Animation for Beginners [1, 1 ed.]

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A STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO BECOMING AN ANIMATOR

ANIMATION FOR BEGINNERS BY MORR MEROZ

For Debbie For the endless love and support in all that I do.

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COPYRIGHTS

© 2014 Morr Meroz All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. [email protected]
 www.bloopanimation.com First Edition. ii

DISCLAIMER

The author and publisher of this Ebook and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing this Ebook. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this Ebook. The information contained in this Ebook is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in this Ebook, you are taking full responsibility for your actions. iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction

• Tablets .................................................................53

• Who is This Book For? .........................................6

• Apps ....................................................................57

• A Word From the Author ......................................8

• Books ..................................................................59

• My Story .............................................................10

• Best Animation Schools ......................................63

Chapter 2 Animation 101 (Covering the basics) • What is Animation ..............................................12 • You Don’t Need to Know How to Draw to be an
 animator .............................................................14 • Different Types of Animators .............................17 • The 12 Principles of Animation ..........................22 • The 6 Steps of Computer Animation .................27 • Terms and Definitions ........................................30

Chapter 3: Tools of the Trade • Animating Under a $100 .....................................41 • Software ..............................................................44 • Backup ................................................................51

Chapter 4: Creating (Filmmaking, Portfolio and More) • Making Your First Film .........................................75 • How to Make an Animated Movie .......................80 • Demo Reel ...........................................................97 • Creating a Portfolio Website .............................102 • Getting a Job in Animation ................................106 • Free Rigs ...........................................................111 • Links and Resources .........................................114

Last Thoughts .................................................................115 iv

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION • Who is This Book For? • A Word From the Author • My Story

WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

This book is for everyone who ever wanted to get into the amazing world of animation. You may be a high school student trying to decide if animation is for you, or a college student looking for new direction. You might be a working professional who always had a strong passion for filmmaking and animation and you’re looking for a change or a hobby for your spare time. This book is for those who are curious about what’s it like being an animator. If you’re reading this you probably already think that being an animator is pretty cool, but I know the actual reality of being part of the animation industry could look a bit vague for people outside of it. In this book I will remove the curtain and tell you everything I know about becoming an animator. I’ll go over all the types of animation that you can experiment with, the necessary software and hardware for the task, recommended reading material, the best schools for learning animation in depth, some basics

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concepts of animation and even taking the first steps to making your first film. I will also show how to create a demo reel following the proper guidelines and how to build a portfolio website to present your work. If you are an experienced animator working in the industry you’ll probably already know most of the stuff covered in this book, but I’m sure that there could be something new to learn here for everyone. Feel free to skip sections that you already know a lot about.

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A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

Hey, first of all I want to thank you for purchasing this ebook. I wrote this book so that I could share everything I’ve learned (and still learning) about getting into animation. I’m not some expert or an animation guru but I do work as a character animator and make animated shorts. I love what I do, and I also love sharing what I know with others in hope of inspiring or at least teaching something new. Everything I talk about is presented with complete transparency, so that you get a backstage look to how things are done. I wrote the book I would have wanted to read years ago when I first started looking into getting into animation. I’ve tried including everything a beginner might want to know. I know many people want to make awesome things but don’t always know where to start (or how). Some people just can’t find the time to follow their passion project. I hope that sharing this book with you will push you to get started, or at least show you how. viii

Affiliate disclaimer: This ebook contains some affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission on a purchase without additional cost to you. I do believe in all products mentioned in the book and have experience with them.  If you do purchase through my affiliate links, thank you so much for your support!

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MY STORY

I’m Morr, a NYC based animator/filmmaker. After graduating from the School of Visual Arts (majoring in 3D animation), I started my career as a character animator, freelancing in various studios. Despite loving what I do, I felt like it’s not enough to work for other people, and that I HAVE to keep doing my own thing. What started as a YouTube tutorial channel has quickly evolved into the Bloop Animation blog, a platform on which I can share my work with a great audience of animators and creative artists. On the site, I documented my journey of making LIFT UP (my second animated short) and shared many video tutorials about every step of the making process. I truly hope that sharing my journey will inspire people to follow their passion. Thank you again for buying this book, hope you like it.

-Morr

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Chapter 2

ANIMATION 101 (Covering the Basics) • What is Animation • You Don’t Need to Know how to Draw to Be an Animator • Different Types of Animators • The 12 Principles of Animation • The 6 Steps of Computer Animation • Terms and Definitions

Section 1

WHAT IS ANIMATION? When asked that question, what comes to mind for most people is companies like Disney, Pixar, or shows such as The Simpsons or Spongebob. If you go to the dictionary you’ll find scientific definitions like “a way of making a movie by using a series of drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of objects (such as puppets or models) that are slightly different from one another and that when viewed quickly one after another create the appearance of movement” (Webster dictionary). I like the shorter and more accurate version (in my opinion):

Animation is of art of creating life. I believe it captures an animator’s goal best. All we do in animation is try bringing things to life. Many times it’s bringing life to

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traditionally non-living objects. A lamp, a robot, or if you’ve seen my short film LIFT UP - a cube and a ball. Another great way to think about animation is as the process of making things human (humanizing). Everytime you see an animal in an animated film (a common notion) the animators are actually humanizing the animal to act more like a person. The process of animation is (in most cases) bringing something to life and humanizing it, and therefore making it more relatable. That’s a necessity for any good character.

