The Midnight Diaries of Catty Wampus

folkie

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Saturday, January 19th, 2008

Like most people, I listen to all kinds of music. But if I’m asked what I like to listen to, my go-to answer is generally “Folk.”

It’s actually been a while since folk music was the majority shareholder in What’s Filling Eric’s Ears, Inc., but I still return to it now and then when I’m in the mood, and it takes me to places that I can hardly get to with any other music.

“Folk” is really a wide range of different musical styles. Even as a broad description, there’s still the question of traditional folk music, or contemporary folk music? They both have their charms, and I can’t choose one over the other. If anything, I’d say that my tastes can be swayed by production value–contemporary folk like Shawn Colvin and Dar Williams tend to have better production than a lot of the traditional folk music that’s been recorded in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Shawn and Dar are definitely high up on my playlist, and there are a few other contemporary folkies I could toss out there, too.

But my focus (folkus?) here will be on the traditional–and in particular, the Irish/British/Scottish path of folk music.

When I was in summer camp as a young teenage, it seemed like every third person had a guitar and was either playing the Indigo Girls’s “Closer to Fine,” or else they were teaching their cabin mates how to play and sing the back-up harmonies to the Indigo Girls’s “Closer to Fine.” Which was fine (heh). I liked the song a lot as well, but it did get a little played out. So I was glad to be sitting with camp counselor Eric one evening while he played some of his own songs, and some Bob Dylan, and then a song that I’d never heard before–a song that broke my heart: Annachie Gordon.

I should stop for a moment and say that one of my favorite subjects in a song is unrequited love. It appears that folk music from the British Isles excels at this subject, and Annachie Gordon is the crusher of all crushers in my book. It paints beautiful pictures while telling the story of Jeannie and Annachie, a young couple desperately in love. Jeannie’s parents, however, feel that Annachie is too poor for their daughter, so they arrange her marriage to a local Lord. You can probably see where this story is heading, but if you really want to embrace its full sadness, grab a box of tissues and listen to Mary Black performing the song:

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I heard this very version when I was 16, and I was hooked. I wondered if anyone else had ever recorded the song. But in those days, kiddie-pies, finding out this kind of information was difficult. My local record store had a giant yellow-paged book that listed artists, songs, and albums, and if you asked the desk clerk nicely enough, they might look something up for you. But there was no guarantee that your request would be in there–it wasn’t a comprehensive music catalogue, it was merely large enough to encompass most of the popular music of the day. Finding a folk song, a traditional folk song, was a slim possibility at best.

When I got to college, which is to say when I got access to the internet, I was able to conduct a slightly larger search for more versions of my favorite song. It still wasn’t very easy, though–partly because there are several variations for spelling “Annachie”, and partly because the internet wasn’t nearly as big as it is now. But I was able to find the song listed on a relatively new album by John Wesley Harding called “Trad Arr Jones”

“Trad Arr Jones” is a phrase that refers to the way folk music is generally credited in liner notes and sheet music. Since most folk music can’t be traced back to a particular songwriter, the songs are listed as “traditional” (abbreviated, trad.), and further credit is given to the song’s arranger (abbreviated, arr.). “Trad Arr Jones” refers to Nic Jones, a popular British folk singer in the 1960s and 1970s. This album was John Wesley Harding’s way of acknowledging his enthusiasm for Jones, as well as an attempt to bring Nic Jones to a contemporary audience. Annachie Gordon was on this album, but it had a slightly different flavor than I was used to. I still liked the song, but not as much as Mary Black’s Annachie. Luckily, however, there were many other songs on this album that were now brought to my attention, most notably Annan Water.

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This is a beautiful song about two young lovers whose homes are separated by a vast and rushing river. One night, when the young man tries to visit his true love, he and his horse are met with a particularly violent cu rrent in the water–so violent that even the boatman won’t go sailing in it. So the young man tries to cross the stream on his horse, and you can probably imagine the rest. (you can probably also recognize a theme in this English folk songs involving two young lovers)

In the liner notes to the album, Harding mentions that there was a version of Annan Water done on an album by Kate Rusby. Now that I was fully equipped with the internet, I went in search of Kate Rusby. And oh my goodness, am I ever so glad I did.

Kate Rusby has the singularly most gorgeous and charming voice I think I’ve ever heard. Her music is beautiful, her arrangements are exactly what I think folk music should be: traditional songs performed with a contemporary sensibility, but without distancing themselves from their history. Kate Rusby is, in my book, nothing less than sublime. Here, have a listen to one of her songs. I’ll make this a more upbeat selection, just to show that not all folk music is people dying for love–sometimes it’s just about someone getting drunk:

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(Shakespeare fans may notice that this song tells a story very similar to the one which kicks off “The Taming of the Shrew”)

And speaking of getting drunk, I wouldn’t want to neglect one of the most playful contemporary folk bands I know of, Great Big Sea from Newfoundland, Canada–an island with a wonderful tradition of Celtic music, along with many other cultures. In fact, one of my favorite Great Big Sea songs is from the French Celts who settled in Newfoundland centuries ago. The song, Trois Navires de Ble, concerns some wheat merchants so sail into port one day and are teased and seduced by three lovely young women only to be left high and dry when the pretty girls dance away, never having intended to make good on their flirtations.

