Animation Tips and Tricks

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Animation Tips and Tricks

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BY: Shawn Kelly

Animation Tips & Tricks 1

PLANNING
Because this is the first article, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with probably the single most important tip most
professional animators are likely to give a student: PLAN YOUR WORK. Planning is probably the step most
often missed by students, and at the same time, it is probably the most essential tool in your entire
animation toolbox, especially in the first few years of your animation life. You should never sit down in front of
your computer, animation disc or puppet, until you know exactly what poses you are planning to use, when
you are planning to use them, and why.
Before you begin any shot, it’s so important to study references, work out your thumbnails, and make your
timing and acting decisions on paper. This may seem like an “extra” step to some of you, but believe me, it
will save you time in the long run and your work will look so much stronger than it would have otherwise.
All of my best feature film shots are also the ones I spent the most time planning out. The shots where I got
cocky and thought“Aw, I know how to animate that, I’ll just sit down and do it” are, almost without
exception, the shots that ended up being “okay,” but never as good as they could have been. I’ll always
regret missing the opportunity I had to make those shots special, but at least they taught me an invaluable
lesson: Planning Comes First, ALWAYS!
Tune in next time for some practical tips on how you can plan your shot!
OBSERVATION
Okay, so last month I was going on and on about how important it is to spend time planning your scene
before you sit down in front of your computer, your animation disc, or your stop-motion set. But HOW do you
do that? What’s the best way to plan a scene?
Well, the first thing you absolutely have to do is OBSERVE.
Sounds simple, right? Well, it isn’t quite as simple as you might first think, but it will become second nature
eventually. The important thing to realize is that observation is not passive or casual. Observation is much
more than simply “seeing” something interesting - it’s ACTIVELY studying the world around us. Sure, a certain
amount of curiosity is natural, but you have to take your natural curiosity for noticing things and train
yourself to crank that curiosity knob to 11 if you want to become an animator.
Let’s say that you see a little girl trying to feed her lollypop to a monkey at the zoo, and her mother grabs to
stop her, knocking the lollypop into the air where it sticks in the mother’s hair. Seeing that happen might
have been funny, or maybe you felt bad for the mother, or embarrassed for them -- either way it was
probably pretty memorable. It’s something you might even tell your friends about that night.
However, simply remembering and relating that overall story is not observation. An animator would notice SO
MUCH MORE in that moment than the mere fact that the lollypop got stuck in the woman’s hair. An animator
will see the overlap on the girl’s hand as the mother smacks the lollypop into the air. An animator will see
the frightened expression on the girl’s face, or the way the monkey reacted to the whole thing, or the frozen
moment in time when the lolly landed in Mom’s hair and they both just freeze for an instant as they realize
their situation. The way Mom’s shoulders might slump with resignation, or maybe how the little girl tried not
to laugh, or maybe it’s even the way that their dresses spun in the wind as Mom picked up her daughter and
hustled off to cut her hair in the bathroom.
That’s observation, and it’s the single biggest animation tool you will ever have. Any time you see something
interesting - be it the bounce of a squirrel, the flutter of a feather, or the twitch of an about-to-cry eyelid - file
those things away in a little filing cabinet in your head. You never know what you will find helpful down the
road, and the bigger library of observations you can build in your head, the better equipped you will be to
deal with any scene a director might throw at you. Not only that, but you’ll be able to come up with scenes
and actions that are not cliché and that feel real and ring true to an audience - and the reason the audience
will identify with the action or emotion you animate is because it’s something you’ve seen in your past, or in
a film, or on TV, or even in a mirror.
All strong animation starts with observation, so train yourself to do more than passively notice the world
around you. Soak it up, file it away, and start using the amazing things around you in your art! Your work will
only become stronger and less cliché the more you allow yourself to truly study the motions, actions,
reactions, and emotions of those around you.
Next month we’ll tackle reference! In the meantime, if you want a fun observational exercise, hit a zoo or a
park or a shopping mall and just sit on a bench and watch people. You can even bring along a sketchbook to
draw what you see and take notes, but the important thing is to watch the people around you and truly study
them.
Oh, and don’t forget to wear sunglasses so you don’t creep them out!
REFERENCE MATERIALS
We've been talking so far about the importance of planning. Last month we covered the importance of
observation, but this week we're going to get a little more practical and tackle the concept of reference
materials.
There are many types of reference materials that will be invaluable to you as an animator. Photography,
comic-books, live-action movie reference, animated reference, and footage of yourself and your friends
acting out a scene will all be incredibly useful as you sit down to plan your shot. It might be the most
practical and useful planning of all, in fact.
One misconception that I often hear from students is that "using reference is cheating." Well, if using
reference is cheating, then 99% of the world's top animators are cheaters! Nothing could be further from the
truth. Using reference is essential, especially for animation students, to finding the most believable and
unique performance for your scene.

First, let's talk about some of my favorite reference photography for a second. Eadweard Muybridge's books
can be a big help, especially when learning about walk cycles and run cycles - both for humans and animals.
My favorite, however, is the work of Dr.
Harold Edgerton. His book "Stopping Time" is incredible, and documents his work as he pioneers incredibly
fast flash photography, which allowed him to capture something at speeds upwards of 100,000th of a second.
At these speeds, you can really truly see how the principles of animation exist, even on a very subtle level, in
real-world situations where you might have imagined they wouldn't apply. Check out the squash and stretch
on a golf-ball, or the way a baseball bat slightly bends as it whips around -- pretty incredible stuff to examine.
We use both Muybridge and Edgerton's work in our classes at Animation Mentor, and I'd recommend their
books to any animator interested in delving deeper into learning why the principles of animation exist in the
first place.
Next up, we have one of the must underrated animation reference resources of all: comic books. If you're
interested in learning about dynamic posing, there is no better place to look than your local comic book shop.
Check out some of Jim Lee's recent Batman work, or J Scott Campbell's "Danger Girl." Comics are (and always
have been) underrated in the "art community," but you would do yourself a disservice by ignoring the work of
some of the best comic book artists out there. Many of them come from an animation background, such as
Mike Kunkel, creator of Herobear (awesome!), and you can learn more about line-of-action and dynamic
posing by spending ten minutes in a good comic book than you can by watching hours of movie reference.
Live action and animated reference are next on my list, and these can be some of the most helpful. It's
important, in my opinion, to keep a solid reference library of films if you're going to attack this monster
known as "animation." The pile of DVDs on my shelf at home come in handy on every single show I work on.
It's incredibly useful, for example, to be able to pull up some footage from the olympics to study how
someone throws a javelin if you're going to be animating a guy throwing a spear. If you're going to be
animating flying birds, what could possibly be more useful than spending some time studying the
documentary "Winged Migration?"
Finally the most important reference of all - video reference of yourself and your friends. If you have an action
shot to work on, set up a camera and get up and actually DO the action. Over and over and over and over. Do
it until it feels natural. Film your friends doing it. Get as much reference as you can - at least until you know
for a fact that you've filmed at least one take that you think would work well. Then it's up to you to study that
take and glean what you can from it.
If you're working on a dialogue shot, that's a whole other ball of wax and can easily involve much more preplanning as you attempt to truly get into the character's head, getting to know your character's motivations,
back-story, emotional state, etc. That's a whole other ball of wax that we'll tackle someday down the road for now, let's stick with this reference stuff.
The important thing here is that with all of these types of reference, you don't just look at them. Don't just
look at the photographs. Don't just flip through the comic book. Don't just watch the movie. STUDY these
materials. Find what makes the poses so appealing, or what maybe even makes a pose confusing or bad. You
can learn from good *and* bad reference, so just soak up as much as you can. If you're animating a bird, and
you turn on "Winged Migration" and find the appropriate bird, watch it many times. Watch it in slow motion.
Frame-by-frame. Look at how the wings work, find the key poses that the real bird is actually using. DRAW
them in a sketchbook so that you remember them. Make notes to yourself.
Then when you get back to your desk, start applying the principles of animation to what you've just watched.
This is KEY. Do **NOT** just copy it. Copying reference verbatim generally results in a robotic lifeless feel.
Your job as an animator is to take that reference and apply your ART to it.
Remember - animation is an art. It isn't math. It isn't something where there is a formula that will work 100%
of the time. But that doesn't mean that you can skip over the essential step of planning your scene, and
regardless of what the animation style you're going to work in is, it's always helpful to examine the way that
body mechanics and emotions play out in the real world.
Next time we'll talk about thumbnails, and I promise I'll be less wordy. :)
THUMBNAILS
This month we’re going to talk about thumbnails (and as promised, I’ll be more brief!). So, what are
thumbnails? Well, animators often use the fingernails on their thumbs to animate with. If you use your
thumbnails to click your mouse buttons instead of your forefingers, you get a much better result.
Wow, was that the all-time worst animation joke in the history of animation jokes? I think it must be, though
I’d also hazard a guess that the “history of animation jokes” is probably pretty short.
Okay, so - for real now - what the heck are thumbnails?
Basically, “thumbnail” is a term used to describe a small “thumbnail-sized” drawing that describes a pose, an
action, or an idea. The first rule of thumbnails is, don’t talk about thumbnails.
Jeeeez. I just did it again. Second worst animation joke in the history of animation jokes. Sorry. It won’t
happen again, I promise. Okay, the first rule of thumbnails is: LET THEM BE ROUGH.
They are SUPPOSED to look rough. They are not meant to be pretty pictures. Don’t spend (waste!) a lot of
time making each thumbnail look like a piece of art. Don’t waste time shading it in, drawing all the little
details, etc. They’re meant to be fast and sloppy. The entire point of doing thumbnails is that it saves you
time.
How does it save you time? Well, if you do thumbnails as part of your planning process, then you can work
through all of your ideas BEFORE sitting down in front of the computer, and it’s inarguably much faster to
doodle a little stick-man doing a pose than it is to pose him out in the computer.
We use thumbnails to work through our ideas. To get past our first ideas (remember - your first idea is always
the worst and most clichéd idea. The first idea you think of is probably the first and most obvious idea that

the audience will think of too!), and get on to the ideas that count. The later ideas will be the good ones.
They’ll be the most inventive ideas, and the most original. But to reach those ideas, you’ll first have to work
through the clichéd ideas, right? Thumbnails are, without a doubt, the fastest way to do that.
The quickest road to a great idea, then, is through thumbnails!
When you get a new scene, sit down and start doodling. Maybe it’s just poses. Maybe it’s working out full
actions. Either way, you’re quickly discovering what will work and what won’t, and it’s all on paper. Quick and
dirty - that’s the way to do it. Use a stick- man, even. Many of the best animators do their thumbnails with
what is essentially a stick-man. As long as you can see where the character’s hips are, the angle of the hips,
the angle of the shoulders, angle of the head, and the position of the limbs - that’s ALL you need to know at
this point, and you shouldn’t be worrying about any other details yet, generally speaking.
So, the first rule is to stay rough, and the first *use* of thumbnails is to discover the best ideas for your shot.
The second use of thumbnails is to get fast feedback.
You can save yourself days of work (and a great deal of frustration) if you run your thumbnails past your lead
or your director before diving into the actual scene. Nothing is more frustrating than spending 3 days
blocking in something that you think is great only to find out, once the director gets a look at it, that you’re
doing something he doesn’t like at all. It’s always a great idea to run your thumbnails past them first, so you
can save yourself the headache (and heartache!) of hearing the dreaded “start over” words from your
director.
The third use of thumbnails is to translate your video reference.
Filming video reference is great, but as we talked about last time, you can’t just coy it or you’re going to end
up with a scene that isn’t as alive as it could have been. Thumbnails are a great way to translate that video
reference into poses and timing that are infused with your knowledge of the art of animation. Sure, you can
find some great posing and timing ideas in your video reference, but that’s only step one. Whip out a
sketchbook and start doing little stick-figure drawings of what you are observing (and STUDYING!) in the
reference you’re watching.
But as you draw those thumbnails, you can start to inject the principles of animation into them. Exaggerate
the poses, push the lines of action in the body, and make the poses more dynamic and forceful. You can also
jot down timing notes, and maybe you can even start exaggerating your timing at this stage. Right there in
your thumbnails you can be making decisions about timing - give this part a little more ease-in, make that
part a little snappier, etc.
The goal, as far as I’m concerned, is that before you sit down in front of your computer, you have a piece of
paper or an exposure sheet that has dynamic and timed thumbnail poses, so you know exactly what pose will
happen on exactly what frames. By the time you have turned on your computer, every major animation
decision should have already been made. Without exception.
If you work this way, I guarantee you will end up with stronger, more dynamic, more communicative, and
more memorable scenes than you would if you just sat down and started saving keys. Even better, I
guarantee this entire planning process will save you time in the long run.
I think, as a general rule, I probably spend about 20% of my time planning. If I have a week to do a shot, I’ll
spend the first day completely away from the computer. A two-week shot might get 2 days of planning. If I
only had 2 days to do a shot, then maybe
I’d only spend 2 or 3 hours planning, but I would make the most
of those couple hours. I’d spend it studying video reference, filming myself and my friends, doing thumbnails,
etc. I do that because I know without a doubt that by spending that first day planning, I just saved myself a
couple days (or more) worth of “noodling” the shot, and tinkering with it, trying to make it work.
Again, the best scenes I’ve ever done, and the ones I finished the quickest, are the shots that I spent the
most time planning. Over and out.
- Shawn
BLINKS HAVE MEANING
Tip 1: Blinks Have Meaning!
I feel like writing about blinks today. Why? I just saw a commercial on TV (name of product withheld to protect
the innocent) starring a character who had a severe blinking problem.
Now, I don’t mean the character blinked too much. I don’t mean he blinked too fast. I don’t mean the
character’s blinks were too far offset, too slow, or too few.
No, this character was plagued by a disease that has been running rampant through animation (particularly
student work, though not Animation Mentor students, of course. Everything they do is perfect and wonderful
in every conceivable way... Well, okay, that’s not exactly true, but I haven’t actually seen it as a problem in
the school. Probably because we harp on stuff like this ad nauseum).
Where was I?
Oh yeah, the disease...
Let’s call it “Randomblinkitis.”
Many animated characters currently living out their lives on demo reels around the world suffer from this
terrible disease, causing their blinks to feel random and meaningless. While some characters use their blinks
to convey thought process and emotion, these poor Randomblinkitis victims are forced to slog through their
daily existence unable to properly communicate their emotions and thoughts to each other, let alone to
recruiters around the globe.
It’s a tough life for them, folks, so let’s do something about it!
See, the medicine for this heartbreaking disease is Observation. It’s easy to do, and it’ll mean so much to
your animated characters (and to the recruiters forced to have to try to communicate with your characters!)

if you can just take a little time to observe the blinks of your friends, your family, your co-workers, your
favorite movie star, and yourself before you start plowing ahead into acting scenes.
Listen, I know about the whole“I just discovered animation a month ago and must do an acting scene
IMMEDIATELY!” thing. I know you all want to do acting scenes. I know you think they’re the most fun. I know
you think they’re your ticket into Pixar. And I also know that for some of you, all the“honestly, spending 6
months practicing basic body mechanics and force will give you far stronger acting scenes than you’ll ever be
able to do without that foundation” advice in the world isn’t going to keep you away from playing with some
acting shots...
So, if you absolutely must do some acting shots (or, better yet, are advanced enough to do acting shots
properly), then please, give some attention to the eyes of your character.
We’ve probably all heard people say “90% of acting is in the eyes” or something to that effect. Shoot, some
of us have said that
ourselves. And I actually think that’s true, and is great advice (aside from the fact that if you don’t sell the
acting with the body first, all the facial stuff in the world isn’t going to save your scene), but when you hear
that “90% of the acting is in the eyes,” I know most people immediately jump to“eye darts” and“eye
direction,” etc., completely skipping over one of the most essential acting tools you have - the blink.
When I was in school, I was told that “animated characters should always blink every two seconds.”
Well, that’s just about the worst advice I ever got, other than some advice I recently was given during a trip
to Singapore, which was “giant fish eyeballs taste really GREAT,” but animation-wise, I think the“blink every
two seconds” is probably the worst. Actually, both of those pieces of advice are equally true (or rather,
equally completely-and-utterly-untrue!).
Look around. Do you see anyone who is blinking every 2 seconds?! (If you do, please report them to your
government, because chances are they are some kind of android spy from Mars or something.) People don’t
blink on any kind of set time schedule anymore than giant fish eyeballs taste “great” (and for all of you out
there who maybe think fish eyeballs DO taste great, probably because you have some kind of steel-reinforced
taste buds like the Singaporeans I was with at that restaurant -- which I do admire and am completely jealous
of, by the way-- then that’s fine to like your giant eyeballs, but just trust me on the blink thing anyway,
okay?)
Look - if you do a scene where your character doesn’t blink at all, and don’t have a reason behind it, you
have a fair chance of that character feeling a little dead. However, there are plenty of times when you’d
WANT the character to not blink -- maybe he’s scared out of his mind, or she’s looking longingly into her
husband’s eyes, or you’re doing some homage to A Clockwork Orange...
We’ll get into that stuff in a minute - for now, I just want to point out the reasoning behind the“blink every 2
seconds” rule. Ostensibly, it’s so your character feels alive. That’s the idea they’re shooting for, anyway.
Sadly, this is a very outdated concept. If you choose to animate according to this rule, and have every
character blink every 2 seconds, two things will happen:
1)
First off - congratulations: no one will wonder if your character is dead, or if his eyes are getting
enough moisture. Mission (sort of) Accomplished.
2)
Instead, they’ll be wondering if your characters are meant to be robots. (D’oh!)
Blinks are so much more than the merely physical act of moistening our eyeballs! We blink for a variety of
reasons, and the absolute least important of these reasons to you, as an animator, is the“I’m just getting my
eyeballs wet” blink. Forget about that blink. File it away in your head for future use, I guess, but file it in the
back of the bottom drawer, right next to “My Aunt Martha’s right eyebrow shoots upwards every time she
says ‘pretzel’.” It’ll come up about as often in your work, and be about as useful as well.
People blink for a reason.
Blinks are so much more than any kind of physical dry-eye response.
Blinks are the key to selling many emotions. Fire up some of your favorite films and study the eyes of good
actors. When do they blink?
Why?
What does it feel like?
How does it make you feel?
Right off the bat, the number of blinks can affect emotion in dramatic ways. Rapid blinks can make a
character feel shy, nervous, uncomfortable, relieved, or like they are about to cry. Not blinking at all can feel
angry, stoned, dead, or super intense.
Check out Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump when he’s meeting his son for the first time. As soon as he realizes it’s
his son, he stops blinking completely. He’s transfixed. Tom Hanks holds back his blinks to communicate the
idea that his character is THAT intense about what he’s realizing. Then a blink, and boom - he’s on to his next
emotion, which is guilt. He feels guilty. Shouldn’t he have been there to raise his son? Did he do something
wrong? The blinks are coming fast and furious now, to indicate his discomfort, his worry.
Then a thought occurs to him: “is he slow, like me?” He doesn’t say it right away, but you can feel the exact
moment that crosses his mind, because suddenly his blinks stop again, and he’s back to that intensity, and
finally he works up the courage to ask Jenny his big question:“is he smart, or is he...?” Huge eyes, locked on,
almost afraid to hear the answer. “He’s the smartest in his class.” And the blinks are fired back up again,
which communicates his relief.
That whole scene is amazing for eye stuff. He even asks “can I go see him?” using only his eyes! Sure, his
head moves barely as well, but it’s 90% just his eyes, and you totally know exactly what he’s saying. He

delivers a line without ever opening his mouth. And it feels so real. To me, that’s a great scene, and
something we should all aspire to in our work.
So your first set of big blink questions is this: “what’s my character’s emotional state right now? What are
they reacting to? How is that making them feel?” And your second set of questions, just as important (if not
more so) is this: “well, how do I blink when I feel that way? How do my friends blink when they’re in that
situation? How did my favorite actor blink in that amazing scene I saw the other day?”
Figure out the emotional state of your character, go observe that emotional state in as true a form as you
possible can, and then study the heck out of those eyelids. Better yet, act the scene out over and over and
over until you aren’t thinking at all about what the actual dialogue lines are anymore, and all you’re thinking
about is the emotion you are truly making yourself feel, and the context/subtext of the scene, and videotape
it, and study it!
That’s it. It’s pretty simple really. Just like with every single conceivable aspect of your animation, you don’t
do ANYTHING without
a reason. You don’t move a single finger without knowing why your character is
moving it, and the eyes (and sometimes even more importantly, the blinks) are no exceptions. Never move
ANYTHING on a character unless you know exactly why you’re moving it. So if anyone ever tells you to
animate something randomly, unless it’s the tiniest subtle “add a little ‘dirt’ to this movement so it feels
a
little less smooth” type of thing, then you should probably say, “No way!” Unless he’s your animation
director. Then you probably shouldn’t say, “No way.” That might be a really bad idea. You should instead say
“Right away, no problem!” while you silently think “man, I wish my animation director would take some
AnimationMentor classes...”
Where was I? Oh yeah - nothing is random. Well, neither are blinks.
The most important use of a blink is to show thought process. We do blink sometimes just to wet our eyes,
and we blink on a rapid head turn, we blink on a major change in eye direction, and all those other“blink
rules,” but in my opinion the most important time is when we have a change in our thought process. When
we’re having an idea, or when we’re switching from one emotion to another, or when we’re realizing
something. Those are the gold-mines in terms of blinks - that’s when a perfectly placed blink will take a scene
from being merely “good” and make it “great.”
There’s a great book called“In the Blink of An Eye,”by Walter Murch, who is an amazing film editor. Murch is
an incredibly accomplished film and sound editor, with a bunch of Oscars on his mantle, and great work in
such films as Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II, The English Patient, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Part of
that book is about his theory that we blink to edit the film of our lives. We blink throughout the day to cut
from one scene to the next to the next to the next. And he uses that theory in his film editing. He looks for
when the main character blinks, and often uses that as his cutting point, figuring that it’s probably the most
natural-feeling place to cut for the audience.
As animators, we can hijack his theory and apply it to our own work and our acting. We can study the same
phenomenon that he noticed, and we will all find the same exact result - people blink when their brain shifts
from one thing to another, whether it’s an emotion or a thought.
We blink for a bunch of reasons, but the most important to me are these:
1.
2.
3.

We blink when we shift our thought process
We blink to show or hide emotion
We blink in the middle of a fast head turn

For me, those three things dictate 99.9999% of the blinks I’ve ever animated, and I’ll tell you what - not one
of them has anything to do with any“2 Second” rule.
Ok, so let’s start with number 3, since that’s the most basic. This is one that most of you have heard about,
and use often. Personally, I think it’s a great rule, and seems to work really well. If your character’s head does
a really fast head-turn, drop a blink in there near the middle or near the end of the head turn, and it’ll give it
a nice natural feel. This is something I’ve definitely observed in people, and it’s a great rule of thumb to
generally keep in mind.
I’m not sure why we blink mid-turn, but I think it might have something to do with having too much visual
information zooming past our eyes, and our brain says, “Holy moly! Too much information! Gotta shut those
things for a moment!” I have no idea if that’s true, but it sounds like it might be right, and that’s good
enough for me...
Let’s jump back up to good old numero uno - blinking to show a shift in our thought process.
This is an absolutely essential and endlessly useful tool in animation - something you can truly use over and
over again, in shot after shot. Like the idea of advanced“anticipation,” this really can be one of those
few“lifelines” of communication you can have with your audience. A way to reach out to them, and whisper,
“Hey, check it out! He’s thinking right now! Oooh! And now he’s made up his mind!”
Anyway - back to shifting our though processes...
The eyes are the windows to the soul, right? We’ve talked about that cliche, and how right it is, and how
important it is to communicate with your character’s eyes. (I think we have, anyway. Haven’t we? This is

month 19, so it’s getting a little fuzzy in my memory! I could look it up, but we both know I’m too lazy to do
that...)
Personally, I feel like 70-80% of the emotion of your character is going to be sold in the face, and 90% of
THAT emotion will be sold in the eyes. The timing and direction of your eye darts will communicate more than
almost any other thing in your scene.
But a HUGE part of that communication is with eye blinks. We can talk more about eyes later, if you guys
want, but as far as blinks go, all the great eye animation in the world will not work without carefully planned
blinks.
Your character is in a basement. Scared. Backing into a dark corner, unsure of where the villain is hiding. His
eyes are wide, darting all over the place, searching frantically. For help. For a way out. For a weapon. For a
hiding place.
So far, so good. No reason to blink, right? He’s scared for his life, searching DESPERATELY for help. His eyes
want to suck in as much information as humanly possible, because if they don’t figure something out quick,
his eyes might stop seeing anything at all pretty soon.
If you’re animating this scene, you’re going to be taking the “no blinks at all” approach so far in this scene,
unless it’s gone on for
a REALLY long time. If the eyes are desperate enough, I think you could get away
with not blinking for even 10 seconds or more. There are countless scenes of some of our best actors showing
their intensity and emotion by not blinking for much longer than 10 seconds, but at some point, a sustained
shot of“scared guy” is going to get stale and boring, so I’d say a shot like this will get boring long before
you’d HAVE to throw a blink in there...
So, he’s scared and desperate. No blinks yet. His back bumps against concrete, and he realizes he is
cornered. His eyes are even wider. Searching. Hoping. Suddenly, they lock on! He spies a shovel! A weapon!
He’s found hope!
Guess what he does?
He grabs the shovel, right? Well, yeah, he does, but what does he do first? He blinks.
Why? Well, it’s sort of the Walter Murch thing. He’s “cutting” his film. His “scared and hopeless” scene has
ended, and it’s time for the “try to be a hero” scene, starring him and his shovel.
In other words, his thought-process has shifted. He’s gone from one idea to another idea, in his head. He was
scared out of his mind, and now his fright has morphed a little bit. It’s evolved. He’s probably still scared, but
I bet his eyes are a little narrower, now that he
has his shovel in hand. His eyes are darting a lot less. He’s still frightened, but now he’s a little hopeful, and
maybe even a little mad. Who is this lunatic hunting him down in his basement?! Who does he think he is!?
He’s going to get a face full of shovel if he doesn’t get out right now!
Right?
When you first get handed a scene like this, you’re going to study the amount of time you have to work with,
you’re going to plan out your motions and timing, figure out your dynamic poses, etc. Just as with any other
bit of planning, it’s essential to search through your scene and try to find a moment of change – when an
emotion changes, or an idea shifts. These are ALWAYS the meatiest moments for you as an actor and
animator, and these are generally the moments when you will carefully choose when to blink.
A shift from scared to hopeful? Blink. Happy to nervous? Blink. How about something really subtle, like sad to
sadder. Blink!
Those blinks will SELL the changes in thought process more than anything else other than possibly overall
posture changes. Ok, and then lastly, we have the idea of using blinks to sell emotions.
Well, let’s go back to our previous example, with the scared basement guy. How do we know he’s scared?
Well, hopefully you’re using as many small things as possible to show his fear. Hopefully his movements feel
afraid, his head and eyes are darting around, his overall actions and broad movements can even show fear.
But having those wide, unblinking freaked out eyes - THOSE are going to sell the fear as much as anything
else. Maybe even more than anything else, right? So right off the bat, we have an emotion being sold through
blinks, or rather, through the lack of blinks. What would it look like if he was blinking a lot in the basement?
He’d look flustered, maybe he’d look like he’s thinking rapidly about a lot of different ideas, or trying to
remember something. He might look shy, or maybe even nervous. But he probably wouldn’t look scared, no
matter WHAT you did with the rest of him.
Once Mr. Scared finds his shovel, he blinks to show that realization (and the timing and number of blinks at
this point, by the way, will totally define the mood of the performance. A long pause, with two wide-eyed
blinks would be funny and played for comedy, whereas a quick blink and dash for the shovel will keep it in
the“scary” realm), but now that he has his shovel, we’re going to use our blinks in a whole new way.
He’s still scared, but not so desperate that he can’t blink now and then. Now we’ll have quick“scared” blinks
(slower blinks would feel too laid back) now and then, maybe when he’s shifting his gaze from one place to
another, or if he hears a sound in the other corner of the basement, etc.
The timing and number of your blinks are an invaluable way of letting your audience know what’s going on in
your character’s head. Not only how he’s feeling, but when those feelings are changing.
To me, this concept is one of the most fundamental foundations of any good acting performance, and I think
it’s something worthwhile for us all to continue to study and deconstruct.

If you’ve been reading this column since the beginning, you’ve read my tips about scene planning and know
how essential it is to plan your performances. Part of that planning should often be video reference, of either
yourself or friends or actors. If you truly get into your character’s head, and truly begin to feel the REAL
emotions of the scene when you are acting out your video reference, you WILL see the properly placed blinks,
showing these shifts in emotion and thought process. If you aren’t sure where to blink, be sure to go through
this process, it can be really helpful.
Another great idea is to just study the blinks of your favorite actors. Think of your favorite film, and choose a
scene that stood out to you as being especially believable acting. Pull it up on DVD and study the actor’s
blinks. Check out Forrest Gump meeting his son for the first time - it’s amazing. Also, Robin Williams’ blinks
and eye-darts in One Hour Photo are great to analyze. Any of your favorite actors will have valuable reference
for you to study. Check that stuff out! How does the timing and frequency of the blinks communicate the
emotion at just the right precise moment to make it feel true... How does it make you feel? Why?
It’s a great idea to sit down and really study that stuff. Make notes for yourself, and really dig into it. You
don’t have to be an acting
expert to find value in that reference, it can really be helpful. Let’s see, to recap:
1.
Blinks Have Meaning!
2.
Skipping a strong foundation in the basics in order to get to acting scenes quicker shoots yourself in
the foot.
3.
Never animate anything without a reason.
4.
Don’t say“No way!” to an Animation Director.
5.
We blink to cut the “film of our life.”
If you have an opinion about what kinds of “tips” or more “tricks” you’d like to see in the future, email me at:
tipsandtricks@ animationmentor.com and let me know!
That’s 5 tips for the price of one. I better start being stingier or this’ll be a short-lived column! Hope you
found it helpful. See you next time!
THE FACE
Hey there animators! Welcome back to my Tips & Tricks column!
Last month we talked (endlessly, I know. Sorry!) about blinks. How we blink for a reason, and how important it
is to avoid randomblinkitis.
This month, I think we'll do a complete 90 degree turn and change it up with an overall facial animation tip:
TIP 2: The Face Is One Cohesive Unit
Most facial rigs break the face into somewhere between 15 and a gajillion different face shapes. So, once
you've finished all of your planning, and you've got the most emotionally communicative reference you can
get your hands on, it's time to sit down and actually start animating all of those face controls.
Some facial rigs are made up of joints, some are blend shapes, and some are a combination of the two. Some
of you have facial GUI's, some of you have overall expressions you start from, some of you start from scratch
and just dive right into the individual shapes. Some of you even sculpt the shapes yourself as you find you
need them.
None of that matters one bit.
Sure, some methods are faster than others, and some give you more control than others, but for me - the
single most important thing in facial animation (other than the overall overriding super-mega-ultra-mostimportant thing: make sure your emotions read clearly!) is that the face works as a single cohesive unit.
One of your biggest goals with facial animation should be to make sure that the face doesn't look like a bunch
of independent shapes moving around.
I'm sure many of you have already experienced this problem (I know I have in the past!) -- you've got a
gajillion different ways to control the face, so you're potentially animating a gajillion different things at any
given moment in the face, particularly if you're doing realistic or subtle facial work. It is VERY easy to end up
with a facial performance that feels more like a gajillion different little parts moving independently of each
other than a single face acting and reacting to the world around it.
Think of the face NOT as a collection of "facial shapes" or a bunch of "joints." Study your reference, find the
simplest way of recreating (and hopefully plussing) the emotions and movements you see in your reference,
and then as you're animating those gajillion controls, be sure to remember, every step of the way that the
face needs to read as one unit.
Different parts of the face need to affect each other, and be affected BY each other. Exactly the same way
you make sure your character's body doesn't look like a bunch of independently moving limbs, your face is a
series of connected bits that all work together to communicate with the world around it. All those gajillion
controllers should be working together to create the illusion that there is only ONE controller -- the brain -and you should use those gajillion controllers to support the ONE main idea of the
scene!
That's when your character will truly come to life. That's when the performance will be memorable to the
audience. That's when your character will be "animated" in the truest sense of the word.

However, be careful not to key all of your face shapes on the same keys. You'll want to keep track of overlap.
Remember the principle of lead and follow, and apply it to the face. What moves what? What moves first? Do
the eyes lead the facial performance? Do the brows lead the eyes? Study things like this in your reference, so
the face doesn't feel robotic.
For example, the eyebrows almost always lead expressions. Is your character going from sad to angry? It'll
probably read best if (after already selling the thought process in the eyes) you start the actual physical
transformation in the brows. Have them push down into the eyes, which then would either narrow the eyes
into angry slits, or give the eyes the "flat-top" wide-eyed look of a guy about to rip your arms off.
Is your character being surprised by something? It's probably best to yank his eyebrows up before widening
his eyes at all! Sure, it's probably only offset by a frame or two, but this sort of thing can add a wonderful
organic quality to your animation that would otherwise be missing, leaving your scene feeling stiff and dead.
Since I'm already talking about it, a great way to think about this stuff in the eyes/brows is that the brows
push and pull the eyes around. That won't be the case 100% of the time, but it's a decent rule of thumb that
can help you through the majority of your scenes.
Okay, that's two tips for the price of one! I guess that's better than last month's "5 for the price of one"
shenanigans, huh? See you next time!
-shawn :)
OPERATIVE WORDS
Hello Animators!
Welcome back to our little monthly Tips & Tricks article. I was thinking that since we've been talking a lot
about the face and blinks already, maybe it'd be fun to switch gears entirely, and talk just a tiny bit about
some acting/dialogue stuff. Specifically, the concept of operative words:
Tip #3: Build Your Performance Around Carefully Chosen Operative Words
Okay, so first off, what's an operative word? Well, an operative word (sometimes called the "main word") is
the word or words most enunciated or most emphasized in the delivery of your dialogue. Sometimes it's
simply the loudest word, but in some cases it may even be the quietest word. It probably has the highest
change in volume or pitch, but not always. It's essentially the most important word in the line, and the
coolest part is that choosing it will be entirely up to you.
However, you must carefully choose your operative word(s), because it's this single choice that will most
dramatically affect all of the acting decisions in your shot. Because of that, it's important to understand how
powerful operative words are.
We all use operative words every day of our lives. We have them in almost every conversation we have.
Unless you speak just like that dude on Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?), in a complete
monotone, you're going to be constantly choosing operative words to use in order to properly communicate
(or hide) the truth of what you're saying.
Even in a short sentence, a chosen operative word can radically change the meaning of the sentence (which
is why operative words and subtext are so closely related, but that's another article all together!).
A classic example of this is the phrase "I love you." Even in a 3 word sentence, you have 3 completely
different meanings depending on the operative word chosen by the actor. For example, if the actor most
powerfully exaggerates the first word: "I" and you have:
**I** love you.
What does that mean? Say it out loud to yourself, with the enunciation all on the first word. What's it sound
like? He's not just saying "I love you," is he? More specifically, he's saying "He doesn't love you!" Right?
Now, if we move on to the next word, we have: I **LOVE** you.
This is putting all of the exaggeration on communicating the depth of the love that is being felt. It's got
nothing to do with some other guy, as the first example does, now it's all about the two people in love, and
how powerful that love is. Completely different meaning, right?
Now onto the third word:
I love **YOU!**
Whoa! Now we've got a third meaning that is entirely different! What's he saying now? I love *YOU!* = I don't
love HER!
So you can see, even in a 3 word sentence, the choice of operative word radically shifts the subtext of the
phrase. We do this subconsciously all day long, and when we analyze it, it seems like common sense, but it's
the sort of thing most people would never consciously think about, but exactly the sort of thing animators
MUST study.
Okay, so that's what an operative word is, but how do I use that in my animation? Well, in a couple ways.
First, if you're recording your own dialogue, the importance of carefully chosen operative words should be
clear. But as animators, we rarely record our own dialogue, so for the most part, the importance of
understanding operative words is mostly centered around the fact that we need to be able to clearly

communicate what actors were trying to convey with their delivery. We have to be able to listen to their
dialogue, often months after it was recorded, and know exactly what they intended.
This is not to say that we should be locked into animating exactly what the actor performed - not at all - but
the most closely you can tie your performance to their delivery, the more believable, entertaining, and
emotional it will be. So it's essential that you have the skill to analyze the delivery of a line, and pluck out
those operative words, and not only know which ones are most important, but WHY.
One important thing to mention at this point is that we must be extra careful not to choose too many
operative words. Ideally you want one in every scene, but sometimes there are two. If it's a *really* long
delivery, there might even be three, but normally you want to limit it as much as you can in order to avoid
overacting.
Overacting? Yup - the most common source of overacting, in my opinion, is animators (or actors!)
subconsciously choosing too many operative words. Why? Because other than knowing the subtext of a line,
the other most important use of operative words is that they function as a road map for our acting
performance. They are the signposts that say "do your biggest gesture here!" or "this is your big acting
moment!" or "have your largest moment of contrast right at this exact moment!"
You see, we build our performances around these specific words, because that's what the delivery of the line
calls for. That's what the deliver DEMANDS, actually. Choosing the wrong operative word is just as bad as
choosing too many, and it will stand out as bad acting, or at the very least, "weird."
Let's go back to our "*I* love you" example, and let's say that the delivery we have been given is the first
delivery (with the emphasis on "I" - meaning "He doesn't love you!").
So you listen to that line, where "I" is clearly the operative word.
However, let's say you make a mistake and choose "you" as your operative word. Your acting would all now
be built around the word "you." Your character's main gesture will happen on that last word instead of the
first, where it naturally would occur most of the time. Act it out yourself right now. Feel how weird it feels to
say "*I* love you" but gesture (point at her, maybe) on "you?" We see this in student demo reels constantly,
and it looks even weirder in animation than it feels to you right now!
The other common mistake is choosing too many operative words. Let's say you decide all three words will be
operative words. Now you've got the character pointing to himself on "I", clutching his heart on "love" and
pointing to his girl on "you."
Go ahead and act that out. It's completely ridiculous. No one would really communicate like this in the real
world. The only way that acting performance would work is if the characters are deaf and are using signlanguage. But once again, you'd be amazed at how much of this we see on demo reels.
So, to make a long story short - choose your operative words, try to keep it down to one or two main words,
and then use those words as the moments that you will do your biggest acting/actions on. Your biggest
gesture (or only gesture) should almost always happen during the operative word. Your biggest change in
body posture should almost always happen during the operative word. The main ideas of the scene should be
communicated usually during an operative word. Your biggest change in facial pose? Yup, you guessed it make sure it's during an operative word.
Oh, and one other thing. Sometimes, you'll be handed a line of dialogue that's either completely devoid of
operative words (it's boring, monotone, etc) or on the other hand, is jam-packed full of them. In both cases,
these poor deliveries will make your job more difficult, but it will still be up to you to first decide what it is
that you truly want the character to be communicating, and then choosing the operative word that will best
do the job.
If there are no operative words, you may have to just make them up.
You'll have to choose the subtext for yourself, choose an operative word, and go from there. Your job as the
animator is to take whatever dialogue delivery they give you, and MAKE it work. If it's a terrible delivery, well,
maybe it won't be the best scene of all time, but hopefully you can at least elevate it from terrible into
"passable."
That's a big part of your job. It can be challenging, but then again, it's also really fun to see how much
emotion and communication you can try to squeeze out of even the most boring line delivery.
Conversely, you have the instance of having too many operative words to choose from. Unless the goal of the
scene is that the character is manic and crazy and speaking a mile a minute and you're also working in a
very wacky style, you're going to have to rein in your animation imagination (which will go bananas at the
prospect of cramming a zillion ideas into the shot) and choose just one or two and ignore the rest. If you
don't, you run the risk of your character feeling overacted, and your scene will be a jumbled mess of
confused ideas that the audience won't be able to follow.
So.... choose those operative words carefully! And, as always, have FUN!
-shawn :)
SPOTLIGHT YOUR EXPRESSIONS
Hello there! Welcome back to yet another Animation Tip. Hopefully you aren't bored out of your minds yet,
but honestly? Even if you are, I'm still having fun writing these down, so tough luck - you'll have to just put up
with me for now.

Last time, we talked a lot about faces and facial animation - mostly focusing on the idea that the face is one
cohesive unit that
we use to communicate. We talked about how important it is that you don't let your
facial performance end up looking like it's a mishmash of 100 different sliders and controls, and instead how
we must always push towards the goal of having the face feel like it is a single communication device
controlled by a single brain. It's so easy, when given those 100 different facial controls, to end up with
sections of the face that looks disconnected, disjointed, and unrelated to each other.
And why do we fight so hard against that? Well, for one thing, it's going to look fake. It might *almost* look
right, or maybe even 90% realistic, but it's that final 10% that makes all the difference between something
truly feeling alive, or something feeling just slightly robotic or creepy.
The other reason we strive so hard towards creating a cohesive facial performance is for the sake of the
audience. As with any aspect of animation, the overriding goal - at all times - is simply this:
Communicate the emotions, actions, and ideas of scene as clearly and truly as possible to the audience.
If you do a bunchof animation that is mechanically correct, has beautiful arcs, and some really nice timing,
but it doesn't communicate the idea to the audience, what's the point? No one will care if our animation
"looks pretty" if they miss the story point that they should have noticed, or can't identify with the character's
emotion.
Along those same lines, this month I wanted to touch on the idea of ensuring your facial expressions are
correctly placed in the scene so that they aren't missed by the audience.
With that said, here's Tip #4: Spotlight Your Expressions!
There's probably no more important facet of your animation for the audience to immediately "read" and
clearly understand than the facial performance. The first thing an audience is going to see is your character's
eyes. The second thing is the character's overall face. The third might be the overall pose of the character,
or, if the character is pointedly looking at something (or someone) in the scene, they'll probably look
immediately from the character's eyes/face over to whatever has that character's interest.
The point is, probably by frame 8 the audience is looking at your character's face. Why? Well, because they
are there to be entertained! They want to feel involved in the story. They want to identify with the character's
emotions or situation. I'm sure another day we'll get pretty deep into eye animation, but at the most basic
level, people truly do look at eyes to discover emotion and truth - so the first place any audience will be
looking, will almost always be the eyes of the main character in the scene.
So - you know that the audience will be staring your character smack in the face, so what do you do?
Well, for one thing, you want to spotlight that expression. By that, I don't mean to stick your character's face
into a bright light (though lighting can be an enormously important factor in your expressions reading, and I'd
encourage you to find out as much as you can about the lighting of your scene before staging your facial
performance, what I mean by "spotlight" is to make it stand out just a little bit. Not to the extent that it's
unnatural - not exaggerating your facial expressions beyond the realm that the style you are working in
would allow - simply making sure that the staging and timing of your facial expressions (most importantly,
*changes* in facial expression) can be immediately understood by the audience.
There are a couple quick little tips I could throw at you to help in this regard, and the first one is this:
Expression Changes Get Lost in Movement
This is a fundamental concept for facial animation. Never stage an important face change to occur midmotion. Ever.
For example, let's say your director says, "Okay, Joe Animator, in this scene, your character needs to start off
sad, and then as this other character enters from screen left, she needs to look over at him, and suddenly
she's going to be really happy."
Okay, so that direction is a little vague, but the important thing here is that many junior animators and
students would be tempted to set up the scene in a way where the character is standing there sad, then
quickly turns to the left, and during that turn, the face (and body pose) will go from sad to happy.
This is a trap, so watch out! It won't be terrible, but it certainly won't communicate nearly as well as it had
the potential to.
What you'd usually want to do is slip the timing of the facial transition either earlier or later. Have her face
start to transition into happiness just before the head turn, or leave it sad, turn the head, and then move from
sadness to happiness once she sees the other character.
This has two benefits. First, and arguably foremost, the facial expressions (and thus, the changing emotion of
the character) will be much clearer to the audience. If you give them a chance to actually see the transition
between facial "poses," the performance will feel so much more real and connected to them. If the face
transitions in the middle of a fast head turn, the facial performance will suddenly feel disjointed, or
disconnected. I suppose there are situations where you'd break this rule (like every other rule!), but as a
general rule, you can't find a much better one than "don't do a complete change in facial expression in the
middle of a fast head movement."
The second benefit of slipping the change in emotion before or after the head turn is that it will give your
character more life. Seeing that facial change will give your character a feeling of having an internal thought
process.

