Arcs

Ok Go use a technique in the linked music video (embedding is disabled) that captures frames to a green screen behind the characters. I found the original discussion on how it relates to animation in the 11 Second Club forum in a thread by Eric Scheur.

Eric writes, "This one, for the song "WTF?" was done in front of a green screen, so that each successive frame could be applied to the background as the new one was captured. It has a cool look, of course (and I love those striped sticks wiping the screen!), but it also made me think "Wow! This is like an animation tutorial about arcs!" If you've ever taken your arcs for granted, figuring that they don't need polishing "because things are kind of hurky jerky in real life, after all," this video makes a compelling case for even the hurky-jerky movements happening in pretty sweet arcs."

Arcs are an animation principle that should be applied to your animation.

Planning

What I hope my animators will discover, is that great animation works because of careful planning.

Eager new animators are so keen to jump into a software package because that is where they think animation happens.

Eventually, I hope, the realisation will come that the important animation principles are solved in the planning.

[Take deep mental breath...]

Planning is those steps that may seem unrelated to working in Flash and Maya, or a stop motion program. Planning includes important steps such as a building a production schedule, producing multiple sketchy character designs, thumbnail sketches of poses worked up into ruff key drawings where the poses are pushed for clearer communication on every draft, storyboards, line testing, giving and receiving critiques, line testing, more line testing to get the timing and spacing perfect.

To illustrate the importance of planning we can look outside of animation. How much planning do you think went into this one take music video by 'OK Go' to make it work?:

Despicable Me

In 2009 I studied animation for a few weeks in Paris at Gobelins.
I was reminded about that after seeing a post on Sean's blog.

One of the lecturers and tutors (yes, he sat next to me at my student work station and we talked aboout the walk cycle I was animating) in Paris was Kyle Balda who is an animator who worked on Pixar's Monsters Inc and most recently Universal Pictures' Despicable Me as Layout Supervisor.

Currently second year animators are thinking about ideas for making a short narrative film or movie trailer.

First year animators who are in the process of conquering Mt. Flash, are putting together a short animation with the class exercises they have completed with some titles and credits.

Second years will remember, and first years will soon experience, the joy of modelling a character in Maya based on a bean shape. So we'll throw a handful of beans in the mix.

Now, if we put all that together in a milkshake cup and add the blending stick and turn it on, the resulting frothy creamy goodness is for us to take a look at the 3rd Despicable Me movie trailer to spice up some animation ideas in current class projects.



(Second years will note that this film trailer is just over a minute long. It is two characters on a white background. How many Essential Animation Principles can you count in it? If you post an answer* in the comments that is the same as I get, you win a treat! (No, it is not a ping pong ball))

*for example a list style answer: "EAP 1 = character reaction to "moo" sound; EAP 2..."

Appeal

A quick revision about the animation principle of Appeal:

Appeal in animation can be looked at in 2 basic parts:

1. Design Appeal = the character designs look nice, or 'cool'. The layouts or 3D environment look great. That is one form of visual appeal.

I think of it as looking at an animation movie poster and responding with "Wow, that looks good, I'd like to see that."

2. Motion Appeal = The more important form of appeal in animation (for me) is related to how things move.

For instance, a character design is not appealing (e.g. a character representing a piece of snot). But the way an animator animates that character, can make it move in an appealing, interesting way. I imagine a snot character would be great to animate with lots of stretch and squash, for example.

I really find the animation of Pocoyo appealing, in terms of motion. Some may say the design is simple (I find it appealing), but it is the appeal in the animation that captures my interest: http://www.youtube.com/user/pocoyotv

So if we add Design Appeal + Motion Appeal = VISUAL Appeal; the animation principle of Appeal.

Have you found any other descriptions in your research? Let me know what you find.

Acting Exercise - Zombie do-si-do

A movement in square dancing in which two dancers approach each other and circle back to back, then return to their original positions. Unless it is zombies then they just meet up and try to eat each others brains. (my eyes are still laughing)

Animato - 3D Environment Modelling

Animato: adj & adv(Music / Classical Music) Music (to be performed) in a lively manner

2nd year animators modelling environment assets for 3D character animation. Combined, the modelling work by the "Animato" studios, will form the word...