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This is the only song that Great Big Sea performs in French, but it’s so good that I simply had to include it. Still, I know that about a paragraph back I promised you one more drinking song. So I will let Great Big Sea take us out with a song about the death of Pat Murphy, a man whose friends chose to celebrate his passing by getting drunker and drunker and drunker….

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Posted in Eric's Stories, Long Post, music | No Comments »

put it there: an animation tip

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Friday, January 11th, 2008

Computer animators, beginners and professionals alike, often feel constrained by the rigs that they’re given to work with, or by trying to keep their f-curves pretty and simple. And it’s true that there are often rigs that don’t lend themselves to the kind of motion that an animator would like a character to perform. Just as often, however, these kinds of limitations can be lifted by shifting your thinking to a more traditional approach.

I know this is kind of hard to describe in words, so lets get to the pictures and movies, shall we?

I first came across this idea in my first term at AnimationMentor. During the last weeks of the semester, we were learning how to build a convincing walk. At the risk of personal embarrassment, I’ll show you what I came up with at the end of the first part of the assignment:

Now, it’s a bit poppy in some places, and in particular I’d like you to look at how the foot and toe leave the ground. Here’s a close-up:

Look particularly at frames 15 and 16. Over the course of one frame, that’s a pretty drastic move for a foot that should more appropriately be rolling easily from the heel to the toe and then off of the ground.

My mentor pointed out that I could remedy this easily by including a frame or two like this:

The colored lines represent where the bottom of the foot would be on each successive frame. See how he suggested that the toe stay in contact on the ground until it was lifted away? Also notice that the heel should move in a nice arc.

The trouble was that the rig didn’t allow for the toe to roll off of the ground like this. The foot had a Foot Roll control that came up with the toe planted on the ground, but nothing that would rotate the entire foot while the toe stayed on the ground. I was really frustrated that my mentor would recommend I do this without understanding that the rig simply wasn’t set up that way.

But that’s where my brain was being tricked: I wasn’t thinking like an animator, I was thinking like a technician. There was a very simple solution, if only I could shift my thinking into a frame-by-frame way of seeing things. Do you know what the solution was? I’ll give you a minute… Got it yet?

The solution to this problem goes like this:

1) Get the foot into the right pose (that is, shape)

2) Rotate and place the foot exactly where it needs to be so that the toe looks like it’s exactly where it had always been, and the heel looks like it’s following an arc.

In other words: “Put the foot where it needs to be.” The actual foot controller might be way away in a crazy direction from where it’s had been in the previous frame, but it’s important to remember that your audience won’t care where your controllers are, they’ll only care about where the body parts are.

If your character, or a part of your character isn’t where it’s supposed to be, put it there!

Once this was explained to me, I was able to hand in this assignment with feet that look like this:

Look at how those feet roll off the ground now! Nice and smooth, right?

I know this isn’t the best animation ever–and there’s still a lot of problems with the feet. But I felt that this was a really good example of how I learned the “put it there” technique, despite its other problems

In my most recent project, a commercial for Quaker Peanut-Free Chewy Bars, we had to make a troupe of granola bars dance around a supermarket. (and as an added fun bonus, we were animating in a stop-motion style, using a lot of animation on 2’s!) I came up with a spinning dance step that seemed like it would be fun. The idea was that the granola bar would lift itself up on its “toe” (actually the lower flap of its packaging) and spin around. However, the rig didn’t include a pivot around the toe, the pivot was in the center of the bar. And if you’ve been reading this far, you already know how I was able to get the performance I wanted: put it there!

For each frame (yes, each frame–sometimes that’s what it takes!), I rotated the bar around its center, which moved the character way off of its axis, and so I had to move the character back to where it looked like that toe was in the same place frame after frame. If you were to look at the graph editor for this move, you wouldn’t be able to make sense of it. But just by working visually, I was able to come up with a performance that I’m pretty proud of, and I think it’s a lot of fun to watch.

I use the “put it there” technique all the time. It’s mostly useful in situations where you need to make IK hands or feet look like they’re moving smoothly, or rolling off of surfaces, or placing an object on a table and convincingly letting go of the object. I’m sure that there are dozens of other places where it’s applicable, too, and you’ll find them the more shots you do.

The important thing to take from this is to not feel limited by what your rig can or cannot do. Chances are that you can always get your character into the pose it needs to be in for a frame, and simply put it there.

