Spontaneous Life : Timing tip

Life is very much about spontaneity, unpredictability, and surprises. The higher the life form is the more unpredictable and spontaneous it will become. Can you predict about a tree? Yes, you can predict a lot about its position (it cannot run away and surprise you in any way!), natural behavior (its ability to produce fruits, flowers, smell, etc.), and overall look (its color, size, etc.). You can easily say that the tree will continue to stay at its place for years and years and not much will change for it. It’s a lower life form having a lower degree of freedom and thus, quite predictable. What about a monkey! Can you predict much about it? Well, not to that extent. You can just generally predict about its position, natural behavior (reproduction, food habits, etc.), and overall look but specific details are unpredictable. They are all quite variable with time, mood, emotions, etc. A monkey is a higher life form having a higher degree of freedom and thus, quite spontaneous and unpredictable. We humans are still higher in the ladder and even more unpredictable than those monkeys!In short….. Spontaneity and unpredictability are the properties of life. And where there is life, these properties must be present in one way or another.As an animator, your job is to create an illusion of life, so you’ll have to spend most of your time creating that ultimate flavor of life by bringing spontaneity and unpredictability in your work (do not take unpredictability as something negative. It’s sometimes good for your animation and adds life to it.). So you’ll spend a lot of your time creating texture and contrast in your timing (holds, offsets/delays), poses (silhouettes, line of action, flow lines), spacing, net displacement (vertical and horizontal), and character behavior/emotions, etc. All this will help you to bring that flavor of life and make your animation stand out. Otherwise, everything will tend to look mechanical and robotic, and there will be no spontaneity of life.

Contrast in timing is very important to natural-looking motion. Even jazz composers break up the rhythms they have created to make their music more interesting (I was a percussionist/drummer in my junior high and high school orchestra so I know this very well!). You need to do the same to your animation and adjust the timing of the motion to have greater impact. The timing of your poses should have a natural feel, a rhythm, texture, and flow, much like great music. The beats and the rests in the music between the verse and the chorus to hold interest, and so should your animation.

Look at the above image. The second hop is a lot quicker than the first one. Notice, the last hop is going higher than the rest. This makes it look more interesting and adds life

So, PLAY with your timing and move your frames around until the timing feels natural. This goes for any kind of animation (CG, 2d, or stop-motion). Nail your poses and then finesse the timing. The finesse step is the most difficult part of animation and also the most important!Hope this helps some of you. Best………….

Plussing in spite of limitations

A lot of animators on high footage projects (DVD, games, TV, commercials, etc.) often complain about the limitations of time and budget. And true enough, those limitations do exist. You only have so many dollars, so many days and so many animators. You're often not given a lot to work with. But then it's up to the animator to think outside the box. What one added ingredient or what one change in the way you present the scene would make the simple and plain into something pleasing and satisfying? After all the only difference between bread and toast is a little heat and some butter. What can you add to your scene to elevate it from bread & water into tea & toast?

Imagination vs. Knowledge

Full quote:
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Don't let you pursuit of knowledge about animation (especially the nuts and bolts of how to do it, etc.) obscure your childlike imagination. And certainly never let it frighten you into never trying to do the unknown. And by 'unknown' I don't mean a universal unknown (ie: no human has ever tried or understood this thing you're confronted with). Rather I am talking about your personal universe- what is known and unknown to you. Students so often get caught up in trying to expand the size and scope of what they know. Thus the focus on principles, techniques, methods, etc and the quixotic quest for rock solid formulas and rules that will always work in any situation. The problem is if you're not careful that pursuit for knowledge can drastically shrink your world. Use your imagination to prop open the windows that look out over the wide expanse of the unknown. Try something - anything- that you don't know how to do. Jump and see what happens. If all you ever do is what you know how to do then you become small and limited. The key is to understand the fundamentals without letting them turn you into a fundamentalist. Keep an open mind about how to accomplish different things. Don't be afraid to try something that you've never tried before. And be especially willing to try something where you don't have the faintest clue about how you're going to do it. Once you do that then you have no choice but to unfurl the wings of your imagination and try to fly.

PLUSSING-FACES

Walt Disney coined the term plussing as a way of making an idea even better. By telling his workers to plus it, even when they think they nailed it, gave Disney that extra edge when it came to quality animation back in the day. Pixar is a staunch believer in plussing their work. And it shows. So, in the case of my dear Ava, back in October she had already added her touch to these eyes that I have taped up on my desk at work which were copied from the animation tome, The Illusion of Life. Just the other day I looked up and saw that she's since plussed them, adding noses, lips and hair. I sense a future Pixar employee, folks.