the sentence. In this example, the person has a totally complete idea (“He is to blame”), and the length of the anticipation of the accusatory gesture is a mere parameter of the length of the sentence. In another example, if a character is working things out in their head as they speak, the movements are going to have much less anticipation. “I don’t know where he could have gone unless he…GASP!” The gesture of the character grabbing his face and gasping in this example would be a very quick anticipation. Audiences pick up on this very keenly, albiet subconcioiusly. I was told once that Eric Goldberg related anticipation directly to thought. You must remember that you are steering the expressed thought patterns of a character, and to never ‘give away’ a spontaneous idea with a motion, and to never miss foreshadowing a complete thought with an anticipated gesture.

In terms of most of the other intricacies of animating a shot, dialogue has many advantages over a pantomime shot. With dialogue, it is much easier to feel the natural beats and phrases of the actions that should follow. Also, staging normally comes much more naturally because of how people gesture and emote towards the listener. The kinds of limitations of how people communicate with one another can be freeing with staging the shot. I spoke a little about anticipating action above, but in terms of posing, remember most people don’t hula! What I mean is, painting a picture and telling a story with hands is a little overboard with normal dialogue; it’s easy to overdo the gesticulating. Best to use large gestures sparingly and only to emphasize main points, and don’t forget that your anticipation is your character’s thought! The intricacies of dialogue are enough to fill a book, but my best advice is to remember that the body will support the dialogue, not only in pose, but more importantly (in my opinion) in timing.

Guest Blogger Kenny Roy

If You Don't Have a Short Film, What Do You Show in Your Demo Reel?

Hi there! Great question.

So you don't have a short film, huh? Well, you might as well give up on this career, since you'll be laughed out of every studio on the planet. KIDDING! ha ha ha :)

OK, there ARE some studios (and some are major studios) who will expect to see a short film, and will put an emphasis on finding animators who have been through the creation of a short film, and thus have learned many of the great lessons to be found in bringing your own short film to life. A short film will never hurt your demo reel, and like I said, there are some studios out there who almost won't accept you without a short film. However, the truth is that a huge percentage of studios out there aren't all that interested in seeing a full short film when they are hiring for an animation position. They're interested in seeing AWESOME ANIMATION on your reel, regardless of context, and for a lot of studios, that's pretty much all they care about.

I'll get to what you do if you don't have a short in a minute. But first, what do you do if you DO have a short film?

If you do have a short film, my advice is to choose the very best shots out of it -- the shots that really show off your physical animation as well as your best acting --and include those shots in your "animation reel," which should also include some other physical animation tests (things like people walking around, running, kicking, throwing, climbing, fighting, flipping, falling, etc. -- body mechanics tests) and other acting tests if you have them. THEN, after that main "animation reel" plays, you can tack on your full short film at the end, if you like. Another nice way to do this is to have your demo reel DVD have two VERY CLEARLY MARKED menu chapters -- one for your animation reel, and one for your short film.

The reasons to set up your reel this way are twofold:

Demo Reel Rule No. 1: Your reel is only as good as the worst thing on it. Read that again, and then go look at your reel, and adjust accordingly if necessary. I can't tell you how many reels I've seen that had a few great shots, a couple good shots, and then one or two stinkers that ruined their chances of a job. Thirty seconds of awesome animation on a reel is SO MUCH BETTER than 30 seconds of great stuff and 30 seconds of mediocre work.

For recruiters and reel reviewers, watching a reel is about more than just seeing if you know how to animate. Your choices of what to include on your reel tell us a lot about where you are at experience-wise, and the inclusion of a shot with body mechanics tells the recruiter two things: First, that you don't realize the body mechanics are wrong, and secondly, it tells them that you thought it was good enough to show them.

So that extra 30 seconds of padding on the reel that were old shots you didn't get to spend the appropriate time on, well those aren't helping your case with getting a job. They're telling the recruiter that you aren't ready for them yet.