What Makes Great Animation Good animation, and I’m not referring to the story, happens when we feel what the character is feeling. What motivates them to do whatever it is they do. The animation can be crude or rough, but if the audience felt the emotional changes the character was going through, the animator did a good job. 13

Section 2

YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW HOW TO DRAW TO BE AN ANIMATOR Before you go reading the rest of this book, there’s one thing I really need to be clear about, in case you were concerned:

You don’t need to know how to draw to be an animator. Some might think that you need to draw amazingly to be an animator, and that used to be very true, but while drawing skills are still a must for 2D animation, you don’t need to know how to draw to be a 3D animator. I’ll explain what I mean with my own story.

I don’t know how to draw. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did go to art school for four years and have been into drawing since a very young age. However, I am not even half way good enough to do any industry level 2D animation. I just don’t have the natural gift.

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As a kid, watching the classic Disney movies made

technical obstacles of drawing, I could focus on the

me want to do animation, but as I grew up I learned

characters and what I wanted to get from them. Like I

that I would not be able to do so since no matter how

said in the previous section - animating means

hard I try I would not reach the level of craftsmanship

“creating life” and drawing is not the only way to do

very few gifted people have.

so.

And so I dropped the dream of becoming an animator and chose a different path. I actually started

Having said all of that, there are a few things to note:

my degree as an advertising major. But then something happened.

If I got you all excited about animating (which I hope I did) there are a few things to keep in mind:

I discovered 3D animation. This notion that I had that amazing drawing skills

• Drawing skills are a huge plus. A good understanding of figures and body movement is

were required to do animation was just flawed. I

important. I studied for four years and had many life

learned that the process of 3D animation is very

drawing classes. I might not have been the best in

different on a technical level, since drawing the

class but my eye have gotten a lot better at depicting

character is not an issue, but instead it’s all about

anatomy.

moving it around like a puppet. A 3D puppet. I dropped advertising and switched to 3D animation.

• Composition skills are also mandatory. You don’t need to know how to draw, but you need to

3D animation allowed me to make my dreams come

understand composition aesthetics in order to create

true and animate. Since I didn’t deal with all the

compelling poses for your animation. 15

• Basic animation principles are the same in 2D and 3D and you must know them.

Why am I telling you this? This chapter was not intended to cheapen 3D

of dedication to master. I just believe it’s important to get the message through to you, the reader, before you keep reading the book. You might have always dreamed of being an animator and thought you couldn’t do it, hopefully this will give you a different perspective.

animation. It is a craft like any other and requires years

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Section 3

DIFFERENT TYPES OF ANIMATORS So we understand what animation is, we’ve been watching animation since we were kids, but do you really know what it’s like being an animator? What does an animator do all day? Is it just sitting and drawing cool characters? Let’s take a look at a few of the many options people have in the world of animation.

Traditional Animator Also known as a 2D animator, a traditional animator draws every frame to create the animation sequence, like in the old days of Disney. If you’ve ever had one of those filp-books when you were a kid, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Sequential drawings screened quickly one after another create the illusion of movement. The traditional animator needs to draw each of those drawings, called frames. In the past that was happening on a big light table (a drafting table with a big light panel in the middle on which the animator drew the sequential drawings). The light enabled the 17

animator to see his previous drawings through the

tool to drag and move body parts of a drawn

paper to get a better look at his animation.

character.

Nowadays even traditional animation is being done

These flexibilities give beginners more options when

mostly on computers by using a tablet (such as the

approaching animation, especially if drawing isn’t their

Wacom Cintiq). There are many programs for 2D

strong suit.

animation, but we’ll get to those in the software section.

2D Animator In addition to traditional animation, a 2D animator can also animate in a vector-based software such as Flash, Toon Boom, or even in a motion graphics program like After Effects. With Flash or Toon Boom, in addition to the option

3D Animator Also known as computer animator, or frankly, just an animator since this is the most common form of animation these days (the same way a traditional or a 2D animator used to just be called an animator). A 3D animator, however, works in a completely different way than a traditional animator. They both need to understand the same principles of movement

of animating frame by frame, an animator has the

and composition, but the technical skill set is very

option of creating rigs for the characters and then

different, and that’s actually good news for many

moving the body parts individually instead of drawing

people. Why is that you ask? Because in the past you

the character over and over. After Effects allows you to

had to be an amazing draftsman to be an animator

create complex rigs for animation, or use the puppet

and today that’s not the case (as I explained in the previous section). 18

A computer animator works with 3D programs like

When animating in 2D, the character has to be

Maya or 3D Max, and the animation process is more

drawn fro every frame. When the character is viewed

similar to playing with puppets than it is to drawing.

from the side, half of its body isn’t shown and thus

We move the character in a 3D scene with special

isn’t drawn. It technically doesn’t exist. It’s drawn on a

controls that are connected to each body part (such as

flat page and there isn’t really more of the character

hands, elbows, lips, etc…) and then we set a keyframe

other than what the animator draws.

when all the body parts are in the right place. We then move forward in time and move all these controls again and create another keyframe. The computer then calculates the journey the body part is going through between each of those keyframes. An animator will spend most of his time looking at curves that represent the movement of different body parts

With 3D though, the character’s body parts always exist in the shot. Even when one hand isn’t visible, it’s still there. That adds some work for the animator, since we need to be aware of the entire character at all times. That’s a lot. The last major difference with 3D animation is the

over time. That sounds very technical, and it is, but it’s

frame rate. While both traditional and 3D animation is

something you get used to very quickly.

