On Animation (70 Years Too Late)

Composing Pictures 34

2009-09-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

Composing Pictures 33

2009-08-29T18:59:00.003-07:00

Composing Pictures 32

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Composing Pictures 31

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Composing Pictures 30

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Composing Pictures 29

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Composing Pictures 28

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Composing Pictures 27

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Composing Pictures 26

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Composing Pictures 25

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Composing Pictures 24

2009-06-27T16:56:00.002-07:00

Composing Pictures 23

2009-06-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

Composing Pictures 22

2009-06-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

Composing Pictures 21

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Composing Pictures 20

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Composing Pictures 19

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Composing Pictures 18

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Composing Pictures 17

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Composing Pictures 16

2009-05-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

Blog Has Moved

2009-04-27T10:02:00.004-07:00

Please update your links, the blog has moved to a new home!

www.onanimation.com/weblog

Composing Pictures 15

2009-04-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

Swticheroo

2009-04-24T20:09:00.001-07:00

Please bare with me with as I switch to Word Press. The lights could go out for a few days.

Pencil Tests

2009-04-22T15:18:00.002-07:00

Check out these fantastic pencil tests uploaded by Victor Ens. Amazing!

Tarzan Part 3

2009-04-19T22:04:00.017-07:00

Composing Pictures 14

2009-04-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tarzan Part 2

2009-04-16T08:53:00.010-07:00

This stuff is great idn't it? I love the anatomical sketches over Keane's designs. There's a good section on that procress on both the DVD and Book.

The National Film Board of Canada

2009-04-15T08:41:00.004-07:00

I've posted a few examples of the type of work the NFB produces before, but I was recently reminded how innovative and broad their films are after re-reading Shamus Culhane's, "Animation from Script to Screen." Here's a selection of NFB films done in various styles of animation that I think every animator should see. Being from Canada, I grew up on this stuff, and consider it part of the reason I got into animation. No matter how many times I saw one of these as a kid, my eyes were glued to the tube, and I never got tired of them.

Tarzan Part 1

2009-04-14T22:06:00.010-07:00

Alright it's about time I post some more production art. This has to be one of my faaaaavorite animated films. I cannot get over the job Glen Keane did on Tarzan. Every area of the production work on this film is BEAUTIFUL! And boy do I have a ton of it to share with you. I'll be doing Tarzan posts for a while now. If you do not have the Tarzan Chronicles book, BUY IT NOW! Try to also track down a copy of the two disc special edition DVD (not the crappy re-issue one disc "special edition"), as it has some of the best bonus footage ever included with an animation DVD. Remember this is just the tip of the iceberg...

Book Store

2009-04-13T17:40:00.003-07:00

I've created an Amazon affiliated book store in another effort to raise funds for school. If you are planning on adding to your animation/film making library, why not stop by my store first, and pick it up there? You'll get the books you want, and as a bonus you'll play a huge part in helping me pay for school. The best books on animation, story, filmmaking, and drawing are all there, as well as dozens more neatly organized in fifteen categories.

I've only listed what I have on my own shelves, as I don't believe in promoting books I've never read. I also don't want to overwhelm any newcomers to animation with a list of a thousand books. If you are new to animation, there's only a hand full of books you really need, and they're all listed in my top ten section. So stop by my store and stack up on some study material.

On Animation Book Store

Establishing Villains - Part 1: The Unknown Principle

2009-04-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Search your movie memories. Do you remember a character that just scared to crap out of you? You might have to go back to your childhood, a time of full imagination, when suspension of disbelief wasn't just a concept brought on by good storytelling, it was all you knew. I myself have very clear memories of fear brought on by certain villains of the cinema. I've always wondered why they affected me so much, and so much more than others. I decided to study these villians and find out why they were so scary.

This will be the first of a series of posts I've been working on for some time. Before I dive in, I think a little specificity is in order here. I'm not just talking about your obvious evil mofos here. It's blatantly obvious why The Witch King of Angmar is scary.

The same is true of Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and the T-Rex from Jurassic Park (1993). They all have one pretty identifiable characteristic in common, they all look scary.

I think the scariest bad guys are the ones that don't. They could easily be you or me, except somehow we know they are actually sadistic, pyschopathic, murderous S.O.B's that are pure evil to the core. How do we know this? Acting is a big clue, more on that soon, but let's look outside of acting. Dramatic music is also popular, most villains even have their own theme or sound effect, but let's scratch that off the list of indicators as well. What else makes them evil? For example, through what techniques of cinematography can we identify a badass? Ah ha! Now we are talking in strictly visual terms, strictly film grammar.

