Animation is a very difficult medium to master. In all the study, frustrations, research, and struggles, it's easy to forget what attracts someone to animation in the first place. That's why little gems like HonkBarn are so valuable.

Sometimes animation is  so darn silly and fun.

Be sure to check out the HonkBarn Blog as well!

 

 

 

In Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, Michael Chabon writes about contemporary 3D animated films under a chapter entitled "The Splendors of Crap."

Chabon's dismal generalizations about computer animation are a bit unfair, but they hold some wonderful insights into creativity and storytelling. For instance, Chabon writes that the crap tv show he watched as a child was incomplete. "In its very incompleteness, born of lack of budget, the loose picaresque structure, and even of cancellation itself, it hinted at things beyond its own borders. There was room for you and your imagination in the narrative of the show." (Chabon, 80)

Chabon goes on to criticize computer animation:

"[The] ample budgets, large crews, and generally high level of technical prowess boasted by even the most execrable of the [CG animated films] enable their creators to employ the prevailing Star Wars-inspired aesthetic of packing every scene, every frame, with incident and filigree, without the concomitant open-ended structure that made the early Star Wars films, at least, a likely locus of fantasy play both for children and, in the form of fan fiction, adults.

The new studio-made CGI products are like unctuous butlers of the imagination, ready to serve every need or desire as it arises; they don't leave anything implied, unstated, incomplete. There is no room in them for children. And so they never form the basis for my own kids' games." (Chabon, 80-81)

Chabon's criticism is very similar to the mild concern expressed by filmmaker Spike Jonze about animators. In terms of animation acting, I sometimes feel as if this comes from an animator's ability to isolate gestures and ideas in a scene. We tend to section off each movement and idea into its own screen time and screen space- rather than engaging in the struggle to find elegant combinations. These isolated actions sometimes provide simplistic (rather than simple) acting choices. The most unique acting moments often come from various known gestures and actions being interwoven. Chabon makes an interesting insight into this idea by describing the evolution of Legos.

When Chabon was a child, Legos were a pile of bricks with no instructions. Today, Legos come in box sets with detailed manuscripts made to replicate some star speeder or pirate ship. Chabon initially writes the box set "modules" are a horrible advent that stops a child from creative thinking, but he refutes himself in the following observation:

"The power of Lego is revealed only after the modules have been broken up or tossed, half finished, into the drawer. You sit down to make something and start digging around in the drawer or container, looking for a particular brick or axle, and the Legos circulate in the drawer with a peculiarly loud crunching noise. Sometimes you can't find the piece you're looking for , but a gear or a clear orange cone or a horned helmet catches your eye. Time after time, playing Legos with my kids, I would fall under the spell of the old familiar crunching. It's the sound of creativity itself,  of the inventive mind at work, making something new out of what you have been given by your culture, what you know you will need to do the job, and what you happen to stumble on along the way.

All kids- the good ones, too -  have psycho tinge of [Toy Story's] Sid, of the maker of hybrids and freaks. My children have used aerodynamic, streamlined bits and peices of a dozen Star Wars kits, mixed with Lego dinosaur jaws, Lego aqualungs, Lego doubloons, Lego tibias, to devise improbably beautiful spacecraft far more commensurate than George Lucas's with the mysteries of other galaxies and alien civilizations." (Chabon, 56-57)

We may be able to learn from this as animators, or any prospective creative professional. We can freely take in the cliche, the overused, the generic, and the absurd to make our own Lego drawer. Make your drawer as robust and diverse as possible. A well crafted handful from such a drawer might reveal ideas that are no longer generic at all.

-Tom

There is a hefty amount of advice on the web for animation demo reels. Here are two well known sources- most animators have frequented these lists of tips:

http://www.carlosbaena.com/resource/anim_DemoReels.html

http://splinedoctors.com/2009/08/more-on-demo-reels/

The guidelines above are fantastic! But many animators only relate them to demo reels. The people that write these guidelines are entertainers, and much of their advice is applicable to films, shots or any creative endeavor.

