Despicable Me - It's so Fluffy!

Minions, after waiting for over a year, I loved Despicable Me.

(A link to this blog's February post about Despicable Me).

All the better in seeing the film with a sketchcrawl of animation students on a field trip. I have mentioned before, on a comment on Luke's blog, that the appreciation of a film experience is a lot to do with whom you enjoyed a film, the comfort of the cinema in which it was shown, the quality of the coffee being sipped in the previews and the buzz of the chatter in the denouement.

Well that fieldtrip was 'once through for entertainment'. Now we'll have to watch it for animation study (I love being an animation student).

Keith Lango posted a review in July but I had to wait to read it until after we saw the film on its release in September.

Today I am an Animation Student

Today is my first day at school. I am an animation student (again). I love being an animation student. So now, by day I am an animation teacher. By night I fight crime ... er um ... I am an animation student.

My teacher for first semester is Jacob Gardner. He is a Dreamworks animator... Monsters Vs Aliens, Shrek Forever After, and Megamind. He is also co-founder of the animation website SpeakingOfAnimation.com...

Here is a film I find appealing that Jacob collaborated on before he became an employed animator (below). This is Jacob's film. I am just basking in his animation goodness.

The Brothers McLeod

Ideas for stop mo' animation styles.

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Stream-of-consciousness sketch by Greg McLeod

Balance and Yellow

Balance in a key pose is important. It is important for the visual communication of believability between the animator and the viewer through the character. Otherwise the viewer will sense that something aint quite right and not find appeal in the animation. Yep, the animation principle of Appeal.

Balance, Line of Action, Psychological Gestures, Meaningful Symbolism all form a part of posing. Posing can be thought of within the animation principle of Solid Drawing. But it also features, by name, in the principle of Animation Type, when talking about Pose-to-Pose animation.

Balance is influenced by gravity. Gravity does not automatically exist on a piece of paper or in animation software. So an animator has to practice with gravity some other way to work out how to show it in animation. One way is to "Act It Out".

The other way is to pose a character who is influenced by gravity. Introducing "Yellow". (I think the pose below is the pose Jess - 2nd Yr - created).





If the computer screen has fraznicked your thinking, spend some refresh time posing "Yellow". He resides inside the digital camera box.

Yellow appears on some second year blogs already: Sarah P (the first one to achieve balance on one leg) and Cassie V.

Workplace health and safety warning notice: 1 leg poses should only be attempted by 2nd years. Do not attempt to act out poses found on these blogs at home without clearance from your physiotherapist.

Don't Ask Me Why - Just Vote

Note that Mr.Pipik is green but not necessarily Green.

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Act It Out - Animation Preproduction Planning

In 2009 I made a post about "Acting It Out"! That post features a video clip of the great Ian Lacey passionately delivering a message to animation students. The message is still relevant (even though we have phones these days that drive your car and make morning coffee).

Actually I have a blog post label over on the side there called "planning". There is also one screaming "Act it Out". There is some interesting information under those links. Just for the 'hey' of it I'll say it again, planning. Hey!

Animators are a good looking bunch of bananas.

Animators act out an animation sequence to get ideas on timing (an animation principle), posing and a variety of acting choices.

But there is another reason why animation students should act it out. Have you ever seen an animator's brain explode? Sometimes it can be messy. Really messy. All that pressure builds up and BOUMPLATHFF! Hopefully just a little puff of steam comes out of the ears and the head bumps noisily on the desk. Sometimes it's a volcanic Vesuvius of ideas vomit. Not pretty. It happens to animators who think that animation is created at a computer.

Acting it out gets the animation out of the brain and into the body. Acting it out gets it out of the migraine and onto video reference tape. It gets it out of the brain where it is a swirling fog and into ruff marks on paper.

Stay pretty. Act it out.

This post is brought to you by the animation student who... 3 weeks into semester, 3 weeks into a new animation project, where we are: working through brainstorming; thumbnailing ideas; storyboarding; acting it out and collecting video reference; ruffing out sketches; recreating, critiquing and improving key, story telling, golden poses... after one of my lectures about animation being created in the planning, while looking longingly at a computer, asked, "Are we going to do some animation today?"

People, we are animating every day. I guess the beauty is that some of us don't realise it.

The clip below is an exercise in finding key poses from Acting It Out and taking video reference. The first years are animating some dialogue of Jack Black from the film "School of Rock". There are some ripper poses in this example. The animators have been AfterEffected to protect their identities from the paparazzi. With a bit of exaggeration (an animation principle), there is potential for some rockin' animation!

The teacher character's dialogue in this clip is anathema to the actual teaching of animation going on in class. It's text! We see through the skin of text to the core of subtext. It's an animator's superpower - animator's eyes! Narrative x-ray vision!