How Much Time is Required to Create a Shot?

I giggled to myself a bit when I read this question. Even the Gods do not truly know how long a shot will take to complete. Of course, we estimate. After all, every project has a schedule and a limited amount of money. For a commercial or television project, the amount of time it takes to a create a shot will usually be more accurately in sync with the schedule as opposed to a high-budget feature film where there is more creative latitude and the budgets are substantially larger. The producer, animation supervisor, and coordinator will come up with a number to use as a guideline. On a feature, you might have 3-4 weeks for a 3-4 second shot with a couple of characters. When I worked at Meteor Studios in Montreal animating dinosaur shows for the Discovery Channel, we were lucky if we had a week to animate 5-6 characters, and this was with interactions like fighting or eating. Most shots I animated on Avatar took anywhere from 2-6 weeks. Sometimes you get lucky and hit a homerun, getting a shot approved after only a few days of real work. Ultimately, the factors affecting the schedule of a shot are varied, and the chain of command leading to its final approval can be long and, in some cases, very redundant.

There are many different opinions about what decides that a shot is actually finished. Some will argue that it's the director who has final say. Some might say it's the studio executives who most often throw a wrench into the works. Or some simply believe the shot is done when the money runs out. The fact is that all of these are true. Depending on the show, the company you are working for, the director, and the studio, any number of factors can determine how long it will take to complete a shot. It is also very important to clarify one thing: The amount of time you actually work on a shot is not equivalent to the amount of time the shot is on your plate. On a major feature film it isn't uncommon to have a shot sit on your plate for 6 months or even up to a year and a half. But it is wrong to say you've worked on the shot for that long, which is what you'll hear many animators complain about after they get notes on their 7th iteration 6 months after getting the shot. “I’ve been working on this shot for 6 months!”

In total, animation on a shot for a feature film could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months at the extreme. The question is funny, simply because it is often nearly impossible to predict how long a shot will take to get approved. The short, seemingly easy shot can turn into an endless nightmare while the long shot filled with complex action could go very smoothly. The main ingredient that often sabotages the final approval of a shot is the “creativity factor.” Depending on how locked down the vision of the shot is, and more importantly, how willing the various powers that be intend to stay committed to that vision, can drastically alter the amount of time it takes to complete the shot. Storyboards, animatics and templates are there to help paint the vision of the shot before you ever work on it. If the director wants to commit to these tools, then you may see very little blocking changes and things can go smoothly. But if little time and commitment was put into them, then the floodgates of creativity open up and the artist can get caught making variation upon variation until either the money runs out and the work is forced through, or the director falls in love with one of the passes and it gets approved.

You see, the skill set of the animator is almost never the reason an animation takes a long time to complete. In fact, many animators will tell you they created 5, 10, even 15 iterations of an animation that went through a series of reviews lasting weeks or months, until eventually the blocking was approved and the animator could actually get into the business of polishing their work. And even after that, it is still possible to get directorial or editorial notes that require a return to blocking. In the wise words of one of my supervisors, “All of the versions you did were good. They just weren't right.” Edits can change, a director can be unsure of what he wants, your animation director has certain needs, and ultimately the artist is stuck in the middle trying to please everyone up the chain one step at a time.

So how much time does it take to create a shot? Roughly 3 weeks give or take a few months...depending...

Guest blogger Aaron Gilman

What Takes a Demo Reel from Good to Great?

For me, it's the little things.

As animators, our goal is to make the audience believe that the character is alive. For me, a big part of that is a convincing secondary action. Don't get me wrong - clear acting, good body mechanics, strong poses, etc. are all crucial and are all necessary in a good reel. However, once those things are there, it's those subtle human imperfections that take it to the next level.

Something as simple as breathing, blinking at the right moment, fidgeting, darting the eyes, if done right, can be so powerful by adding another layer of human believability to your character. These are just examples, of course, and it's important to remember not to pull the focus from your primary action. I like to think of secondary action as a "spice" that can be used carefully to add some extra interest to your shot or reel.

This is a big reason why I like video reference. If I only plan out in my head every motion that my character will make, I find it often results in an overly "choreographed" look. However, if I act out my shot in front of the camera, I often notice all kinds of little things my body does that I never would have consciously noticed.

In my opinion, the best reels are the ones that make me forget I'm watching cartoon characters and make me truly believe that I'm watching a living being.

Guest Blogger Nelson Brown

How Do You Add More Life to a Scene?

The life of the scene is all in what the character is experiencing. What thoughts go on in his head for each moment? How will he react to what is happening to him?

A lot of this is spent trying to make the character think before he moves. Make it clear that he is reacting to what is happening, not anticipating or driving the action. If a character is going to do some action, put the thought in his head, “Oh, I want to go do this.” Then make him go do that. If a character would simply get up and do something without thought, the scene feels a bit lifeless and less real.

Another way of getting into the character and how he would react is to think, ‘emotionally, what does he think of the situation that is going on?’ Is he gung ho about the event? Is he ambivalent about doing it? Does he do it begrudgingly but needs to put on a happy face? These are all questions I will ask of my character before starting a shot. This allows the life to breathe into him naturally.

So where can you put in this idea of thinking? The easiest place is in the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul but they are also the doorway to your characters thoughts. There are all kind of books that will teach you about body language and more to the point, eyeball language (new term, just coined it). When a person lies he looks down. When he honestly doesn’t know the answer but is afraid to say he doesn’t know, he looks up (almost as if to find some divine inspiration). Looking around a room can show fear or anxiousness. Excited eyes are normally pretty transfixed on what has their attention. It’s almost as if they don’t want to miss anything.

Lemme give you a quick example of how powerful the eyes can be when dealing with emotion. I did a shot one time where the character felt sad for another character and really didn’t want to face him to show her sadness. I made the eyes be the last thing that “looked” at the character. The body got there first, then the head and then finally the eyeballs. It really sent the message of emotion from this character.

Think. Feel emotions. React. Eyeball language. (Trademark on the term still pending)

Guest Blogger Mike Gasaway

Can You Give Us Some History on What Inspired You to Become an Animator?

Popeye inspired me to become an animator. He was my hero, and in grade six, I decided to study animation because I wanted to get paid for spending my days making Popeye cartoons. “Kidhood” for me was creatively normal with crayons and paint by numbers.

Later, high school put watercolor, oil paint and sculpting tools in my hands. Art was the world I wanted to work in, but it frightened me. There were too many avenues to choose from, and my tiny hometown was not a hotbed of inspiration. While sitting in the office at Sheridan College waiting to speak to someone about the Illustration program, the coordinator of Classical Animation wandered up, looked at my portfolio and said he would be happy to accept me into the animation program – and here I am.

Guest Blogger Wayne Gilbert