By contrast, only including 30 seconds of awesome animation tells them that while you don't have a lot of work under your belt yet, you are clearly a talented and promising new animator, and worth giving a chance. How does that relate to short films? Well, a short film is going to be a collection of many shots, right? The chances that you'll have the time to make every single shot of your short film absolutely outstanding are pretty slim. In all likelihood, there will be shots that aren't your main "hero" shots that don't need as much care put into them, and you're probably working with a deadline and will understandably have to pick and choose where you put your resources and time.

If your demo reel is a short film, or starts with a short film, then every single shot of your short film will be judged as though you have singled that specific shot out for the recruiters as a premiere example of the pinnacle of your abilities. Obviously, you can see how this has huge potential to backfire unless you've made the best short film ever.

Demo Reel Rule No. 2: Keep the recruiter away from the fast-forward button.

When people are reviewing demo reels for a large studio, they typically have boxes and boxes of reels to try to get through. Their time is limited and valuable, and they don't have time to sit through some slow-opening credit-filled short film intro. The instant they see a short film title screen that lasts for more than two seconds, they're going to hit fast forward, because they are understandably in a huge hurry to see if you can animate, and very often, they couldn't care less about the name of your short or who created your models or whatever other info you're showing them before your film really gets going.

So what's a recruiter to do? They have a couple hundred reels waiting in the wings to be reviewed, and 10 seconds (which is a LOT) into your reel, we're still watching a fly-through a bunch of forest trees with titles and moody music. No real animation to be found, yet.

Well, they can't wait around! It's time to hit that fast-forward button.

This is a huge mistake in the creation of your reel, because you should craft your demo reel specifically in a way that keeps their finger OFF of the fast-forward button. But why? What's the big deal?

Well, imagine you have 200 DVDs to try to watch today, and imagine that the vast majority of them are not going to be what you're looking for. That's your mindset. You're looking for the needle in the haystack. You have to fast-forward through the slow-opening of a short film, hunting for anything that gives you some idea of whether or not this person can animate. Titles aren't telling you that, forest trees aren't telling you that, and the moody music is just making you even more tired than you already are.

So, you fast forward! Perfectly natural thing to do. Then, in fast forward, we see the moody title-card flight through the trees just did a smash cut to a scene in the living room of the haunted house, and characters are zipping around doing and saying something. Quick! Let go of fast-forward! There's some real actual animation to see there!

In your best case scenario, you might have only missed a shot or two of the animation. Worst case is you just zipped through the best animation on the demo reel. Are you going to rewind on the minuscule chance that this person happens to be THE person you're looking for? When you have hundreds of other demo reels sitting in boxes staring at you, waiting for their turn?

No way! You're going to just watch from wherever you stopped fast forwarding, or you'll never get through all the reels waiting for review.

Now, maybe this is no big deal for you as the hopeful job applicant, but there's a decent chance that the reviewer just missed some of your very best animation, and will reject your reel because they never even saw it!

OK, so now that we've talked about how to set up your reel if you have a short film, maybe I should actually answer the question now? What if you don't have a short film?

Well, then you still have to carefully structure your demo reel (for example, you still need to pay close attention to Rules No. 1 and No. 2 and keep your opening title card really short for the same reasons as above!), and you simply don't have to worry about attaching your short film at the end or as a second menu option or whatever.

Essentially, it should be the same demo reel. Your reel should show off your very best animation. It should show that you understand body mechanics (please no more floating talking heads! That tells us zero about your actual animation abilities) and it should show that you understand acting. It should show that you can display emotion through silhouette and also through the eyes. It should show weight and force and your keen eye for detail and polish. It should show that you have a variety of work (when possible), and ideally it should show that you have the ability to animate in the style of the studio you are applying to.

Nothing is too basic or too complex for a demo reel when it comes to actual animation. If you are a newer animator, there is nothing wrong with including your bouncing ball tests if they show great weight or a lot of personality. Just include whatever you think is best!