For instance,  few would willingly announce their reel is 45 minutes long. Quite clearly, a 45 minute demo reel would have to be UNBELIEVABLY entertaining for an employer to even press play. Most likely, a reel labeled "a whole 45 minutes of animation" would be tossed in the garbage before being viewed. And yet, it seems a common habit for people to advertise their personal films by the length.

If you have browsed the internet's offerings of animated shorts- both good and bad- you've probably come across headings like this:

"Watch my film, it is a whole 20 minutes of animation and I did it allbymyself! I worked on it for 4 years."

Maybe because animation is so technically laborious, animators like to announce the validity of their work in terms of its difficulty. As if they are announcing to the world: "Hey! it was actually really hard to make such a long movie, so the least you could do is watch it!".

There appears to be a notion that spending more time/effort on a film results in a longer film. In a very basic sense, that is correct. But once the film reaches a professional level, a significant amount of time must be spent making it shorter- just like a demo reel.

Which is why I suggest the the demo reel tips.

Like a demo reel, a film is stronger when trimmed down to the best and most necessary shots. Both a good film and a good demo reel will hook you at the start, and finish with something memorable. Personality, unique characters, lack of distractions... all good advice for a demo reel AND an animated film.

This is not to say there are no differences between reels and films, but much of the core advice is sound. Your film audience is not so different from the animation recruiter that must sit and watch reels all day. We are all people with too much to see and do. Anything from a silly joke to news of genocide across the world is fighting for our attention every minute. Consequently, a joke that boasts ten minutes of set-up better make us pee ourselves laughing- or else the joke needs to be much, much shorter.

Imagine an animation prompted by a quotation reminiscent of Blaise Pascal (I've also heard it attributed to Mark Twain).

"I apologize for the length of this film, as I did not have time to make it shorter."

-Tom

 

 

A cool new site hosted by some very talented animators. Check it out:

Speaking of Animation

These guys are spoiling us. Take advantage of their openness to answering submitted questions- it is a rare find.

There are ranging opinions on the recent film Where the Wild Things Are. Some call it brilliant and some call it neurotic. You can find the reviews...

One reviewer puts it:

"Those hoping for a fun-lovin' romp through the kooky world of Max and his zany monster pals are likely to be disappointed."

It's true, and while I would be more likely to side with the "brilliant" reviews of the movie, I understand that this is not the feel good movie the children's "genre" is so often expected to be.

As an adult, I loved the movie because it so clearly put me in touch with the emotions I had as a child. It was uncomfortable, it was painful, and it was wonderful.

Recently I heard an interview with Spike Jonze (the director) and he spoke in length about choosing actors for the Where the Wild Things Are. The film had three passes on acting. There were the actors in monster suits that walked around in the live action set. There were the voice actors in the sound studio. And finally, there were the animators for the monster faces (and some other selected shots).

You can listen/read the whole interview here.

The following is an excerpt of what Jonze had to say about choosing actors:

"One of the things that happens sometimes in puppeteering and animation- that works for a certain type of story, but wasn't appropriate for [Where the Wild Things Are] - the performance becomes very broad and indicated. And the way somebody animates a character sometimes, their entire body is saying a word."

I think that warrants repeating:

"Their entire body is saying a word"

There is certainly a place for the kind of acting where everything in the shot is saying the same thing, but it seems far too prevalent in the professional animation community. Why do we animators tend to make patronizing acting choices?

Perhaps it is because we CAN do it. We animators are pretty obsessive- if we can make a character say he is angry with his words, his eyes, his hands and his toes- why not?. It seems like we are often thinking "what else can I move? Oh! there are some eye twitch controls- I'll just wiggle those angrily- Now every part of my character looks angry."

The resulting animation is often nonspecific and overstated. It is like building a bridge by dumping every sturdy material at your disposal into a river until people can cross. Beautiful suspension bridges were born out of scarcity- an architect was forced to be creative and use less and less materials.

Similarly, an animator who uses the least moving parts will usually have a more creative solution than an animator who uses as many as possible. Such an animator is also more valuable, because their solution will be cheaper as well as more unique.

Tom