tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72677010620038036142024-03-05T12:26:45.544-08:00Acme Punched! A 2D Animation BlogDo you prefer 2D animation to any other kind?.....
Are you willing to endure the hard, tedious work of animation on paper?.....
Are you just plain crazy about drawn animation?.....
Then you may be ACME PUNCHED!Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-34130886421769882102019-08-30T11:59:00.002-07:002019-08-30T12:13:17.166-07:00No. 194: Richard Williams, 1933-2019<h3>
Richard Williams Passes</h3>
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It was with shock that I read of the death of Richard Williams last week, just after I had posted about him (No. 193: Page One-eleven). He was 86 years old, but that doesn't lessen the regret I felt for his absence from the 2D animation world; he loomed larger than anyone in his reverence and enthusiasm for drawn animation, and for all that he did to try to sustain it and make it into a noble art.<br />
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We have his great book, <i>The Animator's Survival Kit</i>, and we have the instructional DVD collection that he created afterwards, and we have all his films and drawings to treasure and learn from, and though I am given to understand that he could be difficult to work with, he made a great positive impact on animators around the world. His work will continue to inspire and stimulate for decades to come, I am sure.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYgcU1Y75Y3wb-pLBoHhvuW_hLThApSRS9Dd3LsSQqPRTghdGcL34JeqMazdGzfzXW7jySH00qktcVqrioH0g6XJ8CcOAGh0JdZJ0Uil6dYfde4d2Yls7_6qbvYHN4hNEU9FWp1gnFbo/s1600/Williams_color.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="930" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYgcU1Y75Y3wb-pLBoHhvuW_hLThApSRS9Dd3LsSQqPRTghdGcL34JeqMazdGzfzXW7jySH00qktcVqrioH0g6XJ8CcOAGh0JdZJ0Uil6dYfde4d2Yls7_6qbvYHN4hNEU9FWp1gnFbo/s640/Williams_color.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Williams as he looked in his early forties.</td></tr>
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What we don't have is the completed feature film that he had dedicated so much of his life to, the ill-fated <i>The Thief and the Cobbler,</i> which was taken out of his hands and then "completed" by a crew that had no sense of what the project could be. Yet still, the incomplete version (<i>The Thief Recobbled</i>) that we do have is a marvel to see.<br />
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As I have said, I was privileged to attend the first of his Master Classes, and I got to experience his charisma and his dedication first hand. A great raconteur, he entertained us with hilarious imitations of such animation personalities as Milt Kahl and Grim Natwick while at the same time impressing us with the lore he had learned at the feet of those two and as many other of the aging golden age animators as he could muster. Before they passed away, he hired and learned all he could from Ken Harris, Art Babbitt and Abe Levitow, and then he scribed it all down for us in his clear and detailed way, for he was not only a great designer and artist and animator, he was a great teacher as well.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8E9vTV4-mOypWDdxkPGg27HIutuGb3yWWhkKu-4axQMMlMSgEd0FIVk-JVo2Jtk5pd4f5NycREp-SR0Wokku_v90-7oA8NXGcfcC1O4ETZ-L6wc67StoJ_aSShmFn_99qpZ07Gy20r0/s1600/IMG_6114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW8E9vTV4-mOypWDdxkPGg27HIutuGb3yWWhkKu-4axQMMlMSgEd0FIVk-JVo2Jtk5pd4f5NycREp-SR0Wokku_v90-7oA8NXGcfcC1O4ETZ-L6wc67StoJ_aSShmFn_99qpZ07Gy20r0/s400/IMG_6114.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A couple of pages from my personal notebook made during the<br />Animation Master Class in 1995.</td></tr>
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Richard Williams has died, but his legacy remains for now and for the future.<br />
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Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-89708681306951476512019-08-16T09:38:00.000-07:002019-08-16T09:38:12.739-07:00No. 193: Page One-Eleven<h3>
My Page in Richard Williams' Book...Maybe</h3>
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I have referred fondly to Richard Williams' book <i>The Animator's Survival Kit,</i> published in 2001, and I even believe I may take credit for a small bit of it.</div>
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Years ago, a friend and I attended the first ever of Richard Williams' Animation Master Class workshops. This was held in Vancouver, BC, November 9, 10 and 11 of 1995. These classes were the basis for the book, or helped work out the ideas to be included in the book; I am not sure which. But he was already calling his class "the Animator's Survival Kit" at this time.</div>
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It was perhaps on the second day, when we had been talking about animating walks. There was a bathroom break, and I walked up to Dick and said, "If you are animating a walk cycle, should you animate the character in one place on the page, as for use with a scrolling background? Or should you walk him across the page?"<br />
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Most of what I knew about animation I had learned from books, and from studying animated films directly, so for years I had done walk cycles with the character holding his place on the page and his feet slipping backward, as if I were standing alongside a treadmill where the character was walking.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrbKVWYZF01ixeDVQ_v3iItydttxC1JvPmSiuaSWMLtX2X9k-GxCzN-B4Q45nRC7J64UjIwhHb4ZlNSzWMB1ILxG4Ia9hyphenhyphen9Do6Xc3-8fHu2tom87g8jzCWmnG2dvh3tQ7S1OVI0AsvTU/s1600/Heath+walk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1398" data-original-width="1573" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzrbKVWYZF01ixeDVQ_v3iItydttxC1JvPmSiuaSWMLtX2X9k-GxCzN-B4Q45nRC7J64UjIwhHb4ZlNSzWMB1ILxG4Ia9hyphenhyphen9Do6Xc3-8fHu2tom87g8jzCWmnG2dvh3tQ7S1OVI0AsvTU/s320/Heath+walk.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How walks are often displayed in books on animation. <br />From "Animation in Twelve Hard Lessons", by Robert B. Heath.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdewpN1gKEvMrLhauAnl1G1sCgqhgnVri_M_5ggkhkviEEbIJITa0s00OQGz90eFfXwwhpLsKJwpO4jeRskUBWrkXZVWjX8TVHJDc9ETM5Cn9GPbGu2gxYXqgxwvW_jZSMzh7cc1ZMutg/s1600/Blair+walk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1197" data-original-width="1449" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdewpN1gKEvMrLhauAnl1G1sCgqhgnVri_M_5ggkhkviEEbIJITa0s00OQGz90eFfXwwhpLsKJwpO4jeRskUBWrkXZVWjX8TVHJDc9ETM5Cn9GPbGu2gxYXqgxwvW_jZSMzh7cc1ZMutg/s400/Blair+walk.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another example, this time by Preston Blair in his well-known book.<br />From "Animation", by Preston Blair, published by Walter T. Foster.</td></tr>
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This is how they were usually portrayed in animation books, often with registration marks over each image, so that they could all be lined up, one perfectly superimposed over the next. In some ways this was easier to do, with the body and head just bobbing up and down. In fact, for a long time I don't believe it occurred to me to do it otherwise. But recently I had realized that perhaps you could get a better feel for the forward movement by letting the character actually step forward across the page, and so I had posed this question to Richard Williams.</div>
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There was a pause of several seconds before he answered decisively, "Walk him across the page."<br />
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That's all I can tell you about his thought process, or whether or not he had already intended to say something about this. But I <i>can</i> tell you that when the book was published, there it was, on page 111: <i>"...in doing these walks--take a few steps across the page or screen--don't try to work out a cycle walking in place with the feet sliding back, etc." </i><br />
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Here is a copy of the actual entry:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRDsUlmpIEkKSSJXNBzDwfll7CvFqmFP9h0eycgUDVIyuzgoZGOrQQidWdhh13y3Xxpq05B6quDFWRa0giZYZsMTuVPDqf78QEKjv26I6wWYCAOZDKPYPv9pylVwx4pzTwsZ0vQ7Qy8c/s1600/Page+111.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1086" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRDsUlmpIEkKSSJXNBzDwfll7CvFqmFP9h0eycgUDVIyuzgoZGOrQQidWdhh13y3Xxpq05B6quDFWRa0giZYZsMTuVPDqf78QEKjv26I6wWYCAOZDKPYPv9pylVwx4pzTwsZ0vQ7Qy8c/s640/Page+111.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From page 111 of "The Animator's Survival Kit", by Richard Williams,<br />published by Faber and Faber, 2001.</td></tr>
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<br />But more important than whether I was an influence on Richard Williams is the fact that he is right: walking the character across the page is the best way to get the movement right. The other might sometimes work, but it can also look as phony as running in place does compared to actually running over a distance, and getting the feel of the mass and weight moving forward will help you achieve a convincing walk (or run, or sneak or other gait.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmguhPXkG7_uXwsd7YLhm5FcA4D_g6eRpyhMGS0X59WHjjPddDZfT4ifwUynJDmHevb1wEujGIUUyu4CCAMWdjYvxZm2nHEtevxaIUkJOYAdiSYeHPHpRJtjcSgUfo5EF-CU5XUQZEolE/s1600/Contact+positions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1060" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmguhPXkG7_uXwsd7YLhm5FcA4D_g6eRpyhMGS0X59WHjjPddDZfT4ifwUynJDmHevb1wEujGIUUyu4CCAMWdjYvxZm2nHEtevxaIUkJOYAdiSYeHPHpRJtjcSgUfo5EF-CU5XUQZEolE/s400/Contact+positions.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The walk cycle, drawn spread out across the page.<br /></td></tr>
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<br />And here's something of my own I want to add: it is important in doing any walk cycle in this way to create a copy of drawing 1 at the end, so that you have a drawing to link into. Thus if you have a 16 drawing walk cycle, create also a drawing 17 which is a tracing of drawing 1 except that it will be positioned at the end of the second step, where the cycle repeats. This will be a working drawing and never to be photographed, but I think you will find it indispensable.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8fjy8afjpOIt5tcN3ruwA3nIGZVdfNdnG9mF43-cSlcQKH-VMgNtco4xr13LXN90PjHQbHh1e1ZzgUU8G_34nBMSp-OvHZ6xCqL27CHIU0toE4bGEI6ZRk1SD1f5Km5gX6-NvkhqyBHQ/s1600/First+is+Last_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1060" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8fjy8afjpOIt5tcN3ruwA3nIGZVdfNdnG9mF43-cSlcQKH-VMgNtco4xr13LXN90PjHQbHh1e1ZzgUU8G_34nBMSp-OvHZ6xCqL27CHIU0toE4bGEI6ZRk1SD1f5Km5gX6-NvkhqyBHQ/s400/First+is+Last_blog.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With a copy of drawing 1 in the new position, you will have<br />something to animate into.</td></tr>
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Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-63987262124916807562019-07-31T10:50:00.002-07:002019-08-16T09:44:11.348-07:00No. 192: The Walk Cycle Completed<h3>
The story so far...</h3>
Last time I showed you the first version pencil test where I had mainly focused on the legs and feet. Here is the promised version two, featuring the final hand and arm action.<br />
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Yet this was still only half the work, as the remaining 8 inbetweens had yet to be done. And are these straight inbetweens, with every line or point on the inbetween halfway between the two corresponding lines or points on the drawings it connects? The answer is, certainly not. At the extremes, there are ease-in or ease-out spacings, and also certain of these "simpler" inbetween drawings may even have a useful eccentricity to them.<br />
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Here is a good example of that.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm31PAY0uvUBb4F5j_hFAnlFah64AQv8Xq73vY99DqsacZFHTxt97J55EUHl1AFqocBlz_POKKYZQcetY3s_6-GsdIBdSNUvMeoWjHTMH9y6HJvh5wLFta1N-uqlFFdhDuu4ixx6fg1rs/s1600/IMG_6068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm31PAY0uvUBb4F5j_hFAnlFah64AQv8Xq73vY99DqsacZFHTxt97J55EUHl1AFqocBlz_POKKYZQcetY3s_6-GsdIBdSNUvMeoWjHTMH9y6HJvh5wLFta1N-uqlFFdhDuu4ixx6fg1rs/s400/IMG_6068.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example in which an inbetween [in red] is not a straight<br />