As far as the actual demo reel breakdown, I won't get too into it or we'll be here all day, but my main advice would be to start and finish with a bang. Choose your favorite two shots and start your reel with one of them and end the reel with the other, and throw all the rest of your best work in between.

You need to catch the reviewers attention with your first great shot, right off the bat. I've seen people eject a demo reel after literally three seconds, so make that first shot really count.

And then you want that other great masterpiece right at the end so when the reel finishes, they are left with a feeling of "wow, that animator was great!" instead of throwing all your best stuff at the beginning and letting the reel trail off and get worse and worse until at the end, they're just left feeling let down.

OK - wow, that was a long one! Maybe I'll talk more about reels in future posts. Hope this is helpful!!

Shawn :)

What Do You Do When You Come across an Animation Problem That You Cannot Solve?

There is no replacement for experience. This profession is not exempt from that simple fact! Smart animators immediately seek out experience when they hit a wall with their work. On the job when I get stuck, the very first thing I do is to spin my chair around, and ask all the animators around me! When I was starting out, I had the very good luck to be placed in some offices large enough that there was always somebody around who had experience with the problem I was dealing with, but small enough that everyone helping each other out was not too distracting from the work of the day. That was always between 6-9 people to a room. If you are in a situation like that, there will always be somebody around who has dealt with something very similar who can point you in the right direction. And even if you are not in a production environment yet, you are never alone when you have the internet! I learned every single technical skill I have from a forum that I visited daily when I was first interested in CG. Not unlike the Animation Mentor forums, this place was filled with individuals pursuing the craft like me. If they didn’t have an exact answer, they at least had a unique approach to the problem that would get me thinking more innovatively.

If there is literally nobody around, no time to wait for a forum reply, and you are truly stuck, there are some little tricks that might get you back on track. First, if the problem is technical, all software has more than one way to achieve nearly every effect, so check the documentation for those other paths you might take. If it’s a performance issue, then ask yourself what made you choose the performance that is not coming across in the first place. Try making a different acting choice and seeing if it was the stronger one all along. If you can’t see what is wrong, but know something is, then take a break! You need fresh eyes to diagnose the situation. Take a walk, leave the shot, and when you come back you may just have a new idea. There are millions of hurdles that an animator may encounter. So I cannot give advice for everything. All I know is that there is a solution for all of them. So never give up.

Guest Blogger Kenny Roy

How Do You Approach a Shot Which Has No Dialogue?

Animating a shot with no dialogue is WAY more difficult than animating a shot WITH dialogue. Dialogue gives you SO many cues to work with...timing, rhythm, shot arc...it also helps you with acting choices! When you're animating without dialogue, there's the extra challenge of having to work out all of the timing and everything from scratch, essentially creating your own choreography.

To determine acting choices, the shot has to be put into the context of the shots surrounding it, to be sure that the acting stays in line with the overall story arc. And since there is no dialogue to give you cues for rhythm, it is important that the animation has an interesting, dynamic rhythm that helps to keep the audience engaged. The 'flavour' of the rhythm must match the emotional content of the scene...having an upbeat, staccato rhythm won't work very well with a sad and disappointed character. When I think of how a piece of music sounds that makes me feel a certain way, I find that's a good indicator of a kind of speed and cadence of a rhythm that might work with a shot with similar emotional content.

That's where working out the pose timing in the blocking stage becomes more important than ever - creating that base rhythm that you build all of the overlapping rhythms on top of as you add more details in the later stages. And even if the action in the shot is very minimal and low-key, there is still a rhythm to the movements of a character. Even blinks can create an interesting rhythm. As always, the blocking stage is the base on which you build the rest of your animation. The icing won't hold up on it's own without a nicely formed cake underneath.

Guest Blogger Dana Boadway

How Do You Accentuate the Facial Performance to Enhance the Body Performance if You Have Already Animated the Body First?

Hi there!

