FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING #2

This was the first session back after Easter, bringing me back to the Fantastical Creature modelling! 

Over Easter, I thought I'd finished my Skollcrabb model, filling all the necessary gaps and fixing anything that didn't work so well. But the key word there is "thought". As it turns out, when I imported my Skollcrabb into another program, it came up with a LIST of errors. 

I got Jon to give me feedback on the model, hoping he could point out what was wrong. His main feedback was to do the skull again, since that seemed to be causing me the most problems. The skull had gaps in the mesh, vertices & edges weren't meeting, but my biggest downfall was my polygons. I'd forgotten that these models had to made from 4 sided polygons, but my inclusion of polygons with sides ranging from 3 to 20 was my biggest issue.

Instead of starting the skull again from scratch, Jon advised that I retopologise it. Retopology is the process of creating a new poly-model using another poly-model as reference; it's essentially tracing in 3D. You place 4 points down to create the basis of a polygon and then fill the gaps, adding to your new shape.

So I got started on retopologising the skull! I also plan on doing this for the bottom jaw as well, since that also seems to be a problem area for the model. But I got about halfway through the skull by the end of this session, so I'm definitely coming back to work on it more.

SHOWREEL - PREMIERE PRO INDUCTION

This is a one-off session on the showreel unit.

For our showreels, we're going to be making them in Adobe Premiere Pro, an editing program part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. I've had experience with this program for the past 3 years, so going into this session I felt pretty comfortable with the program.

The entire session could be split into two parts: the basics of Premiere Pro and the fancy stuff. The basics were mostly on how to set up projects & sequences, import & insert clips, audio dipping, etc. While I knew all of those already, there were some basics I hadn't known up to that point which are going to be really helpful in the future; specifically, Ripple Delete. Ripple Delete closes gaps between clips and audio, and bumps everything up that applies.

And like I said, we also moved onto the fancy stuff Premiere Pro can do. I'd never noticed the multiple tabs at the top of the workspace, including Editing, Effects, Graphics, etc. I'd only ever used the editing tab, since that's all I used Premiere Pro for. We went into the Graphics tab to find lots of title & graphics presets, the kinds used for news reports and sports channels. Their text is all editable, and different attributes can be messed with the create the title graphic you want!

In the end, with all the steps followed, my project looked like this:



Since this was just a practice with the program, I had some fun with the titles and put in whatever just made me laugh! This little session taught me a couple of new basic techniques that're going to make the actual showreel's production a lot easier. All in all, this was a nice little session that was calm and I enjoyed it!

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - SKOLLCRABB MODELLING 1

This session was modelling my Skollcrabb creature in Maya.

When starting to model the Skollcrabb, I already had an idea of how it works in a 3D space, thanks to the maquette. But now came the part where it actually had to exist in a 3D digital space.

After our session learning how to start modelling characters last week, I felt like making my Skollcrabb would be a lot easier than if I hadn't had that session. Each part was made up of different poly shapes; the skull, body & eyes were made from spheres that I had edited to resemble the shapes I wanted more, the bottom half of the legs were made of cones, the top half of the legs were made of cylinders, and the bottom jaw.

The most complex shape by far was the skull shell; where other parts of the Skollcrabb didn't require too much modification, the skull needed constant changes and modelling techniques to make it resemble what I wanted.

I also tried closing off as many gaps as I could with the skull, but it's going to prove difficult in later sessions, just due to how I made it. By the end of the session, the Skollcrabb was in pieces:

The only real next step is to just carry on modelling. I still need to add the arms and claws, and then bring it into texturing software to make him colourful and textured!

LIP-SYNC - INTRODUCTION

In this session, we started on our lip-sync project!

Lip-sync in animation is where you make a character's mouth movements match up with what audible dialogue is coming out. By using various different mouth shapes, you can create believable talking animation.

This session was headed by Katherine Dallimore, a NUA graduate who now runs the YouTube channel KDSketch, where she uploads storytime videos (in the same style as JaidenAnimations and TheOdd1sOut) and TVPaint tutorials.

