What Happens When Animators Hate The Characters They Animate
We have a very SPECIAL blog mail service from veteran mentor, Dana Boadway-Masson. She walks yous through her secrets on acting and shares performance tips that will help yous create conceivable, living and breathing characters. A must-read for any animator that needs to take information technology to the adjacent level. Larn, absorb information technology, and get animate that shot!
Beyond the 12 Principles: Top ten Avant-garde Performance Tips for Animators
In an blithe film, there needs to be clarity of advice in order to effectively tell the story and engage the audience. As animators, it is our task to depict the audience in and build a functioning that they can empathize with and be entertained by.
In order for the audition to sympathize, they need to believe in the characters. They accept to announced to live and recall on their own, react spontaneously, communicate conspicuously, and exist highly-seasoned.
In order for the audience to be entertained by the characters, the shots need to be appealing in composition, posing, rhythm and phrasing, and comprise interim choices that experience fresh.
So the animator has a really big challenge when information technology comes to planning and executing a shot.
1. Simplify: Simplify your shots to make them more than believable and natural.
So many times I see animators trying to wedge too much information into a shot, and it ends upward feeling as clear as mud, and the realism of the performance suffers. Avoid the impulse to always brand the character motion! The thing that actually makes the shot flow well are the moments of stillness in juxtaposition with the movement.
Avoid the impulse to always make the character move! What really makes the shot menstruation well are the moments of stillness in juxtaposition with the movement.
Yous don't want the shot to feel 'forced' or 'fake,' which it volition be if in that location are likewise many pose changes and functioning elements.
The above scene is a skilful example of two key acting tips: Simply and Act Within The Pose.
2. Act within the pose: Don't add unnecessary new poses.
Identify the character'due south emotional state of mind in the shot. Does this country change, and if so, determine the timing of the change. These emotional/mental states can and should be your character's only MAIN POSE CHANGES. Don't change poses just because at that place is a new emphasis in the dialogue! Dialogue doesn't bulldoze activity on the part of the character, THOUGHT DRIVES ACTION.
Don't change poses simply because at that place is a new emphasis in the dialogue!
In the scene from Ratatouille, to a higher place, the grapheme essentially only uses Ii poses. The driving emotional forces are external (what did YOU do, how did YOU melt that?!) where he is hunched forward and glaring into the jar, and internal (how am I going to practice this again?) where he clutches the jar to his chest and stands more upright and stiff.
The rest of the functioning is layered with secondary gestures that emphasize the main emotional beats, and the main poses but change in intensity throughout the scene—i.e. they lean into or back out of the pose depending on how intense his emotions are.
Then, to summarize: Choose a few master poses to convey your character's emotional state, just and so focus on making adjustments and adding secondary gestures inside each pose. No need to add a new pose every time their emotion shifts.
iii. Layers: Create a conceivable operation by layering blitheness techniques.
Retrieve of a performance like an onion—it has layers.
Or maybe think of your graphic symbol'south performance like a song—layering rhythms on top of each other to create interesting texture and timing within your blitheness. These rhythms should support your acting choices and enhance the performance overall.
In the context of 'acting inside poses', this concept is veeeeery important!
Let's imagine the texture and rhythm in your animation is choreography set to a musical score. Y'all need a wide range of elements to create a full composition, things like notes (low, high), tempo (adagio, allegro), and volume level (piano, forte etc.).
In this instance, the notes might wait like this:
- Bass notes, i.eastward. Cello (main poses): The foundation upon which the shot is based.
- Centre notes, i.eastward. Viola (overlapping actions leading into and out of principal poses and weight shifts to support the small gestures): This helps to connect the catamenia of action between the slower bass notes and the faster high notes.
- Loftier notes, i.e. 1st and 2nd Violin (quick, staccato gestures with head, easily, shoulders, eyes, etc): This is the main melody and countermelody that dances throughout the shot and keeps the audience engaged in the character'southward operation. This is what brings out the emphasis of emotion.
Keep the audio/dialogue in listen too. The concrete movements and the audio beats also need to dance around each other, and occasionally hit close together when accent is needed. Moments of stillness create punctuation in the operation.