When I was a kid the real baddies, the ones that scared the snot out of me, were characters like Hannibal Lecter, Max Cady, or Eddie Dutton from Unforgettable (1996). Now acting is without a doubt the biggest part of creating a successful villain. When I first started this research, it was hard to get past the magnificant acting. Villains really are the juiciest parts that require the best talent (Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Jack Nicholson to name a few). Animators are always after the villains too. To excell at creating a villain puts you in talented company (On a side note I'd recommend you pick up a copy of Frank and Ollie's book, The Disney Villain, if you don't have it. In the back there's a list of all the Disney villains, and the talented men behind them). But a lot of the time, acting doesn't even come into the equation before we already realize how scary some characters are. Usually a word isn't even spoken before were aware of their threatening presence, and it all has to do with the way they've been introduced.

So how do you introduce a bad guy? Easy, don't show him. The reason this works so well is because everyone has a natural, instinctual fear of the unknown. If we can't fully see them, we are more alert and cautious, and the longer this plays out, the more badass they seem because we are naturally painting our own picture of how evil they are in our own minds. It's a great way of letting the audience do the work for you. And when you add elements like great acting, and dramatic sound effects/scores, you're in business. Here's some examples:

Cape Fear (1991) opens on Max Cady doing dips in his cell. It starts with a tatted up guy working out, and zooms out to him being framed by the bars of his cell. Immediately we know he's bad news.

This is the day he's getting out of prison, which judging by the ominous thunder clouds and his intimidating walk off the prison grounds and right into the camera, is not a good thing for someone. Watch the movie to find out what happens.

Panning up from the feet is another way of not showing your bad guy right away. In Gangs of New York (2002) this is how Bill "The Butcher" is introduced:

Now this doesn't always mean you're looking at an evil character, but with the addition of quickly cutting between long, medium, and extreme close-up shots, the menacing quality of Bill the Butcher is established.

You can also use lighting to hide your villain, keeping him in anything from very low light to complete silhouette. In the first four minutes of The Departed (2006), we barely see Costello's face:

At this point Costello is obviously a bad guy. Nobody in the audience or the film wants to mess with him. It isn't until the main character, Colin, sees him as otherwise, that we see him in another light (pun intended):

But establishing a character as a villain doesn't always happen in their first scene. In this situation, you are revealing a different side of a character, and you can do that in the same way visually. In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Warden is introduced as a disciplinarian along with Captain Hadley in a couple of harmless medium shots. This doesn't mean he's evil, that's his job.

Here's the Warden's second encounter with Andy, same thing:

But as his relationship with Andy sours, and we see how evil he can be, the shots change. Notice the slight up shots here. This is when Andy first steps out of line, and locks the Warden out of his own office:

This is when the Warden sends Andy to solitary for a month. A close up, slighty up shot, with a three quarter view. An angle we haven't seen on him yet (Something is changing).

When the warden shows his true colors, we get a series of conventional extreme up/down shots that establish power. Andy is completely lit (good), while the Warden is in shadows (evil).

Now let's bring acting back into the mix, because it's often an extention of the unknown principle. In The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Dr. Hannibal Lecter is all about the unknown. He's so creepy because nothing riles him up. He's way too calm, and collected. Way too expressionless, and rigid. Here's his introduction:

He barely moves:

He doesn't blink:

He's extremely focused, and is observing Clarice's every move. He's picking up so many details about her, while she knows next to nothing about him (outside of her dossier on him). We empathize with her, because that is just plain scary.

When he does emote we get this (Yikes!):

Go back and look at all of scenes I've mentioned, and you will notice how still and rigid the characters are. They are all devoid of any expressions, and they barely blink (Somewhere Michael Caine is smiling). They are all blank slates, and that's intimidating.

The unkown is scary, whether it is achieved through acting or cintematography. It immediately gets our attention, and we have our emotional guard up until we know more. Until we are safe.

Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction (1994)

To be continued...

Shamus Culhane

2009-04-11T21:51:00.009-07:00

Shamus says....These are the books you should have:

The World of Animation
The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Cartoon Animation (The Collector's Series)
Composing Pictures (Pssst....You can get that right here!)
Muybridge's Complete Human and Animal Locomotion (1, 2, 3)
The Screenwriter's Workbook (Revised Edition)
Computer Graphics
Special Effects in the Movies

Don't know who Shamus is? Shame on you! You better click here, here, and here. Or watch the five part series on YouTube starting with the video below:

Composing Pictures 13

2009-04-11T10:47:00.001-07:00

More Amazing Photography

2009-04-10T21:01:00.008-07:00

Here's some more great photos. I have literally hundreds of these kinds of photos backed up on disk. The magical moments in the images below are what make life so damn amazing, and life is the only real inspiration for our art after all.