(A storytime video uploaded to the KDSketch channel - credit: Katherine Dallimore)

For our lip-sync animation, we would be working in 2D using TVPaint; something I was VERY happy about, seeing as 2D is my preferred animation style and it'd been 4 months since last doing it. Katherine was well versed in TVPaint as well, and given her expertise with the program, she said she'd be able to help out where she can.

The first step was choosing our audio. We were given two audio clips to choose from, one from the movie Hot Fuzz and one from The Tick live action show. I chose the audio from The Tick, in which a character exclaims about a crime lab, how thorough & complicated it is, and how he likes when sidekicks have "ideas [and] theories". 

We had a few set rules with the animation:

• Simple character design, as to not be too precious with a very small animation
• Only shoot from the shoulders up, no hand movements or body gestures allowed
• Express only with what you have; shoulders, head and face
• The chin should move as the mouth does
• White background
• No cuts

We were also given mirrors to try and see what shape our mouths make when pronouncing certain sounds. I didn't think I personally needed the mirror too much. I had gotten my own style of lip-sync when creating my own animations, which involves using less mouth shapes and using certain ones in the right places to make believable movements that fit my style.

Katherine also taught us how to make an animbrush to hold all our mouth shapes. An animbrush is similar to a symbol in Flash, they act as containers of sorts to hold lots of different drawings. The animbrush for the mouths would let us go through frame by frame choosing each mouth shape we want and placing it onto the frame.

(The KDSketch tutorial on animbrushes - credit: Katherine Dallimore)

I started with the first thing I would do with any character performance, which is the body movements. It'd be a pain to start with the mouth, then make the body move, and then go back and readjust all the mouths, when I can just move them as I go with a predefined body. I wasn't too precious with the drawings, I didn't try and make them perfect.

From the audio, I got vibes of the one-shot character Mark Deveraux from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and based my character's physical performance on them somewhat. The cockiness and the general lack of knowledge regarding crime work may have been the subconscious connection for me.

(Deveraux, played by Nathan Fillion, plays a detective on a show protagonists Jake and Rosa enjoy - credit: NBCUniversal)

I finished my body movements relatively quickly, so I decided to move on to the eye movements. I really wanted to get the physical performance down, and getting the more emotive parts of the face done felt more important to the performance aspect. 

For this whole animation, I used my cartoony style I've been using since 2013. Over time, it's been tweaked and worked on, mostly out of necessity to work in different mediums (digital illustration, animation, etc.) One of the key changes is the shape of the eyes; where it started out as a circle, the eyes now resemble ovals. I bring this up because having the oval shaped eyes allowed for more extreme and exaggerated eye movements, giving me more room to close eyelids with.

At the end of this session, this is the animation so far:

The next step from here is easy: add a mouth. I've got my own pre-defined mouth shapes all ready, I just need to implement them. This session was a nice return to 2D animation for me, and an interesting return to TVPaint! Time away from the program has definitely helped me in coming back to it without any major "grudges"; essentially, forgetting the tricky experiences prior and trying again! Katherine was a huge help, and she seems really professional with TVPaint.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - FINISHED MAQUETTE

This post is a quick little post showing my finished Skollcrabb maquette!

I took some time out of sessions to work on my third Skollcrabb iteration, but with more thought, patience and time put into it. And I managed to get there!

This iteration was a lot less fiddly, and involved me changing a few things about the character's design. The biggest one is the placement of the legs. This model would become a lot more fragile if I went with my original vision of having the legs at the side. Now, they're placed on the bottom of the Skollcrabb. I also closed the claws in this maquette, just so if the bottom half wouldn't fall off if the claw was open.

I underestimated just how much Super Sculpey I'd need, since I completely forgot I needed to cover the inside of the shell and body as well as the outside. So that made the process a little longer, but ultimately it's worth it for a proper, correct maquette!

SHOWREEL - BRIEFING

This session, we got our briefing on the Year 1 Showreel project.

