Abney & Teal Animation Reel

Since March 2011 I have been working on a great television series called The Adventures of Abney & Teal. I started as a Junior Animator and have been learning so much. Quite recently an opportunity arose and I was offered the promotion role of Animator. So from January 2012 I will be working on the show as an Animator. Here is a video with all the shots I worked on in 2011. The password is ragdoll.

Slow Motion Break Dance Reference

Some really great shots here which could be useful for reference.



Found on Feedbaktor Animus

Simon Draws

Kyle Balda Walk Cycle Tutorial

Finally, some great tutorials on YouTube!



Found on Spungella

Jason Schleifer on Character Arcs

Jason Schleifer gives a great talk at TEDxYouth on creating your own arc.

DJ Nicke Animation Workflows

Another great person in the Animation community is DJ Nicke. He interviewed Jean-Denis Haas below and also runs the Animation Salvation website (which, if i'm honest, I have yet to figure out how to use).

But I just discovered a few of his tutorials and they are brilliant! The first one about facial animation has come my way at a perfect time when I am going to be concentrating on a facial animation piece very soon! I love how quick and easy he makes it seem - not so daunting anymore! I hope I can find more of his tutorials in the future because they are so helpful and will improve mine and everyone else's animation.



Notes from Video 1 - 4 steps of facial animation

Step 1 - FOUNDATION
Know the audio file inside out. If you don't have it in your head, how are you going to put it on the computer?

Step 2 - STRUCTURE
Build the Open, Close, Wide and Narrow.
For Open and Close: Place your elbow on the table and place your chin on your fist, then recite the dialogue at at regular pace and feel where the different structure's fall on the dialogue. Put down the structure keys on the timeline.
For Wide and Narrow: Place you finger and thumb on the corners of you mouth. Put these structure keys on the timeline.
Finally, shift the keyframes between 2-5 frames forward because we produce the mouth shape before we make the sound.

Step 3 - DETAILS
Add the rough emotion to the eyes: eyebrows and eye-gaze (direction). Then pull back and add the mouth emotion.

Step 4 - POLISH
Spend more time here. Adding the features unique to the character. Add head tilts, micro-expressions and weight (cheeks, jaw, lips). Concentrate on the 12 principles. Watch your arcs!



Notes from Video 2 - 7 steps within the 4 steps

Step 1 - FOUNDATION
1) Orientation & Pre-planning
Know your scene! How does it fit in with the bigger picture/story/character arc? Know the audio inside out. Speak to other animators, lead and supervisor to know where it fits in.

2) Imagineering
You know the scene, the story and the audio... now play the scene in your head and imagine it was being animated by the best animator on the planet. Quickly thumbnail ideas.

3) Inspiration
Watch reference material, be inspired and get excited to keep you going.

4) Planning
Re-imagine it again with all the details and thumbnail the the key poses while remembering to use the 12 principles.

Step 2 - STRUCTURE
5) Blocking
Have no distractions and completely focus! Blocking (stepped keyframes) should incorporate these details: squash & stretch, appeal, timing and clarity. It should be developed to the point of telling the story. Once that's done take a break!

Step 3 - DETAILS
6) 2nd Pass
No distractions and focus! Add more keys with these details; anticipation, arcs, secondary action, slow in & slow out, spline your keyframes, reverse your arcs, refine timing and a little bit of overlap and follow-through. Take another good break and get it looked at!

Step 4 - POLISH
7) Polish
Get into THE ZONE! Add more secondary action, overlap and moving keyframes around.

Bill Plympton Masterclass

On the 28th October this year, I attended a Bill Plympton Masterclass at Wolverhampton's FLIP Animation Festival. There were many great events taking place this year and I wish I could've attended them all, but I only managed to go to this one, but was well worth it!

The evening began with a two hour Q&A about him and his work.

Bill is drawing the character for his next feature film called Cheatin. It is still a WIP but it looks really cool. There's lots of typical Plympton style crazy perspective drawings and cross shading. I can't wait to see it.

In this photo Bill is drawing a caricature of my super talented friend and colleague Mike Blackman.

Here is the caricature Bill did for me. I really like it, but when I show it to people they don't think it looks like me!

I decided to buy Idiots & Angels because I knew it was a great film and I didn't want to go away empty handed. I even got it signed which is pretty cool.

Mike, Bill and I pose for a photo! Bill's expression is somewhere between normal and smile for the photograph

Towards the end of the evening, Bill gave a longer talk about his work and we got to watch a lot of them on the projector. My favourite was The Cow Who Wanted To Be A Hamburger and another short (very short at about 30 seconds) about a woman who waits on a cliff overlooking the sea for her lover to sail back to her, which leads to a sort of blinding agony.

When he spoke about Guard Dog Global Jam, he asked if Mike could go up on stage to talk about his own experience with this unique animation experience.

It was a good night and really good to finally meet Bill Plympton.