inbetween but an eccentric one.</td></tr>
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Watch for that little one-drawing, two-frame accent here in the final pencil test. Once for each step, of course.<br />
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Other things have been done here: Necktie animation, tightening of the drawing on all drawings, and also I raised the high point of the Up drawings before the inbetweening.<br />
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This is a reliable and methodical way to create a cycle, or any scene, by adding the various elements just one or two at a time, and not trying to get it all right on the first pass.<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-43957730348405183742019-07-20T21:52:00.002-07:002019-07-20T21:52:33.266-07:00No. 191: The Old Man Walks<h3>
<b>A New Walk Cycle</b></h3>
Every once in a while, I get down Richard Williams' book from my collection of something like 150 books on animation, and I go through it from beginning to end. This does not count the times I get it down to look up something specific, as for example recently when I wanted to review what he had to say about someone clapping their hands.<br />
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<i>The Animator's Survival Kit</i> by Williams and <i>Illusion of Life</i> by Thomas and Johnston are the two most influential and informational guides to the process of traditional animation that I can imagine. Of the two, <i>Survival Kit</i> is actually the more useful. For one thing, it is organized better; if you have ever tried to look something up in <i>Illusion of Life</i>, you will have little idea where in the book to look for that something. You just have to turn pages until you find it. This is because, to a great extent, <i>Illusion of Life</i> is organized chronologically, more as a history than as a text book.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYdEU31UCouGo3MB43vYdu74hf1VTbFuOEk99vkuWMfnwiIu2q8m_KvfJIds_1rpjoA7P1y_ycpjX4WMKJxrH3Q6vXFslMpJ5MU7nR91bH5IyYNhoqkiCnBGS5gzwlTiGImjKLrqvcvzo/s1600/Two+Copies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="635" data-original-width="1016" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYdEU31UCouGo3MB43vYdu74hf1VTbFuOEk99vkuWMfnwiIu2q8m_KvfJIds_1rpjoA7P1y_ycpjX4WMKJxrH3Q6vXFslMpJ5MU7nR91bH5IyYNhoqkiCnBGS5gzwlTiGImjKLrqvcvzo/s400/Two+Copies.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I like it so well, I have two copies of this book.</td></tr>
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<i>Survival Kit </i>is actually everything that Richard Williams could think of about animation that could be written down. It is a how-to book and a how-to-proceed book, and it also tells you why. It is not a bible but more a book of lore, techniques that amount to a sorcerer's compendium of magic gathered from years working with Disney animators and Warners animators and others, and setting out the spells and rites (and hard work) that can bring forth good and interesting animation that is alive. When I get it down for a thorough review, it is to look for things I had missed or glossed over before, and there is always something new for me.<br />
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<b>Walks</b></h3>
On the subject of characters' walks, Williams does seventy-three pages, and that doesn't include runs and jumps and other such variations. So it may be no wonder that one tends to turn pages through this section, stopping to read just here and there. This time I gave it a closer scrutiny, because I was about to do a new walk cycle for my Old Man character (for my film Carry On) and I wanted to work more with the multi-pass approach to any complex animation, wherein you focus on one thing at a time, as for example, first the legs, then the arms, then the head, etc. By this method you can successfully carry out something that in the aggregate is more nuanced and rich than you could accomplish if you tried to think about everything at once.<br />
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This turns out to be a difficult thing to learn. I am always tempted to try to get everything down, and everything right, on the first pass. But my results that way are not always good, so I wanted to commit myself to the multi-pass system that is recommended not only by Williams but was practiced by Milt Kahl and others.<br />
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The Old Man</h3>
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The brief, or requirements, for this animation were obvious to me. The man is old, and he has a deformed spine, but he is not weak--he will be dragging that huge steamer trunk around, remember.<br />
So his walk may be slow and deliberate, but not feeble or faltering. And, I don't want the walk to be too comic.<br />
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The obvious starting point is with the legs and feet. I did of course put in the torso, head and arms, but just as placeholders. I am not thinking much about them yet: they are subject to change.<br />
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Each step will be sixteen frames, or 2/3 of a second at 24fps, rather than the 12 or 8 frames that we are used to seeing. I will animate on 2's rather than 1's, so each drawing gets two exposures. For the complete cycle of two steps, there will be sixteen drawings.<br />
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First Pass</h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">I made eight drawings to begin with: for each step, a Contact position (1 and 9), a Down position (3 and 11), a Passing Position (5 and 13), and an Up position (7 and 15). Here is that pencil test.</span><br />
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<br />
Well, it's working. He has an almost shuffling step, making contact on the ball of his foot rather than the heel, and I think the amount of up and down movement on the body is good too.<br />
<br />
Before I add in the eight inbetweens, I will now make a second pass for the arms and hands, and I have an idea about this I want to try. We'll look at that next time.Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-63595639101612982282019-07-18T11:17:00.002-07:002019-07-18T11:19:19.256-07:00No. 190: Square to 16:9<h3>
Getting the Whole Picture</h3>
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When I began my film, <i>Carry On</i>, I had to decide on an aspect ratio; that is, the proportion of height to width of the film frame. I chose to use the 16:9 ratio, a very wide ratio similiar to those popularized in movie theaters in such formats as Cinemascope, Vista Vision and Cinerama, which they say were conceived to give the moviegoer an experience that could not be had on the medium that had become a threat to theatrical movies: <i>television.</i><br />
<br />
Well, as we all know, television has found a way around that limitation. But in social media there are still examples of a fixed and restricted aspect ratio, mainly because of their use on cell phones. Specifically, I refer to Instagram, which crops everything to a perfect square. So, try to post a wide or tall image on Instagram, and it will simply be cropped down to a square.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhfMX5oTcxgOt56USLismmPGzOn0w5lvkG-izbbg_Sw91TFGzE2e-2-EqW5NiaZqQJBiWcrKb2v_U4MzJ_4NT0jB8Z6x4s7PFf6z0Hz1xDqodtw4hG_nuH4YNtHA0bV6OugdQ0Zp_CRc/s1600/16-9+and+Square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1350" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhfMX5oTcxgOt56USLismmPGzOn0w5lvkG-izbbg_Sw91TFGzE2e-2-EqW5NiaZqQJBiWcrKb2v_U4MzJ_4NT0jB8Z6x4s7PFf6z0Hz1xDqodtw4hG_nuH4YNtHA0bV6OugdQ0Zp_CRc/s400/16-9+and+Square.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This shows what goes missing when a 16:9 image, shown in blue,<br />
is cropped down to a square shape.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I recently posted to my Instagram account a pencil test in 16:9 and was annoyed to find that, because of the cropping, it didn't make any sense to the viewer.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVEzYOwEpDAVXfG-J9DCJ7aM63ctKpffzY3eDourTHEcOcCkoFcg4xYZ7460mhqcEJM2wjjJ0J30u5XpUAZPNtNcClY11hVv7o0SPBIQ5c0UH-F7hcgJMGt47Y4ItYjckzutBJuUyvq5U/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-07-18+at+11.07.10+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="607" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVEzYOwEpDAVXfG-J9DCJ7aM63ctKpffzY3eDourTHEcOcCkoFcg4xYZ7460mhqcEJM2wjjJ0J30u5XpUAZPNtNcClY11hVv7o0SPBIQ5c0UH-F7hcgJMGt47Y4ItYjckzutBJuUyvq5U/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-07-18+at+11.07.10+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here, in square format, the cropping cut off some important action at screen right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
Looking for a workaround, I did a little searching online and discovered a service called Kapwing. For no charge, I could upload my movie and get it modified so that the whole frame was in view, somewhat smaller, of course, but perfectly clear.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIPnqiCz-S5tvsMbw95PapV95Me9kSoXSYsp0vUtbY717AZwcifutk51x2scehqKSE04btyzfIbwRg1eHnEO51SeWAUPuKeSI_bB77pNPw1Gj5pVlBum4w5F9Xb_8NucVxclyxP94IM4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-07-18+at+11.08.05+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="601" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRIPnqiCz-S5tvsMbw95PapV95Me9kSoXSYsp0vUtbY717AZwcifutk51x2scehqKSE04btyzfIbwRg1eHnEO51SeWAUPuKeSI_bB77pNPw1Gj5pVlBum4w5F9Xb_8NucVxclyxP94IM4/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-07-18+at+11.08.05+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now we can see the rear of the taxi, where something happens near the end of the clip.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://kapwing.com/">Kapwing.com</a> merely requires the inclusion of their small watermark in the lower right corner of each movie. You can visit them for more information.Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-82478739895380169032019-06-30T14:30:00.003-07:002019-06-30T14:31:59.871-07:00No. 189:A Finished Scene<h3>
That Heavy Trunk</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZK35CEIBqHcYIxSEQf8ImXvXW2lutDXKyVOKnTsGjOOJYFdQTtp688_Qdq9srQgQlZl2jl13Lu2O-BNrok8SfJQjqCFMLH-KCBvIKzhTPtKuaAFKMaM5HihAKUHEH4SgWDZntPaZWr4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-06-30+at+2.25.17+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="637" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijZK35CEIBqHcYIxSEQf8ImXvXW2lutDXKyVOKnTsGjOOJYFdQTtp688_Qdq9srQgQlZl2jl13Lu2O-BNrok8SfJQjqCFMLH-KCBvIKzhTPtKuaAFKMaM5HihAKUHEH4SgWDZntPaZWr4/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-06-30+at+2.25.17+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Here is the final version of my first scene to be finished in color for my film Carry On.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i9.ytimg.com/vi/uHxkLyf-OyE/default.jpg?sqp=CKzR5OgF&rs=AOn4CLCdzDwIGjXOhxsQwRD_Wy5D0kjXlQ" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uHxkLyf-OyE?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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My next scene, Scene 1-3, precedes this one in continuity; it will show the taxi with Old Man and trunk arriving at the airport.Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-7545543166759981502019-06-22T12:30:00.001-07:002019-06-22T12:30:11.549-07:00No. 188: Taxi ArrivingAlthough character animation is for me the most satisfying part of 2D animation, it is sometimes necessary to do other animation along the way. This is animation of objects, like the Old Man's trunk, that are tedious to draw and yet give conviction and substance to the scenes.<br />
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I did a recent post talking about the difficulty of imitating 3D animation in 2D (No. 182), but it is not so bad if you are not trying so much to imitate 3D as to simply make a convincing 2D interpretation of the movement of 3D objects.<br />