With Year 1 wrapping up, we need to put together a showreel showcasing our work from this year. It has to last between 75 and 90 seconds, and include some kind of soundtrack. We'll be using this project to learn more about the post-production stage of media production, e.g. editing. For this, we'll be using Adobe Premiere Pro.

During this session, we went over a few key areas to consider when making the showreel:

• SOUNDTRACK - Soundtrack should be suitable. The soundtrack should resemble your work and the style of work you do, and not be too distracting. If there are lyrics, which isn't advisory, make sure to double check them for anything that may be unsuitable for a professional showreel. Also consider copyright. You have to be able to legally use the music you put on your showreel; for example, royalty free music from websites like Bensound or Partners in Rhyme are fine, but a piece of the soundtrack to The Dark Knight Rises would not be.
• TITLE CARDS - Ideally, the showreel should have two title cards: one at the beginning to show that it's a showreel (for example, "Noah Carolan: Animation Showreel 2019"), and one at the end with your full necessary details. This includes your areas of work (animator, illustrator, etc.), contact details (email, branded social medias, etc.), and give any necessary credit. In relation to branding, you can also include a logo and a brand name. For example, my branding is "NoahIdeaFilms", so I'll most likely use that in my outro title, along with my real name.
• TITLES - These titles go along with the work you show off. They can be the project's title, the type of animation you were going for, your role in a particular scene, or a combination of them.
• CLIP CONSIDERATION - When putting clips into your showreel, it's always best to start with your strongest foot forward. Put your best work first, don't be afraid to show off a little. It's also important to end strong, so it doesn't feel like a downward slope the entire showreel. Most importantly, don't rely on one clip too much; only use a clip twice, if you absolutely have to.
• EDITING - The general rules for editing the showreel encompasses a few points already discussed. In regards to music, try and edit the clips to the beat, making for a more satisfying watch. If your clip relies on it's own audio, like in a lip-sync test, dip the music audio. Check aspect ratios of clips, and spelling & grammar of titles.

We then looked at a few showreels, some good and some bad.

GOOD SHOWREELS

(Esme Clark's 2017 NUA Showreel)

(Jez Pennington's 2016 NUA Showreel)

These are both examples of good showreels from NUA. They both have fitting, non-distracting music, the editing is tight and, in Pennington's case, matches up really well with the music. They include relevant titles at the beginning and the end, and do a good job of making the showreel entertaining.

We also looked at bad showreels. And by bad, I mean baaaaaaaaaad.

(Chian Che Chang's 2011 Showreel)

This one stuck out especially. Despite being made ironically (as evidenced by the description), it still shows off all the bad things a showreel can exhibit. The music is loud & overbearing, while also not fitting the style of work at all. The work being put on show is objectively very bad, and shouldn't even be on the table when considering clips for a showreel. The editing is choppy and awkward, with the last few seconds not even having any audio to it. While it was hilarious to watch as a group, nearly crying laughing, it's objectively not a good showreel.


After this session, I feel I've learnt a lot of valuable tips about showreel making than before. It's made me look back on my showreel I made for university interviews before knowing how to properly make one, and seeing how much room there was to improve. From here, my main course of action is getting my elements together. That includes music, clips, etc. We're going to be editing in Premiere Pro, which I'm already well versed in, so there won't be too big a learning curve.

FANTASTICAL CREATURES - MODELLING INTRODUCTION

This session was our first on character modelling in Maya, before we start modelling our own chosen Fantastical Creatures.

The task of what we were going to make was fairly simple, it was just going to be an abstract form of a man made from a cube. From there, we'd go on to make slight changes and use new tools.

We started, as mentioned with a cube. We grabbed the top face and extruded upwards twice, so that we ended up with a cuboid, essentially made from three cubes. We kept extruding, re-scaling and cutting faces until we got a very basic man.

From there, we went on to make him a little less basic. Added features to more resemble actual human anatomy made the model seem less blocky, and more like a stylised character. For my guy, I gave him little stumpy feet, more prominent pectorals and a shaped head.