usually done on 24 FPS (Frames per second),

Another big difference with 3D animation is that unlike traditional animation, the character’s body parts are always present and should be considered. I’ll explain.

traditional animators usually work on 2’s which means they draw a new drawing every 2 frames, and thus having one drawing last for 2 frames. In fast motion shots they might work on 1’s (creating a new drawing every single frame), but with very slow motions they might work on 3’s or even 4’s. 19

With 3D animation, however, the motion is always smooth (except for stylized pieces which intentionally try to look different) and having a character stop completely looks like a mistake. Even when the character is standing still there should always be some sign of life or gentle movement to keep the illusion of

Stop Motion Animator Stop motion is a special form of animation that combines live action filmmaking principles with traditional character animation. Stop motion is done by taking a photo of an object,

life, this is something 2D animation can get away with

and then moving it just a little bit and taking another

much more easily than 3D animation.

photo. The process is repeated and when the photos

Motion Graphics Animator Motion graphics is a completely different beast, yet is still considered a form of animation. It’s the art of creatively moving graphic elements or texts, usually for commercial or promotional purposes (such as animated logos, explainer videos, app commercials, television promos, film opening titles etc…). A motion graphics artists would most likely be working with After Effects and/or Cinema4D.

are played back one after another in 24 FPS they give the illusion of movement. This is similar to traditional animation but it uses real life materials instead of drawings.

Stop motion has different styles: • Claymation: Working with clay or play-doh characters that can easily be manipulated for animation. Advanced claymation (such as The Neverhood) uses metal skeletons on which the clay is then molded for more sturdy rigs.

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• Puppets: The use of puppets (usually also built

still photo, moving things around, and then taking

upon some sort of skeleton rig) for animation. The

another photo, but the subject matter is usually real

faces of the characters can be replaced based on the

people instead of puppets.

expression. • Cut out: Using construction paper or cardboard

• Silhouette animation: Similar to cutout animation, silhouette animation uses cardboard or some kind of

characters and placing them on a paper while

flat material, but the objects are all black and the

shooting the animation from above (That’s how South

shot is depicted with silhouettes only. This is one of

Park was made before switching to computers). The

the oldest forms of stop motion and is rarely used

cardboard is then moved a little each frame to create

today.

the illusion of movement. • Toy/Lego: Using action figures or lego characters for animation. This genre is popular on YouTube with many channels dedicated to creating funny skits with lego characters. Robot Chicken (a show on Adult Swim) did that with famous action figures making fun of pop culture. • Pixilation: A form of stop motion that uses real people and real environments to create unreal videos. It uses the stop motion method of taking a 21

Section 4

THE 12 PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION These 12 principles of animation were developed by old time Disney animators. These aren’t specific rules by which one needs to animate, but rather think of them as a set of basic concepts to be familiar with. These principles are an important part of the animation language and while some are abstract, others (like timing and spacing) are crucial to understand.

1. Squash and Stretch The concept of deforming the shape of an object or character to demonstrate weight. For example - a bouncing ball will stretch into an elliptical shape when falling right before hitting the floor, and then upon hitting will change into a squashed horizontal elliptical before regaining its ball shape again and jumping off.

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This idea is great for cartoon animation and

happen instantaneously. First, the character holds the

humorous moments (like a frying pan hitting the face

sides of the chair, then she moves her legs a little bit,

of a character, causing it to expand for a split second

then she might lean backward to get momentum.

before regaining its shape back). It doesn’t have to be a specific body part that squashes and stretches, it could be the whole character. For example - a ninja dropping to frame. During the landing the ninja will be stretched very thin and then squashed when hitting the floor.

2. Anticipation Here’s the best way to demonstrate the concept of anticipation: Stand up straight. Now try jumping without bending your knees. Impossible? That’s because most actions need some form of preparation (or anticipation). As animators we must remember anticipation and consider it before animating certain actions. The character throws a dart? We first animate the hand going backwards. Getting up from a chair? It doesn’t

3. Staging Staging is the idea of posing your character in the best way to convey the action, mood, and purpose of the story. Not every shot needs to have a character in the center, so where do we put it? Is it a close up or a long shot? It’s often a good system to look at your posing in silhouette mode, and see if the action is still clear. If it is, that’s a good sign that the staging is good.

4. Straight Ahead vs. Pose to Pose Straight ahead is the process of animating without planning the main keyframes in advance. The animator draws one frame after another in a sort of improvisational way to create a more spontaneous action. 23

Pose to pose is the opposite of straight ahead animation. It’s the process of first drawing the main keyframes of the shot and then drawing the frames in between them.

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action The action that happens once another action has ended. For example, when woman shakes her head, the hair will still move after she stops moving her head, before finally settling. The same goes for clothing. A dress might still move after the character has stopped in place.

6. Slow Out and Slow In Also known as ease in / ease out. An action might start slow at the beginning and then slow down again near the end. Try touching your toes with your hand and then raising that hand above your head. Chances are the beginning or lifting your hand was a bit slow, then it got fast towards the middle of the action, and

then slowed down again before reaching the high point. A case where slow-in doesn’t occur is something like a character hitting a wall. The action will stop instantly and will not slow down before the end.