If the face begins to change *before* turning, you can play it in your acting performance as a sense of
hopefulness. She's still sad, but suddenly there is light at the end of the tunnel. It will seem as though she
hears the other character arriving, and the audience will read their own thoughts and feelings into her facial
performance, imbuing it naturally with all kinds of great stuff. They might imagine that she has some inner
turmoil going on - she's sad, suddenly hopeful, but doesn't dare turn to look until she can build
up more
courage. Maybe she's scared to look at this new character and discover that her newfound hope is misplaced,
and sinking into an even greater despair.
Now, let's say you choose the opposite strategy, and you save her facial change for *after* the head turn.
Now you have a whole new set of things to play with! She's sad, so she turns her head sadly. It's probably a
slower head turn now. Maybe you close her eyes, you drop her shoulders, and her chin sinks down to her
chest. Maybe you play it as a halting look to the left - maybe she's still doing the "afraid to look" thing. Once
she gets there, and sees the other character - now you have the chance to give her a moment to stare at him
- still sad. Frozen. Maybe even an "about to cry" moment. You have a chance for her now to have a moment
to REALIZE what she is seeing. For it to sink in! You're giving her the opportunity to show an inner thought
process before welling up with joy and only THEN, finally showing that joy in her face and eyes!
Now, tell me EITHER of those wouldn't make a more interesting scene than just turning and instantly being
happy?! Obviously, the relevant story points will play heavily into this, but I do think that the audience
WANTS to read into your animation. They WANT to fill that character with feelings, thoughts, or inner conflict.
You just have to give them a chance to do so.
So, in any situation where the character's head is moving around a lot - turning, jumping, jogging, in
particular, because of its bouncy nature - can be really hard, and if you have to place a change of emotion
during a jog, you'd probably want to try your best to cram it into the hang time at the top of the character's
arc. The top of that bouncing arc will be the moment of least movement in the character's head, which
automatically makes it the best moment for any facial change. Why? Because that's when the audience will
SEE it best!
Okay, am I beating a dead horse yet? Sorry, movin' right along... The other thing I wanted to throw at you is
this:
No Expression Changes in the First or Last 8 Frames of Your Scene
This is another of those "rules of thumb" rules that you occasionally have to break, but should usually hold to.
If you have a facial transition happening at the very beginning of the shot (within the first 6-8 frames) or the
very end, no one in the audience is going to properly see or understand it. Worse, it will draw their eye (in a
negative way) and will feel like a "pop" to them. Instead of thinking "wow - she's so sad, but now she's
happy!" they'll be thinking "what the heck was that sudden movement on that girl's face?" Suddenly, you've
got your audience wondering about what's wrong, and remembering that they're just watching
a movie,
instead of hopefully having them engrossed in the performance, enjoying the ride of living vicariously
through your character.
As a general rule, whenever the camera cuts to a new angle or location, it takes about 6-8 frames for the
audience to see and understand where they are. I'd suggest being conscious of not doing ANYTHING of
importance with your character within those frames, and caution you to avoid any kind of quick pose change
or changes in direction within those "bookend" frame-ranges. Just like with the face, any overall body change
in direction will also read as a "pop," and be very distracting to the audience.
Okay - I'm outta here. Hopefully that stuff was helpful! Keep animating!!
See you next time,
-Shawn
KEEP SECONDARY CHARACTERS SECONDARY
Welcome back to this month's Animation Tips & Tricks article!
Last month we talked about showcasing (or "spotlighting") your facial expressions to make sure they are
clearly readable by the audience. We went over how you need to be careful to stage changes in your facial
expressions so that they aren't lost in movement
such as flipping emotions during a quick head turn. As always, your primary concern needs to be clear
communication - staging every aspect of your shot in the way that best describes the actions, emotions, and
story. Facial expressions are no different than any other aspect of your shot, so try not to treat them as an
afterthought, particularly because they are one of the most (if not THE most) communicative aspects of your
scene.
So, enough about staging facial expressions. I'm pretty sure I beat it into the ground last month, so how
about we talk about something completely different?
In my long tradition of segueing from one unrelated topic to another, this month we're going to spend a few
minutes talking about multiple character shots.

So, if you're an animation student, which I'd assume the vast majority of you are, you've probably tried your
hand at animating at least a single-character shot. If you're reading this newsletter, and you aren't currently
an animator or an animation student, then you must be one of the following:
1.
An animation student on the inside, dying to bust out of the shell and dive into this fun and
challenging career head-first Or
2.
My Mom
So, other than my Mom, I think it's safe to say that you're probably an animator or student, and you've
probably tried animating at least a single-character shot. Many of you have taken a crack at multi-character
shots, too, but I just had a couple quick tips to throw at you guys regarding shots with multiple characters.
So here we go - Tip #5: Keep Secondary Characters Secondary
Particularly the first few years of your animation life, we are constantly plagued by the nagging,
overwhelming need to have our characters doing SOMETHING at all times. We're animators, after all, and we
want to animate! A character can't just stand there doing nothing! He'll look dead! He should always be doing
something, right!?
The danger in this, of course, is twofold - movement ceases to be initiated for a reason and just becomes
movement for movement's sake, and constantly active characters have no contrast in their performance.
In a multi-character shot, this tendency to give every character something to do can completely ruin the flow
of conversation, will look far too "busy" visually, and will destroy any control you have over the eye of the
audience.
The goal with a multi-character shot, as always, will be to clearly communicate your ideas, right? Well, in
order to communicate those ideas, it will be your job to direct the eye of the audience, to lead them through
the conversation. You want to stage your scene, and plan your timing in a way that allows you to hold their
hand, and walk them through the animation. You need to whisper in their ear "hey, listen to what this guy is
saying... okay, now - quick! Look over there! See what that other guy just did? That's important to the story.
Okay, now forget that guy, instead, pay attention to this other guy over here..."
If you can't do that, your scene will be a jumbled mess of confusion, and at best, will never be as entertaining
as it could have been. Story points will be lost, jokes will be missed, and emotions will be muddy.
The key to making things read, is to only allow secondary characters to do secondary actions.
Secondary action is probably an article all on its own, but the quickie version, if you don't know, is this:
Secondary actions are actions that add to the character and augment the emotions WITHOUT distracting
from the primary actions in the scene. The term "secondary action" is sometimes confused with concepts
such as "overlap" or "follow-through," but it's actually quite different.
Character 1 is shyly asking a girl out on a date, but behind his back he's subtly fiddling with his pencil. The
"fiddling with the pencil" would be a secondary action in that scene, and we know this because in almost any
instance, the animator of this scene would want us focused on the character's faces, or physical interactions the "fiddling with the pencil" is there to subtly boost the feeling of nervousness in Character 1.
Okay, so let's say you have a scene with three characters. They all have lines at different points in the scene.
Just to make it even harder, maybe they even have lines that overlap each other. They're talking quickly,
frantic about something, or joking around. Let's say their names are Chris, Andy, and Jay.
Well, that's going to be a hard scene, but with some careful planning, you should be able to direct the eye of
the audience, almost regardless of what the dialogue says, or how it is delivered.
The basic idea is to direct the audience's attention through movement, anticipations, eye direction, and
through the contrasting rhythms of who's active and who isn't at any given moment. Let's say Chris starts the
scene off. His line is the setup for the joke that the scene is going to revolve around. Well, that sounds like a
pretty important bit of dialogue for the audience to pay attention to, doesn't it? Simply hearing the words is
not going to be enough for the audience here (otherwise, they may as well be listening to
a radio-play!
You need to create a performance that brings the mere "words" to another level - that's why we love
watching a good acting performance!), so you need to make sure the audience not only hears Chris, but they
see what he's doing and understand his emotional state. How do you do that with three characters in the
scene? Well, there are a lot of ways, actually. The most basic of all, is to have Chris be the only character who
is moving. If Chris is setting up the joke, and Andy is doing jumping jacks while Jay is running around in a
circle, there is an excellent chance that the audience's attention will be on anything other than Chris, correct?
So, at the most basic, fundamental level - if Chris is talking, Andy and Jay aren't doing anything at all. Now,
that's not going to usually be the absolute best choice for your scene. It's probably a pretty boring choice,
actually, but you know what? Better it's boring and clear than visually stimulating, but confusing. In my
opinion, it's better to have Andy and Jay basically "die" on screen, than to steal the attention of the audience
away from that important story point of the moment. That said, though, you're much better off finding

character-specific secondary actions for Andy and Jay to be doing. Maybe the three of them have just been
jogging together, and now they've stopped to rest on some benches in a park. Chris is setting up a joke,
which means that at that precise moment, he is the most important character in the scene, making him the
"Primary Character." Once you have that bit of information, you know exactly how you need to stage things.
Chris' facial expressions should be staged clearly to the audience while he's talking (if possible), and his
gestures should, generally speaking, be far bigger and/or faster than anything Andy and Jay are doing. They
should probably be listening to him at this point, while doing some kind of secondary actions (since they are
the secondary characters). Maybe Andy
is heaving, because he's heavier than the other two, and is really
worn out from the run. So maybe he's just sitting there breathing heavily. That could be his secondary action.
Maybe Jay, who is more athletic, is sitting calmly and wipes the sweat from his brow while listening to Chris.
As long as Jay doesn't start furiously scrubbing at his forehead, no one's attention is going to linger on Jay
during this moment. They
might glance at him to gauge his reaction to what Chris is saying, or to notice that he's sweaty, but they'll
immediately look back to Chris, since Chris is primary and Jay and Andy aren't doing anything interesting
enough to hold their attention.
So right there, you've controlled the eye of the audience. You've made a conscious decision to stage the
acting performances in a way that keeps people focused on Chris.
Now, let's say that Jay replies to what Chris has just said. At this moment, your job is most likely to transition
the audience's attention from Chris over to Jay.
Jay's line of dialogue is enough to get you started. As soon as he starts talking, Chris and Jay trade places in
the hierarchy of the scene. Jay is now top dog, and Chris has become a secondary character. Because of this,
the audience will likely at least glance over to Jay as he starts talking, but this is one of many crucial
moments in the scene. If Chris continues to be as animated as he was while he was talking, and Jay continues
to just sit there wiping sweat from his brow while delivering his line, most people will look back at Chris.
The solution, of course, is to immediately flip Chris to doing something secondary instead of continuing his
primary action, and vice versa for Jay. At this point, Jay could forget about the sweat on his brow, and be
gesturing with his dialogue, or doing an even bigger action, like taking off his shoes and throwing them over
his shoulder or something. That's a big, primary, "hey everyone, look at me!" action. Since he's talking, that's
a great place to put an action like that. With Jay talking, and Chris throwing shoes around, once again, the
audience will be looking at the wrong person.
So - if your character is secondary, keep them with secondary actions only. When you want the audience to
look at a certain character, give him something bigger to do. Or conversely, sometimes you make him SUPER
still amidst a lot of movement - either choice will draw the eye right to the character you want people to see
at that moment. The point is you have to make the conscious decision to direct our eye, so we know what we
should be looking at.
The main point is that nothing should ever distract the audience from whatever it is you want them to be
looking at. If one character is really active, the others should likely be pretty calm unless the story calls for a
more chaotic, frantic scene. Even in a scene involving a heated debate, or very quick dialogue where the
characters are talking over each other, you can use this trick of "who is secondary and who isn't" to lead the
audience through the scene, ensuring that they don't miss a single emotion, gag, or story point.
If you watch your blocking and feel that the characters are competing for your attention, it's a good sign that
something is wrong, and the solution is very likely going to be toning down some of the characters during
another's "primary" moment.
This is getting kind of long (sorry! I always do this... D'oh!), but I just want to quickly touch on some other
ways you can direct the eye:
1.
Eye direction. If five characters are all looking at a sixth character, every person in that audience is
going to be looking at the sixth character too. If the characters suddenly look screen left, we're going to look
screen left as well, expecting that whatever or whoever they see will be revealed to us. In these instances,
you are using eye movement to direct the audience's eye through the frame.
2.
Anticipation. That one's huge, and would be a full article all on its own, but basically, you can use a
character's anticipation to direct the audience as well. One way it would relate to a multi-character scene
would be to have the character who is listening but about to speak - that character could anticipate their
response. For example, let's say Andy is talking about being so tired from
the run and how he wants to
quit, and Jay, who is more athletic, is disagreeing with him. Maybe 3 seconds before Andy is finished talking,
Jay could start shaking his head (indicating he disagrees with him). This shaking of the head would not only
lead nicely
into Jay's next line, but it serves as a nice way to transition the attention of the audience from
Andy over to Jay, and when Jay starts talking, the audience is already focused on him.
3.
Contrast. This plays along with the "primary/secondary" idea, but just to clarify, I think you can think
of that whole concept as "contrast." If you have 5 characters dancing around, and one is standing still, we're

going to look at the still one, at least until he bores us. If you have 5 characters standing still and one
dancing around - well, it's obvious which we will focus on. The dancer! The point is, making someone
"primary" doesn't always mean you are giving them bigger and broader actions (though it often does),
it
simply means that they are doing something that contrasts enough with the characters and environment
around them, that it
draws our eye.
4.
Composition. Definitely an article all on its own, but it's certainly a factor in directing the eye of the
audience. Where you place characters within the shot not only can inform their status and emotion, but can
certainly affect the likelihood of the audience paying attention to them at any given moment.
So, these are just some of the tools that you can use to work your way through a multi-character shot something that can easily become a confusing, jumbled mess. Always err on the side of caution - you are
much better off having a less entertaining scene with clear communication than you are with a visually active
confusing scene.
The goal, of course, is to land somewhere in between, with something that is visually interesting, fun to
watch, and clearly communicates the story points, actions, and emotions of the characters!
Good luck, and have fun! Keep animating...
-Shawn :)
ACTING
Hello Animators!
Welcome back! Last month we talked about multiple character shots, and in particular, about how important
it is to keep your secondary characters doing secondary actions. How you usually want to try to have only
one primary character in any shot at any given moment, and to use your knowledge of composition, staging,
and motion to lead the eye of the audience through any shot, no matter how many characters are talking, or
how busy the scene is.
If you've read more than a couple of these, you know I'm just jumping randomly around to whatever happens
to seem interesting to write about each month, so sticking with tradition, this month we're making a big
random jump out of the "practical application" world and taking a short detour into something a little more
conversational. A little more intangible, I guess.
This month I want to talk about acting just a little bit. Not how to do it, but why it's important to try.
Here's a little pop quiz: raise your hand out there if you're an actor... Anyone?
Okay, well - that's sort of a trick question. If you are an animator, you *ARE* an actor. If you want to become
an animator, then you're signing up for a lifetime of studying acting, and I think it's important that you think
of yourself that way.
TIP #6: A great animator IS a great actor, and that needs to be a goal for each and every one of you.
Don't believe me?
Okay, what is an actor's job? An actor's job is to become their character so completely that they can deliver a
performance that an audience can believe in. An actor's job is to take the direction from the Director, and to
deliver the required story-points, emotions, and actions -- all without any dialogue or narration, if necessary.
How is that any different from an animator's job?
We have to do the same exact thing, only on top of the actor's job we also have to be masters of bodymechanics, physics, and artistic presentation (composition, staging, silhouette, etc.) In fact, I'd argue that our
job is often more difficult than an actor's job, because we have to do almost everything an actor does, and
then on top of that, we have to have the ability to break that performance down into tiny 24-frame-persecond increments!
Actors have the luxury of living in the real world. They have real props, and real actors to interact with. If an
actor is going to storm out of a door, he gets into the character's head, tries to feel the emotion of his
character as truly and deeply as he can, makes sure he knows where his marks are, and that's it! Off he goes,
storming through the door, angry as all get-out, and slams the door behind him.
That actor doesn't have to think, "Okay, I'm really really mad, so I'm going to storm through that door. So,
hmmm... Okay, first, I want to take a step with my left foot, so I better shift my hips over my right foot, and
rotate them on the x-axis so my right hip drives upwards as the weight of my body comes to rest completely
on that right foot. Oh, and I better remember to counter that with the shoulders, and offset the overlap of the
arms as I swing around to take that first step, or I'll probably just fall over."
NO! An actor just thinks "storm through the door" and that's it! His body will automatically do all of the things
you have to truly break down into minute individual (but deeply inter-related) actions.

Animators have to create a performance (hopefully) every bit as evocative as that actor, AND be a master of
how the body mechanics will work and everything else besides.
It isn't an easy job, but boy is it a fun puzzle to tackle, and so satisfying when you really nail it. Here's the
thing - people don't give animators enough credit.
Remember the first time you saw that T-Rex in Jurassic Park busting through the trees, almost on top of the
jeep? The whole theater screamed! Afterward, people were talking about how scary that T-Rex was.
What? What T-Rex? It wasn't real! The T-Rex didn't scare anyone! The *ANIMATOR* made them all scream!
Sure, the music, and directing add to any scary moment, but the animator is the single person who brought
that dinosaur to life to such an extent that
a theater full of people screamed.
How cool is *THAT*!?
Or what about Buzz and Woody from Toy Story? How many times have you heard kids talking about how
funny Buzz and Woody are?
But Buzz and Woody never made anyone laugh. They never made anyone cry, or scream, or feel inspired.
Buzz and Woody are only ideas. They're a bunch of math, and that's it. They're a file full of bits and bytes and
ones and zeros!
The Pixar animators breathed such life into Buzz and Woody, that children all over the world believed, truly
believed - even if only for those 80 minutes, that those characters were truly alive. That Buzz had real
feelings. That Woody had real dreams.
That's some pretty powerful stuff, if you ask me. It's the closest we've got to real magic.
Sometimes, as an animator, you might wish for some recognition, or dream of the day when a poster
trumpets the fact that a character was animated by Glen Keane or James Baxter, rather than pointing out
that Mr. Bigshot Celebrity spent two whole days recording the voice track.
Will that ever happen? Maybe. I doubt it, but who knows. Either way, it doesn't really matter, because in the
end, the magic of this animation stuff doesn't have anything to do with individual recognition. It inspires kids!
It spreads laughter around the world. It gets people thinking about things they normally might not think
about. It lets people of all walks of life recognize universal truths about themselves and their neighbors. At
the very least, it lets people escape their lives, no matter how hard those lives are, at least for a couple
hours.
The point, I guess, is this: if you don't make a conscious effort to study at least the rudimentary basics of
acting, you will NEVER imbue a character like Woody with the life that Woody's audience so wants to see.
They WANT to believe in him. They WANT to identify with him. You only have to give them a real chance! If
you don't truly become your character when you're filming your reference, you are short-changing the
audience, and whatever performance you come up with will never be as powerfully evocative as it could have
been.
If you ignore the principles of acting, you might be a good animator, but you will never be great. In short, you
will have blown it as an animator. You will have squandered an opportunity to help entertain, inspire, and
touch people, even in that small way for that short period of time.
And honestly? If you aren't gunning for becoming "great," then you might as well just give up now, because
you'll never get past "mediocre" with that attitude.
Am I the best actor? Am I "great?" Of course not! Not even close. I have a ton to learn about acting (and
always will - yet another of the many facets of our art form that are far too complex to ever completely
master), but I do know enough to know that the pursuit of acting skills is as important to my animator's
toolbox as any nice figure-8 arcs are.
And I also know that getting lazy, stopping your learning process, and saying "okay, I'm good enough" is Step
1 in the "How to Become a Washed-Up Burned-Out Has-Been Animator" manual.
Will I ever be a "great" actor? Will you? Beats me. That isn't the point. The point is that I'll spend the rest of
my career trying to push my art to that level, and even if I'm never the Greatest Actor/Animator On Earth
(which, come on - let's face it - probably isn't ever going to happen), at least I'll know that I spent every day
trying my best to get there.
And in the end, isn't that what truly matters? Isn't that what will give your life, (and by extension, your work)
that feeling of satisfaction, growth, youth, and fun?
I should apologize for how preachy that got. I just think acting is such an important and overlooked skill for
animators. Future articles might get into more practical "acting tips," but then again, I never really know until
I sit down what I'll be blathering about, so who knows.
Whatever the next article is about, I promise it'll be more practical! As always, keep animating, and have
FUN!
Shawn
EXAGGERATION
Welcome back to our monthly Tips & Tricks article, where I pretend to know all kinds of mysterious secrets of
animation. Hopefully they've made at least a little bit of sense so far! Last month I veered off onto a tangent
about how we are all actors, and how we must think of ourselves that way, but I also promised to be more
practical this month, so what to talk about?
Well, this morning I got an interesting question from someone about exaggeration - specifically, how much
exaggeration is too much? Where do you draw the line?

Sounds pretty practical to me, so that's what we'll be talking about today! (See how lazy I am? Good thing he
didn't ask me about my favorite socks, or else you'd all be hearing about the magic of Thorlo socks for 2
pages!)
Okay, so...
If you're an Animation Mentor student, you've seen the video lecture about exaggeration, and know how
important it is. You know John Lasseter describes exaggeration as "accentuating the essence of an idea via
the design and the action." You know the amount of exaggeration is probably the single biggest defining
aspect of the style of the animation. You know how to use it to sell the weight of a character, or to spotlight a
story point. Above all, you know that exaggeration is used for clarity. Clarity of ideas, clarity of jokes, clarity
of personality, and clarity of physical traits.
But that overriding question comes up again and again, especially in our first few years of animating -- how
much is too much? So, here's my two cents on that:
Tip #5: It's Too Much Exaggeration When the Audience is Confused
Yeah, I know that sounds like a "duh" statement, but I really think that's the answer. Once again, it boils down
to the fact that animation is both a collaborative and a communicative medium. You aren't just animating
something for yourself and your Mom, you're trying to create a piece of art that speaks to people. That will
make them laugh, or tell a story, or further a plot point, or show off a cool character trait.
The only way to know if your animation is working, once again, is to show it to someone. To make the
conscious effort to seek out quality feedback on your work. Again, your best bet is usually to show it to a
fellow animator, but almost anyone can give you feedback on your work. Your father might not be able to tell
you how to fix something, but he'll probably be able to at least tell you whether or not he can read the
emotion of the character, or understand what's going on. Even that can be a huge help to you.
Anyway, if the whole point of exaggeration is clarity (which would be a whole series of articles alone, so I'm
not even going down that road right now!) then the only way to know if you've used exaggeration
successfully is to show it to someone. You can go really far with your animation without showing it to anyone,
but at a certain point, you *must* get the opinion of someone who hasn't seen it before, and doesn't know
ahead of time what is intended to be happening in the scene. If they get it, then congratulations, you've
nailed it! If they don't, then it's time to take a hard look at your scene and figure out why they've missed the
story point, or the gag, or whatever it is you were trying to sell in your shot.
Exaggeration is a very delicate thing to play with. You must balance reality with your exaggeration -- you
have to ground it in a foundation of our universe. If you just start randomly exaggerating everything in sight,
the scene will be convoluted, confusing, and impossible to watch. You have to give the audience a foothold in
reality, or they will have no way to connect to your work.
This applies to every level of exaggeration, in my opinion. Exaggeration in cartoonier work (such as Warner
Brothers), realistic work (such as Weta), and everywhere in between.
A lot of people mistakenly think that exaggeration has no place in realistic animation, by the way, and they
couldn't be further from the truth. Even in studios such as ILM, Weta, and Sony, where we are trying to
painstakingly create something as believable as the actual human actors our
characters/creatures/monsters/aliens are standing next to -- we still employ the idea of exaggeration every
day. We simply use it on a much subtler level than it would be used for say, Ice Age 2 or Madagascar.
As Ollie Johnston said, "Don't make it real, make it believable."
That applies just as much to the "realistic" work of the FX studios as it did to Disney's. Again, it's all in how
much you use.
A tiny bit of exaggeration can take realistic work and push it into something dynamic, entertaining, and
exciting, but still believable. Anyone who's worked with mocap knows the amazing difference a bit of carefully
applied animation principles can make - bringing it from a truly realistic (but often dull and lifeless)
performance, and turning that into something worth watching.
The more exaggeration you apply, the cartoonier your work gets. Madagascar is cartoonier than Ice Age is
cartoonier than Incredibles is cartoonier than Kong. The only reason for this is the varying levels of
exaggeration used in the movement, and that level of exaggeration is defined by the chosen style of each of
those films.
So, as far as "how much is too much?" the first question you need to ask yourself is: "What is the style of this
project?" Is it super stylized? Exaggerate your heart out! Realistic? Better reign that exaggeration in, or your
supervisor is going to be wondering what you're smoking!
So, how much is too much? Well, it's too much if you exaggerate beyond the bounds of the style you are
working in, for one thing. I can't exaggerate a dragon in Eragon nearly as much as someone could
exaggerate a dragon in Shrek, for example. But I'm still exaggerating. I'm exaggerating poses and timing to
try to have something look as dynamic as possible. I push those silhouettes, accentuate the lines of action,
etc. I just can't be as broad on this film, as I could have if I had worked on something like Ice Age, that's all.
Neither is better, of course, it's just applying the same exact principles in different amounts.
If you are new to animation, the first thing I'd suggest is watching a LOT of animation and trying to absorb the
differences between the various styles you see. The second (and more important) thing I'd suggest is to get

in there and start experimenting. If you animate a bouncing ball, do a few different variations of exaggeration
levels. Maybe do one that looks real, one that looks super cartoony, and one that's somewhere in between.
But again, how do you know when you've crossed that line? You show it to someone!!!
If you are scared to show your work to someone, well, I'm really sorry, but get over it. The truth is that if you
are going to be a successful animator, a part of your job will be having a thick skin. You have to train yourself
to like criticism. To seek it out, in fact! There aren't very many jobs where people have to actively seek out
criticism, but without it, your animation will never be very strong. It's how we learn, and it's how we grow.
In a studio, you'll sit in dailies, surrounded by your peers, many of whom will be more experienced than you.
You'll have to see your
work, as rough as it may be, shown up there on the big screen to a room full of people who's job it is to judge
you. You'll have to be open to their comments. You'll have to listen to them talk about your mistakes.
The first few times you're in dailies, this is the scariest thing in the world, but eventually your skin hardens
into a criticism-repelling shell, and you can see the comments for what they truly are - people trying to make
the project as good as it can be.
Okay, I can feel myself being pulled down yet another tangential causeway into a whole new topic of being
open to feedback, so I'm going to flip this boat around and get back to exaggeration before it's too late, and
we're lost for all time...
Exaggeration. How much is too much? It's too much if you break the rules of the universe your work takes
place in (different rules for different projects, of course. The universe of the Matrix is slightly different than
the universe of Star Wars, just as the universe of the Incredibles is slightly different than the universe of Toy
Story, for example. And secondly, it's too much if you push things to the point where the audience does no
longer clearly understand your work.
And for both, the only way to know, is to (I know, how many times can I say this in one article?!) show it to
someone. (That’s the last time, I swear).
The whole point of exaggeration is to make things more clear, but it's easy to zip right by the world of clarity
and into the Land Of Confusion, so be really careful, and get some other eyes on your work before you spend
too much on it. (Oops, okay, THAT was the last time. Really.)
And like anything else, planning exaggeration is essential. You don't just guess. You don't just start scaling
curves to create bigger movements all over the place. Exaggeration should be as carefully planned as any
other aspect of your scene. If everything is exaggerated, your scene will be a mess. If only one thing is
exaggerated, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb and feel very unrealistic in all but the cartooniest work.
Okay, that's it. See ya next time! And don’t forget to email me with your questions at
[email protected]. Have fun, and keep animating!!

FORGET ABOUT THE LEGS
Hello animators!
Okay, get ready for a shocker...
I'm actually going to talk about something *PRACTICAL* for once! No, really! I'm totally serious. I know you
think I'm going to
*start* to talk about something practical, and then careen off into some bizarre tangent that's only barely
relevant to anything you're working on, but this time, I'm really going to pass on an honest-to-God, bona fide
"trick."
I mean, this is called Tips & Tricks, isn't it? All I've talked about are tips, mostly, I suppose. Mostly esoteric
animation stuff I've probably spent FAR too much time thinking about... Not much in the way of "if you save a
key on this frame, and then a key on that frame, a good trick to favor one over the other in your timing is to
blah blah blah" so far, right?
Well, forget tips for this month. It's trick time.
*Trick #1: Forget About the Legs*
Okay, so here we go. First of all, like most great tricks, this isn't something I thought of myself. It was handed
down to me by who I consider to be one of the most talented animators I know (Glen McIntosh, Animation
Supervisor at good old ILM), and boy oh boy did I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
The trick is this: if you're doing an action scene, you hide the legs until you're happy with the body animation.

That's it. It isn't terribly complicated, but man - it was really scary for me at first, but I have to say, I've found
it extremely helpful. Basically, the idea is this -- if you nail the timing and posing of the body (hips, torso, etc),
then the position of the feet will already be dictated by the position/timing of the body, so if you just hide the
feet and legs to begin with, and block in the body, you get the feet/legs for "free."
My first reaction to this was incredulous. "How do you know where to put the hips if you can't see the feet!?" I
had a really hard time imagining working this way. I've always been a pose-to-pose guy for the most part.
Thinking about my scenes as a series of (hopefully) strong full-body poses. I couldn't imagine ignoring such
important parts of a pose when blocking in my work.
What I've found, however, is that this method can save you some time, as long as you still do your planning,
and know (at least in your mind) what your main poses need to end up looking like. You'll likely have to get in
there and adjust the hips and body position slightly to accommodate issues that might pop up when you start
dropping in your leg animation, but for the most part, if the body truly looks right, the feet ought to work.
The big bonus is that you don't have to slow down to reposition your feet constantly if your character is
running around, flipping, spinning, jumping, etc. I was amazed to discover what an anchor the legs were on
my "blocking time," and how much spending time with them really slowed me down.
I've used this method on four films now, and I'm finding that in any action-intensive scenes, I'm relying on
this method more and more to block my work in quickly.
As an example, there was a scene in Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith where I had this idea of having Yoda
chop this guy down and then throw his lightsaber at another guy, leap up onto his chest, pull out the
lightsaber as the guy falls, and then leap over the dying guy's head to attack the next clone trooper in line.
This was one of the first times I really used Glen's trick of hiding the legs, and it worked so well for me that I
used his method throughout that entire sequence.
First thing I did was hid his legs and feet, including the nurbs-curves of the foot controllers. So now I've got
legless Yoda just standing there. I left his arms showing, left his head on, and kept his butt/hips so I could at
least see the line of action going through his body (which helped me plan where I'd want the feet to plant
later on, in order to have the strongest poses and silhouettes.)
I blocked in the whole shot this way. Legless Yoda floating around, killing clones, throwing his saber, jumping,
landing on the guy's chest - all of it. Once the timing of the body felt right to me (which, by the way, meant
that it didn't feel floaty at all, but felt like he was actually landing on feet, of course), then I turned the legs
back on.
The legs are IK, so of course he was basically just flying away from his feet, and he looked like a ridiculous
green midget Superman at first, but as I started to block in the feet, I was blown away by how easy it was.
I placed his feet on the first frame into the pose I had already been planning to aim for, and then simply
moved frame-by-frame through the shot (animating the feet in a continuous "straight-ahead" style) and
looked for the frames where his legs would suddenly hyper-extend and do the wonderful "IK-POP" we all know
and love so much. When I'd find that frame, I'd simply back up one frame, save a key on that foot, and then
start to raise it on the next frame. I'd go forward until his body started to "fall" onto the foot (the down part of
his run), back up a couple frames, plant that foot that had just hyper-extended a few frames before, and
viola! He was running around!
In other words, his body position was dictating when I'd *have* to lift the foot, or else the legs would hyperextend and pop.
So far, I've animated 2-legged Yoda this way, 3-legged walkers in War of The Worlds, and the 4-legged dragon
in the upcoming Eragon, as well as a couple things I'm not allowed to talk about yet (sorry! Don't you hate
that?!), and it's been incredibly useful in every case, regardless of the shape of the creature or how many
legs it happened to have...
You might be thinking this sounds insane, which is exactly what I thought when Glen tried to convince me,
but it's worth giving it a try if you've never experimented working this way. Maybe, like me, you'll find it
handy.
Yes, it's a slightly "layered" approach to your animation, but I still think of my work as 100% pose-to-pose. I'm
merely putting off adding the feet to the pose that I already know I'll eventually want.
The benefit of this is primarily a savings in time. Instead of mucking around with the feet as your move
through the shot, inevitably creating a lot of keys that will probably have to be adjusted throughout the
blocking process, you're ignoring them until you know exactly where they will need to be placed, and exactly
what they're timing will have to be in order to accommodate the cool timing of the body that you've just
nailed down.
Hope that helps someone!

So there it is, our first actual mega-practical "trick." If anyone actually reads this column and has an opinion
one way or the other about whether they'd like to see more "tips" or more "tricks" in the future, email me at:
[email protected] and let me know!
Keep animating, and as always - have FUN!
- Shawn
TRACK YOUR ARCS
Okay, before I get started this month, I just wanted to take a second to thank all the people who wrote in with
comments, ideas, thoughts, jokes, etc. It was a kick to hear from you, and honestly, kind of weird (but
exciting!) to find out that people other than my girlfriend and my Mom actually read this article!
From here on out, feel free to continue to hit me up with any thoughts at:
[email protected]
A lot of the feedback I got was very positive in terms of last month’s deviation into the world of
practical“tricks,” which seems to have been a particularly nice diversion after so many months of sometimes
intangible animation theory.
In light of that, how about another trick?
I’m kind of torn, here, between feeling like a lot of the tricks that spring to mind are commonly known among
animators, and thinking that there are also a lot of newer animators out there reading this article who may
not have already been to animation school.
Last month’s“hide the legs” trick was pretty advanced (again, I wouldn’t recommend trying that method until
you’ve animated for a couple of years or so at least,) so this month let’s give you newer folks something
easier (but not less helpful) to try!
TRICK #2: Track Your Arcs!!
I’m sure many of you have already discovered the fantastic combination of dry-erase markers and your
monitor. Like peanut butter & jelly, prosciutto & melon, and fried chicken & my taste buds, these are two
things that were destined to make a great team.
For the rest of you, the trick is this: use a dry-erase marker (such as the ubiquitous“Sanford EXPO” or
an“Avery Marks-A-Lot”) to track your arcs, through time and space, by tracing the movement of your
character across your screen.
Now, before we go any further, let me quickly touch on a ***VERY IMPORTANT*** difference between a “dryerase marker,” which are traditionally used to draw on white-boards and are easily wiped away, and a
Sharpie, which is traditionally used as a non- smearing permanent marker.
Dry-erase markers are, as their name implies, easily erased.
Permanent markers, such as Sharpies, are.... yup, you guessed it! Permanent!
It may sound like common sense to you that one would work well drawing on your computer monitor, and
one wouldn’t.
Well, I think it’s important to talk about anyway, because I happen to know of an animator, who will remain
nameless but may or may not write a monthly“Animation Tips & Tricks” article for the newsletter of a certain
online animation school, who got a little too caught up in the excitement of polishing up one of his shots one
night at home. This Anonymous Animator, who may or may not love fried chicken, intelligently kept all of his
pens in one jar on his desk (smart, huh?).
Felt-tips hanging out with Hi-lighter pens... Ball-points chillin’ with metallic ink pens... Sharpies buddy-buddy
with... yup, once again, you guess it - with dry-erase markers.
So, this anonymous animator, who may or may not be.... um.... me, snagged the nearest fat pen out of his jar
and started tracking his arcs on his monitor. Luckily, his animation-induced euphoria only lasted for the first
two dots before he realized he was marking his monitor with a fat-tip PERMANENT SHARPIE!
That’s right. Sharpie. Guess what happens when you put permanent sharpie ink on your monitor? It stays
there! PERMANENTLY! I... I mean, the Anonymous Animator, had to live with two beady little black eyeballs
dotting his monitor for the next few years.
So, trust me when I caution you to be extremely careful which pen you use to do this trick, ok? Dry-erase
only! Make sure it says dry-erase on the marker, or don’t put it anywhere near your expensive screen.
Okay, back to the trick...

You’ve likely already heard the importance of building nicely flowing arcs and figure-8 curves into the
movements of your characters. (If you haven’t, shoot me an email, and maybe I’ll make that my next topic!)
That’s all well and good from a theory side of things, but practically speaking, how do you make sure your
arcs are nice?
Well, there are a couple of ways of doing this (many animation programs have a ghosting function you can
use to see the arcs, for example, but I find this difficult to use in complex motions,) but my favorite, and the
favorite of most professionals that I know, is the simple act of plotting a dotted line on your monitor with your
trusty dry-erase marker.
You should be thinking about your arcs in the planning stages of your work. Certainly, in the thumbnails you
should be considering whether or not the head will move in an over-arc or an under-arc, or how the tail might
swish back and forth with the tip tracing a figure-8 pattern. Next will be the blocking stage, and you should
DEFINITELY have your arcs in mind when blocking in your keys and breakdowns. One of the primary
functions of the breakdown, in fact, should be to define the arcing path of the hips and limbs, in my opinion.
However, no matter how well you plan your arcs, and how well you block in your scene, your arcs are not
going to be perfect most of the time. You might play your scene back and think, “wow, my arcs are great!”
but if you really get in there and track them, and truly smooth them out, you will see a subtle but powerfully
fluid difference in your next render.
Here’s what I do:
Once I feel like I’m about 80-90% done with my work, I bust out my trusty Marks-A-Lot or my Expo, and get to
work.
First, make sure you’re working from your camera view. Those of you creating in-game 3D work for video
games will have an even bigger challenge as you’ll track the arcs from many different angles, but for many of
you, your animation will end up being seen on a flat 2D surface (a computer monitor, a TV screen, a movie
theater screen, etc.) In those cases, the only camera we’re worried about at this moment is the actual
camera view, because that is the arc that will matter.
So, in my camera view, I’ll first select the hips of my character. In Maya, I can select the nurbs sphere that I
use to control the placement of the hips and hit the“w” key, putting me into“translation” mode. This is nice,
because it brings up your little multi-axis icon, and that icon has a little box in the center of it. This is an easy
way to see the exact center of the hips on any given frame.
So, I’ll go to any parts of my scene where the hips are doing something big. Let’s say my character is going to
ring a bell by pulling down on a rope. Through planning my scene, I’ve discovered that all of the force the
character is going to use to pull on that rope is through a wave action that moves from the hips, through the
spine, and finally out into the arms, and that wave action is caused by a clockwise outwardly-spiraling arc of
the hips.
Wow, was that confusing? I wonder if I could possibly have chosen a more complicated example for this...
jeez. Well, it’s too late now, folks. We’re in too deep. See, we’re already two paragraphs into this example,
and I haven’t eaten dinner yet (nope, not fried chicken tonight... I wish!) so there’s no way I’m going back
now! We’ll just keep slogging through the bell-pull. Trust me, we can do
it...
Anyway, the hips move in a clockwise spiraling arc that goes like this: They move back and down a bit, then
up, then forward, then down and forward, and then down and back, and then start to move up and back.
Jeeeeeez. That was even more confusing than before. Holy moly. Are any of you following this at all? Basically
they’re moving in a circle, but it’s getting wider as you move through time.
Okay, never mind. Let’s just move on before I confuse you any more than you already are... So, in my
blocking, I’ll hopefully have the hips traveling in a somewhat circular pattern.
However, it most likely isn’t PERFECTLY on a nice arc. This is where my pen comes in. I’ll go to where that
specific hip motion begins, select the hips, hit “w,” and then put a dot right in the middle of my translator
icon. Then I’ll do the same thing on the next frame, and all the following frames until that motion is pretty
much done.
Now you just play the“connect-the-dots” game you might have played as a kid. Guess what you’ll find? An
arc vaguely resembling a nice spiral, but also vaguely resembling a spiral drawn by an over-caffeinated
monkey. You’ll probably see that some dots are too high or too low, and the resulting path you traced has
jitters and bobbles and wobbles and bends. It might even double back on itself, or hit sharp 90 degree
corners and careen off to the next key.
This is normal, and will be worse the less-experienced you are, so relax.

The next step, is to draw onto your monitor the path that you WANT to have. You can do this with a different
color, or you can just amend the path you just drew. Either way, the goal is to end up with a nice drawing of
the spiral curving arc that you’d ideally like to have.
Now all you do is go back to your keys and breakdowns, and readjust the hip controller to always be on that
path. Sometimes you’ll have to do this on every frame, but usually you can just adjust the key poses and
breakdowns. Most likely these will be subtle adjustments, but sometimes you really screw things up early on
and this step can occasionally become a major construction zone, with some serious reworking needed to
make the path work correctly.
If so, just suck it up and do it, because believe me - it’ll make all the difference.
In fact, I think a lot of the time, the difference between amateur animation and professional animation is
nothing more than some really clean and pleasing arcs in the motion. It can truly make all the difference.
Since the hips can often affect the position and movement of the rest of the body, it’s important to begin
there before moving on. Once I’ve got the hips on a nice path, I can move on to the rest of the body.
For this scene, my next targets would be the hands. I’ll select the right hand controller, hit“w,” and go to the
frames where he’s lifting his hand to grab the rope. I’ll track each frame, connect the dots, rework my path,
and make sure his wrist slides nicely along it. Most likely, this will be a skinny, interrupted figure 8 path, with
the hand moving up slightly higher and further forward than it needs to go, and then arcing over and back
down a bit as it grabs the rope.
In any given scene, I’ll usually do this exact process with the following points:
1.
Hips (unless the character is pretty much just standing there)
2.
Hands (always)
3.
Feet (depending on how active they are)
4.
Tail (I’ll always track the tip of any tail on a character to make sure it’s always flowing along an
appealing path of arcs and figure 8’s)
5.
Nose (the nose is always a nice point on the head to track, for head turns, etc)
6.
Mouth corners (sometimes it’s really nice to get them moving on tiny little arcs as they curl up into a
smile, etc)
7.
Props/weapons (such as the tip of Yoda’s Lightsaber)
I think this really hit home with one of my Yoda shots. I had him doing all these laser-blocking moves as a
crowd of clone troopers were firing at him, and I thought it looked pretty cool. Then I realized I was being
lazy, and I kicked myself in the butt and got in there and tracked the tip of that lightsaber for every single
frame in the shot and made sure it was always on flowing looping figure 8 patterns (which were completely
separate from the arcing path of the hands, in order to loosen the saber up a bit and not look like a stick
glued to his palm.)
Holy cow - what a huge difference! I couldn’t believe how much more appealing it looked, how much more
clear the actions were, and how much easier it was to watch. That’s when I added number 7 (props/weapons)
to my list of things“Shawn Will Always Track.” Every once in a while, there may be other things to track, such
as an elbow, or even occasionally a shoulder movement or something, but most of the time you won’t have
to get that in-depth.
Does everything move in perfect arcs in real life? Well, not always 100% perfectly, no. But generally
speaking, everything organic on this planet moves in an arc MOST of the time. The only things that don’t
move in nice arcs are machines built by man, maybe some insects (which are most likely just moving in arcs
too small for us to register), and our eyeballs, which to me, are the only “darting” movements on the body
that could be thought of in a more “robotic” way.
From the tip of a tree swaying in the wind to the throwing arm of a baseball pitcher -- every living thing
moves in an arc. Whether we know it consciously or not, that’s how we’re used to seeing the world, and
believe me, if the audience sees some jagged angled “arcs” up there on movie screen, or on their television,
or in their video game, they are going to feel that it’s fake. Maybe even subconsciously, but they’ll feel it.
So, get out your dry-erase markers and start connecting some dots! I bet you’ll be surprised at what a
difference it’ll make.
Okay, that’s it! If my calculations are correct, next month will be the one year anniversary of this article,
(wow!) so next month let’s all celebrate together. When you read next month’s article, read it with a bacardi
anejo y coca in one hand, and some fried chicken in the other. That’s how I’ll be writing it!
Keep animating! And, as always, have FUN!
-Shawn

TRACK YOUR ARCS – PART II
Well, guess what time it is?
It's time to celebrate!! That's right, this is the one year anniversary of our famously rambling tips & tricks
article!
A year ago I thought this was going to be a three part article about planning your scenes... Knowing my
tendency to ramble, one of the fellas at work said he doubted that I could keep my "planning article" to a
mere three parts. Well, here I am a year later, still rambling on and on about all things animation, so I guess
he was right!
Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun writing it, and even more fun hearing back from you guys (hit me at:
tipsandtricks@ animationmentor.com), so it's time to sit back, reflect on a year of tips, and most of all - to
celebrate! I warned you that I'd be mowing down on fried chicken and drinking a celebratory Bacardi Anejo y
coca (that's aged Bacardi, which tastes approximately 1000 times better than regular Bacardi, and Coke), so
that's exactly what I'm doing!
In light of that, I should probably try to write fast, because if I start to get tipsy, there's no telling how long
this article might get, or what bizarre tangency we might find ourselves pulled down... I can only guarantee
true animation talk for 2 drinks, at most. If I hit drink #3 and we're still all sitting here, there's a very real
danger that we'll start talking about a lot less about animation and a lot more about fried chicken, why I hate
moths, and the dream I had last week where undercover agents were attacking me with angry attack
chickens...
Anyway, if you're of drinking age and want to join in with me for my One Year Anniversary celebration, you'll
need the following: A glass.
5 pieces of ice.
1/2 can of Pepsi (or Coke, if you think Coke tastes better than Pepsi, but you're wrong) 1 1/2 shots of Bacardi
Anejo (or a little more, if you're feeling especially macho)
Mix all of those things together, and prepare for some tasty goodness!
So... First off, I want to address a few comments I got in the email last month:
I heard some great tips about removing permanent maker ink from your monitor (where were you guys when
I needed you!?!), so while I have no idea if these ideas actually work, if you find yourself with ink on your
monitor (as I did), you could take Yudhatama's advice and try paint thinner to remove it... Or you could listen
to Chad T, who found that going over his permanent marker mistake with a dry erase marker made the ink
erasable! (Great tips! Thanks!)
Someone also pointed out that I should have elaborated more about using dry-erase markers on an LCD
monitor. If you don't want to draw directly on your monitor (which isn't the greatest thing for your LCD
monitor, potentially), some people get a hold of a piece of plastic, or Mylar, or a clear animation cell and
attach it to their monitor with tape. When they want to draw, the simply flip the cell down in front of their
monitor, track their arcs, fix their work, and then flip the cell back over their monitor. (Thanks to Jeff G for this
great idea!)
And since we're in reader-feedback mode, I had a request from Jessica Duenke to send out a visual example
of my bell-pull description from last month (which she kindly neglected to mention was the most confusing
description of an animation example in the history
of animation examples). In case you are a new reader, or (more likely) your horrified brain immediately
rejected and erased the memory last month, I was talking about the spiraling motion of the hips generating
all of the power in a "bell-pull" example.
I dug around through my notebooks, and happened to see an old quickie sketch I had done for some students
in a class once when we were talking about something really similar, so I went ahead and scanned it in.
While this was a very quick drawing done on the spot, it's actually pretty exemplary of the extent of my
drawing skills these days, so in case you've been harboring any illusions that you're reading a tips & tricks
article written by someone who can draw like James Baxter, prepare for immediate and sobering
disappointment.
Shawn Kelly’s bell-pull example:

...Okay, for those of you who didn't immediately close the newsletter in disgust, the blue line is the
exaggerated spiraling path of the hips I was talking about tracking the arc of, some of which is roughly
broken down on the far right as well. Obviously this is only one of a gajillion ways to animate a bell-pull, but it
was a way to illustrate my point. (James Baxter did an amazing bell-pull at the beginning of Hunchback of
Notre Dame that's worth frame-by-framing, by the way. (Awesome example of force).