Once we had our blocky man, our next step was smoothing him. By smoothing the character, Maya made the edges more rounded, and made him higher poly (made up of more polygons). In my case, this resulted in a character who looks somewhat decent from the feet up to the neck, and then the head is just an egg. It looks SO much like an egg after the smoothing process.

Once we had our smoothed out model, we started to use tools I've personally not encounted before; the sculpting tools. The toolset is preinstalled into Maya, and allows the user to manipulate surfaces however they want. Things can be pinched, made jagged, cut into, etc., and the changes will stay there.

We messed about with these tools for a bit, just to get to grips with them. In the end, my smoothed out egg man looked like what I've dubbed as "Human Jar Jar Binks", due to it's large billed mouth and eye stalks.

Our final experimentation with sculpting was in a program called Mudbox, another Autodesk package. It's specifically made for sculpting and modelling, with no real functionality outside of that. I found the program less user friendly, and ultimately a lot more tricky to use. I wanted to try and recreate elements of the character Thanos' design, but parts of the model kept getting dragged out and warping where I didn't want them to.

(My Thanos (left) facing Sam's Sonic (right))

This session was a nice introduction to the entire modelling aspect of this unit! And it's a good thing I think that, because we're going to be doing a LOT of it. I'm not looking forward to more of Mudbox though, I wasn't a fan of that. However, my Skollcrabb design doesn't seem like it would involve much sculpting, since it's shell is meant to be smooth without any kind of real divots or cracks. But I'm excited to get started on making Skollcrabb a digital model!

MYSTERY BOX - SESSION #5

This post is looking at another Mystery Box CG session.

Before we got on with our work, we were shown how the animation timeline works more thoroughly. The timeline in animation mode, when selecting a certain element that's able to be animated, will show a series of strings and lines that represent different aspects of how that part is moving. For example, a line going up when looking at the "TranslateY" attribute signifies the object is moving upwards. 

There's processes to change the line type of your animation too, being able to switch from stepped to splined, among other combinations. These are going to be necessary later on, since Max needs to move smoothly and without just teleporting to places.

By the end of this session, I got my main blocking all done! Max now has all his basic movements down, and with a couple more tweaks, he should be ready for splining! Those tweaks, along with things I fixed today, were done with the animation timeline editor. It's a really useful tool, and I'm glad we managed to learn how to use it to our advantage!

MYSTERY BOX - MAYA SESSION #4

Further development on Mystery Box animation in this session.

There wasn't anything huge in terms of the session itself, but I got some good feedback from Jon. He had a look at my blocked-out animation, and while it was alright, he pointed out how difficult it's going to be to work on later down the line. He said that making a walk cycle between two blocked-out poses would be difficult, especially matching the end of the walk to the final pose it needs to get to.

The easiest option? Start from scratch. I was fine to do this; while it was a little bit irritating, I'd rather have an animation that's both easier to work on and looks good over one that's tricky to work on and would look so-so.

So that's what today was, just working on the animation again from the start. It's good that I learnt certain workarounds and shortcuts for setup. The camera is all set up the same, the box is still there, I just need to clean up the animation of the previous version in this new version! 

Apart from that, I didn't have much going on in this session.

MYSTERY BOX - MAYA SESSION #3

In this session, I carried on with my Mystery Box animation.

Before we started on our own animations, we did a small exercise involving Max. We were given a file of Max sitting at a desk with a computer. He was set in a default sitting position, and our task was to show two different expressions with Max, using his body language and facial features. He had to be looking at something on the computer, and then react horrified to what he saw.

After we had our poses, we splined the two to create a short smooth animation.

After this exercise, it was essentially business as usual. After getting some feedback from Jon, I was advised to redo my walk cycle, just because it was looking a little bit weird with things clipping and, when splining comes in, sliding. So I did just that! At the end of this session, I managed to get all my major blocking done. Ignoring the walk cycle that's going to be fixed up, Max now:

• Sees the box
• Turns to look at it
• Checks his watch
• Looks back
• Ends up next to the box
• Crouches down
• Looks inside
• Stands back up in shock
• Points to the box
• Hands in the air
• Starts leaving

So my next step is... steps, essentially. Make Max actually walk over to the box, and fix up the walk cycle that I've got going on at the moment. Feeling like good progress made this session!