7. Arcs Most natural actions happen in an arc shape. Think of the raising your hand example from the previous principle. If you drew a line along your finger motion, you’d probably get some kind of an arc rather than a straight line. Animating actions that create arc shapes tend to look nicer and more natural. On the same note, if you’re trying to achieve a more mechanical motion, animating in a straight line might be preferable.

8. Secondary Action Not to be confused with overlapping action (though it often is), secondary action is another layer of 24

animation that is part of the whole action. Take a

limping person walking they might use one leg for

swimmer for example. The main action might be him

longer than the other. So they might stay on the right

using his hands to swim, and his legs as secondary

leg for most of the 24 frames, then at around frame 18

action will move like flippers supporting that action.

will take a quick step on the bad leg and then on frame

A bully walking angrily might have secondary action in his arms (swinging them) to emphasize his mood.

9. Timing Timing is a tricky concept to explain, but one of the most important ones to understand in regards to animation. It is certainly something you get better at the more you experiment with. Timing refers to the time when certain parts of an action take place. Let’s look at a walk as an example. On a regular walk the legs hit the ground at an even pace, lets say one foot hits the ground every 14 frames, thus completing one walk cycle (meaning

24 they will go back to the other leg. We still have a full walk cycle within 24 frames but the timing of the steps will be completely different. Changing the timing will often change the nature of your animation, and that’s why it’s something that can best be internalized with experience.

10.Exaggeration In animation, as opposed to in real life, we often exaggerate certain actions to bring our scene to life. This should be used with common sense and good taste, but exaggeration in the right places can give your shots more appeal and charm.

taking two steps - one with each leg) in 24 frames. So the first hit of the foot would be on frame 14 and the second foot will hit on frame 24. If, however, we had a 25

11. Solid Drawing One of the more abstract principles, having an

12. Appeal Animated characters should have a certain amount

understanding of figure drawing, form, weight and

of appeal, in shape, silhouette, movement and

perspective is very important for animation.

personality. It doesn’t mean they have to be cute, but

It is much more important for traditional animators, since excellent drawing skills are a must, but it’s also important for 3D animators. It gives a better familiarity with motion, form and posing and is a great advantage.

they should posses an amount of visual appeal. Villains, heroes, sidekicks, they all need to appeal to the audience in one way or another. Again, one of the more abstract concepts and not something I can point my finger at, but it’s something to keep in mind. 26

Section 5

THE 6 STEPS OF COMPUTER ANIMATION At this point you might be wondering what’s it like to actually animate a shot? What are the steps an animator takes when approaching a shot? While every animator might have their own system of how they do things, there’s a general process I have found to be consistent with most. I should also add that this process is only relevant to 3D animators and NOT 2D. Again, this is based on my experience and does not reflect the one and only way of approaching animation, but if you follow these steps you’ll probably be on the right track.

Step 1: Shooting Reference video This is a very important and overlooked step. It’s weird how people really think they know what certain actions look like and how long they take, but in reality they are often wrong.

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Physical actions are something you need to analyze before animating, especially if you’re a beginner. Animating a shot of a guy throwing a baseball? You better YouTube some reference videos of pitchers

next by adding ‘in betweens’ (also known as breakdown poses or passing poses). These are the poses that connect the key poses. We keep adding more poses until the movement

throwing balls. Don’t assume you know what it looks

looks as good as it could while still staying in stepped

like just because you’ve seen it before. Looking at an

mode (stepped mode is when you don’t allow

action as an animator is completely different than

computer interpolation between poses, so the

looking at it as a regular viewer.

animation looks very choppy).

Step 2: Posing

Step 4: Splining

After shooting a reference video, it’s time to create

Splining is a 3D animation term, it’s the process of

the key poses for the shot. These poses are called key

converting the interpolation of the key frames from

poses because they are the most important poses of

stepped to spline. In other words – we make the

the shot. These are the poses that convey the story.

computer connect the movement between each of the

It’s important to get these poses right, because we’ll

poses, and that makes the movement look smoother.

be building on top of them later on in the process.

Step 3: Blocking Once we’re happy with our key poses, we start breaking down the movement from each pose to the

The problem is that the computer doesn’t do a very good job at interpolating. It only works with what it has so that’s why the better the blocking is the better the splined version is going to look.

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Step 5: Smoothing and Offset Now that all of the keys are in spline mode we have to work on them. We need to clean up all the curves and make sure the movement works correctly. It’s also a good idea to offset some of the actions so it doesn’t look so ‘stop and start’, as if the character is doing all the motion at once. By the end of this step the shot should look pretty solid and almost finished.

Step 6: Adding Life This step is a lot of fun. We’ve already finished with the grunt work of animating and it’s time to add some fun stuff. In this step we add small imperfections that bring life to the character. Maybe an extra blink or a mouth twitch here and there. The difference between these last 2 steps is small but very noticeable. This is where the magic lies. 29

Section 6

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Before we finish off this chapter, I’ve compiled a dictionary with all the terms and definitions from the wold of animation filmmaking for you to refer to at any time. Feel free to skip this section and come back to it during your reading when you encounter a term you’re unfamiliar with.

2D Animation The creation of moving pictures in a two-dimensional environment, such as through "traditional" cel animation or computerized animation software.

3D Animation The creation of moving pictures in a three-dimensional digital environment. This is done by sequencing consecutive images, or "frames," that simulate motion by each image showing the next in a

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gradual progression of steps, filmed by a virtual "camera" and then output to video by a rendering engine.