Anyway, that was a pretty awesome drawing, huh? Check out how when he stretches up onto his toes, he's
the exact same height as when he's standing there hunched over. Talk about volumes being all out of
whack... Yikes! And those circles at the top of his arms are supposed to indicate shoulders, by the way...
ugh.
Wow. Looking at it now, it's really....embarrassing. I'm so tempted to delete this, but I'm way too lazy to
redraw it properly... Hang on a minute, time to refill Mr. Bacardi Anejo before I get too depressed.
Okay, I'm back and feeling much better! Mr. Bacardi Anejo was just telling me that it's "okee dokee
artichokee" not to redraw the abomination you see above, and is helping me justify my laziness by claiming
that I'll have more time to write if I don't spend
time redoing an old drawing... Wow, cool! Thanks, Mr.
Bacardi Anejo! You're such a swell Anejo! (even if you do use words like "artichokee...")
(uh oh, drink #2 is showing, huh? I'm pretty sure that when you're having a conversation with your drink in
front of around 18,000 people, you're officially tipsy).
Anyway, what I had written last month was the following, and hopefully it might make more sense now,
unless the drawing is so horrible that I've confused you even further. (If so, then I apologize, but respectfully
blame the combined efforts of Jessica and Bacardi Anejo):
"Let's say my character is going to ring a bell by pulling down on a rope. Through planning my scene, I've
discovered that all of the force the character is going to use to pull on that rope is through a wave action that
moves from the hips, through the spine, and finally out into the arms, and that wave action is caused by a
clockwise outwardly-spiraling arc of the hips.
Wow, was that confusing? I wonder if I could possibly have chosen a more complicated example for this...
jeez. Well, it's too late now, folks. We're in too deep. See, we're already two paragraphs into this example,
and I haven't eaten dinner yet (nope, not fried chicken tonight... I wish!), so there's no way I'm going back
now! We'll just keep slogging through the bell-pull. Trust me, we can do it...
Anyway, the hips move in a clockwise spiraling arc that goes like this: They move back and down a bit, then
up, then forward, then down and forward, and then down and back, and then start to move up and back."
Does that make any more sense now that you've seen my masterpiece drawing? Hope so!
Okay, so this month's article is getting pretty heavy on reader-feedback. I think I'd better turn it into an allreader-feedback article! Otherwise we're all going to be sitting here for a VERY long time, and longtime
readers know that when I say "very long time," I mean "it's going to take you more than one day to read
this."
So let's do a little more reader feedback, drink the rest of our Bacardi Anejos, and do our best to forget about
Shawn Kelly's drawing abilities (or lack thereof)...
I got a couple emails asking about figure 8 arcs, which I had considered writing about tonight, but I think it'll
have to wait for an upcoming article since we're rapidly approaching Drink #3, and we all know what
happens then...
...Angry Attack Chickens. Need I say more?
CONTRAST IN POSING
Wow! I'm thinking of making a New Year's resolution to be more concise with these articles, but if you've
been reading this column for a while, you know that's probably pretty much impossible for me, so why even
bother. I get too excited about this stuff, and I have the unfortunate (for you) skill (thanks to my Mom's typing
lessons 20 years ago) of being able to type 105 words per minute. (Yes, I just took an online typing test, and
yes, that was thinly-disguised bragging. ...to whom, I have no idea. Typing teachers, I guess). The
consequence of this, of course, is that before I even start talking about today's topic, I know this is going to
be a long one!
So buckle up, because this one's meaty. I am, by no means, the expert on this subject, but I'll go ahead and
share the bits I've picked up along my animation journey...
Contrast.
If you're newer to animation, you're saying, "Huh? Contrast? Like the TV setting?" which was pretty much my
first reaction too. What's contrast? Well, on your TV, your digital camera, or in Photoshop, it's the amount of
grayscale that exists between black and white. But contrast exists in all things and in many forms, in every
day life. Contrast is the difference between things.
What's that have to do with animation?
*TIP #13: Contrast Is The Key To Entertainment, Part I (Contrast In Posing)*

There is nothing that will add more life to your scene than contrast. Contrast makes a scene fun. It gives it
interest. It imbues it with a sense of immediacy and power. Contrast draws an audience into your scene and
locks their attention. Without contrast, the world is flat. It's boring. Robotic. A scene without contrast is like
being forced to listen to a monotone voice over and over, while a scene that has been carefully constructed
to make use of contrast opportunities will pop from the screen.
People enjoy change. Maybe not when it's happening to themselves, necessarily, but we all enjoy WATCHING
change. Regardless of how it affects us emotionally, we are drawn to tragedy, triumph, tears, and joy. We
gobble up love story after love story, horror movie after horror movie.

But what's a love story without first seeing the characters before they fall in love? We pay for our ticket to see
them actually FALL IN LOVE. To see them change. To see the process of the characters moving from lonely
isolation to finding each other, falling for each other, screwing it all up, breaking up, realizing they are meant
for each other, getting back together, blah blah blah. We watch to SEE these changes, these moments in
time that are full of energy and drama. If a movie started with 2 people madly and happily in love, and we
watched two hours of them simply going on romantic picnics, having dinner with their loving welcoming
families, dancing under the stars, and then the movie ends and they're still just in love... well, come on!
Could there possibly BE a more boring movie? That movie would put all but the most diehard romantics to
sleep. And what about horror? We go to a horror movie to be scared, right? I want to be frightened. Creeped
out, grossed out, whatever - I paid my $10, just make me feel scared walking back to my car after the movie
and I'll be happy. But what would a horror movie be like if it was just endless non-stop "scary" images for 2
hours? It would all degenerate into noise after 15 minutes. It could be the creepiest, scariest imagery
imaginable, and we'd all be bored out of our minds (and probably disgusted) in no time flat. Why? Because
in order for a genuine scare to happen in a movie, there needs to be some periods of calm. Moments of levity.
Give us some daylight, and a giggle at a funny conversation, and something happy. Then, and only then, can
you WHAM us with something that'll really scare us.
It's that contrast that will truly frighten and entertain us. It's that contrast that will make us flinch and spill
our popcorn and then laugh. And it's that contrast we paid to see. Just as the best photographs contrast the
preconceived ideas of the viewer with the results they find, or how the best mysteries conclude with a
revelation that starkly contrasts our expectations, or how the best comedies (or any good joke, for that
matter) contrast the normal world with the absurd -- contrast likewise fills any animation scene with that
most elusive and desirable ingredient, entertainment.
In short, it gives your audience a reason to look at it.... and better still, it gives them a desire to keep looking!
Animators use contrast in two key ways. We hunt for opportunities to use contrast in POSING and contrast in
TIMING. Let's talk about posing first.
Anyone who's taken a figure drawing class knows the most boring pose you can possibly draw is of a person
just standing straight up, arms at their sides. Zero contrast. On the other hand, poses filled with contrasting
shapes and angles create a sense of dynamism and strength, and give the artist a chance to convey the
power and weight of the body. One of the most commonly drawn poses, the classic "contrapposto," evident
in everything from classical renaissance sculpture to today's modern superhero comics, is simply a way of
contrasting the angle of the hips with the angle of the shoulders, creating a far less stiff (boring) standing
pose that helps us feel the weight of the body balanced over one foot or the other.
So right off the bat, we know that symmetry is boring. Why? No contrast! This is the basis for the concept of
twinning, which should probably be its own article so I won't go into it here (want to hear more about
twinning, or anything else under the sun? Hit me back at [email protected]) other than to
say you should almost always avoid it. Anyway, the point is, if the right arm is raised and pointing, you should
(as a general rule of thumb, but not 100% of the time) usually try to find something else to do with the left
arm in order to create a more interesting, dynamic, and contrast-filled pose.
Where else could you contrast poses? Well, instead of just thinking about the static pose of a single frame,
how about finding ways to contrast the poses that occur throughout a scene?
Reversals, as one example, are the most commonly employed facet of this idea. Reversing the curve of a
spine from a "(" curve to
a ")" for example. This basic principle - essentially a distilling of the wave/whip
action that rolls through the body, driven by the arc of the hips and the shifting balance of weight - is what
gives the power and force to a baseball pitch or the bell-pull I talked about
a couple months ago. So,
mechanically, you're pretty much forced to put reversals into many actions simply because the rules of body
mechanics dictate that they must be there, BUT you should also be aware of the contrast you are building
into these overall pose shapes, and the entertainment value they inevitably add to your shot.
Reversals are one of the most powerful tools an animator has in his arsenal for creating dynamic and
powerful movements. You'll use them in everything from lifting a heavy object to big emotional changes, such
as shifting from shy to confident. (A shy character will be hunched over, with the spine bent down, but when
he discovers that confidence, it will likely be best communicated to the audience through an overall spine
reversal, now being bent back, head held high, etc).

You can even apply this idea of contrast on a very subtle level to animation cycles.
I should qualify this by saying that if you have to do a short cycle, a 30 frames walk cycle for example, then
you should probably steer clear of contrast for the most part.
If you've done any cycle work, you know
that anything of interest that happens in a short walk
cycle (say, a blink, or one hand having a different style of swing than the other, or one step being slower than
the other) is going to jump out at the audience and scream "I AM CYCLED ANIMATION!!!!" from the
mountaintops, so you usually want to keep short cycles as vanilla and bland as possible. Some characters,
obviously, will require more "character" to their walk (say, a strutting gangster or a stiff military commander)
which might require contrast between the steps, but otherwise, keep it mostly symmetrical. This allows other
animators to use extrapolated versions of your walk-cycle in other scenes of the production and then build on
top of your work to add in the necessary contrast throughout the scene.
Anyway, caveats aside, if you are doing a walk cycle that will be 10 steps or so, then I'd definitely encourage
subtle (SUBTLE!) contrast throughout the walk. Maybe the left footstep takes 12 frames one time, and then a
couple steps later that same step takes 11 frames. Then it takes 13, maybe. Or maybe the right shoulder
drops a little on the 4th step, or the hips fall barely harder on the 7th step than they did on the 5th step. Tiny
little additions like this will give your cycle a sense of organic life, and all these barely discernible differences
will culminate in a more interesting, more "alive," cycle.
Okay, so have I harped on contrast in posing enough, yet? Thought so. Let's move on to Timing.
You know what? Actually (sorry for the tease), this is already getting pretty long, and I have a *lot* to say
about timing. If I dive into timing right now, we'll be here all night, and this article will be twice as long as it is
now. I'll go ahead and save Contrast In Timing for next time.
In the meantime, it's been awesome hearing from you, so please feel free to continue to email any
comments, suggestions, fried chicken recipes (thanks, Rosie!), or typing test scores to me at
[email protected].
So.... until next time, keep animating! And as always, have FUN!
shawn :)
CONTRAST IN TIMING
Hello animators!
Welcome to part two of contrast! It was great hearing from you guys last month
([email protected]), and hopefully this will expand on contrast enough to answer some of
your questions.
Last month, we talked about the overall importance of contrast in entertainment and any art, be it sculpture,
painting, photography, joke-telling, storytelling, horror movies, or love stories, and more specifically, we
talked about the importance of using contrast in our posing. If you haven't read it yet, I'd encourage you to
start with last month's article, which you can link to in our archives.
This time around, we'll talk about applying the concept of contrast to an area of animation where it's arguably
even more vital than with posing: timing.
*So, Tip #14: Contrast is the Key to Entertainment, Part II (Contrast in Timing)*
Gene Deitch, in "How to Succeed in Animation" says the following:
"The art of animation timing is related to a basic element of all art, and that is contrast. What makes a
painting, a drawing, a sculpture, a building, a play, a movie, or a piece of music or ANY object visually or
aurally interesting and dynamic, is contrast. Dark vs. Light, Large vs. Small, Blur vs. Sharp, Straight vs. Curve,
Rounded vs. Angular, Near vs. Far, Loud vs. Soft, Slow vs. Fast, Pause vs. Action. These last pairings are at
the heart of animation timing."
For the most part, the only things on this planet which move at perfect spacing at all times are machines.
Contrast not only adds fun to your scene, or that elusive sense of life, but building contrast into the timing of
your scene adds organic believability.
Putting contrast into your timing, like anything else I've ever written about here, is going to take careful
thought and pre-planning. It will become second-nature after a while, but for the first few years of your
animation journey, it isn't something that will magically appear in your work. During your planning process,
consider different uses of contrast (timing and posing), and how those moments might best be used to
communicate emotion changes, sell jokes, show weight, or simply imbue your character with more
entertaining and dynamic movement.

Let's say you have a scene in which a boxer needs to take two steps forward and throw a punch at someone.
So, the basic breakdown is two steps and a punch, right? Pretty simple. But you'll find that contrast can be
put into any sequence of movements or emotions that are made up of three or more parts. So what jumps
out at me right away here is "oh, three things are happening. Cool. Could be a good chance for some
contrast." And then I'll play with those three things in my mind, or on paper, or in my video reference, and
exaggerate different levels of contrasting timing between those three things to see how it feels.
For example, let's say you do what 90% of young animators will unconsciously do when they are given that
scene. They'll block it out, and without even knowing they are doing it, those three actions will be timed
evenly, as though set to the tick-tock of a metronome.
Step...Step...Punch. I had a big problem with this in my first few years of animation, where senior animators
were constantly pointing out to me, "um, your actions are all timed evenly," and they'd clap their hands to
the beat of my scene, and I'd be shocked to find my character's big moments to be animated to a steady
beat. It wasn't something I was trying to do, it was simply something that happened without my noticing it.
So, 8 years ago, I may have animated it like this: Step...Step...Punch. Even timing.
But what would be better?
Well, if you look at those three actions, and picture them in your head, almost any other version of the timing
between those three actions would be far more dynamic, powerful, and interesting to watch. For example,
what if it were two quick steps, then a big pause where the character leans WAY back to throw the punch and
then he delivers it?
Step-Step.............PUNCH!
This would be so much better. It creates a moment of tension. It's the calm before the storm, and that builds
interest. The audience is left on the edge of their seats, just for a minute. "Will he throw the punch? Will it
land? Is he rethinking his move? He's really winding up for quite a hit!" Suddenly the audience's brains are
churning, and better yet, you have sucked them into your scene, and they are watching as though they are
truly there with the soldier. They're in the movie now. They aren't bored, they aren't checking their watch -they're hanging on your every move.
Another idea might be to take one big step with the left foot, pause for a moment, arm cocked back, and then
quickly take a huge right step and immediately swing his torso around to throw the punch with his right arm.
Step................Step-PUNCH!
This might not offer quite as many opportunities for the audience to involve themselves in the shot (pausing
just before the climax is usually the most dramatic), but it's still far superior to the even timing in every way.
The punch will be much more powerful, you've created a sense of a "wind-up" in the body and a rapid unwinding as he quickly steps and spins to throw the punch, adding a lot of force and dynamism to the move.
And you still have an actual bona fide pause in the scene, which is the key ingredient to any contrast, and an
absolutely necessary one if you want to give the audience a chance to enjoy the action, or to involve them in
it. Even in this version, that early pause does give the audience a chance to think "oh my gosh! He's going to
throw his big punch! Wait, is he? Yes, he IS!"
Either of these versions will undoubtedly be more exciting, fun, and alive to the audience, creating a
memorable moment for them in the movie, game, or TV show.
Contrast creates rhythm, and we should strive constantly to create rhythm in our work.
Think of your scene like a song. Actions should rise and fall, rest for a bit, rise into a bigger swelling
crescendo, and then drift back again. Imagine if a song were constant crescendo? We'd be reaching for
earplugs after less than a minute. We'd be worn out! Meanwhile, having no crescendo at all is just as bad, as
the boring song would put us all to sleep.
Think of your favorite film scores, the best themes. The crescendo of the Superman Theme is amazing, but if
the entire song was just like the crescendo, the crescendo loses any power it had, and the song dissolves into
noise. What lends that theme its power is the slow build and mini-crescendos that lead up to the climax of
the song. In short, the contrast is what makes the crescendo exciting, and without it, it's just a bunch of loud
noise.
So it is for your animation as well. Your scene is a song, and while your crescendo may sometimes be a very
subtle one, perhaps nothing more than a small eye adjustment, even that can be the crescendo within the
context of your scene,. The audience loves the feeling of building tension, and then the release of that
tension. Maybe your scene is simply one of a series of scenes in which the tension is building. You can STILL
find opportunities for contrast, and within your overall goal of "building the tension," you can almost always
still create tiny pauses and ups and downs that give "texture" to your scene.
A by-product of this, will be adding that organic believability to your shot as well, because once again, we are
not machines. We don't slowly escalate from "calm" to "furious" on some constant rate, our face morphing
evenly from one emotion to the other! Our brains are churning, (as seen through our eyes), and as we

consider the situation, we become angrier and angrier, but those moments come in spurts and rushes,
separated by moments of thought.
Something else to consider with contrast, is that while your scene is a song, it is likely only one part of a
much larger song: the overall story arc, or at least the more immediate arc of the sequence. You need to
consider the whole song when composing your small part of it otherwise you cannot know how far you ought
to push your crescendo. For example, let's say I'm doing a scene in which Yoda hears some terrible news and
gets very angry. Well, my inclination as an animator is that I want to exaggerate those emotions as much as I
can. I want to show the world that he's FURIOUS! I want the coolest, angriest, bad-ass Yoda I can create,
right?
So I take his facial controls and sculpt his face into a mask of absolute rage. And then I sit back and say,
"Cool! He looks so angry! My supervisor is going to love this."
Well, maybe that's true, but if I haven't considered the needs of the whole sequence, it might also turn out
I'm being a cocky dimwit, and that 10 scenes later, Yoda finds out something even worse, and needs to
become ENRAGED!
Well, if I already pushed his face as angry as it can go in my scene, what is the animator supposed to do 10
scenes later? My crescendo has inadvertently overshadowed his, and what will happen? Well, what will
happen is that I'll be the one redoing my scene and slowing down production, that's what will happen! No
matter how well I did the animation, the needs of the story will outweigh what I have done, and I'll have to
adjust my scene to be less angry in order to save the anger for the moment the story truly demands it.
As long as you are keeping the context of your scene in mind, however, contrast is always something you
should actively pursue. The key is often finding ONE MOMENT to build your entire scene around. This moment
is your crescendo, and everything else around it must be "smaller," or "slower," or else at least helping add
to the build-up to the crescendo, or contributing to the release
after it. Once you choose your moment, be sure not to overshadow it elsewhere in your scene with a bigger
or faster move. Let the crescendo be your moment, and use the rest of your scene to contribute to its power.
Be sure not to choose multiple crescendos in your scene, unless it's a really long scene, or in the rare case
that the story demands multiple climaxes in your scene. You want to focus on one idea at a time. Give the
audience one thing to be looking for. Don't confuse us with mini-climaxes going on all over the place, or your
scene will feel scattered and spastic. Your chosen crescendo can be incredibly subtle, but whenever possible,
try not to have more than one. This is especially important in 2-character scenes, by the way, where you
might want some back-and-forth happening between the characters. They might each have their own
crescendo, but the best scenes usually have one character "winning" the "crescendo battle," otherwise it
devolves into a shouting match. They should interact in a believable, but rhythmic way
- their beats working together like instruments in your song.
The last thing I think I'll say about this is one other tip -- sometimes you need to ignore some dialogue beats
in order to properly create a contrasted performance.
To me, a "beat" at its most basic level is a change from one emotion to another or a change from one subtext
to another. The best lines of dialogue have at least two beats, or - in other words, at least one shift in
emotion. The character moves from angry (Beat 1) to furious (Beat 2) or from scared to heartbroken, or from
joy to disappointment.
Those are the meaty scenes you can truly sink your animation teeth into.
But sometimes, especially in a longer monologue, you might feel you can hear many beats. And sometimes,
especially with a less gifted actor reading the words, it might sound like a lot of moments could be
crescendos. Or worse, the operative words (the most enunciated and exaggerated words in the monologue)
might be very evenly spaced, as though he's speaking to a metronome.
Well, it will be up to you, as the animator and true actor of this scene, to pick and choose your beats. In other
words, you're going to make the conscious decision in your planning to ignore some of the reader's beats,
and to ignore some of these operative words. Why? Well, if you don't, you won't have any contrast in your
scene.
You'll have multiple crescendos competing for dominance, and evenly spaced gestures throughout the scene.
Instead, you should make smart decisions about which crescendos you can bring down slightly, if not ignore
completely, and which operative words you can get away with skipping. Unless the line reading is
absolutely horrible, you're probably only going to be ignoring one or two operative words at most, letting
them go by with merely a small head motion to accompany them, saving the bigger body stuff and gestures
for the operatives word(s) you've chosen to build your scene around.
In other words, if you have to dumb down a couple of moments that the dialogue sounds big, in order to
focus on what you feel is THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENT, and in order to create some pauses and calm in
the scene to contrast with the bigger moments, then go for it.

Or, to put it even simpler: don't let a bad line reading force you into even timing and overacting.
Are there times when you'd WANT to have a scene that is "all crescendo?" Sure! If the story calls for a frantic,
spastic scene, then that is exactly what you should do. Likewise, sometimes you'll want even timing (most
often in relation to a joke), such as in the Wrong Trousers (the end of chapter 5), when Wallace's toast-making
machine goes through its motions. All of the things it does are done on an even timing to really drive the joke
home when the toaster pops open, no toast pops out, and then you have the beat just before he gets a face
full of jam, where there SHOULD be toast, but isn't. This is an interesting case, as it's also a wonderful use of
contrast (that moment of pause before the punch line is probably my favorite 1/2 second in the whole film),
but it's also interesting to note how the even timing helps sell the no-toast joke.
Or consider the way we all laughed at the monotone teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off , intoning over and
over, "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?" His monotone voice was used for comedic effect, and was hilarious.
So, there are always exceptions to any rule, but (and yes, I know this is the oldest cliché in the animation
book) you need to make sure you understand the rules before you break them.
Well, that's it for contrast, I think. Still awake? Hope so! Feel free to email any thoughts to:
[email protected]
Keep animating, and as always, have FUN!
shawn :)
YOU ARE A TOOL
Hello gang!
Welcome back for another round of Tips & Tricks! As always, feel free to hit me back with comments,
questions, criticisms, and fried chicken recipes at [email protected].
The last couple of months we've been talking about contrast, but I think it's time to leave contrast behind us.
I think we've said pretty much all I really want to say about it, and in keeping with the original mandate of
writing about "whatever I feel like writing about on any given day," we're going to talk about something else
that's been on my mind a bit today. It's a little less concrete than contrast, but no less important.
Before we dive in, I want to say one thing. This article might sound a little more negative than normal. It's
about a slightly unpleasant subject, but I feel like it's something that isn't talked about enough in schools,
and I feel it's an important topic. It's something I've struggled with in the past myself, and a topic that you
won't have to worry about on a regular basis, but one we'll all face at one time or another as professional
animators.
If you've read any of my previous articles, you know that I think I have been blessed with the single most fun
job imaginable, and I love literally every moment of it. That doesn't mean that some of those moments
haven't been difficult or frustrating, but I love it all the same. I might not get along with my brothers every
hour of every single day of my life, but I don't love them any less, you know? Animation can be a cruel
mistress sometimes, but even on the difficult days, it sure beats a "real" job!
So, caveats out of the way, let's jump in.
Tip #15: You Are A Tool.
Whoa. Is that an awesome title or what?! I think that's pretty much the best tip title I've come up with. Let's
just let it sit there for a second...
You are a tool.
So obviously, I don't mean "tool" in the negatively modern sense of the word, I mean it much more literally.
As a professional animator, your job is to be someone else's tool, used by them as a means to an end. You've
been hired by them to create pretty much whatever it is they want you to create.
Seems pretty obvious, right? I mean, if you're signing up for this animation biz, you probably realize that you
aren't going to be directing the first project you work on, and someone else will be telling you what to do.
It's not that simple though, and it's
incredibly easy to get so caught up in the "rights" and "wrongs" of animation, that you forget what your true
job is....
Your job is to be the tool of the director. That's it. That's your whole job.
Let's say you're a construction worker, and the foreman needs some rivets pounded into something with a
hammer. Your tool is the hammer, right? Well, the foreman's tool for getting those rivets pounded is... ...Can
you guess? It's YOU. You're his tool. Get it?

Now, let's say you're me. My "tools of the trade" are primarily Maya and the mountain of proprietary software
that ILM's coding ninjas regularly crank out for us. So, for the sake of discussion, let's say Maya is my tool.
When I look at Maya, I don't think, "ok, do whatever you want, Mr. Fancy Computer Program." No, I say,
"you're my tool, and you're damn well going to do what I tell you to do!"
With one major exception, that's pretty much the exact relationship you will enjoy with your first few directors
on your first few projects.
Ouch, right? You're like a soulless computer program? What?!
Okay, it isn't as bad as it sounds. The one major exception I mentioned is that the lead on your project, or
the director of your film, is also going to be relying on your artistic sensibilities as well as your expertise in
movement and performance. In theory, that's the whole reason they've come to you in the first place, and
usually that's their mindset. So, that person will be relying on you to bring something to the table, much
more than I rely on Maya to bring anything remotely artistic to the table. (repeat after me: your computer is
the world's worst inbetweener! FORCE it to look right!)
Anyway, let me get to my point. Right now I'm working on a big action-packed movie, which is being directed
by one of the most successful directors around. For this story, let's call him BigTime Director. My animation
tool is the computer, right? So.... what's BigTime Director's animation tool?
Me.
Well, me and 18 other people, but you get the idea. The entire animation team is his animation tool. And
together we'll do our best to put his vision up on that screen.
As with any good director, he has specific ideas of how he wants these creatures to move, and my sole job at
ILM is to make sure that they do EXACTLY what he wants. It's up to the animators to bring that vision to life as
best we can. Sure, we get to offer a lot of suggestions, and bring a lot of ideas to the table, but at the end of
the day if it doesn't make BigTime Director happy, then it's wrong.
No matter how cool it is, no matter how fun it is, no matter how "right" it is, it's wrong. All the timing might be
perfect, the posing dynamic, and mechanics absolutely solid, but it's still wrong.
It sounds so simple, but it's really not. By the time you're working on a professional project, you probably
have years of experience studying animation. If you're one of our students, the fundamental principles have
been drilled into your head until you know them like the back of your hand. The basic concept of overlap is
as intrinsic to every shot you animate as holding your breath when you go swimming.
It's instinctual. Essential.
You get a new shot that you're really excited about, and you block it in. Of course, since you've done your
planning well (see the first few months of this article) you know exactly when and where your overlapping
actions will be, so you block those in as well. The shot looks great! Hooray! You rush to your project lead and
sit her down and show them your impeccable animation blocking.
That person looks at your blocking and says, "This is great, but I don't want any overlap."
Huh? No overlap? But that's wrong!
You try to explain, "No, see, it has to be there, otherwise it's going to look fake. Look, I can't do it in my own
body without overlapping or I fall over."
Doesn't matter. She still doesn't want any overlap in that specific shot. It doesn't match her vision for the
shot.
Guess what? No more overlap. That conversation is over. You blocked it in, and she didn't like it. You even
made a case for it and explained why it's necessary. She still doesn't like it.
At this point, your job as a good professional animator, is to go back to your desk, and animate the best you
possibly can while using no overlap.
Painful, I know. Visions of a cool demo reel shot that were dancing in your head an hour earlier disintegrate
into a bitter haze. But at this point, all you can do is use your training and skills to make the shot as cool as
you possibly can IN SPITE OF the weird direction you just got.
Why? Because you're her tool, and you've been hired to put her vision up on that screen, or on that
videogame machine, or on that computer screen, or on that TV. That's what they pay you for. Sure, they also
pay you because you've got the great animation skills, the enthusiasm, and the fun ideas to put into shots,
but at the end of the day, it all boils down to them paying you to create whatever is in that project lead's
head.

Here's why I bring this up... This is a trap I find difficult in my own life, and worked on a project in my not-toodistant-past where we dealt with this issue constantly. Being asked to animate something in a way that flies
in the face of everything you know and believe about animation is incredibly difficult, and can quickly
become frustrating. I had good days and bad days, and the few inevitable "I-don't-care-anymore" days, but
we just had to constantly remind ourselves that it wasn't OUR movie. It wasn't OUR creature.
It was the director's movie, and I am the tool of the director, for better or for worse.
And you just power through it, and you try to keep your enthusiasm as alive as you can, and do the best job
you can to make sure you represent your studio well. To make sure the director leaves with the movie he
wants to leave with. That's pretty much all you can do in those situations.
Now, it isn't like this is something you'll face every day as an animator. It's pretty rare that someone is put in
charge of an entire project without having some measure of talent/skill/vision to back that position up with.
Generally speaking, your project leadership will usually be open to ideas, and willing to place a lot of faith in
your abilities and trust in your expertise.
But in the rare (but inevitable) cases they're not, repeat this mantra over and over in your head: "I am the
Director's tool. It's his project, not mine."
I know this sounds really miserable, and the honest truth is that it sometimes CAN be pretty miserable, but
only if you let it. Only
if you let it get to you. I'm totally guilty of letting it get to me sometimes. It's
something I always feel like I can work on more. I'm much better with this now than I was when I was a
rookie. 10 years ago, changing my work into something "wrong" or "less cool" drove me absolutely insane the
few times it came up.
These days, I try really hard to not fall in love with my shots, and I think that's the biggest piece of advice I
can pass on in regards to this stuff. Don't fall in love with your ideas. You might block in the coolest ideas of
all time, but if the director doesn't like them, then you're going to be getting rid of those ideas, no matter
how much you stew about it. Sitting at your desk with your arms folded, complaining endlessly about your
terrible direction will solve nothing, and will serve only to perpetuate the vicious downward spiral of creating
ever-worsening morale, not only in yourself, but in the rest of the team around you as well.
You might as well get over it as quickly as you can, and attack the shot with renewed vigor, determined to
come up with something even cooler. The director doesn't like your dynamic pose? Come up with one that's
even more dynamic! Doesn't like overlap? Wow,
that's a toughie, but maybe you can find a way to make it work! Find a way to satisfy the director's request
while making the shot even better than it used to be.
Sometimes, you simply won't be able to achieve this goal. I certainly have finished shots that I know are not
as cool as they could have been, but at least you can try. And you can stay positive about the work if you
remember that it isn't YOUR project, it's the director's project.
Think of it like this - the shot you are working on right now, if you are a professional animator, is not for your
demo reel. The director is paying you to do the shot for HIS demo reel. If the shot turns out to be awesome,
and you want to include it on your own reel as well, then all the better, but your primary goal needs to be
satisfying that director's wishes for his own "demo reel," by which I mean the movie or game or TV show
you've been hired to help create...
If you don't want to "be a tool," and want to answer only to yourself, then that's certainly fine, and there's
absolutely nothing wrong with that. Unless you want to be a professional animator, that is... You'll animate
your own films and be your own tool, and if you can animate as a hobby, then more power to ya! But the vast
majority of you who write in are interested in animation as a career, or are already animating professionally,
and it's you I'm talking to.
Well, you and me both, I guess. I could use reminding of this myself sometimes, that's for sure. We all can, I
suppose. So.... that's it. You're a tool. So am I.
But you know what? 95% of the time, being the tool of the director is one of the most challenging, fulfilling,
and FUN jobs you could possibly have. It's pretty rare that you'll be asked to animate something that you
know is absolutely wrong. For the most part, this is going to apply primarily to more general "ideas" in the
shot not being accepted much more than being asked to ignore any animation principles, etc. That actually is
fairly rare, lucky for us!
But either way, you and I? We're tools.
And sometimes we'd both do well to keep that in mind. See ya next time!
And remember, even as a tool, you'll still have FUN!
CONSTRAIN TO PROPS NOT TO THE CHARACTER

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my endlessly rambly Tips & Tricks article. As always, feel free to send
feedback, suggestions, and complaints to [email protected]. Thanks to everyone who's
been writing in, it's been fun meeting you, and I appreciate the suggestions and feedback! Thanks especially
to those of you who've been sending me the fried chicken recipes!!! I think I have plenty now, so if you really
need to send me a recipe for something, hit me with your favorite cocktail. (My current fave is vodka and
7up, but I also love a good Bacardi Anejo y Coca!)
Last month you discovered that you are a tool. I was sorry to have to break the news to you, but hopefully it
softens the blow to know that I am a tool as well. This week, you'll be happy to know that I'm not going to be
calling you any names at all! In fact, I have a bonafide "trick" for you, but first, let's go to Disneyland...
Okay, so my fiancée’s family has pretty much the coolest tradition ever: Each year, they spend the holiday of
Thanksgiving in the happiest place on Earth - Disneyland! This year we were there for a few days, and it was
an absolute blast. (Best rides: Indiana Jones, Screamin', and that Grizzly rapids ride in California Adventure!)
Anyway, it was a ton of fun, but since this isn't my diary or a blog, that's not why I bring it up. I brought it up
because in California Adventure (the sister park to Disneyland, right next door), they have a building
dedicated to the art of animation. Inside, you can walk through a museum of original animation art, you can
put your voice to classic scenes from your favorite Disney movies (in our case, Belle and Beast ended up
having a huge argument about flushing the toilet), you can create 2D animation and put it on a zoetrope, and
you can interactively hang out with Crush from Nemo, which is basically someone doing live and instant
performance animation and is pretty darn impressive to watch!
It's all pretty cool, and each of those exhibits branch off of a huge "lobby" area in the building. Inside of this
lobby are gigantic screens showing scenes, drawings, and concept artwork from some of the best animated
films of all time. Glen Keane's roughs from Tarzan, design work from The Incredibles, etc.
We didn't get to spend a whole lot of time in that room, but I have to say - I found it incredibly inspiring, and
when I think back on our trip, it really sticks with me as a highlight. The permanence of our art really hit me
in a big way. We create a scene, and once we're done, it exists forever. For better or worse, our great-greatgreat grandkids will likely be able to watch it and (hopefully) be entertained by it.
How cool is that!? Isn't it amazing to think that the team working on Jungle Book 40 years ago was just like us
(only more talented), toiling away on their scenes, hoping someone might like their project? Hoping they
might make someone laugh, or give a little kid that wide-eyed look of wonder at being presented with an
army of singing monkeys? And here we are, 40 years later, still every bit as entertained and inspired as
audiences were back then!
That's 40 years of inspiration. 40 years of laughs. 40 years of 3-year-olds mimicking King Louie's dance and
making their parents laugh.
...40 years...
Maybe it's silly, but it really hit me in that room that no matter how trivial some of our work is, or how bad
some of our projects turn out to be, we're all working towards nailing that one show or game or film that will
be entertaining people long after we're gone. It's like we have a chance to not only inspire people, but to
bottle that inspiration into a time-capsule, and launch it into the future to inspire future generations.
For me, THAT is inspiring, and as worthy a goal as any other. ...Well, okay -- other than curing Cancer, feeding
the hungry, sheltering the homeless, ending poverty, etc. Those are the "Big Goals" with a capital G. I'm
talking about wimpy artist goals, and we mostly use small g's. Making people think is about the best we can
usually shoot for, but using media to get people to think can be a powerful tool, and we can be a part of it!
Okay, enough of that. Tip time! Are you ready?
*TIP #16: Constrain TO Props, Not To The Character!*
So, if you're animating characters, there's a decent chance that at some point, someone is going to ask your
character to interact with something. He'll need to hold a broom, or she'll need to hold a sword, or whatever
it is.
The natural inclination of the beginning animator is to constrain that prop to your character's hand, and then
as you animate your character's hand, the prop will go along with it.
With some exceptions, this is generally a big mistake, and if you care about arcs at all, will often lead to some
big headaches.
Now, I'm going to just assume that you're using IK (inverse kinematics) on the arms rather than FK (forward
kinematics), even though I know that some of you probably DO use FK. Personally, I hate using FK on the
arms, as I feel like it creates a lot of counter-animation work for me. I know some of you love it, but we'll just
have to agree to disagree here.

If you really have to use FK on your arms, then you'll probably have to constrain the prop to your character's
hand, and that's that. If so, you might as well save yourself some time and move along. Hopefully the
Disneyland story was enough to feel like you didn't get ripped off this month, and I'll see ya next time!
Ok, you IKers still with me? Let's get back to our regularly scheduled program: So.... why on Earth would it be
a bad idea to constrain a prop to a hand?
Well, the biggest problems arise when you have a large or long prop. Let's say it's a sword, for example.
If you constrain a sword to your character's hand, you will have a fine time blocking things in, and everything
will be fine. At first. But if you are animating a sword, you know that you need to make sure that the tip of
that sword is traveling along nice figure 8's and smooth swirling arcs (the only exception is when it makes
contact with something. No matter what!), so after your blocking is done, you'll eventually need to go in
there and track your arcs on the tip of that sword, right?
Well, if the sword movement is based on the rotation of your character's wrist, you've just created a big pile
of unnecessary work for yourself.
Why?
Well, because every little rotation of your wrist will be magnified exponentially in the position of the tip of
that sword. It's so far away from the wrist that a 5 degree rotation will suddenly have the tip of your sword a
foot or more out of place! Editing this in a way that doesn't make the hand look stiff and/or jittery is very
time-consuming.
Additionally, if you're using IK, the angle of wrist is very likely being affected by the translation of the elbow
controller (or arm twist attribute), and is probably also subtly affected by the movement of the shoulders.
Normally, this is great, and helps keep your animation feeling connected throughout the arms, but if you're
trying to have finite control over the angle of the wrist, it can be a real bear to edit in the curves, because
suddenly the angle of the wrist is being affected by 3 different things, and you're trying to fix curves on three
objects that are all affecting each other! In other words, it's a pain in the butt!
A far better method is to switch those constraints around, and block things in where the sword is the thing
being animated, and the arms are "along for the ride." You constrain the hand TO the sword, and THEN you
dive into your blocking. Of course, you'll have to be vigilant to make sure that your timing and poses indicate
the body and arms are moving the sword, and you'll have to be careful to avoid that "IK" look, as you would
in any shot.
(uh oh - here comes a tangent:)
If you are new to IK in general, there will be a tendency for your animation to look like the wrist is moving the
arm around, because that's the way the model is chained. Your job as the animator is to make sure that it
looks like the shoulder is moving the arm, and the arm is moving the wrist - not the other way around. If you
are doing proper planning, and have spent time focused on body mechanics (weight, force, anticipation, all
that good stuff), then this shouldn't be much of a problem, and you'll be blocking in your key poses and
breakdowns just as you would with FK.
In other words, a well animated FK scene should look EXACTLY like a well-animated IK scene, because both
should be using the same poses and timing - you're simply using different controls to get them there.
Anyway, the point is, if you animate the prop rather than the hand, you will always have a far easier time
creating nice organic arcs and a more pleasing realistic motion. You'll have far more control, and have to take
much less aspirin during the polishing phase of your scene.
One caveat to that is if you have a small prop, such as a pencil or something that wouldn't take the strength
of the wrist to move. In that case, I'd recommend constraining the pencil TO the hand, rather than the other
way around. The fingers will be doing far more of the work, in that case, and the arcs of the pencil will likely
have little to do with the arcs of the hand...
Okay, that's it. Have a great month, keep the emails comin' ([email protected]), and keep
having FUN!!!!
TWINNING
Last month, we were so jazzed about our first graduation that we wanted to say a few words about that
instead of your regular monthly dose of tips and tricks, but this month we're back on track! I wish the photos
and video could have given you a better appreciation for what an amazing evening it was, but suffice to say,
it was probably the most exciting night of my life. Feeling the enthusiasm of the graduates was easily the
most inspirational moment of my life, and I felt really honored to get to be a part of the night.
I'll resist the (strong) temptation to write more about the graduation, and instead, let's dive into this month's
topic!

Now, I'vebeengettingalotofemailsuggestionsfromyouguys(whichisterrific! Keepthemcoming!
tipsandtricks@animationmentor. com), and more than a few have requested more information about the
elusive subject of "twinning."
Here's a transcript of a conversation between myself, and my partners in crime, Bobby Beck and Carlos
Baena, from sometime in 1995, back when we were a bunch of kids in art school, trying to figure out this
animation stuff as much as we could...
Me: Hey, I met an animator from ILM, and he says we should avoid twinning. Bobby: We should? Ok.
Me: Yeah, it's bad. He said student work has "tons of it." Bobby: Um... what's 'twinning'?
Me: I don't have the slightest idea... I was hoping you would know! Bobby: Never heard of it. Carlos?
Carlos: Ummm.... You guys want to get some pizza?
Me: Maybe it's when you have multiple characters that look too similar? Bobby: Maybe. Or maybe it's when
different characters move the same way? Carlos: Guys, can we focus on what's important? I need pizza!
Ok, maybe that isn't word-for-word, but it's pretty close. Before I move on, I do want to say one thing -- don't
underestimate the value of a friendship with a fellow animator. If I hadn't been friends with Bobby and Carlos,
there is a decent chance I would have forgotten all about twinning, and never would have sought out the
knowledge of what it is, or how to avoid it. I also wouldn't have got to eat nearly as much good pizza, but
that's a different story.
Anyway - make use of your animation friendships as much as you can. I learned 100 times more from Bobby
and Carlos in school than I ever did from any of my classes. Hopefully that isn't the case at all schools, but
finding other students similar to you, who are interested in investigating similar topics, is an invaluable part
of your education. Whether you find them at Animation Mentor, or your current school, or even a forum
online - it doesn't matter. What matters is that you find people you can feel comfortable asking
"stupid" questions, and who you can learn from and with.
Our discussion about twinning was pretty typical for us back then. We were constantly reading about
animation, watching every animation documentary we could get our hands on, and especially in 1994 and
1995, I think we were probably stumbling across a completely new animation concept every single week that
we were all equally mystified by. Twinning was one of dozens, but it was a biggie for us.
As was always the case, we went into full Animation Investigation mode, and eventually, the three of us were
able to piece together enough information to get the general concept. My understanding of twinning, as with
my (still limited) understanding of everything else in animationland, has evolved over the years since, and
has led me to the following irrefutable mathematical formula:
TIP #17: Mirrored Posing + Even Timing + No Explicit Need For Either = Recruiters Turning Off Your Demo
Reel
Now, right off the bat, I want to say two things. First, I want to acknowledge that there are absolutely times,
albeit rare, that you will want to specifically use "twinning" in a shot. In fact, I'll point out a successful use of
twinning in a little bit. Secondly, I want to say that this subject is covered very briefly in my contrast articles
from a couple months back, because the two topics are very closely related. So closely related, in fact, that I
almost decided to skip this one altogether, but there were too many emails asking for clarification, and
frankly, I'm far too lazy to reply to all of you individually with an answer, so here we are.
What is twinning?
Well, the most basic explanation, from my point of view, is that "twinning" is less a tangible "something" than
a lacking of correct overlapandcontrast. It's almostlikegivinganameto"nothavinggoodarcs"
or"havingconfusedexpressionsthat don't communicate properly."
In short, it's a "wrong" not a "right." (okay, okay - usually. See how I covered my bases? Pretty slick, huh?
Now you can't email me and say, "Hey, art doesn't deal in absolutes!")
What twinning really is, is listed in that "math" formula above. It consists of two distinct facets: twinned
posing, and twinned timing.
Let's hit the posing thing first.
At it's heart, "twinned posing" is basically the exact opposite of what
Idescribedafewmonthsagoinmyarticleonfindingcontrast in your posing, though this is a little more specific.
“Twinned posing” generally refers to a pose that feels like a vertical mirror is being held up along the center
of your character's body.

