Hi Keith, It is great to see you in Ask The Pro! About time too. I'm also a VTS student and after all of the pencil shooter talk I thought that I should mention that I was inspired by your work methods from the VTS tutes and wrote a Custom Panel called Pencil Shooter for Bauhaus's Mirage. If anyone wants a copy, send me an email at 3dcartoon@cox.net
For my questions,..Thinking about your workflow... with the very defined poses with facial poses and built-in secondary motion... Did this develop from an effort to clarify your scene goals and minimize changes and crits? And.. Do you find that you still rely on crits from peers or are you able to draw from other sources?
Thank you for your time and the VTS. You have helped me get over many hurdles and snags and I'm learning more every time I watch.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2006, 11:04:12 PM by DavidMitchell »
Keith, thanks for answering my first question, I have a somewhat cliche question that im sure youve been asked a lot of times so here goes...
could you give me some tips on making a good demo reel targeted for such studios like pixar and dreamworks, (places that do full features), what is it that they want to see most in an applicant reel? what would really impress them? and also some tips on how to interview and all the fun part.
Thanks again Keith, all your answers make sense, nothing confusing, awesome stuff!!!
My last question, cuz the week is coming to an end... I thought of an interesting thing to ask... let me see how to phrase this...
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LOA is the strong opinion, spine is the fact. Strongly presented opinions based on facts spark revolutions. Dry facts put people to sleep. I'll let you decide where to put your energies.
is what you said, and it's one of the coolest things I've read recently ;-)
Based on the fact that naturalistic acting is not as exaggerated as cartoons are, but it can have more impact (or at least emotional impact), and that it connects to us in a more direct way maybe... and it also tends to be richer, more detailed (like the acting in many of your favorite shots), where would you draw the line between cheap exaggeration and a "strongly presented oppinion" that also is natural, logical, motivated? To what extent do you think we should exaggerate things in animation IF we're trying to create a strong emotional moment for example? To what extent do we relate to exaggerated events/acting? And to put it yet another way - how to exaggerate and still keep things natural, and especially believable? Any thoughts on exaggeration...
Wow, that was hard to come up with... let me breathe... :-))) Thanks Keith, cheers!
Hi keith, this is a tecnical question, im just taking the oportunity to ask you, that work in so many diferents pipelines.
About things that depends on some kind of special fx to interact with the animation, or fx that may influence the reaction of the character in a scene, like fluid,cloth, particles, etc...i know that in some pipelines theres a special fx department that cares about this, but in my head this is an process made after the animation.
i have a great curiosity in konwing how this kind of things works, how deep animation department goes into another like fx and simulation
I'm also a VTS student and after all of the pencil shooter talk I thought that I should mention that I was inspired by your work methods from the VTS tutes and wrote a Custom Panel called Pencil Shooter for Bauhaus's Mirage. If anyone wants a copy, send me an email at 3dcartoon@cox.net
That sounds cool! I don't have Mirage, but I might mess with the demo. I'll have t play around with that.
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For my questions,..Thinking about your workflow... with the very defined poses with facial poses and built-in secondary motion... Did this develop from an effort to clarify your scene goals and minimize changes and crits?
Yes. Heh. I'm always trying to make my presentations as clear as possible so that I can accomplish two things: 1) tell a good story and 2) get the shot done. This is a business and it is my job to get stuff bought by the director. In as much as I can do number 1 I'm usually very good at getting number 2. And getting number 2 means keeping in control of changes. But honestly the thing that most motivated me to work this way was that I found that it helped me think more about my animation. I find myself slowing down, thinking, stepping away from the computer, not getting lost in the timeline, not fighting with inbetweens- it all forces me to think in terms of drawings. All the fancy technology in the world doesn't undo the reality that animation is a bunch of drawings being shown one at a time for 1/24th of a second. So it was about pushing and finding the solution to my challenges in the drawings, not in curves or off on another frame somewhere. It helps me boil things down to their base elements and helps me think about ways to make it stronger right there in the drawing. (even if the 'drawing' is just a render of a posed computer puppet)
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Do you find that you still rely on crits from peers or are you able to draw from other sources?