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #10

For my final scene analysis, I'm going to look at a scene from the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command TV series.

[DISCLAIMER: High quality footage of this clip is not available]

(Buzz Lightyear of Star Command remains as Pixar's only venture into television series - credit: Pixar Animation Studios)

EXAGGERATION
We mostly see exaggeration from Buzz in this clip, especially after getting knocked back by Zurg. He hits his back against a wall, causing him to fall forwards, hit the ground, and bounce back up only to fall down a pit. In the brief moments between bouncing back up and falling down the pit, we see Buzz's face is pushed to an extreme, making a silly expression to show how disoriented the hits made him. This exaggerated look also works on the basis that this isn't a face Buzz would normally make; he's fairly stoic, and only smiles when genuinely proud or when smug.

EASE IN / EASE OUT
Ease in and out can be seen during the fight between Buzz and Zurg, as they strike each other's weapons. The weapons, meant to homage Star Wars' lightsabers, require the characters to swing them about like a sword. The effort the characters have to put into each swing can be seen by how they draw it slightly outwards before making the major movements, and then slowing down again. The tail-ends of each swing aren't too slow, suggesting the beams they're fighting with aren't too heavy; about as heavy as a plastic pipe.

SQUASH AND STRETCH + SECONDARY ACTION
When Buzz hits the floor, we see his body squash and stretch from the impact. When hitting the ground, he becomes flatter, with his body stretching outwards and pushing downwards. He only squashes this one way, and doesn't have the inverse (inwards stretch, upwards pull) happen to oppose to this. A secondary action can also be seen with his arms, as they flop around in response to his body's hitting the ground. Unlike Buzz's body, the arms do go upwards towards the end of the squash and stretch.

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #9

For this analysis, I'm going to look at the Robot Chicken sketch We Drink Hot Chocolate.

(The sketch parodies the characters Batman and Two-Face from DC Comics - credit: adult swim)

ANTICIPATION
As Two-Face explains the rules of his new three-sided die to Batman, he prepares to roll it. Just as he finishes up saying "Three: we drink hot chocolate together", he backs up the hand holding the die, and swings it forward, releasing it mid-swing to make the die's distance travelled further.

STAGING
There are two great examples of staging in this sketch; first is the very first establishing shot, showcasing Batman, Two-Face and the vat of hot chocolate. It gives the audience everything they need to understand everything that is going to happen in the beginning, and acts more functionally than it looks pretty. But functional shots will always have a purpose; films, shorts, and even sketches like this can't be all style and no substance.

The second great staging here is as Batman apologises to "Three-Face" for the hospital incident. The audience and Batman are both in the same boat of not knowing the true extent of what happened to Three-Face at the hospital, so we see him with his back turned. It creates a sense of mystery, leaving the audience to wonder what actually happened. Granted, it could be easily figured out what happened by following the trend earlier in the sketch, but the reveal is more comedically effective because of the mystery.

SECONDARY ACTION
The main secondary action going on in this sketch is from Batman's cape. It's nothing too complex, it just flows around as he runs, usually with a delayed reaction to whatever Batman himself is doing. 

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #8

For this scene analysis, I'm going to look at a scene from Alice in Wonderland, released in 1951.

(Alice re-encounters the Cheshire Cat - credit: Walt Disney Animation)

SOLID DRAWING
There are sequences that involve the Cheshire Cat morphing and transforming, that require the character's drawings to be solid. They should remain consistent in terms of volume, and seem somewhat plausible, even for a character like the Cheshire Cat. We can see very clearly where any transformations happen, and nothing feels like it's out of nowhere. We see the cause and effect, and they get paired up with the drawings themselves very effectively.

EXAGGERATION
When the Cheshire Cat gets happy or excited, we see physical signals of his emotions. When hearing that Alice hasn't met the Queen of Hearts, he seems shocked at first. But he very quickly becomes very excited at the prospect, and shows it in his body. As he exclaims "YOU HAVE-N'T!", his head splits off from his body, and his ears even split from his head, showing how extreme the excitement is.

