Playing Catch Up

It's been a whole half of the class since I've updated the blog last. I'm glad to say that since then I've learned A LOT. Physicality is only the beginning. Just when you start getting kind of OK with mechanics, we're thrown into intro to acting. Starting to get to the real meat of animation. And man, you've gotta think about a lot. Giving the shot a context, and giving reason for movement. Making the poses read clear for the attitude you want to convey. Clarity is the key.

Here is my first pantomime shot. We were supposed to make our character go from one emotion to another or "changing gears." I think I did a fairly decent job on my first try, but it still needs a lot of work.



Right now we're working on our first dialog shot, and holy crap its different from anything we've done so far. We're given the full body rig (Bishop) but only with a simple face. This is so we do most of the acting through the body. Now in our shots we are bound to the cadence of the vocal track. We have to really get into the track and try to get the subtext of the dialog down in creative, entertaining, and clear poses timed out to the audio. Its a lot harder than it sounds because you have to be picky about exactly where you want your accents to be, and where to just milk a pose.

We're only in the blocking stage right now, and I'm not done with it yet so no video. If I remember when I finish I might upload it in stages of progress over the next.....I guess 2 months we're working on this shot :\