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In the scene we are looking at here, there is a wide exterior shot of an airport terminal departures building. A taxi appears at screen right, following a curving driveway, and stops to unload a passenger and his luggage.<br />
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I considered making the road and curbing straight across, so that the taxi could be a single image sliding across from right to left. But, as usual, I decided on doing it the hard way.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3HQ_vJfHfthHmGeB5Q41hCqNCuaVwBbMCo5CBWGCEfstyx2_g6S6efX2LL1izuV1kKZ3ZFYo2wvt6Xb5o-XaQBu2goiVLmt9JRGDSeQJ1eXeP-kyWa88KSRciYPik3kiqswF4cuTLiuc/s1600/1-3+Layout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="734" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3HQ_vJfHfthHmGeB5Q41hCqNCuaVwBbMCo5CBWGCEfstyx2_g6S6efX2LL1izuV1kKZ3ZFYo2wvt6Xb5o-XaQBu2goiVLmt9JRGDSeQJ1eXeP-kyWa88KSRciYPik3kiqswF4cuTLiuc/s400/1-3+Layout.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the layout for the scene.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This shows the beginning (at right) and ending (at center) positions of the taxi that drives in. As you can see, the vehicle turns in perspective as it drives in. It also diminishes in scale.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqBrDHY7lTKhNxfMCJY_2kIv2BI7iug09S4m2Qx35MjpwIC6cKbrkboomcpy-5N5X-aX9G8E5N8Tij9Tf_S3-CTiotYbhG8Mn_0wfuFe8cJrwHIZK_ddgxRlmML2aiPypdsjSFGhCZ1Z4/s1600/Start+and+end+positions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="759" data-original-width="966" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqBrDHY7lTKhNxfMCJY_2kIv2BI7iug09S4m2Qx35MjpwIC6cKbrkboomcpy-5N5X-aX9G8E5N8Tij9Tf_S3-CTiotYbhG8Mn_0wfuFe8cJrwHIZK_ddgxRlmML2aiPypdsjSFGhCZ1Z4/s320/Start+and+end+positions.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
It would be possible to animate the taxi moving across the page from pos. 1 to pos. 2, but there is a helpful shortcut I can use.<br />
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If I superimpose positions 1 and 2, then the inbetweening will be easier and more accurate. Tracing from my pos. 1 drawing, I made a more complete rendering that is registered directly above pos. 2; the inbetweening is now an obvious process.<br />
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The consideration of <i>arcs</i> while inbetweening is in this case moot; the arcs will be introduced in the final placement of the drawings along the path of movement.<br />
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Lasting 18 frames, this will require 9 drawings (shooting on 2's). There will also be some squash and stretch as the taxi stops, but that is a problem that can be addressed separately.<br />
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Here is a view of five of the drawings being rolled on my animation board.<br />
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When this is done, I will then reposition the drawings along the path. In past years, I would have done this with scissors and tape, cutting out each drawing and re-mounting it onto a new sheet of--wait for it!--<i>Acme punched</i> paper.<br />
<br />
But giving in (just a little) to today's digital convenience, I can just make a spacing guide and then shift the scanned drawings in Animate Pro.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBzcJxOWJZYzeAvOu2Baq4-gKawgCjtkyjtu1E1dNjQ5Jf6rVB2meyWW7L6sKF1SlpdifecmFfHzj_NUIXZA5N5IntWKiQm1F6uvByxqhjYnVtQkt8OaaQVOqM3BcFGspTnp_F6tWSYjM/s1600/Spacing+guide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="677" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBzcJxOWJZYzeAvOu2Baq4-gKawgCjtkyjtu1E1dNjQ5Jf6rVB2meyWW7L6sKF1SlpdifecmFfHzj_NUIXZA5N5IntWKiQm1F6uvByxqhjYnVtQkt8OaaQVOqM3BcFGspTnp_F6tWSYjM/s400/Spacing+guide.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spacing guide for the 9 moving taxi images.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Next:</i> That inking and painting again!<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-56351221155679468342019-06-06T12:21:00.000-07:002019-06-06T12:21:05.106-07:00No. 187: Inking in Animate Pro<h3>
From Paper to Digital</h3>
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After a month of vacation travel, I am back home and at work inking the first scene of my film <i>Carry On.</i> The traditionally paper-animated drawings were scanned and imported as vector images into Animate Pro, and now I am inking them onto a new layer where I will also apply color and the background.<br />
<br />
It seems that many animators now have gone to TV Paint in preference to Toon Boom or other software, but Toon Boom Animate Pro is what I have, and I am happy with it. Onward!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb31MbgYive6ma4_yfIuGJUb10FtdtZxJ1AgtMy4vOZlbza509DWGgTzMmqm_JN-A0mdHGIStuZv2qreXePea8Xk7jOOpQhnCRrHcr4AamUjEFHSXqAZZKMpCBXVF33IxpC6xjAwhzuT0/s1600/thumb_IMG_5961_1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb31MbgYive6ma4_yfIuGJUb10FtdtZxJ1AgtMy4vOZlbza509DWGgTzMmqm_JN-A0mdHGIStuZv2qreXePea8Xk7jOOpQhnCRrHcr4AamUjEFHSXqAZZKMpCBXVF33IxpC6xjAwhzuT0/s640/thumb_IMG_5961_1024.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-73876941741859737002019-04-26T12:58:00.002-07:002019-04-26T12:58:44.850-07:00No. 186: That Steamer Trunk Gag<h3>
Size and Weight</h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIIT_UjidsUEsfy5W7vZfg4VP0Tr6FFgEhrE50yzcpes2kgutCbCYMgwQYn76D9z663oVcd74vLV8oI7Kva0rIVn2-EZw-HlifSApKzolEwtPhM_C3CoXD0m9l_IU8mtR8ZMIVNVR3UIA/s1600/IMG_5208.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIIT_UjidsUEsfy5W7vZfg4VP0Tr6FFgEhrE50yzcpes2kgutCbCYMgwQYn76D9z663oVcd74vLV8oI7Kva0rIVn2-EZw-HlifSApKzolEwtPhM_C3CoXD0m9l_IU8mtR8ZMIVNVR3UIA/s320/IMG_5208.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is a drawing you will feel but not see: a single frame of<br />the trunk on impact, showing its <i>squashed</i> form.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Back in posts no. 142 and 144, I discussed this scene in detail. It shows how even a large, strong man has trouble lifting and moving the Old Man's ponderous trunk. It is key to the whole film because you will keep wondering how that old man is going to move the trunk at all, let alone get it onto the airplane.<br />
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We come back to it now because I have chosen it as the first scene I intend to finish in ink and paint and with a background.<br />
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Let's look at the scene again, in a new pencil test done with my stop motion app.<br />
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The drawings have now been tightened up so that there is detail in the renderings of the trunk and in a few details on the man lifting it (i.e., some drag and follow through on his pants leg.)<br />
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Next will be scanning the drawings as bitmaps, then importing them into Animate Pro as vector drawings, and then re-drawing them on a new layer. (Laborious, yes, but tell me something about animation that I <i>don't</i> know?) I will be establishing my inking style at this point and also adding color. Stay tuned!Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-61716490220471936742019-04-12T11:35:00.004-07:002019-04-12T11:35:53.721-07:00No. 185: Animation at Any Speed<h3>
How Many Frames per Second?</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3QgQPLnZqYF5LvIWJ92Fv0IGrcBzdc63-ARXOD7wkTu9-2jzy2dnR8sxKmhHer1wzt0Lu_ANfclrrXdwDOH1Ht8YU0mgOgoRewFCiagqB_V-pZ_0xv-lCG3QkP7iFOuN4KxQbdegQ3Q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-12+at+11.20.26+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="328" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3QgQPLnZqYF5LvIWJ92Fv0IGrcBzdc63-ARXOD7wkTu9-2jzy2dnR8sxKmhHer1wzt0Lu_ANfclrrXdwDOH1Ht8YU0mgOgoRewFCiagqB_V-pZ_0xv-lCG3QkP7iFOuN4KxQbdegQ3Q/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-04-12+at+11.20.26+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Early on, I learned that it was not a good idea to think of timing in terms of frames. That is, how many frames it took to do something: throw a ball, take a step, do a take. A couple of decades before, there wouldn't have been any reason not to, because <i>everything</i> was projected at 24 or 25 frames per second (fps.)<br />
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A couple of decades before that, before 1928, the standard projection speed was 16 fps; it was the advent of sound that standardized the speed at 24. And film animators often learned to think of their timing in terms of <i>feet</i>, because one linear foot of 35mm film contained 16 frames. I think it must have been film editors who physically spliced together actual lengths of film stock who thought of that.<br />
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Shortly after I got into animation, though, computers set a new standard of 30 fps, so if you worked in computer games, you worked with that. It was based on 60 cycle alternating current, programmers have told me. It can boggle the mind, doing one project at 24fps and the next at 30.<br />
<br />
So I learned to think of my timing in terms of seconds and fractions of seconds, a system which works at any speed. I have done work at 30, 24, 12 and 8 fps.<br />
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Eight frames per second is a funny frame rate. It is slow enough that the eye is not quite fooled by the motion. One can perceive the jumps from image to image. Japanese <i>anime</i> is full of it, though, and most people don't seem to mind (though I do!)<br />
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My experience at using 8 fps was on a children's 2D video game at Humongous Entertainment. As it happened, that particular project never got finished, but I did some pencil tests, and I found that it was possible to get a passable result.<br />
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And there was one other project, just a few years ago, a picture book which also was never published. As i recall, I was asked to do a simple cycle of animation of a cartoon hippopotamus rising out of the water and sinking back again. Because of the technology being used on the book, there was a severe limitation of 7 or 8 frames for the action. I was dubious, but I tried it, and I found that at 8 fps it didn't look half bad. Here is the pencil test of that, repeated a few times.<br />
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Rather fun and funny, I think, and I am sorry it never got printed and seen. I hope you enjoy it now.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9SqspyHWjpJQAwsZEincn7LvDT6hUDZwx7g3QYMDcNZU0jkNR3Ryzu9uVnL-hxv_UW0hqAfV39dkTDY6QyMf_DKL51jTiBvkz7XNfqWdpx9fpsgWG1ij-nEmqVKKxLNaL1qAqVmluq0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-12+at+11.23.39+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="401" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW9SqspyHWjpJQAwsZEincn7LvDT6hUDZwx7g3QYMDcNZU0jkNR3Ryzu9uVnL-hxv_UW0hqAfV39dkTDY6QyMf_DKL51jTiBvkz7XNfqWdpx9fpsgWG1ij-nEmqVKKxLNaL1qAqVmluq0/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-12+at+11.23.39+AM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a color illustration I later did, just because I enjoyed drawing the character.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-85925913256031028162019-03-29T14:14:00.004-07:002019-03-29T14:14:54.604-07:00No. 184: Getting into Color<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgISJm7wHYxUXQT2dt35mOJLN4vQnZLEW3HbKfd3DDX5JP1MCVXRC3eGgEqbtlmlwMeJHZzRSEYmZQei5gPbJ97ttKSNm7lSdRzWpgzKsYBjgNPENRNA3XZHh_3u31vGj_QlCPsjuDiPcI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.52.50+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="888" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgISJm7wHYxUXQT2dt35mOJLN4vQnZLEW3HbKfd3DDX5JP1MCVXRC3eGgEqbtlmlwMeJHZzRSEYmZQei5gPbJ97ttKSNm7lSdRzWpgzKsYBjgNPENRNA3XZHh_3u31vGj_QlCPsjuDiPcI/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.52.50+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lot of color choices to be made here!</td></tr>
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<h3>
Not My Favorite Thing, but...</h3>
<br />
You know what my favorite thing is: animation. But of course if you are making films, and are doing it mostly alone, you don't just get scenes handed to you; you have to do it all.<br />
