Animation Tips & Tricks, Volume I - Animation Mentor

So, the first rule is to stay rough, and the first *use* of thumbnails is to discover the best ideas for your shot.The second use of thumbnails is to get fast feedback.You can save yourself days of work (and a great deal of frustration) if you run your thumbnails past your lead or your director beforediving into the actual scene. Nothing is more frustrating than spending 3 days blocking in something that you think is great onlyto find out, once the director gets a look at it, that you’re doing something he doesn’t like at all. It’s always a great idea to run yourthumbnails past them first, so you can save yourself the headache (and heartache!) of hearing the dreaded “start over” words fromyour director.The third use of thumbnails is to translate your video reference.Filming video reference is great, but as we talked about last time, you can’t just coy it or you’re going to end up with a scene that isn’tas alive as it could have been. Thumbnails are a great way to translate that video reference into poses and timing that are infusedwith your knowledge of the art of animation. Sure, you can find some great posing and timing ideas in your video reference, butthat’s only step one. Whip out a sketchbook and start doing little stick-figure drawings of what you are observing (and STUDYING!)in the reference you’re watching.But as you draw those thumbnails, you can start to inject the principles of animation into them. Exaggerate the poses, push the linesof action in the body, and make the poses more dynamic and forceful. You can also jot down timing notes, and maybe you can evenstart exaggerating your timing at this stage. Right there in your thumbnails you can be making decisions about timing - give thispart a little more ease-in, make that part a little snappier, etc.The goal, as far as I’m concerned, is that before you sit down in front of your computer, you have a piece of paper or an exposuresheet that has dynamic and timed thumbnail poses, so you know exactly what pose will happen on exactly what frames. By the timeyou have turned on your computer, every major animation decision should have already been made. Without exception.If you work this way, I guarantee you will end up with stronger, more dynamic, more communicative, and more memorable scenesthan you would if you just sat down and started saving keys. Even better, I guarantee this entire planning process will save you timein the long run.I think, as a general rule, I probably spend about 20% of my time planning. If I have a week to do a shot, I’ll spend the first daycompletely away from the computer. A two-week shot might get 2 days of planning. If I only had 2 days to do a shot, then maybeI’d only spend 2 or 3 hours planning, but I would make the most of those couple hours. I’d spend it studying video reference, filmingmyself and my friends, doing thumbnails, etc. I do that because I know without a doubt that by spending that first day planning, Ijust saved myself a couple days (or more) worth of “noodling” the shot, and tinkering with it, trying to make it work.Again, the best scenes I’ve ever done, and the ones I finished the quickest, are the shots that I spent the most time planning.Over and out.- Shawn6Copyright 2008 by AnimationMentor.com. All rights reserved. This ebook may not be reprinted or distributed in electronic, print, web, or other format withoutexpress written permission.