4. Emotional hang time: Give your character time to transition through emotions.
The obvious example to depict this concept is with the skilful ol' bouncing ball, when one force (bounce energy) runs out and some other force (gravity) starts to take over, at that place is a moment of hang fourth dimension, where we can run across this changeover of forces occur.
Emotionally speaking, when a graphic symbol is feeling 1 emotion, and something happens to make the character experience something different in the shot, they need to accept a thought-processing moment earlier the emotional change can happen. Without this moment, the acting will not appear spontaneous or believable.
Emotionally speaking, when a character is feeling i emotion, and something happens to make the character experience something different in the shot, they demand to have a thought-processing moment.
You need to build beats into the blitheness to show the audience that the character is mentally absorbing the events that are occurring in the shot, and processing them. I call these Micropauses (TM). A Micropause tin be quick—the listen can process very chop-chop—but it has to be readable.
In this shot (from 2:09), picket Chef Skinner modify quickly from one emotion to the next, with a tiny vanquish of stillness in between each that shows us his thought processing moments and quick change of emotions based on what he'due south thinking.
5.The neutral pose: Don't get-go animative from a rig's neutral pose, create your ain.
This is Non a neutral pose: This is the default pose used for rigging!
You should NEVER beginning animating from this pose. Information technology makes the character feel incredibly generic and static.
Identify your grapheme'south main traits and create a 'neutral pose' for how the character, equally an private with a singled-out personality, might stand or sit while they're just doing nada. Create the performance with the character'southward emotions for the scene from there. Y'all'll capture the character's personality much more than rapidly and easily that way.
For case, if I assessed that this character'southward personality was very shy and nervous, his neutral pose might wait something like this:
…or if he was a more impatient kind of guy, the neutral pose might look like this:
So if you Outset animative a shot from a neutral pose that is already IN CHARACTER, yous'll go much more than of a sense of that character's private personality in the movement, and it becomes much easier to stay in his/her caput equally yous're creating the performance.
6. Move style: Requite your character a specific movement style.
You can use specific inspiration to aid you formulate your character's 'neutral pose', too every bit the mode of motion that will show the audience a lot well-nigh their personality.
Lookout in this character report as each person walks into the room and does essentially the same action. The choices of how to walk and stand, and how to react to a situation are completely different based on each character's personality.
A great case is a style of dance. Here, Buzz Lightyear gets stuck in "Castilian" manner. The inspiration for his character'due south beliefs, was the Flamenco – a mode of dance. This affected both the character's poses, as well as the style of motility.
You tin can explore many avenues and inspirations to find just the right physicality and movement style for your character.
A Nifty film to written report to take a look at how well posture and movement style emphasize a character's personality is Pixar'south short film, "Presto". The characters are a great contrast to each other, and we really get a bully sense of their individual personalities based on their physicality – of course in this moving-picture show there is no dialogue, so their personalities are not determined by a voice role player… only by their posing and movement styles.
7. Dynamic facial posing: Use the line of activeness to create not bad expressions.
Nosotros all know that a key element to creating dynamic trunk poses is the LINE OF ACTION. Other important lines are the shoulder lines and the hip lines. This opposition helps to emphasize the line of action, and make the pose feel active, rather than static.
It's pretty basic stuff – we all know this from Posing 101, and life drawing class.
The interesting affair, is that we can use this already-attained knowledge to create dynamic facial poses too!
If y'all were to put a dot right in the middle in between the brows, on the tip of the nose (imagine he has a nose!), the middle of the lips, and the center of the mentum, and connect those dots with a line, you tin can see where the line of action is:
The 'shoulder line' becomes the line of the brows and the eyes.
The 'hip line' becomes the line of the mouth and jaw.
There it is… contraposto in the confront!
Editor's Annotation: Contrapposto is an italian term, and is used in the visual arts to describe a human being figure standing with most of its weight on one pes.
Where the lines converge closer together on the correct side, the confront has a more squashed appearance. You can emphasize this by squashing the heart on that side.
Where the lines diverge on the contrary side, the face has more stretch. This can be emphasized also by stretching the eye on that side:
These elements help to give the confront an 'active' pose, rather than a static one, in the same way that we tin create an active total torso pose. The face feels 'fleshy', flexible and organic, rather than difficult and plastic.
eight. Engaging the trunk: Use your character'south whole body in their performance.
