Animation (a) Compulsion

Play the clip and ramble through the animation bramble with a song in your head.

The words were writ while listening to the music. So in attempt at communication amplification, if the mood set for writing is matched to the mood set for reading, hopefully the communication achieves a greater clarity.

While many animators are spending time worrying, some are animating. They need to.

Each morning they wake dreams driven by what they wish to animate.

In the moments before the (grand) opening of an animator's eyelids the scraping and plonking of life's hurdles penetrate the deep creativity of dream sleep to needle the animator into the day.

Fuelled with creativity and hastily scribbled thumbnail sketches the animator is ready to leap, side-step or barge through the everyday to get nestled in the timeless alpha zone and start (or continue) animating.

Animation is a compulsion in a rare few creative people rather than a career choice.

They take it into their grasp and hold it like a malleable hot chocolate hug mug. Either the animation forms around the animator, or the animator forms around the animation. In some cases they blend so that the creator is indistinguishable from the creativity. Animation is no longer the illusion of life; it becomes life.

A life spent in a timeless state is to touch upon eternity.

I have spoken to a few recent graduates of the animation course recently. They have tried other things. They have found work and scrape together crumbs. Now, with real-life jobs and tasks pressing sticky fingers, and looping coils like a crushing python upon them, find themselves back to exploring the magic of creating animation.

THE JOY OF ANIMATION

Recently myself and some of my fellow QUT Education students made a short doco titled THE JOY OF ANIMATION. It profiles four Brisbane-based animators discussing why they love animating. It's not a "how-to-animate" film, but rather it's a celebration of the creative process. Or something.

And it stars ARC contributors Ian and Frank, as well as Steve Baker (Tropfest winner) and Jason Lynch (stop-mo genius).

Here it is!

COME AND RIDE MY CACTUS HORSE

Thanks to Alice from 1st Year who pointed me to this wonderful entry into the recent Doritos "Australian Commercial Competition". Entrants had to design a 30-second TVC, with the winner receiving $20,000. I'm a little stunned that this didn't win.

Titled Come and Ride My Cactus Horse, it's by Maik Hempel, Brisbane animator and former QCA student, who also collaborates with former SBIT boy Adam Leigh on the "so-bizarre-it-makes-Gefiltefish-look-normal" Rashman series.

And while I'm chatting, check out the lovely blog of Adele Thomas, freelance animator, Flash guru and Maik's partner.

I love Adele's bold, expressive character work. Adele is a great example of a talented animator who isn't afraid to sell herself and to work really, really, really hard. Oh, and if you ever see her, tell her she looks like Lara Croft. She LOVES that!

Want to get better at animation?

Hey everyone, hope my ramblings are useful to some of you ;)


Here's something you can do to improve your skills, and you don't even have to animate ... give critiques. The easiest part of your animation abilities to build up is your eye.

You've heard the stories about animator's pulling in the janitor to look at their latest stuff? That's because every single human has been studying motion for their entire lives. So none of that "I'm not qualified to give critiques yet" excuses, our audience is everyone (not just other animators) as long as you have vision then you ARE qualified to critique. Critique's don't have to be long and elaborate, even quick little comments can unlock a puzzle.

The reason to give critiques is it will help you. The more you critique the stronger your eye gets. With a strong eye you'll be able to objectively see your own work, so when you're ready for a critique from someone else it'll be about making your shot sing instead of just fixing fundamentals to get it to acceptable. Practice at analyzing why things don't work and brainstorming ways to improve them directly will work just as well on your shot as someone else's. And the more critiques you give, the more will come back to you (like tag)

Eric has a great article on how to present your critiques in an easy to hear way. But what do you actually say? Ask yourself these questions:

1) Does it look like believable motion? (if you are new to critiquing, this may be as far as you can get, which is fine, just hearing "it doesn't feel believable" can help)

2) If it doesn't feel right, can you say why? (is it the way things move from pose to pose, is the problem isolated to only some body parts, are the arcs not clean? this is where the more critique's you give the more you improve this skill)

3) What is the animator's intention? (as an animator it's useful to know what people think you are trying to say, it can help you make decisions for better clarity)

4) What might help? (ways they could make their intent more clear, or their animation more natural. the longer you animate the more tricks you have you can share)

Warning, your eye will improve faster then your animation abilities will, which can drive you nuts. You may have upgraded your animation abilities to level 2 but now you have lazer precision level 8 eyes. But of course, with level 8 eyes you can analyze why your animation isn't working and hoist it up, and before you know it your a level 10 animator (of course your eyes will now be level 20 :P ... just keep swimming, just keep swimming)

So recap: 1) does it feel right? 2)why not? 3)what's the point? 4)things to try.

Need a Lightbox?

Jeff Daly is a living treasure of the Queensland animation scene. He's a genial fellow who's been building lightboxes in his garage for years. They are used used in studios and colleges like Liquid Animation, Krome Studios, Southbank Institute of Technology, Queensland College of Art, etc. They're very solid, very attractive and very reasonably priced.

Anybody interested in purchasing a lightbox should check out Jeff's website...

http://www.lightbox.webs.com/

If you're an SBIT student, tell him that Terry sent you!