Posted in Animation, Long Post | 2 Comments »

quick movie review: “Bamboozled”

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Friday, January 4th, 2008

BAMBOOZLED

Bamboozled was the first Spike Lee movie I ever saw. I don’t know how I steered clear of him until the early months of 2001. Maybe I thought that his movies would simply carry the message “racism is bad.” It was a message I was already aware of, and simply showing blacks enduring (or overcoming) racism doesn’t really add to the discussion. Shame on me for not having more faith in the man.

I probably would have stayed away from Bamboozled, too, if it weren’t for a trailer that I caught before whatever film I had gone to see at the time. When the trailer began, I merely thought “Oh, okay. Another Spike Lee movie. I probably won’t see it. Not really interested.” And then the movie screen was filled with singers and dancers in blackface, shuckin’ and jivin’ and hoofin’, dressed in Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom costumes, prancing around an Alabama backwoods log cabin in the middle of a watermelon patch. To say that the film now had my attention would be an understatement. I was transfixed. “What the fuck is this??”

I won’t tell you any more about the plot then that. I’ll simply say that it was enough to convince me to buy a ticket when Bamboozled opened at my local movie theater. I am glad I did.

Bamboozled represents three revelations to me. Three things I was previously unaware of but could easily turn zealous about.

Revelation #1: Savion Glover

This man is amazing. I think I had been tangentially familiar with him here and there, but never more than to say “Hey, that’s a good tap dancer!” The several times I’d seen him on television, I might not have even recognized it was the same guy. So I really count Bamboozled as the first time I seriously took notice of Savion. Watching tap dancing has always been interesting to me–men and women creating syncopated rhythms with their feet, doing tricks, sliding on their toes, spinning around–I grew up at a time when Gregory Hines was a pretty big star, after all. But Savion brings something to tap that I’ve never seen. His dancing is very self-contained, and seems to come from so deep within him. This isn’t a knock on other talented dancers, but when you see Savion Glover dance, you’ll know what I’m talking about. (I had the good fortune to see Savion live a few years ago–I wrote a little about it back in this post)

Revelation #2: Mos Def
The Mighty Mos Def. He played sidekick to Bill Cosby on the short-lived television series The Cosby Mysteries, where the Cos played a retired criminologist. But his performance here was so thorough and wonderful. There is something that is simply compelling about watching Mos Def. He has an undeniable presence and likability, even when he’s portraying a man committing terrible acts of violence. At the time, I still didn’t even know that he is considered one of hip-hop’s most talented and intelligent artists. I keep reminding myself to look into his work. Many of my friends listen to him and insist that I would really get into his music. I have no reason to doubt them–I can’t quite say why I keep putting it off.

Revelation #3: Spike Lee

Spike muthafuckin’ Lee, man! It pains me to think that I dismissed him as a “racism is bad” filmmaker. Or even a filmmaker who makes movies abotu “issues.” He’s much smarter than that, and ten times more complicated. I’ve seen other Spike Lee movies since Bamboozled, and I’m impressed every time. His movies are not a banner, railing against racism. Instead, Lee paints a story on a canvas that is deep and layered with his observations about race in America. Good and bad, not to mention black and white. (and Italian, Puerto Rican, Jewish, and, and, and, etc., etc., etc.) Unlike so many other films about racial issues, Spike Lee doesn’t try to find answers and present them to a captive audience. Spike Lee gives us a story and merely says “Look at this. Now, what do you think?” It provokes the audience to ask their own questions and find their own answers. When I watch a Spike Lee movie, I know that there’s something unfair in the culture he’s portraying, but it’s up to me to put my finger on what it is. I admire that so much because it creates a dialogue between the film and its viewer. This is the genius of Spike Lee. He doesn’t lecture us, he invites us into a conversation.

Bamboozled is an incredibly watchable movie. There are points of genuine comedy and genuine tragedy. There are some parts of the film that made me unsure whether I should enjoy watching it, even while I was enjoying it–and I think that this is one of the larger questions the film puts forward.

After seeing Bamboozled for the first time in the theater, I sat through the credits and still remained in my seat for five minutes after the lights came up. It was as if I had been stunned, and all of the physical and emotional energy had been drained from my body. I still remember that feeling, and I will cherish Bamboozled for making me feel that way for a long time to come.

Posted in Eric's Stories, Long Post, quick movie reviews | 2 Comments »

internal silhouette: an animation tip

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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

As animators, one of the fundamental elements we try to get into our poses is a clear silhouette. This means that a pose should read clearly, even if the entire character were shaded in with solid black. We should still be able to tell the character’s attitude, and their place in he story of the scene.

But I’ll tell you something: it’s not always true.

Sure, having a great silhouette can be great. And it’s certainly something to strive for. But sometimes, you just can’t have the arms and hands clearly extended from the body. Sometimes the head is tilted down so far that you can’t tell its position in relation to the neck and the rest of the torso. What do you do in these situations?

Why, you rely on the concept of the internal silhouette.

Have a look at this pose of Sylvester the Cat.

It’s pretty clear to us that he’s looking sneaky, sly, and mischievous. He probably has evil intentions for that egg he’s cradling so gingerly away from its nest.