STAGING / MISE-EN-SCENE
Mise-en-scene works hand in hand with the staging in this scene. The whole location is dark and gloomy, with no bright colours, apart from the two characters. In the film, Alice is upset and afraid, saying she wants to go home. This is meant to be a sad place, and the lighting shows that. But as she talks to the Cat, he offers her a shortcut to the Queen's castle; a door opens from the tree he's sitting on, revealing a colourful, bright castle grounds! The contrast between the two speaks to the theme of the scene; going from a dark, gloomy place to somewhere that promises to be brighter (evidenced by Cheshire Cat saying how "delighted" the Queen would be to see Alice).

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT - DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY NOTES

To look for more information on my essay points, I decided to look into the filmmaker's commentary, headed by director Robert Zemeckis, screenplay writers Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, and Ken Ralston, Frank Marshall, Steve Starkey from various departments of the film. The commentary is originally from the 2003 rerelease of the film for home media, but was included in the 25th anniversary 2013 Blu-Ray release.

During the commentary, I took notes on what I found  interesting and, more importantly, what could relate back to my essay points.

- Chaplin-esque
- Overacting is key to toon performance
- Frank - "Tex Avery style"
- Transition shot causes audience to suspend their disbelief to believe toons could walk around the 3D world
- First time "all the studios who own cartoon characters allowed them to be in a competing studio's movie"
- Hollywood segregated by humans and cartoons
- "actually about civil rights"
- "only be made if animators understand Tex Avery style"
- red car: "there has to be a real story"
- brother death is the *reason* eddie hates toons
- cartoons swearing was a "big disney problem"
- stage of club built 8ft in the air to accomodate puppeteers
- first and last time donald and daffy will ever be together
- "hungarian rhapsody"
- acme has direct link to roadrunner (YISS)
- animators included their own inside jokes
- homages / inside jokes to old animators
- jessica doesn't have a nose? or waist. not meant to seem like rotoscoping
- roger has no shoulders
- scene shot with dancer, then again without
- people were "tittering", "shocked and nervous"; breast movements, "so exaggerated as a woman it'd blow everyone's mind"
- jessica meant to look both "sexy and toony" - rz
- reverse anatomical movements; normal breasts down, jessica breasts up
- moves "very impossibly"
- richard williams "followed women"?
- ROGER FLIPPING THE PICTURES!!!
- roger animated on top of robotic arms and rigs
- toons drinking was a major discussion
- leaving imprint in the window
- combines toon music with overall score
- sober detective was the rebel that darth vader strangled in star wars. i thought that was cool.
- "[toontown was] supposed to be nuts"
- "how do you kill a toon" considered
- 2nd act starts 28 mins in
- "toon effects do physical things"
- shot like a regular movie
- judge doom's toon characteristics; chin, fake teeth, cape flapping
- doom never blinks
- originally, weasels were "mutant seven dwarfs"
- dip is made of components used to clean cels (acetone, benzine)
- not blood, red paint on doom's glove
- williams insisted on animating baby herman
- cigar was debated to be made animated or live action; the latter was chosen
- baby herman originally the villain
- jessica also the villain at one point
- acme's will is the macguffin
- squash and stretch achieved with an elastic bungee when roger's being pulled off the doorframe
- live action filming done before animation
- roger enters bottom drawer, reappears from top drawer
- lighting effects on toons would "look cool"
- toon rules
- toons always cast shadows to "make scenes a little bit better"
- articulated suction cups picked up plates and broke them
- exposure changed on roger's cels depending on lighting
- "quite a looney selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates"
- weasels *always* laugh at anyone's misfortune
- toon can't resist finishing "shave and a haircut, two bits"
- theatre shot is the longest continuous animation shot in the whole film
- moving the camera made animation easier; reverse was a myth
- collected animation cels
- cameraman knew principles of animation
- squash and stretch
- gun reflection matches poster
- never got the rights to animate felix the cat
- yosemite sam gave valiant a pistol
- drive through toontown tunnel was all miniature
- toontown is all bluescreen w/ eddie
- cartoon physics affect humans once you're in toontown
- when holding onto bar, bob hoskins was actually horizontal
- falling shot was just camera moving away really quickly
- characters stay true to their personalities; mickey wouldn't pull a cruel trick, but bugs would
- toon rule: toons will follow lines on road, smack bang into the wall
- night falls very quickly in toontown
- shadow talks to valiant
- multiplane camera used in toontown to add depth for valiant
- 3rd act begins 1hr 17mins in
- 3 films at once; 48 animated movie, a serial piece, and a special effects movie
- "understated absurdity"
- blend of looney tunes and film noir music
- toon props had to figure into the solution to the story
- doom throws valiant in "quite a toony way"
- flat doom was a stop motion puppet??? nice
- add things to make audience believe the toon stuff is in frame
- miniature doom machine going through "baby brick" wall
- debated ending with porky pig, a WB character; until tinkerbell was added

