Small Update

Here's a small update on that clip I was working on. I still have to finish my first pass on the arms and the face stuff. Once I get this first pass on everything, then I will go back and clean up some arcs and junk.

http://www.raymondross.com/timing4B.avi

WIP shot

I think this dialogue is appropriate for Today. (Friday)

Short silly shot I'm working on between work. I only have a few hours in on it so far. Hopefully I don't get swamped and leave this in blocking. I acted this one out and blocked in the main ideas. I broke it down and adjusted the timing. I did really quick and dirty lipsync and have to go in and fix it up but figured I post it anyways. It's roughly 3.3mb


http://www.raymondross.com/timing2.avi

SubBeats in animation

This is something that I think helps me with my scenes. In my particular work flow, I get a shot and begin planning away. I look at the story boards or kickoff notes and then start thinking about my acting choices. Once I understand what direction the shot should go (or think I understand :) I go shoot video reference. When I'm finished and happy with the reference I go to the computer and capture the best takes to a quicktime movie. When I analyze my reference, I'm looking for the little details that I unconsciously put in. You have your "golden story telling poses " locked down. You know what poses you need to sell your idea and you block those out. Then when you begin to refine, you can now add these sub beats into your shot. What I mean by sub beats are the small accents that don't overpower the main beats. This will add some texture to you scene and keep it from feeling too simple. (When I say say simple, I'm referring to animation where you just see main poses) In my opinion, the best animation is the one where you can't find the golden poses. They are so naturally weaved into the animation that make it difficult to pick out. You don't to overpower the shot with a ton of sub beats but enough to keep them alive and natural. This is where I steal them from my video reference. I look to see where I naturally accented the small beats and I add those in. It really helps the scene feel natural and unique. It's very hard to think about all of these things for me personally. This is where my video reference helps me add to the scene. Happy animating!!

**** Added Quicktime Eye eye captain! ***

clever aint eye? Okay.... enough crap. I was watching a movie the other day and decided to go into animation mode. I began studying the performance of Al Pacino and how he gestures and reacts to the other actors. I really began studying the eyes of the other actors. If you really watch closely, you will notice some awesome things that we naturally do. Here is a quick test I did using the eyes.

http://www.raymondross.com/eye.avi


** Quicktime http://www.raymondross.com/eye.mov

** I basically used Quicktime to convert the avi. Unfortunately it probably dropped frames but you can still get the idea. **



If you notice the lids follow the pupil. This is important and many times forgotten. Many people will just move the pupils but not lids when doing eye darts. Also notice the overshoot in the eyes on the first look. This is something I really noticed a ton. I thought this was kinda neat. When quickly looking to the side without blinking, I noticed an overshoot that happens with the top lids. Thought I would share this cool bit of eye info. Enjoy.

Open Season 2

I set my last keyframe on Horton this past friday. I've moved onto Open Season 2! It's going to be a great gig and I'm looking foward to it. I will be starting that any day now :) That's all for now. Happy animating!

-Ray

New Horton Trailer!

Check it out!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/hortonhearsawho/

Plus new international poster!