For example, let's say you wanted to have a character holding his arms out to his side, preparing to give the
biggest hug of his life.
Well, most students would (possibly unconsciously) create this pose by spreading the feet a little bit, maybe
rotating them out a little bit, and pulling the arms straight out to the sides.
Is this bad?
Well.... I don't know if I'd go so far as to use the word "bad," because they are going to communicate the
correct idea with this pose. When you see this pose, there is a chance that you'll say, "oh, he's about to hug
someone." Then again, you will more likely say, "oh, I guess he's a robot zombie who's about to hug
someone," because this pose could clearly be much stronger,
more organic, and far more interesting to look at. What's wrong with it?
Well, if the left hand has been pulled out to the side in exactly the same way as the right hand, and the feet
are both rotated out by 10 degrees, and pulled apart an equal distance, this character is going to look
incredibly stiff and robotic. You've created the all- too-common problem of a symmetrical pose, and
symmetry is (usually!) the death-knell of imbuing your character with life.
Here's the thing - no matter how symmetrical you think someone's pose is in real life, or how perfectly the
arms seem to be identical in your video reference, recreating them that way will almost always result in a
"dead" pose. A "twinned" pose. This is one of those times where it is absolutely essential to apply your
mastery of the fundamental principles of animation to what you are seeing in your video reference, or in the
people around you.
This is one of those moments where you are going to say, "hmm,
that pose is kind of interesting, but if I apply what I know about contrast, this pose is going to be so much
better!" NOT applying your knowledge of contrast to that pose is what will create a "twinned" feeling in the
pose, and the result, at best, is a boring pose. At worst, it'll feel like your character isn't truly alive. Either
way, you've just twinned yourself into a big problem.
Lucky for you, twinned poses are some of the easiest things to fix in animation! This is a double-edged sword,
however, because if you forget to fix this, they will stand out even more on a demo reel, and scream "I'm
inexperienced!" to recruiters, so be sure to fix your twinned poses!
Fixing them are the easiest thing in the world, and I'd recommend fixing them in the graph editor using the
curves. This way, you can fix them in a non-destructive environment and usually not have to redo any of the
animation. Using the example from above, for instance, I'd go into the curves for my right arm, and raise it a
bit. Then I'd rotate the right hand up a bit, so it isn't at the same angle as the left wrist.

Next, I'd go down to the feet. Uh oh, they're still identical to each other. BORING! The first thing I'd do at this
point is rotate the left foot out a bit more than the right foot.
After that, we come to probably the single most important change of all. Having the feet space evenly apart
is boring, that's clear. And the way you fix this problem is equally clear, right? You have to pull one leg further
out than the other. Ok, so I'll choose the left foot. I grab the curves of the left foot in the graph editor, and
pull them up a bit to move his left foot further out.
Uh oh! What happened? Well, what likely happened is that the leg hyper-extended, because it pulled too far
away from the hips.
So guess what? Now the model is FORCING me to create a more interesting and dynamic pose! I have to grab
my character's hips/ torso, and pull his further to the left, and probably down a bit as well. In order for this to
look correct, I'll now have to rotate his chest a bit in x, so that his left shoulder is lower than his right
shoulder, and have to rotate his hips the opposite way.
Ta-daa! Consciously avoiding "twinning" has now basically forced you to implement the ideas of contrast,
weight, and dynamic posing, not to mention giving you an automatically more pleasing line of action flowing
from his right toe up through his spine!

The end result, of course, is a far stronger and communicative pose that is full of life. As with any art
(usually!!), the more interesting angles and twists you can put in without hurting the core idea, the better.
(Obviously you could take this idea too far, and quickly end up with a pose that looks like more like he's being
electrocuted than preparing for a hug!)

So, to recap: a twinned pose is a mirrored pose. It's boring, and shows extreme inexperience - mostly
because you have to ignore so many other animation concepts (dynamic posing, line of action, arcs,
contrast, weight, etc) to get there.
Yikes, this is getting way too long. Man, am I terrible about that or what?! Ok, I'll keep this next section
shorter, since hopefully you're getting the idea now...
The other type of twinning, and by far the more common one, is twinned timing.
Now that you're understanding what twinned posing is, I bet you'll have a much easier time figuring out
twinned timing! Yup, it's when the spacing on the keyframes of your character's limbs/body are all equally
timed out. In other words, it's when the left foot stops moving on the same frame as the right foot, or when a
cheering character's arms both hit their extremes on the same frame.
The most common type of twinning I see is when inexperienced animators skip over all the tried-and-true
animation assignments and decide they want to jump immediately into acting scenes and dialogue tests.
Unfortunately, this (understandable) impatience, leads to nothing but a waste of time and effort, and 99% of
the time simply results in a dialogue shot that does more to show off their lack of animation knowledge than
anything else.
We see endless demo reels full of acting tests that might have some interesting acting choices, but clearly
show no knowledge of basic body mechanics (weight, balance, anticipation, force, etc), bad arcs, and twinned
timing. A character's right hand will rise into a gesture and "hit" that extreme of the gesture on the exact
same frame that the head stops moving, which happens on the exact same frame that the left hand clenches
into a fist.
Similar to the way it affects posing, this "twinned" timing shows that the animator is not thinking about
anticipation, overlap, or arcs. A scene with proper body mechanics and arcs and overlap cannot, by definition,
result in twinned timing. Worse, twinned timing creates an extremely robotic feel to the whole piece, and
becomes a huge red flag for recruiters.
Now, if you see this in your work, don't panic! It is incredibly common, especially in student work, and just as
with twinned posing, it is very easy to fix.
Once again, I'd just dive into the curve editor, and experiment with offsetting some keys. First, I'd make sure
that my gesturing hand is hitting it's extreme on the correct frame (which will almost always be the vowel of
the sentence's Operative Word, remember, from last year?), and then I'd adjust everything else around it. I
might let the head hit it's extreme a couple frames early, and delay the fist- clench of the other hand by a
few frames. (Oh, and just for clarification, I'm not talking about moving the entire curve and offsetting a
controller's animation globally throughout the whole scene, I'm just adjusting this one area of the shot).
Even just those simple adjustments should make a world of difference to your scene, and once you find the
amount of offset you like, you'll still have to go back in there and make sure your arcs are correct, your
overlap is working nicely, etc., but this should give you a better foundation to build upon.
The other way you might hear "twinning" used, is in reference to the timing (or posing) of multiple
characters. Do your characters stop walking on the same frame? Twinning! Do your characters wave at the
same time? Twinning!! Do your characters both stop with their right foot forward and left hand on their hip?
TWINNING! This is the worst type of twinning, and is the most unnatural of all, so avoid it at all costs.
One of the reasons this comes up so often is because people DO move in twinned ways at times. A sports fan
on the edge of his seat will explode into the air when his team scores that goal, and both of his hands might
fly up into the air and "hit" their extremes at the exact same moment of time. A music conductor's hands
might (for brief periods) move together in a very lyrical and powerful way as the music crescendos. A couple
holding hands walking down the street might have the exact same strides, their feet hitting on exactly the
same frames. A man bowing and praying might have his outstretched arms not only stopping on the same
frame, but he will likely be twinning his pose as well.
Well, guess what? Those are all perfectly valid times to consciously decide to USE twinning in your posing and
timing in order to best sell the ideas of your shot. Having that praying man posed with one arm stretched out
to the side will simply not look like a praying/ bowing man. Letting that sports-fan's hands explode up into the
air at the same time might feel pretty powerful, depending, as always, on the style of animation your piece
requires. (Realistic animation, in my opinion, should rarely, if ever, have any twinning at all, and in the
sports-fan example, I would still off-set his hands by a frame to make it feel more organic. The more cartoony
and exaggerated the style of your project is, the more you can safely twin WHEN YOU HAVE A REASON to do
so).
The couple walking with twinned footsteps has a lot of potential to look like bad animation cycles, but if
you're careful in constructing it, you might be able to use the idea of twinned strides to show just how in love
they are! They're so in love that when they hold hands, they share the same stride. Think it sounds crazy? Go
sit on a bench for a while at a shopping mall and watch the couples wander by - I guarantee you'll see more
than a few twinning like crazy. The majority of the time, of course, you'll want to offset these steps by a frame

or two in your animation, in order to have a nice organic feeling of life, but I do think a talented animator
could potentially use this idea to emphasize the connection the characters share.
The music conductor is a most perfect example, and we've all seen how nicely it worked out for Mickey
Mouse in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was a big moment of realization for me, after Bobby, Carlos, and I had
finally figured out the evils of twinning, committed ourselves to a twin-free life of animating, and then
realizing that our heroes twinned Mickey Mouse like crazy in Fantasia! I think it was the first time I learned the
invaluable lesson that there is an exception to every rule, and that the masters can break those rules when
they have a reason to do so.
For me, the best use of conscious twinning is to create a contrast between your "contrasted" posing and
timing and a specific moment where you want to really emphasize an idea or sell a joke. For example, you
could have some nicely overlapping animation, fun dynamic ("contrasted") poses and timing of your
character sneaking through an alley, and then the character hears something and zips into a shadow where
he stands bolt upright, eyes wide in fear. This "twinned" pose might really sell your idea of "fear," and if you
are working in a more cartoony, style you could twin the timing as well.
Overall, though? Overall, you'll want to avoid twinning like the plague 99% of the time.
Hopefully that answered your questions! If you have any other suggestions or topic requests, be sure to email
me - I respond to everyone, and am genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts.
And as always, keep animating, and have FUN!
BLACK OUT YOUR CHARACTER
Ok, so it's time for more animation rambling. Sometimes I start out acknowledging that I wrote WAY too much
last time, and will endeavor to be more succinct this time out, but for some reason, those articles tend to be
the longest of all -- so this time I'm going try some reverse psychology, and announce that this will be a really
long article! The longest ever. You're going to be so sick of animation by the time you finish this article, that
you'll unsubscribe from the Animation Mentor newsletter!
(Ok, hopefully we've fooled it into letting this be a quickie. Cross your fingers!) And before we go any further,
I just wanted to thank you guys again for all the great questions and suggestions you've been emailing me. I
love the feedback, and it's great to hear about what you're keen on us discussing next. Keep those mails
comin’: [email protected]. (In fact, this week's topic was requested by Anas Mohammad
from Dubai, who asks about the importance of silhouette!)
So, last week we dove into the concepts of twinning, as it applies to timing as well as posing. We talked about
the robotic flavor inherent in all aspects of twinning, that twinning is the arch enemy of dynamic posing and
believable performances, and we also discussed how to not only recognize, but hopefully FIX your twinned
scenes.
This week, thanks to our friend Anas Mohammad, we're going to stick with the practical "nuts and bolts" stuff,
and leap over to the concept of silhouette.
So, other than being a really difficult word to spell/type, what's this "silhouette" stuff?
Well, what's your most important goal as an animator?
Is it to make someone laugh? Is it to tell a good story? Is it to create a compelling acting performance that
causes people to think? Is it to create a great fight sequence, or show your characters’ deepest emotions?
Hopefully it's some or all of those things, and guess what? Every one of those can be summed up into one
overall goal that you need to have as an animator: to communicate clearly with your audience.
Your goal, in almost every scene you will ever touch, is clarity.
If your goal is to make someone laugh, the staging of the setup and punchline of your joke had better be
clear, or no one is going to be laughing.
Try telling a good story without clearly showing the major plot points, or a strong acting performance where
you can't see your character's eyes or have a good view of the posture. Have a go at creating a dynamic fight
scene where the punches are all staged away from camera so you can't see them thrown or whether they hit
their target. You are going to find that your work simply doesn't
connect with the audience. Your story will leave them baffled, the acting will fall flat, and the fight will never
be the thrill ride you intended, instead your audience will be confused by what you are showing them.
As animators, our objective is to tell good stories and create these great scenes and performances. But
without carefully staging every aspect of our scenes with the audience's perspective in mind, our art loses
any value or relevance it might have beyond anyone but yourself and your Mom.

The single most important ingredient to a communicative scene is clarity:
- clarity of ideas, and clarity of poses. Anyone want to guess what the most important ingredient to clarity is?
That's right, it's silhouette. Ok, here we go:
*Tip #18: Black out your character. Can't read the emotion or the action? Then it's poorly staged.* Ok, so
what's a silhouette?
The "silhouette" of a body is the overall unified shape of the outline of the figure. Find a photo of yourself,
grab a black sharpie marker, and color your body completely black. All of it - head, limbs, face, everything.
That's a silhouette.
So, basically you throw out all the little details of the body - the eyes, the folds in the clothing, the color of
the pants, etc, and what you have left is the single unified shape of the overall body.
This shape, this "overall" shape, is the very first thing we register when we see someone. The very next
instant, we flit to the character's face, seeking out the eyes, which immediately become our main focal point
on the character - our "anchor," if you will, as we watch the character or person move around, act, react,
etc. But the instant before we find the face, we find the overall shape of the body.
Why? Beats me! Maybe because we're looking to recognize an overall body posture, which may be more
communicative of attitudes and emotions at distances too great for faces to tell us much. Maybe our brain is
just looking at the overall shape to find the placement of the head, so it knows where to look for the eyes. Or
maybe that's just the way our brains work - like children learning to color, to find the outline of things before
filling in all the details.
I don't know, but what I do know, is that it's true, even if it's most subconscious in our daily lives. I know it's
true because of the way it affects animation. There's a reason that it's been one of the rock-solid principles
of our art for so many decades!
(Right about now is when I'm starting to fear that our reverse psychology attempt is starting to fail-- I feel a
case of the rambles coming on, so I'll try to be quick, I swear!)
Ok, so how does this affect animators?
Well, the most basic way you apply this principle is when attempting to show the emotional state of your
character. Selling the emotion through the overall body posture of your character is absolutely critical, since
that's the very first thing the audience will see. The audience has a restless eye, and you might only have a
split second to tell them all the information they need to know. Is your character shy? Devastated?
Exuberant? The posture of the body needs to tell this to the audience as fast as possible.
Before moving on, we need to clarify the importance of body language.
Without getting too deep into it (because I think body language would probably benefit from an article unto
itself ), body language, as an animator uses it, can be employed to show the truth of an emotion or thought,
regardless of what the actual line of dialogue happens to be.
It can be used to show us the personality of your character (stiff businessman vs. laid-back surfer dude, for
example). Body language can tell us a lot about a character's state of mind, and it's absolutely essential that
you connect the body language to the facial
performance (particularly the eye animation).
If your character is "exuberant," or "really really happy," you can create the happiest facial expression on the
planet, but if you've left your character in the wrong body pose, it isn't going to work. At best, it will just be
confusing to the audience. If your character is in a shy pose, but has a really happy face - that's just going
to look bizarre. The body and face work together to communicate emotion, right? Never fall into the trap of
thinking of them as separate entities-- they need to support each other in your acting performances.
In short, (and without flying off on a complete new tangent), the emotion of the character should always read
first in the body language, and you should always think of the facial performance as the "icing" on your
cake.
So, if it's so important that the body and face support each other, and you need the audience to be able to
instantly "read" the emotion in the body, how do you employ silhouette to help you out?
Having a clear silhouette of this posture is essential to such rapid communication with your audience.
In that instant where the audience is looking solely at the "overall outline" of the body, they aren't going to
see anything that's "lost" inside the shape of that body, right? Yes, they'll be seeing the face soon enough,
and will start to fill in details from there, but in a medium where we break things down into 24 frame-persecond chunks, we often need to make sure that not a single frame is wasted. You have an opportunity, in
that instant, to make your scene that much clearer to the audience, and you should seize it!

The simplest example of this is staging the arms to be completely "lost" inside the outline of the body. Let's
say your character is going to be drinking a bottle of water. Well, you *could* choose to stage the drink in a
way that as he drinks from the bottle, it's facing right at camera, which would mean the arm-- and even more
importantly, the bottle-- are "lost" within the silhouette. Will the audience figure out that he's drinking a
bottle of water? Yeah, probably, but not as quickly as they would if you used the tool of silhouette when
choosing your staging.
Pull that bottle out to the side - make it a 3/4 shot to the camera, or even a profile view. Build your acting
performance around that pose instead, and everything will start to come together in a much more pleasing
and communicative way. Even pulling the bottle out just enough to see some negative space between the
chest and the crook of your characters elbow can make all the difference in clarity.
Of course, there are always exceptions to these rules, and there would be some great ones with these
examples. For instance,
the further you push a silhouette, the cartoonier and more "theatrical" the acting
will get, so the style of the project is something that must be considered when choosing how much to
exaggerate your silhouette. Also, a great way to show an attitude in your character is sometimes to have his
arms folded across his chest. Well, that isn't much of a silhouette, but I bet that if you're clever and careful,
you can at least make sure to stage his pose in a way that his silhouette makes it clear that his arms are
folded!
This becomes a big deal in two specific instances:

dynamic action scenes, and plot-points.

In an action scene,(which I sure hope you generally want to be as dynamic and exciting as possible), things
are going to be moving quickly, at least some of the time. The audience will have even less time than normal
when attempting to figure out what's going on. A good fight scene must be carefully choreographed
throughout in order to be clear, and there are probably no scenes with more "confusion potential" than a big
fight scene. It's so easy for the fight to degenerate into one big messy blur, and suddenly this big exciting
thrill ride of a scene has become boring!
Throwing a punch is a great example - don't hide the anticipation of that punch in the outline of either
combatant's body - try to at least get a nice silhouette on the antic whenever possible, and it's always nice
and strong to see a good silhouette on the follow- through of the punch as well. I personally don't think it's all
that important that the connection point between fist and chin has any great silhouette (sometimes it's really
hard to find a way to stage this) as long as the antic and the follow-through are nice and clear, it'll still read
really well.
As for plot-points, let's say that a key story point is that everyone's been trying to find this certain wristwatch,
because it's got a secret code scratched into the back of it that opens a safe or something. And in your
scene, it's the big moment where one character
is going to pass the watch to another character.
Boy oh boy-- if that isn't a time for silhouette, I don't know what is. There would be many ways to stage this
in a silhouetted way, ranging from subtle to completely over the top, but all of them would be far better
suited to telling your story than "hiding" the watch hand-off within the outlines of the two bodies. Try to show
the watch in between them, and get a nice silhouette on their arms, or at least their hands.
Different body languages will tell us if they are nervous about being caught, angry to have give the watch
away, or reluctant to let
it go-- but all of these can (and should) be staged in silhouette.
Oh, and before I go, here's one more quickie tip:
*TIP #18b: In Maya, if you're using the basic default lighting setup and you hit the "7" key, Maya will show
you the silhouette of the character for free!*
Okay, that's it! Hope that was helpful to someone out there...Hope you're having fun with this animation stuff.
As always, feel free to hit me with some feedback or topic requests at:
[email protected] Have fun!!
RISE ABOVE THE SNOBBERY
Okay, here's the thing. If you're reading this, you're probably either an animation student with a head and
heart full of big dreams and aspirations, or else you're already an animator and looking for a different
perspective on the art you already love. Or you're my Mom.
Those three categories pretty much cover every one of you, so I think it's safe to say that for the most part,
we're all in love with this animation stuff, and we all have big dreams for the magic we hope to create with
the tools of our trade.
We're keen on learning more and more about our tools, in order to create more beautiful and moving art with
them, right? I think we're all on the same page there. We want to know more about the software, yes, but

hopefully we're also more focused on diving ever-deeper into the actual principles of animation – like finding
a new way to think about anticipation, or a new angle on how to use arcs – all that fun stuff.
If you've spent any time at all hunting down this sort of animation information, you've realized that it's a
nutty bunch of people who have thrown themselves into this life. Creative people, sure, but animators also
seem to be an unusually energetic and enthusiastic group of people. Maybe it's because we have to have a
childlike nature to be so willing to immerse ourselves in what has culturally been thought of as a "children's
art form," at least here in the US. Maybe it's because we spent most of our high school days cracking jokes
and doodling in the corner rather than wearing prom crowns or winning sports trophies, forcing us to develop
<gasp!> actual personalities.
Personally, I think it's this: despite the childlike halo that surrounds the idea of "doing animation," it isn't easy.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - this animation stuff is hard.
In fact, it's damn hard.
It takes a certain kind of person to not only have the patience to put in the hours and days and years of
practice required to gain even a modicum of confidence in this art, but - and this is the important part - it
takes a truly unique person to power through all those hours and emerge at the other side filled with even
more excitement and enthusiasm than when they began.
I had the honor of interviewing one of our true animation greats, Eric Goldberg, for Animation Mentor. One of
the things he said to me, which really rings true, was that it is impossible to make it in this industry if you
don't TRULY love animation as an art. "You have to love it," he said. And that's the absolute truth. If you don't
have that passion for the art, you will never have the patience to power through all the years of learning. To
some, these years were tedious and frustrating, but for those of us who truly love what we do, they were
rewarding and incredibly fun.
Those of you who are in love with seeing your characters brought to life know that for us, it's worth the
struggle of learning, and worth the "tedium" of the actual creation of the performance. Those of us who are in
love with animation find joy in the details, thrills in the excitement of new discoveries, and resolve in the face
of the continually new and ever-more-daunting challenges posed by new characters, new shots, and new
projects.
Why am I saying all this? What does this have to do with my Tips & Tricks article?
Well, here it is -- we have a problem in this industry. It's been a problem for years, especially (for some
reason) among students. It isn't going away, and frankly, I think it hurts countless animation students.
We're…snobs.
There, I said it. We're snobs. Animation snobbery has reached epidemic proportions, in fact. I can't count the
number of students who have explained to me that their skills would be wasted on anything but close-up
acting shots, or how many students I hear about who have scoffed at job-offers to work on high-profile
projects that may not be destined for critical acclaim, but would at least have given the students their first
feature film credit!
I honestly find it shocking. To turn down your very first animation job because you don't feel the movie or
game is good enough for you, or because it isn't Pixar or ILM - I'm sorry, that's just asinine. It's just as
ridiculous as turning down a job because you'll be going in as a "mere" junior animator, or because you won't
be guaranteed the much-vaunted "acting" shots.
I don't think all snobbery is necessarily evil, of course, but snobbery should be directly proportional to your
experience level. If you've been in the business a while, then sure, I think you have certainly earned the right
to be choosy about what you work on, and have also won the right to request to focus on certain types of
work, shots, or characters.
I'm mostly talking about the next generation of animators, here, the new folks coming up. At Animation
Mentor, we're really lucky to have an incredibly open and energetic student body - students willing and
excited to learn from their mistakes as well as the mistakes of their peers, and frankly we put a lot of thought
and effort into making sure we help continue to foster that attitude. As a whole, they seem genuinely eager
to create a well-rounded animation career, and they understand that for 99.99999% of them, that career will
not begin as a lead animator at Sony.
However, for whatever reason, I would say that at least half of the young animators I meet who haven't been
involved with Animation Mentor (and yes, even a few who have), seem to have surprisingly skewed
expectations of what their first few years in this industry should be like. They're all smiles on the outside, but
you can't help but squint in the blinding glare of egos going supernova.
Everything is owed to them. They all think they're the next Glen Keane. "Don't waste my talents on smaller
shots even though I have zero professional experience, I'm clearly the greatest animator known to man and
you should allow me to bless your studio by placing me on only the most important shots in the film."
Ugh.

And you know what? They might be right. Maybe they're great. Maybe they *COULD* have been the next
Glen Keane. But guess what? With an attitude like that, they will never get the chance to rise to that stature.
No one is going to be able to stand them long enough for them to prove their worth. Do they think Glen
Keane showed up at Disney one morning, demanding to start right in on the biggest hero shots in the film?
Please. He put in an incredible amount of time learning and studying from the more experienced animators
who surrounded him at Disney. I've never had the pleasure of meeting him personally, but I have no doubt
that he'd tell us that he owes much of his animation knowledge to the time spent studying under the greats
who came before him.
That should be the goal of every new animator, in my opinion. Get yourself into an animation studio - be it
games, features, television, whatever - and learn as much as you possibly can from the more experienced
animators around you.
So here's this month's tip:
*Tip #18: Rise Above The Snobbery*
Animation students live and work in a relatively tiny community. The same way that a virulent cold can sweep
through an office, infecting all the co-workers, the double-headed monster of unwarranted snobbery and big
egos in a competitive field has run rampant through the student community. It's up to YOU to help change
that, because to be honest, it's YOU who this will hurt the most if it continues to go unchecked.
I mentioned that it takes a special kind of person to become an animator in the first place, and that a big part
of that was passion. We're passionate people. We're excited about what we do. We have the patience to put
in the practice time, and the enthusiasm to remain invigorated by the work. However, that passion can
easily mutate into the very snobbery I'm talking about here. We love this stuff so much that we can easily
become laser-focused on whatever type of work we perceive to be the "worthwhile" work. Your peers talk
endlessly about acting shots, acting shots, acting shots. It isn't hard for animators to start to feel that a closeup acting shot is the only worthwhile use of their talent. They're completely wrong on many different levels,
but it isn't uncommon for that attitude to fester.
Animation snobbery is also perpetuated in large part by those of us who are teaching, as well. Students hear
their teachers bad- mouth certain studios, look down on different mediums, or blast rival projects. Is it any
wonder that students get it into their heads that they should only accept a position at Studio A when Studios
B, C, D, and E have all been pilloried by their teachers, for whatever reason? Teachers, most likely desperate
to gain the respect of their students, pathetically try to bolster their own image by tearing down the images
of their rivals. I've seen it happen in classes I've been in, and I've known teachers and animators who take
this approach.
These teachers should absolutely be allowed their opinions, and as an animation student, you (sadly) WILL
hear them talking like this.
Whether it's coming from a place of bitterness, insecurity, or simple ego, it *is* going to be something you
will come across in this animation journey.
I'd love to think that this will change someday, but realistically there will always be egomaniacs out there
trying to teach. At Animation Mentor, one of our most stringent rules is our "no ego" policy in hiring mentors.
An egotistical reputation will kill the application of even the most experienced and talented animators hoping
to mentor for us. I'm not sure if other schools are rigorous about this as well, but we all should be.
It's
surely one of the things perpetuating these absurd expectations in today's students.
Anyway, it probably isn't going to change. All that means is that it's now on YOUR shoulders to simply not let
it affect you negatively. If your teacher is bad-mouthing certain studios, do not let that get to you. If your
fellow students are blasting certain types of animation or mediums, do not let that get to you. If everyone
around you wants to be a picky snob about what they will animate or what studios they will deign to grace
with their presence, fine - LET THEM BE SNOBS. In fact, their snobbery merely means that you will have more
job opportunities to pick from!
All you can do is decide to NOT be a snob yourself. If you don't have experience, go after that "bottom-rung
of the ladder" job as a junior assistant animator somewhere and immerse yourself in the culture of that studio
with gusto. Have fun, and learn everything you possibly can! As you do, you will CLIMB that ladder, and I can
absolutely guarantee you that you will hit the top of that ladder while your snobby peers are still standing
around wondering why they still haven't been named Supreme Lord of Animation at the one studio they're
willing to work for.
Especially in your first few jobs, it will be absolutely critical that you are genuinely eager to animate pretty
much anything the studios are willing to throw your way. Don't be demanding; don't go in expecting the
flashiest of shots. DO, however, go in expecting to learn something every single day, and don't let a day go
by where you don't. Improve every day. Grow as an artist, every day. Make yourself more and more valuable
to the studio every single day.

If you have an ego, find some way to get rid of it. Just let it go. It isn't worth keeping around - it's a virus that
will drag you down in front of your peers, and be an anchor on your career.
In short, have a GENUINE heart to learn, and wear your humility like a badge of honor. Don't let the egos of
your peers infect you too, no matter how many of them there are.
Just focus on yourself, because frankly, I don't even really want you to try to convert the egomaniacs around
you. I think I can speak
for most recruiters when I say that no one really wants to waste their time interviewing them anyway.
Ok, that's it. You can probably guess that I ran into a few egos this month, which is less frustrating than it is
saddening. I wished these people weren't so blatantly shooting themselves in the foot, that's all. I know this
is kind of a hardcore subject this month, but I wanted to throw it out there. Who knows, maybe we can start
to turn this ego trend around, huh? Here's hoping so!
Hit me with any feedback/comments/requests, if you want: [email protected]
As always, have fun and keep animating!!!! Shawn :)
ADDENDUM TO SNOBBERY CHAPTER
Wow. My email box overfloweth!
I received about 10 times more email than I normally do about last month's "We're A Bunch Of Snobs" article,
almost all of it very positive and encouraging, so I guess it must have struck a bit of a chord with some of
you. It was great to hear that I wasn't the only one worried about this trend, and I got a lot of great comments
and stories from all over the world. Thanks to everyone for emailing in!!!
Betty Martin wrote from Arkansas to say "Don't ever give up your dream to become an animator, don't ever
lose your love for
your talent. Be happy with each accomplishment of your work. The start of a great future
could begin with a small advertisement brochure. Be proud of everything you do and be thankful for any offer
in your field. Build on being positive to those around you."
Dhar Jabouri from Newark, CA had this to say: "This is a lesson not only for animation lovers, it is a lesson in
life in general. Snobs are disliked no matter where they are. Arrogance is a path to abasement. The higher a
person thinks of himself, the lower he will be in the eyes of people. It never fails. This issue is as old as
man. ...Instead of being arrogant, the animator should be grateful, in humility, for being given the chance to
do something that he enjoys."
And Brandon Kern of San Francisco, CA refreshingly wrote in to say: "Personally I'll be excited if ANY studio
lets me animate ANYTHING. I will be more than happy to animate a background blade of grass or the snot
dripping from a background character's nose. So much to learn! I just hope I get there. With Animation
Mentor I think I will."
Now *THAT's* the attitude to have, especially when you are first breaking into this animation business! The
more Brandons we have out there, the happier this industry, and the stronger the work will get.
MOVING FROM TRANFORMERS TO CARTOONS HOW TO TRANSITION YOUR STYLE
“Oh man, I feel great.
You know that feeling you get when you finally achieve a long-held goal, or you've been working on a project
for a year and finally wrap it all up? You cross that last "t" and dot that last "i" and can sit back and say, "wow
- it's done!"
That's how I feel right now. A couple weeks ago, the best team of animators I've ever had the honor of
working with just finished Transformers, and I couldn't be more proud of the animation in the film. As
Transformers fans from childhood, we really put our heart and soul into the animation, and worked hard to
make those shots as cool as we could get them. The uber-challenging work, some long hours - none of that
mattered, we were just excited to have the chance to work on the movie, and whether it turns out to be a
success or not, we'll always have the satisfaction of knowing that we got to be a part of something that
inspired so much imagination in us as kids.
Why do I bring up Transformers? Well, it sort of plays into what I want to write about today. You see, for a little
over a year, I ate, breathed, and dreamed giant transforming robots. They were my life, quite literally. On a
project like that, if you want to perform at the level you're expected to perform at, you really have to throw
yourself into it as wholly and completely as possible. Maybe this is a sad commentary on the way films are
made, but the reality is that we spent more waking hours with our robots for that year than we did with our
families. Far more.
The point is, the project becomes a huge part of you, in a very real and tangible way.

You spend more time thinking about how to make a robot smash through a bus, or climb up out of a
swimming pool, than you do thinking about your friend's birthdays or the list of household chores you know
you won't get to until the movie is done.
The project becomes your life.
And that's OK. It's supposed to. That's what they pay you for, you know? And you should go into this
business with that expectation.
That said, it's important to try to "leave the robots at work," if you will, as much as you can. Time with your
family, or playing with your 360, or vegging out in front of the TV watching Heroes - this stuff is important as
well, because in a way, that's your chance to recharge your animation batteries and avoid feeling burned out.
Get outside on the weekend and relax a little bit. Whatever it is that you enjoy, don't put it off for the length
of the project, make some time for it wherever you can, as meager as that time may be.
Maybe you'll spend more waking hours with your work than you do with your loved ones, but the key is to
make those hours at home count as much as possible, so hit the beach, or hug your family, or fire up Halo2,
or watch Hiro learn how to use his sword. Whatever it is, make some time for that too, ok?
Ok, so... back to the feeling you get when you finish that project.
Generally, I feel great to be done with Transformers, but if I'm honest, with this project completed I also feel
sad. It was unquestionably the most fun I've ever had as an animator, and I miss it already. A lot.
Not only that, I'm having a hard time getting over it. Not the sadness, or anything mushy like that - I'm
having a hard time getting myself out of "robot animator" mode.
And that is what I want to write about.
For a year, everything I've animated was made of steel. Gears, pistons, and giant armor plates. 30 foot tall
warriors in hand-to-hand combat. How does a giant heavy guy with wheels for feet move down a highway?
How can I try to make something as detailed and complex as this have poses that read as clearly as possible?
How do we give them weight, but also the speed they'd need to be the badass robot warriors that we want
them to be? That's where my head is at. I've spent a year thinking of pretty much nothing but that, as far as
animation goes.
Well, that show's over, and it's time to work on something else. On this new project, I'm suddenly animating a
fleshy 5-inch tall medium-cartoony creature.
Now, if you can come up with a more radical changing of animation gears than "30-foot Steel Warrior" to "5
inch cartoony guy," I'd love to hear it.
I've been on this new project for one week, and I'll be honest. I had a really hard time that first week.
Changing those gears in my head has really hit me hard. Suddenly all the things I've been training myself to
focus on for the last year are borderline irrelevant. It's like I spent the last year in Venice (I wish!) speaking
nothing but Italian, and suddenly someone flew me to Paris, dropped me off, and pointed at me, laughing
"forget Italian, it's time to speak French! Oh, and hurry!"
Now, don't get me wrong - a lot of the stuff I learned on Transformers (and let me tell you - working with that
group of animators, it was impossible NOT to learn!) is totally applicable to what I'm doing now, and will be
very useful knowledge in the long run, no matter what character I'm working on.
Remember the trusty "filing cabinet" we keep in our heads for observation and animation knowledge? Well,
I'm just cramming some of it in there to draw on later, and hopefully I won't lose too much of it over time.
That's pretty much all you can do when it's time to move onto the next project. You almost have to make
room in your head for this whole new set of files or something...
However, you still have the problem of wildly conflicting STYLES, which brings me (finally!) to today's tip:
*Tip #19: STYLE FIRST!
*What I mean by that is that the style of the project is paramount in importance - beyond any animation
principles or specific animation techniques.
So here I am, on this new movie. No more robots battling, it's time to animate something a little cartoony.
He's fleshy. Bouncy. Quick movements. Incredibly intricate facial stuff.
Even if you are new to animation, I'm sure you can envision the idea that the animation I'm doing right now
couldn't possibly be more different, both in substance and style, from Optimus Prime. So now the trick is to
flip this switch in your head, where you shove all your "badass robot warrior" stuff to the back, and start
searching through that filing cabinet for the stuff to replace it with.
This is exactly what I'm struggling with this week. I feel like I'm almost there. Tonight, just at the end of the
day, I finally felt like maybe I wasn't a completely lost cause after all, and that I was finally starting to get the
hang of it a little bit.

To be totally honest, I had to almost completely start my shot over mid-week. The blocking was a mess. It
was just all over the place
stylistically. Too fast here, dead there, hyper and cartoony here, realistic there... Ugh. Just awful - trust me.
The new blocking is finally feeling like maybe things will work out, but it took me some time to switch those
gears.
And in retrospect, I think "style" is what my problem was. I didn't really take the time to properly consider the
overall style of this new project. I just jumped right into it, as though it was just another robot shot.
What I should have done, was study as much footage as I could from the work that had already been done on
the movie. I did watch a lot of footage, but if I'm honest, that's all I really did - watch it.
Watching it isn't enough - I should have studied it. I should have taken the time at the beginning of the week
to REALLY figure out how this character moves, and why.
I should have figured out exactly what the rules of this movie's universe are. How does gravity affect this
character? Where does he fall on the "Tex Avery - Davy Jones" scale of cartoony vs. real? How many frames is
an average footstep for him? How does he carry his weight? Personality quirks? Acting traits?
Basically, I should have taken my own advice from the beginning of this column 20 months ago, and
remembered that planning is not only essential for every shot, but for every project as a whole.
Anyone who has been doing this animation stuff for a while knows that every movie has its own style. The
more realistic the work, the less variance in the style, I suppose, but it still exists nonetheless, and it's
important to really nail it down before you sit down and start saving keyframes.
Think about Davy Jones on the big screen, Peter Griffin on TV, and Tony Hawk skating across your Playstation.
They are all great animation examples, and done perfectly for their respective mediums and universes, but if
you plucked any one of them and swapped them into each other's worlds, they would look ridiculous.
Tony Hawk's animation in the games are terrific. They're really well done, consisting of a great blend of
complex animations that are carefully timed to be responsive to the crisp controls of the gameplay.
He pulls off his amazing tricks with great poses that blend perfectly from one to another as you try to string
your skating tricks together, and then always manages to get back to its default "skating" pose.
(Unless I'm playing, then Tony always manages to end up at the "Tony just cracked his head on the side of the
skate ramp" pose).
So, in the world of the Tony Hawk games, that animation is perfectly done, in my opinion. However, if you
took Tony Hawk and had him skating around on Davy Jones ship up there on the big screen, his animation
would look very out of place and odd. For one thing, because his movements are designed in the game to be
able to quickly react to your controller, he can move really fast. He'd look like a hyperfast spaz on Davy Jones
ship, probably, just as the super-detailed Davy Jones would look startlingly out of place wandering around
Tony Hawk's skate park.
Do I even need to mention what either of them would look like sitting in Peter Griffin's kitchen on Family Guy?
Or how Peter would look on Tony's skateboard?
These are all obviously very different styles of animation. None of them are "better" than the other, all are
carefully tailored by talented artists to meet the demands, expectations, and challenges of their mediums.
Davy has to look real and emote. Tony has to do cool tricks and react really fast. Peter has to have the
funniest comedic timing on television.
Nail down the style of the animation first, because the style will inform every animation decision you are
going to make on that project. Timing will be based on the style. Posing will be based on the style.
Most of all, acting decisions will all be made based on the style of the work. Is the style really cartoony, or
realistic and contained? I may have mentioned the ideas of "Representational" acting performances vs.
"Presentational" acting performances in the past, but basically those ideas break down into two different art
forms.
You've got "Representational," which is all about what is real. Photography, still-life paintings, and most
modern film acting would all be considered "representational." They depict what life actually looks like.
On the other hand, you have "Presentational," which is more about "showing" the audience something
slightly more abstract or "showy." Theater, Picasso, Cirque Du Soleil, and Tex Avery are all examples of
"Presentational" art forms.
Again, neither one is better, and neither could be said to be more "artistic" than the other. Optimus Prime and
Davy Jones would be said to be representational, while Scrat from Ice Age would be somewhat presentational.

Something like Nemo would probably fall somewhere in between, and often that can be where the most
magic is at - right smack in between the two.
Anyway - you need to figure out right away where your character and project are at on the ol' "Presentational
vs. Representational" chart before you'll know how they will move, or, more importantly, what sort of acting
choices they will make.
Specifically, this will inform the amount of "exaggeration" you will be applying to the principles of animation
in your shots, and will affect the level of theatrics in their movements.
Ok, that's it! Hopefully that was helpful to someone other than me...
Once again, if you have any thoughts, ideas, complaints, cocktail recipes, etc - feel free to email me
personally at tipsandtricks (at) animationmentor.com. It's been awesome hearing from you!
Oh, if anyone has a time machine and can send this article back in time to me one week ago, that'd really
help me out, by the way... I really could have used it! :)
Special thanks, by the way, to my beautiful bride-to-be for the great topic suggestion for this month! Funny,
smart, artistically amazing, a knockout, and can talk about animation styles too? Man, did I luck out or
WHAT?
That's it for me. Keep animating, and as always, have FUN!
HOW TO IMPRESS RECRUITERS
Hello there!
Ok, I think for once, this article is ACTUALLY going to be shorter than my usual hundred pages of rambling.
No, really! Honestly, this time it really will be. Don't believe me? Check this out:
*TIP # 20: Mute Your Characters Until You're Truly Ready To Let Them Speak*
Did you see that? Boom! Right into the Tip! Come on, quit pretending not to be impressed! There was no
preamble at ALL! I know for a FACT that most of you are thinking at this very moment, "Oh thank God, he's
actually talking about animation before paragraph 20 this month!"
I know, it's a miracle, right? I haven't talked about Fried Chicken, Bacardi Anejo, or my Mom at ALL yet, and
already we're talking about this month's tip!! I didn't even mention that you can mail me at
[email protected]!
Oh, wait...I guess technically we're mostly talking about how I'm talking about animation, but I'm not really
saying anything about animation yet! D'oh! I'm doing it again!!!! NOOOOOOO!
(Ok, quick - we gotta get back on track. Pretend that I just blurted out the tip, and didn't say any of that stuff
about Fried Chicken or Paragraph 20!)
Mute your characters? What on Earth could that mean?
Well, I'm just going to throw this out there as bluntly and plainly as possible. Below, I'm going to outline a
typical demo reel that we see time and time again:
Shot 1: A character stands in one spot and delivers funny dialogue from the animator's favorite movie.
Shot 2: A medium shot (torso, arms, and head) of a character delivering dialogue from another favorite
movie. Shot 3: A floating, disconnected head doing facial animation to dialogue from another favorite movie.
Shot 4: A shot of a character sitting behind a desk, doing dialogue from (yes, you guessed it) another favorite
movie. Shot 5: Another disconnected floating head, usually with a white or black background, doing lip-sync.
Shot 6: A character tries to pick up a heavy box and fails.
Shot 7: A final medium shot of a character delivering dialogue from yet another favorite movie.
Ok, so... on the surface, I think that a lot of animation students see this list, and truly think, "Yeah, that demo
reel would rock. Those studios would eat that up!"
Sadly, this couldn't be further from the truth. The demo reel described above would have an incredibly hard
time landing you an animation job at any medium-to-large studio working in any medium, be it games,
features, or TV.
"But, why?" you might ask, and I'm glad you did. I'll tell ya!
It's because that demo reel will tell the recruiter literally almost nothing about your animation skills, with the
possible exception of one shot.
Huh?