So they talked a lot more about the making of the film, over the themes of it. However, a lot of what they talk about related back to my points about certain characters, specifically Jessica Rabbit. This commentary also gave me a lot to work with in terms of talking about the film's antagonist, Judge Doom. There was a lot of things the team pointed out that I'd never noticed before; so much so I think it could be worth dedicating a paragraph to him.

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #4

For this scene analysis, I'm going to look at a clip from The LEGO Movie 2, released in 2019 and directed by Mike Mitchell.

(A scene from the film involving Emmet and newcomer Rex Dangervest - credit: Warner Bros. Animation)

STAGING
There are a few shots with really effective staging. One example that really stood out to me was a bird's eye view looking down on Emmet and Rex, from the point of view of a tentacle creature about to try and grab Emmet. This communicates to the audience about a danger approaching the characters that they aren't presently aware of, reinforcing the rule of letting the audience know more than the characters. 

Another good example of staging is after Rex "master breaks" some Plantimals and the ground, the camera pans out to reveal just how far the damage he'd done spread to. It ends up panning out to a full wide shot, with Rex taking up the smallest part of the frame.

EXAGGERATION
The characters move and morph in various ways that add a lot more appeal and humour to scenes they appear in. One fairly simple example of exaggeration is when Emmet needs to turn around to look behind him, and instead of turning his whole body, he just turns his head around 180 degrees.

Another example is when Rex is flying down to the ground, preparing to punch the ground. For a few frames, his hand changes from a regular minifigure "claw" hand into a more human looking hand, commonly used by LEGO for bigger characters (or Big-Figs). It's only used for a couple of frames right up close to the camera, presumably to give a fleeting look at what's going on with Rex's hand.

ANTICIPATION
When Rex is fighting off the Plantimals as Emmet builds a getaway vehicle, we get various shots of Rex bouncing around, jumping off of things and leaping into the air to shake off his opponents. For each of these, we see a brief look at his pause on the ground (or whatever surface he's on) as he recoils down to build up energy, then makes a much bigger movement up.

MYSTERY BOX - PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

This is, essentially, a part 2 to this post. This session, we were analysing our performances from yesterday.

But first, some theory. Mostly, it was the theory of performance itself. Within the Larbon Movement analysis, there are 4 main things to take into account: Body, Effort, Space and Shape. We delved a little deeper into Effort specifically, and learned it was made up of time, weight and direction.

We did a mini-analysis of a Charlie Chaplin short, looking at how Chaplin's performance is exaggerated and carnivalesque.

(A clip from one of Charlie Chaplin's films - credit: Charlie Chaplin)

The two main things picked up from this clip was how he moves very directly and that his poses are very clean cut. For the latter, this means that you could abstract his form as far as you want, and still get the idea of what exact pose he's making. There's no subtlety, there's no small movements, it's all LOUD. The reason for this, ironically, is because of there's no sound from Chaplin at all. He had to communicate entirely through his body, letting audiences know what he's feeling by moving and posing very clearly and cleanly.

