No. 132, Let's Talk!

When I began this blog in 2012, the project I was working on and drawing from for the blog posts was all in mime, without a word of dialog. So there were many posts about various kinds of animation, from walk cycles to surprised takes to getting a little fox out from under a tight-fitting hat. The posts are all still there if you want to go look them up.

But now that I have switched projects to the current one, Carry On, I can do something not covered before at Acme Punched. Now that I have characters who speak  on camera, I can do some posts about animating dialog.

I actually love animating a good character whose words have been recorded by a skilled voice actor. And in one way, this sort of animation is made easier because much of the timing has been established by the actor; the timing leaves all manner of hints as to how to proceed.

Easier, but not easy. This does not free the animator from the need to do a lot of the acting himself, getting the gestures and body language to do justice to the voice acting. Indeed, the better the voice acting, the more I feel an obligation to match its quality with my animation.

The Old Man Speaks

The scene with which I am dealing is a medium closeup of the Old Man saying just one line, and it took only a single panel to illustrate the scene in the storyboard.

The single storyboard panel that represents this scene.

"You never know," warns the Old Man, "when the internet may fail!"

Next you will see the first key drawings for the scene. We will follow the animation through to the end and, eventually, see it in color.

No. 131, Any Resemblance is Coincidental

There used to be a disclaimer appended to many movies and TV shows: "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." There were variations, but the intent was to indemnify a company from the possibility of a lawsuit; if resemblance to a living person was suspected, this statement was supposed to categorically protect the author or film makers.

A couple of weeks ago, at the time of organized demonstrations against climate change denial, I saw this photograph of a renowned ninety-seven year old scientist named Eddy Fischer, a past winner of the Nobel Prize.

Photo by Alan Berner and The Seattle Times

Of course, I was struck by Mr. Fischer's resemblance to my Old Man character in Carry On, my animated film now in production. But I hereby deny that the Old Man's uncanny resemblance to an old man named Eddy Fischer is anything other than coincidence.

Still, despite Mr. Fischer having some hair and a back that is not deformed, it is an amazing resemblance, don't you think?

No. 130, Staying on Model

"Staying on model" is a subject that comes nowadays under the heading of THINGS-A-2D- ANIMATOR-STILL-HAS-TO-WORRY-ABOUT-BUT-WHICH-A-3D-ANIMATOR-NEVER-EVEN- HAS-TO-THINK-ABOUT.

The cgi animator working in 3D has his or her model already done. It need only be manipulated, distorted, posed. It will always look like itself, no matter who is working the sliders.

The 2D computer animator using 2D puppets with replaceable parts likewise seldom has to actually draw anything original, once its whole set of parts has been created.

But for us die-hard animators whose images are hand-drawn and unique, it remains a big deal. At one time in the Hollywood-style studios, the problem was one of trying to get all the animators who might be working on the same character to draw alike. This was harder than you may imagine because the personalities and idiosyncracies of artists conspire to make them not draw all the same.
So detailed model sheets were devised and handed out to all concerned, and everyone was encouraged to follow the specifications closely. If you couldn't do it, you were put into the story or effects department--some place where character drawing precision was not quite so important--or you got out of the business of studio animation.

And to a great extent, this system did work. It got to be that the general public was unaware that  one scene had been animated by Ben Washam, for example, and the next by Ken Harris, followed by another one by Washam.  Today, experts or geeks like me can sometimes spot certain scenes as being by a particular animator, for the reason that the animator in question might have what poker players call "tells", being in this case something in their drawing, posing or timing that gives away their identity to the alert scholar.

The Warner's director Chuck Jones, in my opinion, had the on-model situation best in hand because he produced a profusion of pose drawings in his own style for his animators to work from. They were good poses, brilliantly drawn, and so all the scenes in the cartoons he directed tended to look like Chuck Jones cartoons, unmistakably.

An independent animator like me, answering only to myself, may worry about drawing consistency, or may decide that it does not matter.

To me, it does matter. And when I found that my drawings were drifting off model, I did something about it that I remember having done before. I scaled my model sheet to the exact scale of the character in the scene I was doing.

If the character on your model sheet stands 4 inches high on that paper, and the character in your scene would be 9 inches high at full length--your scene might be a medium closeup just showing the character from the waist up--and if you try to just scale the image up as you draw, you may get into trouble. You may get the head right but the shoulders too small. You may easily get the nose too long or the chin too big.  A model sheet copied to the right scale can save you from unwanted distortion and inconsistency.

An array of model sheets scaled up in 10% increments at each step.

Even in a studio where the animator receives a layout with the character drawn in, having your model sheet sized to the proper scale will be helpful. Most copiers can take your image up or down in increments of 1%.

Try it!

No. 129, Working Hard at Animation!

I have been busy since my last post as I start to do animation from my A list: the scenes that are the most challenging and or the most important in my film. (See post no. 124 for a description of the A-
B-C system of animation triage.)

Right out of the gate, I had a success.  It is the scene described in post no. 126 of the old man catching and pocketing a business card, then strutting off. I planned it right, the drawing and timing went well, and it came out as good as I had imagined it should.

I felt righteous, as if I really knew my business. Everything from then on, I thought, was going to be easy, professional, attractive, and I would gain the admiration of everyone who knew anything about animation, as well as all those who didn't.

And yet...

Example of an erased, re-numbered, re-drawn, re-positioned and taped, and throughly battered drawing.

Nope. Hasn't turned out that way. The very next scene I chose to work on has been a challenge. It sounds simple; the Old Man is pulling on a pair of gloves.  But of course the trick is not in just animating it but, as always, to do it in an entertaining and believable way.

But don't get me wrong! I am not defeated in this; I am just having to work harder than I anticipated. But I have always acknowledged that animation--good animation--is a challenge. Really, I wouldn't have it any other way. Anything worth doing ought to be hard, make you sweat, make you think.

So I have been: erasing, re-drawing, re-timing from my pencil tests, cutting and repositioning drawings with tape. This is all the unglamorous but necessary work of animating when you want (and have time) to keep after a thing until it is right.

Next: Staying On Model