Ok, here's the thing...acting is very important. I've written ad-nauseum about the importance of studying
acting, of creating memorable and moving performances, etc. A believable and moving acting performance
is, to my mind and probably to yours as well, the very pinnacle of the art of animation.
But it's just that - the *PINNACLE*. In other words, it's the culminating point of our art. It's the *TOP*.
If you were a mountain-climber, and your goal was to reach the pinnacle, then the end-goal of all of your
mountaineering training would be to, someday, be skilled enough to climb Mt. Everest, right? But would you
START at Mt. Everest? Heck, no! Only if you were suicidal! Tackling Everest as a beginner, and actually
attempting to reach the peak, would almost certainly result in your death.
So obviously, you don't start with Everest, right? Do you start with some smaller mountains? Maybe. Most
likely, you start even more basic – at a short rock-climbing wall, or a hill outside of town! You start SMALL, you
learn the basics, and you work your way up, right?
Animation is no different. I can't think of anything more detrimental to the progress of your animation
education than to start doing dialogue shots before you've mastered the basic fundamental principles of body
mechanics, physics, weight & balance, arcs, etc. Anyway, I'm veering off-track. We can come back to that
stuff in a minute. Let's get back to that demo reel, and I'll dissect it for you.
And you know what? Let's pretend that the dialogue tests are good.
Really good. Let's pretend that the acting is really strong and emotional, ok? Here we go: First off, we saw a
character standing in one spot delivering dialogue from a movie.
Since this is the very first shot, most likely the recruiters aren't going to judge it *too* harshly if the acting is
at least solid. However, the key problem with this shot is that the character is standing in *ONE PLACE*. His
feet commonly look nailed to the ground, and if his performance is at all active, there's a fifty-fifty chance
that his ankles look broken as well.
So you've got this great acting performance going on in the top half of the character. Nice facial stuff, some
cool hand gestures... but guess what? The character isn't MOVING around at all. He isn't using the space of
the scene. Unless it's key to his performance that he's stationary (he's devastated, hiding, or his feet have
been dipped into cement blocks - which is what these shots often look like), you've just tossed away an
excellent chance to show the recruiters that you know how to animate.
Yes, they want to see acting. It's super important. But, honestly? It's even MORE important that you show that
you know how to make that character walk around during his performance. To take steps that emphasize his
emotions, or even just shifting the character's weight!
An acting shot where the feet don't move tells me one thing and one thing only, regardless of the strengths
of the performance - it tells me that the animator doesn't know the basics of animation yet.
Next on the reel, we saw a medium shot of a character doing another performance.
This one is a little more forgivable, because at least it won't stand out so badly that the feet aren't moving,
but once again, the
recruiter has no idea of your true animation skills.
Next is the classic "floating head on a black background doing lip-sync." I don't know how this started, but it
is starting to become common on demo reels. Maybe this is valuable to recruiters in other mediums, but for
features and film work, I'd definitely recommend against including this sort of thing on your reel. The
recruiter is far more interested in seeing how you integrate the facial performance with the overall body
performance and gestures than in the facial stuff itself.
Not to mention that the sight of a disembodied head is unsettling and disorienting anyway!
Then we come to the guy sitting behind a desk, delivering his dialogue. You see where I'm going with this,
right? He's sitting.
*SITTING.*
Well, I guess you've done a good job showing the recruiter that you know how to bend the legs into a sitting
pose, but beyond that, you haven't really shown them anything.
If this character is swiveling around in his chair, or walking in and sitting down in the chair at the start of the
scene, or getting up out of it, or jumping onto it excitedly mid-sentence – well, then that's another story!
THOSE are the shots that will show the recruiters that you not only have nice acting ideas, but that you know
how to execute the strong physical dynamics that they're so desperately searching for.
If your character is sitting, and his emotional state is at all upbeat, you really NEED to find ways to bring him
to life. Move that chair around, for Pete's sake. Remember, his butt isn't super-glued to the chair, it's going to

move around a bit, and affect the chair as well! It's essential to show that you have these abilities,
particularly when you're stuck doing a scene of someone sitting. There are great opportunities, even in a
seated shot, to show off your animation skills- you just have to find and exploit them!
Then we had the second disconnected head, because once is just never enough...and then we came to the
heavy box lift.
Now, cliché and overused or not, we've finally hit a bit of animation that is actually going to show the
recruiter what you're capable of. In my mind, this is the most valuable shot on this entire reel, with the
possible exception of also getting to see some nice acting stuff in some of the other shots, which is nice if it's
truly impressive, but not nearly as telling as this box lift.
Here is where we will finally see if the animator knows arcs, weight & balance, overlap, anticipation, line of
action, reversals, force, and all the other goodies that we're hunting for in this demo reel.
Thank goodness the animator included this test on the reel, but it's too bad that it's the only one. Most likely,
this one lonely example of physical animation is not going to be enough to convince the recruiter that you're
ready for his/her time. Even if the acting is really great, there's still a good chance that the utter lack of
physicality throughout the rest of the reel is going to scare them away, particularly if they are a game studio
(EA, Lucasarts, Bungie, Page44) or a visual effects studio (ILM, Tippet, Sony, Weta). Even most feature studios
(Pixar, Blue Sky, Disney, PDI) are going to pass on this reel.
As focused as all of the above studios are on the importance of believable and communicative acting, they
also all realize that a shot with great acting choices but poor body mechanics is going to be a failure.
Here's the straight scoop. Check out this list of concepts below. These aren't all of them, but they're a good
cross-section of the basics of animation.
If any one of these isn't very familiar to you, you should not be
working with dialogue yet:
line of action reversals
weight & balance arcs
anticipation overlap
secondary action (which is NOT the same thing!) spacing
force silhouette pantomime
dynamic posing
There are more topics for sure, but these are just some off the top of my head that I would expect anyone
doing dialogue to have already mastered, generally speaking. If any of these are unfamiliar to you, put that
acting shot aside, and start learning about it. Find some books about the subject, find a mentor, read about it
online, or hey - join our school! (Had to get a plug in there, right?!)
:)
Anyway, let's get back to Everest.
I understand completely why so many beginning animators jump right into dialogue tests. They're fun!
They're funny!! The allure of the dialogue test is almost irresistible to anyone who's learned how to save a
keyframe.
I get it. I do.
The first dialogue tests I ever heard of were at a Siggraph presentation by Pixar back in 1996. They did a
full-day "making of" of Toy Story that blew my mind right out the door, and part of it included Woody tests
where he was animated to clips of Tom Hanks dialogue that had been taken from other Tom Hanks movies.
I suppose this probably wasn't the first dialogue test, but it was the first we had heard of. To me, this was the
most radical and amazing and wonderful idea EVER, and it fired me up like nothing else. I couldn't wait to get
home and start choosing what Star Wars line I was going to animate to. So, believe me - I do see the appeal,
and personally do find dialogue shots to be a ton of fun. Luckily, soon after that trip I met my mentor, Wayne
Gilbert, who explained the importance of studying the fundamentals. He straightened me out, and got me on
the right track. (Thanks, Wayne!)
If animation is our mountain range, and the dialogue shot is our Everest, my advice would be to take the time
to tackle those rock- climbing walls and the hills outside of town before you try to ascend the highest peak in
the art form. Find a mentor, plug into
an online animation community, learn whatever you can from
anyone you can! Train yourself to observe life. Study how the body works - what moves what, and more
importantly, why?
Going straight for Everest is artistic suicide, and you'll be setting yourself up for failure. Your results, no
matter how good, will be far inferior to the acting tests you will be able to do once you have a solid
understanding of body mechanics under your belt.
In that light, not only do subpar acting shots ruin countless demo reels, but they slow down your learning
process tremendously. You waste so much time working on these "acting shots" that will never be good

enough to get you that dream job you are aiming for. You're so much better off working on your physical
skills, and THEN moving into the world of acting only after you are extremely comfortable with all of those
basic animation concepts.
The worst part of all this is that if you don't have that all-important grasp of the fundamentals, then you
simply don't have the skills yet to realize that the acting test isn't all that hot. This is not a reflection of your
talent or artistic sensibilities; it's simply the result of a lack of essential knowledge. It'd be like me judging a
space shuttle. Pretty much any kind of space shuttle might look cool to me from the outside, but that doesn't
mean it's actually going to fly. I simply don't know what it takes to make the shuttle actually work! A shuttle I
think looks great might have glaring problems to a seasoned shuttle designer, right?
Well, the recruiter is that shuttle designer, and you want to make sure that you know as much as they do
about this animation stuff before you show them your space shuttle, ok?
Wow - this article has so many metaphors! It's almost as if this article was a tree, and metaphors were nuts,
and I was a squirrel, and....
oh jeez - never mind.
See you guys next time! Thanks again for all the feedback and great suggestions!! Keep those emails flowin'
to Tipsandtricks@ animationmentor.com While it sometimes takes me a little while to find time to reply, I do
read and reply to each one personally. Oh man, and I also just realized that once again, I've written a freakin'
BOOK instead of a short article. I was SO SURE this was going to be the short one! Did you see how fast I got
down to business? It was the second paragraph! I can't get started any quicker than that!! D'oh!
Oh well - thanks for reading anyway... Keep animating! And as always, have FUN!
REVERSALS
Well hello there!
Last month was all about muting your character. Remember that? If you don't know this principle or that
principle, then you aren't ready to animate acting tests yet? Well, you might remember that one of those
principles was called "reversals."
Reversals aren't terribly complicated, but I know a lot of people haven't heard of them before if they aren't in
a good animation school, so let's dive in!
What the heck is a reversal?! When you first hear that word, you probably think of someone changing their
mind. They wanted pizza, but now they want fried chicken (and come on, who wouldn't?!) - they've reversed
their opinion. They've flip-flopped, right? Well, in animation, a reversal is essentially the same exact thing.
A reversal generally refers to an arc or line of action through the body mirroring into it's "opposite" shape.
More specifically, a reversal is usually associated with the curve of the spine mirroring in shape.
Get it? Ok, cool - see you guys next month!
Just kidding. That probably didn't make sense at all, huh? Ok, let's go through a more practical example. The
most common would be the good ol' box lift. It's hard to find a better animation assignment than the classic,
tried-and-true box lift. A box lift tests your skills in a wide variety of animation principles, and reversals are
definitely one to look for in any box-lift assignment.
Buckle up, by the way, because I'm about to hit you with one of my shockingly primitive drawings. While I'd
love to pretend that this drawing is so unimpressive merely because I'm feeling too lazy to re-draw this first
thumbnail of my ideas, the truth is that it wouldn't really get much better even if I re-drew it, so you might as
well just stick with this one...

Ok, so what's going on in this picture? Well, the crappily drawn stick-man is about to pick up a crappily drawn
box. Are you with me so far?
So, here's the deal. Knowing the idea of reversals HELPS the animator know the mechanics of the body.
Check this out - this gets pretty cool:
We know certain things about how this crappily drawn dude needs to pick up his box, because of the
principles of force, weight, balance, line of action, etc - all of these things that you are studying dictate the
way this guy's body HAS to move, crappily drawn or not!
If this box is heavy, certain things MUST happen in this guy's body in order for him to pick up the box. For one
thing, he needs to get his butt and at least one foot as close as possible to the box, right?

Otherwise, he's going to fall forward, because the sudden introduction of the weight of the box will have to be
held up by his feet, and compensated balance-wise by where he places his butt.
Another thing we know is that he is going to anticipate the lift a little bit by lowering his bum just before he
lifts. We also know that his butt will probably lead the action, moving upwards until at least one of his arms
straightens out. We also know that once that happens, if the box is really heavy, he will have to heave with
his shoulders, keeping his arms mostly straight (usually).
The final thing I want to mention, is that we know that as he heaves that box upwards, he is going to fall over
if he doesn't quickly scoot his butt forward to be beneath the box, so that the weight of his body and the
weight of the box line up above his feet as much as possible.
Well, guess what happens when his shoulders go up/back, and his butt comes forward? A REVERSAL!
Ta daa! See how it all comes together?
Check out the pose marked #1. It's sort of a ) shape. Well, that's the best way I can show it on my keyboard
anyway. But when those shoulders heave, and his butt comes forward to save him from falling over
backwards, his spine REVERSES into a ( shape, as you can see in pose #2.
For me, this is the sort of thing that makes animation so interesting. You've got this giant (endless!) pile of
skills and principles to learn, and they all really do come together magically when you're creating an action
like this. All of those things we just talked about can really be described by ONE animation concept - the
reversal.
From #1 to #2, all you really need to know is that his spine will do a reversal, and boom - you've just built a
great foundation of solid body mechanics into your scene! Now, it *IS* important that you know *WHY* there
is a reversal. It's essential to know what's creating that reversal in order to really sell it, but this is a great
example of one animation idea boiling down the essence of a variety of others into one key concept.
So, guess what happens between pose #2 and pose #3? Ok, dumb question, right? Another reversal. But
why?
Well, when he lets the weight of that box settle into his stomach or onto his waist/hips, what's that weight
going to do? It's going to shove downwards. The shoulders are going to relax as much as they can, dropping
downwards. His hips will fall a bit as the weight settles into the legs. His spine is going to have to bend a bit
for the box as his hips come forward a bit more in order to save him from falling forward.
All of these body mechanics are happening in order to keep this guy on his feet, and keep the box in his
hands. And all of these body mechanics are creating this reversed spine as well!
Now, the great thing about reversals is that they can show power. They can communicate weight. Now that
you're thinking of them, watch how much you see them in the world around you. You'll find them helping to
create powerful baseball pitches, javelin throws, or tennis serves, not to mention jumps, pushes, pulls, and
nearly any other forceful physical action you can think of.
The reversal is the visual description of what is going on in your body as it tries to build up force and power,
as it curls around itself in order to coil and build power, or prepare to spring into action. We all know that
anticipations create the power necessary for many actions (if you don't believe this, try jumping without
dropping your hips at all first!), and as do many other body mechanics, anticipations are a big part of what
creates these reversals in the first place. Overlapping action, arcs, force, etc - all of these work together to
CREATE the reversals, but the concept of reversals in and of themselves can be a powerful tool for the
animator, and an easy way to meld so many animation ideas together into one performance.
I'd caution you not to think of it as a shortcut, however. Don't jump into a scene thinking "I'm going to create
a reversal." Rather, think about the body mechanics, what has to happen in order to sell the weight and
action, and THEN look for opportunities to accentuate reversals and exaggerate the lines of action in the
body to push that ever-elusive sense of weight even further!
Hey! I think I'm done!!! Is this my shortest article ever? Gosh, it really might be! I better shut up, then,
before it's too late!
Thanks for reading, and an extra special thanks to those of you writing in with your thoughts and ideas! Feel
free to continue to hit me up at [email protected]
Have fun, and as always - keep animating!!
RECHARGE YOUR ANIMATION BATTERIES
Today's topic is about your Animation Batteries. You know the ones. That bank of Double-A (for
AnimationAnimation, of course!) batteries that sit in your heart, and power your animation passion.
Guess what? Those batteries don't last forever. I don't care if they are Super Ultra-Ninja Double-MegaStrength batteries, eventually they are going to run down. Hopefully, they'll never die completely, but they
darn sure get low sometimes.

Animators are passionate people. We're artists, and we love our art dearly. We care about it. We study it, find
ways to improve it, to grow ourselves as artists. We have the passion, and our batteries are so maxed out
when we start down this animation journey that they're practically exploding with energy! We're bringing
stuff to life! What could be more fun, right?
Well - eventually, no matter who you are, and no matter how much passion you have, your animation
batteries are going to need some help. Which brings us (finally!) to today's tip:
Tip #22: Recharge Your Animation Batteries!
Here's the deal - you might be the most passionate animator in the world, and your batteries might be firing
away at 100% for a few years even, but eventually, we all hit that moment where it becomes a grind. If
you're working, it suddenly becomes a Job, with a capital J. Something we're required to do, but man, we'd
rather be doing almost anything else under the sun. We've made a million changes to the shot over and over
for the client, or just can't get this certain acting beat to read properly, or we've spent more hours animating
in a week than we thought actually EXISTED in a week, or the project is just so far removed from the high
hopes you felt at the beginning, and our hearts are just suddenly NOT in it anymore.
Whatever the reason, we just don't care anymore. Well, that isn't quite right - we don't care about the thing
that MATTERS anymore. We care about keeping our jobs, or we care about getting the assignment done, or
whatever, but when it comes to the ART of what we're doing, forget it. We don't care. We're done. We go into
"Animation Roboto" mode and just push keys around and scale curves and do whatever little iterations we
can do to keep the shot moving forward, but we put zero creativity or art into it.
This, my friends, is when our batteries are toast. Maybe they aren't dead yet, but they're old and tired and
starting to leak acid all over our passion.
At this point, you have two choices. You can either pull those Animation Batteries out, throw them away, and
wander around looking for some new kind of batteries (may I recommend Fried-Chicken Batteries? The world
can always use more Fried Chicken Innovation! Why haven't I ever seen Coconut Fried-Chicken? Or FriedChicken-flavored toothpaste? Come on, people, get on it!), or
else we can decide that no, we don't want to quit, and instead start finding ways to RECHARGE those
animation batteries. How do we do this? Well, I guess it'll depend a little bit on who you are.
For me, it's all about getting a little space from this animation stuff sometimes.
Ever since I got my dream job at ILM, I've had a long-standing rule that I don't animate outside of the office.
Ever. I know some of you will think that's lame, or weak, or like I don't love to animate or something, but you
know what? I've seen too many people get burned out. I had too many "teachers" back in school who had
dead batteries. That isn't going to be me, if I can help it, and part of the solution is to have a life outside of
animation!
I animate all day long, five (and sometimes six) days per week. When I go home, I need to do things that
recharge my batteries whenever I can. Things like reading a good book, or digging through some comics, or
watching some great TV shows... I'll write a story, or I'll watch a movie, just for the fun of it, and turn off my
hyper-critical animation brain as much as I can and just try to enjoy it for what it is instead of picking it apart
or frame-by-framing anything. I'll fire up my computer and look at some of my favorite artists latest work again, not really to study it, but just to ENJOY it.
Having just returned from my vacation/honeymoon, some of which was spent on the most beautiful beach
I've ever seen, I can vouch for the fact that travel, seeing exciting new things, meeting new people, and some
serious hammock-time can also really do wonders for your batteries!
In short, whenever I can, I'll find things that inspire me like crazy – not even necessarily inspiring me as an
artist, but even just inspiring me as a person – and just experience those things as much as I can.
I realize that earlier in your animation career, this isn't a real option, because for the first few years, you
probably DO need to be animating as much as you possibly can - both to learn and to create new stuff for
your reel. However, once I built a demo reel I was comfortable with, I set aside the need to constantly
animate my brains out every waking moment of my life, and instead focused on making sure that I was
relaxed, inspired, and excited to go to work and animate every single morning.
So, that's a good way to avoid having your batteries get low in the first place, but what about when they are
really starting to bottom out?
My wife (whoa - that was such an awesome way to get to start a sentence, I'm going to start it over!)
My wife had some cool things to say about this tonight over dinner. (Yes, she's an animator too - how
awesome is that? Which sort of makes up for her not really eating much fried chicken, I guess...)

She does a lot of the same things I do - watches movies, reads some comics, whatever, but for her,
recharging is less about doing these as an escape from animation, and instead about finding how these
things relate to her animation passion, and using them to feed it.
For her, it's all about finding things that inspire her to think about animation even more! It's watching
animated-films and their making-of documentaries. It's seeing some amazing artwork in a comic book and
really studying WHY that certain pose feels so dynamic. It's sitting down to draw in her spare time and invent
new characters and stories. It's watching amazing animation over and over and just getting so inspired that
it completely fires up her animation batteries, and she's ready to charge back into the fray the next morning,
totally rejuvenated!
This is a great point, and an interesting distinction. She worries less about avoiding the battery drain in the
first place, and instead just stays constantly inspired. I, on the other hand, tend to worry less about finding
constant inspiration than I do about avoiding the drain in the first place, and instead run my batteries off of
an older charge.
Which is better? Beats me! In the end, it's probably pretty much the same thing, just handled a little
differently. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that you are conscious, in SOME way, of your battery
charge. When those Double-A's are getting low, get off your butt and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, and don't
just sit around doing the old mope-n-hope, where you're whining about your
situation and hoping the batteries magically recharge themselves and fire you back up.
That's the worst thing you can do. If you're in that mode, guess what's going to happen? Your work will suffer.
And if you're in a studio, guess what happens when your work suffers? People start to notice. Which
endangers your job. Which, I think we can all agree, is not a good thing.
And like a lot of problems in life, the earlier you catch this, the better. As soon as you notice that you aren't
really caring about this shot or that shot, stop for a moment, figure out why, and then re-inspire yourself
SOMEHOW. If that means trying to get away from it for a little bit, then try hard to do that. If it means
popping in your favorite animated film and marveling at some amazing animation, then do that! Maybe it
means drawing some funny drawings, or playing some Halo3, but whatever it is, find it for yourself before it's
too late. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to your project, and if you're at a studio who has taken a
gamble in investing in you and entrusting their work to you, then you owe it to them as well.
Now, it would be a cop-out not to acknowledge (or for you students out there, "prepare you") that the single
most common cause of battery-drain is an indecisive or hyper-picky client. While your batteries can
sometimes drain because of your own missteps – you get stuck on something in your shot, or it just isn't
working, or the emotion isn't reading - these are not the real danger areas for your batteries. In fact, it's
relatively easy to avoid any drastic battery drain from this stuff, because you'll find renewed inspiration from
the solutions you'll discover to the very challenges that were draining you moments before. No, the hardest
battery-drainers to face are the outside-influences you are forced to deal with.
It doesn't matter what medium you work in, or what studio you work for, eventually you will find a client who
just CANNOT make up their mind. Maybe they just don't know what they want in the first place, or have no
imagination or vision and can't even discuss a shot until they see a version of it which they inevitably change
a dozen times over, or maybe they just like to suggest changes in order to feel important or like an integral
part of the process.
You WILL meet these people. If you're lucky, they will be in the minority, but I'd be surprised if you could go a
decade in this business without working (suffering?) under a director or supervisor afflicted with a bad case of
"I-Don't-Knowitis."
The key to surviving these projects, and coming out the other side with a positive attitude and your passion
in tact, is to first acknowledge the moment that you no longer truly care about the work, and then to do
something about it.
I know those experiences can be frustrating, but I know from experience that wallowing in the muck of your
misery on a tough project will only lead to more misery and frustration in the end, and you're so much better
off just powering through the experience, forcing yourself to stay excited about any little aspect of the work
that you can latch onto, and seeking out as much inspiration as possible elsewhere.
Just remember that this project isn't the end-all, be-all of your career, and in all likelihood it'll eventually
dissolve into a funny anecdote you'll tell people about years later when you're sharing animation war-stories
with your peers.
Most importantly, if a project, shot, or director is hammering away at your batteries on a daily basis, don't let
them kill it for you. It's your art, and you had a passion for it. Remember when Animation was WOW for you?
It can be again! It WILL be, if you can hang in there! It's up to YOU to protect those batteries and fill them
back up. Don't let one project, or one co-worker ruin this magic for you. It's yours, and no one can really take
the love of this art away from you unless you give up and let them.

Ok, that's it! It's great to be back, and thanks again for all the nice messages you've sent! Feel free to hit me
with any feedback, complaints, or topic suggestions at: [email protected] Thanks again for
last month - the tribute blew my mind, and I'll always treasure it. Special huge thanks to the AMers who set it
up (whose true identity I still don't know! Sneaky, aren't they?), and extra special huge mega thanks to my
beautiful bride for my 24/7 smile, although it might be nice if you could be a little less wonderful now and
then, because my cheeks are starting to hurt.
See y'all next month! I promise it'll be shorter (no one really believes that anymore, do they?), and
significantly less sappy next time.
Keep animating, keep those batteries charged, and as always - HAVE FUN!!!!!!
IT AIN’T OVER TILL THE CHARACTERS LIVE
Just a reminder, if you have a special topic request for next time, or just want to get your favorite cocktail
tried out, then be sure to email me at: [email protected] right away! Something else I'm
toying with is a "lightning-round" of question- answering for questions that I've received that don't need a
giant article-long answer, so if you have even a tiny topic suggestion or quickie question, send it along!
Ok, and now back to our regularly-scheduled newsletter article...
Today's topic was suggested by Avner Engel, who emailed to ask a really great question. Basically, he's
wondering how you know when you stop working on a shot, call it done, and move on to the next one. It's a
tough question, and one I've heard pretty often when talking to students, so I figured it'd be a good one to
tackle!
I mean, it *is* something that we all have to wrestle with, to one degree or other. Obviously all of us have our
own particular situations and set of circumstances. Some of us have directors to contend with, some have
teachers to follow, some are just animating at home, or working on a piece for their demo reel. But no matter
the circumstances of where we're at in our career (or hobby), we all at some point have found ourselves
leaning back in our chair, watching our animation looping over and over, and wondering, "So... am I done?"
That's such a HUGE question, isn't it? How many times have you asked yourself that? If you're an animator, I
guarantee it's in the thousands. Every time you render your work to take a look at where you're at, you're
asking that question. Am I done? Is this good enough? Does it work? What do I have to change?
In a way, this is the most basic primal question that an animator constantly wrestles with. When are these
characters finally, truly, alive? When can I set this aside and move on with my life!?
There's really no easy answer to this, but I'll give it the ol' college try...
*TIP 23: It Ain't Over Till the Characters Live*
In my mind, it seems like there are three times that you know when you're finished with a shot:
1)
2)
3)

When there is nothing mechanically wrong with the movement and the performances truly LIVE
When you're out of time
When the director says so

Obviously, the first one is the one that we should all strive for with every single shot we do. This is the ideal
in animation. A believable
performance in every way - physically *and* emotionally. But then again - the question is still hanging there
as to how we know EXACTLY WHEN the performance IS believable. I mean, we've seen this stupid shot ten
gajillion times by now, and we're so used to it we can't possibly see it through fresh eyes, right? Of course
the emotional performance reads perfectly to us, we CREATED it! We could tell you the exact frame that she
flips from content to worried!
If we're so intimately familiar with our shot after spending so many hours tangled up in it, how can we pull
back and figure out if it's really working?
Well, guess what? We can't.
Ok, well - sometimes we can, it depends on the shot. Especially shots that are primarily physical - these we
can usually more accurately judge, but even with these, we still need to try to find a way to figure out if the
sucker is actually FINISHED or not.
Some people use the mirror method, which I think I've mentioned here before – basically, you hold a mirror
up to your screen and watch your animation in the mirror. This tricks your brain into seeing the shot "fresh"
and can be a huge help in determining where you are at with the shot. I do this myself sometimes and find it
very helpful.

However, the most accurate and helpful way to determine your shot's true level of completion is to (buckle
up for this one!) SHOW IT TO SOMEONE!
I know you all know that, but it bears repeating. We're too close to the shot, and once it comes close to being
done, you absolutely
*must* show it to someone who hasn't seen it 10,000 times already. Ideally, you'll show it to a few different
people to get a better cross-section of your potential "audience."
Keep in mind, these people do NOT have to be animators. You can show your parents, your friends, your
siblings, the neighbor,
a janitor - ANYONE. They all have a valid point of view, since they all are
potentially the audience for the work you are doing, and at this point, you aren't necessarily looking for a
real animation critique – if you think you're finished, you're more just looking for people to validate that
suspicion.
You just need to see if regular people know what the character is doing, feeling, and why. That's it. Ask a few
people. If they do, and you think the physical movements are feeling right, then ta-daaa! You're done! Time
to pack up and move on down the road to the next shot.
The second way that you know you're done with your shot (and sadly, this can sometimes be more often than
actually scaling the mountain of animation perfection and planting your flag in Perfect Shot Peak) is when
you're out of time.
Bummer, I know. But I also know that a LOT of you have banged your head up against this very often in your
animation career. We've all come up against this one at one time or another.
Deadlines are a fact of life in this industry, and sometimes that deadline rolls along and your shot is only
halfway up that mountain, and you have to set it aside. While this isn't ideal for your demo reel, it *is*
potentially ideal for your project's schedule, not to mention for your continuing success in your current job.
Deadlines are paramount, and if you are animating for a living, there is little that is more important than
hitting your deadlines.
I know that's no fun to hear as an artist, but it's simply the way the world works. If we want someone to pay
us for creating this art, then we have to understand that the trade off is that they will need that art to be
finished by a certain time. That's it.
But what happens when we run out of time and the shot doesn't look quite right yet? Well, it doesn't matter.
You're out of time, so that's that. You put it away and move on.
HOWEVER, that's not to say that you can't go back to that shot someday, heave it back up onto its feet, and
like Sam carrying Frodo up Mount Doom, drag it the rest of the way up the mountain to Perfect Shot Peak.
Remember, these animation files aren't going to magically disappear if you can save them somewhere!
My advice if you are on a
project where the deadlines are too tight to create anything you'd be truly proud of on a demo reel, would be
to create a special folder for shots that you think have real potential. When you run out of time, put those
special shots into that folder. Then, after the project is over, or in your spare time, or on a weekend or
whatever, open up one of those shots and polish it up into the gem you know it could be!
The important thing is to truly set it aside during work-time if working on it is going to steal time away from
working on the next shot. If you keep hanging onto your shots for an extra hour here, one more day there,
you'll really find yourself in a pickle by the end of the project, and the production staff on the project aren't
going to like you very much. If it makes it easier to let them go if you know that you aren't throwing them
away forever, then keep that special folder of unpolished gems around!
Lastly, you know when your shot is done if the director of your project says it's done.
Like many of you, I've been in a situation where I know for a fact that my shot is not done yet. It's barely past
blocking, for crying out loud, and low and behold, the guy in charge of the project sees it and proclaims it to
be "Perfect! Just what I need. Final!"
If you're like me, you reacted in horror to this news, and probably lost some respect for the person heaping
praise on your half- baked- still-in-progress animation. But guess what? It's done. It's his project. If he likes it,
and says it's what he wants, then who are we to argue? (See the "You're A Tool" article from a few months
ago...)
I think your response to this situation has to depend a little bit on exactly who this person is. Do they know
animation? Probably not, if they're happy with your unfinished animation even though the deadline hasn't hit
yet. If that's the case, you can sometimes get away with polishing the shot up on your own time and then
turning it in, but my advice would be to be very honest about this and not try to sneak it in. There's a chance
that he really liked some specific thing about your shot, and regardless of whether or not it was "wrong," he
may be very upset to suddenly discover it missing, even though the animation is technically "better."

However, if you have time, or even in your off-hours, if you do create a better version of the shot, most
people are pretty happy to be presented with a newer "upgraded" version of the work as long as they still
have the option of choosing to go with your earlier version.
So, I guess when you really boil it down, knowing when your shot is finished really depends on who you are
animating for. If you're animating for yourself, and doing a cool new piece for your demo reel, then striving to
reach the top of Mount Animation Perfection should be your goal every single time. Many of you, however,
aren't only animating for yourself, and are lucky enough to have found someone to actually PAY you to do
what you love. In these cases, you're more often than not going to be striving to climb that mountain in SPITE
of the situation you are in (up against deadlines, less-knowledgeable "superiors", and producers who care - or
are often forced to care - more about short-term gains in productivity than long-term profitability due to
increased quality), but that's still no excuse to not strive with every shot to get it as high up those mountain
cliffs as you possibly can.
It's often said that no animator actually "finishes" a shot, they just have it taken away from them. To some
degree that's true, but it isn't always true, that's for sure. Sometimes – not all the time, but every once in a
while – the stars align and everything comes together just perfectly, and the shot is well and truly DONE. It's
magic, and you watch it over and over and marvel that you actually created that, and you might not even be
quite sure how you pulled it off, but wow - look at that!
Those are the shots that become the center-piece of your demo reel, and those are the shots that make this
whole crazy career truly worth it.
Because SOMEONE is going to see that shot someday, and SOMEONE is going to be moved by it, and they're
going to be inspired by it, and they're going to be amazed that SOMEONE out there managed to create
something so entertaining or moving or scary or funny or heartfelt...
...and guess what? That someone is you! How cool is THAT?
Keep animating! And as always, have FUN! Shawn :)
ASK SHAWN YOUR QUESTIONS
Hello everyone!
Ok, there's some big news in Tips-and-Tricks-Land! I had so much fun answering your questions directly in last
month's "lightning round" series of questions, that I'd like to keep that idea rolling! I got some great feedback
and some fun new questions in the email from you guys this month, and I'd really love to experiment with
staying in the "Q&A" type of format for a bit.
So here's the scoop - I need your help!
In order to do some more Lightning Rounds, wherein I'll answer your questions directly with (theoretically)
short and concise answers, I need you guys to hit me with some fresh questions!
****So... if you are curious about anything animation-related at all, email your question to me at
[email protected]****
It'd be great if you could indicate where you are writing from and whether or not it's ok to use your name if
the question gets used in the article as well...
So, what do you think? Sound fun? I hope so! I'd love it if our little corner of the newsletter could evolve, at
least temporarily, away from me talking AT you about animation, and instead morph into more of a dialogue
or conversation between us about animation.
In fact, I'd love to read your thoughts on animation as well! If you disagree with something I've written, or
have an interesting animation experience or observation that you don't mind sharing with the planet, mail
me! If you want to remain anonymous, that's no problem at all, just be sure to say so in the email. But how
fun would it be if this space in the newsletter turned into a true open forum for all of us sharing our animation
ideas? I'll answer any questions, address any criticisms, and comment on any observations you care to send.
Sound fun?
Ok, one more time: [email protected]
Without your input, this format won't work. No question is too silly, no observation too small. Hit me with your
thoughts, and maybe you'll see them published and commented on right here!!
Lastly, just to shake things up even more around here, we're going to start having the occasional guest writer
chime in here now and
then. The first one will be next month, and I'll keep his identity a surprise for now, but suffice to say that you
will NOT want to miss it! The article will be about something many of us have struggled with at one time or

another - weight. And it'll be written by someone who really "knows his onions," as the saying goes... I can't
wait to read it, let alone get to share it with you guys!
Ok, so... the format is changing, at least for a little while. In the meantime, I think there's still room in here to
answer a question, so let's hop to it!
KEY POSES, BREAKDOWNS AND IN-BETWEENS
*Q: What's the difference between a Key Pose, a Breakdown, and an In-Between? -*Ravaka Ramasimpaniry,
Madagascar
*
*Answer: Hmmmm, I might not be able to be as "concise" with this one, but I'll tackle it anyway! For keys,
breakdowns, and inbetweens, think of them like this:
*
Key Poses* are the "key" moments that most clearly describe the important physical actions or emotional
moments in a scene. These are basically your most important poses -- in fact, these are so essential to the
movement/acting that if you removed any one of them from the scene, it would no longer work.
For me, I use a LOT of key poses. I find it helpful to be very detailed with my key poses. In a full-figure
animation, a key, for me, will be any moment something important changes. It could be that the character is
going to take a step to the right, so he has to shift his weight to the left first. Even though it isn't a "big"
action, I will think of the weight shifting to the left as a "key pose" or an "extreme," which are both terms that
are often used to describe the same exact thing, depending on who you are talking to. So, I will save a key on
every controller on the frame before he starts to shift his weight (this is a key pose for me), then I'll go to
where his weight shift finishes, and I'll pull his body to the left some. Then, even though I've only moved a
couple controllers, *I'll save a key again on EVERY controller on the character,* including hands, shoulders,
etc. This is another key pose or extreme, for me. I save keys on everything because it makes it much easier
to edit later on, and much less confusing in the graph editor when you are blocking. Eventually, I will have
to break up my keys somewhat as I get into fine-tuning the animation and polishing it up, but for now, it's
good to work this way.
An easier example to think about might be a bouncing ball animation, and the key poses would simply be the
frames where the ball hits the ground, and then the frames where the ball is at its highest peak.
A *Breakdown* is basically a pose that describes the timing of the scene. This one is a little more confusing,
but is *REALLY* important.
Let’s imagine that you've animated various bouncing balls in your animation career. For the sake of
discussion, let's say you've animated a soccer ball, a bowling ball, and a ping-pong ball. Now, even though
each of these balls has been (hopefully!) animated to show different weights and physical properties, all
three animations have essentially the same exact "key poses," simply at different frames and sometimes
different positions, but on all three you have poses where the ball is contacting the ground, and where the
ball is at the peak of it's bounce up into the air.

What makes these three animations different from each other is essentially the timing, right? There are other
important differences, but the most important is the timing. Well, one way to think about timing is with
breakdowns. Let's pretend that for your soccer ball animation, you have the ball on the ground on frame 1,
the ball bounces up and reaches the top of the bounce on frame 5, and then hits the ground again on frame
10. So your "key poses" are frames 1, 5, and 10.
Well, if you only put in those 3 poses, and don't adjust any curves, what does this look like? The timing is
perfectly even, right? Robotic.
The computer will help you try to smooth things out with curved interpolations in the graph editor (instead of
linear), but even this will look wrong because the default shape of the graph will give you essentially a bellcurve, with perfectly smooth ease-ins and ease-outs in all the wrong places.
A breakdown, then, is one way to think about fixing this horrible attempt by your computer to create the
timing. Between pose
1 and pose 5, you have 3 frames to play with. Right now, they are evenly spaced
between 1 and 5, giving you a linear movement. However, if you take frame 3, and decide to turn it into an
important breakdown, what you do is you go to frame 3, and you drag the ball upward, closer to the pose 5.
If you do this, you end up with a correct bounce timing, where the distance the ball covers between frame 1
and frame 2 is much further than it will cover between frame 3 and frame 4, right? This creates an "ease-in"
as pose 3 is now "easing into" pose 5, which slows it down, and which is precisely what you want at the top of
a bounce, as I'm sure you guys know.
Basically a breakdown is there to describe timing, and usually is being used to either create ease-in/ease-outs
or else it's there for an important bit of body mechanics or physical actions that are necessary for believable
movement. You might make a breakdown to have a nice arc on a swinging arm, or to create overlap after the
anticipation of someone starting to walk or something.

Last, we had *In-Betweens*, which are simply the frames left over! They're just the frames that sit in between
all the important key- poses/extremes and the breakdowns. If you do your extremes and breakdowns
correctly, you don't need to worry about these at all. Be careful not to have *too* many of these in a row,
though, that you haven't adjusted yourself. If you find that you have 20 or more frames between breakdowns
somewhere, you need to really take a good look at it to make sure it doesn't feel "floaty" or robotic. The
computer will try to keep it "smooth," which often just results in things looking drunk or wobbly...
I would say that at least in my work, I rarely have more than 4 or 5 frames go by where I don't have a key on
at least one controller on the character, just as a point of reference for you.
Well, I hope that helped! That was a pretty complicated question, and I ate up half of my space begging for
you guys to mail in, so let's just call it a day. I'm really excited about this new direction for the Tips & Tricks
space - hopefully you are too! I'm hoping to hear from a lot of you over the next few weeks and have a great
bank of questions to draw from in the upcoming months...
Let's see... what else?
Someone asked me if I'm working on

a personal project -- yup, it's called Animation Mentor!

ANIMATION ADVICE
I also got a couple of questions from people just getting into animation (woo hoo!) curious as to what my
"most important tip" would be for them. Once we get the archived articles up and running, check out the first
few, which are all about planning. My biggest tip would be to not rush into animation. To spend the
appropriate amount of time planning your shot, and really thinking through every aspect of it *BEFORE* you
sit down in front of your computer, drawing disc, or puppet.
The best advice I was ever given was when Steve Williams (of Jurassic Park fame) visited our school and said,
"If you want to become an animator, take your computer and bury it in the backyard. Then learn how to
animate. Then go dig up your computer and start using it as your tool."
That advice changed my life in a very real way, and I know that without hearing that from professionals, I
would have continued down the path of learning tools and technology instead of the art of animation. It really
drove home the idea that animation is a craft, independent of whatever tool you happen to be using at the
time.
It was shortly after that that Wayne Gilbert sat me down and explained scene planning in a way I had never
heard discussed before, and once again, it was all about the work you do before you sit down in front of your
tool. His advice was that the more time you spend planning, the better your shot will turn out, and the easier
it will be to animate.
Those two pieces of advice ("it's the art, not the tool," and "PLAN your work!") are easily the best two pieces
of animation advice I've ever received, and would always be my "most important tips" to pass along to
anyone diving into the world of animation!
Okay, that's all I've got. Drink #2 is gone, so unless you want to start hearing about why moths are evil or
Angry Attack Chickens, I think we should call this article finished! (Wait, that's actually not a bad idea for a
short film! Angry Attack Chickens vs. Evil Moths! Yeah!! ...Wait. Oh. Okay, yeah, that's a horrible idea.
...Never mind. See what I'm talking about? I better end this one FAST or we're in serious trouble...)
Animation Tips & Tricks VOLUME II
SHAWN KELLY
Cofounder of AnimationMentor.com Animator at Industrial Light & Magic
http://www.animationtipsandtricks.com
CARLOS BAENA
Cofounder of AnimationMentor.com Animator at Pixar Animation Studios http://www.carlosbaena.com
WAYNE GILBERT
Animation Director Writer http://www.anamie.com
AARON GILMAN
Mentor at AnimationMentor.com Animator at Weta Digital http://www.aarongilman.com
KEITH SINTAY
Mentor at AnimationMentor.com Senior Animator at Digital Domain http://www.keithsintay.com
ANIMATION CAREER ADVICE
How Important Is an Art Background for an Animator Who Is Starting Out?
By Shawn Kelly
There was a time when I thought that there was nothing more important for an animation student than a
solid background in traditional art. Painting, drawing, color theory, art history, the works. At least that’s what
I was told, back in the day, and on the surface, it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Of course an artistic background will help you as an animator. It’s a no-brainer. Color design may inform
staging decisions, drawing classes will certainly help with composition issues, figure drawing and an
understanding of anatomy are helpful for any animator.
But if the question is whether or not an art background is absolutely NECESSARY to becoming a great
animator, experience has taught me that the answer is no.
It isn’t.
Now, to be clear, it certainly doesn’t hurt! I’m thankful, in particular, for all those years of figure drawing. I
may be a decade out of practice, and unable to accurately draw anything to save my life right now, but the
anatomical and biomechanical knowledge I soaked up in those classes helps inform my animation decisions
to this day.
If nothing else, as strange as it sounds, it was very helpful for me to just sit in a room with a naked person
and study how their body worked without any of the important hip/spine interactions being hidden by
clothing. I actually even learned more in between the model’s poses than when he or she was actually
holding a pose for us to draw! As an animation student, it was fascinating to watch them move from pose to
pose, or climb up onto the stage, etc. In fact, I think I’d say that considering the sad state of the animation
program I was attending at the time, I probably learned more about body mechanics during the spaces
between figure drawings than I did in any of my“animation” classes!
That said, it isn’t absolutely necessary. In fact, you know what kind of background would be helpful for an
animator who is just starting out?
Yours! That’s right! ANY background is going to be helpful in SOME way. I’ve met animators who were fighter
pilots, detectives, maintenance workers, engineers, architects, soldiers, bartenders, and athletes. All of these
people bring their unique backgrounds and knowledge base to their work, and these life experiences inform
the acting decisions of their characters, the stories they will tell, and the style of their work.
As animators, observation is one of the most important aspects of what we do. In order to bring a character
to life, there is almost nothing more important than having a collection of interesting actions and acting
choices we’ve observed and either committed to memory or written down or sketched. These actions
we’ve set aside to remember are our secret weapons in the creation of memorable character performances.
In light of that, just about any life experience you have may come in handy during your animation career!
I would say that any artistic experience you can have, whether it’s studying photography, visiting museums,
or even reading comic books -- these are all more immediately helpful to you as an animator than your
memory of the drunk who spilled everyone’s drinks one night when you were tending bar. The drunk may
come in handy at some point down the line as you craft a performance that takes place in a bar, but the
artistic growth you’ve experienced in the first three examples is something that you’ll be able to use from
Day 1 as you jump into animation.
So sure, any art background is helpful to the animator, and obviously I think that figure drawing classes, in
particular, can be very beneficial, but I’ve met too many incredible animators now who have next to no art
background at all to be able to say that it’s completely necessary.
While an art background, used properly, will be an advantage for any animator, the computer has removed
the absolute need for draftsmanship. Keeping a character“on-model” is no longer an issue, at least as far as
maintaining the mass goes. (Taking the facial animation and acting choices off-model is still as big a problem
and challenge as it ever was, though!). Being able to draw an accurate turntable of a character is a fantastic
and enviable skill, but as our computer tools get more and more robust, there is increasingly room in the
ranks of the world’s animators for animation artists who have never picked up a pencil for serious drawing.
Of course, if you want to pursue 2D animation, obviously that means you WILL need strong draftsmanship
and a well-rounded background in traditional art, but the question I get is usually referring to a career in 3D
animation, which is a different story all together.
Animation students who don’t have any artistic background at all may need to work a little harder to make up
for it, but it’s simply no longer necessary to have the drawing skills that many of our animation heroes
possess.
What’s necessary is that you have a passion to learn animation and a hunger to seek that knowledge out
anywhere and everywhere. What’s necessary is a keen sense of observation throughout your daily life, and
the ability to learn from what you are observing. What’s necessary is the ability to apply those observations
to your work, and to accurately recreate and exaggerate the life you see around you. What’s necessary is the
patience to plan your work out, and the tenacity to be detail-oriented enough to completely finish it. What’s
necessary is the desire to find criticism of your work and to grow from what you hear.