Aspect Ratio / Resolution Aspect ratio refers to the ratio between the width and length of the screen, while resolution refers to the

Animation

amount of pixels squeezed into the screen. For

A way of making a movie by using a series of

HD720 or HD1080. Each have a different pixel amount

drawings, computer graphics, or photographs of objects (such as puppets or models) that are slightly different from one another and that when viewed quickly one after another create the illusion of movement

Animatic Simply put, an animatic is an animated storyboard. Boards are brought together in an editing program and are cut with the correct timing and pace of the film. They include basic sound effects, dialogue recordings and temporary music.

example, HD aspect ratio is 16:9, but that could be but the same screen ratio.

Blocking The next step after posing and before splining (or finessing the animation). Blocking is posing all the inbetweens for the shot until achieving a legible piece of animation, however blocked and choppy. After getting approval on the action in the blocking, the animator moves on to the next step.

Boom A long pole device that carries either a microphone or a camera to create a “boom shot,” which is a shot

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that travels from the ground going high up or the other way around.

Cel Animation In the old days of animation, cels were commonly used in production as a transparent surface to draw on, and then to be placed on another cel (like a character being placed on a background) to create the final look of the shot.

CGI Stands for Computer Generated Imagery, it is the use of computers to create images, art, designs and animation for all uses.

Claymation A way of describing a stop motion based on clay characters (watch some Aardman films to understand better).

Color Matching The process of changing the colors of each shot to match one another. It starts with picking one shot as a guide and then going through all the rest of the shots within the same scene and matching their colors to it.

Compositing The complex process of bringing in different render layers from the animation software (layers such as background, characters, shadows, lights, reflections etc…) and putting them on top of each other or combining them together to create the desired look, effect and feel of each shot.

Concept Art Initial drawings, sculptures, designs and any form of art that was created to be used as a visual guideline for the look and feel of the movie.

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Demo Reel / Show Reel An edited video of the artist’s best work. This is the most important piece for getting work in the animation industry. See the full section on demo reel guidelines for more in depth information.

Depth of Field Also known as focal length, refers to the distance between the nearest and farthest objects from the camera that are in focus.

Dolly A piece of equipment that allows the camera to

overall film, bringing it together with the music and sound design to create the final movie.

FK/IK Two different rigging techniques usually implemented in arms, legs and spines. FK (Forward Kinematics) is animating through the hierarchy of the object. Using the arm as an example, an animator would start by rotating the shoulder, which will move the entire arm with it, then the elbow which will control the forearm, and then the actual hand. In IK (Inverse Kinematics) however, we use the hand to control the whole arm, which feels a bit more

move smoothly on the ground to create a seamless

natural, as if you were holding a puppet’s hand and

motion.

moving it around.

Editing

FPS / Frame Rate

Putting the different shots together in a compelling way to best convey the sequences, scenes and the

How many frames are played per second. Animation is usually done in 24 fps.

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In Between The drawings or poses that connect the keyframes to complete the movement.

Keyframe An animation key frame is a single still image in an animated sequence that occurs at an important point in that sequence. In the traditional work process, an animator would create those keyframes (either by drawing them if they’re doing it in 2D or by posing the character if they’re doing it in 3D) and then slowly add transition poses and in-betweens to complete the animation.

Layout Refers to the background/environment of a shot and placement of characters within it.

Light Table The desk used by traditional 2D animators. It contains a large light panel on which animation paper is placed. That allows the animator to see previous drawings from pages under the current page.

Lip Sync The process of animating the mouth of a character to match the dialogue.

Modeling The process of building the model of the character/ prop/environment in the 3D software, to later be rigged and animated.

Model Sheet A model sheet, also known as a character board, character sheet or character study, is a document used to help standardize the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character. 34

Motion Capture the process or technique of recording patterns of movement digitally, especially the recording of an actor's movements for the purpose of animating a digital character. This is mostly used in video games and live action films, and less in animated features.

Moving Hold An animation term that refers to animating a character standing still without any distinct motion, yet making it seem alive.

Onion Skin Viewing past drawings while animating the current frame. A light table enabled this in the old days, but even in today’s software there’s an onion skin option that enables the animator to view previous drawings with less transparency, which makes the animation process easier and more accurate.

Pan The rotation of a camera on its horizontal axis (left or right) in order to keep a character or object in view.

Passing Pose Refers to the pose of a walk cycle in which the leg is in its transition and the weight of the character is in between shifting.

Pencil Test A 2D animation term, which refers to the process of creating an animation sequence purely with pencil and paper to test a character’s behavior or the flow of a shot. It could turn into the final animation or could be used as purely a test.

Pipeline The technical order and manner of which 3D tasks are done. Studios have their own specific pipelines

35

they stick to, making sure the process goes as smoothly as possible. For example - first, the models are made, then they are sent to the rigging department. After the rigging is done the animators start working and so forth. Pipeline also refers to the specific software and render engines the studio uses. A new employee is usually trained to

Pose to Pose This is the opposite of straight ahead animation. This is the process of first drawing the keyframe and then drawing the frames in betweens those keyframes.

Pre-Visualization (Previz) Pre-visualization is the process of making a stripped

work within the guidelines of the studio pipeline upon

down version of your film before actually making it.

recruitment.

Usually made within the 3D program, a previz is

Pose

animated very basically, just enough to get the story

The pose of the character. ‘Posing’ the character refers to the process of establishing the main poses for the shot before diving deep into finishing the

across.