If you want to see more of this kind of stuff, follow this link. I'd recommend sorting by "All Time" and "All Time Average".

Hunchback

2009-04-09T09:09:00.018-07:00

If you thought I posted a lot in the last post, this one will definately set the bar. There's about seventy five pieces of production art here all from Hunchback. If you enjoy this kind of stuff than you really need to pick up the Art Of books from Chronicle, Disney Editions, and Hyperion Press. A lot of them are out of print, but they're worth the price you pay for them. I have just about every one ever made on every movie (toot, toot), and they aren't going anywhere. They're my little treasure on the bookshelf. Check sites like eBay, Abe Books, Alibris, and the Amazon Marketplace to find them.

Oh, and if you think I scanned all this stuff then you're crazy. I know I scanned Composing Pictures, but these Art Of books are way too big and awkward to scan. Credit for getting these images to me goes to James Robertson of Iron Scythe fame. That goes for all I've posted in the last week, as well what I will eventually post in the coming weeks. James was nice enough to bestow his "vault" on me a couple of years ago, and since neither of us has posted it all, I figured it was about time it was shared.

Enjoy!

Hercules

2009-04-08T08:23:00.006-07:00

Amazing Nude Photography

2009-04-07T08:51:00.008-07:00

When I was a teenager I went through a brief phase where I was crazy about Photography. I still love to see a good picture, and I'm very particular about my tastes. My recent education in Color and Design, and Painting at AAU has altered my tastes a little. But I've always loved Nudes (usually Black and White), and Wild Life pictures.

There's a sort of beauty of form in Nudes, along with a tension while viewing them. It's like you appreciate the general aesthetics of the image (composition, shape, etc) but it also appeals to you in a more human way, and you're borderline aroused. It's a great experience.

With Wild Life Photography on the other hand, it's an intimacy with nature, those breathtaking closeups of tigers and other really wild animals are what does it for me the most. There the tension is danger, and the excitement that comes along with it. I'll do a post of incredible wild life pictures later. For now take a look at these amazing nudes. These were all found on Photo.net.

Beauty and the Beast

2009-04-06T07:44:00.007-07:00

Scroll down for the good stuff...

Runaway Brain

2009-04-05T14:59:00.002-07:00

If you haven't seen this, you really should. Quite a different take on Mickey Mouse. Tomorrow I'll post a bunch of production art from Beauty and the Beast.

Basil of Baker Street

2009-04-05T08:34:00.009-07:00

Before Katzenberg got ahold of this project, it was set to be released under the title of, "Basil of Baker Street." Katzenberg's reasoning for changing the title was for appeal to a larger audience, and so he changed it to, "The Great Mouse Detective." Although I have to agree that the new title appeals to more people, I like the old title way better, as it immediately gives the film a feeling of intimacy.

There's some fantastic stuff by Keane here, enjoy:

Update: Make sure you check out Matt Jonez screen caps of the film here.

Bambi

2009-04-04T09:40:00.001-07:00

Composing Pictures 12

2009-04-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

Aladdin

2009-04-03T20:05:00.006-07:00

I don't have a lot of time to post these days while I'm working hard to raise money for school, so I'll be posting a lot of stuff like this...

Here's some fantastic stuff from Aladdin. Tomorrow I'll post some great pre-production work from Bambi.

Mulan Preproduction Work 2

2009-04-01T09:41:00.005-07:00

Mulan Preproduction Work

2009-03-30T10:03:00.005-07:00

Composing Pictures 11

2009-03-28T08:55:00.001-07:00

Starting today I'm going to make these Composing Pictures posts happen once a week. From now on every Saturday I'll post a new chapter. The whole book is already scanned, and the next few weeks are set to autopost. There's about another 25 chapters to go, so that will give you all something to look forward to on your weekends! :P

Composing Pictures 10

2009-03-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

Stanislavski: An Actor Prepares

2009-03-26T06:55:00.000-07:00

Stanislavski is not something you should study if you are into cartoony animation only. If you are happy doing funny drawings, and zany cartoons without a lot of depth, you can learn enough about personality from other sources.

If you have ambitions of trying match swords with the greatest personality animation created, I think it's a must read. Here's my excerpts from the first of five Stanislavski books I have.

An Actor Prepares:

To arouse a desire to create is difficult; to kill that desire is extremely easy. If I interfere with my own work, it is my own affair, but what right have I to hold up the work of a whole group?