THAT’s the stuff that’s absolutely necessary. If you’re missing any of the above, you might as well give up
right now -- you aren’t going to make it as an animator. I’m sorry. That’s the stuff you can’t live without.
Everything else is gravy. Sometimes the gravy really makes the dish, though - something we shouldn’t ignore.
In other words, your ice-cream sundae might be delicious, but it might not be able to compete with your
neighbor who actually put the cherry on top, you know?
I do think that you can make a pretty darn good sundae without any art background, but if our goal as
animators it to never stop learning (which it SHOULD be), I’d encourage all of you to study any and all
aspects of art in any way you can.
And if you become an animator having no art background at all, then guess what? You’re an artist. ...
Which I guess means you have an art background now! Cool, huh?
Shawn :)
Advice on Supplementing My Animation Education with Books or Forums
By Shawn Kelly
I’d recommend Simplified Drawing for Planning Animation by Wayne Gilbert which you can get at: http://www.
anamie.com, which I think is not only terrific, but is the best bang for the buck out there when it comes
to animation books
Wayne was my mentor, and he taught me pretty much everything I know about animation. I still flip through
his book from time to time. There are some really cool ideas in there, and much deeper stuff than the title
leads you to believe, including some cool stuff about force and body mechanics.
I’d also recommend plugging yourself into one of the online animation communities, like CG-CHAR
(http://www.cgchar-animation.com) where you can show your work and get critiques. Feedback is the most
important part of learning animation, so push that aspect as much as you can, any way you can.
Shawn :)
When Do You Know If You Are Ready to Apply to Movie Studios?
By Shawn Kelly
For me, I lucked out and had an amazing mentor in Wayne Gilbert. He’s an amazing teacher and he and his
wife are incredibly generous people who took me under their wing and without his mentoring I have zero
doubt that it would have taken an extra 10 years for me to get to ILM, ever I ever made it at all. I worked on
the animation assignments he would give me (while working at my games job during the day) for about two
years until Wayne said he thought it might be ready to send a demo reel in. So, for me, I knew it was ready
when a professional told me so.
Obviously, this is an ideal situation to seek out, though not everyone will be able to find a professional. The
best bets are to go to conferences like SIGGRAPH or animation festivals and find professionals you can show
your reel to. Many professional animators would be eager to look at your stuff and offer advice. This is
something we have been doing at the Animation Mentor booth at SIGGRAPH for the last couple years (having
your demo reel critiqued by pros). The feedback has been great so I think a lot of people are finding this sort
of thing very helpful.
If you can’t travel to any major animation/CG conferences, then I would seek out online animation
communities such as cg-char, which is what many of us did back in the day. Forums and communities like
these can be invaluable for figuring out where your skills are.
Lastly, I would encourage you to just apply for the jobs you want! There’s really no downside to sending in a
reel that might not
be 100% ready. Maybe it’s 95% ready, and they’ll see the potential in you. Who knows?
If you know for sure that it’s nowhere near ready, that’s another story, as you don’t want to get a reputation
for wasting the recruiter’s time at a specific studio, or for badgering them with nonstop demo reels. Only
send it in if you think it truly might fit with what they may be looking for, AND only reapply if you have made
some significant changes to the reel. If they’ve already seen your older reel, be sure to put your newer stuff
at the beginning or they may recognize the old work and say, “Hey, we’ve seen this one already” and turn it
off.
Shawn :)
Who Is Cut Out for Animation? Answer: You!
By Shawn Kelly
I’ve been getting a lot of questions emailed to me asking what it takes to be an animator. I’ve talked a bit
about that stuff before and elsewhere, but I thought I’d address those questions again here.
I believe with all my heart that ANYONE with the passion and drive and desire to learn animation, can learn
animation. Yes, there will always be those VERY few lucky people who just naturally have crazy amounts of

animation talent, but they are few and far between. I’ve been either learning or teaching (well, always
learning!!) animation one way or another for 13 years now, and can only think of three students in all that
time who really fit that description. Maybe four.
Those people are very rare. For most of us, we just have to study our brains out and practice like crazy and
sacrifice a lot of sleep in order to try to get the hang of this animation stuff.
You’re probably worrying about competition in the industry, and you know what? There WILL be competition,
and a lot of it. In fact, hundreds of people will probably be competing with you for that job at your dream
studio. But gosh, if that’s your dream? If that’s your absolute dream job, how can you not give it a shot?
I really think that unless you have serious time-consuming family obligations or other extenuating
circumstances and responsibilities
-- unless you’re in some kind of situation like that, you owe it to yourself to chase after that dream. If you
want it more than those other hundreds of people, and work harder for it than those other hundreds of
people, then it’s those hundreds of people who should be worried about YOU, and not the other way around!
When I was in high school, I wanted to work on Star Wars more than anything in the world, and they hadn’t
even officially announced that there would be more Star Wars movies. It was just rumors, but I made it my
goal to get to ILM. ILM was where I wanted to work, period. In light of that, every single decision I made was
based on “does this decision take me one step closer to ILM or take me a step away from it?” If it was the
former, then that’s what I did, no matter what kind of burden it created on my time, my social life, schooling,
etc.
I worked my butt off to somehow unbelievably make it into ILM after years and years of training, networking,
and working at smaller studios. I learned that something my grandfather once told me was very true: simply
“following your dreams” isn’t enough -- you have to aggressively and proactively HUNT your dream down.
People spend their entire lives“following their dreams” and the vast majority of them never arrive. If you want
to get into your dream studio, you have to be better than that. You have to be a hunter.
If you can combine a true passion for learning animation with the tenacity necessary to hunt down your
dream job, then I have zero doubt that someday I’ll see your name in the credits of my favorite TV show, a
video game that I’ve been lost in for weeks, or at the end of a film in a packed theater. It might not happen
right away, and you’ll probably have to slowly build experience and your reel as you work your way up
through smaller studios, but if you just never let go of that dream, and base your decisions on it, you CAN
make it come true.
I know, because I’ve been there. And the hard truth is that I saw plenty of people who could have tried
harder. Back when I was in school, I saw plenty of students leave the animation lab at 10 p.m. to go play
video games or hit a club or go to sleep. The people who stayed in that lab until it closed at 2 a.m. EVERY
NIGHT are largely the people who have their dream jobs right now.
We made animation our LIFE, and put everything else on hold. Could it be a coincidence that those are the
people who ended up with the jobs everyone else wanted? I don’t think so. I think it ended up coming down
to who wanted those jobs the most, and who was willing (or able) to make the sacrifices necessary to
completely immerse themselves in their art.
For me, it was a great life lesson, and one I feel happy and lucky to have learned, so I figured I should pass it
along...
I also want to add that I’m not merely talking about joining Animation Mentor. I realize that many of you
aren’t in a situation where you can join the school right now -- that’s fine! Seek out other ways to hunt your
dream down. There are a lot of free online resources that can at least help get you started, such as forums,
online animation and art communities, and blogs. There are great books out there such as The Illusion of Life
and The Animator’s Survival Kit. There are fantastic making-of documentaries on any number of your favorite
DVDs.
Seek that stuff out and soak it up! Do the best hunting you can with whatever is at your disposal right now,
and take that first step that brings you even the tiniest bit closer to your goal, whatever it may be.
Best of luck! Shawn :)
How Important Is Music on a Demo Reel?
By Keith Sintay
Demo reels can be tricky things. Everything about what we do as artists is subjective; not everything you do
will please everyone. And, putting together a demo reel not only involves your visual elements, but the
auditory ones as well. I never used to be a fan of music on a demo reel. I was happy just letting my dialogue
shots (and any incidental music that might be behind the dialogue) carry the sound portion of my reel. I had
seen too many demo reels with, what I felt, was‘cheesy’ music that didn’t help the flow of the reel at all, but
rather hindered it. So, I figured, it’s just safer to leave the music off.

Well for anyone that may have seen my reel lately, you will notice that I finally made the leap and put music
on my reel. What changed my mind? Well, I was looking at my reel, and because of the length and variety of
shots contained on it, I didn’t feel like it flowed as nicely as it did when it was shorter and I had only animated
a few things. I looked at my colleague’s reels and saw how proper music can tie together your shots. Now
again, this is all subjective, but I tried to pick music that was upbeat and not overly distracting to the
animation, and above all that didn’t drown out my dialogue shots
I think music on a demo (show) reel is a matter of taste. I am not an expert in this field, but from what I have
seen in my professional experience, bad music can take away from great animation, and good music can help
disjointed shots flow together seamlessly (like in movie trailers for example).
I would simply ask around and find out if your friends or colleagues like the music you have selected. Get
some feedback and then use that to help you make your decision.
Keith Sintay
Demo Reel Dos and Don’ts
By Carlos Baena
Throughout my animation career at different studios and as a cofounder/director of sorts at Animation
Mentor, I’ve watched many student and industry demo reels. I have also gathered information and spoken
with recruiters, animators and supervisors about how they select candidates based on the work they see in a
demo reel and their interactions with the job applicants. For you, I’ve created a list of valuable tips for
creating an animation demo reel that has a better chance of landing you a job at the studio you’d like to
work at.
Also I recommend reviewing my webinar from July 9, 2008, called Demo Reels Dos and Don’ts which you can
watch at Animation Mentor.com.
Go to www.animationmentor.com/webinar and click on the Past Webinars tab. Also, check my blog
www.carlosbaena. com for more information, tips, and ideas as I continue to learn and share more about
animation.
1.
Do NOT try to make a one-size fits all demo reel. This works in small companies, but for the main
studios it may hurt your chances more than anything else. Make your demo reel specific to the position and
studio for which you are applying. When applying, as an animator to a big animation studio where
departments are very specialized, everything on the reel should be specifically “animation,” not “texturing,”
“lighting” or “modeling”.
2.
You should NOT include everything you’ve worked on throughout the years. Keep it short. Remember
that recruiters/ supervisors only have a short time to look at reels and want
to get to the point right away.
It should be no longer than a minute or so. Chances are that people who are reviewing your reel are looking
at another 100. So, the easier you can make it for them, the better. You don’t want to bore them. Instead,
they should see your strongest work (even if it’s only 30 seconds). Leave them wanting more. Here’s another
tip: put your very strongest work first because if they aren’t hooked in the first 10 seconds, they may not
watch the rest of your reel.
3.
Make the reel original on the inside, NOT on the outside. Human resources, along with actual
animators, will be looking at your reel, and they don’t care about a fancy outside package or what you
include along with the reel and resume. From key chains to toys, I’ve seen people include all kinds of things
with
their reels that do not relate to their animation skills. Put all of your originality into the actual animation
content. Make it fun and original for people to watch, but don’t overdo it. Your best bet is to put your resume
and shot breakdowns as the cover insert of the DVD case so it can’t get lost or separated from your reel.
Also, put your name and contact info inside the case and on the DVD just in case it gets separated and
passed around. You’d hate to think they fell in love with your reel and then couldn’t figure out who it
belonged to!
4.
Do NOT include stuff that is too distracting, whether it’s music or fancy titles. If you have a reel with a
dialogue animation test, and the music is too loud for people to hear the dialogue, or you overdub mega-loud
techno music throughout the whole thing,
it will conflict with the purpose of the reel, which is to show
your animation skills as clearly and simply as you can. Everything else should be secondary.
5.
Do NOT include anything animated by others. Be very clear and honest about what you have done.
The industry is very small
-- people go from company to company and they are very familiar with everyone’s work. Always include a
credit list of the shots on the reel and what you animated for them. In the event that a shot is actually shared
by two or more animators, you should clarify the work that you did.
6.
Bring your own personality to the reel. Ultimately, many people can learn the techniques. What’s
interesting to see and what recruiters look for, is the personality, the actor behind the reel. You’ll stand out if
you can show your creativity in your acting choices. Show you can be subtle as well as do big performances.
Don’t include content based on others’ animations. We don’t want to see a “Pixar” reel. Instead, we are

looking for the talented actor that can help a studio make their work much more distinctive. It does help to be
aware of the style of animation that a particular studio has or what kind of work they create. You wouldn’t
want to apply to
a VFX Studio with a reel that has only cartoon work, or apply to a place where they do
cartoon-type of work with a reel containing only creature work.
7.
Find out what to submit and how. Go through the studios’ online sites and find out exactly what they
need from you before you apply to them. Chances are, they may need you to submit a form before you send
anything, or they may ask you to submit your portfolio in a particular way or format.
8.
Be respectful and patient with the people reviewing your work. It doesn’t help your chances if as soon
as the studio gets your reel, you call or email the recruiters and animators
a dozen times a day. Be
considerate with their time, and most importantly treat them with respect. They are here to help you and
their job is not easy with hundreds of reels to watch over several hours. This is good to keep in mind after you
send a reel, and you don’t hear from them immediately.
9.
Pay attention to the details. Check your DVD and make sure it works before you submit it. Don’t use
menus or make a recruiter work to figure out how to play your reel. Keep it simple. The best DVDs just start
playing as soon as you load them.
10.
And lastly, keep trying, and keep refining your animation. When you’ve progressed, resubmit your reel
to show your growth and the new work. It takes time, motivation, skill and creativity to succeed in this fun
and motivating career.
I hope this helps you! Carlos
Making It – Dream Jobs
By Carlos Baena
In response to an earlier question I received about “making it,” or how to get your dream job, I’d like to share
some of my thoughts. Please note, these are only MY opinions on what I’ve noticed over the years.
I found that “making it” often changes over the years. People have different priorities. I feel like I’ve always
had my dream job (working on films, period) and for a long while“making it” for me was to make it to ILM and
Pixar and work in the movies. That I have always felt and feel pretty lucky about it. So, I’m not an expert and
many other people probably will have additional suggestions or their takes on what “making it” implies. In my
opinion, I think it depends on many factors I think. Some of these I’ve found to be:
1.
Experience: Working on other projects will always help you, especially from the point of view of
working with directors and different crews.
2.
Patience: Be easy with yourself...sometimes you can’t get what you want overnight. And that’s OK.
Enjoy the ride and don’t pressure yourself. I’ve heard of people that want to be at a certain studio within a
year. That kind of pressure will drive you nuts...and honestly, will kill any fun you can get out of what we do.
Take it little by little.
3.
People: Helps to know people. They will be the key people that will inform your future co-workers
regardless of where you go, how you are to work with. It helped me to know people that not only were very
generous and helpful, but that also gave me tremendous advice as to how to go about things.
4.
Motivation: I’ve said this in the past. Just because you may get rejected once doesn’t mean you have
to throw the towel. Give it time, and try again...try as many times. But remember to keep learning in
between. Don’t send the same reel you sent a year earlier just with one additional animation or two to places
because animators or recruiters won’t see much progress if that’s all you added.
5.
Persistence: If you want something, keep that goal in your mind. You can also be persistent with the
places you apply to without being too much, especially for recruiters or people watching your reels.
Remember how many they have to watch and how many people they have to talk to.
6.
Timing: That’s a self-explanatory one. I was called for an interview to work on Monster’s Inc. They
called me while I was in living in Spain back in 2000. The interview I was told later went well. A few days
later, I found they needed someone right THEN.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a working USVisa...and at the time it would take me eight plus months to get one.
So they passed on me. Obviously the timing wasn’t right for me. I was bummed at the time. Who wouldn’t
be? However, I tried really hard in looking for other things that would make me excited. As I look back now,
if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have worked on Star Wars with the crew at ILM in 2001 whom I had a really
fun and special time working with. I have really good memories of both the crew and those days. The whole
thing is, just because sometimes the timing may not be right for something, don’t let it get to you or your
dreams. Something unexpected and really cool may come along the way.
7.
Personality: Some places will want to know who they hire more than what he/she has worked on or
how well they’ve done it. No one wants to work with big egos, jackasses or people that simply are done
learning. That’ll get no one nowhere. Also it’s important to want to help your peers in whatever ways you can
and not take things as a big competition. Our industry is a competitive one, and we all know that. But there is
healthy competition in where you want to push yourself as an artist/help others and destructive competition
in where you wanna walk all over people in order to get somewhere.
8.
Talent/Originality: Do things that only YOU would do and don’t copy others. That’s key not necessarily
in “making it” but in being true to yourself as an artist. As I go over my early student work, I’m guilty as hell
in trying to animate or create some things in a “Pixar” way. The stuff I was glad I did also work on wasn’t

influenced by Star Wars or Toy Story...instead, they were the other things that in my head I was like let’s try
that. It’s those reels that I go“ok, that’s something I haven’t seen” that probably other people will say the
same...and that will get you noticed.
9.
Practice: For animation that’s pretty self-explanatory. As I said earlier...don’t set yourself a timeframe
for renewing your goals. Enjoy the process, because it’s a long one.
10.
Age: Don’t think you can’t make it just because you are“too old”. Who cares about how old you are,
when we only get one chance in our lives to do whatever the hell we dream of doing. I’ve met animators who
changed careers in their 50s...some students at AM, some people I’ve gotten to work with. Amazed me how
much they wanted a life change after things such as security, family, location do matter so much. Yet, they
went for it. Don’t let people tell you what you can do or not, just because you are this or that old.
I think, these are some of the things to think about. At one point I feel like I’m rumbling or repeating certain
things. “Making it” sounds certainly subjective and up to people’s takes on how they want to make it. Just be
honest as to what it is you want to achieve and why. I hope this helps.
Carlos
What’s the Role of the Animator? Is It Beneficial to Explore Different Disciplines?
By Shawn Kelly
At any medium-large studio (including games, TV, or feature films), an animator is hired to animate. Not to
create textures or model characters or light scenes. Most bigger studios recognize that these are all skills that
take decades to truly master, and that the true path to beautiful imagery onscreen is to fill the studio with
expert specialists. In other words, most studios aren’t too hung up on finding people who“know a little about
a lot of different disciplines.” Most features and games studios are looking for an artist who “knows a LOT
about ONE discipline.”
It’s the pairing up of these experts that results in the truly memorable work you’d see in any blockbuster film
or A-list game.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with dabbling in all the different disciplines available to you as a CG artist,
but we generally recommend that once you’ve found which discipline you are the most interested in -- be it
animation or modeling or lighting or rigging or textures or whatever -- once you’ve found your “true calling,”
your best bet is to put the rest of that stuff aside and focus as much time as humanly possible on becoming a
true expert in whatever that chosen field is.
Many people will say that this will limit your job opportunities, and guess what? They’re right. It will.
But I guess it boils down to you deciding what kind of job you are looking for, and what kind of career you are
going to attempt. There is nothing wrong at all in deciding to be a generalist, and continue to learn about all
aspects of this stuff called Computer Graphics. There are many jobs, especially junior-level jobs at smaller-tomedium-sized studios, where generalists are specifically sought out and encouraged.
However, I can’t tell you how rare it is for a generalist to get a job as an animator at a major feature studio or
large game studio. Almost every professional animator at that level has decided to focus at least MOST of
their time on animation, even if they also enjoy other disciplines deep down...
Before I end that thought, though, it’s really important to point out that if you are new to the industry, getting
a junior job as a generalist can be one of THE best ways to break into this business.
Getting your foot in the door of a studio and getting *any* kind of professional experience is invaluable, and
will help you make connections, learn the ropes, meet people to learn from, and will look great on your
resume.
If you aren’t getting to spend most of your time at work actually animating and growing as an animator, then
my advice is to work hard, do a great job, and then go home and animate your brains out and practice as
much as you possibly can in your spare time. Read animation books, get involved in online animation
communities, meet up with some animation student friends and watch some animated films frame-by-frame
and talk about what you see...
Getting a job where you aren’t doing *exactly* what you hope to be doing doesn’t mean that you have to
stop striving towards your dreams of working as an animator! It’s more than common for animators to have
to work their way up, and slowly climb that ladder until they finally get their dream job.
It’s very rare for that to happen overnight, so don’t automatically turn your nose up at jobs that aren’t exactly
what you hoped for. Just don’t let that job stop you from continuing to move forward.
Shawn :)
Questions about the Animation Job Market
By Shawn Kelly

Hello from the other side of the planet!
As I write this, I’m in Singapore for six weeks to help train some animation apprentices and am having the
time of my life. What’s more fun than visiting an exotic location, meeting new friends, reuniting with old
friends, and getting to talk about animation all day?! It isn’t all Happy-Go-Lucky-Land - I *am* really missing
my family, my US friends, my ILM work, and especially my incredibly understanding wife, but home is just
two weeks away at this point, so I’m on the home stretch!
Singapore is amazing, by the way. Really friendly people, it’s super safe, the streets are shockingly spotless,
and I’ve met some really talented people here...
I know what you’re wondering, and I was wondering the same thing: “I know Singapore is famous for its great
food, but how is the fried chicken?” Well, I’m still working on getting a full overview of Singapore’s fried
chicken situation, but so far it’s pretty decent! They have the requisite American fast food stuff (a KFC at the
zoo!), and a US-style diner that I went to, which actually had some pretty terrific fried chicken, and then there
is obviously lots of Chinese fried chicken, but that’s been a little hit-or-miss so far -- but I’m still open to trying
some more places! You can never taste-test too much fried chicken!
This is actually my second trip to Singapore, and during the two trips I’ve eaten some truly bizarre things -- or
at least bizarre to my American eyes: chicken-foot soup (which is exactly what it sounds like), century eggs
(pickled robin’s eggs, or something?), durian (AAAAAAAAAA! Just run away! Sorry, Singapore -- I know you
love it, but holy moly, my white-trash taste buds just cannot handle the horror of the Durian “fruit”), and a
grape-sized fish eyeball that my friend Snowy convinced me to eat. Meanwhile, she’s completely disgusted
by the concept of eating a banana!
Gotta love Singapore...
Anyway, I got a great question about the animation job market in the comments on Animation Mentor’s new
Tips & Tricks blog (www.animationtipsandtricks.com) that I thought I’d go ahead and answer here.
I’m not the expert in the job market, by any means, but I’ll share at least what I’ve personally observed... I’d
definitely still recommend that you guys ask around to other sources, because my experiences certainly
aren’t all-encompassing, and are largely limited to the feature animation and vfx animation niches...
QUESTION: Whattypesofjobsareavailabletoanimators?
(I’massumingcharacteranimationinfilm/TVisn’ttheonlypossibility) Which jobs are in the most demand and
which are in the least demand? What are the best job market cities in the U.S./Canada (abroad as well)? Do
you have to move to a big city to get a job?
What jobs are available to animators – it’s right to assume that the industry is much larger than simply
“film/TV” jobs. Character animators have found work in many companies and studios, doing – among other
things: character animation for feature animated films, character animation for visual effects films, a huge
variety of TV shows, TV commercials, in-game video game work, cinematic video game work, bringing to life
architectural CAD flythroughs, Internet flash animation, online greeting cards, web-based video games,
crime-scene recreation, automobile safety simulations, 3D motion “rides” at amusement parks, teaching, and
have also put their artistic talents to use in a variety of graphic design, illustration, and marketing jobs.
So yes, there’s definitely a variety of jobs out there, and everyone has their own preferences of what they
enjoy the most.
As for demand, that’s very difficult to answer, as all of the above industries fluctuate considerably, often in a
very cyclical pattern. For example, sometimes (such as for the last few months), the visual effects industry
hits a slow patch, and it can be very difficult to get (or keep) a job. And then, often just a few months later,
the demand for animators is suddenly huge as a bunch of films get green-lit and studios scramble to fill
animation positions. Demand is very difficult to predict, but especially when you don’t have a lot of
experience, it can be difficult to find a job at times. That’s for sure.
I would generally advise greener animators to not expect their first few jobs to be the most glamorous, but
those jobs will often be terrific learning experiences as you climb the ladder to your dream job!
The best job-market cities would be difficult to nail down as well, because the animation industry is growing a
lot in Europe, India, and Southeast Asia right now, as well as in Mexico and a number of other countries.
Traditionally, the big animation cities have been LA, Northern California (San Jose and San Francisco Bay
Area), London, Paris, New York, Vancouver, etc. However, Oregon, Florida, and Texas all have strong
animation markets these days, as do cities in India, New Zealand, Australia, and of course all over Asia.
Singapore’s industry is growing quickly as well, and many governments (such as Singapore’s) are making a
concerted effort to support and fund a home-grown animation industry.
So basically, animation is growing pretty much all over the place right now!
As for having to live in a big city, I would say that for most of the larger animation studios, you would have to
live at least near a large city, yes. However, I see the day rapidly approaching where animators can work

from home much if not most of the time. Once security and confidentiality concerns can be properly
addressed, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see many studios adopt at least some amount of a “work from
home” system. Once that’s here, which realistically is still years away and would only work for certain
mediums, I suppose we’ll be able to work from wherever we want!
That’s the dream, anyway, because I BADLY want to animate a transformer while sitting on some sand with
my feet in a warm ocean!
:)
Ahhhhh... someday.... OK, maybe that’ll never happen, but I can dream, can’t I?! Hope that answers all your
questions!
Shawn :)
What Are the Responsibilities for an Animation Supervisor or Lead Animator? Are There Any Special Skills
Required to Become a Lead Animator?
By Shawn Kelly
Again, this can vary from studio to studio, but for us at ILM, the animation supervisor oversees all aspects of
the animation on a movie. They’re in charge of the movement, staging, composition of the characters and
scenes. Their job is largely to be the one who spends the most one-on-one time with the director of the film,
shows him/her our work, and gets the feedback to give back to the animators. Their job is also to cast the
shots (decide who should animate what), and to determine when our work is ready to be shown to the
director.
The lead animators are sort of like mini-animation supervisors. Some studios want leads to be in charge of
specific characters. At ILM, if you are animating a shot, you’re going to animate every character in that shot.
Instead of being in charge of a specific character, our lead animators are usually in charge of specific
sequences (A “sequence” would be a series of shots. A whole “scene” in a film, in other words, made up of
lots of little cuts). The lead animator will give ideas and feedback to the animators working on his sequence,
will help determine when it’s ready to be shown to the animation supervisor, and will also usually be doing a
lot of animation himself or herself. The lead is also there to troubleshoot problems and answer questions from
the animators in order to help the animation supervisor not be distracted from the bigger issues he’s dealing
with. In other words, the leads try to put out fires before they get to the anim sups.
As for how these people are chosen, it’s based on skill and experience, but as you mentioned, it is also based
largely on leadership ability. Solid communication skills are a must, not to mention being organized and
having a highly developed sense of time management. And of course, most essential of all, is to have a great
“eye” for animation -- knowing when something is wrong, and more importantly, now to fix it. OK, well I hope
that answered your questions!
Shawn :)
Animator Vs. Animation Supervisor
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: How do you feel about remaining an animator where you’re still involved with hands-on animation
versus being promoted to an animation supervisor or director where you are managing a team and providing
critiques?
This is a really good question, and it’s something that many animators eventually face as they become more
and more experienced. It can be difficult -- weighing the pros and cons of actively pursuing a promotion like
that. On the one hand, you’d have a lot more prestige, more say in the final product, and probably a nice payraise. On the other hand, you’d be spending a huge amount of your time in meetings, you’d probably
animate a fraction as much as you would as an animator, and you’d have to deal with all the politics and
demanding responsibilities of that role, not to mention the enormous pressure of performing at a high level
and constantly trying to impress the studio heads and their all-important client.
I guess this is something that everyone eventually has to decide for him or herself.
Since you ask about me personally, I used to say that I never wanted to be a lead animator or a supervisor,
because I always wanted to be doing the actual animation. I feared that in a leadership role, I would no
longer have that chance. For a long time, because of that, I never pursued any kind of lead role.
Since you ask about me personally, I used to say that I never wanted to be a lead animator or a supervisor,
because I always wanted to be doing the actual animation. I feared that in a leadership role, I would no
longer have that chance. For a long time, because of that, I never pursued any kind of lead role.
However, a great opportunity came up and I had my first chance at being a lead animator recently (for
Transformers), and I have to say, I really had a blast. It was such a fun experience, I learned a ton from my
fellow leads and my animation director (Scott Benza), and it was really an amazing feeling to have a little bit
bigger impact on the film than I would have otherwise.

For me, the lesson was that while I feared that I wouldn’t like being a lead, it actually turned out to be my alltime favorite project, and while the work was incredibly challenging, I’ve never had more fun. The trade-off of
having more pressure and responsibility was totally worth it, and I’m really excited to be doing it again.
As for moving up to a supervisor, that’s still another story. I really tip my hat to those guys -- the longer I’m in
this industry, the more I see how difficult that job is on so many different levels. For myself, I’m just not
ready for a job like that in every possible sense. I have a lot to learn before I could even start to think about
that, and on top of that, there are incredibly talented people at work who I would definitely put in that role
long before me.
I guess I’ve learned just enough about this stuff to know that I have a lot more to learn before I’m ready to be
the captain of the ship. For now, I’m just having a blast enjoying the ride, and learning as much as I can from
my captains along the way...
Shawn :)
THE WORKING LIFE OF AN ANIMATOR
How Do You Spend Your Week at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)?
By Shawn Kelly
Honestly, it totally depends on what we are working on, and where we are in the production schedule. But I
would say that my general statistics would be working around 45-50 hours per week. I get to work around
8:45 a.m., and on a typical day go straight to dailies where our work is shown up on the big screen and we all
talk about how to make it better. Then it’d be back to my desk to catch up on my email, phone messages,
and a couple hours of animating before lunch. Most of the animators eat together every day in our dining
area, and we’re a very close-knit family. After lunch, it’s hard-core animation for me, and I animate until I go
home, generally around 8 p.m. or so.
The truth is that I am crazy blessed with this job, and literally get to just sit in a room with most of my closest
friends and laugh all day long. We work hard, but we keep the mood light and fun as much as possible.
Shawn :)
What Is Your Life like as a Professional Animator? Do You Have a Life Outside of the Studio?
By Carlos Baena
My life as a professional animator has been exciting, difficult, inspiring, challenging, gratifying, special,
rewarding...altogether. It’s been unique and special because of the people you meet and the movies you get
to work on. That in itself, has no price. At the same time, because it’s not always easy to stay creative
constantly, you have to find ways to keep the momentum going. You get a shot every week, and with every
shot, a lot of creative energy needs to be put into it. It’s so true the quote, “you are as good as your last
shot.” It’s not a job where you can relax in what you did 5-10 years ago. And to keep yourself motivated and
excited year after year is not always easy.
In a place like Pixar, where people are really talented and passionate for this, you have to continue finding
something exciting in every single shot you get...regardless of whether it’s a great juicy shot or not.
Sometimes you’ll get great shots, and other times you may not. Sometimes a production needs certain shots
to be done sooner than later...they may not be the most exciting shots, but the bottom line is, they need to
get done and when you work in a team, you have to help your neighbor in whichever ways you can
sometimes. There have been productions where I worked after hours (even if I was in a different film), just to
help the remaining crew finish a film, as did many other people. As years go by, it’s difficult to continue doing
this as it can be physically exhausting to be in front of the computer for that many hours, especially for those
who have families to get back to.
That said, I’ve been trying to balance what I do. Since it’s my job, I’ve been paying more attention over the
last few years at how I’m taking care of myself, physically and mentally. I hope this doesn’t sound too new
age. But back 10 years ago, I was easily spending 15-18 hours a day on some projects. Barely getting any
sleep...and going out with friends on the weekends. Pretty soon my body started telling me that I had to chill
the hell out and figure out a balance between work, personal life and health. I still struggle with that balance
to tell you the truth.
I had to find a life outside the studio otherwise I would have burned out fast. I’ve seen it happen with other
friends, and didn’t want it to happen to me. For me, doing things outside of work kept bringing me back to
work with energy and motivation to do things. This inspiration outside came in a variety of ways: Live-action,
shorts/videos, photography, music, artwork, and teaching. The Animation Mentor school I cofounded was
great for me because I found myself going back to really figuring out what I was doing everyday in order to
pass my findings to other people as clear as I could. Additionally, doing other projects and learning things
outside animation but within the world of filmmaking, has become an amazing hobby and personal self
learning process that has helped my animation as well. So my life outside the studio these days, I keep
myself busy learning things I always wanted to learn, but never had the chance/luck to learn. I never went to
film school...so when I started working at Pixar, I told myself I was going to study it on my own and learn what
I could from different areas, projects, films, directors, coworkers. I’m still there...and hope to be there for a

long time. I love what we do. I try to pass on whatever I can, but I also try to keep myself learning. What I
sure don’t want to do is to be at a place where I’m done learning.
As for Pixar, it’s not a brutal place. People there have a life, and they do maintain a balance. Are there
standards? Of course there are. Are there high standards? Yes, I think they are. And I’m glad that there are
because that shows in the work the animators put
in these films. A shot will not go by if it’s lacking. Too
many people will catch it. As an animator/artist at Pixar I’m always challenged professionally and it’s the best
creative environment I’ve been lucky enough to be in.
I hope this helps. Carlos
How Does Creating Animation for Films Differ from Games?
By Aaron Gilman
As someone who has been back and forth between games and film for many years, I thought it might be
interesting to offer my perspective on what I think are vastly different animation pipelines.
In my opinion, when it comes to animation, games and film begin their production process needing (not
wanting) vastly different things, and this ultimately sets the tone for how animation is critiqued, processed
and approved over the course of almost the entire project.
In general, prior to crewing up for a major animation feature, there needs to be in place some form of
animatic that fairly accurately represents the needs of the client. From this animatic we can begin laying the
groundwork for shot management, resource needs, asset needs, etc. The process is fairly linear in the sense
that each respective department follows on the heels of the previous department, until eventually the shot is
finalled and goes to film.
For games this process is fundamentally different. By virtue of the fact that playability is required first and
foremost, the only way to test the viability of the game play systems is by already having a large amount of
assets on hand. This means that a lot of animations need to be blocked, put into the game engine, linked
together by programmers and tested by game designers. This circular process of creating, testing, scrapping,
and then creating some more, can go on for years. If during this process animation becomes overly
concerned with aesthetic quality, they risk losing valuable time assessing the primary objective of any game,
namely, “is it fun?”
In film, ensuring a strong narrative is to a large extent already done. Practically speaking, this is not always
the case as many of us in the field are well aware of how often a project gets edited on the fly, shots get cut,
sequences change, etc. But often those issues are merely a consequence of polishing the narrative and
addressing budget constraints. Unlike games where animators serve a pivotal role in developing the game
play systems, animators in film are not tasked with creating the overall narrative from scratch. Most of the
groundwork has already been done. We have storyboards, an edit, a puppet, a layout scene, a camera, etc.
Almost all of our time is dedicated to making amazing animation that communicates a narrative already (for
the most part) locked down by the director.
So the division in methodology between games animation and film animation is quite clear to me. In games,
animations are finessed and tweaked once the game play systems are fun and functional. Getting game play
to this level takes so much time and requires so much creating and re-working of animations, that making
them beautiful needs to come much later in the process and is often left to the wayside purely because time
and money have run out. In film, we move from blocking to second pass much sooner in the process, and
very rarely do we have to completely scrap our work as a result of core narrative changes affecting our
shots.
Ultimately, I think of the film pipeline as linear, each department more or less sequentially following the next
department down the pipe. On the other hand, I think of games as an intricate web. Each department is
inextricably linked to multiple other departments, going around and around until a cohesive playable system
is created. After these bare bones are built, then time can be allotted to perfecting the animation within the
constraints of the system.
Animating for games can be a fulfilling process. What I enjoyed so much about it was the incredible sense of
teamwork I felt on a regular basis. There is a big difference in the way film and game animators appreciate
their work. Once you’ve completed a game, you won’t sit back while playing it and say, “Get ready, here
comes my walk cycle......there it is...see...I did that!”
The reason is because often the work a gaming animator has done is fused into so many aspects of the game
that it becomes very difficult to pinpoint an element and say it is exclusively yours. For that one walk cycle, a
programmer has blended it with dozens of other animations made by other animators, a game designer may
have tweaked it in the code, and other animators may have worked on it.
In film, I can watch the movie, and when my shot comes up, I know the animation in that shot is exclusively
mine. I can cut it out of the edit and point at it over and over again and say, “I did that.” But in film, the
process of creating animation work is often isolating and impersonal. The sense of team (and I should specify
this is not always the case on every project), is dramatically less intense.

In games, you are constantly communicating and brainstorming with so many people from so many
departments. That is rarely ever the case in film. But I personally will always love making films more than
games simply because I love being part of movie history and knowing that my work may be seen by millions
for years to come.
Aaron Gilman
Have You ever Been in a Situation Where You Had to Forgo Animation Principles to Get the Animation Done
According to the Director’s Expectation?
By Shawn Kelly
Oh, boy -- we’re starting off with a bang, huh?
This is probably kind of an explosive topic, as the situation you mention is not only incredibly frustrating, but
sadly not all that uncommon in the industry, regardless of the medium you are working in.
Yes, this has happened to me. Yes, this has happened to most of the animators reading this. Yes, it’s very
frustrating. All you can do is keep in mind that you are the tool (remember?) of the director, and the job
you’ve been hired to do -- when you really boil it down
-- is to make the client happy by putting something onto the screen that matches the vision they see in their
head.
Sometimes clients don’t really have any solid grasp of body mechanics or how things should move, or how to
properly stylize something in a way that is clear and entertaining. Sometimes (OK, often!) clients have no
idea about the principles of animation. Sometimes (d’oh! even more often!) clients aren’t even sure what
they are looking for.
In these situations, your job is to take their comments, and do the best you can to make the work look good
and special IN SPITE OF their comments.
You want to get their ideas in there, and as much as possible, you want to try to find a creative solution that
makes their ideas work. Sometimes, however, this will mean that the animation will be “wrong,” in your eyes,
as frustrating as that is. I will also add that if you have the time, it can sometimes be helpful to show the
Director two versions -- one that has their “wrong” idea in it (say, no hip movement in a walk, or something
like that), and one that is more of a compromise and has more “correct” body mechanics, exaggerations, etc.
Often, they will choose your “better” version. Sometimes they won’t.
Be ready to accept either decision, and try not to let it sap away your enthusiasm for the project because
once that motivation is gone, that’s when the job will get really tedious.
Shawn :)
As an Aspiring 3D Animator Looking to Work for Film, TV, or Games, What Frame Rate Should I Use?
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: In my 3D animation classes that I have taken so far, I have had different instructors require
different frame rates to use when working on shorts or even when doing exercises. Some have said 24 fps,
while others have told me 30 fps, citing the fact that since we are not animating for film, there is no reason to
use the frame rate native to film (24). As an aspiring 3D animator looking to do work for film, television, or
games, what frame rate should I use from now on? Does animation for television have a different frame rate
than animation done for film?
Your instructors are correct that those are the two most common frame rates that animators would work with,
and honestly it’s up to each studio to decide which frame rate best fits their workflow and is most appropriate
to the medium they are working in. I would say that the majority of animators I know work at 24fps, even if
they are animating for television, but I’m sure there are plenty of animators out there working at 30fps.
Truthfully, there’s really no right or wrong, though 24fps seems to be a bit more common in my limited
experience, and would probably be the better rate to get used to.
Most modern DVD players and TVs play recorded films back at their native 24fps, and for film and TV, 24fps is
a bonus for animation/ fx work because it’s less rendering time. The most important thing, though, is that it
doesn’t matter one bit which frame rate you are working in! Your poses will be the same, and your
timing/spacing will be the same, only with slightly different frame numbers. The end result of a scene done at
24fps vs. 30fps should pretty much look exactly the same to the naked eye. The 30fps scene might look
slightly smoother, but it’ll be a small difference. As for your demo reel -- you can just convert your 24fps clips
to 30fps through QuickTime pro (I’m pretty sure?) or any major video-editing package such as Premiere, Final
Cut, or even iMovie.
Shawn :)
How Many Frames Do You Do in One Week?
By Shawn Kelly

QUESTION: On average how many frames do you do in one week, and what is required weekly for feature
film, TV production, TV commercial and anything else you know? I have heard TV requires 500 frames a
week.
This is a tough question, as every studio handles expectations and quotas differently. Generally speaking, the
bigger the budget, the higher the expected quality, which means you get more time to create the animation.
At a studio like ILM, there are expectations to perform at a very high level, of course, but we generally don’t
have any specific quotas. However, as professionals we all know what speed is generally expected, and it’s
obvious when someone isn’t keeping up, so we all work hard to put out as much quality work as possible.
The better studios also boast production departments that work hard to shield the artists as much as possible
from the stresses
of the overall production. These studios set things up so that 99% of the time, the artist
is concerned far more with the quality of the work than they are with the quantity (number of frames) being
finished. Of course, this changes a bit as any production at any studio moves into the“home stretch” and the
final project deadline starts to approach. At that point, no matter where you work, you definitely start to
become more conscious of the deadlines, at least to some degree...
Shots also can vary wildly in how long they take to do. One hundred frames of a character not doing a whole
lot might get finished in three days, but those same 100 frames might take a month to animate if it’s six
giant creatures running around and fighting. Because of this, it’s really hard to estimate a weekly frame
count. As for the rest of your question, each studio handles that stuff differently. I’ve even heard of 800-1000
frames per week at one TV animation studio, which to me is just insane, but I guess they’re fine with that
level of quality. There is always a trade-off between speed vs. quality of the animation, so it’s up to each
studio and production to determine the level of quality they are willing to pay for.
Shawn :)
MAKING A SCENE
How Do You Know When to Stop Planning and Start Animating?
By Keith Sintay
I am a firm believer that workflow can play a big part in your success as an effective and marketable
animator. The amount of planning that I do for a shot varies as widely as the shot content itself. Usually
bigger shots that involve several characters talking require a good knowledge of staging and composition. It’s
really important to know where to lead your audiences’ eye; where you want them to look while each
character is speaking. Or, if it’s only one character, spending time on staging and composition might not take
as long, so you might have more time to finesse and explore the acting. If a shot requires video reference, I
usually allow at least a day for that and thumbnailing. It’s important to use as much time as you feel
comfortable making mistakes or changes in planning, so you won’t be doing as much of that when you are
actually animating. I think about my shot when I am driving in the car to and from work, or I might pull out
old Honeymooners episodes or watch other things that inspire me and try to get my mind to picture the shot
as I might see it animated.
Don’t be afraid to go back and re-block or re-thumbnail a portion of your shot if it isn’t working -- even if you
have started animating it. But generally knowing when to stop planning and start animating goes with having
a plan, and then animating it. Simple? Maybe not, but my advice is to just to know your deadlines and plan
accordingly; don’t ever try to start a shot without a good plan of attack.
Keith Sintay
How Do You Do Video Planning?
By Animation Mentor Staff
This is a great question. The answer, however, depends on who you ask. Each animator finds his/her groove
when it comes to tools such as video planning. Some shoot their own video reference, and some gather video
reference from all sorts of different sources. Video planning is as unique as the animator using it. However,
there are some things to keep in mind when it comes to video planning and reference material. The first thing
to keep in mind is that you will want to use this material for what it is: reference. It doesn’t make sense to
copy your reference material blindly…that’s more like rotoscoping, and you will find that your animation runs
into the same limitations as live action -- you can only animate what you can act out.
But if you really LOOK at the reference material, you can see all sorts of subtle movements and weight shifts
that you can capture, and really accentuate and emphasize. Plus, it’s just great practice to get in there and
study the way your body works. You will be surprised when you slow down reference material of dynamic
things like bouncing or even running...the human body is incredibly flexible, and very, very interesting. So we
would encourage you to shoot video material for reference.
If you are doing a dialogue shot, try lip-syncing for a few takes, but when you’ve got the dialogue down, go
ahead and really vocalize what the actors are saying, you may be surprised how much the acting actually
changes. Don’t be afraid, shoot LOTS of reference; it’s your chance to try out a bunch of different acting
ideas, and you may find that you like a gesture in one take, and another gesture in a different take. Through
the magic of animation, you can combine your favorite acting choices into a stellar performance.

