Animation Master class

So today my theory lecture was canceled and instead we had a master class in animation. Which i was more then happy about.

The master class was done by Benn Garnish, someone who had previously come to Hertfordshire uni quite a few years ago and has been working at framestore for a while now. Hes worked on various things such as harry potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and marmaduke, much like our VFX lecturer who i believe worked closely with him when they were at framestore.

The master class was great he told us about the mistake he made at uni and that he actually decided to change career paths from lighting TD to creature animator AFTER he finished at Hertfordshire Uni. He got his first few jobs being a very junior animator on the TV show prime evil. And went through shot by shot what he did and what he could have done better. Its great to see that hes always seeing how he can improve even when he is already in the industry for a long time.

He went through plenty of shots from different films just explaining how working in a studio goes. with dailies and how you communicate with other animators who are collaborating in one scene. Also how many animators were in the scene and what they worked on, and how much time he took to do a specific shot. Some of it was quite eye opening as he worked very heavily on one shot but you couldn't see much of the animation in the end anyway.

Im really happy to see we are getting more of these master classes this year and industry professionals in and looking forward to seeing who we have next as last year we had Framestore guys Crytek and Sony.

Curtis' animation work update

So I'm a little annoyed as my usb wireless dongle decided to play up, making me miss the animation mentor. So it looks like I'l just have to watch the re-run when it comes out in a couple weeks. you guys can find it here at http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/fight-webinar/

But moving forwards, Character animation classes started properly again this week, this time going over sneaks, and the characterisation of walks. Which feels like a comfortable step forwards from all the basic walk run and jump cycles we do for basic animation practise. Of course these still being some sort of walk cycle its all covered really well by Richard Williams, as shown here:

Again i haven't found any book more use full then his. its great stuff for 3d animators not just 2d, tons of the principals he shows still apply and the poses like you see here are really strong and excellent to study. Why try and figure out the timing yourself when you can see the standard mould then tweak and adjust to add some character and test things out from there.

I then got introduced the the animation test that is given to new animators at Framstore and i think The Mill too. This is the pillars exercise. its where you have to animate one character (usually without arms) from one block on one side to hop along pillars or stepping stones to get to the other side, usually about 3 no less then that.

Its an interesting exercise with lots of focus on how the character is using its weight. I'm really looking to nail this one as its a little bit more difficult and i know we are going to have a 3 hour test on it later.

Animation fighting tutorial

Just signed up for another great webinar from Animation Mentor. I try to never really miss their webinars, you can always watch the replays but if you get signed into the live feed then you can always ask these masters questions at the Q&A period.

So the next webinar is on Tuesday, with 2 separate times, one starting 10am, other 7pm, both pst times. This one is specifically covering fight animation. Taught by a really experienced animation mentor who's also studied allot of martial arts. I'm really fond of animation mentor's webinars and i think anyone studying should really make an effort to attend these. Hopefully this summer i will start the creature animation program, but that's still on the cards for now, will have to see where work experience takes me.


Take a look:

Great acting animation reference

So as my first post on this blog I thought it would be nice to share a fantastic little bit of video that iv been studying recently.



Its an advert for a new app where you post your deepest secrets to the world, now personally that had no draw for me, but the video itself shows close up-mid shots of random people from the public answering what there big secret is.

First off the people in this video are hit by an awkward question and most if not all of them feel a little defensive by the fact this question is trying to cover up something to personal and close. I mean its a secret for a reason, as actually one of them states.

Then they really start to unravel what ever it is they wish to impart to the world, while doing so i find it really intriguing to watch their eye movements. For the most part people in this video are obviously very uncomfortable, some are less so, and it can all be followed in the eyes. Watch every detail, even when they blink, they do this often when they get a little nervous and start thinking a lot or very slightly changing there mood/thought.


My favourite would defiantly be the insecurities the girl with brown hair and glasses showed. and also the man who admitting to running over a girls dog and lying about it, really caught me by surprise.

My tip for animators is to watch it at least once with the sound completely off, there for its only the movement conveying emotion nothing else. Defiantly worth a study ;)