Release. Pressure. Animate.

From the following citation we can get more about this reboot of Disney‟s 2D
apartment for their animated feature Princess and the Frog.
Once they received the green light, the directors began looking for animators who
could draw 2D performances. “Because hand-drawn animation was gone, it was
almost like building the studio again,” Clements says. “Some of the 2D artists had
become 3D stars, but many had left. Yet, just about everybody who did draw
wanted to come back. We put together an all-star team of animators.”
In addition to current and former Disney animators, the production crew, which
topped 300 at its peak, included recent graduates from the California Institute of
the Arts. “They had studied hand-drawn animation without knowing if they‟d have
a place to apply their learning, and they blossomed into real talent,” Musker says.
Clements adds, “With this type of animation, you have to work with a mentor to
learn how to do it and get proficient. It‟s a craft and an art that requires a lot of
dedication. But, there‟s an intuitive connection about drawing, from the brain to
the hand to paper, that people miss with computer animation. With just the flip of
a pencil, you can change an expression. That casual interaction is much tougher
with 3D.” (Robertson, Barbara. 2011, http://www.cgw.com/)
In this elaborate paragraph I mentioned many different parts of the workflow.
Summarizing, it all comes down to the following key points for workflow:
- Make it easy. Try focusing on one thing at a time and make everything seem clear
at first eyesight. Amplify those key numbers that are more important (key poses
and extremes for example.)
- Don‟t be ambiguous. Don‟t try doing different things at the same time while you
are in need of focus.
- Planning is very important. You can‟t just wing it.
- Clear guidelines. Having a character sheet and/or working in the pose-to-pose (or
mixed) method gives the ability to constantly continue working with guidelines
and creating guidelines for what to do next. The same accounts for acquiring
reference footage, it can be very beneficial, but should not interfere constantly
with the act of animating, but should rather be a step before the actual animating,
thus the planning. It also helps with the review process with the director or
animation supervisor, as they can see where you‟ll be going. The supervision
combined with a clearer guideline on a regular basis sets a good start for checking
constant progress and knowing whether you‟re coming closer to the goal, again
such direct feedback and a clear goal are very important to work intuitively,
creatively and most importantly in a creative flow.
- No distractions. Focus on what is important – the play‟s the thing – instead of
being distracted by thinking about it in a technical way or a song that‟s playing in
2. The difference in Animation fields
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