Rendering The process of taking every frame in the shot,

animation. This way, the client or director can approve

applying all the render settings and producing one

the action of the shot without having the animator

finished singular image at a time, to then be used as

spend many hours finessing the shot.

an image sequence.

36

Rig The final file with the character and the different

Shot A take, in part or in its entirety, that is used in the

controls that move it, ready for animation.

final edited version of the film.

Rigging

Sound Design

The process of taking a 3D model and building a

Unlike score or music, sound design deals with

digital skeleton for it to then be manipulated by the

layering the actual sound bits across your film and

animator.

editing them together (mixing). That includes the

Scene A film term that refers to a part of a movie, play or a show that takes place in one place and time.

Script / Screenplay The written form of a movie that also includes instructions on how it is to be acted and filmed. Any dialogue or action is described in the script to later turn into storyboards, animatic and previz.

sound effects, foley, dialogue, ambiance and the actual music.

Spline Splining is the process of interpolating the motion between the keyframes in a smooth manner.

Stepped Step mode refers to not having any computer interpolation in the animation between the keyframes. An animator would work in stepped mode when they are at the posing stage of their work. 37

Stop Motion An old animation technique of taking a still photo of

Straight Ahead Animation The process of animating without planning the main

the object and then moving it a little bit before taking

keyframes in advanced. The animator draws one frame

the next photo. Then, when played back, the viewers

after another in sort of an improvisational way to

get the illusion that the object is moving. This can be

create a more spontaneous action.

done with different objects such as clay puppets, wooden puppets, paper cutouts and more.

Storyboard A storyboard is a series of drawings meant for previsualizing the movie. It is an essential tool for the director so he could get a sense of the way the movie is going to look and feel. The Storyboard saves time on set. Since the camera angles were determined beforehand, the DP (director of photography) knows exactly what is expected of him during the shoot.

Texturing The process of creating the digital textures for the models, character, environments and props.

Tilt The rotation of a camera on its vertical axis (up or down).

Timeline The section of the editing or animation software that shows the progression of time by seconds or frames, to which we edit or animate the film.

38

Video Reference A video shot by the animator before animating a shot to be used as a reference for making the animation process easier and more accurate.

Working on Ones/Twos Working on ones means that there’s a new drawing in each frame of the 24 frames/second. Working on twos means there’s a new drawing every other frame, which means a single drawing lasts for 2 frames. There’s also cases where the animation is done on threes, fours and up, when the character barely moves. That’s common in Japanese animation or stop motion.

Zoom Changing the focal length of the lens in order to make the character appear closer or more distant.

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Chapter 3

TOOLS OF THE TRADE (Hardware, Software and More) • Animating Under a $100 • Software • Backup • Tablets • Apps • Books • Best Animation Schools

Section 1

ANIMATING UNDER A $100 (a quick note) Before I jump into the list of hardware and software that is available (and there’s a lot of it) I have a few words to those of you who think they don’t have the right tools to make animation, or that it’s too expensive of an investment to get the right computer, tablet or program. In this quick section I’ll show you what you’ll need to start animating like a pro right away with less than $100.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Software - $19 For this price range I can mostly focus on 2D animation, since 3D software isn’t cheap. One of the most common 2D animation programs is Adobe Flash. It cost $19/month and you get a free trial month. That gives you 2 months of animation for $19. If you’re more into detailed frame by frame drawings, Photoshop is also a great option for the same price. 41

Both of these programs will work on most recent computers, so you can probably use the one you already own.

Option 1: Flash Probably the most popular 2D animation software out there. Flash has a long lineage of animation making, even before it was purchased by

Secret Option 3: After Effects. After effects can be used for 2D animation. It has great rigging capabilities and the puppet tool is for animation.

Hardware - $79 Since we're doing 2D animation, using a drawing

Adobe. Flash is vector based, which I don’t personally

tablet is a must. I know what you're thinking: These

like, but it’s very intuitive to work with (as most

Wacom tablets are so expensive! They're like a $1000!

Adobe’s products are) and relatively cheap.

Well, that's true if you're talking about the high-end

Option 2: Photoshop

ones. however, Wacom makes great tablets at lower

Photoshop is sometimes skipped when considering an animation software, since it’s known for its photo editing features, but in reality its powerful drawing

prices as well.

Wacom Intuos Pen For $79, This is the cheapest professional tablet

capabilities make it one of the best choices for frame

Wacom makes, and it is a great product for beginners

by frame Disney-style animation.

on a low-budget. It Allows you to quickly draw straight

Photoshop’s timeline functionality lets you animate by

to your computer, which makes the process extremely

drawing frame by frame, using onion skinning and is

quick.

incredibly robust. 42

Total price: $98 Now it's up to you to do something about it. You can sit around and tell yourself that you don't have the right equipment or that you don't know how to draw - but look at the animation videos on YouTube. Many of them have very basic animation and white backgrounds. Anyone can make something interesting if they have a good idea and sit down to do the work.

Will you take up the challenge?

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Section 2

SOFTWARE One of the most common question I get from people (both friends and readers) is “What software do you use?” Is that Maya? After Effects? In this article I will break down the options you have when choosing your animation software. Before I start I want to clarify that this is only my opinion based on my experience. It’s important to remember that good skills will get you far no matter what software you use. Tools are just tools. I did not include every animation software out there, just the ones I thought were good enough to mention.