But Sylvester’s silhouette is really muddled together. Check out what happens if we fill in Sylvester’s shape with black, leaving the rest of the scene blank:

We can’t even tell which direction he’s facing, let alone what any of his body gesture is. Still, I say that this pose reads clearly, and here’s why: The internal silhouette is clear.

See, the idea of a silhouette is really an exercise in contrasting colors. That’s what we mean to do when we shade in a character with black: we’re contrasting the character’s shape with the background. Black on white, see?

So we have this opportunity to take advantage of a character’s design, using the design to contrast the character with himself. Sylvester is a black cat, but his body is white, his cheeks are white, and his hands are white. These help provide a contrast so we can see the shape of his internal silhouette.

Don’t believe me? Check it out. Here’s that same silhouette, but this time we’ve shaded in all of Sylvester’s white parts to see their shape as well.

Much clearer now, isn’t it?

That’s one of the reasons the character is designed the way it is. As an instructor said to me at school: “Why do you think all of those 1920’s and 1930’s cartoon characters wore white gloves?? It was so you could see their hands when they brought them in front of their black bodies!!”

And it’s absolutely true. You can even see it in live action. Here’s a shot from American Psycho:

This character’s attitude seems very clear to me. In control, and maybe a bit pompous about it. But here’s the blob of a silhouette we get when we shade him in:

How do we figure out what to make of this big black nothing? Have a look at how the skin tones contrast against everything else:

Now it’s as clear as day!

An even better example can be seen here, in this shot of Jack Lemmon in The Apartment:

Look at how constricted and balled up he is! Is there any way that we could tell what he’s doing just from his basic shape? Nope!

So how do we figure out what’s going on here? Internal Silhouette to the rescue!

Yes, I’m being a bit indulgent in choosing scenes from two movies I’ve recently blogged about–and if you’d like to read those posts, you can find them here and here–but the point remains valid.

Let’s get back to animation.

I think that a lot of the idea of silhouette has to do with a character’s main body pose. The spine, the head, the legs and feet. Internal silhouette, it seems to me, often has a lot more to do with hands and smaller gestures.

Check out this one from the classic “One Froggy Evening”:

The hand is so important to the composition of that shot, it’s not only huge, but it’s bright yellow! You don’t even see anything else close to yellow in that shot. The hand practically has its own silhouette, apart from the rest of the man’s body.

Here’s one of Porky Pig demonstrating that white glove thing:

Here, Dean opens the door for Hogarth in The Iron Giant:

Even cast in shadow, that hand shows up really nicely in contrast to his dark burgundy robe.

Speaking of Hogarth, here he is in Downtown Coolsville:

One hand is in clear silhouette out in the open, and the other has to rely on its own contrast with Hogarth’s dark shirt. The two hands, each silhouetted in their own way, work together to read as a single pose.

Finally, from the uber-classic “What’s Opera, Doc?” we see Elmer Fudd, whose cuirass almost disappears into the background, but his hands are nice and readable as he plots to get dat wabbit:

So, the lesson here is that although a clear silhouette is something you should always strive to work into your poses, be aware that sometimes silhouette is more complicated than a first glance would indicate. Our eyes don’t see shapes so much as they see contrasts. The contrasts are what make the shapes.

Use those contrasts to create clear silhouettes and recognize when you can use them to create clear internal silhouettes and you’ll open up a whole new range of what you can communicate with a character’s pose.

Cheers!

Posted in Animation, Long Post, Pictures | 12 Comments »

quick movie review: “The Apartment”

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Sunday, December 9th, 2007

THE APARTMENT

The Apartment is a movie that starts off as a comedy, but halfway through it becomes something quite different and difficult to pin down. The first time I saw this movie, I remember thinking “Hey, waitasec–this was a comedy, like, five minutes ago! How the hell did it get so dark and somber??” But just in case you’re thinking about Netflixing the DVD and now you’re worried that it will only be halfway satisfying, let me assure you: this is a wonderful film. Just don’t go in with any expectations of genre and you’ll come out all the richer for it.

I can’t say enough good things about Billy Wilder. And it’s not for nothing that he’s regarded as one of the all-time greats. (and I should mention that Billy Wilder’s amazing writing partner was I.A.L. Diamond–what a team!!) The dialogue and direction here is pitch perfect. One of the things I love about Wilder is that he’ll use lines of dialogue, or gestures, or attitudes for a joke or a little throwaway in one part of the film, but he’ll bring them back later with much deeper meaning. And the amazing thing about it is that when those things pop up the first time, he doesn’t underline them or play loud trumpets to call your attention to it and say “You’d better remember this part!”… But he knows how to guide your attention subtly so that the line/gesture/attitude will resonate throughout the movie.

