This was initially posted on Cartoon Brew but I couldn’t help give it a mention as well. All of Walt Stanchfields notes have been put together and are being published in 2 books which are supposed to be released around March! Like many other people, I used to download and print Walt Stanchfields notes from AnimationMeat.com, so I’m real excited to see these being made available in book form. Besides the Illusion of Life or the Animator’s Survival Kit, these notes are some of my favorite reference material. If you want a copy you can pre-order Volume 1 and Volume 2 from Amazon now.
Happy New Year! For my first post of 2009 I’ve uploaded a polish pass on my shot. Thanks to everyone who gave some very helpful feedback. I added some clothes to Bishop and also started developing the room set which I’ll take a little farther when it comes time to render. There’s still some work to be done like fixing a few more pops on the knees (they seem more noticeable now that the character has clothes). Take a look and feel free to leave any feedback.
UPDATE 1/11/09: I’ve replaced the original video with an update consisting of changes from all the feedback I got. Thanks again!
Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Holiday Season! Best wishes for a wonderful holiday filled with family and friends, laughter, love, peace and happiness.
Just thought I’d spread the word about a really great idea Stephen Gregory has come up with. He’s going to tutor one lucky student for free! Yes that’s right, FREE! That’s not even the best part. He’s also going to post all the tutoring on his blog for everyone to see and learn from!
I was lucky enough to be tutored by Stephen last year and it was a really great experience for me. We focused mostly on the area of polish since it’s an area that I really wanted to work on. One of the shots I did is posted in my animation section.
I think this is going to be a tremendous resource for anyone interested in learning more about animation. Definitely check it out! Or if you’re a student, APPLY!!
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BTW…I’ll have a polish pass on my shot here soon. Just been crazy with work and the impending holidays…
Well, work continues to be intense as we finish up on Sims 3, but I managed to finally get a refinement pass on this thing. I went from step to spline and I think the biggest challenge was trying to retain the overall feeling that I established in my blocking. It’s easy to start losing the essence of what you set up if you’re not careful. I really focused on the hip/torso/head relationships to make sure the mechanics of these were working as best as possible. After that I moved on to the legs and arms. I like where things are going, but the animation still needs LOTS of work. Here are a few things that I noticed right off the bat:
Beginning walk is still a little off. Legs are popping all over the place.
The anticipation around frame 56 is a bit too quick; pops a little too much.
Offset the arms more going into the pose around frame 72. Right now they hit at the same time.
Lots of arcs to be tracked and fine-tuned.
The end walk still needs to be pushed farther to feel more determined.
The face can be pushed more and with more asymmetry – Needs more details.
Well, that’s what I have at the moment. Check it out and see what you think. As always, feedback is gladly welcome and appreciated!
Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to see Richard Williams speak in San Francisco! He was promoting his new DVD set, The Animator’s Survival Kit: Animated which I hope to be able to get at some point. He showed clips from the DVD set (all of which were pure GOLD) and then spent most of the night talking about animation and answering questions from the audience. He even signed my beat-up copy of The Animator’s Survival Kit!
It was an amazing experience for me to see this animation legend in person. Even though I’ve never met him before, I feel like Richard Williams has been a teacher to me. So much of what I initially learned about animation came from his book (and The Illusion of Life). It’s nice to see that he still has so much passion and enthusiasm for the craft, while also being very willing to share his vast knowledge and experience. All in all, a very inspiring evening for sure!
UPDATE: Fellow AM’er Alonso Soriano posted some great notes of the lecture on his animation blog. Definitely worth a look!
I just saw an AWESOME documentary film called Surfwise. It’s the story of Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz and how he decided to leave his successful career in medicine to take his wife and 9 children on a nomadic quest to surf every day of their lives (all while living in a 24 foot motor-home).
Being a surfer myself, I was immediately intrigued to check it out. But, I can definitely say this is so much more than just another surfing documentary. While it does show the life of the Paskowitz family, it also shares many insights about life in general which I found really interesting (and sometimes just plain hilarious). Here’s the trailer, but do yourself a favor and rent this film!