<br />
And that is a good thing. Then you're not just an animator; you're a film maker. (Although "Just an animator" doesn't sound right to me.) And as much as I like to animate, there is joy and satisfaction in doing the other things, too: the layouts, the script, the storyboards, the backgrounds, the color styling--all of it.<br />
<br />
So, color styling, that's where I am right now. I find myself continually thinking about what the film will look like on the screen. Should the palette be a limited palette, as for example if everything were in shades of blue and brown, and nothing else? That's a very big and important decision to make. Here is a small one: should the Old Man have a brown suit, or a green one? But I do think about it.<br />
<br />
These are a few of my color experiments that have happened this week.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmL4q3yphfKgtLM5n9Xticgh0X8EHTRaZcKCXMYav2Wvnd2fwP3eGRTsaa_S8-BIq_ON_w_zzOwFEH2VU6mp7AMgZxYgf1bgk0k3mt2SdSNWHqt7SBLWcmwm5iQgztePLsrwv2eez7jg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.55.30+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="548" data-original-width="757" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmL4q3yphfKgtLM5n9Xticgh0X8EHTRaZcKCXMYav2Wvnd2fwP3eGRTsaa_S8-BIq_ON_w_zzOwFEH2VU6mp7AMgZxYgf1bgk0k3mt2SdSNWHqt7SBLWcmwm5iQgztePLsrwv2eez7jg/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.55.30+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The woman security guard.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhBUdokpdpeBzk2Izq45i03N16rVOtwyNOG68Y8GVRaBtZaAadrSCjFR8IYRgolRexAoUey_x6I5gR4Gm3yMTsotVmdUJv4OTKvma2jPOO55G_kvNUavbcKPkEhv6yQFbIXN01gQsXDg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.57.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="890" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhBUdokpdpeBzk2Izq45i03N16rVOtwyNOG68Y8GVRaBtZaAadrSCjFR8IYRgolRexAoUey_x6I5gR4Gm3yMTsotVmdUJv4OTKvma2jPOO55G_kvNUavbcKPkEhv6yQFbIXN01gQsXDg/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.57.34+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Old Man and his trunk, confronted by the male guard.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85i1hG6N42wZdvXtwVzCwSpNPSau0mt2k82ionIFKtWiO9yD1U2LkXCOT0O-82MYAe3hr64ADvmAkGu4EG22nTiztqOgw8GXh1G2hQqlamlG1oVJggqD09qq9laxlNAz3u_STOvyftEQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.54.33+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85i1hG6N42wZdvXtwVzCwSpNPSau0mt2k82ionIFKtWiO9yD1U2LkXCOT0O-82MYAe3hr64ADvmAkGu4EG22nTiztqOgw8GXh1G2hQqlamlG1oVJggqD09qq9laxlNAz3u_STOvyftEQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-29+at+1.54.33+PM.png" width="284" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two of the supporting characters.<br /><br /></td></tr>
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a<br /><br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-66615139641357574632019-03-18T13:07:00.002-07:002019-03-18T13:07:19.300-07:00No. 183: Man Takes Picture with TabletSometimes the simplest things can be the hardest. Overt action in animation happens to be easier than being restrained or subtle. I had to do a second try at this little scene before I got it right.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddNfKH8DYyCXQbjs72y5VoUbnhOZNuF762PA4tEj8NZOlrfHYGyRKklIx00wzFKUgHxmf_lyion3fdzQpvKf0hPOtNYyt_BP1Cg2yV9QVEvqPUOO7DJkuSjtQN5FsX-RERZVYkcVNnF4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-18+at+1.02.58+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="504" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddNfKH8DYyCXQbjs72y5VoUbnhOZNuF762PA4tEj8NZOlrfHYGyRKklIx00wzFKUgHxmf_lyion3fdzQpvKf0hPOtNYyt_BP1Cg2yV9QVEvqPUOO7DJkuSjtQN5FsX-RERZVYkcVNnF4/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-18+at+1.02.58+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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This young man, fascinated by the doings of my Old Man character in line in front of him in the airport luggage inspection line, has gotten down on one knee to take a picture with his tablet. We see him raise the tablet into position for the shot.<br />
<br />
At first I had him look down and pull the tablet slightly toward his chest before going into the full extension extreme at the end. But this turned out to be too much movement for this anticipation. I ended up keeping his head steady and moved only his pelvis back a little as he prepares to lunge forward.<br />
<br />
One has to keep in mind the importance of the shot. It makes the point that people are watching the Old Man with varying degrees of interest, but it doesn't take center stage really. (In the shot, other passengers will be shown around him.) I now feel that I got the right movement in this shot.<br />
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See what <i>you</i> think:<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZagpXM5JmiM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZagpXM5JmiM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-15050147871516249702019-03-15T08:06:00.004-07:002019-03-15T22:02:02.641-07:00No. 182: 21 Extremes + 1,599 Inbetweens = Amazing Perijove Movie<h3>
Automatic Inbetweening</h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBvrxsza11koO7OggwpcrmSFlRyfu9D4obaGssUJ9Er16j4WavMTS7vaGSIm-jpNkNY81GmaLOxYn4K89o6Y6aFmE31fwpTB66zC0REtTLOOQNRTBFtNrlGC4dWSSSOB_HMrYgwCpjok/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.56.11+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="969" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBvrxsza11koO7OggwpcrmSFlRyfu9D4obaGssUJ9Er16j4WavMTS7vaGSIm-jpNkNY81GmaLOxYn4K89o6Y6aFmE31fwpTB66zC0REtTLOOQNRTBFtNrlGC4dWSSSOB_HMrYgwCpjok/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.56.11+AM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One frame from the APOD video of February 5, 2019.</td></tr>
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I don't know if I have ever discussed this topic here before, but when computer animation first became possible, the hope among some people was that animation would be a lot cheaper, a lot easier to do, if all you had to do was create the extremes and let the computer do the inbetweening for you.<br />
Faster and cheaper, right? With perfect rendering, right?<br />
<br />
Well, it turned out to be not such a good idea after all in character animation, for reasons that are obvious to animators. The movement of organic objects such as human and animal characters is way more complex than just moving from one extreme to the next. Such a transition will rightly include anticipation, drag, follow through, squash and stretch--almost the entire list of the so-called 12 principles of animation--plus deliberate distortions that are more related to esthetics and showmanship than to physics.<br />
<br />
Thus, today's CGI character animator has to have many controllers at her command in order to get the nuances necessary to make believable and entertaining character movement.<br />
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<h3>
The Exception: Rigid Objects</h3>
<br />
But for the rigid object--a spaceship, a chair, a house viewed from a changing perspective--automatic inbetweening is desirable. In the 1980s and early 90s, when computer animation was not so universally available, I was sometimes asked to animate by hand a rotating signboard, for example, and "make it look like computer animation." It was possible, but it wasn't easy, and I yearned for a simpler way to do it--a way that has now become commonplace.<br />
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<h3>
APOD</h3>
<br />
Having a fascination with astronomy, occasionally I look through the images on a great science website called Astronomy Picture of the Day, or APOD. which is supported by NASA. Daily subjects include enhanced photos of galaxies and nebulae, eclipses, planetary conjunctions, aurorae, comets, meteor showers, photos taken from space stations, and other astronomical images.<br />
<br />
<br />
Recently they published a fly-by video of the planet Jupiter taken from the NASA spacecraft Juno. With just 21 images, they were able to extrapolate almost 1,600 inbetweens to create a breathtaking close approach to our largest planet.<br />
<br />
Take a look<span style="background-color: white;"> <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190205.html">here</a></span></span> and enjoy!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-93k0EM5ZWC9XsMk28Wc63Qk0xWiQ0egc8Mt_iLnV5Y4Oy45RM5NyHU4VA2f_UIgpwk43NoMWTrrbBpESLAvNbZwo12A1PmCMgysa9GoImMRmhSqo7XwYux8_IWlWjHuAcLeBCgQ9NIA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.55.01+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="976" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-93k0EM5ZWC9XsMk28Wc63Qk0xWiQ0egc8Mt_iLnV5Y4Oy45RM5NyHU4VA2f_UIgpwk43NoMWTrrbBpESLAvNbZwo12A1PmCMgysa9GoImMRmhSqo7XwYux8_IWlWjHuAcLeBCgQ9NIA/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.55.01+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Juno satellite approaches Jupiter.</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijEoZBId42efk1wwWuqa4p091rs0FBzwXu5W40KLEbnkog85u9A7hp0DbbBFAgF1ttTTFzKixmQmNE7C04aHlPq9Ps7KDpRV9DUlt_JTFuhV5igaOHLbEMksrmros7g-nvxXrqYtRNZaQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.55.32+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="975" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijEoZBId42efk1wwWuqa4p091rs0FBzwXu5W40KLEbnkog85u9A7hp0DbbBFAgF1ttTTFzKixmQmNE7C04aHlPq9Ps7KDpRV9DUlt_JTFuhV5igaOHLbEMksrmros7g-nvxXrqYtRNZaQ/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.55.32+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approximately at <i>perijove,</i> or closest approach to Jupiter.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_DnseO0x0wZILuh-8dDVIWElQIwQTNGeRNe9XRUgRTnfLTk0DsTh9nvm8wSc8-Ruxv7wW3h_AmeFM3gF6tYUWVjyYikr30ULwModXxSatnS5ZD9Y6To0K_pyRnqujUodHveOrL-Wdhc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.56.44+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="966" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_DnseO0x0wZILuh-8dDVIWElQIwQTNGeRNe9XRUgRTnfLTk0DsTh9nvm8wSc8-Ruxv7wW3h_AmeFM3gF6tYUWVjyYikr30ULwModXxSatnS5ZD9Y6To0K_pyRnqujUodHveOrL-Wdhc/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-15+at+7.56.44+AM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A frame taken as the satellite now moves on past our<br />
solar system's largest planet.</td></tr>
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Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-21436086716436562602019-02-25T10:20:00.003-08:002019-02-25T10:20:47.565-08:00No. 181, Film Review: Saludos AmigosLooking through Andreas Dejas' <i>The Nine Old Men</i>, I found myself marveling once again over Wooly Reitherman's gaucho Goofy sequence. A selection of drawings from this piece was also included in <i>The Illusion of Life </i>by Thomas and Johnston, and I have often gazed admiringly upon these wonderful, hyperactive constructions at which Reitherman was so good.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiugGhVJav3m92PLuTFIEo70qV3HldCv88hP3ySL4FmjVgIOWSu1MXVqMaoUEmO2hjdb1ZmYXMzcBnEAYkOehT4XBX1yhM82EdgtqGRaLSp_PobP14hU4-xefkSXE1ZFNVJk6LuYAZ0E/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.29.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="389" data-original-width="794" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiugGhVJav3m92PLuTFIEo70qV3HldCv88hP3ySL4FmjVgIOWSu1MXVqMaoUEmO2hjdb1ZmYXMzcBnEAYkOehT4XBX1yhM82EdgtqGRaLSp_PobP14hU4-xefkSXE1ZFNVJk6LuYAZ0E/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.29.04+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Disney Corporation</td></tr>
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<br />
This was a segment in the 1942 release <i>Saludos Amigos</i>, the result of a good will tour of Central and South America by Disney and a select team of artists. (I believe there was also some motivation to try to cultivate new foreign distribution markets after the loss to fascist powers of much of the continental European markets.) I thought I would see if <i>Saludos</i> was available on YouTube, and I succeeded; in fact, I found a real animator's special. Some wouldn't like it because it is 1) recorded in Spanish with 2) tinny sound quality and 3) takes up only a third of the YouTube screen and 4) is cropped from its original aspect ratio. Put it up at full screen, though, and the image is clean and clear. If you are just studying the animation, you probably won't care much about the vocal sound track anyway. The URL for this is <span style="color: #8e7cc3;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEulxiQFm-s">here</a></span>.<br />