This movie also has one of my favorite heartwrenching scenes ever. As usual, I don’t want to spoil any plot for you, so I’ll just say that if you have ever had a crush on anyone you couldn’t have, you’re likely to feel this scene deep in your chest. The scene appears, on the surface, to be about Jack Lemmon showing off his new bowler hat to Shirley MacLaine. But with the previous 50 minutes leading up to this scene, it simmers and tugs at you–all without ever calling attention to the fact that that’s what it’s doing. Again, this is Wilder, Lemmon, and MacLaine at their best!

Oh, and by the way, I know that I would totally have a crush on Shirley MacLaine if I worked with her in this office building and saw her every day. She’s kind, funny, smart, and cute as a button! Seriously, I’d fall for her in no time at all.

I also sympathize so much with Jack Lemmon’s nice guy character, C.C. Baxter. Probably because I also tend to be a bit of a nice guy pushover for people, too. Perhaps not to the extreme that he is in this movie, but it’s not difficult to see myself in there. Then again, I’m guessing that this movie wouldn’t have been so popular if we didn’t all see a bit of ourselves in the too-eager-to-be-liked, non-confrontational character buddy-boy C.C. Baxter. It’s one of my favorite roles I’ve ever seen Jack Lemmon play.

The other amazing thing about this movie, and I don’t know whether Billy Wilder intended this or not, is that it is a fascinating look at a middle-class, New York life in 1960, technology-wise. Nearly 50 years have passed since this film was made, and some of the technology in the film is virtually unrecognizable to me. The television with the remote control (yes, they had remote controls back then!), the shaving razor, the sock-thing-for-washing-your-socks-that-I-can’t-even-imagine-how-to-use, the small gas oven in the kitchen, and probably a dozen other things, too. They’re all passed by without a moment’s thought because they were probably all just accepted as normal in 1960. It’s fascinating to me because whenever I see contemporary films that take place in the past, there generally seems to be a wink at the audience regarding certain technologies, while other technologies for everyday living simply don’t show up at all.

Aside from the technology, there are also some curious artifacts that capture the attention: the elevator operators, the fact that Baxter lives on W 67th street in New York and his rent is $85/month (!!!), or the black shoeshine boy seen polishing an executive’s shoes. And while we’re on the subject of race, I’ll note that some people today may find Baxter’s neighbors, the Dreyfusses, a little too Jewey–but I’ll give them a pass on that. It feels like a harmless and slight exaggeration of what I’m sure were the speaking patterns of many New York Jews of the day. Besides, after seeing Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I have a very forgiving curve of racial stereotypes in movies before we get to that level. Sheesh!

I would definitely recommend The Apartment if you’re looking for a good film to watch. It could even make a good date movie, I think, as long as you’re not expecting a traditional romantic comedy. Just let the movie unfold in front of you, and I think you’ll be pleased.

And that concludes my DVD shelf’s “A” section. Next up, Back to the Future!

Posted in Long Post, quick movie reviews | No Comments »

back and forth: an animation tip

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Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

This is a technique I use in absolutely every shot I do, several times an hour at least. Sometimes I can spend minutes doing it. I don’t know how I ever lived without doing it.

The technique comes courtesy of Jeff Riley, a stop-motion animator currently working on Coraline, and whose film Operation: Fish making its way through the festival circuit. I know that Jeff didn’t come up with this, and it’s a technique that’s probably been used for decades and decades in other forms of animation. I’ve just never seen too many CG animators doing it. It goes like this:

When you move from one pose to the next, nearly every single body part should move, even if it’s only a little bit. And you need to make sure each part moves naturally. So, in order to check that each body part is moving the way that it should, you’ll have to rely on your “next key” and “previous key” buttons. Just check two keys, over and over, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Watch each body part for its spacing–the amount each part moves from one frame to the next. Back and forth, back and forth. This is essentially what 2d artists do when they roll their drawings between their fingers, checking from one to the next. Stop-mo animators do it with their frame-grabbers. We have the “next key” and “previous key” buttons.

Let’s check out a simple example of what I’m talking about, shall we?

I’ve pulled a small clip from The Incredibles. This is from the scene where Mr. Huff is threatening to fire Bob. This is how the scene plays out in real time:

There are some great things going on with Huff, and I encourage you to frame through his motion. But for this example, we’re going to focus on Bob.

You can see that Bob pretty much has two poses: 1) Fuming with both arms at his side, and 2) Fuming with one arm extended outward, holding Huff by the neck.

From that description, it sounds like the only thing that changes is the screen left arm. However, if we just look at those two key poses, using the back and forth technique, we can see subtler changes as well:

You can see that when Bob’s arm goes up, his shoulder goes up, too. But that’s just the start. Look at the other changes:

1) The hips shift towards screen left just a little bit. Even though it’s a small change, it sells the idea of the body’s inertia.
2) The screen right shoulder also moves up quite a bit.
3) The screen right arm pulls in closer to the body.
4) The screen right hand clenches into a tighter fist and rotates up towards the body.
5) The head changes its angle slightly: rotating in the direction of the pose, and tilting downwards
6) The face clenches tighter and the eyes pinch shut

Every single part of Bob’s body has moved, even though the major change is only that one extended arm. And the best way to see the changes in each body part is, say it with me: back and forth.

