No Words

"Every animator is feeling sullen today. Take a moment and reflect, then use it tomorrow to make something amazing, frame by frame." - Nate Walpole

Although we're super backed up with posts, here (don't worry, they're coming!) we can't help but to take a minute to honor the great Ray Harryhausen. There are no words to express the gratitude I'm sure we all feel towards the unbelievable gift he gave to the animation community that was his life and his career.

Thank you for paving the way for the rest of us, and congratulations on having lived such a long and extraordinary life.

(PS: Jason and the Argonauts changed mine forever.)

Tea Time Animation Online Informational

EDIT -- UNFORTUNATELY THE SYSTEM WENT DOWN AND WE HAD TO CANCEL THIS EVENT. BUT IT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY, APRIL 23 FROM 5 PM - 6 PM (PDT)

No plans for tomorrow night? Then please feel free to join us for Tea Time's first Online Informational Event!   Click the following link tomorrow, Tuesday April 2nd anytime between 5pm-6pm to meet the team, ask some questions, and learn how to be involved in our growing community!

Tuesday, April 2, 5 - 6 pm Pacific Time (sign in as a "guest")

See you there!

Tea Time and the Walt Disney Family Museum!

At long last, here is the official invite! Busses will be departing 620 Sutter Street @ 5:30pm sharp. 

Scan the QR code or follow this case-sensitive link to RSVP:

http://goo.gl/dNU0A

Unfortunately the seats for the 3D department are already COMPLETELY SOLD OUT.

The seats for the Visual Development/Illustration departments are now SOLD OUT.
The seats for the 2D department are now SOLD OUT.

We are starting a waiting list, please e-mail teatimeanimationclub@gmail.com to be added. As for Stop Motion, sign up fast!

PIXAR classes - Fall '13

Just in case you hadn't noticed the plethora of advertising already present around campus...

Our Thoughts with Boston

Villain's Masquerade

Hey everyone! The AAU comic club is having a sweet Super Hero themed costume carnival next weekend called the 'Villian's Masquerade'. Get all the info and RSVP here!

Borderlands Animation Collaborative!

The Borderlands Animation project class is now listed for the summer semester under the following name: 

1360_ANM_498_01: COLLABORATIVE PROJECT: ANIMATION IN PRODUCTION

David Latour be teaching the class with Chris Armstrong. You don't have to take the class to pick up shots for borderlands animation, but only folks enrolled in the class will be guaranteed to get work. This class does not have a portfolio requirement but it will require that the instructors see your ten second reel in our first module to help determine how to divide up the initial shots.

This will be a great opportunity to work on a popular franchise in a collaborative learning environment. Space is limited, so sign up right away!

An Adventure to The Croods

This Friday, after some critique and a brief lecture on the composition of a demo reel, Tea Time made it's way over to the Metreon for a showing of The Croods!

Long time Tea Timer Jonathan Marshall made this beautiful video to commemorate the occasion. Enjoy!

Tea Time Movie Night from Jonathan Marshall on Vimeo.

Thank you, Free Gold Watch!

A big thank you to Free Gold Watch for our beautiful, soft, brand new T-shirts! Here are a few glamour shots of Tea Time this past Friday modeling the merchandise.

If you haven't picked your shirt up yet, be sure to come to this week's meeting! If you didn't get a shirt, let us know! We will be doing a second run shortly.

The Gang

 Respectacles!

The Gang...lookin' tough!

A Word on Reference

Although some might argue that there are the exceptionally gifted out there who don't need to look at reference before they begin an animation -- the only reason they got that way is from studying it so hard in the first place!

So, with that in mind where do you go for reference?
Here are a few of the most popular reference sources on the internet:

-- YouTube
-- Vimeo
-- BBC Motion Gallery
-- Rhino Horse

And of couse, you can always film it yourself! Even HD video recorders are super affordable now, and with cellphones, Macbooks/webcams, a camera is never far away! That being said, there is a time and place to take such a hands-on approach. It's great to shoot your own reference if you're looking for something specific -- i.e. a bit of acting along with a specific piece of dialogue. Here are a few situations where it wouldn't be quite so ideal.

-- Animal behavior reference
-- Accidents (crashes, tripping/falling, etc...)
-- If you're bad at acting!

No matter how much reference you shoot, you will never be an animal (sorry, Andy Serkis), you will almost never realistically force yourself to fall and/or get hit by a car, and, if you have a hard time getting into character, you will never make your acting worthwhile and all your reference becomes moot.

What are you looking for?

In reference, one of the things we so often lose sight of, is the fact that it is, well, for reference! Too many young animators start relying too heavily on their reference files, and their acting becomes rigid and lackluster -- like it's being rotoscoped instead of polished and refined by a trained eye.

So, what are you looking for in animation reference?