<br />
The four animated sequences are each prefaced with some grainy, blown-up 16mm live-action footage of the South American countries being visited, sometimes showing Walt Disney and some of his staff observing or interacting in front of the camera. Like so much of the newsreel footage shot in the 40s and 50s, any sound you hear has been added in post production, including singing and sound effects. Also, just about everything has been speeded up, probably just for the simple reason that it was shot at 16 frames per second and run in theaters at 24.<br />
<br />
But the film includes not only the Wooly Reitherman animation of Goofy, but also an amazing sequence featuring Donald Duck and a cartoon llama that were animated principally by Milt Kahl.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqT7pk8uLNb_wxvqsXOp5Yc-OhxuBFBXUKVDbkBBpq-GknQnH8w5_8VKwofuKR5VE6-XyfwH2E7UpB08qArv0kYZTH8RZnzmfOAkBaS3RfzaAKWIjTQi7bkL_u1NboODVNxWYomXzjCsA/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+12.38.11+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="810" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqT7pk8uLNb_wxvqsXOp5Yc-OhxuBFBXUKVDbkBBpq-GknQnH8w5_8VKwofuKR5VE6-XyfwH2E7UpB08qArv0kYZTH8RZnzmfOAkBaS3RfzaAKWIjTQi7bkL_u1NboODVNxWYomXzjCsA/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+12.38.11+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Disney Corporation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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There is also a pleasant and cute story about a mail plane named Pedro, an early example of Disney's anthropomorphic vehicles that include <i>Susie the Little Blue Coupe</i> and the <i>Cars</i> movies.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfXsIavUfnDktuRg2V-X0dmH1YqECW0Dd7M3Vu0XvR0dw96ASRLJmScDiEQ3tyZMQ3teZZXlzDfgZSfSxdfp0aHqCqPwyH3UQdN-Q-WLu2RBK1IW_ItQRfVQtaw9ahhaOqfeHZx2SBfEE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.43.41+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="1235" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfXsIavUfnDktuRg2V-X0dmH1YqECW0Dd7M3Vu0XvR0dw96ASRLJmScDiEQ3tyZMQ3teZZXlzDfgZSfSxdfp0aHqCqPwyH3UQdN-Q-WLu2RBK1IW_ItQRfVQtaw9ahhaOqfeHZx2SBfEE/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.43.41+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Disney Corporation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Least interesting of the four cartoon segments is the one called <i>Aquarela do Brasil</i>. This introduces the parrot character Jose Carioca to Donald Duck, and it is competent animation that only suffers by comparison with the livelier and more dynamic animation of Donald and Jose, along with a third character called Panchito, in the later release <i>The Three Caballeros</i>, with design and animation by the great Ward Kimball.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfpDkI5VfhgUydZto7Gqi5dCcnnmAe3i7RGhCtLw9sOBoE91M5LyzbKbUFsdWTLte71pqfPy4VIL5X0n8iGrx9_gMHRhhGWZLyK1BVJhyOH9Fp55PZ3U37dEpJ7DuVExYmEzVfbjBwUk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.40.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="1232" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivfpDkI5VfhgUydZto7Gqi5dCcnnmAe3i7RGhCtLw9sOBoE91M5LyzbKbUFsdWTLte71pqfPy4VIL5X0n8iGrx9_gMHRhhGWZLyK1BVJhyOH9Fp55PZ3U37dEpJ7DuVExYmEzVfbjBwUk/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-02-19+at+8.40.31+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Disney Corporation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
The film is there to study or just enjoy. Remember that the YouTube settings menu features a choice of speeds, including .25 (25 percent), which is a rate of 6 to 7 frames per second and allows you to appreciate all the individual drawings.<br />
<br />
I recommend that you spend some time with <i>Saludos Amigos </i>and enjoy some of the best comic animation that ever came out of the Disney studios.<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-839510491456054162019-02-23T11:40:00.003-08:002019-02-23T11:46:23.711-08:00No. 180, A Little Applause for Myself<h3>
A Woman Clapping Her Hands</h3>
<h3>
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">As I have stated before, a good animation cycle is hard to get right. Why? Because, since it repeats and repeats and repeats, if there is anything at all wrong about it, that will be noticed. And it won't only be noticed by your fellow animators; it will be noticed by EVERYBODY.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">"Everybody" won't be able to say why it is wrong, of course, but they will see it and be distracted and unconvinced by it, and when that happens it takes something away from the illusion you have built. You can't let that happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">I have another scene here with the two TSA-type security guards, a man and a woman, whom you may remember from posts 174, 175 and 176. This is a final shot for them. The situation is that when the Old Man succeeds in getting his trunk up onto the table with the X-ray conveyor, many people who have been watching break out into spontaneous applause.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">In the scene here, we cut to see that one of the most enthusiastic in her clapping is the woman guard who had been so suspicious of the Old Man earlier. Smiling, she looks over at her partner while continuing to clap.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Here is the storyboard panel for Scene 5-56.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEWu4A9VYEfVX9X6w75nGgGa9Pj4ie1lpYjnUml4oosK1hAdypJ4i1-U7kPU9GDuXdlQN5S1VAzBve5U1lRgCcbz8q-JFRyKrqiqThBUsC7epAl3fm-H4l_Z-sbgTj-dOc3TNCQec40fA/s1600/5-S56-P01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="1542" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEWu4A9VYEfVX9X6w75nGgGa9Pj4ie1lpYjnUml4oosK1hAdypJ4i1-U7kPU9GDuXdlQN5S1VAzBve5U1lRgCcbz8q-JFRyKrqiqThBUsC7epAl3fm-H4l_Z-sbgTj-dOc3TNCQec40fA/s400/5-S56-P01.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Originally requiring only a single panel, I have now added<br />
the woman turning her head toward her partner.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">But I have had a surprisingly hard time getting the clapping cycle right. For once, Dick Williams advice was not a help. He discusses clapping hands on pages 242 and 243 of his book (<i>The Animator's Survival Kit)</i>, but it is a hammer-and-anvil sort of clapping, where one hand holds more-or-less still while the other hand does most of the movement. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">What I have here is a light sort of applause clapping, like in the gallery of a golf championship, with both hands moving about equally. Also it should be noted that the clapping is a kind of secondary action, with the primary action being the woman's head as she turns to grin at the man, so the clapping must not distract from that.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Anyway, after three tries and even resorting to making reference footage of myself clapping--something I try to avoid doing--I finally got a good result.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">First, here are all the character layers together.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtNe3o1n0ZlIQgLZ-jXfatxIWY1YsVXwsPg4EwMqtu9PxLZUN2Hp9j6vC32Ft-BbRLV4VNajE2MantbPBLaYGygx_zeZG73WKkexyPNZuCV7imLvUKD1s6RTU1-YU9Yzy5ows37insqoY/s1600/5-56-composite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="1593" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtNe3o1n0ZlIQgLZ-jXfatxIWY1YsVXwsPg4EwMqtu9PxLZUN2Hp9j6vC32Ft-BbRLV4VNajE2MantbPBLaYGygx_zeZG73WKkexyPNZuCV7imLvUKD1s6RTU1-YU9Yzy5ows37insqoY/s400/5-56-composite.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Composite of 3 layers: 1) the man plus the woman's body,<br />
2) the woman's head, and 3) clapping hands and arms.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Now the clapping cycle, which continues throughout the scene until fadeout.</span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
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Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-32338315605374988932019-02-04T13:14:00.002-08:002019-02-05T08:27:33.062-08:00No. 179, Stop Motion as Pencil Test Software<h3>
Poor Pencil Test Images</h3>
<br />
For a long time I have been unhappy about the quality of my pencil test videos. Instead of being in easy-to-view black on white they have been a disappointing grey on grey.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfrSLsKT1bg-P3Za6SJD-ilovnUYHkHxaT5LeePtrd1kTNgC-1-YaQJ2GvHvTKSYQ2qTk9b4-tVGnSoeH6MWuuGXC1A1CuCD_NbphkbCrHYpv8Z_YjCRMXZhqiTb9bU4PLUfRNwKshLc/s1600/Old+pencil+test+quality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="808" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfrSLsKT1bg-P3Za6SJD-ilovnUYHkHxaT5LeePtrd1kTNgC-1-YaQJ2GvHvTKSYQ2qTk9b4-tVGnSoeH6MWuuGXC1A1CuCD_NbphkbCrHYpv8Z_YjCRMXZhqiTb9bU4PLUfRNwKshLc/s400/Old+pencil+test+quality.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the kind of greyed-out image I have been getting in my pencil tests.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I have determined that this is not the fault of my software, the now "legacy" Toki Line Test, but of the cameras I have been using. For the camera to connect to my Mac, it has to have a USB plug, and the two cameras I have been using have no adjustment controls; the only way I have been able to work with the contrast, brightness and other settings is through the Toki Line Test control sliders, which have been inadequate.<br />
<br />
I have tried directly hooking up my Iphone cam but the software (and the Mac) do not recognize the phone cam as a camera source.<br />
<br />
In my last posting to this blog, No. 178, I talked about downloading the app Stop Motion for making stop-motion animation. I wondered: could this work for my pencil tests as well? I was encouraged to note that any movies made in Stop Motion could be imported directly to You Tube or to Instagram.<br />
<br />
I then purchased my own tripod (an inexpensive one designed for making selfies) and found that I could remove from it the phone clamp, which sported a universal camera screw mount that is used for mounting most cameras onto any tripod or other stabilizing support. Since my vertical camera stand uses that same mounting system, it was easy to now mount my Iphone in place.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_NALYTYXfPU49UMWT6NYgBu-g4YJiDIWM9B7WajV_aZTwphKz-GOVH38N9o0mzT-RqpyPcepPTwjev8yTiliokgBf0JFyRT22Fl41_6X4tOLXQGfsBpHIK-eKqV1KAR1I4p9B-LnWuI/s1600/thumb_IMG_6181_1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_NALYTYXfPU49UMWT6NYgBu-g4YJiDIWM9B7WajV_aZTwphKz-GOVH38N9o0mzT-RqpyPcepPTwjev8yTiliokgBf0JFyRT22Fl41_6X4tOLXQGfsBpHIK-eKqV1KAR1I4p9B-LnWuI/s640/thumb_IMG_6181_1024.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Iphone as pencil test camera.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcB0GSjIL6UoTtO1F44Y827iIu5udgj5Ql4spckqil00DOmiLJBv0-ncDdhRn2jywUsyVxBzIgsfr5kzb8p8sHAh2LxU5jcSq82rKIzC7p98qK1upE6_kI8OahlVTRvXqGrJVRUfVx_Fs/s1600/thumb_IMG_6180_1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcB0GSjIL6UoTtO1F44Y827iIu5udgj5Ql4spckqil00DOmiLJBv0-ncDdhRn2jywUsyVxBzIgsfr5kzb8p8sHAh2LxU5jcSq82rKIzC7p98qK1upE6_kI8OahlVTRvXqGrJVRUfVx_Fs/s400/thumb_IMG_6180_1024.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shooting a frame.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Now the image is sharp and in high contrast--success! The frames per second are variable, and also are the number of frames per click. There is an incremental zoom feature, too.<br />
<br />
The only thing I don't know how to do is to show multiple layers. That might be done by shooting the tests over a backlighted board, like the animation drawing disk itself. But for simple tests of timing, this seems to be a very good solution.<br />
<br />
Here is a sample test with this system. There is a little glitch at the end where the camera got bumped, but you can readily see the improvement in quality.<br />