You can use this back and forth method to check out how each part of your character moves from one key to the next, making little adjustments where you need to and then checking them again using back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. This is what is meant when you hear people say they are “checking out how two frames animate”–they’re watching all of the differences between the two keys, large and small, to make sure that the movement makes sense.

Let’s check out an even more dramatic example. This one is from Aladdin, during the song “One Jump Ahead.” Again, to start, we have the clip in real time:

Got it? Good.

Once again, it looks like there are only two major poses going on here: 1) Leaning out from the post, and 2) Hiding behind the post. We can go back and forth and check out those two poses:

Clearly, these two keys have much bigger spacing from the first clip we watched from The Incredibles. If you were animating this scene, you might be satisfied with these two poses, confident that they’re selling the ideas in the scene that you want to get across to the audience. So, where do you move from there? You put in breakdowns. Here’s how back and forth can help.

These are the breakdowns that are in the scene:

Note: I don’t know for certain which are the exact keys and breakdowns the animator chose. I’m making my best educated guess.

You can see how nicely they work with each other. Everything is moving on nice arcs, each body part feels natural. But we’re looking at this after the fact. If you were animating this scene, you’d have to do a lot of back and forth checking to make sure that each of your breakdowns are working properly. So for the first set of breakdowns, you might find yourself looking at your keys something like this:

You’d go back and forth, over and over, forwards and backwards, over and over, just to make sure everything is working with each other. These are just the first keys and breakdowns:

Frame 1 - Leaning out from the post
Frame 32 - Leaning out further (to accentuate the song lyric)
Frame 49 - Pulling backwards to escape the flying swords and spears

Then, once you were satisfied with how those frames were working together, you might check on your next breakdown or two:

Over and over, back and forth, forwards and backwards. Over and over. From one key to the next, over and over, forwards and backwards, back and forth.

If I’m coming across as repetitive, that’s part of the point. Remember, from an earlier post when I wrote about how Every Frame Is A Drawing? Well, I use back and forth every single time I make a new drawing. My “next key” and “previous key” buttons are some of the most used keys on my keyboard. It’s the best way I know to check how your keys are working before you put in your breakdowns. And then, you can check how your breakdowns are working before you put in your inbetweens.

Back and forth is all about keeping iron-clad control over your animation, and not letting the computer put in any motion that you don’t want there.

Good luck, and happy animating!

Posted in Animation, Eric's Stories, Long Post, Pictures | 18 Comments »

it’s the timing! (an animation tip)

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Friday, October 12th, 2007

This is a tip for anyone who runs into a situation that happens to me a lot when animating in 3d.

Have you ever scrubbed through your animation in the timeline, and everything looks pretty good… you’re happy with where your animation is going, you can see the body and everything moving like you want it to. But when you run a playblast, or a preview, your quicktime video shows your animation as choppy, confused, six kinds of weird and twice as ugly?

Me, too. Here’s why I think that happens:

When you scrub through the timeline, you’re watching your animation at the speed of your hand on the mouse. This may not be, and probably isn’t, 24 frames per second. And truth be told, it’s probably not even at a constant speed. You’re scrubbing through your animation in a way that makes it look good to your eye.

But when you play it at speed, the computer doesn’t know anything about how your hand was scrubbing.

Now, when this happens I will tend to go back into Maya (or whatever application you’re using), and start re-posing, moving limbs around, trying to get the animation to look better for the next time I run a playblast. I’ll bet that many of you do the same thing as well.

But dig this: you shouldn’t re-pose anything! Remember when you were scrubbing at your own pace and everything looked fine to you? That should tell you something very specific about why the quicktime looked so bad. What it should tell you is this:

The poses were right, but they were on the wrong frames.

I’m going to say that again, to make sure you got it:

The poses were right, but they were on the wrong frames!

It’s the timing!

Imagine you are a 2d animator. You have all of your drawings stacked up in your hand. But now you know that some of your poses are in the wrong place in the stack. You have to figure out which drawings to re-arrange, and you’ll probably have to remove some drawings to get rid of to make room for the drawings that will be inserted in the correct place.

Remember, Every Frame Is a Drawing. So figure out which drawings are the ones you want to move around, set a key on every control in your character, then move that drawing to where it’s supposed to be.

Don’t change your poses if you don’t need to–you worked hard on those. And if it looked right at a slower, or faster, or varied speed… then that should be all of the information you need to tell you that it’s not the posing, it’s not the spacing, it’s not the acting… it’s the timing!

Posted in Animation, Eric's Stories, Long Post | 2 Comments »

quick movie review: “Amadeus”

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Thursday, September 27th, 2007

AMADEUS

While I really really really like Amadeus, I do have a complaint about it.

