Tuesday, June 10, 2008

If I were creating the world ...

I found this clip for a short animated dialogue shot and had some funny idea rolling around in my head how it would be animated. I don't even remember what movie it came from and I certainly had never seen it before - so that makes it even more interesting.

When I showed my professor my blocking he looked at it and said 'uhh ... yeah ... can't you do more than that?' so needless to say, I canned my first approach and when I came back with this setup he was much more interested. I haven't worked on this in over a year ... and here I am firing back up to get it completed and this time ... I have a deadline!


1 comment:

Thom said...

Hey Jason, it has some potential. I like the character. By email you mentioned it was almost ready to offset, which I take to mean overlapping action. What I prefer to do is put the overlap in there right from the beginning and tweak it at the end. This might require a tutorial in itself -- in fact I will do one.

The dismissive gestures...much too slow and even. Flick that wrist up in the air. Same for the hand sliding on the desk. You may just want to skip that. Maybe slap the table instead.

The move from the board to the table is too slow and even too. I'd speed that up, and make sure he dips on the way. That makes it feel much better.

In fact, I'd try leaving his arms on the board while his hips begin to move toward the table. Then the rest of him can follow and go to the next pose.

Push those poses. Lasers, etc.: those poses are all too similar. Lasers has the most comic potential. I'd screw up his face and do something else with his fingers or something. Don't miss any opportunities to be entertaining. There are no dull moments in good animation.

So push poses and speed him up. That will go a long way. Lastly, I'm having trouble reading the final gag. I don't see what causes the explosion exactly. Maybe that's not as important though as really pushing that final pose. His mouth should be wide open and his eyes shut tight. Then pop the eyes open really wide for contrast. That may or may not work but the idea is to push it over the top. Entertain us!

Thom