When the subconscious, when intuition, enters into our work we must know how not to interfere.

You may play well or you may play badly the important thing is that you should play truly...

...plan your role consciously at first, then play it truthfully...it cause your subconscious to work and induces outbursts of inspiration.

An actor is under the obligation to live his part inwardly, and then to give to his experience and external embodiment.

You must be very careful in the use of a mirror. It teaches an actor to watch the outside rather than the inside of his soul, both in himself and in his part.

...never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experiences and which is not even interesting to you.

A role which is built of truth will grow, whereas one built on stereotype will shrivel.

Whatever happens on the stage must be for a purpose. Even keeping your seat must be for a purpose, a specific purpose, not merely the general purpose of being in the sight of the audience. One must earn one's right to be sitting there.

...showing yourself off takes you out of the realm of living art.

Frequently physical immobility is the direct result of inner intensity, and it's is these inner activities that are far more important artistically.

On the stage there cannot be, under any circumstances, action which is directed immediately at the arousing of a feeling for its own sake.

...all action in the theatre must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real...if acts as a lever to lift us out of the world of actuality into the realm of imagination.

Once you have established this contact between your life and your part, you will find that inner push or stimulus. Add a whole series of contingencies based on your own experience in life, and you will see how easy it will be for you sincerely to believe in the possibility of what you are called upon to do on stage.

If you speak any lines, or do anything, mechanically, without fully realizing who you are, where you came from, why, what you want, where you are going, and what you will do when you get there, you will be acting without imagination. That time, whether it be short of long, will be unreal, and you will be nothing more than a wound-up machine, an automation.

...an actor must have a point of attention, and this point of attention must not be in the auditorium.

Talent without work is nothing more than raw unfinished material.

Nothing in life is more beautiful than nature, and it should be the object of constant observation.

Search out both beauty and its opposite, and define them, learn to know and to see them. Otherwise your conception of beauty will be incomplete, saccharine, prettified, sentimental.

I am not a census taker, who is responsible or collecting exact facts. I am an artist who must have material that will stir my emotions.

An actor must learn to recognize quality, to avoid the useless, and to choose essentially right objectives. (p. 118 list)

Everything that happens on the stage must be convincing to the actor himself, to his associates and the spectators. Each and every moment must be saturated with a belief in the truthfulness of the emotion felt, and in the action carried out, by the actor.

...an audience wished, above all, to believe everything that happens on the stage.

Now do you see to what extent of realistic detail you must go in order to convince our physical natures of the truth of what you are doing on the stage?

Wherever you have truth and belief, you have feeling and experience.

...in real life also many of the great moments of emotion are signalized by some ordinary, small, natural movement.

Arrive gradually, logically, by carrying out correctly your sequence of external physical actions, and by believing in them.

...when you are called upon to experience a tragedy do not think about your emotions at all. Think about what you have to do.

A host of lowly truths is dearer than fictions which lift us higher that ourselves.
-Pushkin

The people who talk most about exalted things are the very ones, for the most part, who have no attributes to raise them to high levels. They talk about art and creation with false emotions, in an indistinct and involved way. True artists, on the contrary, speak in simple and comprehensible terms. Think about this and also about the fact that, in certain roles, you could become a fine actor and a useful contributor to art.

Through conscious means we reach the subconscious.

Never lose yourself on the stage. Always act in your own person, as an artist. You can never get away from yourself. The moment you lose yourself on the stage mark the departure from truly living your part and the beginning of exaggerated false acting. Therefore, no matter how much you act, how many parts you take, you should never allow yourself any exception to the rule of using your own feelings. To break that rule is the equivalent of killing the person you are portraying, because you deprive him of a palpitating, living, human soul, which is the real source of life for a part.

An actor should use his art and his technique to discover, by natural means, those elements which it is necessary for him to develop for his part. In this way the soul of the person he portrays will be a combination of the living elements of his own being.

Never begin with results. They will appear in time as the logical outcome of what has gone before.

You should remember that you must constantly be adding to your store. For this purpose you draw, of course, principally upon you own impressions, feelings, and experiences. You also acquire material from life around you, real and imaginary, from reminiscences, books, art, science, knowledge of all kinds, from journeys, museums and above all from communication with other human beings. Do you realize, now that you know what is required of an actor, why a real artist must lead a full, interesting, beautiful, varied, exacting and inspiring life?

Feel your part and instantly all your inner chords will harmonize, your whole bodily apparatus of expression will begin to function.