The problem with Amadeus is that when it’s over, you really don’t know anything more about the real-life Mozart than you did before you saw the movie–but you think you do. The movie is so good, and so convincing in its artistry and drama that even if you tell yourself “Well, I know that they cooked up a lot of this to make a good story,” you believe you can pick out the little bits of truth that serves as the basis of the film.

Except that you can’t. From looking around the internet (and reading articles like this one), I get the feeling that musicologists were seething in 1984 at what the public thought about Mozart, having been “educated” by Amadeus. (Lindsey, feel free to speak up if you have any insight here)

It’s interesting to me, really, because there are other characters whose lives have been fitted into dramas that didn’t really happen. Elvis has had it happen to him, as has Mark Twain, and even Sherlock Holmes who is fictional to begin with, and still we’re somehow able to tell ourselves “Well, this didn’t really happen to Sherlock Holmes, he’s just being used in a story.” Maybe it’s because we’re familiar enough with the life of Elvis to know when some playwright or screenwriter is playing a fun game with us, but as a general public, we don’t really know much about the life of Mozart so we’ll take anything we’re given and slide it neatly into the empty and waiting “True Mozart Biography” file in our brains.

All that being said, however, I really enjoy this film. Milos Forman has an uncanny ability to make movies that are really striking. I don’t know how else to say it–there are several movies of his that I enjoy, and almost every scene in them has something to latch onto. The locations and scenery are so rich and wonderful. (I believe they shot the film in Prague, which still has enough old-style architecture to pass for 18th century Vienna) The costumes are equally as beautiful. I get the idea that the art direction team on this movie was in seventh heaven, designing everything down to the last buttonhole and doorknob.

Like All About Eve, this is another movie whose title character isn’t really the main focus. F. Murray Abraham plays Antonio Salieri to such perfection, “Salieri” has even entered our general lexicon as a metaphor for someone who is able to recognize true talent and beauty where others cannot, but is only able to achieve mediocrity themselves. (Again, I’m almost certain this wasn’t true of the actual Salieri) As for Tom Hulce as Mozart, he makes Mozart fun and a little childlike–watch how excited he is to conduct his first opera at the Viennese court!–only growing more serious towards the film’s final act when heavier issues bear down on him.

(gosh, it’s hard trying to write these things without giving the story away!)

Amadeus was originally a play written for the stage by Peter Shaffer, and Shaffer served as screenwriter as well. I’d be interested to see the play, as I’ve heard that it is structurally very different than the film. As I understand it, the play is much more sparse and abstract than the film. I have to wonder how much Milos Forman had a hand in working with Shaffer to broaden the story and scenes–he performed a similar feat with Hair, which has a pretty moving story on screen but is hardly as fleshed out in the original stage production.

I’d recommend Amadeus to just about anyone, unless you have a debilitating aversion to period dramas. It is so approachable, and yet so rich in its texture. And the music, Mozart’s music, really captures you and can spin you into reverie. Near the end of the film there’s a scene… well, you’ll see if you pick up the film… I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard anything like it anywhere else in musical cinema.

Wonderful, wonderful. See this movie.

Posted in Long Post, quick movie reviews | 1 Comment »

animation tip: grab it / touch it

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Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

I’ve been watching a lot of animation over at The 11 Second Club, and I’ve noticed that there seems to be a common weakness running through a lot of the clips I see. Specifically, I notice it in how characters interact with objects with their hands.

I see a lot of characters bending their fingers around an object that they’re “holding” or placing their hands down loosely on a table, in ways that look very much like all the animator has done is to rotate the fingers around from the original default positions.

I’ve decided to take the LowMan Rig and try just a few quick sketches by way of an example. Hopefully, this will help to illustrate what i’m talking about, and even better, help some beginning animators step up their use of hands–they’re so important!

To start off, here’s a picture of a hand grabbing a pole (or it could be a spear, or bars in a jail cell, or whatever you wish):

Looks alright, doesn’t it? I mean, when you see it, you definitely get the idea that the hand is supposed to be holding onto the pole. But all I’ve done is rotate the fingers in one axis, making them all wrap around the pole. This isn’t really what our fingers do, and thus isn’t what our hands really look like when we actually grab on to something. With a few minor tweaks, rotating some of the fingers in a few more axes, you can come up with this:

See? Now doesn’t that feel a little more solid and natural? I’m not saying it’s the greatest hand pose in the world, but I think it’s definitely an improvement on the first picture.

To make it even more clear, I’ve put together a small .mov of the two poses switching back and forth:

One thing to really take note of is that I had to cheat things a bit because of how the hand’s and fingers’ proportions are:

You can see where the pole is more in the fingers, where it should actually be firmly rooted in the palm. Also, the thumb will tend to be locked to what it’s grabbing, instead of having this bit of empty space in there. But since I am posing to the camera, these little cheats are allowable, and help me build a believable pose. You’ll never notice them unless you see them from the wrong angle–and if I’m a good animator, I’ll make sure you don’t see them from the wrong angle.

