Finding Ideas: Animation Inspiration

The concept of finding and using inspiration is one that is common to every facet of creative practice. From fashion to interior design, architecture to web design; the ability to look around at the world around us or the work of others who we admire and receive impetus for our own work is critical. But i have been pondering about what it means to find inspiration as an animator. One might watch an animated feature or a short but how does that translate to inspiration for me on my next piece. I'm going to try and share some of the things I have learned over the past few weeks.

Always Start Here 
If ever I need to look for a place to start looking for what would be called acceptable 3d animation here is where I start.

PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIO . Their blockbuster movies are the Incredibles, WALL-E,Ratatouille,Toy Story 1 & 2,Cars,Finding Nemo,Monsters Inc.,The Incredibles,A Bug's Life etc.

DREAMWORKS ANIMATION owned by Steven Spielberg and his other two partners
Their blockbuster movies are Shrek 1,2&3, Kung fu Panda, Over the hedge, Bee Movie


Ask Why Not How!
Because the field of animation is mostly technical and requires a skilled use of techniques, the error is usually to look at someone else's work and wonder "how did they do that?". I have learned to not just ask how they did something but also why they did it. In understanding why they have used a particular lightening scheme, i have found out about how lighting can affect the mood of a scene and how audiences respond to the characters or the narrative presented. A bluish scheme suggests a horror or sci-fi theme to the scene and bright yellow or orange scheme suggests a happy and fun theme to the scene. Asking why can also give more insight to how and when I should use certain elements in  my animation. From adding more anticipation, to exaggerating weight etc. finding out why, can go a long way to answering how this actions help communicate greater believability in a character and the overall animation.


Observe The Details
I also have learned to look at what additional actions, movements in the shorts or animated features I see help to make the characters more believable. I look at the timing of eye winks, the follow through on limbs and cloth, facial expressions, amount of depth of field in a scene. Applying all these things in my own animation help to improve it. I simply look at something I've seen and liked, comparing whether it would make my own animation look even better and then add it.

This is just a few of the many things that I watch for as i look at other people's work. The aim isn't to copy them or use the same narrative or style they used in hope of achieving the same level of success on a piece. In the end, originality of content while keeping those elements of animation that communicate believability will always produce the best results. In my current piece, I have found inspiration for the character I am working with, in the "Scrat" character from the Ice-Age animated feature movies (Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, 2002). 

References

Ice Age, 2002. [Film]. Directed by Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha. USA: Blue Sky Studios

Timing is everything

One of the key principles of animation as posited by the animators of Walt Disney in the timeless book written by disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in 1981, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation is timing. They define timing as the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film. On a purely physical level, correct timing makes objects appear to abide to the laws of physics; for instance, an object's weight decides how it reacts to an impetus, like a push. Timing is critical for establishing a character's mood, emotion, and reaction. It can also be a device to communicate aspects of a character's personality.



Simply put its the way we space key activities apart that gives a sense of motion. In consequences it is how fast or slow a movement is that determines how realistic the animation looks.Ive found that getting timing right usually makes all the difference between believable motion and something that looks odd. By the very same token this makes getting timing right, an often very difficult stage in the animation process. At the blocking stage, I usually start out with 4 to 5 frames apart in a pose by pose action and when i get a feel of the movement that works then I move on to some quick timing.  Of course, with breakdowns and in-betweens the timing has to change to accommodate the extra motion.

I've learned that making something faster or slower than usual adds a little more believability to an animation and takes away the linearity that comes with frame by frame tweening. Human motion which is usually what we are trying to depict in animation is ruled by arcs rather than straight lines and inherent in the arc is a sort of delay in the trajectory of motion. In a way, it is an attempt to simulate the effect of the forces of gravity, push or pull on an object that determine how long it will take for an object to move from one position to another.  Achieving the right spacing of this motions are what make up good timing. One good method i've found to approach timing, is to animate to sound. Because music is so strongly linked to timing, syncing to music helps you to keep to a consistent  rhythm across the whole sequence. An important and recent example is found in the work of one of the key animators on the Ice Age (Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, 2002)movies. In an attached video he shows how keeping the sequence in time with a soundtrack helps to achieve a more cinematic flow of animation.

Below i've also attached another walk cycle video from vimeo. I will be using this as reference for work cycle sequences in the future.

References

Ice Age, 2002. [Film]. Directed by Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha. USA: Blue Sky Studios

Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas (1995) The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation [Hardcover], Disney Editions; Rev Sub edition, ISBN-10: 0786860707