44

3D Animation Software

Autodesk Softimage From Autodesk: Softimage character

Autodesk Maya Maya is the industry standard 3D software, used in most large studios. Maya, Softimage and 3D Max are all a part of Autodesk and work quite similarly. Choosing one is a matter of personal and technical preference.

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 • Mac OS X • Linux Learn more…

animation software offers high-performance creative tools for artists and technical directors working in 3D game development and visual effects.

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 • Linux Learn more…

Autodesk 3DS Max From Autodesk: 3DS Max provides a comprehensive 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing solution for games, film, and motion graphics artists. It has tools for crowd generation, particle animation, and perspective matching, as well as support for Microsoft® DirectX 11® shaders. 45

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more…

Cinema 4D Cinema 4D is a motion graphics artist’s best friend. It’s a 3D program for the After Effects user. Very intuitive, and works directly with After Effects without the need to render first. This would not however be my first choice for serious 3D production since it was designed from the ground up with motion graphics in mind.

Supported platforms: • Windows Vista, 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more…

Blender I don’t have much experience with Blender, but its main advantage is that it is open source, works on multiple platforms and free for download. From Blender: Blender provides a broad spectrum of modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and video post-processing functionality in one package. Through its open architecture, Blender provides cross-platform interoperability, extensibility, an incredibly small footprint, and a tightly integrated workflow.

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, Vista, 7 • Mac OS X • Linux • FreeBSD Learn more…

46

2D Animation Software Adobe Flash

creating rigs for 2D, and using the puppet tool is very convenient and intuitive. I find After Effects to be a great choice since I’m very comfortable with Adobe’s work environment, but that’s my personal preference.

Probably the most popular 2D animation

Since it’s also an editing software, it’s great to be able

software out there. Flash has a long lineage

to edit and color correct in the same place you

of animation making, even before it was purchased by

animate.

Adobe. Flash is vector based, which I don’t personally

Supported platforms:

like, but it’s very intuitive to work with (as most Adobe’s products are) and relatively cheap.

• Windows XP, 7, 8

Supported platforms:

• Mac OS X

• Windows XP, 7, 8

Learn more…

• Mac OS X

Photoshop

Learn more…

Photoshop is sometimes skipped when considering an animation software, but in

Adobe After Effects

reality its powerful drawing capabilities makes it one of

An interesting choice for 2D animation. After

the best choices for frame by frame Disney-style

effects gives you great control when

animation. Photoshop’s timeline functionality allows 47

animating by drawing frame by frame, using onion skinning and is incredibly robust.

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more…

TVPaint

Toon Boom Toon Boom offers a user friendly set of animation programs with advanced rigging systems,effects and camera tools. It is vector based, which means you’ll get that flash-look that I ,personally, am not a fan of. They offer different packages for different prices. The packages are Toon Boom Studio, Animate, Animate Pro and Harmony. For hobbyists animators I

A french animation software, TVPaint is the

would suggest the Toon Boom Studio package, which

all-in-one 2D animation software you’ll ever

is not very expensive but still packs a great set of

need. It’s more robust than Photoshop, but also much pricier. Great for professionals and studios.

Supported platforms: • Windows XP, Vista, 7 • Mac OS X

features.

Supported platforms: • Windows 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more…

• Linux Learn more… 48

Anime Studio

Stop Motion Software

Anime Studio is a complete 2D animation package that can produce traditional animation, cutout animation and anime style animation. It have a complex bone system for complex rigging and even supports the Unity engine. It offers two packages, the Debut and the Pro (priced at $49 and $299 respectively). The debut is for

Dragonframe If you’re planning on making a professional stop motion video, Dragonframe is the best tool for the job. Its comprehensive software can be used with many different attachments, such as devices that control the camera, lights and even camera focus. It gives the user complete control over the lighting of

hobbyists and beginners while the pro offers working

the shot with an option to program the dimming of the

professionals its most advanced tools.

different lights over a period of time. It comes with a

Supported platforms:

keypad controller for easy control of the photo taking process, and for flipping between frames.

• Windows 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more…

Supported platforms: • Windows 7, 8 • Mac OS X Learn more… 49

iStopMotion If you’re looking to spend a bit less and you’re making stop motion more as a hobby, this software is just for you. It’s not expensive and very user friendly. It does have good features though, such as DSLR support, onion skinning, using an iPad or iPhone as a remote and even chroma keying (using green screen).

Supported platforms: • Mac OS X Learn more…

50

Section 3

BACKUP Before we wrap up the software section, I want to talk about backup for a moment. I’ll start by telling you about what used to be MY backup system. I had a pretty good system. Two external hard drives connected to my main computer. Each one was big (in capacity). I would then manually back up files to either of the hard drives, and the most important projects to both. While I was working on my first short film I even backed it up at school AND on my girlfriends computer, just in case. I’m a careful person when it comes to my files.