Jean-Denis Haas

Jean-Denis is one of my favourite animators. His work is so good and inspiring and he has a great online presence where he shares so much of his knowledge. I have learnt a lot from him and still keep learning new things. The animation industry is lucky to have someone like him. I couldn't find his showreel of movie animation work online, but check out some of his other, spare time work.





Here is a brilliant interview by DJ Nicke of Animation Salvation...

Behind The Scenes: The Pirates!

Immensely looking forward to this new Aardman picture!

Her Morning Elegance

Her Morning Elegance was a music video created for singer-songwriter Oren Lavie by Oren Lavie and Israeli animators Yuval & Merav Nathan, featuring Shir Shomron and photography by Eyal Landesman.

Reel Great Advice

Written by cosmicfool on the 11 second club blog...

I just finished reading a book titled Writing Movies For Fun and Profit.
Its basically a realistic satire into what the film industry is looking for and how to make it as a writer. With that being said a lot of the wisdom's they offer to writers apply to animators.
So in point form here is some blunt food for thought for the young animators or job seekers out there.

1. Studios are only interested in making piles of money, period.

2. If you know what it is you want to do, and know where you want to work, research it. Live close to it. Tailor everything you do to it.

3. Discipline. This is what separates amateurs from professionals. ALWAYS BE ANIMATING. If you want to work in the industry and are presently not, you should feel compelled to animate everyday.
Why do you need to animate everyday?
1) Most of what you do won't be on your reel.
2) You will improve with everything you do.
3) Animating something becomes easier after you have done it once, imagine after 100 times. Seriously, animate a ball once. Time yourself. Save that scene. Do it 50 more times. Time yourself. Only compare the first and the last. I promise you, not only will the last one look better. It will have took you 1/10 the time.
4) You will have things to show a studio if they ask to see any of your work that is not on your reel, and it won't look like crap. 5)You won't still be in love with the shot that no one but you and your mom like, and you will be more inclined to throw it in the garbage and start something better, or you will be more inclined to take feedback and fix it.

4. Observe things everywhere. Life is one giant pose and character library. A good animator observes how ppl around them move, how they behave, how they hold themselves etc... If your not at home animating, you better be observing things that will help your animation.

5. This is the most important thing in this list. Everything you ever animate, ever, needs to be entertaining. If it's not, stop what you are doing, right away. Unless you are learning a principle, or its a school lesson, STOP NOW. Or unless you are entering some odd film competition, that 95 ppl out of 100 would want to punch you and the films watched in the face. STOP. If you don't know what's entertaining, or how to make a shot entertaining, STOP, ask everyone you know to look at your work and what you can do to inject entertainment into it. If you still don't know, STOP, watch every movie you can. If you still don't, STOP, rethink your career. All humans watch t.v, cartoons, movies and play video games with one purpose and only one purpose, TO BE ENTERTAINED.

6. Don't reinvent the wheel. No one wants you to. There are 12 principles of animation. Learn them, use them. If you are getting feedback and are always hearing ppl tell you that you're missing some of the principles. In all honesty, if you haven't mastered those principles stop doing advanced animation, you aren't ready.

7. Don't waste anyone's time(this goes for yourself as well). If you are seeking feedback to build a reel, and aren't applying what people are telling you, they will stop giving you feedback. This sounds harsh, but I've seen it happen many many times. If your reel is still under construction, you should be devoting the majority of your waking time to it, any other time is wasted time. If you know what you are putting on your reel, you should seek feedback on every shot, until you know how to structure your reel to be as entertaining as possible. Fingers crossed ppl are still willing to help you at this stage. If you are having someone watch your reel, they don't want to see 5 minutes of average work. We all know after 5 seconds if we want to watch your reel. If we aren't impressed at 10 we stop, if we are bored by 20 you've lost us. Think of it this way, two writers who have made 1.5 billion dollars for a studio only get 10 minutes to pitch a new script. How much time should an animator get to sell their reel?

The Secret of NIMH

I hadn't heard of this movie until today and I think it looks pretty good, so i'll try to check it out in the next week or so. Made in 1982 and directed by Don Bluth.

Voice cast:
Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby
Dom DeLuise as Jeremy
Derek Jacobi as Nicodemus
Arthur Malet as Mr. Ages
Hermione Baddeley as Auntie Shrew
John Carradine as the Great Owl
Peter Strauss as Justin
Paul Shenar as Jenner
Aldo Ray as Sullivan
Shannen Doherty as Teresa Brisby
Wil Wheaton as Martin Brisby
Jodi Hicks as Cynthia Brisby
Ian Fried as Timothy Brisby
Tom Hatten as Farmer Paul Fitzgibbons
Lucille Bliss as Mrs. Beth Fitzgibbons
Edie McClurg as Miss Right
Joshua Lawerence as Billy Fitzgibbons



A 15 minute featurete from the DVD is also available on YouTube. The final monologue from Bluth is really great. Be sure to check it out.

Also, watch this piece of comedy by Dom DeLuise talking about what comedy is... HERE