To grasp the spiritual delicacy of a complex soul it is not enough to use one's mind or any one "element" by itself, It requires an artist's whole power and talent, as well as the harmonious co-operation of his inner forces, with those of the author.

The main theme must be firmly fixed in an actor's mind throughout the performance.

...the main line of action and the main theme are organically part of the play and they cannot be disregarded without detriment to the play itself.

Above all preserve your super-objective and through line of action. Be wary of all extraneous tendencies and purposed foreign to the main theme.

Every action meets with a reaction which in turn intensifies the first.

...the three most important features in our creative process:

(1) Inner grasp
(2) The through line of action
(3) The super-objective

(Page 282, bottom half)

...put your thought on what arouses you inner motive forces, what makes for your inner creative mood. Think of your super-objective and the through line of action that leads to it. In short, have in your mind everything that can be consciously controlled and that will lead you to the subconscious. That is the best possible preparation for inspiration.

My main objection, however, is to putting an actor in an impossible position. He must not be forcibly fed on other people's ideas, conceptions, emotion memories or feelings. Each person has to live through his own experiences. It is important that they be individual to him and analogous to those of the person he is to portray. An actor cannot be fattened like a capon. His own appetite must be tempted. When that is aroused he will demand the material he needs for simple actions; he will then absorb what is given him and make it his own. The director's job is to get the actor to ask and look for the details that will put life into his part.

An artist must have full use of his own spiritual, human material because that is the only stuff from which he can fashion a living soul for his part. Even if his contribution is slight, it is the better because it is his own.

Every real artist should make it his object, which he is on the stage, to centre his entire creative concentration on just the super-objective and through line of action, in their broadest and deepest meaning. If they are right all the rest will be brought about subconsciously, miraculously, by nature. This will happen on condition recreates his work, each time he repeats his part, with sincerity, truth and directness. It is only on that condition that he will be able to free his art from mechanical and stereotyped acting, from "tricks" and all forms of artificiality. If he accomplishes this he will have real people and real life all around him on the stage, and living art which has been purified from all debasing elements.

Buy Prints and Donate!

2009-03-25T07:40:00.006-07:00

I have a selection of prints up for grabs to anyone that is interested. All of these images are on display (and for sale) in local coffee shops. A donation of $75 will get you a 20x30 print of any one of the images below mailed to your home (In North America). Larger quantities and/or smaller prints can also be arranged. Leave any questions in the comments for details.

Progress So Far

2009-03-20T11:10:00.003-07:00

So far I've recieved $350 in donations from you guys. You're all so generous. I've put this information in the bar on the right, and I'll update it as I go in case anyone is interested in checking my progress.

Keep in mind I haven't included any scholarships, grants, bursaries, or local donations yet (Not to mention family support). I have just applied to an enormous grant of $10,000 which I'm really excited about. It's the only one I've been able to find of that size, so while I'm trying not to get my hopes up, could you imagine if I got it? That could make all the difference. The waiting period is 1 to 6 months. Let's hope it's 1 and not 6.

Composing Pictures Chapter 9

2009-03-19T09:44:00.007-07:00

It's pretty incredible the response that my public appeal has generated over at Cartoon Brew. Over a hundred people have voiced their opinions on the matter. Now the post serves as not only a resource on the topic of saving for school, but also on the nature of the industry, work ethic, differences between schools, and methods of going it alone without schools. There's a wealth of information in people's personal stories as they recount their journeys towards industry jobs. There's also a lot of ridiculous comments from what sounds like bitter and angry people.

I have received a lot of e-mails that basically break down into two camps. Those that think I should go to CalArts, and those that think I should go to Sheridan. Sheridan is not an option for me, and I won't go into why. I taught myself a heck of a lot over the last year, and my hard work has paid off in the form of an acceptance letter. So I know beyond a doubt that I am capable of working my way up the long, hard, and cheap way. I have the confidence in myself, and the resources on the internet are plentiful. But I won't entertain that idea until I have exhausted every effort to take hold of this opportunity. I have been to CalArts, and I know I can become a better artist, faster, and meet a ton of people in just one year there.

My plan, since I started thinking about CalArts, is to try my best to get there and make the absolute most of it if I do. I'll take it year by year. If I can't make this happen, if I can't raise the funds in time, I will have to defer for a year. During that year I will undoubtedly teach myself a lot. And who knows, maybe I'll be able to go the following year.

Click the link below, and take a look at the buzz this has generated. I guarantee you'll learn something:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/student/send-a-canadian-to-calarts.html#comments

Here's the next chapter of Composing Pictures: