This is Redd. He works in a circus, he is billed as "The Inhuman Cannonball".
Monday, January 30, 2006
Chimps Ahoy!
As I am still getting that old dream down on paper, I figured I'd post some other simian drawings in the meantime. The first page is from a book of animal expression photos. The others are from my head. My brushwork needs help, I know.
This is Redd. He works in a circus, he is billed as "The Inhuman Cannonball".
This is Redd. He works in a circus, he is billed as "The Inhuman Cannonball".
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
More Staging Clarity
Today I want to talk a little more about clarity in staging, particularly in storyboarding. The example I have dug up is a little more subtle than some of my previous examples.
This is a storyboard sequence I did for "Mulan". It's the scene where Mulan enters camp for the first time and Mushu is coaching her "man-walk". It’s an okay drawing. The line work is simple, the pose is good and the drawing itself isn’t overly cluttered; however, the point of interest is unclear. I conflicted the point of interest by putting too many lines around Mulan. It is poorly staged.
So I drew it again. Something you’ll have to learn, it’s not uncommon to have to draw something 3 or 4 times (or more) to really get it right.
There, she’s out in the open. You can see her clearly and better appreciate her pose and her expression. Yes, she has to cross over that line, but I didn't want any important action to happen there.
Here is the following drawing as she enters the gate:
Notice what I did as she crossed in front of the gate? When she is outside the gate, I shaded in her armor slightly. It gave her a better, clearer silhouette. But not as she passed in front of the gate, I knew if I kept her shaded in she would get lost against the background. (Now in the final film, the art director would have to make sure that the color and value of her armor would have to contrast well with both the gate and the area behind it. Glad it wasn’t my problem.
The second lesson to be learned here is how to critique your own drawings. Don't be satisfied with good enough. Good enough is just not good enough.
This is a storyboard sequence I did for "Mulan". It's the scene where Mulan enters camp for the first time and Mushu is coaching her "man-walk". It’s an okay drawing. The line work is simple, the pose is good and the drawing itself isn’t overly cluttered; however, the point of interest is unclear. I conflicted the point of interest by putting too many lines around Mulan. It is poorly staged.
So I drew it again. Something you’ll have to learn, it’s not uncommon to have to draw something 3 or 4 times (or more) to really get it right.
There, she’s out in the open. You can see her clearly and better appreciate her pose and her expression. Yes, she has to cross over that line, but I didn't want any important action to happen there.
Here is the following drawing as she enters the gate:
Notice what I did as she crossed in front of the gate? When she is outside the gate, I shaded in her armor slightly. It gave her a better, clearer silhouette. But not as she passed in front of the gate, I knew if I kept her shaded in she would get lost against the background. (Now in the final film, the art director would have to make sure that the color and value of her armor would have to contrast well with both the gate and the area behind it. Glad it wasn’t my problem.
The second lesson to be learned here is how to critique your own drawings. Don't be satisfied with good enough. Good enough is just not good enough.
Monday, January 16, 2006
New Furniture (Kinda)
Over the weekend, a co-worker and I made a road trip down to sunny Florida to pick up some animation desks from the old Disney studio that was closed a couple of years ago. We found a lady who had come into ownership of many discarded pieces and is selling them on ebay.
She still has a couple of desks (animation, layout and background) as well as some of the back and side units. There are some drawing mules and camera stands from the Scene Machine pencil test systems (no tables or software, just the camera column and side lights.
Contact Jennifer Kelly: MADIKATE@aol.com. Prices are reasonable.
And a bit of a bonus for us, when we were unloading the desks from the storage unit, I happen to recognize a familiar marking on one. And sure enough, we had picked up Mark Henn's animation desk. It sure is nice to have some of that history!
(Actually, we delivered the Henn desk to Funny Pages Productions - Rob Corly's & Tom Bancroft's company across town- we were getting mostly background desks here at Big Idea.)