Well, first off, I always animate the body first. Most animators get the body stuff blocked in, and then do a rough pass of limited facial and eye animation before really diving into the facial performance, so it's a very common and normal challenge to be doing the face as a secondary pass.

The main thing to consider here is timing, and planning your facial expressions to hit at moments that complement the body performance rather than distract from it.

For example, if it's important to your story that the character is sneakily stealing a pen from a desk, then it would be a really bad idea to have his eyes doing huge radical movements just as he steals the pen and puts it into his pocket. If the eyes are really going crazy, everyone is going to be looking at his face and totally miss the story point about the pen being stolen.

Beyond just basic complimentary timing, you also want to time the emotional beats of the face to work well with the body. I tend to try to let the face lead the body by a frame or two (or more, in a slow realization or protracted emotional change) with the idea that the face and eyes will betray emotions quicker and more immediately than the body language might.

An example of this might be a scene where the character is realizing that the love of his life doesn't actually love him in return. You've already created the body performance of him eagerly offering her a flower, and then the shoulders drooping as he hears her rejecting, letting his hand fall to his side, dropping the flower, hanging his head, etc. The most important facial stuff in this scene will probably be his eyes searching her eyes for the truth as he hears this devastating news, and then the whatever you choose to have his face do as the news really sinks in.

Does he stare at her, disbelieving? Does he start to cry? Do his eyes defocus and he just stares into the distance? Whatever you choose, you should consider letting that facial performance happen before his shoulders drop, before he drops his flower, etc.

The body performance SHOULD be telling the story in itself, so be sure to spend enough time making sure your body mechanics work and the emotions read in your poses. The face should be kind of the "cherry on top" that really seals the deal, it can't carry the whole performance itself or the character will just feel stiff and lifeless.

Good luck and have fun!

Shawn :)

Could You Discuss Blocking Techniques?

I am a copied-pairs-blocking kinda animator. I never knew there was a name for this technique until I started mentoring at Animation Mentor! I am the first to admit that I have issues with switching between different types of tangents when I'm animating. :) I think animators with a classical animation background find blocking with stepped keys to be very intuitive, since that mimics closely how blocking animation traditionally would work. I think choosing a method for blocking has much to do with your sensibilities, and not as much with how other folks say you 'should' or 'shouldn't'. As with other facets of animating, every animator will find a way of working that makes sense for themselves.

My background is in performance...acting and dance. So for me, it's about creating motion, which in my view is perceptionally different from thinking about it as a series of still images (even though it is essentially just that). I tend to visualize my shot as a series of moves rather than a series of poses. When I'm blocking my shot, it is just as important for me to work out the timing of my main poses of course, but I find it much more intuitive to also see how the pose transitions are working right off the bat as well. So with copied pairs, I'm getting the pose timing happening, along with more fluid breakdowns going from one pose to another by using splined tangents rather than the stop-motion-on-fours feel that you get from blocking with stepped keys. You can definitely get a good sense of the timing from either method - it's really just a personal preference. And I find it much easier to go into adding more detail and developing the shot from that base rather than having to switch types of tangents after the initial blocking.

Guest Blogger Dana Boadway

Animation Tips & Tricks II Is Here!

Dear Readers,

We’ve released the free ebook Animation Tips & Tricks Volume II! It’s full of insider animation advice from Shawn Kelly and Carlos Baena of Animation Mentor, animator veterans and mentors Aaron Gilman of Weta Digital, Keith Sintay of Digital Domain, and Wayne Gilbert, animation director and writer.

Animation topics in the ebook include:

• Animation Career Advice
• The Working Life of an Animator
• Making a Scene
• Acting
• Bringing Characters to Life
• Workflow

For your free copy of the ebook, click here.

Animation Mentor is also sponsoring a free webinar discussing planning and workflow on April 18, 2009. The webinar will be hosted by ebook contributors Keith Sintay and Wayne Gilbert.