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In time I may go back and re-shoot some of the pencil tests already posted. At any rate my future output will be much easier to watch.</div>
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<span id="goog_584474557"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_584474558"></span><br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-37889638165503296092019-02-03T21:03:00.004-08:002019-02-03T21:10:37.928-08:00No. 178, A Little Stop Motion Fun<h3>
Stop Motion Inspiration</h3>
<br />
Just a week ago, while visiting our nephew and niece, I entertained their almost seven-year-old daughter by drawing and inking a picture of her favorite doll. She did a lovely job of coloring it, as you can see here.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7hPP1YKK6NCwaEJTnqNeti3BRdARzV9bdT7YzENnHSNp1bDi3hUlkfKGBr_n7D2XLnYitEZ29bVMEZrxL77wvS2on0phSab8znmG0o-TAHmWykiDgiLpK9hnZ4wojWhbtWmbTiYEPqk/s1600/thumb_IMG_4998_1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7hPP1YKK6NCwaEJTnqNeti3BRdARzV9bdT7YzENnHSNp1bDi3hUlkfKGBr_n7D2XLnYitEZ29bVMEZrxL77wvS2on0phSab8znmG0o-TAHmWykiDgiLpK9hnZ4wojWhbtWmbTiYEPqk/s400/thumb_IMG_4998_1024.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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This young lady is home-schooled, and I got to telling her parents how I had once taught a stop-motion animation class to a group of home-schooled children near where I live.<br />
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Stop-motion? What's that? they wanted to know. Most lay people do not have the words to describe the different genres of animation--hand drawn, stop motion, clay animation (a form of stop motion, of course), paint-on-film, CGI--even if they do discern that there are differences. I explained that I had got the kids in my class to bring in toy cars and other toys that they wanted to see animated, and I shot the tabletop with my Macbook Pro using my pencil test software. I just operated the shutter; the students did all the animation. We had a lot of spectacular car crashes on that tabletop.<br />
<br />
I hadn't ever looked for stop-motion apps to get, but I did so that day, and I found that there were several. We chose to download one called, simply, <i>Stop Motion</i>, or <i>Stop Motion Studio</i> if you got all the features. By the next morning my nephew had gone out and purchased a little tripod with a phone mount on it to hold the camera steady. I did one little demo for my great niece, using her dollhouse for a set, and <i>voila!</i> She was hooked.<br />
<br />
I hear she is busy making stop-motion films herself now, with perhaps a little help from her mom and dad. It was inspiring to me to see her enthusiasm for bringing her toys to life in motion--for being an <i>animator!</i><br />
<br />
I also had another inspiration that pertained to my own work. But that is the topic of my next post.<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-87345550171799372402018-12-27T21:08:00.001-08:002018-12-27T21:08:39.502-08:00No. 177, A Wish for the New Year<h3>
At Year's End...</h3>
<br />
A wish for Peace on Earth, at second thought, is not enough right now. An equally important hope is is for An End to Tyranny, which is on the rise, even in the United States where the man now in the White House wants to be <i>our</i> tyrant.<br />
<br />
Sorry. I try to keep this blog non-political, and yet...<br />
<br />
...and yet,<br />
<h4>
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!</h4>
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Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-20315147387333919182018-12-16T18:21:00.001-08:002018-12-16T18:21:15.297-08:00No. 176, Staging with Perspective<h3>
Using Extreme Perspective in Staging, with Notes on Matching Consecutive Shots</h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNIClHaTUf7cmjuUlkq8brHt4Zaq1erQidt7aWyfA4NnEdhnEBcbJy4IiKXAgvJuAX4ipvrvwBNlyfvfwa6ctHf3RGJQ5niB7aDBDXCp5-WeFwD3Ctc-I01KEJHpMnfPM05jeez2TQJA/s1600/drawing+board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNIClHaTUf7cmjuUlkq8brHt4Zaq1erQidt7aWyfA4NnEdhnEBcbJy4IiKXAgvJuAX4ipvrvwBNlyfvfwa6ctHf3RGJQ5niB7aDBDXCp5-WeFwD3Ctc-I01KEJHpMnfPM05jeez2TQJA/s640/drawing+board.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Creating a layout with unusual perspective</td></tr>
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Just now I am working on a scene that has to match the previous scene closely; the difference between the two is just a matter of "camera" angle on the two characters.<br />
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The first scene, 5-24, looked like this in storyboard:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5gs5JkykYrQRyjdif-OMceOS0XcqS6hXzQIxxdq3k3Zo4Y6FR6czs4TnEW-EnLksw7POrT3n5LxBm9ALm_tXoQdBT7fIuh-NYSgtk2_4dnYw0mFYdlL9HK9tpVS7Wg-JANH5gkRyjUtc/s1600/5-S24-P02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="951" data-original-width="1542" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5gs5JkykYrQRyjdif-OMceOS0XcqS6hXzQIxxdq3k3Zo4Y6FR6czs4TnEW-EnLksw7POrT3n5LxBm9ALm_tXoQdBT7fIuh-NYSgtk2_4dnYw0mFYdlL9HK9tpVS7Wg-JANH5gkRyjUtc/s320/5-S24-P02.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>(The female officer is about to draw her service pistol, but the male officer quickly blocks her move with his hand. She then looks up at him to see his face.)</i><br />
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Then after animation, it looked like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3KPft4ND_-GfI95xGynjSLDkHX2yTJbulbT461sXwZtZtLGXst_qQZUFJdl_inZq3uucfUgdDjpeE7ve9DCwj1WMMYCPZjakum-hMNrO2euqJMgDs4eemBIrx82Df-zo7C3TDhYKojs/s1600/5-24+Setup.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="679" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3KPft4ND_-GfI95xGynjSLDkHX2yTJbulbT461sXwZtZtLGXst_qQZUFJdl_inZq3uucfUgdDjpeE7ve9DCwj1WMMYCPZjakum-hMNrO2euqJMgDs4eemBIrx82Df-zo7C3TDhYKojs/s320/5-24+Setup.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The following scene, 5-25, was drawn this way in the storyboard...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhknA0OseDFpRVntYVykwJO7zApGWAX8kMuF2S2Wrp8YxqstcCB-9AS9U4Hh35WonvrXS7dWLete4jkCJhomoXVpPBij_vmyioTcabBTKJx4lksoPbkGn0uen_knkpi_BlG8VMHYCNRpBw/s1600/5-S25-P01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="951" data-original-width="1542" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhknA0OseDFpRVntYVykwJO7zApGWAX8kMuF2S2Wrp8YxqstcCB-9AS9U4Hh35WonvrXS7dWLete4jkCJhomoXVpPBij_vmyioTcabBTKJx4lksoPbkGn0uen_knkpi_BlG8VMHYCNRpBw/s320/5-S25-P01.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>(The male officer shakes his head, as if to say: You don't need that here.)</i><br />
<br />
...but this drawing no longer matched the animated version of 5-24, so my problem was to make a layout of 5-25 that looked like a natural change of angle.<br />
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I had to imagine and draw a rotation of the crouching woman officer and a corresponding view of the man. It took me a couple of tries before I got what I was looking for. Note that the perspective is quite close to the storyboard panel above.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWwkgV5BpLvju30jpfGRy3DcSmez3enzQWnwa7G7TMW2llDZf989P22pEPRRGBX-7bwhZCh-03bzzTouD905SnXPut7o0DhI6emcgNuGURgB895uoMXc-URxbogvKLC3ySYx1qByV740/s1600/5-25+perspective+sketches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="813" height="529" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWwkgV5BpLvju30jpfGRy3DcSmez3enzQWnwa7G7TMW2llDZf989P22pEPRRGBX-7bwhZCh-03bzzTouD905SnXPut7o0DhI6emcgNuGURgB895uoMXc-URxbogvKLC3ySYx1qByV740/s640/5-25+perspective+sketches.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The version on the right was what I felt I needed. Though the final layout was to be a closeup, this long shot showing the characters' full poses was important for understanding how the heads and shoulders should be positioned. Note the faint perspective lines behind the two figures.<br />
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From here it was a simple job to do the closeup layout. In the end what is important is the eye contact between the two characters, but getting the poses right helps to make a convincing and dramatic shot.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9qDJd_bZVHBZrKyz-UtDDS81G-DRuNrFMxbwKzMy_cQBm62K_cLNX8QpNdip08kDNwKP-p4PSyKDMgQUsDlLJ4iDCZBy0WRUGd-Yd7pOGh5_84RU_S1cqqo8_wiq3na0OY-n1Da7SpI/s1600/5-25+Layout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="941" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir9qDJd_bZVHBZrKyz-UtDDS81G-DRuNrFMxbwKzMy_cQBm62K_cLNX8QpNdip08kDNwKP-p4PSyKDMgQUsDlLJ4iDCZBy0WRUGd-Yd7pOGh5_84RU_S1cqqo8_wiq3na0OY-n1Da7SpI/s400/5-25+Layout.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The final layout for scene 5-25.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-46776163377417556372018-12-05T10:25:00.001-08:002018-12-05T10:25:41.255-08:00No. 175, Going To and FroIn animation, sometimes a character moves, then returns to her original pose. Most obviously it happened all the time in games animation a few years ago, where a character always had what was called a <i>root</i> position. With the increased complexity of computer gaming animation nowadays, it probably isn't so important, but back then whether a character took just one step or ran and chopped with her sword, the animator always had to add the frames that got his character back to the <i>root</i>.<br />
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And when you have to animate something like that, you will always ask yourself what it would look like if you just ran the <i>to</i> drawings in reverse, so you wouldn't have to do any <i>fro</i> drawings. Because you are always looking for ways to economize on drawings, right? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no; it won't look good.<br />
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When it comes to animating the whole figure, this just about goes without saying. Running the drawings backwards will just look like running the drawings backwards, and not like anything natural at all.<br />
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What about a head turn? Yes, it <i>can</i> work, if certain conditions are right.<br />
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Here is an example that just came off my disc this week:<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3A1OR5xSADQ/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3A1OR5xSADQ?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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This man is looking off to the left of the screen. For a moment, he turns his head to look to screen right, holds, and then returns to his original position exactly. I filmed it with two repeats in this pencil test so that you can observe it carefully.<br />
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It works because there is nothing in the head that is subject to drag or follow-through. (If the man had long hair, you would have both drag and follow-through.)<br />
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It works because what he sees when he looks to the right does not cause a change in expression or demeanor. (If he saw something that startled him, it is doubtful that he would return to his original pose afterwards.)<br />
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It works because the blink in the middle of the move works in either direction.<br />
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Yes, and yet I <i>did</i> do something to make the return different from the original move: I added three more inbetweens to the return move, six frames that were just enough to show a slower rate of speed.<br />
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* * *<br />
<i>And did you notice a drawing error in this pencil test? I did; the hair on the side plane of his head should look narrower after he turns to screen right, but it doesn't. My bad! as they used to say. But I have now fixed the drawings.</i><br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-86998799626875734402018-11-30T14:16:00.001-08:002018-11-30T14:16:14.947-08:00No. 174, Designing on the FlyIn feature animation production, the storyboard artists are not required to stay too much on model with the characters. As long as one can tell what character it is, and if expressions and body language are conveyed, a character may be drawn roughly and loosely. For them, the important things are staging and camera viewpoint and clarity of action.<br />