Chuck Vollmer and me unloading one of the desks:
She still has a couple of desks (animation, layout and background) as well as some of the back and side units. There are some drawing mules and camera stands from the Scene Machine pencil test systems (no tables or software, just the camera column and side lights.
Contact Jennifer Kelly: MADIKATE@aol.com. Prices are reasonable.
And a bit of a bonus for us, when we were unloading the desks from the storage unit, I happen to recognize a familiar marking on one. And sure enough, we had picked up Mark Henn's animation desk. It sure is nice to have some of that history!
(Actually, we delivered the Henn desk to Funny Pages Productions - Rob Corly's & Tom Bancroft's company across town- we were getting mostly background desks here at Big Idea.)
Chuck Vollmer and me unloading one of the desks:
Saturday, January 07, 2006
The Evolution of Alistair
Let's start with a little trip down memory lane.
Waaaaayyy back when I was in middle school (around 1979), I did this little drawing of a mouse I wanted to use in an animated film. We would follow him around as he witnessed the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. I named him Alistair. It seemed like a happy name.
Well, I was in 9th grade and didn't know how to produce an animated film or how to spell Alistair, so I stuck him in a back drawer of my mind.
Later on in my high school years, I started drawing a relative of Alistair's. I named him Hubie and used him in a comic strip in my high school newspaper. I think I did three episodes. But Hubie had a long and happy career appearing on my handmade greeting cards, mostly to my family, the lion's share went to my wife (starting before we were married). Yes the observant eye will notice that Hubie appears on the Christmas card I posted a couple of weeks ago.
As we had kids, I started telling them stories and somehow, Alistair climbled out of semi-retirement. I think it was because I realized that Hubie bore a striking resemblance to Chuck Jones' mouse, Hubie, half of the "Hubie & Bertie" duo. Anyway, I started telling my kids the adventures of Alistair and how he would get into misadventures with his friend Sidney the kangaroo. (Credit where credit is due: my wife invented Sidney in her stories.) Over the years I have told dozens of Alistair stories, and even written down a few. I keep thinking that I should do something with them, so I am considering writing some children's books. But I rarely drew another picture of Alistair since the 9th grade. Here are a few sketches I have done to update him:
I wondered if I should stylize him more and bring him closer to a design style that leads the pack these days. Like all the Flash animation shows on TV right now. But I realized I can't draw like that. Plus I never saw Alistair like that in my mind. He was always more akin to the drawings of Wallace Tripp (One of my long time heroes). It's a little more traditional, but so are the stories.
This is what he looks like so far.
I'll let you know if anything ever gets off the ground.
All images ©Tim Hodge
Waaaaayyy back when I was in middle school (around 1979), I did this little drawing of a mouse I wanted to use in an animated film. We would follow him around as he witnessed the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. I named him Alistair. It seemed like a happy name.
Well, I was in 9th grade and didn't know how to produce an animated film or how to spell Alistair, so I stuck him in a back drawer of my mind.
Later on in my high school years, I started drawing a relative of Alistair's. I named him Hubie and used him in a comic strip in my high school newspaper. I think I did three episodes. But Hubie had a long and happy career appearing on my handmade greeting cards, mostly to my family, the lion's share went to my wife (starting before we were married). Yes the observant eye will notice that Hubie appears on the Christmas card I posted a couple of weeks ago.
As we had kids, I started telling them stories and somehow, Alistair climbled out of semi-retirement. I think it was because I realized that Hubie bore a striking resemblance to Chuck Jones' mouse, Hubie, half of the "Hubie & Bertie" duo. Anyway, I started telling my kids the adventures of Alistair and how he would get into misadventures with his friend Sidney the kangaroo. (Credit where credit is due: my wife invented Sidney in her stories.) Over the years I have told dozens of Alistair stories, and even written down a few. I keep thinking that I should do something with them, so I am considering writing some children's books. But I rarely drew another picture of Alistair since the 9th grade. Here are a few sketches I have done to update him:
I wondered if I should stylize him more and bring him closer to a design style that leads the pack these days. Like all the Flash animation shows on TV right now. But I realized I can't draw like that. Plus I never saw Alistair like that in my mind. He was always more akin to the drawings of Wallace Tripp (One of my long time heroes). It's a little more traditional, but so are the stories.
