Straight-ahead or pose-to-pose

I just finished my second week at July Films, and each day, I learn so much! I also started animating this week!! Hooray! My first animation at July Films!

I animated a very short simple scene for their film. It was a scene of four kids watching a soccer game sitting on a tree limb, and they basically just turn their head. It was simple, but at the same time, I have learned much from the simple scene.

First, how do we make a group scene? Each of them should move differently from one another while at the same time, the group should have their own composition. The group should work as a whole, but you don't want them to all do the exact same thing.

I also tried to do a straight ahead animation. I usually do pose to pose animation, and it made more sense to me. But Mike did an animation demonstration for straight ahead animation, and it was very appealing to me, too.

Mike said that action is usually animated straight ahead, and acting like a dialog test will be pose to pose. Here is the process how he animates an action scene in straight ahead...

-First, he acted it out few times. "How strong the force is?" and remember the sensation you felt when you acted it out.

-Then, he started the animation. He doesn't use the back light, because it is hard to see the form with multiple drawings showing through. He just keeps animating one after the other while constantly flipping. "Don't spend too much time on the drawing: you need to be in MOTION when you are animating!"

-After he animated the whole thing, he shot the scene with even timing ( like shot it all on 2's or 4's) to know the spacing between the drawings. Then looked at the timing and figured out how many frames to hold each drawing, and adds inbetweens if needed.

-After all the timing is right, he will tie down the drawings (still keep flipping!) and finish the scene!


His animation has so much life in it after all. It is loose and the character is more alive.





After finishing my scene, I did a little test of a fox's tail swooshing back and forth to practice the overlap and timing of the soft material. Right now, I am trying to pay more attention to negative space, delay the timing of parts of the animation, and overlap! Hope this week go well, too!

UPDATE: THE COCONUTS AND CHICKEN FEATHERS GALLERY HAS BEEN MOVED!!! That's right, the gallery was double booked, and the gallery opening date is now Saturday March 17th at 6pm. So please let people know if they don't check my blog regularly.