A big issue that I run across often is limited parts of the body being used to create expressions. Something that I learned while I was doing film and theater acting was a concept called 'engaging the body.' This works fantastically well for animation also.
Every function of the body should be expressing that character's personality and emotion. Parts that can exist easily overlooked might exist the shoulders, the knees, the feet, and believe it or not, the hands. The lack of expression in parts of the trunk leaves the character feeling like he'due south not fully engaged in the acting, and the performance can lack sincerity. Information technology lowers the free energy level overall.
You can too exaggerate the TY (Translate Y) value in the hips to connect the lower body more than to the performance, which enhances the emotional delivery.
Sentinel in this clip, how Chef Skinner uses really large TY in his movements. Even when we are seeing him from the waist up, we can however 'feel' every step he'due south taking in his lower torso, and this keeps his Unabridged body engaged in the interim, even when we can't see it.
nine. Exaggeration: Push your poses!
Ok, ok… technically Exaggeration is one of the original 12 Principles of Animation… only information technology's one that gets overlooked a lot.
Pose extremes only exist on screen for ane frame… that's 1/24th of a second. It might seem very over-the-top, or TOO farthermost when y'all are creating the pose, but think, once the scene is playing back at full speed, that one extreme frame becomes quite muted to the eye.
In order to get the pose to come out with the energy that the blitheness requires, it is oftentimes necessary to take information technology further than yous call back, even with more subtle, less physical shots.
This doesn't mean that you take to brand every shot full of crazy hijinks. Be sure to residual the extremes with subtlety where appropriate in the performance.
It is the juxtaposition of opposites that gives the blitheness More than energy and life.
If you want to make your animation more cartoony and over the top, requite the poses MORE Dissimilarity (ie: reverse the curves in the spine, exaggerate the TY weight shift, squash and stretch), and speed upwards the transition of the pose changes, and exaggerate the 'smear' in the dynamic breakdowns to help draw the viewers' eye through the very quick transitions.
In this scene from Despicable Me 2 , there is a great variety of rhythms. In that location is quick motility juxtaposed with beats of stillness and big, broad motions juxtaposed with tight, staccato beats. The poses and silhouettes are very articulate and appealing, and the breakdowns are extremely dynamic.
10. Subtext: Animate a grapheme's thoughts rather than their words.
You will get a lot more out of a performance if yous can get inside the graphic symbol's head, and open up the door to let the audience in there besides. Animating directly to what a character'southward dialogue is saying will usually requite you a pretty one-dimensional performance, without much subtext.
Linguine says a lot without any words at all in the above prune from Ratatouille . You KNOW he's thinking that the little rat feet scampering gives him the heebie-jeebies just by his body language and gesture choices. You can 'feel' the subtext – you tin about hear his thoughts. And you can also see how Remy is thinking most how hungry he his, too without whatsoever dialogue at all.
You will get a lot more out of a performance if you can get within the grapheme's caput, and open upward the door to let the audience in there also.
When a scene does have dialogue, a great fox to figuring out how to animate to a character'south thoughts is to write out the actual dialogue on paper, leaving spaces betwixt the lines. Then, in a dissimilar color, write what the graphic symbol is *thinking* right below what they're proverb. At present animate to those thoughts, instead of the words being said.
The thoughts of the character will depend on the context of the shot. What happened directly previously, and what volition be coming upward subsequently. Is at that place annihilation on the graphic symbol's mind that they're not outwardly revealing? Some inner-turmoil? Some inner sorrow, or joy, or hate that is beingness kept inside?
With all of these tips in mind, y'all should be able to build upwards a shot with some lovely complexity and range. Proficient luck in your animation adventures!
Dana Boadway-Masson is a 15-year animation veteran and worked on every medium in games, picture, television, and much more than. Equally a natural performer with extensive grooming in dancing and acting, Dana brings an expert knowledge to train animators to become performers. Take the beginning pace and become an animator so you can learn from mentors like Dana.
Source: https://blog.animationmentor.com/10-advanced-acting-performance-tips-for-animators/
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