Animation Mentor student’s video reference for his dialogue acting shot.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is that there is no ‘right’ way to do video planning, but finding a method
that is FUN is certainly one good way to do it. If you are having fun while you are acting out your video
reference, you will be more likely to do it, and you will end up with material you are more interested in
studying.
Best of Luck! Animation Mentor Staff
What Should Be the Main Goal in a Scene?
By Aaron Gilman
Animation is narrative through movement. A painter expresses an idea, a story, a concept, or an emotion in a
single image. An animator is tasked with the same thing, but instead of paints, brushes and colors, his job is
to use posing, principles of movement, and most importantly experience and observation to communicate a
concept. If I work on a single shot in a sequence of 30 shots, my ability to do my job well should be
measured by the strength of my animation in so far as how it tells the story. Through my small contribution,
if the viewer can be led safely down the narrative path without for a single moment questioning the validity
or believability of my frames, then I know I’ve done my job well.
Narrative can be something as concrete as a physical action, like a punch, fall or jump. In this shot the
character punches, or in this shot the character falls. Or narrative may be as complex as an abstract emotion
such as pity, sincerity or revenge. Whatever the narrative is trying to convey, the animator’s primary and
fundamental goal is to communicate the very essence of that idea in the limited frames of their shot. If you
are asked to animate a punch in a particular shot, the very first question you should have is “why?” Why does
the character punch? Is it an accident? Maybe he slips and falls forward, lunging out with his arms to catch
his fall and accidentally punches the man beside him in the mouth? Is the punch out of anger because the
person being punched slept with the character’s wife? Whatever the answer may be, when you animate a
shot you must be concerned first and foremost with the character’s motivation, purpose, intention, drive, etc.
You need to understand the actions in your shot contextually. What is happening in the shots surrounding
yours? You must look at the animatic, read the script, analyze the storyboards, speak with the animators
working on the same sequence, and listen to your supervisor as he explains in his words the purpose of your
shot.
Aaron Gilman
What Determines the Duration of a Scene?
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: What determines the duration of a scene (movie)? Is it the animation itself or the dialogues in the
movie? How can the movie director tell how long the movie will be?
This is a very common question, and the answer is that the length of any scene in a film is usually
determined by a combination of the storytelling demands of that scene and the style of the project.
Generally, it is the director and his editor who work together to decide how long the sequences (a sequence,
or “scene,” actually being made up of a lot of shorter “shots.” A “shot” would be from a cut to a cut) should
be.
The goal for the director is for the scene to be long enough to tell the story he needs to be told in that scene,
but short enough that it doesn’t get boring or start to feel aimless.
As animators, we are usually given a predetermined frame-range to work with, so those decisions are usually
made before the animator starts a scene. Every once in a while, though, a chance might come up for the
animator to affect the length of the scene. Sometimes you might create a really cool action that will change
the director’s original idea for the shot, and he might add more frames for you to work with, for example. But
usually, they’ll tell you that you have a certain number of frames to work with, and part of your job as the
animator is to find creative solutions that will make your animation ideas work in that exact number of
frames.
Shawn :)
What’s the Best Way to Plan a Scene?
By Keith Sintay
I don’t know if there is a best way to plan a scene, but I would like to mention here some effective things that
I have picked up in my career as an animator that might help someone who is reading this.
Know how your scene (shot) fits into the whole of the story. If you haven’t seen a whole cut of the film yet, at
least ask about the context of the shots surrounding yours.
Find out what the director wants (hopefully through a direct ‘launch’ from the director themselves, or from
your supervisor).

Look at the storyboards and study the poses. The poses and composition were great at telling the story, so
make sure you study them and find out why they worked in the sequence as a whole. Then, expand upon
those ideas with animation to really bring the characters to life.
If no storyboards were made for your shot, create some thumbnail story poses of your own.
These‘storytelling’ poses may become your keys later on.
Listen to your dialogue track and write it out both regularly and phonetically. Listen for subtleties and
nuances. Listen for cadence and accents. Listen for breaths and pregnant pauses. Make note of all of these
things.
Act out your shot. Explore as many ways as you can to tell the story simply and in an entertaining way. Ask a
friend to act it out; they may have different ideas or mannerisms that you might not have thought of yourself.
Video record yourself acting out the shot.
Make thumbnails from your extreme (key) poses.
See how you might make those thumbnail poses stronger; better silhouette, stronger line of action. Start
blocking out the key poses and have fun!
How Much Average Time Does It Take to Create a Shot?
By Shawn Kelly
That’s a difficult one to answer. Each studio has its own set of deadlines and expectations, which will also
vary wildly by medium (games vs. television shows vs. advertising vs. films, etc.). Generally, as you move
into larger studios, the deadlines tend to become more realistic (read: a little more spaced out). The larger
studios can charge clients more money, which the clients are willing to
pay because they know the tradeoff is a higher standard of quality. The studio knows that more quality will need more time, so deadlines
become a little less intense once you get to a top-tier animation studio, generally speaking.
However, even the larger studios are increasing their productivity all the time (via new technologies, faster
machines, better artists, etc.), and the “average time to do a shot” is getting less all the time, it seems.
Of course, the biggest X factor in all of this has to do with the content of the shot. I’ve done a shot in a couple
hours (of a hand, in the movie A.I.) but I also got bogged down for about six weeks on a shot in Hulk. On
Transformers, we had a really streamlined situation with a really fast feedback loop, a lot of amazing
animation tools at our disposal, and terrific animation rigs, all of which helped us get our animation time
down dramatically. One shot I did of Bonecrusher on the highway only took a few days, while another took
closer to four weeks -- so, yet again, it all depends on the number of characters and what they are doing in
the shot. It’s always going to take longer to animate a giant robot tackling another robot in slow motion than
it will to animate one robot skating down a highway. (There’s an example I never would have thought that I’d
have at my disposal! ha ha ha.)
Shawn :)
When Have You Been Challenged with a Shot and How Did You Overcome It?
By Carlos Baena
This is a tough one to answer as it changes with every shot I find myself having a hard time with. I’ll try to be
as direct and upfront with my answer.
I think the main thing is to not let it get to you. It’s normal, and it happens to even the most experienced
animators I’ve met. We all get challenged for different reasons in different shots. Not one shot comes easy.
However, how you get out of that funk is something that will be a challenge in itself as well. So, yeah, the
main first step I’d say is to not get stressed out about it, and accept that the shot is just difficult and you are
struggling with it. And that’s fine.
When that happens to me, I usually get the hell out of my office. I’ll do whatever else. Go to the gym. Go
watch something that while it may be related to whatever it is I have to animate, is not putting pressure in
me having to finish it. Is this making sense? I hope so. The main thing is to get distracted and find
inspiration/motivation somewhere else. What I’m looking for here is an outlet, so that I can go back to the
challenge with a different perspective.
Now, these are the difficult parts:
1.
If the challenge is a technical one (splines, blocking to polish, polish back to blocking) I’ll address
where I
am at. If I’m at a polish face, and I just have gotten notes for a major change in the shot, that’s not
easy to address. Sometimes you’ll save more time by going back and simplifying your curves, even going
back to blocking (address the notes) and then polish again...than if you had to fix it all within the polish. That
keeps things more organized somehow.
2.
If the challenge is an idea (acting choices, shot ideas), I don’t even touch the computer. Seriously. I
can’t start animating until I know what it is I’ll animate and how I’ll approach it. It goes back to being
organized, and that applies to having all your homework done beforehand (or as much preparation as you
have time to do). So, if I’m stuck with my ideas...I may brainstorm with a coworker or two. Usually find
people that will be constructive and will want to help. Sometimes in that collaboration, something cool will
come up. (Or not).

3.
If it’s a company/studio challenge...that’s a whole different story. Remember that politics are
everywhere. We are not kidding ourselves, and sometimes you’ll have to work with very different people,
artists specifically, people with different skills, with different agendas. You’ll find egos and others with no egos
at all, you’ll find people that are difficult to work with and vice versa. In my case, when I have found myself
having a hard time on anything like this, I prefer to waste that energy going back to doing my work and really
focusing on that. Chances are, by the end of the day, I (hopefully) have forgotten what was worrying me in
the first place. And if it hasn’t...well, I can go home, jump on the couch and watch a movie. :)
It’s all relative. This is more or less how I’d start thinking about some of these challenges. But it’s always
different. Every challenge will be different. Just be aware that no one is perfect, that a lot more other people
have it a lot worse and that having bumps in the road is part of the process, especially for one as slow as
animation. It’s more how you manage to get past these bumps what will be the main challenge.
Carlos
The Art of the Tracking Shot
By Carlos Baena
Some things to think about from what I’ve noticed over the years:
The camera should never call attention to itself. It’ll take an audience out of a film. It should bring people
inside the film based on the story points.
Regardless of the medium, the camera still has weight, and if it moves too light and flips around 20 times,
chances are, the audience may not be into that as much. I loved the camera work on The Incredibles,
because even though it was in a CG world, it always moved and felt live-action to me. Very real cinematic feel
in how it was animated.
Always keep in mind composition. Even though the camera is moving, it’s re-composing shots in every frame.
It’s a constant choreography of elements around the screen. So when you go and move the camera from one
place to another, the audience should still know where to look, and story points should be clear after the
camera move. The camera should always help the story, not fight it.
What lenses are used will obviously affect the composition of the moving camera. Wider lenses tend to be
used in steadycams and/or when following people around and are easier to follow focus as well. Longer
lenses are more difficult to track people in my opinion. However, longer lenses are always a lot more personal
to a character.
Camera height matters. It’s not the same to have the camera at eye level, above eye level or below eye
level. Depending on the camera height level, we’ll react differently to what is being shown to us. Also, how
close or far the camera is in relation to the character/prop will tell you a lot in terms of how
identified/personal we are with them or how detached/removed. Additionally, the character eye-line (for
example, where they are looking at or who they are talking to) and our proximity to it, also gives us
additional filmmaking tools to measure how intimately we want the characters to relate to the audience. Why
and how the camera is placed should always be based on what’s being told. There are many books on things
like this, and I highly encourage people to learn more about it.
The camera should work with the actors, and follow them and the story. Don’t move the camera exactly at
the same time the character starts to move. Usually follows afterwards. Study films to see how this is done
differently. Be careful if you anticipate the camera
to the actor, as if there is not reason for the move, it can
make things look too staged and not as spontaneous. Watch Hitchcock’s Notorious to see how he used the
camera in different ways throughout the film. Again, some of these things are regardless of the medium.
Don’t move the camera just to move it. Keep it still if you are unsure what to do. It’s always the best way to
start learning, but don’t move it for the sake of moving it.
No rules to any of this, but a good practice is to always ask yourself why you are using camera moves. Carlos
ACTING
Making the Best Acting Decisions
By Shawn Kelly
This is all about animation scene planning, and I *DO* think that’s very important, no matter how tight your
deadline is. I usually recommend spending 20% of your time planning, no matter how little time you have.
If you have a week to do a shot, spend the first day planning. If you have only one day to animate the shot,
then spend the first couple of hours planning. As long as you can do SOME planning, your work will *always*
be stronger, and will *always* get done faster.
I know this can be difficult, because often producers and supervisors (and clients) have a hard time
understanding this. Sometimes you can help them understand by explaining that the work will end up looking
so much better, and can often finish even faster, but some people will just never accept this fact. In these
situations, all you can really do is try your hardest to find time to plan whenever you can...

An Animation Mentor student’s video reference demonstrating subtle acting.
For acting decisions in particular, it’s all about acting it out yourself. First, you have to figure out exactly who
your character is, what he wants, etc. Really get into his head as much as possible. Film yourself if you can,
as well as your peers or friends. Play the dialogue line really loudly on your computer, and just act it out in
front of a camera over and over, until you stop thinking about what the character is saying, or the timing of
the lines. You want to film it until all you are doing is truly feeling the real emotions and desires of the
character. Once you do that, you’ll find some takes with terrific acting choices, because they will be
(hopefully) real.
Shawn :)
How Important Is an Acting Shot for Getting a Job in the Gaming Industry?
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: As a student who’s just finishing school, it’s hard to have every kind of animation on your reel,
physical and acting. How important is an acting shot going to be for getting a job in games industry as those
are the only companies which have entry-level jobs?
This is a difficult question to answer because both types of scenes are very important to have on your demo
reel. However, I do think that having strong physical “action tests” on a demo reel is more important than
strong “acting tests” for junior animators. As you say, many studios hiring for junior animation positions
aren’t as interested in your acting shots, as the juniors may primarily be doing more physical work.
Additionally, at even the largest studios, it’s the physical stuff that is the most important. You might have
some great acting choices, but if your weight and balance are wrong, or your arcs aren’t appealing, or the
force just isn’t there -- well, those great acting choices alone are not going to get you that job.
The best acting shots can be destroyed by very small mistakes in body mechanics (how the body works -what moves what, etc.). In my mind, a decent acting scene with bad body mechanics is a demo-reel killer.
It screams“newbie,” and tells the recruiters that you haven’t yet mastered the basics. However, a shot with
great body mechanics and only“OK” acting choices -- this isn’t ideal, but it certainly doesn’t ruin the reel. It
will still show that you know the basic fundamentals, and show your potential as an animator. In light of that
difference, I guess I’d have to say that the physical stuff is more important to focus on when you’re newer to
this stuff, and is certainly the stuff to make sure really shines on your demo reel.
Best of luck! Shawn :)
What Does an Animator Have to Learn about Traditional Acting? How Should It Be Applied to Our Animation?
By Shawn Kelly
First, I’d recommend checking out a couple older Tips & Tricks articles from back in the day related to acting:
http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/0406/feature_geek.html#animationTip
http://www.animationmentor.com/newsletter/0106/feature_geek.html#animationTi
The quick answer would be that as an animator, your job is to bring the character to life, which means that in
a very real way, you have to be an actor. Your job is to BECOME the character, especially in your reference
and planning, if you want the performance
to be unique and believable. This is a must. As animators, we
don’t necessarily have to know *everything* about acting. Generally, we are being given an existing line
reading, for example, but we also must know how to dissect that line reading and figure out what the actor
was thinking when he delivered that bit of dialogue. What was his subtext? What is the operative word? What
are his motivations? What does he WANT most in the scene, and what is preventing him from having it?
Sometimes you have to make some of this stuff up to create a whole picture that you can work with, but it’s
very important to go through the process.
For me, the main stuff I find that I apply to animation includes subtext (it’s often better to animate what the
character MEANS rather than what they are SAYING), operative words, back story (who the character is,
where they came from before the scene, where they will be after the scene), the desires of the character, the
obstacles keeping them away from their desires. In my video reference (using all of the above), I always try
to truly get into my character’s head, and TRULY feel the emotions and desires the character
is feeling.
When I don’t do that my reference always ends up being useless and predictable. However, when I *do*
become the character, the reference is always a huge help.
Shawn :)
What is “Interior Monologue?”
By Shawn Kelly
Interior monologue has a close relationship with “subtext,” but it isn’t the same thing. Subtext is literally
“beneath the text.” It’s what the character MEANS, rather than what the character is saying out loud.
Subtext is what you should always base your acting decisions on (rather than the actual lines). This is also

related to what’s known as “operative words,” or the most enunciated and emphasized word or words in a
delivery. A classic example I’ve heard used is the line “I love you.” If you emphasize the word“I” when you
deliver that line, what you are saying isn’t just “I love you.” No, now what you are truly saying is “He doesn’t
love you.”
If you emphasize“you,” on the other hand, now what you are truly saying is again different, and the subtext
has become“I don’t love her.”
So, if the operative word can help you discover the subtext, that’s nice to know, but what the heck is interior
monologue?
Well, a monologue is someone speaking aloud, often to themselves. It’s almost like thinking out loud.
So“interior” monologue is the same thing, but it’s internal. It’s silent. It’s the thought process that we don’t
let past our lips.
Why is this helpful for animators? Well, because if our hardest job (and it IS our hardest job) is to create a
believable feeling that our characters have an internal thought process, then figuring out the interior
monologue of a scene gives us actual thoughts to key off of, and actual changes in though process to base
our acting decisions on.
Let’s say that in the scene, a man and a woman are arguing, and he’s jealous of the way she’s been flirting
with a friend. Her line is “I love YOU,” with the emphasis on “you.” So we know that what she means is “I
don’t love him, I love you.” When you are animating to that line, you could say that the monologue is “I love
YOU,” and the *interior monologue* is “I don’t love HIM! How could even think that? Don’t you even know
me?”

Now, when you are working out the acting decisions, you can treat the interior monologue just like actual
lines of dialogue, and you can time your head shakes, blinks, searching eye movements, etc. – you can time
all that stuff off of this imaginary line that isn’t ever heard, but through your animation, we will FEEL it.
And *that* stuff is the meaty stuff that will bring your character to life. Shawn :)
What Factors Help You Decide on Poses for Acting Choices?
By Shawn Kelly
The most important thing needs to be the communication of the pose. You should choose your poses based
on what that pose is saying to the audience. The pose should, in some way, accentuate the emotion or
intention of the character, and augment the performance. The body pose should echo the face in most
instances (a shy pose with a cocky facial expression just feels weird and confusing), so that’s a good indicator
as well.
There is no hard and fast rule for this, as sometimes the performance will call for a character hiding their
emotions. In these cases, you usually want to betray the emotions in some way, at least to the audience if
not to the other characters, through subtle shifts in the pantomime body poses, or through the eye
animation, etc.
But in general, my recommendation would be to film your video reference over and over and over, until you
are no longer thinking about the actual words of the line, and instead are thinking only about the subtext
(what the character means instead of what they are saying) and are actually feeling the true emotions of the
characters. If you can get yourself to that place in your video reference, you will discover some very
communicative body poses that will take your performance to a whole new level!
Good luck, and have fun! Shawn :)
25
BRINGING CHARACTERS TO LIFE
Where Do You Draw the Line on Exaggeration?
By Aaron Gilman
As a creature animator who has worked primarily on hyper real content, exaggeration is a constant issue in
my work. For example, just a few days ago, my animation supervisor told me my shot was an “eleven,” and
he wanted me to take it down to an “eight.” What he meant by this was that the creatures in my shot were
too energized. I was breaking the boundaries of believability within the context of this particular project and
the edit. While my characters moved mechanically correct, and even the actions in their performances were
good, everything was too bouncy, too fast, too BIG! Maybe this would have been fine if I was making a
cartoon. Knowing where to draw the line between over exaggerated and contextually believable is part and
parcel of a creature animator’s job. The only real difference between a cartoony animator and a creature
animator is in how far the principles can be pushed.
Anticipation vs. Action
In cartoons, the relationship between the speed and size of an anticipation versus the subsequent action can
be played with and manipulated to create a wide variety of different emotional responses. You might have a

slow and big anticipation showing heaviness and a building of power, followed by an unusually fast action,
thus creating a strong contrast in physics and timing. Or the opposite might be the case. A character takes a
quick leap off a ledge and then hits a long moving hold as he hovers in mid-air over the precipice.
Obviously, with hyper real animation these kinds of timing relationships must still exist between antic and
action, but the contrast must be toned down to the point that real world physics exists unquestionably in the
mind of the viewer. And this is no easy task! This is very often why viewers can watch realistic CG animation
and come away feeling something looked odd or unnatural about the performance. They may have no clue
why they feel this way, and more often than not it is because as animators we have somehow failed to create
motion that can deceive what the human mind is already an expert at, namely the scrutiny and perception of
the physical universe. As a side note, these issues segue into the Uncanny Valley, (see page 38) and are the
source of why so many movies to date have failed to convince the viewer that humans can exist seamlessly
and believably as CG characters.
Striking a Pose
Incartoony animation there is a great deal of emphasis placed onhittinga pose to elicit an emotional“signal”to
the viewer. Acharacter expressing fatigue might inhale deeply, hitting a long upward and expansive
anticipation, followed by a quick compression of the body and lungs, his shoulders and head slumping
downward and striking a strong exhaustion pose. Since the origins of classical animation, we have become
experts at breaking down the structure of poses to understand how they can elicit various emotional
responses from the viewer.
In hyper-real animation we concentrate much less on striking poses. Of course, the methodology and
workflow that goes into creating animation will have very minor differences between a cartoony project and a
realistic one. We still block our shots in very much the same ways (a cartoony animator may block in stepped
while a realistic animator may block in spline), making sure the blocked performance has all the necessary
key poses to convey the narrative. But our main goal is to create a fluid and organic performance based in
reality, and is less about punching an emotion on a given frame; so more time and energy at even the
earliest outset is placed on the breakdowns and in-betweens.
What do I mean by this? Most creature animators I have worked with choose to block in spline. From the very
beginning of our shot we need to place a great deal of importance in understanding how the weight, mass
and energy of a character unravel through the performance. It is less about striking emotive poses and more
about offsetting and layering the motion so that it never feels like parts of the character are landing at the
same time. The parts of the character have to be perfectly grounded in physical reality, so that there is a
constant justification for how muscles, bones, tendons, and organs react through the movement. I could go
on and on scrutinizing how different animation principles are handled differently between animation styles
that favor strong exaggerated movement and those that do not.
The point is that exaggeration is a constant give and take in the type of animations I have done throughout
my career. Under some circumstances we may need to push a pose much harder than is physically realistic,
but more often than not this is for technical reasons. A pan on a camera may be softening the look of a pose
from that particular angle, or a character may be unflatteringly
26
foreshortened and need to be “cheated” to make sense. As a general rule, exaggeration is a good thing if it
brings life and energy
to the performance, but it quickly becomes a bad thing when that part of the human
brain rejects it as “weird” or unnatural. That’s when we know we’ve gone too far or have simply interpreted
the physical world incorrectly.
Aaron Gilman
Eye Animation and Blinks
By Shawn Kelly
Hi everyone! I just wanted to give a big shout-out to all my friends (old and new!) up in Montreal. Carlos
Baena and I were up there where we were honored to have been invited to speak at ADAPT conference. We
had a blast!
Carlos and I gave a presentation about eye animation and blinks, and someone had a good question about
whether or not the character design might affect the way the eyes are animated. It seemed like something
worth posting on the blog, so I thought I’d throw it on here in case anyone is interested.
I would say that generally, a particular character design probably wouldn’t affect the way I would animate the
overall eye movements, as far as eye darts (saccades, if you want to get fancy), timing of the eye looks, etc.
However, the audience member did have a really good point that the character design can sometimes affect
the eye animation in larger, more global ways.
For example, a character may have an injured eye, or the design may simply call for one eye to be larger
than the other. In these cases, the design will definitely dictate the way you shape the overall eyes, and will
also affect how you relate them to the brows.

That said, though, I think I’d say that the main thing always needs to be that the eyes should communicate
clearly to the audience, and in order to do that, the audience needs to be able to relate to the eye animation
you’ve created. They need to recognize themselves in your work, and recognize the way we all use our eyes
to communicate. Our eyes are our most communicative visual feature, and overdone or overly unique eye
animation will jump out to us and just feel strange, at least on a subconscious level.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s always great to add a little special something into your work - something that makes
that character unique, but there is a fine line between stylized caricature and over animated confusion.
So, I guess I’d say that it’s important to take the design into consideration, but as always, your primary focus
needs to remain attempting to create a performance that is not only believable and entertaining, but is clear
and communicative.
Thanks to everyone in Montreal for coming out to see us! We had a blast meeting all of you, and look forward
to hopefully hanging out with you guys again next time!
Shawn :)
Are Facial Expressions as Important as the Body on Acting Shots?
By Shawn Kelly
I feel like you can sort of breakdown the performance into four categories of exponentially decreasing
importance: the body, then the eyes, then the face, then the lip-sync.
Most animators would agree that the body language and pantomime is by far the most important aspect of
the overall acting performance in a medium shot or wider. (i.e. not a close up on the face). Unless we are face
to face with someone, the body is the first place we unconsciously read in order to communicate with
someone. Why? I’m not sure, but it might be because our body language often betrays our true feelings, our
true mood or personality, our true intentions and desires, etc. When we consider that, it isn’t surprising that
we would pay at least some amount of attention to the body language of the person we are approaching.
In short, if you can get the emotions and ideas to read in the body, then the audience is going to understand
what’s going on and feel those emotions.
Next on our list of descending importance are the eyes. If the body is 90% of the acting performance, the
eyes are 90% of
the facial performance. After considering what the body will be doing, the next most
important thing is definitely your eye performance. As always, the most important (and sadly, the most often
skipped) aspect of doing eye animation is to know WHY you are animating the eyes. I see a lot of demo reels
with randomly floaty eyeballs, and it can really kill a performance.
Know exactly when and how and (most importantly) why you are going to move the eyes before you dive
into your animation. Blinks go along with this, and are just as important for communicating thought process
and emotion, and in certain instances I’d include the brows in this category as well.
After the eyes, we’ve got the overall facial expressions, including mouth emotions (smiles, hanging jaw,
frowns, etc).
Obviously the eyes are a part of a facial expression, and the whole face should be thought of as one cohesive
unit, but for the sake of this talk, we can think about it as a separate entity -- only because the rest of the
face, while very important to the overall communication of the character, is simply not quite as important as
the eyes themselves. If you animate a great body performance with great eye animation, that performance is
going to read perfectly, regardless of whether or not you have a full facial rig to work with. This shows the
importance of the eyes over the rest of the face, but that’s not to say that you shouldn’t take great care in
the creation and choice of your facial expressions.
Last, and certainly least, is the lip-sync. Great body acting paired up with expressive and alive eyes,
combined with well-timed facial expressions -- that combination is going to look terrific, even without the lipsync. This is why you’ll hear a lot of people say that lip-sync is the icing on the cake of the overall animation.
It’s that last extra little bit of “wow” you can add to your scene, and by far the least important aspect of your
acting performance.
None of this is to say that any of these four categories are unimportant, some are just more important than
others. Really terrible lip sync will certainly ruin a shot on a demo reel, but my point is that mediocre lip sync
combined with otherwise great animation will probably go unnoticed, and the recruiter will be left with a
feeling that the overall shot was great, even though the lip-sync itself might not have been fantastic.
So, I guess as far as which is the icing on the cake, it sounds like the eyes are the icing on the body language
cake, the facial expressions are the icing on the eyes, and the lip-sync is the icing on the face.

In vaguely related news, I love cake but really dislike frosting/icing, which my wife thinks is completely
insane, but she doesn’t mind as it leaves more icing for her...
Thanks for reading! Shawn :)
Forget About Animating the Legs
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: In your first ebook you wrote something on “forget about animating the legs.” Can you elaborate?
I’ll try to be clearer than I was in the first ebook. Basically, the idea is to hide the legs of your character. (I
create a layer for them in Maya and make that layer invisible). Then you just forget about the legs
completely.
So at this point, you have a character with hips, a torso, arms, and a head. The idea is to just animate that,
according to the way you’ve planned out the scene ahead of time, and keeping in mind what you basically
will want the legs and feet to be doing once you put them in.
If you follow your planning, and get the body moving around at the correct speed, with the correct ups and
downs, etc., and you just work on that until it looks right, THEN you unhide the legs.
Now the legs are super easy to animate. You just set up your first pose the way you had planned out, and
then as the character moves forward, you just save a key on the planted foot one frame before the leg would
have hyper-extended (creating an IK pop, which you want to avoid at all costs!), and then animate it taking
the step or whatever.
In other words, if the body is moving at the speed you want, it’s going to dictate when you HAVE to pick up
the feet and move them, right? So it’s kind of removing one layer of complexity from your initial animation
pass by saving the feet and legs for a second pass, and on that second pass, the feet/legs are almost a nobrainer because their timing and possibly posing is being dictated by what you’ve chosen to do with the body.
You’ll probably have to make some small edits to the body timing here and there, but if done properly, it
should work.
I know it’s a weird way to approach, and as I said in the ebook, I thought it was completely insane when Glen
McIntosh suggested it to me, but considering he’s probably the best animator I’ve ever worked with, I
eventually figured that I should try it, and the Yoda shot I did that way (in Episode 3, where he fights some
clone troopers and throws a lightsaber into a trooper’s chest) really came together quickly and it ended up
being a really cool way to work.
I still only would use that method in an action-heavy scene (lots of running around, jumping, etc) or else for a
many-legged character (spider-shaped characters with four or more legs work even better for this method!),
but in those instances it’s a technique that comes in really handy.
Shawn :)
How Do You Go about Timing Out Animation That Can’t Be Performed in Real Life?
By Shawn Kelly
That’s a tough one, and it depends entirely on the style of the project you are working on. The timing is going
to be very different between Davy Jones jumping vs. Mr. Incredible jumping vs. Horton jumping. These
projects all land at different places on the meter of stylization, and each of those character’s movements and
timings are dictated heavily by those chosen styles.
If you’re working on a more stylized piece, and are creating a performance that you can’t find or create
reference for in the real world, then my advice would be to use the principle of exaggeration to push the
timing and poses that you see in the real world.
You always want to base your animation on the real world while adhering to the rules of the universe that
have been set up by the style of the project you are working on. No matter how stylized the motion, if it has
zero connection to the world we live in, the audience is going to have a hard time connecting to it, and will
likely find it confusing or off-putting. You want to give the audience some anchors -- something they are
familiar with, and use that as the jumping off point for your stylizations.
As an example, let’s say that you are animating a character jumping up into the air, but you want to give
them extra “cartoony” hang-time. In this instance, I’d encourage you to study (and maybe even film) the
mechanics of how a real jump works. Jump around at your desk and feel what happens in your own body.
Study how the whole body squashes on the anticipation, stretches on the launch, squashes at the top of the
jump, stretches on the way back down, and squashes on the landing. Just study ALL that stuff about how a
real jump works.
Once you know how a real jump works, you’re ready to animate your exaggerated jump. Just take what
you’ve observed and apply your knowledge of the principles of animation to it (including and especially

exaggeration, in this case) and you’ll be fine! Keep that overall squash and stretch for at least the launch and
landing as anchors, for example, and be sure to have a frame where at least one toe is still on the ground
with a very straight leg so the character feels like he’s pushinghimself upward. Maybe get his arms involved,
as people do, etc.
With those anchors in there, you will successfully communicate the idea of a jump, no matter what other
craziness you now add to the mix. Give him a longer hang time, for example, but try to hang onto those
anchors as well. Keeping him on a nice arc would probably be another good anchor to keep things somewhat
rooted in the way the audience understands how our gravity works. But that doesn’t mean you can’t elongate
that arc and keep him in the air for as long as you possibly want to!
Have fun, and keep animating! Shawn:)
Facial Follow-Up Question: Timing the Face to the Body
By Shawn Kelly
Hi everyone! Here’s a good question that is worth quickly clarifying:
If the body is animated in the first pass and then the face is done, how do we know, or how do you TIME the
face with an already animated body below exactly to the dialogue? Isn’t there a huge possibility that the lip
sync when done in the second pass will not match the body movement which was already done?
This really comes back down to the very first articles I ever wrote for the AM newsletter back in the day
(which you can read in the first ebook). There is nothing more important than planning your shot, especially if
you’re in the first few years of being an animator.
It’s the planning that will help you make all of your action and acting decisions, and also your rough timing
decisions. Obviously, sometimes you tweak the timing a bit once you have your stuff in the computer, but it
should theoretically be pretty close to your original planning unless major changes were required or
requested midway through the process.
The planning should help you nail down the timing of your actions, and that includes the facial acting choices
including eye direction changes, expression changes, blinks, etc. Many animators might not do separate
thumbnails for every single eye blink (I don’t), but should at least make notes to yourself of what frame this
expression will happen on, or what frame these blinks will happen on.
The point of planning is to give yourself a relatively fast way to try a lot of different options, settle on your
ideas, and make all of your decisions before the decision-making process gets into the computer and
becomes a nightmare of editing curves, keys, and controllers. It’s so much simpler if you know what you’re
going to animate before you turn your computer on.
As such, your planning should have already helped you decide when and why your character’s face and eyes
will be moving/ blinking, and how that will make your character’s attitude and emotions feel.
If you have time to do some decent planning, then the timing of the face *will* match up to the timing of the
body, because you have planned them to work together.
My previous post was all about what aspects of performance are the most important to focus on, but when
you really get down to it, it’s important to nail them all, and most important to make sure that all the
aspects of the body’s movement and performance are working together cohesively.
If you’ve already animated the body, but haven’t done planning for the face for some reason (not
recommended!) and are under
a tight deadline and just have to get *something* finished, then my advice
would be to just make sure that you design the facial animation carefully to match the body animation that is
already working. If your body performance is already reading, then the face should accentuate it and make
those actions, ideas, and emotions even more clear than they already are.
If the face seems to be distracting from the overall actions, ideas, or emotions, then you’ve definitely done
something wrong and need to go back and figure out what’s up. Most likely it’s a timing problem, or else the
facial performance is conflicting with the body language...
Hope that answers your question! Thanks again for swinging by... Shawn :)
What to Do with a Character’s Balance and Weight When Walking
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: I’ve noticed that a feature of the Animation Mentor graduate animation are great walks, they
seem mechanically spot on and always have a strong sense of attitude. I’ve been animating for some time,
but still haven’t heard or seen a definitive breakdown of what to do with a character’s balance and weight
when walking. How long do you have a character off balance for in a walk? Obviously this varies according to
attitude (stomping to creeping) and mass (a heavy or light character), but I would love to hear how you work
out what you’re going to do in this regard. Do you animate the body movement first and then just get the

legs working under the body as needed? Or do you place out your foot positions and then place the body
relative to the feet so as to have the weight over the feet at specific times?
Walks are deceptively difficult, and require a lot of study and research before you starting diving into them. A
walk is something that cannot be tackled properly until you have a really strong grasp of all the principles of
animation (such as follow-through, anticipation, ease in/out, arcs, balance, etc.). Once you have a strong
understanding of all those concepts, a walk is much easier to figure out.
That said, the main thing to keep in mind is balance. You cannot move without unbalancing yourself, and the
speed you move forward will be determined by where you move your centerline, or your“center of gravity.” In
other words, the further you unbalance your hips in front of your feet, the faster forward you will move. A
common description of a walk for animators is as a“controlled fall.” You are constantly falling and catching
yourself, creating locomotion forward, and the further forward you move the character’s weight, the faster he
will fall. The faster he is falling, the faster his legs will have to move to catch those falls, and pretty soon you
have a run!
Unlike many other ideas in animation, there is no real “gray area” when it comes to balance. There isn’t
much room for artistic interpretation. Something either has correct balance or it doesn’t. It’s right, or it’s
wrong. So be sure to make a detailed study of how balance works in a walk before diving into it...
Other than that, it’s essential to remember that in a walk you cannot lift either foot until the body weight is
mostly over the other planted foot. It’s important to remember how the hips rotate in at least two axes, and
what that, in turn, will do to the shoulders. It’s important that the wrists and feet have nice arcs, and the path
of action of the hips and head are appealing and organic.
In short, what’s truly important is that you take the time to research and plan a walk, just as with any other
animation. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think that a walk is a good “basic first exercise.” In my
opinion, a walk is an incredibly complex piece of animation that should only be attempted when you feel
somewhat comfortable with the fundamental principles of animation, and can draw on your knowledge of
those principles, and how they relate to one another, to figure out exactly how the body needs to be moving
in that walk.

My advice for tackling your first walk cycle would be to watch a lot of reference first. How do some of your
favorite animated characters walk? What differences and similarities do you see? How about live-action
walks? Go to the park or to the mall or just a street corner and watch how people walk. People with different
sizes and shapes will walk a bit differently. How does the size affect the hip rotation and foot placement? How
about the differences between male and female walks?
One of my early animation teachers and a good friend of mine used to strip down to his underwear and put
black tape on his hip bones. Then he’d walk towards a mirror or video camera over and over and study how
his hips moved!
Now, I’m not saying you should all start making underwear movies (or if you do, can I please put in an early
request that you guys don’t send them to me? Thanks! ha ha) -- but he did have the right idea, and he
learned a lot of studying his own body this way.
Whether or not you have pants on, the important thing is to find ways to research and study how these
animation ideas and body mechanics work in real life – that kind of observation is invaluable and incredibly
necessary to your growth as an animator!
Shawn :)
Weight in Animation
By Wayne Gilbert
Weight is described through the visual presentation of opposing forces. That’s it. Stop here or continue
reading for accompanying babble and random thoughts.
He is opposing the downward pull of weight/gravity by driving his legs down to lift up.
We want to believe that the character moved, not that someone moved the character. That means you have
to animate a character that looks like it is dealing with weight and balance through its own thoughts and
efforts.
Force does not exist in animation. It is implied through posture, path of action, balance, timing, arcs,
successive breaking of joints and on and on. It is implied by what the character does. Deciding why a
character moves will reveal how it moves.

Hold on, this is about weight, not force. No, wait, weight cannot be shown without the visual implication of
FORCE. Wait, force and weight don’t exist in animation, there can only be a visual implication. There are two
types of FORCE – internal and external.
The Principles of Animation as listed in The Illusion of Life:
Squash and stretch Staging
Straight-ahead animation Pose to pose animation Follow-through
Slow in Slow out Arcs
Secondary action Timing Exaggeration Solid Drawing Appeal
Nine of the Principles of Animation are a result of, or create a FORCE. Let’s take a stab at re-thinking, redefining and prioritizing the Principles of Animation and call them, say, The Principles of Movement.
FORCE - priority one External
Internal
Physical
Squash and stretch – (Compression and Extension) Follow-through
Slow in and slow out – natural (physics), character controlled or mechanical Arcs – natural and controlled
Secondary action
Timing – the strength of the greater force dictates how fast something moves
Aesthetic - creates an emotional/psychological response/force in the audience Staging
Exaggeration Appeal
Skill and Methodology Straight-ahead animation Pose to pose animation
Solid Drawing – a must for ‘Traditional Animation’ and great for planning
Weight is all in the timing. Well, posture and timing. But then context plays a role in why the character moves
which dictates how. Aw man, now I’m rambling and sound like Shawn Kelly. Do over.
It’s all in the timing. True, but what are we timing? We’re timing thought and effort/force. How much effort
must the character exert to successfully accomplish the task it decided to accomplish? For an animator,
weight is a visual presentation of opposing forces. When a character jumps up, it is actually driving down
against the ground. The faster it can drive down the higher it will jump. The character can enhance the power
of the jump by properly timing the thrusting of shoulders and arms in the direction of the jump. Study a high
jumper or long jumper.

Once the force needed to jump is believably represented visually, the principles of movement are initiated. If
the character is weak and heavy it takes more effort to jump, pull or push, which influences timing which
influences the principles.
Why does the ground shake when the‘500 pound’ Incredible Hulk walks? He’s strong enough to jump half a
mile, he should be able to tip toe quietly. OK, I’m rambling again. When I read this article tomorrow I’ll
probably want to re-word it as I have everyday since starting it and now I sound like Shawn again.
‘Random thought’ in an animated walk -- make sure that the‘impact’ is visually defined. That could be one
goal for showing weight. Watch slow motion live action walking and pay close attention to the impact
frames.
Going into the impact/compression shows how much effort is exerted to stop the body weight from its
downward motion and coming out of the impact/compression describes how much effort is needed to raise
the body‘weight’. Keep in mind, the slower the cadence the more weight shift from side to side there needs
to be. The further apart the feet are the more you have to shift weight side to side.
As these following examples are copyright protected I can only direct you to the source. In American History
X, just before Edward Norton is arrested there is a sequence of him walking toward the camera. The shot is
from the waist up but you can tell what the hips, legs and feet are doing. This is proof positive that you have
to animate what is not seen as well as what is in frame if you want it to be correct.
Balance is extremely important to support the visual implication of weight. Weight must be over or nearly
over one foot before the other can be raised while maintaining balance. Stand with your feet shoulder width
apart, raise one foot 18” off the ground and hold it there for five seconds -- but don’t shift your hips (or hold
on to something or fall). Weight must shift from side to side in leading the balance during a walk. These
examples from The Iron Giant do not address the fact that we may be looking at a directorial decision for
mechanical stylization. (See if a lawyer can get through that one).
The Iron Giant – to shift weight or not? At the electrical station and in the final battle scene the giant lacks
‘human characteristics’ and there is no weight shifting in his walk, but at the pond there is.

1.
First time Hogarth sees the Iron who walks over him at the power plant. No weight shift and impossible
– mechanical stylization?
2.
Final battle when the Iron Giant has transformed and walks into the fight. No weight shift and
impossible – mechanical stylization?
3.
At the pond when the Iron Giant walks back to take a run at the pond. Weight shift – human
characteristics at this time.
The timing of a character lifting a heavy object has to be properly blended with the correct posture and
balance to describe appropriate effort.





Three hundred pounds can look light if the character is strong
Fifty pounds can look heavy if the same character is tired or ill
A 300-pound character can be strong or weak
A 98-pound character can be stronger than a 300 pound character

You create the rules – be consistent throughout your animation.
Here is an example of an animated character that looked at the story reel, planned what he wanted to lift, did
sketches and then shot video reference before proceeding.
This is an example of an animated character that didn’t bother planning beyond the story reel. He got a bit
cocky and didn’t evaluate the repercussions of beginning the action before he knew what he was doing.
Weight is described through the visual presentation of opposing forces. Wayne Gilbert
How Do You Make an Unappealing Character Design Look Appealing?
By Aaron Gilman
In my opinion, an animator should never be concerned with the design of a character. Countless animators
have proven over the years that animation transcends the aesthetic appeal of a character. I remember when I
was in school studying animation. A student graduating a year or so before me had created a brilliant short
film about a scarecrow chasing a crow through cornfields. The scarecrow was entirely made of thin tubes,
with no textures, and a low-poly straw hat. The weak uncreative character design didn’t hinder the
performance in the slightest. In fact, in some ways it augmented the quality of the animation because the
animator didn’t have to think about weighting issues, intersection problems, muscles, textures, etc. It was
raw animation in its truest form.
I think this rings true for all great animation. The appeal or lack of appeal of a character’s design should exist
independently of the animation. Of course, that’s not to say a great design won’t bring more appeal to the
viewer’s relationship to the character. Having a great design is...well....great! But an animator’s ability to
make the viewer connect with the performance, personality, and nature of the character’s “soul,” will not be
impeded by poor design.
Let’s look at some concrete examples of this. Take the characters we see animated in so many animation
school programs. I’ve seen sack jump animations that have had me on the floor laughing. Ballie, at Animation
Mentor, is a couple of leg tubes and a sphere. This is hardly creative design at its best. But when a student
flawlessly makes Ballie perform in a way that touches me, the symmetry, lack of textures, and flat surfaces,
fall to the wayside.
We can look at poor design choices and how they may have affected
a character’s performance in films
as well. I’ve spoken about Luxo Jr. in another article. The design of Luxo is nothing special. I’m sure no one
would disagree with that. It’s an ordinary metallic lamp with nothing interesting about its design per say.
And yet, when it moves, it springs to life. The animation works so strongly that the essence of a child screams
out at you. You cease to think about the design and become absorbed with the character’s thought
processes.
When he reacts to squishing the ball, I sincerely feel he’s sad. Look at the design for Eve in WALL-E. It’s an
oval! And yet the animation is nothing short of fantastic, and we never question the design choice. In fact, as
an animator, I revel in the fact that Pixar purposefully chose a simplistic design and then made me ignore
that stark fact by absorbing me into her performance so skillfully.
As an animator working in the industry, you will always be given characters that have poor designs. Even
psychologically, you can work everyday on low-res puppets that look terrible. But as long as the animator can
connect with the essence of the character to create an intriguing performance, it will always come out in the
final product. And in some cases, when the animation is brilliant, it will rise above all aesthetic obstacles.
Aaron Gilman
Animation and the Uncanny Valley
By Keith Sintay
I recently became aware of a name for something that many of us as artists have seen, experienced and
possibly even fought against. It is called, “The Uncanny Valley.” As defined on Wikipedia:“The uncanny valley
is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles [CG Characters!] of humans look and act almost like
actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” in question is a dip in

a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s life-likeness. It was introduced
by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970.
A similar problem exists in realistic 3D computer animation, such as with the films The Polar Express and
Beowulf.” Mori’s hypothesis states that as a robot [CG character] is made more humanlike in its appearance
and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot [CG character] will become increasingly
positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong
repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human
being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy
levels.
The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that, if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the
humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy (think of how we
anthropromorphize automobiles or other inanimate objects; giving them faces, etc.). On the other hand, if the
entity is “almost human,” then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a
feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer. In other words, a robot stuck inside the uncanny valley is no
longer being judged by the standards of a robot doing a good job at pretending to be human, but is instead
being judged by the standards of a human doing a terrible job at acting like a normal person. So, with thanks
to my friend Tom St. Amand, I wanted to discuss how the Uncanny Valley impacts us as CG animators and as
portrait painters and artists in general.
First, let me list things that put our more realistic CG characters into the “Uncanny Valley.”
1.
Lack of eye jitter (small, darty movements of two or three frames when someone is looking at
something).
2.
Crossed eyes, or wall-eyed eyes. These eyes generally appear to be unfocused (think of wax dummies
of famous people, if they don’t focus the eyes, the uncanny valley swallows them up). Actors need an
eyeline.
3.
Wavering focus of the eyes -- eyes not looking at a consistent target. Under this, I would put actors
looking like they are reading from cue cards. Or, not looking at another actor when speaking to them at a
moment when we would expect them to be. Wavering eyes can also appear to be a sign of inebriation or
brain damage.
4.
Eyes that look like a doll’s eyes, or that have the texture of a doll’s eyes; eyes that read as glass eyes.
5.
If the eyes always move with the head when the head rotates, it looks robotic. Put in eye tics to lead
the head rotation.
6.
Lip sync is off. Look how off-putting a bad dub job can be on a live action film.
7.
A perceived slackness in the face.
8.
When the face moves in a robot-like, mechanical way or when the different parts of the face look
uncoordinated.
9.
When characters don’t blink at all, it looks odd. The average person blinks once every five seconds.
10.
When your character makes an “out of character” expression, it looks disturbing (as it can be in real
life). If Jerry Lewis crosses his eyes in a film, it can be seen to be part of his character. If Dean Martin does it,
it seems weird.
11.
People are made comfortable when you show them what they expect.
12.
Unnatural skin color or texture. Mottled skin (actors usually wear makeup to hide mottled skin to make
it look more pleasing and‘natural’ on camera).
13.
Unnatural lighting. An actor won’t usually be lit to look bad, unless they are playing someone sinister.
14.
Don’t be so in love with reality that you make your character look sick. Think how he would look if he
were an actor/real person in your movie. Would you play up his flaws?
15.
16.
other.
17.
18.