This is what he looks like so far.
I'll let you know if anything ever gets off the ground.
All images ©Tim Hodge
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Grand Entrance
This applies to writers, storyboard artists, actors, animators and directors. Everyone in filmmaking should pay attention if you haven’t heard this before.
The entrance of a character is one of the most important shots an actor (or animator) will have in a film. Introducing a character is a delicate art. If you do it wrong, you will lose any chance of regaining that momentum. (Besides, this is probably a shot that will end up in the trailer!)
Way back when theatre was invented and perfected, a star’s entrance became a big deal. There might be a spotlight on them, or the curtain will open for them and them alone. Maybe they will walk through a door on stage while the lesser characters scoot out of the way. Perhaps the'll be lowered in on a platform. He/she appears on stage and all action stops for the applause.
There is an old Hollywood style of emulating this moment on film. Take “Gone With the Wind” for instance. The first character we meet is Scarlett O’Hara. She is sitting on the porch with the Tarleton twins. At first, one of the twins is standing with his back to the camera, obscuring Vivian Leigh. But at the camera dollies in, he moves aside like a curtain revealing our central character. For the next few minutes we meet secondary characters of the story: Mammy, Papa O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes, etc., but none gets quite the treatment of Scarlett. That is, until we meet Rhett Butler. The camera trucks down the grand staircase at Twelve Oaks and right into Clark Gable’s leering gaze. There is no doubt who our central characters are.
Now that’s all grandiose, Technicolor, Hollywood glitz style, still a good technique in some instances. Times and styles have changed, but the principals remain the same. Pop just about any DVD in your player and take notice. In many instances, the central character’s first shot is a one shot. He/she will share the screen with nobody. Frodo sits alone by a tree, looks up to camera and smiles. Gandalf shares the screen with Frodo then tilts his head up, his hat brim revealing his face. Much later we come to Strider/Aragorn. He sits alone in the corner of the Prancing Pony, hidden by the shadows of his hood. This is one of the best entrances in all of the trilogy. Jackson created a great air of mystery, making the audience want to see his face a little more. A great technique: toy with the audience and hide what they want to see. In this case, Jackson’s choice was made by Professor Tolkien. That scene is filmed pretty much exactly how it is described in the book. I have read that as Tolkien was writing the story, he himself had no idea who Strider was when he wrote that scene in the Prancing Pony. It was only as he kept up the narrative that he realized that Aragorn was indeed the lost King of Gondor. But a better entrance still was Gollum’s. We only got fleeting glances of him in the shadows until halfway through the second movie! Everybody wanted to know what he looked like!
Now go back and think of some other films and character entrances:
The Incredibles: The film opens with a great series of interviews with the main cast. Then Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl both get big action intros to boot!
Toy Story. Buzz has one of the best entrances in film history! After we had met and fallen in love with Woody, Buzz gets an even bigger entrance, thus setting up the rivalry within the audience’s mind, too!
The Sound of Music: That helicopter shot of Julie Andrews gets replayed at the Oscars practically every friggin’ year!
The Lion King: Simba gets three entrances, one for every age of his life. But I love Scar’s entrance. Pure character – we first get startled by his paw on the innocent mouse, creating the question, who is this? Then we follow the prey in his grip up to his face. Plus, Scar gets the perfect spot af being the first character we meet after the huge “Circle of Life” number – and he’s the first character who speaks.
These are all very successful (and very overt) entrances. There are of course subtler ways to make grand entrances, but our medium of animation isn’t generally a subtle art. We create caricature, make things a little over the top, so our entrances can be a little over the top, too.
Entrances don’t necessarily have to be big. They just have to be clear!