An interesting musical side note…I used to dig this song by the band The Flys. Turns out, the lead singer is Adam Paskowitz and the backup singer is Josh Paskowitz.
Wow, time flies when you’re crunching at work! Needless to say, I’ve been anxious to post up my second blocking pass, or what I like to call blocking plus. I got some good feedback from friends on my first pass. The main things that were mentioned were to 1.) block in more refined face poses for the main emotional beats 2.) Make the end walk-out feel more determined because Bishop is really angry at this point. This also helps differentiate the end walk from the one at the beginning where Bishop is more caught up in frustration. So, in this pass I hit those things but also tried to add more detail throughout to get a better feel for what I want the shot to be. Check it out and feel free to leave any feedback if you like.
Since this pass was blocking plus, I broke down the animation to the point of having a key every 4 frames (less in places where the action is fast). Next up, I’ll start my refining process and take this thing into spline!
10/12/08 UPDATE: I decided to rework the arms on the end walk out based on some new feedback I got. Basically, I needed to push the arms more to better showcase Bishops emotional state at this point. I tried to get more of a big swingy motion by getting more reversals and progressively breaking the joints on the arms. Feel free to let me know if you think it’s working.
The world lost not only an incredible actor yesterday, but a genuinely amazing and rare person. Paul Newman will always be considered the definition of cool. I have to agree. Some of my favorite performances by him are also some of my favorite films: Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition are just a few. He also worked with some of the most amazing directing talent in history: Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Robert Altman, Sydney Lumet, Martin Scorsese, and the Coen Brothers.
However, I think that Paul Newman being the definition of cool goes far beyond just being an actor. I’ve learned more and more about him over the years and he always seemed to be an all-around amazing person. Rather than go on all day about how much I’ve enjoyed his films, here’s a short list of things that define what I thought was “cool” about Paul Newman:
He was part of the legendary Actor’s Studio in New York and his classmates were Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Karl Malden.
He thought his debut film, The Silver Chalice was so bad that he took out an ad in Variety magazine to apologize for his performance.
He became a professional race car driver in 1977 and competed in some of the great races including Daytona and Le Mans. He was still racing at 80 years old!
He had a great sense of humor and often played practical jokes on his friends. He once placed 200 live chickens in Director Robert Altman’s trailer.
He was a genuine humanitarian who opposed war and strongly supported civil rights. In fact, he even ended up on President Nixon’s “enemies list” which he said was one of his proudest achievements.
He was a devoted husband to his wife (and actress), Joanne Woodward. One of my favorite quotes by him was always “I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?”.
He was the voice of Doc Hudson in the Pixar film Cars.
He made my favorite popcorn and salad dressing; The Newman’s Own brand has made almost $200 million in profits and he gave every penny of that to charities.
I know there is so much more to Paul Newman than my simple list. But, these were just some of the hallmarks that I will remember fondly. I know his life and work will always be inspirational to me.
Well, I thought it’s about time I got down to business with this blog! I’m starting in on a new shot. Actually, it’s an old shot that I started a while back but never finished because I got busy with work. It’s a dialogue clip from the film Die Mommie Die. I’ve actually never seen the film, but I came across this line and really loved how it was performed. It has some distinct beats to the dialogue, some nice pauses, and a steady build to a strong climax. I thought it would be the perfect clip for me to do the following:
Animate something that is more physically broad
Focus on achieving a strong character performance that tells a story.
Here’s what I have so far. It’s the first blocking pass I did a while back. It’s a fairly detailed first pass, but there’s actually some areas that still need more detail. For instance, the parts where Bishop is walking require several more break downs to make it read properly. I’d also like to block in a little more with the face poses to get the attitude across.
Before I dive in into the next pass, I’ll do a quick review of my notes and video reference I shot at the time just to get me back into the material again. One question I need to keep in mind is what is the essence of this shot? Some others are…Why is this shot important? What happened before this shot? What will happen after? What is Bishop’s goal in this shot? Definitely important things to ponder!
Now back to work. Next update will be my refined blocking!
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UPDATE: A few people suggested that I should post my reference so here it is for your viewing pleasure…
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