I don't rely on crits, no. Not in the sense that I just couldn't do my job without them. I know what I want to do and I'm usually able to do it. But that's not to say that I don't find peer review and feedback a vital and valuable part of my work. It absolutely is. I will ask for feedback from folks quite often. But I'm no slave to that feedback, either. The feedback has to help and honestly sometimes another person just hasn't got the scene in the right context when they're watching it. It's not their fault, they're coming blind to it, they may not understand the context, the moment, the goal of the scene. So they may give feedback that's off the mark. Which is cool, there's still validity in what they say- but I know my scene. I know it better than anybody else in the world. Nobody has thought more about my scene than I have. So feedback is helpful, but it's not a law for me. I use feedback to make my ideas- my choices- come across clearer and stronger and in a more entertaining way. I do enjoy the fresh perspective and fresh eyes. I often need different viewpoints when I find that I have gotten too close to a scene and I don't know if it's being clear or not. So those times when I'm not sure about what I'm doing peer review and feedback helps either validate or invalidate my experimenting. I'll usually get peer feedback at two places. Just after my blocking (the ultimate peer review is the director looking at it) and just before finalling. In blocking I want to know: Does the thing make sense? Is it clear? Does it communicate? And before finalling I want to know is anything bumping? Are there any hitches? Is anything distracting from the main point? In both instances I'm open for suggestions to make my choices strong, clearer, better.
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keith lango storyteller/animator www.keithlango.com
could you give me some tips on making a good demo reel targeted for such studios like pixar and dreamworks, (places that do full features), what is it that they want to see most in an applicant reel? what would really impress them?
The usual old advice applies; best stuff up front, no filler, keep it short (I prefer less than 2 min), screw the music, no fancy editing, title card in front and in back. That covers the basics. Other than that, though, it comes down to doing something fantastic, or, something that really appeals to the humans in the room. Just do something you really believe in and do it really well. It's simple to describe, difficult to accomplish. Heh. And realize that human taste varies so widely that within the same studio you'll have reel reviewing animation supervisors who wouldn't hire the same person. There are negotiations internally like this all the time. Often each shop has it's own "thing" it's looking for, little favorite things (technical or otherwise) that they want to see. It's really kinda hard to know what each studio's "thing" is without talking with someone inside. Some places will notice the tiniest little wobble on the IK vector control for your elbow whereas another studio won't notice it or won't care. It's either their "thing" or it's not. Another place will frame step through your facial animation looking for arcs in the mouth corners while another might not care. Sometimes a "thing" is just a way to decide between a few really strong reels. And the "thing" changes all the time. What a studio might have really focused on 6 months ago isn't what they're into now. They're human, that's all. The best thing is to make a great performance, make it solid & clear, moving, convincing and then clean the heck out of the motion so it's tight. Again, easy to say, hard to do. There is no magic bullet here, no secret ninja trick which will automatically get you in no matter what.
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and also some tips on how to interview and all the fun part.
If they've flown you out for an interview then your stuff is already good enough. Nobody blows money on planes tickets if your stuff isn't good enough to justify hiring you. From there on out the interview is about how you as a person would fit into their group. It's all personal from there. So just be yourself. Have confidence that your stuff got you there, so don't make apologies for it. Now it's just a matter of finding the right interpersonal fit between you and the group that's already there. So like I said, the important thing is to be yourself.
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keith lango storyteller/animator www.keithlango.com
About things that depends on some kind of special fx to interact with the animation, or fx that may influence the reaction of the character in a scene, like fluid,cloth, particles, etc...i know that in some pipelines theres a special fx department that cares about this, but in my head this is an process made after the animation.
IT all depends on the kind of shot and the kind of effect. Usually there are two kinds of shots like this.
1) A performance shot with FX. 2) And effects shot with animation.
The difference is in focus. What is more important in this shot? The character's reaction/actions? Or the effect itself? This will usually determine who does what and in what order. If it's a performance shot with some FX, then animators will animate the scene first. There will often be proxies added and animated as rough stand-ins for the FX work. But the primary focus and intent of the shot is the character's performance, so it will go to animation first and FX second. The second kind of shot is more about the FX. Any character actions are driven by the effect or are secondary to it. So usually FX will do their thing first with some stand in proxy for the character (a null or sphere or whatever). Then they'll bake out the positional animation data of that proxy after the effect has been approved for look/tyle/etc and the sim has been settled on. That animation data is given to animation, who will constrain a character to it and then animate the character reacting or doing whatever. Then that mesh data from the character animation is merged with the approved sim formula for the effect, the effect will be simmed again to accomodate the character's presence and actions. After that is looking good all together then it'll be approved for render. Not every pipeline works this way exactly but these are some general principles behind it. The specifics and details of things will change from studio to studio and often shot to shot. When it comes to FX it really is a different kind of scene that doesn't always fit icely into your general pipeline. But the end result is usually pretty cool to watch.
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keith lango storyteller/animator www.keithlango.com
I want to thank Rick for inviting me to be a part of ATP. And I'd like to thank everybody for their great questions, too! You guys made me really think. It was fun! I hope I was able to bring a little something to the table that was helpful to everybody.
-k
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keith lango storyteller/animator www.keithlango.com
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