This is probably all information that you know instinctively. After all, you’ve been watching TV and movies all your life. And whether our not it’s ever been put into words for you, you understand it. But I put it into words so that some day when you are writing or storyboarding or animating an entrance scene, and something just isn’t clicking right, you can sit back and analyze your scene better and find out what’s missing.
Keep up the good work!
The entrance of a character is one of the most important shots an actor (or animator) will have in a film. Introducing a character is a delicate art. If you do it wrong, you will lose any chance of regaining that momentum. (Besides, this is probably a shot that will end up in the trailer!)
Way back when theatre was invented and perfected, a star’s entrance became a big deal. There might be a spotlight on them, or the curtain will open for them and them alone. Maybe they will walk through a door on stage while the lesser characters scoot out of the way. Perhaps the'll be lowered in on a platform. He/she appears on stage and all action stops for the applause.
There is an old Hollywood style of emulating this moment on film. Take “Gone With the Wind” for instance. The first character we meet is Scarlett O’Hara. She is sitting on the porch with the Tarleton twins. At first, one of the twins is standing with his back to the camera, obscuring Vivian Leigh. But at the camera dollies in, he moves aside like a curtain revealing our central character. For the next few minutes we meet secondary characters of the story: Mammy, Papa O’Hara, Ashley Wilkes, etc., but none gets quite the treatment of Scarlett. That is, until we meet Rhett Butler. The camera trucks down the grand staircase at Twelve Oaks and right into Clark Gable’s leering gaze. There is no doubt who our central characters are.
Now that’s all grandiose, Technicolor, Hollywood glitz style, still a good technique in some instances. Times and styles have changed, but the principals remain the same. Pop just about any DVD in your player and take notice. In many instances, the central character’s first shot is a one shot. He/she will share the screen with nobody. Frodo sits alone by a tree, looks up to camera and smiles. Gandalf shares the screen with Frodo then tilts his head up, his hat brim revealing his face. Much later we come to Strider/Aragorn. He sits alone in the corner of the Prancing Pony, hidden by the shadows of his hood. This is one of the best entrances in all of the trilogy. Jackson created a great air of mystery, making the audience want to see his face a little more. A great technique: toy with the audience and hide what they want to see. In this case, Jackson’s choice was made by Professor Tolkien. That scene is filmed pretty much exactly how it is described in the book. I have read that as Tolkien was writing the story, he himself had no idea who Strider was when he wrote that scene in the Prancing Pony. It was only as he kept up the narrative that he realized that Aragorn was indeed the lost King of Gondor. But a better entrance still was Gollum’s. We only got fleeting glances of him in the shadows until halfway through the second movie! Everybody wanted to know what he looked like!
Now go back and think of some other films and character entrances:
The Incredibles: The film opens with a great series of interviews with the main cast. Then Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl both get big action intros to boot!
Toy Story. Buzz has one of the best entrances in film history! After we had met and fallen in love with Woody, Buzz gets an even bigger entrance, thus setting up the rivalry within the audience’s mind, too!
The Sound of Music: That helicopter shot of Julie Andrews gets replayed at the Oscars practically every friggin’ year!
The Lion King: Simba gets three entrances, one for every age of his life. But I love Scar’s entrance. Pure character – we first get startled by his paw on the innocent mouse, creating the question, who is this? Then we follow the prey in his grip up to his face. Plus, Scar gets the perfect spot af being the first character we meet after the huge “Circle of Life” number – and he’s the first character who speaks.
These are all very successful (and very overt) entrances. There are of course subtler ways to make grand entrances, but our medium of animation isn’t generally a subtle art. We create caricature, make things a little over the top, so our entrances can be a little over the top, too.
Entrances don’t necessarily have to be big. They just have to be clear!
This is probably all information that you know instinctively. After all, you’ve been watching TV and movies all your life. And whether our not it’s ever been put into words for you, you understand it. But I put it into words so that some day when you are writing or storyboarding or animating an entrance scene, and something just isn’t clicking right, you can sit back and analyze your scene better and find out what’s missing.
Keep up the good work!