Let’s take another example. Here is something like what I typically see when a character places their hand on a table:

The fingers are all bent slightly, again only in one axis. Everything is posed taking very special care that nothing is penetrating the tabletop.

But I notice that when I put my own hand down on a table, and I’m relaxed, I get something a little more like this:

Some of my fingers curl in underneath my hand, and one finger stretches out. Most importantly, the palm is actually resting on the table, taking most of the weight from the body. In the previous hand pose, the palm is hovering above the table–not very believable. This pose took a little longer to get right, since there was a lot of counter-animating of the wrist and the fingers to make sure they all looked like they were in the right place and not penetrating the table. But the time it takes to get a good hand pose will pay off immeasurably in your scene, even if that hand doesn’t move at all.

Here again is a quicktime for comparison:

I’ll restate that I don’t claim these are spectacular poses or anything… but I hope that these samples illustrated that with a little effort, and a little attention to detail, you can add a lot more believability to your scene just by tweaking your hand poses.

I’ve heard that the hands are the second place we look for personality after the face/eyes. So make sure that your hands aren’t just set in the default position, or even slightly rotated versions of the default position. Make them do what you need them to do. Your rig is a computer model, and will feel no pain, discomfort, or anger if you start bending the fingers and wrists all over the place.

Good luck, and happy animating!

Posted in Animation, Long Post, Pictures | 2 Comments »

whizgiggling

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Strict Standards: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /homepages/8/d91492417/htdocs/cattywampus/wp-includes/functions.php on line 52

Strict Standards: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /homepages/8/d91492417/htdocs/cattywampus/wp-includes/functions.php on line 54

Strict Standards: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /homepages/8/d91492417/htdocs/cattywampus/wp-includes/functions.php on line 55
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Note: This blog entry is not suitable for younger audiences

Spam is always trying to find a way to wiggle around your e-mail filters. Sometimes spam will include blocks of text from random prose so they’ll seem more legitimate. Sometimes spam will write to you to ask how you’re doing, and spam will cheerfully tell you that you’ve won a large sum in the Irish Lottery, and then the Hungarian Lottery, and then the New Zealand Lottery. The basic idea is that if they keep changing the words they use, you won’t be able to come up with a “rule” for your filter to lock on to, and so your filter won’t be able to identify the spam.

There’s a new variation that’s been appearing in the past few months. In this most recent method, it appears that the original text had been written once and then hit with some kind of thesaurus algorithm, replacing key words with synonyms (or near-synonyms). This way, the spam seems to reason, you will receive the same message over and over, but never with the same wording.

But synonyms aren’t always perfect, and the new messages deliver some unintentional inflections. Here’s just a sample of what I’m talking about, all taken from my in box during the past few months.

(if you’re clever, you can guess what my favorite replacement word is)

Subject
I just started dating a guy I like, but his pecker is on the small side and doesn’t really satisfy me

Message
Dolls always smiled at me and even chaps did in the civil toilet!
Well, now I smil at them, because I took Meg, a dik.
for 7 months and now my prick is hugely more than national.

Subject
My new guy’s member is enormous, and my mouth is tiny.

Message
Females always laughed at me and even gars did in the urban lavatory!
Well, now I giggl at them, because I took Me - ga - Di k
for 6 months and now my dick is immensely preponderant than usual.

Subject
My boyfriend’s putz is too big for my mouth.

Message
Virgins always whizgiggled at me and even fellows did in the civil john!
Well, now I sriek at them, because I took M_E GA D IK
for 7 months and now my peter is quite best than national.

Subject
My boyfriend’s penis is too big for my mouth.

Message
Girls always giggled at me and even fellows did in the federal WC!
Well, now I sriek at them, because I took M E _G_A_D_ IK
for 5 months and now my pecker is greatly more than federal.

Subject
My new guy’s peter is enormous, and my mouth is tiny.

Message
Ladies always whizgiggled at me and even gentlemans did in the public water closet!
Well, now I smil at them, because I took Mega. Dik
for 4 months and now my peter is greatly largest than usual.

Subject
When I tried to give him oral sex, I practically choked. How do I do it without gagging? Please help!

Message
Virgins always whooped at me and even youths did in the national toilet!
Well, now I smil at them, because I took M_E GA D IK
for 6 months and now my member is extremely longer than world.

Subject
My boyfriend’s prick keeps slipping out.

Message
Dames always hee-hawed at me and even boys did in the civil WC!
Well, now I sriek at them, because I took M E _G_A_D_ IK
for 7 months and now my prick is terribly best than average.

Posted in Long Post | 2 Comments »

The Midnight Diaries of Catty Wampus

Archive for the ‘Long Post’ Category

folkie

put it there: an animation tip

quick movie review: “Bamboozled”

internal silhouette: an animation tip

quick movie review: “The Apartment”

back and forth: an animation tip

it’s the timing! (an animation tip)

quick movie review: “Amadeus”

animation tip: grab it / touch it

whizgiggling

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