No. 153, Rope Trick

Make It Interesting!

Sometimes, if you are on a severe deadline or your client or employer cares more about speed and quantity than artistry, you will have to animate a scene in the simplest possible way and be done with it. But when you have the time, try to make it interesting, whatever it is.

If you are working on your own project, as I am, then in my opinion there is no excuse for not giving it your best.

I have a simple little example from my film in progress, Carry On. Closeup of a man's feet and legs. One end of a thin rope drops to the ground. That's it! Not much of a scene, and one might be tempted to do it in the flattest way possible so you can get on to the walks and dialog scenes: the fun stuff, right?

But what if this rope scene could be made interesting? Frankly, I wasn't sure at first that that was possible. Here are the storyboard panels.

Panel 1. 

Panel 2. The rope drops.

Panel 3. The rope at rest on the ground.

How to approach a problem like this? Because if your approach is wrong, and it doesn't look right, then you will have something much worse than if it is merely boring or routine; you will have created something that may distract the viewer from the moment; which may destroy the viewer's engagement in your story and her suspension of disbelief.

Took me a couple of false starts before I got it right. I don't mind admitting this since, after all, this blog is largely about making mistakes and then fixing them. But as the drawings were so simple, there was not much wasted time and effort.

Following are a couple of rejected solutions. (Where else but on Acme Punched do you get to see the rejected work?)

At the beginning I had visualized that the falling rope would be uncoiling as it drops. Now I saw that after hitting the ground, the rope might coil up again until it reached its limit (where the unseen hand above is still holding onto one end.)

That worked well, but if you notice, I have also added in something else--a wave that moves back up the rope to the higher end, spending the last bit of energy of the movement, a good example of the principle of follow-through.

Following is a clearer look at the action, with only one layer visible.

Remember, even the simplest things can be animated in an interesting way, if only you look carefully enough.