My sensitivity towards changes, comments and notes from my supervisors has greatly evolved over time and I’ve become very insightful about what my supes really ask of me when they give me notes nowadays.
When I started out working on my first feature film in Germany, my drive for entertainment overrode every animation aspect and the lack of technical knowledge showed in sloppy animation technique and execution. The more rigs I got into my hands and the more different styles and tasks I was asked to animate throughout my career, the better I understood the general relationship between entertaining acting concepts and the respective techniques/controls to achieve this best.
A few years ago, when I was asked to change certain aspects in my shot I always thought in broad strokes. I simply didn’t have the delicate sensitivity to see how I could achieve a better result by more focused adjustments.
By that I mean the following situation:
When I start on a shot, I pour automatically all my knowledge into it and try to come up with only the best ideas for the blocking. When I start refining and thinking of detail I do this with utmost thought to it — Now I receive a comment or note from my supervisor.
It’s now about addressing this note, or plussing the scene without deleting or washing out any of the other ideas we worked hard to get in there.
Say I get a comment of big nature, meaning re blocking 1/2 of my shot or changing the “feeling” of a specific motion.
This requires me to understand and ask questions about when my supervisor means the shot needs a broad or a delicate change.
If a whole part of the shot isn’t working or I’m not portraying the character how he/she envisioned him, I need to think in broad strokes and go back to the shot structure.
If this “feeling” my supe is after, can be achieved by small adjustments to timings or even just specific body parts, I will touch only the necessary controls.
Here is where I start to work on the shot in two versions and try to implement this note in two ways, the broad way and the delicate way. I do this for myself just to experiment down both alleyways. The broad way may take me longer and even change a few more things than just what the supe has asked for. The delicate way means specifically touching only what the supervisor is referring to, and nothing else. This work process mustn’t take me a long time because I’m basically taking time away from working on my final shot.
When I have both versions blocked in I already start feeling a tendency but also try and gather different opinions from a few colleagues.
I have the feeling I just start to understand what Richard Williams means by “Animation is concentration”.
It’s the process of addressing a vital note, to plus the shot without loosing any of your good stuff.
Knowing exactly which key to touch and which to leave, is the way to push a shot to a point where the audience goes “Wow, how did he/she do this ?!”
Here’s a small list of some brain food i came across recently. It’s a pretty mixed bag and only a few animation related topics!