Exaggerated poses like this break the Kinosphere; the personal bubble. By going into extreme reaches from it's X, Y and Z axis, you can achieve more far-reaching poses, where you dial your movements up to more than natural. Contrast that with smaller, closer poses, which are called near-reach poses. Anything between those two are just mid-reach poses.

Next, we moved on to the 5 main poses of physical acting. There are:

• THE PIN - Straight up, thin poses.
• THE WALL - Wide and tall, making yourself seem bigger
• THE BALL - Somewhat sphere-like, making yourself seem smaller
• THE SCREW - Your pose has some kind of twist in it (usually from the hips)
• THE PYRAMID - Poses where your base are larger than the top

Using the "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" progression reel from last time, me and some of the others were asked to come up and show how the opening few shots use all 5 of these pose types.

After the presentation wrapped up, we went back and looked at our own performances from yesterday, and saw how the poses could be pushed further, especially after learning about the 5 Poses and Kinosphere. I looked at the poses from the last session, and tried to draw basic interpretations of them but with the added notes and enhanced performance elements.

I feel like this session was really beneficial to my Mystery Box animation! It's going to help out with making the performance more engaging, as well as following more of the animation principles than I would beforehand.

ANIMATION PRINCIPLES - SCENE ANALYSIS #2

For this scene analysis, I'm going to look at a cutscene from the game Epic Mickey 2, released in 2012 and developed by Junction Point Studios.

(Cutscene #4 from Epic Mickey 2 - credit: Disney Interactive, Junction Point Studios)

ANTICIPATION
There are quite a few examples of anticipation in this animation. Anticipation is somewhat easier to make apparent in hand-drawn animation over CGI or stop motion, since you can somewhat emphasise the movements more so than in other mediums.

The majority of anticipations implemented are when characters move their arms, head, and other body parts. They first recoil the part they're going to move back, and then move it in the opposite direction with greater speed and power.

One example this cutscene uses is when the Mad Doctor unbuttons his lab coat. He pulls his arm up to it's extreme after grabbing the button, and then drags it back down across his body to it's opposite extreme.

Other characters use anticipation in a similar way, like when Mickey and Oswald both react to something being said, they bring their arms back a little bit, and then forward again in a bigger, further motion.

FOLLOW-THROUGH
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit has long, tall ears, which lends perfectly to follow through. They wouldn't lead the body in any way, they're always reactionary. Whenever the head moves, the ears will always take a second to move as well.

This is best illustrated when the Mad Doctor picks up Oswald, and raises him up above his head. The upwards force is making Oswald lead with his head, and the ears only catch up once the major movement stops. There's also some bounce back too, where the ears go forward a little further, only to come back to where they'd finally stay. This is as a result of excessive force going forward, and needing to recoil back a little.

Ear movements like this continue throughout not just the game's cutscenes, but through the game itself.

SECONDARY ACTION
The animation in this cutscene is a lot more style over substance, so the animation doesn't get complex enough to include too much secondary action. However, I found one shot which perfectly uses secondary actions.

Towards the end of the cutscene, a character approaches the others to reveal a pair of wind-up chattering teeth in their hands. The teeth have two actions going on at the same time; the primary action is the teeth jumping around and chattering. However, on the side of the teeth, we can see the key to wind them up, which is slowly spinning. Both these actions going on at the same time applied to one element counts as a secondary action.

Oswald's ears could also be seen as a secondary action.

STAGING
During one sequence during the musical number, the Mad Doctor recalls back to events from the first game, where he was driven to villainy in his attempt to control a large evil creature known as the Blot. As he describes this, we have an show looking up at the Mad Doctor with a shadow of the Blot behind him, towering over him.

The beginning of the game made it clear that the Mad Doctor wanted to redeem himself after his original actions (which, ultimately, turns out to be a lie). So the staging is somewhat reminiscent of the fact that the Blot will always haunt him, whether he's repented or not. The taller stature of the Blot could play into the hierarchy of power in their relationship, seeing that in the end it was the Blot who was in charge all along.