-- Strong poses
-- General timing
-- Observed behavior/secondary actions (i.e. hair swaying, blinks)
-- Basic mechanics (i.e. weight shift)

In watching your reference, it's great to take notes, or do draw overs based upon poses or ideas you find really strong within it, and then move along to your animation. Then, as opposed to having your reference open to stare and and/or copy, only look back at it when you need to remember something. i.e. "Where did that foot plant again?" Or "Does the back paw touch down before or after the front paw picks up?"

What am I supposed to do if the character I'm animating doesn't exist in the real world?

Well,  fictional or not, all characters (the good ones, at least) are still rooted in reality. Thus, you would assess your character based upon things you know. i.e. "Well, it sort of looks like it has a fish for a head, but then a crab or a scorpion for the body!" Easy! Go find fish to reference for the motion of the face, and crab and scorpion reference to help you understand the mechanics of the body!

A word of caution:

Although reference can be really helpful in nailing some basic timing, and, when we get stuck on something, to count frames, but you may want to double check and make sure that your reference footage plays back in the correct frame rate. While most animation is in 24 fps, most video from hand-held devices plays back in 30 fps, so your frame counts will NOT be accurate.

We would suggest using Adobe Media Encoder (or After Effects, or whatever you know best, really) to re-interpret the footage at the correct frame rate. You can find a tutorial in their help guide!

Many thanks to Cody and Frank for the delightful lecture.

Jim Sidel - Reader's Digest Style

Recently, Tea Time had the pleasure of hosting AAU's own Jim Sidel for a discussion on the importance of Brevity and Subtext. Here's a little bit on what he had to say:

A Rube Goldberg machine

Brevity -- An Economy of Language

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth extremely transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the same time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some earthly reminiscence; -- even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of gulfweed in their newborn sight.

--Herman Melville, Moby Dick, (the Grand Armada)

Now, generally, one might not expect a discussion on brevity to begin with an excerpt from Moby Dick. That entire paragraph is only three sentences -- doesn't appear to be very economical, does it?

Wrong!

Brevity is not about being short, per se, so much as it is about reducing a sentence or idea down to what is absolutely necessary without losing any meaning. If you re-examine the excerpt, you will notice that, although it is long, each word carries it's own, particular meaning and thus is necessary in communicating the idea Melville so wishes to communicate.

Another Rube Goldberg machine with explanation.

Occam's Razor:

       Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

or: "Thou shalt not multiply extra entities unnecessarily"

Developed by Logician, Philosopher and physicist William of Ockham (c. 1285 - 1349), Occam's Razor is a tool that refers to the act of shaving away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation. Or: "The simplest explanation is the most likely"

To test Occam's Theory, suppose you come home and discover that your dog has escaped fro the kennel and has chewed large chunks out of the couch.

Theory Number 1: You forgot to latch the kennel door, and the dog pressed against it and opened it, and then the dog was free to run around the inside of the house.

Theory Number 2: Some unknown person skilled at picking locks managed to disable your front door, then came inside the house, set the dog free from the kennel, then snuck out again covering up any sign of his presence and then relocked the front-door, leaving the dog free inside to run amok in the house.

Which is True?

Well, the explanation of Theory #1 only requires only two entities (you and the dog) and two actions (you forgetting to lock the kennel door, and the dog pressing against the door)

The explanation of Theory #2, on the other hand, requires three entities (you, the dog and the lock-picking intruder) and several actions (picking the lock, entering, releasing the dog, hiding evidence, re-locking the front door). It also requires us to come up with some sort of plausible motivation for the intruder, a motivation that is, to us, entirely unclear.

Subtext

An underlying an often distinct theme in a piece of writing or conversation. Otherwise -- the intent of a character that is not actually being spoken. See what sort of subtext you can find in the following clip:

All characters are based in their desires. In fact -- a character is nothing without them. For example, a talking rat is not a character, it is simply a noun, but a talking rat that wants to be a chef is a character. 

A character shouldn't speak unless it's achieving more than one objective. Otherwise you get stuck with dry back and forth or, characters like the appropriately named "Basil Exposition" who's sole purpose is to move the story along.

Dialogue should:

- Characterize

- Move the story forward

- Show relationships

Good dialogue also: 

- Contains a subtext

- Is alive with action 

- Reflects setting



These two literary ideas are particularly important for those students out there writing a thesis short film.   Are you wasting your breath on a scene that isn't even contributing to your main story? Try using Occam's Razor on your work. How does it hold up?

Do your characters have desire as the fire behind their ambition? Do the want something, and if so, to what lengths would they go in order to claim their prize? As Kurt Vonnegut famously said:

"Every character should want something, 
                       even if it's just a glass of water."


For the undergrads, finding subtext -- even just in our exercises -- will help us to create interesting pieces for our reel, while considering brevity in our actions will help us to create believable performances. 

Sources:

"Strunk and White's: The Elements of Style" 

Frank Conroy, from his book, "The Dog Barks but The Caravan Rolls on."