Rooty Toot Toot Columbia/UPA

this is an amazing animation by Columbia/UPA centered around the jealous nature of an young girl.
some gags in this movie

• the visual description of open and shut case.


• Bar tender been greeted by the juries.(like this way of bringing frame to life rather then watching bar tender get up and walk to confession box)


• Lawyer looking toward camera(interacting with audience/ or making their presence felt/addressing audience/giving them value)


• Design of second female character(Innocent one).


• frame that show attraction between lawyer and second female character.


• Lawyer paddling legs after being shot...( to me it appear as try to overshadowed the criminal act perform in story/ or soften the mood after this cruelty.)


• character walk in bizarre dysfunctional way

click here for you-tube link

The cat came back.....

Awesome animation by National Film Board of Canada

You tube link

Amazing things...

• The camera tracking as the movie start focusing character on left corner of screen and knocing on door....(composition is great...character expressions and action in the scene is clearly visible)....


• facial expression of character looking at cat( Body language of character)


• Some gags
  
  
  
  • character lift the anchor while in the boat...but character falls down
    as the boat break from the middle.
  
  
  • The fish try to bite single hair on character head floating in the water.
  
  
  • taking out and putting fish back in photo frame.
  
  
  • Character on bicycle as he take U-turn..his face expands comes to close to screen ..this composition make me feels like animator tries to create and interaction and relation with the audience....
  
  
  • Close and expression of character while cutting rope of hot air balloons....the eagerness of character clearly shows how he wants to get rid of cat....
  
  
  • I found this a bizarre gag people being tied to the tracks...and whole scenario been lighten by cow tied to track to ....
  
  
  


• camera angle....
  In one frame in movie camera is 3/4 placed below the character....character appears to be giant on left end of screen and cat on far right top...this composition make me feels character is giant and powerful while cat innocent and miserable..


• my best part of whole movie...the end.....
  as character ghost enjoying that he finally get rid of cat, cat got killed as character head falls on her and then nine cats started chasing character....

webnimar 16 july'09 - 20 Yrs of Drawning

Following are my notes from live conversation between Bobby and Don Hahn on the new book disney drawn to life....

• Life drawing and Gesture drawing


• Exercise which Don does....
  

  try to draw object from 90 degree opposite angle without moving from your postion...from Imagination....



• make a caricature of myself(this is for me to do)


• Inspiration
  

  Impression - expression = depression



• prepare at highest level


• practice at the highest level


• play at the highest level


• Observe reality


• Learn how to communicate Idea? most important.....


• No lazy lines


• Lines directions deliberate


• composition


• eye contact


• shape variety


• silhouette


• perspective


• no washed lines


• negative shape strong


• straight vs curved


• soft vs hard


• no tangent lines


• describe ground contact


• describe perspective


• describe form


• lines and shape variety


• avoid parallel lines


• For character designer pay attention to
  
  
  
  • shape language
  
  
  • shape variety
  
  

  dumb/short skinny/ fat/ wise study these and observe this in characters and real life.
  Pay attention to appeal and relationship.
  break down character as simply geometric forms....

  
  

you can watch this free webnimar at Animationmentor.com

Nayao Miyazaki

Oh man! i love his work,it is just amazing i was reading a book by Helen McCarthy, title " nayao miyazaki Master of japansese Animation" and in the chapter Nausicaa of the valley of wind,i notes down the following:-

• he inspired by:-
  
  
  
  • Issac Asimo's - Nightfall
  
  
  • Brian Aldiss's -Hothouse
  
  
  • Ursula Le Guin's-Earthsea books
  
  
  • J.R.R. Tolkein's -Lord of the rigns
  
  
  
  


• Nasicaa of the valley of wind of often compared with Frank herbert's -dume for the very similar looking large insects



• McCarthy(2002,pp 76)states that Miyazaki feels that nature is the source of intresting involving storis.


• McCarthy(2002,pp 76) highlight an article in Hong kong magazine A-club, according to which Miyazaki said"only if nature exists can mankind exist, so only nature makes wars and all those other moving stories possible.Because of this, I don't feel interested in outer space movies, since there's noting much in space but darkness.So all my animation and comics involve land,Sea and Sky- they all revolve around what happens on Earth".

*reference(McCarthy Helen,2002,"nayao miyazaki master of japanese animation",stone bridge press,Berkeley)

Notes from Planing and Workflow Webnimar-18April'09

Following are my notes which i took after watching free Planning and Workflow Webnimar at Animation mentor resources pages by Wayne Gilbert and Keith Sintay.

Keith Sintay

He work on Hollywood block-buster like G.I. Joe, Open season, Star wars(on of the sequel)and Transformer.

• Key Poses
  He strongly emphasizes on finding the key poses/ story-telling poses by looking at live action footage first then look for break downs or inbetween.



• Highlights,the importance of position of SPINE and NECK which young animator almost forgot.



• Maya-animation trick
  
  
  
  • Middle-mouse drag on the range slider is the quickest and easiest way to create breakdowns and in-betweens( this is cool)
  
  
  • It is easier to re-time or adjust timing in graph editor.
  
  
  • Never to hit spline button in the graph editor as it create overshoot(biggest enemy of CG animaiton), download and use Auto-tangent tool as an substitute for spline tangent link in the end.
  
  
  



• Websites
  
  
  
  • Walt stanchfield,Master of strong drawing techniques http://animationpodcast.com/archives/2009/02/27/walt-stachfield-books/
  
  
  • Principles of Animation
    www.frankanddollie.com/
  
  
  • Graph Editor Tool
    www.comet-cartoons.com/melscripts.php
  
  
  
  
  

  *above are not exact link which keith said in webnimar i think i note it down incorrectly but they are all directed to above web-sites.

  
  

Wayne Gilbert

• Start with Silhouette.


• character changes as Poster changes.


• Focus on personality of characters
  
  
  
  • take time to understand the personality of characters.
  
  
  • play a lot with characters before animating.
  
  
  • Forget about animation, draw key poses what you want to see in animation.
  
  
  
  


• Force behind the movement should never leave mind.


• How animation get from one pose to another(key poses).


• Posing-Force, try to capture the personality of the character sketch.

*above are my notes from webnimar on Planing and Workflow by Keith Sintay and Wayne Gilbert at Animation mentor on 18 April'09.