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The independent animation film maker who is doing everything himself will sometimes design a character during the storyboarding process. In such a case, it is equally okay to be a bit careless about details and accuracy, because the character design is still fluid.<br />
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By the time real animation begins, however, it is well to have a model sheet made up. I have a good example of that here.<br />
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I have a number of short scenes featuring these two characters, and I intend to animate all the scenes as a group. This is a good way to minimize a tendency to keep on designing as the work goes along; if I were to do one scene in the group now and another six months later, there would be a likelihood that I might have trouble getting the character to look the same.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzj-cxppTzEwWkuBAPdxJNELe-yWzxe9E6ehZtbn-ji9HFj_9DScH8dKNFS53e04Pov6GFaOl1W9JveRoOa69Ovf0fnlSiTHQ63yCy7rZpFy03FvKt-WG5na2o2fguYgo5gLS8YUt1sVM/s1600/Ben+Bev+sheet+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1036" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzj-cxppTzEwWkuBAPdxJNELe-yWzxe9E6ehZtbn-ji9HFj_9DScH8dKNFS53e04Pov6GFaOl1W9JveRoOa69Ovf0fnlSiTHQ63yCy7rZpFy03FvKt-WG5na2o2fguYgo5gLS8YUt1sVM/s640/Ben+Bev+sheet+1.jpg" width="412" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Figure 1</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
Figure 1 shows a collage of storyboard images of the two characters I am calling Ben and Bev. They are male and female security personnel at the airport, in charge of moving people through the luggage X-ray process. Here, Ben's images are more consistent than those of Bev, whose hair style keeps changing through the sequence's storyboard.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9JG2QiX5V6SkT_kkEAyivFLRHEYRJUxShjRf4ruIrEAgeNXrmN-B9hKxgNWpakFf54lxJHdbW6hG07iiLSYVONGxJVGwPX6_W-d4W9FjMXCHMHGAeMPqwZp6P84LBQaixFqXlpGNlrs/s1600/Ben+and+Bev+sheet+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1036" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9JG2QiX5V6SkT_kkEAyivFLRHEYRJUxShjRf4ruIrEAgeNXrmN-B9hKxgNWpakFf54lxJHdbW6hG07iiLSYVONGxJVGwPX6_W-d4W9FjMXCHMHGAeMPqwZp6P84LBQaixFqXlpGNlrs/s640/Ben+and+Bev+sheet+1.jpg" width="414" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Figure 2</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
In Figure 2, I have retraced all the images from Figure 1, plus many more from a second sheet, working to make consistent all the details and proportions as I drew. The result is a model sheet that will definitely help me to keep these characters in line for all of their scenes.Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-22136036008246745762018-11-23T12:05:00.001-08:002018-11-23T12:05:23.362-08:00No. 173, Making It Bigger<h3>
Working Too Small</h3>
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We all know by now that CGI character animation has the ability to be far more subtle in movement than hand-drawn work could ever be. The limit of hand-drawn subtlety is easily defined: it is basically down to the width of a pencil line. That's why in our hand-drawn medium, we look for other ways to distinguish our craft than by competing with CGI in this area where they are clearly the champs.<br />
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That said, we still need to express some subtlety and slow movement in our work, sometimes getting down to that pencil-line thickness between drawings in order to put across our ideas in animation.<br />
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Why, then, would anyone work at a smaller scale than they have to? The bigger your image, the more subtle you can be. A character drawn 9 inches high can be much more subtle than a character drawn only 4 1/2 inches high, because the width of that pencil line stays the same. Right?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTMRrtwE2THkae65cCd2Y1ljL4kfw16a6WreqTwNfmUfZ2PR_TQnXtDUlhaR3c2j8xwmNQDp-Zwf5-9cjVGqcASNichhDroTHZ8YCVDN1BIbw8ntaLsUlAdWpXYsixbI8RefHyiFKTxE/s1600/Model_Old+Man_Big+and+Little_blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieTMRrtwE2THkae65cCd2Y1ljL4kfw16a6WreqTwNfmUfZ2PR_TQnXtDUlhaR3c2j8xwmNQDp-Zwf5-9cjVGqcASNichhDroTHZ8YCVDN1BIbw8ntaLsUlAdWpXYsixbI8RefHyiFKTxE/s400/Model_Old+Man_Big+and+Little_blog.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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Yet scaling my characters smaller on the page than they have to be is a mistake I have repeatedly committed in my own work. I just caught myself doing it again, struggling with miniature hands and fingers and other details until I realized my mistake.<br />
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Animators who do their hand-drawn work paperless, drawing digitally with a stylus directly into the computer, do not really have this problem because they can zoom their view in and out at will. It is to those of us who still animate on paper that I am talking to here.<br />
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In the days of filmed animation, the animator was usually forced to work at the scale dictated by the action within the layout. A character might have to run off into the distance until it was quite small on the paper, losing detail and integrity, going off-model along the way. There were examples at Disney where tiny onscreen characters had been animated large, then reduced to the correct relative size with photostats before inking, but that was expensive to do and rare.<br />
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But if, like me, you do a hybrid sort of animation, working first on paper and then scanning the drawings into ToonBoom, TV Paint, or other such software, you can take advantage of the software's scaling capability in reverse. For example, if you have a situation where your field to photograph is 11 inches wide, and your character in that scene is two inches high, you can animate that character on paper at 6 or 8 inches high and then, after scanning, bring that layer down to the correct scale relative to the background.<br />
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One limitation to this is a character who must be animated showing her whole height; in that case you would not want to scale it up so much that it would crop off any of the limbs.<br />
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The point is to always think about this when approaching a scene. Could you be drawing larger? If you could, then probably you should.<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-76278858858728997382018-11-15T12:54:00.001-08:002018-11-15T14:28:24.357-08:00No. 172, Indiegogo Campaign for "Hand Drawn" Feature Film<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimUJVUMVRSvpzXTswBtLiCk90Krm0UxQYVu1UJhFCdxSnQ9lA-vuY0JU_DUoS0l6d9Yz6tSJMl6PQW4v0WABg7g8tkRheMK-qlTqnKrYYn2c7Jk5zhPQ7SlCmtcxtJSciVjz8mtFsxOEI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-11-15+at+11.22.14+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="302" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimUJVUMVRSvpzXTswBtLiCk90Krm0UxQYVu1UJhFCdxSnQ9lA-vuY0JU_DUoS0l6d9Yz6tSJMl6PQW4v0WABg7g8tkRheMK-qlTqnKrYYn2c7Jk5zhPQ7SlCmtcxtJSciVjz8mtFsxOEI/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-11-15+at+11.22.14+AM.png" width="205" /></a></div>
<h3>
"Hand Drawn"</h3>
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As an enthusiastic supporter of anything promoting 2D animation in this CGI age, I am happy to make known to you an Indiegogo project called <i>Hand Drawn</i>. This will be a feature-length film of commentary and interviews with many well-known and lesser-known animators from across North America and perhaps also Europe and Asia.<br />
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Indiegogo is a crowdfunding website where you pledge what you can, from one dollar to several hundred, with perks increasing according to how much you put in. I just learned of the campaign today (15 November, 2018), only eleven days before the deadline. So if you want to help, go now to this direct <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hand-drawn-feature-film/x/19789782#/">link</a>.<br />
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You can also go to the project homepage, <a href="http://www.handdrawnfilm.com/">here</a>, to see all the details.<br />
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If you love 2D animation as I do, and you want to preserve and promote it, this is an opportunity to contribute to that cause. They are asking only $15,000 dollars, and as of now they are a little more than halfway there, so your effort, even if it is but a few dollars, can really make a difference.<br />
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Don't wait!<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-25925607666262456812018-10-31T21:02:00.001-07:002018-10-31T21:02:30.555-07:00No. 171, The Actor Who Might Have Been an Animator: Scott Wilson<h3>
Scott Wilson</h3>
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Most fans of <i>The</i> <i>Walking Dead </i>probably know that actor Scott Wilson died at age 76 on October 6 of this year. As a character actor he was also well known for movie roles in such films as <i>In the Heat of the Night </i>and<i> In Cold Blood,</i> both from 1967, and in <i>The Great Gatsby</i> and many others over the years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSpwO46C_CkCXFLQowqPYB9YEQnPhMgliEe2ghGC-njM48VeMYtnqVISmt5bcbWvdCZqq8b0qc7P8WVj4QsyRSDM9YayGwDiA2km2O3mUt25a9tRu7J-elFycQpF18NK6MdAKGlyp3cA/s1600/S+Wilson_young+and+old-final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSpwO46C_CkCXFLQowqPYB9YEQnPhMgliEe2ghGC-njM48VeMYtnqVISmt5bcbWvdCZqq8b0qc7P8WVj4QsyRSDM9YayGwDiA2km2O3mUt25a9tRu7J-elFycQpF18NK6MdAKGlyp3cA/s400/S+Wilson_young+and+old-final.jpg" width="383" /></a></div>
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What is not well known is that he was always interested in animation, and that he had wanted to be an animator at one time. Looking through online obituaries, I have not found a single mention of this obscure fact.<br />
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Years ago--I don't know where--I read of this interest of his, and I just filed it away in my trivia filled mind. Then, not long ago, when reading or listening to a Richard Williams piece on You Tube, I was fascinated to learn that Wilson as an older man had attended one of Williams' four-day animation class seminars. Richard Williams quoted Wilson as having made a remark in class about a similarity between live acting and acting in animation, and in Williams' book, Scott Wilson and his wife, Heavenly, are mentioned on his acknowledgements page.<br />
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To me it was a validation of my previous knowledge of Scott Wilson's interest, and it showed that his fascination with the art of animation still burned somewhere in his heart, despite success in his acting career.<br />
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I don't know any more than this simple fact, but with me it earns him this respectful obituary not only as a fine actor, but as an animator who might have been.Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7267701062003803614.post-19406396227332036742018-10-29T11:56:00.001-07:002018-10-29T11:56:51.749-07:00No. 170, Planning and Executing a Complex Scene Timing<i>This continues my discussion of the scenes shown in blog post No. 169.</i><br />
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<h3>
How to Plan the Timing</h3>
Let's look now at the four extreme drawings for this scene, numbers 1, 29, 45 and 61.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiIzmP6TmVSsNiKDV8zwuCH4HpRrE6RyABnVlQgKdfVsjf58KKKEN0_zlSlg_6B0E3EMgDf1Qw8Dl3_OUb1tjhAtUFx0VDxfVm9EPS66yMK-JULnvm2aZSrxa-yjhNGUREbRt44kDlv8/s1600/dwg+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="814" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiIzmP6TmVSsNiKDV8zwuCH4HpRrE6RyABnVlQgKdfVsjf58KKKEN0_zlSlg_6B0E3EMgDf1Qw8Dl3_OUb1tjhAtUFx0VDxfVm9EPS66yMK-JULnvm2aZSrxa-yjhNGUREbRt44kDlv8/s320/dwg+1.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">DRAWING 1</td></tr>