Cheating is Good.
Specifically, cheating in front of the camera is good. They say the camera doesn’t lie. Well, they are wrong.
We use a camera to control everything the viewer sees. If we don’t like it, we change a lens to include or eliminate what we don’t like. If somebody is too short, we sit them on a phone book. Bogart wore 4 inch platforms when he shared shots with Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca”. And on, and on…
Just about every shot in a film has some sort of cheat in it, something to make it look better from the camera’s point of view. (Unless you are making a documentary.) Most of the time it’s something subtle like turning to the camera a little more. It feels awkward in life but looks natural on screen.
Whenever I have directed lesser experienced actors, they usually feel a little uncomfortable standing as close to the other actors as I want them to. In life it feels unnatural to invade their space, but within the frame, the composition looks great. Did you ever notice on a TV sitcom how 4 people will sit around one half of a round table so that the audience can see them all? The camera is usually close enough that it looks perfectly normal, but if you tried that at dinner some time, you family would think you are nuts. Or else, you just enjoy being extremely cozy.
One of my favorite big cheats is when a two characters face the camera, one in a close up, and they talk to each other seemingly making eye contact. The front actor glances to the side and you can draw a straight line from his eyes to the others. In the two dimensional plane, it makes visual sense, yet on the soundstage, in 3D space, there is no eye contact.
Smaller cheats are all about playing to the camera. Like when an actor makes sure his or her face is presented at its best angle. Bruce Willis does this a lot. (Not in every shot, but in plenty). Watch how he will often make sure his face points directly to the camera, yet his eyes cut to the side to look at another actor.
Nobody does that in real life. When you talk to somebody, you turn your head and look at them, not angle your face away and glance sidelong at them. Oh, and this is another beauty: Denzel (one of my favorite actors) Washington doesn’t like to obscure his face with a phone receiver. I haven’t read this. It’s just an observation on my part. Whenever he talks on the phone, he holds the receiver down under his chin. When I try that the person on the other end can’t hear a word I’m saying!
I was watching an old Twilight Zone once with Lee Marvin, and I noticed that during an over the shoulder shot, we should have just been looking at the back of his head while he talked to the other guy. But no, he turned his head slightly, so we could make out his profile better. Not unlike this scene from “Casablanca”. Look at Sidney Greenstreet (on the right). He has turned his head ever so slightly to be off axis to look directly at Bogart, but we get a clear shot at his profile. Did the director tell him to? Probably not, he’s just a trained actor. (Actually a director would more than likely only have to instruct actors not to do this in certain shots so as not to upstage the main character.)
Now why am I talking about all this live action staging to a bunch of animators? Well, as actors with pencils, clay or sitting in front of CRTs, it’s easy to forget these things because you aren’t acting in front of a camera. And not many of us have been trained as a screen actor and to develop that intuition of “how do I look?”
My lesson is for you to think a little more like this for your characters. Turn a little more to the camera when it will look better, especially if your are the focus of the shot. Cheat a little baby. The audience will love you more for it.
We use a camera to control everything the viewer sees. If we don’t like it, we change a lens to include or eliminate what we don’t like. If somebody is too short, we sit them on a phone book. Bogart wore 4 inch platforms when he shared shots with Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca”. And on, and on…
Just about every shot in a film has some sort of cheat in it, something to make it look better from the camera’s point of view. (Unless you are making a documentary.) Most of the time it’s something subtle like turning to the camera a little more. It feels awkward in life but looks natural on screen.
Whenever I have directed lesser experienced actors, they usually feel a little uncomfortable standing as close to the other actors as I want them to. In life it feels unnatural to invade their space, but within the frame, the composition looks great. Did you ever notice on a TV sitcom how 4 people will sit around one half of a round table so that the audience can see them all? The camera is usually close enough that it looks perfectly normal, but if you tried that at dinner some time, you family would think you are nuts. Or else, you just enjoy being extremely cozy.