The free webinar will be held Saturday, April 18, 2009, from 1 -2:30 p.m. (PST). Registration for the webinar begins today. If you can’t attend the webinar, you can catch the replay on April 22.

We hope you enjoy the new ebook and look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

Happy Animating!
Animation Mentor Staff

What Tips Can You Share about Your Observations of Real Life Body Language and How You Apply Them When You Animate?

Honestly, my observations of real-life body language basically lead me to believe that there are no rock-solid rules of body language!

Everyone is different. At any given instant in time, none of us are exactly the same. Even if we are having a shared experience, we all have uniquely different backgrounds, experiences, and personalities that are affecting every single thing we do.

For example, imagine the body language that goes into someone seeing an old friend they haven't seen in a long time. Imagine all the complexities that will inform the "body language" of that moment! Were they good friends or casual friends? Were they lovers? Did they part on good terms? Did they have a fight? Do they recognize each other immediately or does it take a few seconds? Are they hand-shakers, huggers, or high-fivers? Are they happy or sad to see each other? Or more extreme - are they completely ecstatic or totally mortified to have run into each other?

It truly all comes down to you as the artist envisioning the situation these unique characters find themselves in, letting yourself become an ACTOR, getting into your character's heads and - taking into account everything that makes them who they are - figuring out exactly how they'd react to the situation.

There is no rule that says, "When two old friends meet, they shall look at each other's face for 17 frames, recognize each other, give a 1/2 smile, wave for 20 frames, give a full smile, and then shake hands." Every situation will be radically different, unique, and based entirely on their backgrounds, life story, and personalities.

Sometimes it's nice to have solid rules we can fall back on in order to help us construct a performance. "You cannot lift your left foot off the ground for more than an instant unless you move your butt to be over your right foot." Rules like that are pretty rock-solid, and they sure are comforting when you're trying to work out the complexities of the body mechanics in your scene.

However, when it comes to something as big and all-encompassing as "body language," the only rule I'd say is rock solid is that we are all too different for rules to apply.
But guess what? That's what makes this stuff so fun!

Every performance will be unique. Every reaction to every situation should be based on that particular character's back story, personality, and immediate (and long-term) desires and goals. Because of that, every reaction *should* be unique in its own way.

This specific thing, more than almost anything else, is what will bring your characters to life, and help you craft a performance that is memorable because of its uniqueness and the sense of authenticity that will lend to it.

Have fun, and good luck!
Shawn :)

What is Your Workflow to Polish a Shot? What Makes it Polished?

When I'm polishing a shot, that means that all of my timing and movements are working and approved and I'm just adding the very finishing touches to the shot before I'm finito. So when I start my polishing pass, I am certainly not going to be making any big changes to action or timing.

The first thing I do when I'm going into polishing, is a little "good shot hygiene" as one of my former lead animators used to call it. I select each and every control, and go through the attribute curves one by one in the graph editor, and smooth out any bumps or tangent strangeness. You'd be surprised how many things you can catch by scaling in and out horizontally and vertically that you wouldn't see upon the initial examination. This generally gets rid of all kinds of tiny hiccups that have been accumulating as I've been editing my animation in previous passes.

Only after that is done for every animated control, do I continue on and just double-check all of my arcs and finesse overlapping action and perhaps even add tinier details. I will playblast often, and look for anything that catches my eye when I'm watching it on 'loop'...usually if something catches my eye, it means it's not quite smooth enough - so I'll check the eases and the overlaps to make sure nothing 'hits.'

Then, after I've polished all that up, I go through and look at the curves again on everything I've polished, to make sure they're all smooth so I won't give the director any excuses to send the shot back to me again for any more touch-ups. :)

Playblast again to check...fix anything that's still catching my eye, make sure the curves are smooth, playblast again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until it's squeaky clean.

Handing in sloppy files is very unprofessional! One thing I've learned is to never expect that you'll fly anything by the director...they *always* notice the teeniest little bumps! And they'll call you on it...oh yes they will.

Guest Blogger Dana Boadway