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This is the beginning drawing, a 12-frame hold as he hovers over the button he intends to press.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKxTleMETWYW7d3X76Fixy9GQP8nE53RxFO0pzIL-GtLpOUB_zmu7c9fhJLVPO1Td7XOg21WLlEnNNw5frY3r6Xc3Th_oL-OnUbjF8dWzYdqhgwSL4k_H6SkIKUxrsi3AZv84fCrk7_4/s1600/dwg+29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="811" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirKxTleMETWYW7d3X76Fixy9GQP8nE53RxFO0pzIL-GtLpOUB_zmu7c9fhJLVPO1Td7XOg21WLlEnNNw5frY3r6Xc3Th_oL-OnUbjF8dWzYdqhgwSL4k_H6SkIKUxrsi3AZv84fCrk7_4/s320/dwg+29.jpg" width="253" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">DRAWING 29</td></tr>
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For the right hand, this is clearly the anticipation extreme. The head, meanwhile, has just eased out of the hold at 1 and is starting its turn.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgus8w8RxnMNruiyRnphIq_KlaIdGivGVr7ttWOVxODtL7_7lEAHLnJkWGjKelhzwg8PAicB0AlvHZB-HUg-qO3ba9f8_pRIXhx8T6CIwX8J-rE7lyoIRLj2MHWAj0qFBRphZ1T4DDLYrs/s1600/dwg+45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="849" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgus8w8RxnMNruiyRnphIq_KlaIdGivGVr7ttWOVxODtL7_7lEAHLnJkWGjKelhzwg8PAicB0AlvHZB-HUg-qO3ba9f8_pRIXhx8T6CIwX8J-rE7lyoIRLj2MHWAj0qFBRphZ1T4DDLYrs/s320/dwg+45.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">DRAWING 45</td></tr>
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Number 45 is perhaps more a breakdown type drawing than an extreme. It merely defines where the head and right hand are at this point in their forward arcs. Yet it is important because it helps to control that timing that we are talking about.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQMlqRnUDKThAEMXSp9B9TtEjfzqy0QL88kfcufNwpYOcDJ1scXwYXKpYjILplZUBJaEKTiUDhUbkVZPzAHUaR8K0NfpIy7HQZF8qcNCgMvV-n8M2caWN-Q76GMhfAIAlD5oIL0RR-zM/s1600/dwg+61.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="850" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQMlqRnUDKThAEMXSp9B9TtEjfzqy0QL88kfcufNwpYOcDJ1scXwYXKpYjILplZUBJaEKTiUDhUbkVZPzAHUaR8K0NfpIy7HQZF8qcNCgMvV-n8M2caWN-Q76GMhfAIAlD5oIL0RR-zM/s320/dwg+61.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">DRAWING 61</td></tr>
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Number 61, here, is not typical, either, even though it is the last drawing in the scene, because it is not a hold. But there <i>is </i>an ease-in going on with the head and left arm.<br />
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So, if you visualize a timing like this, with things moving at different rates and perhaps stopping at different times, how does an animator go about organizing it on paper, so that an assistant could make sense of it? (Or so that you, yourself, can remember what it was you wanted to do?)<br />
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<h3>
Easier Said than Done</h3>
First, you make your spacing guides. You begin that by drawing a line representing the duration of the scene between two adjacent extremes, as for example 1 and 29 here.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqaH0OjXnXcV4fInlY2hUwuEY-0Er-OTy6sNrkhfvlPYdOwxwKMT_iCYGDtExilnFk8Wx8QGi8rdkZDAAEa74qt4YSKQx_7gD-m7KYXyzl4qLc1WrpRDBM8G5l23atXMK5xQqyPVvbXSY/s1600/Guide+1_29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1569" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqaH0OjXnXcV4fInlY2hUwuEY-0Er-OTy6sNrkhfvlPYdOwxwKMT_iCYGDtExilnFk8Wx8QGi8rdkZDAAEa74qt4YSKQx_7gD-m7KYXyzl4qLc1WrpRDBM8G5l23atXMK5xQqyPVvbXSY/s400/Guide+1_29.jpg" width="126" /></a></div>
As you see, we have two guides here: one for the Right Arm, the other for the Head. Just examine the lower one, marked "HEAD" for now. This scene is all on two's (i.e., two exposures per drawing), so all the drawing numbers are odd numbers--1,3,5, etc. If you see even numbers, probably something is being animated on one's.<br />
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These are the actual guides I drew on my extreme drawing no. 1. They were done for my own use, and I see at this moment that on the HEAD chart, I never did write in the number 1 at the top, but pretend that it is there. The opening hold is 12 frames, so the first frame of movement is frame 13: the drawing is given the same number. If you have already numbered your extremes (and you should have by now, working with a stop watch or metronome), then you know that you must place exactly eight drawings somewhere along this chart.<br />
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But just how do you go about it?<br />
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<h3>
Making a Spacing Guide</h3>
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The following exercise should be informative if you are not used to doing spacing charts like these.<br />
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You begin by drawing a vertical line about two inches [5cm] long in the margin of your extreme drawing. Each horizontal mark that you make along this line represents one drawing (think <i>drawings</i> not <i>frames</i> here). Your top and bottom marks will have the numbers of the beginning and ending extreme drawings that you are timing. Thus, here you have 1 at the top and 29 at the bottom.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjkWnKtsX3P5qROxTTFr4dEsa_Klx6Kectd49v7lJIzdaUfViNRGW82wQZCyxvCST2U7E6qYcx4rN0vvPLBF7Kr0f38Xe2-0M4ItGeyCX-rHrAgw2xj9umgAZJvIZ_uc3Bp4Kl3Quxc4/s1600/Fig+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnjkWnKtsX3P5qROxTTFr4dEsa_Klx6Kectd49v7lJIzdaUfViNRGW82wQZCyxvCST2U7E6qYcx4rN0vvPLBF7Kr0f38Xe2-0M4ItGeyCX-rHrAgw2xj9umgAZJvIZ_uc3Bp4Kl3Quxc4/s320/Fig+1.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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At this point, your total timing between these two extremes should already have been worked out: it is 29 frames, or a little more than 1 1/4 seconds. A glance at your exposure sheet tells you that you need to place 8 drawings between drawings 1 and 29. It also tells you what the numbers on those 8 drawings will be: 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 and 27.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZFA91hysgXH_sBud5LLmTDjkR3f0mnC2GOagEmF630SnvKETaGGS_SRbg1gmutg4KhIStWB5vqcWbO3ufOqRppg8WJGucYeDYZwbAr_yN-5ZCaz25bDmn0H5Qhe11yf8cpSy2CtLYrI/s1600/X-sheet+detail+v2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZFA91hysgXH_sBud5LLmTDjkR3f0mnC2GOagEmF630SnvKETaGGS_SRbg1gmutg4KhIStWB5vqcWbO3ufOqRppg8WJGucYeDYZwbAr_yN-5ZCaz25bDmn0H5Qhe11yf8cpSy2CtLYrI/s640/X-sheet+detail+v2.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">The exposure sheet shows the number of drawings and the number of frames exposed.<br />It does<u> not </u>contain information about the timing of the movements within the drawings.</td></tr>
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What you have yet to work out is how those 8 drawings will be spaced out. This information is not in your exposure sheet; it is only shown in the spacing guide which you are now creating.<br />
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What you know here is that the head eases out of its hold beginning with no. 13 and then it maintains a steady rate all the way to 29. In your spacing guides, you will want to divide by half wherever possible, and so you begin by dividing the entire distance by half.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHWQqHRQ0TKR2-B-pda5l0_Oh-GjYNult2tPUJWI16cl61c8LhwLb0O0YYgBUgOqAzOd3vzoDi_llYb2iWmyUFAHq2QWOAPwPVkMWWAB0LOBHYwZLM9AclXWdGtGbdAkLAzBxiQULseU/s1600/Fig+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHWQqHRQ0TKR2-B-pda5l0_Oh-GjYNult2tPUJWI16cl61c8LhwLb0O0YYgBUgOqAzOd3vzoDi_llYb2iWmyUFAHq2QWOAPwPVkMWWAB0LOBHYwZLM9AclXWdGtGbdAkLAzBxiQULseU/s320/Fig+3.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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Now lets divide each half into half by making two more horizontal marks. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVR4GP79L8S9f7Bs5wjS9hgtqPrNV0BMLQeBzqxUTgwXpqc1erXjQDG4w9BoZKLwfH4jlPmscBorFXS1Ww6-pl4m3ls42kdqV4Z3tedr5cGqRfZ2AmUWn00d_C2KSxjdpJkg78xWjC7_I/s1600/Fig+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVR4GP79L8S9f7Bs5wjS9hgtqPrNV0BMLQeBzqxUTgwXpqc1erXjQDG4w9BoZKLwfH4jlPmscBorFXS1Ww6-pl4m3ls42kdqV4Z3tedr5cGqRfZ2AmUWn00d_C2KSxjdpJkg78xWjC7_I/s320/Fig+4.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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Note that you are not yet applying numbers to the marks, because you are not yet sure where the numbers will fall. But now that you have added three marks, you know that you have 5 more to add. If you divide each of these four spaces in half, that will use up 4 more of your allotment of 8, for a total of 7. Thus with only one mark still to do, you know that you must subdivide the first remaining space to create a small but satisfactory ease out. Now apply the drawing numbers to the appropriate marks.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtbERTuMGczkzM6ap2R1T1m6yCn94snJKFcgF2eSnZEtETnEA2GCTO3G7N_zGsSRi24WQnrsJWkqbnBRfUaIEAAaSl8qyGk23eJmIP91IK5wyU7Ow6pO8HzqWVrOL8_LaB9VMfwvjTMiY/s1600/Fig+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtbERTuMGczkzM6ap2R1T1m6yCn94snJKFcgF2eSnZEtETnEA2GCTO3G7N_zGsSRi24WQnrsJWkqbnBRfUaIEAAaSl8qyGk23eJmIP91IK5wyU7Ow6pO8HzqWVrOL8_LaB9VMfwvjTMiY/s320/Fig+5.jpg" width="160" /></a></div>
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But you know that the right arm--the one that is going to press the button--has a different timing.<br />
Between the same two extremes as above, you will want different timing: an ease or cushion at each end of the batch of extremes. The number of inbetweens is still the same--8, but the spacing is different. Here is that chart on the right, compared with the chart for the head.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAbg4QvuzSbfu4kkDr5sYrdPlBpIwRfPI1omlpu9kmn1Aj0gNwYZZmYwyPU56yY_dy1KGl119Xz5jA6-Pez5_z2Uw933uZ6D7jsIkMslxrO9STRtb9PuXW1oQzCCoUu2LGlDH78Pdw8g/s1600/Fig+6A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAbg4QvuzSbfu4kkDr5sYrdPlBpIwRfPI1omlpu9kmn1Aj0gNwYZZmYwyPU56yY_dy1KGl119Xz5jA6-Pez5_z2Uw933uZ6D7jsIkMslxrO9STRtb9PuXW1oQzCCoUu2LGlDH78Pdw8g/s320/Fig+6A.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Head is at left, Hand is at right.</td></tr>
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Now notice that the halfway point on each chart is a <i>different</i> drawing. For <i>Head</i>, it is 21, but for <i>Hand</i> it is 19. This means a bit of extra trouble for the inbetweener or assistant.<br />
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When you are doing your inbetweens, you have to start with drawing 21 as halfway for the head and body, but you don't draw in the right arm and hand because the halfway drawing for that is going to be 19, not 21. To correctly follow both timing guides, you must make partial drawings. One way to proceed is to do all the Head drawings without adding any right Hands. Then you can go back and add the right arm and hand according to the Hand guide, starting with drawing 19.<br />
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I am sure this is complicated to grasp just by reading about it. The thing to do is to try animating something with at least two different timing guides using the same drawings, and you will soon get it. Then when you go back and look at this description, it should all make sense.<br />
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I suggest that you now go back to post No. 169 and play the video a few times, watching how the right hand and arm are timed so much differently than the head and body.<br />
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Timing different body parts at varying rates is a process that certainly takes more work than timing everything the same (and is no doubt easier in CGI than in hand-drawn animation!) but the resulting movement can give your animation the kind of depth and richness that is hard to beat.<br />
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<br />Jim Bradrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03497180922922976943noreply@blogger.com0