One of my favorite big cheats is when a two characters face the camera, one in a close up, and they talk to each other seemingly making eye contact. The front actor glances to the side and you can draw a straight line from his eyes to the others. In the two dimensional plane, it makes visual sense, yet on the soundstage, in 3D space, there is no eye contact.
Smaller cheats are all about playing to the camera. Like when an actor makes sure his or her face is presented at its best angle. Bruce Willis does this a lot. (Not in every shot, but in plenty). Watch how he will often make sure his face points directly to the camera, yet his eyes cut to the side to look at another actor.
Nobody does that in real life. When you talk to somebody, you turn your head and look at them, not angle your face away and glance sidelong at them. Oh, and this is another beauty: Denzel (one of my favorite actors) Washington doesn’t like to obscure his face with a phone receiver. I haven’t read this. It’s just an observation on my part. Whenever he talks on the phone, he holds the receiver down under his chin. When I try that the person on the other end can’t hear a word I’m saying!
I was watching an old Twilight Zone once with Lee Marvin, and I noticed that during an over the shoulder shot, we should have just been looking at the back of his head while he talked to the other guy. But no, he turned his head slightly, so we could make out his profile better. Not unlike this scene from “Casablanca”. Look at Sidney Greenstreet (on the right). He has turned his head ever so slightly to be off axis to look directly at Bogart, but we get a clear shot at his profile. Did the director tell him to? Probably not, he’s just a trained actor. (Actually a director would more than likely only have to instruct actors not to do this in certain shots so as not to upstage the main character.)
Now why am I talking about all this live action staging to a bunch of animators? Well, as actors with pencils, clay or sitting in front of CRTs, it’s easy to forget these things because you aren’t acting in front of a camera. And not many of us have been trained as a screen actor and to develop that intuition of “how do I look?”
My lesson is for you to think a little more like this for your characters. Turn a little more to the camera when it will look better, especially if your are the focus of the shot. Cheat a little baby. The audience will love you more for it.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Plug for a Friend
Next month a new book on character design will hit the stands here in the U.S. It's is called "Creating Characters with Personality" by Tom Bancroft. I got a chance to peruse a pre-release copy (it's who you know, baby) and I really liked what I saw.
Tom is a former Disney animator and a good friend of mine (check out his blog: http://tombancroft.blogspot.com).
Tom does a great job of breaking down the elements of good character design. And what I really like about his book is that it isn't merely a "How to draw like me" book. He teaches principles that anybody can put to use in their own style.
Not only did he ask Rob Corley to write a chapter (his business partner and also a good friend of mine - http://robsquirrely.blogspot.com), but he asked several guest artists to submit their interpretations of the same character. Among the guests are Peter deSeve, Mark Henn, Bill Amend and Jack Davis... yes, the Jack Davis. A very diverse collection of styles, yet with one thing in common: they create excellent designs brimming with personality and attitude.
Tom's point in the book is that good character design, regardless of style, comes down to clarity, appeal and knowing your character inside and out.
Keep an eye out for it at your local bookstore or your favorite online retailer.
P.S. Tom didn't ask me to plug his book... honest.
Tom is a former Disney animator and a good friend of mine (check out his blog: http://tombancroft.blogspot.com).
Tom does a great job of breaking down the elements of good character design. And what I really like about his book is that it isn't merely a "How to draw like me" book. He teaches principles that anybody can put to use in their own style.
Not only did he ask Rob Corley to write a chapter (his business partner and also a good friend of mine - http://robsquirrely.blogspot.com), but he asked several guest artists to submit their interpretations of the same character. Among the guests are Peter deSeve, Mark Henn, Bill Amend and Jack Davis... yes, the Jack Davis. A very diverse collection of styles, yet with one thing in common: they create excellent designs brimming with personality and attitude.
Tom's point in the book is that good character design, regardless of style, comes down to clarity, appeal and knowing your character inside and out.
Keep an eye out for it at your local bookstore or your favorite online retailer.
P.S. Tom didn't ask me to plug his book... honest.
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