Changes in facial expression that seem too slow, or are late.
Facial features that are mirror-imaged. A lot of people have one side of their face smaller than the
Features that seem too“perfect”.
Movement on one side of the face only; this looks like you have had a stroke.
Facial movement that seems uncoordinated with what the body is doing.

So, how do we get our characters OUT of the “Uncanny Valley”?
1.
Think about micro expressions; fleeting changes of expression.
2.
Nostril flares and raises.
3.
Brow and cheek raises.
4.
Changes in volume in the cheeks (like cheek blow).
5.
Make sure ‘sticky lips’ are in there if that is available on your rig.
6.
Be careful when moving facial shapes in isolation.
7.
Make lip shapes for consonants, etc., simple and readable.
8.
Don’t over-enunciate. More cartoony characters can sometimes get away with this.
9.
Don’t forget swallows, gulps and neck tightens.
10.
Some people’s heads shake and bob involuntarily instead of moving in a “key-framey” fashion. Don’t
just leave the head static. Try to break the regularity of even movements.
11.
When we blink, sometimes the brows come down, the lower lids scrunch up. Also, the cheeks can raise
up to ‘meet’ the blink.

12.
People also squint and half-close their eyes; their eyes can narrow and remain so without fully opening
again.
13.
Look for places to widen or flare the eyes.
14.
Eyelash flutter. Lids don’t always close all the way down.
15.
Eye twitches (lids and the areas above and under the eyes)
16.
The jaw can move side to side and in and out as well as up and down.
17.
Lips sometimes stick to teeth when we talk (dry lips).
18.
Don’t forget breathing (chest rise and fall)
19.
Get the tongue animation in there!
20.
If your character looks like a Zombie, try and figure out why. Sometimes even a live actor’s
performance is criticized for having no“spark.”
21.
Offset raising and lowering of the brows occasionally, instead of both at the same time.
22.
A smile will generally raise the cheeks.
23.
A smile should be reflected in the EYES as well as the mouth.
24.
Paul Ekman: In a fake smile, only the zygomatic major muscle (cheek muscle) which runs from the
cheekbone to the corner of the lips, moves. In a real smile, the eyebrows and the skin between the upper
eyelid and the eyebrows come down very slightly.
25.
Teeth and the inside of the mouth should look wet.
26.
Think of all the actors/actresses who have had botox or face lifts, who then don’t look like themselves
anymore. Part of their faces looks “frozen.”
27.
28.

In a squint, the area UNDER the yes moves too, not just the lower lids.
Make sure the expression fits the voice.

These are just some of the ways that you can create more realistic characters whether they are CG or portrait
paintings. Hopefully, some of the things on this list will allow you to stay out of the Uncanny Valley with your
performances or renders.
Be sure to check out more of our latest tips at animationtipsandtricks.com. Best wishes and happy animating!
Keith Sintay
Motion Capture
By Shawn Kelly
Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat. I realize some of you really dislike motion capture. Some
of you even have a real hatred for it. So before we dive into what is sure to be a sticky topic, know this: I
don’t care how much you hate motion capture, I have hated it more than you. Period.
Back in 1995, my whole life was about trying to learn this animation stuff, and I believed motion capture was
a knife in the art that I held so dear. A robotic and artless solution to the budgetary dilemmas of short-sighted
producers who had long since sold their withered souls to their great god: Profit. A shortcut that would not
only put all of us animators out of business, but also delivered awful results. Sure, the motion was technically
accurate, but in leapfrogging over the absolutely essential step of filtering a performance through the eyes of
a true animator, the end-result looked like some kind of zombie brought back to some semblance of life.
For 1995 Shawn, motion capture was animation lobotomized.
Back then, I had my hater-pants belted firmly around my waist and had nothing but upturn-nosed
condescension for this new technology. I’m sure some of you feel that same way right now. But guess what?
Some of you won’t want to hear this, but an enormous percentage of you are going to work with motion
capture in one form or another at some point in your career.
Scared? Don’t be!
It turns out that I was wrong about the potential that exists in motion capture, which, over the last decade,
has evolved into a robust and useful tool for us to use.
Now, does 2008 Shawn think that motion capture is an art form? Nope. No more than a camera is an art form,
or a paintbrush is an art form. The *creation* of any artistic tool could certainly be described as an art form,
but the finished tools themselves are no more than that -- tools waiting for the magic of an artist’s touch. It’s
the painter and the photographer that are the artists here, as are the joint-effort of the motion capture
performer and the animator.
Motion capture has evolved and grown into a truly useful TOOL. It’s nothing more, but it’s also nothing less.
Does 2008 Shawn specifically enjoy working with motion capture? No, of course not! My preference is the
same as most of yours -- to start from scratch and bring characters to life through my keyframe work.
(And to be fair, I haven’t done *that* much motion capture work. Of the over 250 shots I’ve done at ILM, I’ve
used motion capture in exactly 12 of them (yes, I counted), and almost all of those ended up being mostly
keyframed by the end of my process. So I’m not claiming to be a huge motion capture expert, just giving my
two cents on the issue...)

However, when motion capture is used properly, it can be a solid addition to your animation toolbox, but (and
this is the important part!) when used IMPROPERLY, I still think the end result feels about as alive and
emotional as a doorknob.
That said, here are some pointers if you find yourself working with mocap:
1.
The usefulness of motion capture is DIRECTLY tied to the intended style of the project. It’s pretty much
only useful for ultra-realistic work. Trying to motion capture a film like Horton Hears a Who! or WALL-E would
be a huge waste of money and time, and the end result would be an ugly shadow of the gorgeous handkeyed work on display in either of those films, no matter how much an animator tried to augment the
captured performances. Trying to push and pull motion capture around to turn it into something very stylized
would be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming for any artist. I would expect that an animator could have
simply hand-keyed a far superior version of that same shot in a fraction of the time it would take to capture,
clean up, and then try to augment the motion capture data.
2.
This goes for games as well: while motion capture is a great foundation for a photo-realistic football
game, it would be silly to use much motion capture in something like Halo 3. While the movements are
pretty realistic in Halo, the style of that universe demands a certain level of subtle stylization to the
movements which would probably be faster/cheaper to achieve by simply starting with hand-keyed
animation.
3.
Along those lines, in most cases it would be a waste of time to attempt to motion capture any extreme
physical actions that are above and beyond what a human can do, even in a photorealistic project using
human characters. In other words, there’s no sense in trying to motion capture superheroes flying around and
battling each other in hand-to-hand combat when an animator could again create that same shot, most likely
having a better result and costing the studio less money.
4.
Motion capture can often be far more trouble than it’s worth, and many of us know how common it is
to waste days trying to somehow edit motion capture data into the performance that the director is looking
for only to eventually have to scrap it completely and key it from scratch.
5.
For feature films, television, or game cinematics, motion capture straight out of the box, untouched by
an animator, will invariably have less life than it otherwise could have had, and has a very high likelihood of
looking dead, stiff, boring, wrong or just plain creepy.
6.
For in-game work, depending on the movement style and budget, motion capture is very commonly
used, and I think this is a proper place to do so. However, as games become more cinematic, and resolutions
and graphics continue to climb, more care should be taken to ensure that animators have the proper amount
of time and allocated budget necessary to give these characters more life, more dynamic poses, more
interesting timing, etc. While motion capture will continue to be an important part of the equation in the
creation of sports games and other lifelike games, studios need to keep in mind that it is only one step of
the process, and those characters are never going to feel truly alive until their motions and emotions are
augmented by a talented animator.
7.
Motion capture can be an excellent and data-rich source of 3D reference for any animator, working in
any medium. If you happen to somehow end up with motion capture data that you won’t be able to really use
for one reason or another, it still might be very valuable to at least study and learn from what the performer
did.
8.
MOTION CAPTURE IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE PERFORMER BEING CAPTURED! If you’re going to be
motion capturing something, be sure to cast the actor appropriately, and have the director involved as early
as possible in the capture process. This will save a fortune in reworking the performances later.
9.
No matter what, animators will ALWAYS need to do some amount of reworking the mocap data, almost
regardless of the intended style.
10.
Untouched mocap, or even *cleaned-up* but not augmented mocap, is rarely going to be acceptable
as the final product if there are any quality standards at all (If any producers happen to be reading this,
please do the rest of us a giant favor and factor this into the budget from the get-go!).
11.
Most important of all: If you are working with mocap, your primary focus needs to be on exaggeration.
You’ll want to subtly exaggerate the poses to push them into something more dynamic or exciting, or more
forceful. Exaggerate the weight a little bit, push the line of action, etc. You’ll also probably want to
exaggerate the timing in some way speed this part up slightly to make it a little snappier, slow this part down
a little to give him more of a pause here, etc. In other words, use the mocap as a foundation upon which you
can use YOUR artistic skills, and your knowledge of the principles of animation, to create a true performance
that can hold up on-screen.
Some of you out there might be 1995 Shawn. I’m here to tell you that there is a light at the end of the mocap
tunnel. That it doesn’t have to be scary, and it doesn’t have to be anything other than an occasionally useful
tool. Not only that, but particularly in the games industry, motion capture makes a lot of projects possible
that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive, and as such, actually

*creates* a huge number of animation jobs.
There’s an elitist vein of snobbery running through our industry right now, where some “keyframe” artists like
to stand up on their pedestal and look down their noses at animators working with mocap. Some of these
animation purists even have the unbelievable audacity to proclaim themselves the only “true” animators,
and that animators working on photorealistic films such as Lord of the Rings or performance captured films
such as Beowulf are not “animators” at all, but rather some tech-heads doing grunt work or something.
How quickly they’ve forgotten that not so long ago, the 2D animation industry was saying the exact same
thing about them!
Back in the early 90s, many 2D animators had those same elitist opinions about computer animators in
general -- that the only“real” animators used pencils. From here in 2008, that sounds ridiculous, and I would
be willing to bet that even the most ardent among them would be forced to admit, in the face of Kung-Fu
Panda or WALL-E (or any other amazing CG film!) that they were wrong.
To these thankfully few people, who clearly just don’t understand how an animator might properly embellish
motion capture, I would suggest you get over yourselves and realize that this art is bigger than any one tool,
bigger than any one project, bigger than any one medium, bigger than any one style, and it’s certainly bigger
than you.
Yes, I agree with you that plenty of animation that began as mocap data looks absolutely horrible. Dead,
lifeless, boring, or just wrong. But you know what? Plenty of animation that began with a blank piece of paper
ended up looking horrible as well, and plenty of animation that is keyframed in the computer looks just as
bad or worse!
I think we can all agree that the end result has more to do with the artist and their environment and training
than with any particular tool.
As far as I’m concerned, a solid well-trained animator who is allowed to apply their artistic animation vision to
whatever tools they are working with will always have the potential to create something terrific, regardless of
the tool or medium.
Animation is the act of bringing characters to life. If that’s what you do, I don’t care if you’re using Maya,
Softimage, Lightwave, Animation Master, Flash or Motion Builder or your H1B pencil or an armatured puppet!
I don’t care if your reference is video reference, yourself in a mirror, or a day at the park, and I certainly don’t
care if you are using your animation skills to mold a crappy motion capture performance into something
memorable and truly alive! If you are using the tools at your disposal to bring characters to life, then guess
what?
YOU ARE AN ANIMATOR.
And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Shawn :)
WORKFLOW
What Kind of Workflow Do You Use or Recommend?
By Shawn Kelly
Everyone has their own workflow that they find comfortable and works for them. For me, this is what I usually
do:
1.
Get assigned a shot.
2.
Research and study. Learn about the character, the required actions, what my character wants, where
he came from and where he’s going. If it’s just action or is a creature, then I study the physiology of that
creature, figure out how he should move, etc. As much as possible, it’s good to find reference of a similar
creature that exists in real life. (For example, if you’re animating a dragon, you can study eagles and lions)
3.
Do my thumbnails and video planning (so I know which poses will happen on which frames -- at least
roughly, and include breakdown poses). When possible, I’ll show this planning (or video reference) to my
animation director for feedback.
4.
Then I simply recreate my thumbnail drawings in the computer, thinking of each pose as a “whole
drawing,” where I’ll pose out the whole character and save a key on every single controller, even if it hasn’t
been moved.
5.
At this point, you should be 80% finished, if you’ve done your planning correctly. (See my very first
Tips & Tricks articles about this). This is when I’ll show my shot again for more feedback.
6.
If they like my blocking, then I start polishing, doing the hands, feet, fingers, toes, tail, whatever.
7.
Then I do the face.
8.
Then I do the mouth.
9.
Then I show it again and hope to hear the magic word“Final!”
Shawn :)
Workflow for Fully Rigged Character

By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: In simpler models, I would key everything together at the same frame so I would not be confused
when I tried to move things around. Now I’m working with a character with a mouth, eyes, and full facial rig.
Do I key the face controls along with the rest of the body, or do I re-block them on their own pass? What is a
normal workflow?
Working with a new character is always intimidating (but exciting, as well, as you get to explore how that new
character works, puzzle out new solutions for movement, etc.!), and jumping into your first “fully rigged”
character is even scarier than normal. I work just like the above -- I block in the scene in a “pose-to-pose”
way, using my reference and planning as a guide, and saving keys on every body controller as I go.
HOWEVER, your question raises a great point that I don’t think I’ve mentioned in the past, and that is the fact
that I do NOT save any keys on the face at all during this first pass at blocking. I just ignore the face
completely, and in my mind, I imagine what the face will eventually look like. Even with eye darts or blinks
-- all that stuff I save for a completely separate pass. I don’t know if that’s the “normal workflow” or not, as
everyone works in whatever way works best for them, but in my experience, doing any facial work in the first
pass of blocking has a decent chance of being a waste of time. The body performance/timing might not be
really locked down yet, and the facial emotions and thought-process needs to be very integrated with the
acting choices, gestures, and body mechanics. You might as well wait until the body is really nailed down and
90% finished before jumping into any facial stuff, because if you end up having to change the overall body
stuff, the facial stuff might all have to be scrapped completely as well. It’ll save you a lot of headache in the
long run, in my opinion, to hold off on the facial stuff.
Remember, the facial animation is the “icing on the cake,” and if the emotions, actions, and ideas aren’t
communicating through the body language and physical performance, that should be a huge red flag for you
that the scene is in trouble. The greatest facial animation in the world is not going to save your scene from
poor body mechanics or bad body language...
So yes, in answer to your question, I save the face for last, and by the time I’m keying the facial work,
expressions, jaw, and lip-sync
– at that point, I’m no longer at all concerned with what frames my initial body-blocking poses and
breakdowns were on. This is completely separate, and while it’s very important to make sure the face is very
related to what’s going on in the body, it’s very normal for the facial keys to be on completely different
frames than the body keys.
Shawn :)
How Much Time Do You Spend on Each of the Workflow Steps?
By Animation Mentor Staff
When it comes to AnimationMentor.com, there is a guideline to live by -- the more you put into it, the more
you will get out of it. Animation Mentor students are definitely a hard working crew, and this is because
animation is not easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it well.
Finding the timing of your workflow is just like the rest of it, you have to see what works for you. Your first
instinct may be to rush the planning and go right to animating, but you will soon discover that this is not the
most ideal way to work, since you will most likely spend more time fixing things in the end. Finding the right
amount of planning, roughing in, getting feedback, blocking, getting feedback, refining and polishing is
something that takes time.
For beginners, it also takes trial and error, since you can’t be told what the best workflow for you is... you
have to build it yourself! But to answer your question more directly, you can expect to spend at least 20
hours a week on your Animation Mentor assignments. But you probably should plan on it taking longer,
upwards of 40 hours a week, so you aren’t surprised when it turns out to be that sort of time commitment.
Animating is time consuming, and until you have really hammered out your workflow, you should expect it to
take a while.
Rock star animators can move more quickly, but that is because they have spent their time“in the trenches,”
taking their knocks, and learning from experience. And you know what they say…“Experience is what you get
when you don’t get what you want.” So don’t expect it to be easy, or else you may be let down.
Good luck!
Animation Mentor Staff
Workflow and Timing for Animating Wings
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: I would like to know a little bit more about having different layers with different timing. Can this
workflow be applied to the wings of character?

I think for me, animating the wings as their own“layer,” or their own entity, would depend mostly on the size
of the creature. If I were animating a small insect or a hummingbird, I’d probably hide the wings completely,
animate the bird zipping around, and once the bird is blocked in, only then would I turn on the wings and flap
the heck out of them super fast, possibly even with little regard to what I animated the body doing.
However, if I were animating a dragon or another creature with big wings (a large bird, an angel, etc.), I
would be thinking more about those wings being integrated with the overall poses of the character, and the
timing of the wings would be very integrated with the timing of the body. As the wings heave down, they are
going to affect the body and be affected by whatever the body does, particularly near the connection points
to the wings. Because they are so intertwined, I’d animate them together, which would work out better
anyway because it presents a lot of great opportunities to get strong poses where the wing pose can
accentuate the body pose.
Check out the great animation of the fell beasts (dragons) in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Study how the
wings affect the body and vice-versa. This type of animation would be very difficult and time-consuming to
tackle if you were attempting to animate the body and wings as completely separate passes. At the very
least, you would have to go back and edit your original body animation after you added in the wings in order
to refine the way they are working together, so it’s probably best to do it all as one thing. One complete
creature -- that’s the way to think about it.
So, I guess it all depends on the character or the creature, and there’s no universal answer, in my opinion.
Like pretty much every other aspect of animation, none of this stuff is hard-core etched in stone 100% of the
time for 100% of the shots you will animate.
Animation is an art, you can’t nail it down with a mathematical formula. Every rule we talk about can be bent
or even broken in the service of the style you are working in. There really isn’t a right or wrong for how you
choose to animate the wings. All I can tell you is that from personal experience including the wings in your
overall keys and breakdowns on a large creature will result in achieving stronger poses much easier and
quicker than doing them on a separate pass, and that hiding the wings on a small creature and forgetting all
about them until your little guy is all blocked in is a great workflow as well – but that’s just my opinion. The
more experience you get, the more you’ll find workflows that make sense to you, and I’d encourage you to
not be afraid to try new ways of working if you are finding any particular “workflow” idea to be difficult to
deal with.
There’s no right or wrong to this stuff – it’s an art! Have fun with it, and see what works best for you, and
what gives the best result! Shawn :)
How the Heck Do You Change Your Animation after You’ve Already Started Polishing the Shot?
By Shawn Kelly
This tip is huge. Honestly. At least for me, and my workflow, it’s massive. The concept is simple, but it’s truly
essential. I have a feeling it will be new to many of the beginners out there, and may even be new to those of
you who have already been animating for a
bit.
So raise your hand out there if this has happened to you: You’ve been working hard on a shot and are nearly
finished with it. Your supervisor/director/client/boss/friend/mom bought off on your original ideas, loved your
blocking, and you dove in head first to
do all the fun little polishing bits. You’ve been adding all the little
buttons and bows, dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s, and any number of other tired clichés. The shot is
looking pretty great (finally!), and you’re looking forward to putting this one to bed and starting on something
new. And then it happens.
Oh yeah, you guys totally know where this is headed, don’t you? I can feel you cringing from here. You’re
minutes away from doing your final render of your masterpiece, when along comes your
supervisor/director/boss/friend/mom with the most dreaded five word sentence in the animator’s vocabulary:
“I have a new idea.” I know. Brutal, isn’t it? We’ve all been there. I’d be willing to bet that some of you are
there right now, in fact.
Unfortunately, in a client-based industry such as this, the collaborative nature of it is a two-edged sword -- it
offers the excitement of constant fresh ideas when you are beginning a shot, but that sword can just as easily
swing back and lop the head off of the original idea you’ve so invested yourself in. In short, this situation just
isn’t all that uncommon. Rare is the director (or supervisor, or client, or boss, or friend, or mom) who has the
detailed imagination to truly envision the way an idea will truly look in a shot.
Many of the people you will work with in this industry simply will not know if an idea or movement or acting
decision will truly work until they actually *SEE* it animated in your shot. Most will be able to tell from your
blocking (thankfully), but every once in a while, they’ll need to see it fully fleshed out.
Just as common are
the folks who will simply change their minds.
Luckily, if you are working in a studio, it is simply too expensive for the clients to constantly change their
minds, or at least the looming deadlines will eventually force them to make a decision (long after you’d like
them to, of course), but the chronic mind- changers are – sadly – a thriving race of people you *will* have to
face at one point or another. So, what do you do?

I mean, what are you supposed to do when you get these change requests and your nice and neat (hopefully)
blocking keys are a thing of the past, and you’ve already started offsetting all kinds of stuff, refining your
arcs, tweaking this and that? Well, if it’s a massive overall change, sometimes you’ll have to bite the bullet
and (ugh) start over. If it’s a medium-sized change, then it could go either way, but a lot of the time it’s
actually faster to just start over than to try to cram a pretty big overall idea change into a shot. Obviously
this depends a lot on what the shot and change are. But usually, it will be a smaller thing. Something you
*could* fit into your current animation. A timing issue, maybe, or a new movement in the middle of the shot.
This is the case I’m going to talk about today. Your curves are already exactly the way you want them, but in
the graph editor they look like a plate of angel hair pasta. They sit there in a tangled mass, leering at you.
Impenetrable, daring you to try to decipher their meaning.
Well, guess what? It’s actually very easy to deal with this if you have a plan of attack. So, what do you do?
TIP: Bring It Back To Blocking! Sounds hard, right? It isn’t! Nothing could be easier. All you do is throw on your
hard hat and start building what I call
a “Construction Zone.” Basically, you need to wall off the area
that you’re going to work in before you bring in the bulldozers and tractors and start trashing the joint.
So, let’s do this. Let’s talk about two different situations you might deal with in the following shot that you
have just animated
SCENARIO ONE: THE SHOT:
A character walks into a room, sees on the television that his favorite hockey team just scored, and runs to
the TV and gives it a big
hug.
THE DIRECTION: This is looking really great. I love how he walks in and his first reaction to seeing the TV, and
I *love* the way he hugs the TV, but instead of running to the TV, I’d really like him to jump excitedly into the
air and spin all the way around first. Yikes, right? This won’t be easy, but the first thing you need to do *is*
very easy, and that’s to build your construction zone. Let’s say that your curves currently look like this in your
graph editor:
OK, not the “cleanest” keys in the world, but a lot of the time, your curves might end up looking like this for a
variety of reasons. I try to think of my key poses as“drawings,” and tend to keep my keys all on the same
frame so that one pose/drawing won’t ever get messed up, but after I’m out of my blocking phase, and all of
my timing and ideas are nailed down, then I stop worrying about that and shift my focus to just making the
shot as dynamic and clear as I can.
Oh, I just thought of a whole other tip! Uh oh, buckle up for a patented“Tips & Tricks Tangent”....
This will be REALLY quick. Check out the selected curves/keys below. See the crazy mess of tangents?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t even look at that. It’s too confusing to see where my keys are. So
my“mini-tip” is to make a hotkey in Maya (or whatever you use) that will turn your key tangents off. Like so:
Ahhhh, isn’t that better? So much easier to look at. Creating a hotkey to flip back and forth is a lifesaver
when you are working in the graph editor...
OK, back to our regularly scheduled article: Let’s say that frames 149-175 represent the bit where our guy
runs to the television. The part we need to ditch, and replace with a mid-air excited jump/spin.
The first thing you’ll notice about the image above is that I’ve saved a key on EVERYTHING in my scene (the
guy, the props, anything he interacts with, maybe even the camera) on frames 149 and 175 (You’ll notice
they are selected in the above image).
This is the first step to walling off your construction zone. With these keys in place, you can blow away
everything in between them with a fair degree of safety. The only time this would screw you up would be if
you didn’t have any keys saved within a few frames of these frames, in which case I’d guess there’s a decent
chance you’re letting the computer do too much of your in-between work...
Anyway, now you can blow away the stuff in the middle:

Now, sometimes you’ll need to do a little minor clean-up, but in theory, the first 149 frames should look
exactly the same as they did a moment ago, as should everything after frame 175.

This is a good start, and you’ve just given yourself a chunk of space to block in a jump/spin. However, you
have this problem of your character being in a constant state of motion as you are trying to animate him.
He’ll slowly be morphing into the pose at frame 175, right?
Well, there are probably a few ways to work around this problem. But the way I like best is to simply copy the
pose from frame 149 to the frame just before my construction zone wall, which in this case, would be frame
174:

Ta-daa! Now you have a blank canvas upon which to paint your new and (hopefully) improved masterpiece.
All I did was go to frame 149, and hold down my middle mouse button as I scrolled to frame 174, and then I
simply saved a key on everything. This is a great and easy way to copy/paste your poses as you work. As you
save each new pose of the jump spin you are now animating, you can copy/paste it to frame 174, giving you
a constantly updated“flattened area” to work in.
Obviously, you’ll eventually have to replace the key at frame 174 (or just delete it) in order to flow smoothly
into 175 and all the following original animation.
SCENARIO TWO:
THE SHOT: Same shot
THE DIRECTION: The shot’s looking great, but I really want him to run to TV a lot faster. Like, twice as fast.
And have him kiss it a couple times when he gets there.
OK, so this is kind of similar, but creates a whole new problem for you. Now your client or supervisor actually
wants you to keep the guy running to the TV, but he wants it to happen faster, *AND* he wants you to add
some kissing in there.
Obviously, you can’t just blow away everything in between 149 and 175 this time. Well, that’s not true. You
*can* if you want, but this sounds to me like it’d be silly to have to completely rework that section when you
mostly just need to change the timing and add a couple little things in.
For this, you’d build your construction zone just like in the first scenario, but instead of just deleting your
keys, you need to do something new. You need to clean up your curves.
Basically, all you do is step through your animation and examine it the way you would examine video
reference. Look for anytime something important happens, or something changes direction, or it could even
be something technical, such as a frame where some constraints turn on or something.
On any frame where anything absolutely essential happens on any important part of the body, save a key. On
*EVERYTHING*. If he’s running, and his foot picks up off the ground and you like that pose, save a key on
every controller on his body:
The frames with the yellow keys happened to be the ones I felt were important to keep around. Even though
many controllers didn’t have any keys saved on them on these frames, I included them anyway. That’s a
really important part of this process.
Next, it’s time to delete everything that is in between the keys we just saved, which leaves with this:
If you play blast this, the animation should look pretty much exactly the same as it did, minus a few minor
nuances. If it looks wrong, then you’ve missed some controllers or missed an important frame you should
have kept around.
The point is that we’ve taken our garbled spaghetti curves and organized them into something we can truly
work with! Now it’s SO easy to speed up this bit of animation without screwing up your poses. Simply select
the first one you’ve kept, which in this case is frame 155:
Now zoom waaaaay out in your graph editor, so you can see everything that comes after this key:
Since you’ve selected the keys at frame 155, it’s still easy to see which key it is that you’re working with. You
can also put your timeline to frame 155 which gives you that nice red line as a good reference point of where
it is you should be worried about.
At this point, just make sure you have selected frame 155 and every key that comes after it:
And then just slide everything backward as much as you need to in order to properly speed up the first bit of
your run (the part between 149 and 155):
Then you just deselect the keys at 155, which should leave everything selected from the next key onward,
and slide that back as much as you need to.
And so on and so forth. Eventually, you’ll have a faster run, AND a blank area of keys you can put a kiss into,
and eventually hook back up to what was once frame 175, but what now might be 165 or whatever.
Some of you might wonder why I wouldn’t just select the run animation and scale the keys in order to speed
it up. Honestly, I might try that quickly to just see how it looks, but I just don’t have enough manual control in

that situation, and more often than not, I won’t be satisfied with the results. Aside from the fact that a faster
run will probably need extra time easing into the run and out of it at the end (rather than simply scaling it
uniformly), the more important thing for me is that a pose that I love that will help the run be clear and
strong, or really show his weight or force might end up in between a frame and never properly show up on
screen.
Your poses are your babies in animation. You’ve hopefully put a lot of thought into their creation, so cherish
them, and avoid automated stuff that might hide or destroy them. That’d be my advice, anyway.
Hopefully that makes sense. In both cases, it’s important to think of your character as one unit rather than a
collection of separate controllers. Because you’ve already started polishing him up, you want to salvage as
much as you can, and this “construction zone” method of bringing a section of your animation back to what
your blocking should look like is a terrific way to deal with late-in-the- game change requests from the people
you are working for.
Well, that’s it! Hopefully this is new to some of you and you find it helpful. Next time we might jump back to
the Q&A format as I have a lot of great questions to address, or maybe I’ll do a little half-and-half. Feel free to
email me and let me know which you prefer!
Keep animating, and as always, have FUN!!! Shawn :)
Tips on Speeding Up Animation Workflow and Animating Faster
By Shawn Kelly
QUESTION: I was wondering if you had any tips on how to speed up animation workflow, and animating faster
in general? In many situations, the faster you have to animate, the less quality you can afford to achieve. But
even in the “big budget” movies, there can be stressful crunch times when you have to animate pretty darn
fast -- but you can’t sacrifice quality either. Since you have so much production experience on big projects
that require high quality animation, I was wondering if you’ve found any time-saving tips, if you ever felt you
took a big leap forward in speed, yet managed to produce great work?
Ten quick tips for speeding up your work:
1.
Don’t skip the planning process. Seriously, I know a lot of you feel too busy to plan your scene before
you open Maya or Max or whatever you’re using, but even if you can only dedicate 30 minutes to creating
and/ or studying some video reference and writing down some notes, it will help you finish faster. SOME
amount of planning will *ALWAYS* speed up your work, no matter what. The best scenes I’ve ever done, and
the quickest that finished, were the shots where I spent the most effort planning before sitting down at the
computer.
2.
Hot keys are your friend. Any time you find yourself doing anything repetitive in Maya (or whatever
animation program you are using), create or find a hotkey for it. I have and use hotkeys for working quickly in
the graph editor (hiding/showing tangents, hiding/showing channel curves, etc.), for saving keys, for
hiding/showing animation controls on the model, for X-ray mode, to make joints visible or invisible, for
scrubbing time in the graph editor, and for instantly creating more workspace when I don’t need to see all the
menus and channels. Those are just some of the hotkeys I use every day, and boy have they sped my work
up.
3.
If you have the ability to create or use a GUI that allows you to select your character’s animation
controls, that can be a big help, especially for working with hands, tails, toes, etc.
4.
Don’t gettooboggeddowninchanges. If yourdirector wants youtochangethemiddleof yourshot, justblock
it off (construction-zone style, as I wrote about in the newsletter), and create all new keys and breakdowns.
You can really get slowed down if you start trying to make any major changes simply by tweaking the curves
you already have in the graph editor. Very often, it’s just faster to wall that part of your animation off (so you
don’t screw up the surrounding bits the Director *does* like), and redo that section from scratch. Cleaner and
easier to edit, too.
5.
Don’t be timid! Push your ideas and go for that dynamic pose. It’s much easier/faster to take
something too far and then back off on it than it is to slowly push your pose or idea a little bit further, a little
bit further, a little bit further, etc. Just go for it and then reign it in if you need to.
6.
Use light models if possible. Something that speeds up my work like crazy is the ability to just hit play
in Maya and watch my animation play reliably at 24fps without having to do a playblast or render. Use the
lowest-res version of your character as possible, at least for your initial blocking.
7.
Same Avoid the black hole that is (insert favorite website here). For me, I have to be careful with sites
like Digg, YouTube, Gizmodo, etc. -- these web sites that I really love can suck me in if I’m not careful, and
suddenly I’ve lost an hour of time that I could have spent animating. Discipline yourself to only check your
favorite sites when you have to, when you’re on a break, or when you’re rendering.

8.
Same with email. Between ILM, Animation Mentor, my personal email, the blog, and the newsletter, I
get hundreds of emails per day. Prioritize and only read the most essential emails until you’re on break or
finished with your work for the day. For me, I try to only read email at work that is directly related to the show
I’m working on, and then try to catch up on the rest before bed. (By the way, if you’ve emailed me and I
haven’t emailed back -- I’m really sorry! I’m kind of behind on my email, but I’m trying to catch up and will
hopefully get back to you soon!)
9.
CPU, RAM, a decent-sized monitor, and graphics card. Don’t underestimate the boost you’ll get from
investing in the core bits of your computer. Beef up that machine for fast interaction with your character! The
quicker you can interact with the character, and the quicker your program will update the frame, the quicker
you’ll get your animation done. Along those same lines, a larger monitor will give you a lot more screenspace and make it much easier to see your character, saving a lot of “zooming in and out” time...
10.
Use the 15-minute rule. If you come up against a technical problem that you can’t solve on your own
in 15 minutes, give up, and find help. If you’re in a studio, ask a peer or pick up the phone and ask tech
support.
If you’re at home, jump online and start searching through Google or post your question on the
forum. In the past, I’ve wasted half a day trying to solve some problem on my own and it turned out that I
could have solved it in 10 minutes if I had just asked someone for help. Update!
11.
I just thought of another great tip someone once told me, so I’m adding it to this post! If you’re
given, or give yourself, a list of changes for a shot, don’t do a test render of that shot until you’ve addressed
all those changes. In other words, if you’re given 10 things to fix, don’t fix one and then re-render. Wait until
you’ve fixed a bunch or all of those 10 things, and THEN do your playblast to see how it’s looking. The goal,
of course, being to cut down on the time it takes to playblast and analyze the shot.
Shawn :)
LIGHTNING ROUND
with Shawn Kelly, Carlos Baena and Keith Sintay
SHORT AND SNAPPY TIPS FROM OUR BLOGS:
carlosbaena.com and animationtipsandtricks.com
Do You Have a Process or Checklist of Animation Rules You Follow?
Ha! Do I ever!
When it comes to animation principles and body mechanics“rules,” there are just far too many to list. We
spend 18 months teaching these rules and methods at Animation Mentor, so I just can’t possibly fit that stuff
into a blog post, but I will say that the 12 principles of animation as laid out by Frank Thomas and Ollie
Johnston in their seminal book, The Illusion of Life, is a good place to start.
When I was a newer animation student, in fact, I had a list of those principles taped to my animation disc and
also to my computer monitor. As I would animate, I would look at it occasionally, and make sure that each of
those principles was being properly addressed in my work.
I had that on my monitor at ILM as recently as a few years ago, in fact, and it really wouldn’t be a bad idea for
me to have it up there still! It comes in handy, just as a good reminder, especially as I’m planning or blocking
my work in. Just being able to glance up and see the words“line of action” can help me notice that I’m
missing something in my work
One thing I’ve learned through the process of helping create Animation Mentor is just how deep the“basic
fundamental principles” of animation are, and how deep they can go. Interviewing so many amazing
animators for the video lectures at the school was a shocking experience for me, because I was continually
learning new things about principles that I thought I already knew! It was
a really cool by-product of
being a part of the school, and a good reminder that we will NEVER know everything there is to know about
animation. It’s simply too deep and complex..
But man, that just makes it even cooler! It’ll never get boring, and there will always be new discoveries
waiting for us! Shawn :)
What Is a Key Pose?
By Shawn Kelly
Key poses are the“key” moments that most clearly describe the important physical actions or emotional
moments in a scene. These are basically your most important poses -- in fact, these are so essential to the
movement/acting that if you removed any one of them from the scene, it would no longer work. I use A LOT
of key poses. I find it helpful to be very detailed with my key poses. In a full-figure animation, a key, for me,
will be any moment something important changes. It could be that the character is going to take a step to
the right, so he has to shift his weight to the left first. Even though it isn’t a “big” action, I will think of the
weight shifting to the left as a “key pose” or an“extreme,” which are both terms that are often used to
describe the same exact thing, depending on who you are talking to. So, I will save a key on every controller
on the frame before he starts to shift his weight (this is a key pose for me), then I’ll go to where his weight
shift finishes, and I’ll pull his body to the left some. Then, even though I’ve only moved a couple controllers,

*I’ll save a key again on EVERY controller on the character,* including hands, shoulders, etc. This is another
key pose or extreme, for me. I save keys on everything because it makes it much easier to edit later on, and
much less confusing in the graph editor when you are blocking. Eventually, I will have to break up my keys
somewhat as I get into fine-tuning the animation and polishing it up, but for now, it’s good to work this way.
An easier example to think about might be a bouncing ball animation, and the key poses would simply be the
frames where the ball hits the ground, and then the frames where the ball is at its highest peak.
Shawn :)
Could You Provide an Animator’s Point of View and Ideas about Storytelling?
By Carlos Baena
Well, I have a lot to learn about story and telling stories which I really feel is a life long journey. However, I do
feel like animation and story are definitely interconnected one another. Stories are constantly being
told...whether it is in a Feature Film, in a sequence, or in a shot. We are telling something with our characters
through our animations. That’s why pantomime is such a tremendous thing to study. No dialogue is being
used. It’s storytelling through just animation and performance. Watch a Charlie Chaplin film every few
months or every few years at the very least...you’ll be surprised that the more you learn about animation, the
more amazing some of his films are. He was in a whole different level - we can all still learn from
tremendously.
We can say so many things by the way we are making our characters move -- the possibilities are endless. I
love that part of the process. The exploration. The ability to push our stories through the performances. I’m
personally very inspired by stand-up comedy. The way Bill Cosby will tell a story is completely different to the
way Eddie Murphy will tell it. It’ll affect people differently. It’ll have different payoffs, and different kinds of
people will relate more one to another. Same thing happens with animation. People will have different
sensibilities about what’s being told through the performance. It’s up to us how to tell them.
So stories are essentially why we are doing this. We are telling“something” through our animations. So when
you listen to your friend tell you a story, when you watch a co-worker’s animation shot, when you watch a
comedian or when you see people improvising, stories are being told. What’s important in my opinion, is that
we say something new or something meaningful.
Software Shmoftware
By Shawn Kelly
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about software lately. What software should I use to animate with? What
software will help me get a job? I only know 3D Studio Max, Animation Master, and Maya -- is that enough to
get into a studio? How many years of software training is necessary to work on a film? Here are some quick
answers to all of those types of questions:
Will some amount of software knowledge help you get a job? Possibly. It sure won’t hurt. But is it 100%
necessary? Depends on the studio. Some studios won’t care at all, some will care a tiny bit, and a few will
care a lot. My advice is to research the companies you are interested in, and make sure you’re prepared for
whatever qualities and skills that studio is looking for. Generally speaking, the big studios won’t care very
much what software you are familiar with (and many of them use their own proprietary software anyway, so
those studios couldn’t care less), while the smaller studios may care more about specific software
experience.
Most 3D animation packages work very similarly to each other. Once you learn one, it isn’t very hard to learn
another. As animators, we’re only really using probably 5% of the program anyway. We need to save key
poses, adjust timing, and manipulate the pose -- that’s about it, generally speaking. Because of that, I think
someone who knows XSI could learn enough about Maya to get started in a day or two, and most of the
medium to larger studios have some kind of training program to cover that stuff.
How do you keep up with so many different revisions and so many different packages? That’s a great
question, and the industry DOES move very fast. Because of that, it’s futile to try to “keep up” with the latest
and greatest software when you are an animation student. It’s inevitably impossible because things change
so quickly, and you end up wasting a mountain of time that could have been spent studying your animation
fundamentals. So choose one software, and stick with it. The industry standard right now seems to be Maya
(though many games companies still use Max), and you can use an educational version for free. Whatever
you choose to practice with, just stick with that program so you don’t waste time learning a new one when
you could have been busting out a whole other awesome action shot for your reel!
Is it a good idea to lie on my resume and put software experience down that I don’t really have? Uh, no. This
is a pretty terrible idea, and if the studio does end up caring about your software experience, they are going
to find out pretty quick that you lied, and you’ll likely be let go from the job and saddled with a bad
reputation. NEVER LIE ON YOUR RESUME OR REEL! Bad Bad BAD idea...
OK, hope that helps someone! Shawn :)
What Are Figure 8 Curves and How Do They Fit in with the Movements of Characters?
By Keith Sintay

There are things you can do to your shot to really enhance its fluidity and rhythm. Different types of
movements can call for different types of arcs. For example, faster movements usually benefit from more
circular movements (like tying a bow really fast for example). Figure 8 curves are another type of curve that
enhance a movement to keep the motion alive.
Gesturing with the hands, for example, in a figure 8 movement (the sides of the “8” don’t have to be equal,
in fact it may add more texture if you have a big loop and then a smaller one or vice versa) is a way to move
the arms in one direction, then reverse the direction in a pleasing visual way.
Again, tying a bow or similar faster movements are examples of using a figure 8 curve to change direction
quickly but fluidly Keith Sintay
Is It Necessary to Learn Rigging?
By Shawn Kelly
This is a great question, and of all the CG disciplines, rigging is certainly the most relevant to what we do as
animators. Rigging truly is an art, and the rig an animator is given will make a huge impact on that
animator’s work -- both in what the animator is capable of doing with the rig, and in how quickly the
animator can get his work done.
Having a fast rig that you can work with quickly can make all the difference in the world when it comes to
hitting your deadlines. On the flip-side, it takes a true rigging expert to create a rig that is fast, but is also
very flexible and powerful, and has all of the options the animator requires when posing that character and
creating a performance.
So for me, rigging is an incredibly important aspect of what we do.
That doesn’t mean that we need to know everything about rigging ourselves, of course, as our job is often to
simply be the animator. HOWEVER, if there is one thing that it is helpful to study a little bit and get *some*
amount of understanding of, it’s the basics of how your rig works, and how it’s built.
I don’t have a very deep understanding of how Optimus Prime is rigged up, but I know enough about his rig
to know how I can pose him, what will break him, etc. And having a very rudimentary knowledge of how
expressions work and so forth will help you at times with working with your character.
Additionally, many smaller studios prefer their animators to have a strong knowledge of rigging, and these
smaller studios often have animator/riggers doing both jobs at once.
This is a case where knowing a bit about both jobs will open up more job opportunities for you, but be aware
that these jobs are not generally going to be at feature film studios or often even larger games/TV studios.
The big studios are still, by and large, looking for experts in each given field, as that structure has proven to
provide the best quality work...
Anyway -- like pretty much anything else, it can’t hurt to learn a bit about rigging as long as it isn’t distracting
your time away from learning more about animation, but I wouldn’t spend a ton of time with it unless you
really love doing it!
Shawn :)
About AnimationMentor.com
Animation Mentor is the only animation school built by professional animators specifically for people who
want to become animators. Animation Mentor teaches you the art behind animation under the guidance of
professional animators who are currently working at leading studios. Our approach also prepares you with the
skills needed to succeed as a professional character animator in a studio environment.
By graduation, every student has worked in a production-style environment where mentors, who are working
studio animators, stand in for directors, and assignments stand in for film or game shots. Students learn how
to accept guidance and criticism, to meet deadlines and to budget and schedule their time to succeed in the
working world. At the end of the 18-month program, students leave with a professional demo reel they can
use as their résumé to land jobs. Upon graduation, Animation Mentor coaches graduates and helps them
locate job opportunities with major recruiters, video game companies, and film studios.
To learn more about our online animation school, visit www.AnimationMentor.com
Additional Free Learning Resources From AnimationMentor.com
Animation Tips and Tricks Volume I
The first edition of our Animation Tips and Tricks ebook featuring how-to articles and information from
Industrial Light & Magic animator Shawn Kelly who is also a cofounder of AnimationMentor.com.
www.animationtipsandtricks.com

Animation Mentor’s tips and tricks blog featuring advice and mentoring from ILM animator, and Animation
Mentor cofounder, Shawn Kelly, and from Animation Mentor’s mentors: Aaron Gilman, Keith Sintay, Jason
Martinsen, Kevan Shorey, and Nick Bruno – all professional working animators.
The Animation Industry Special Report
Behind the Characters: Job Satisfaction, Career Outlook and Salary Survey is an industry report chock full of
industry statistics, facts, figures and survey responses from more than 1,200 professional animators.
Animation Industry News
The AnimationMentor.com newsletter features special features about the animation industry, animation
careers, and advice and tips from our mentors. In addition, you can see what Animation Mentor students are
working on and get the inside scoop on how they are creating animation.
Carlos Baena’s Blog
Animation Mentor cofounder and Pixar animator Carlos Baena shares his techniques for animating along with
movies he likes, and artwork he looks to for getting inspiration and ideas.
Bobby Beck’s Blog
Animation Mentor cofounder and CEO Bobby Beck talks about what it takes to be an animator and how to
stay inspired, motivated and creative in life and on the job.

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