Remember this though - There’s no fail-proof backup. I’ll give you an example: A few months ago my computer hard drive failed, and on the same day one of my external hard drives failed too. What are the chances of that? But it’s not just me. This could happen to anyone, no matter how prepared you are. 51

In his new book, ‘Creativity Inc.’, Ed Catmull, the

The thought of online backup never occurred to me

president of Pixar, tells a horrifying story of how

because of the large files I have, and most places

someone accidentally erased the files of Toy Story 2,

would offer only a few hundred Giga Bytes.

and when they turned to their backup system for recovery it turns out that that system was not working properly for a while, and the files were truly gone. This could have taken Pixar 30 people working for a

Then one day while listening to one of my favorite podcasts I heard of a company called Backblaze that allows you to backup all the files on your computer plus all the files on your external hard drives! That

year to recover their loss, and at the time might have

sounded crazy to me, so I checked it out and it was

caused Pixar to go bankrupt. Luckily, one of their

true.

employees was forced to work at home at that time and had the files in her apartment. She saved the day.

Now, I just want to clarify that Backblaze didn’t pay me to say that, I’m telling you about them because I

But you can’t really count on such luck, can

was blown away by how awesome their service is and

you?

I really think you should try it yourselves. It’s $5/month

After my incident I tried finding a better way to backup my files. I thought about getting more hard drives, but that was quite an expensive idea,

and you can start a free trial for 2 weeks to check it out. That was my little rant about backup, and whatever

especially since I have A LOT of files. As a 3D artist I

system you choose to use (online or not) be vigilant

work with huge renders and massive files.

about it and don’t let your files get lost. If it happened to Pixar it could happen to you. 52

Section 4

TABLETS Switching to a Tablet “He reached his hand for the mouse, and the interview was over.” There’s an industry tale about a guy interviewing for a VFX position and when asked to perform a certain task he reached for the mouse instead of the tablet pen. At that moment his fate was determined. However, this is just an amusing story and I do know very talented and capable visual artists who use a mouse. I still use it for most things, and until a few years ago I was using it for 3D animation. I used it when animating my first animated short. In this section I want to tell you why you should switch to using a tablet instead of a mouse for animation.

53

Using a Tablet I bought a Wacom tablet in my senior year of college. I thought I needed one to be more professional, but I only used it for drawing in Photoshop. I never managed to use it as a mouse

On my first day I was seated at my desk, and in front of me was a Wacom tablet. I looked around and saw that other animators were using it too. At that moment I had to make a decision: • Do I stick with the mouse and never give myself

replacement for other things, and every time I tried it

the chance to get used to something that might be

resulted in a slower work pace, so I gave up.

much better?

When I bought it, I thought I’d use it for compositing (since I knew people who were working on nodebased compositing software such as Nuke with a tablet) and Photoshop drawing. I never thought it could be better than a mouse for 3D animation, since most of it is moving joints and controls around – which seemed easiest with a mouse.

Why I Started Animating with a Tablet

• Or do I take a chance? I decided to go for it. Nobody knew me or what I use, so I just pretended that this is what I use every day, and like in many other cases – necessity brought accomplishment. I was a bit sluggish at first but I had to push through it.

You wouldn’t believe how fast I got used to it once I had no other choice.

After graduation I was accepted to an animation summer internship at Framestore, which was definitely an amazing opportunity. It’s one of the best VFX studios out there. 54

Why It Is Better to Animate with a Tablet Mostly because it’s faster. Way faster. If you’ve ever worked with a 3D software such as

Wacom Tables I’ve explained why you should switch to using a tablet, now let’s go over the different options you have

Maya or 3D Max you know that you spend a lot of your

when choosing a drawing tablet. There are basically 3

time looking at the character model and moving its

tiers of tablets, all for different levels and budgets.

body parts around. Doing that with a pen feels so much more natural than a mouse, it’s like touching the model with you hands. You get more precise with your tweaking and move around incredibly faster.

How to Practice Using a Tablet Other than just starting to use it, the best way to

Beginner - Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch ($99 - $199) This small yet fantastic tablet (formerly known as the Bamboo) is the best way to

practice and get better and faster with a tablet is to do

start using a tablet when

some exercises. Lynda has a comprehensive course

you’re just a beginner and don’t know if you want to

for learning to use a Wacom tablet, but it’s not free.

spend much money.

A great free resource is Wacom’s learning pages.

It’s small but not so small that it can’t be used for

You can watch some of their webinars and learn the

professional work. It’s wireless, has a touch screen,

basics on their tutorials page.

1024 pressure levels, and if you want to spend an extra $100 you can get a larger size. 55

Professional - Wacom

professional 2D animators or digital painters.

Intuos Pro ($249 - $499)

The model I recommend is the Cintiq 13HD ($999),

The best tablet for 3D animators, and the most

since 13” feels like the perfect size for most uses. It’s not too bulky or too small.

commonly used tablet. The medium one ($349) is the most popular Wacom tablet and is the perfect size for most uses. It’s great for free drawing straight to programs like Photoshop or Flash and also for animating in 3D program like Maya and Cinema 4D. It has 2048 pressure levels, a touch screen and awesome programable buttons. This is the tablet I use, and unless you focus on heavy drawing this is my most recommended choice for most people.

Expert - Wacom Cintiq ($999 - $2999) The Cintiq is Wacom’s high end product line, featuring an amazing HD screen to be used as a tablet and as a secondary screen. This tablet is mostly for 56

Section 5

APPS The majority of animation work is being done on a big strong computer with a heavy software such as Maya or After Effects. But as an independent animator, there are certain smaller apps that can make your life a bit easier and will contribute to the larger creating process.

Here are a few great apps that I use in different production stages: Celtx Celtx is a great script writing app that works on all devices (desktop, iOS) and it’s the only screenwriting experience I actually enjoyed on an iPad. The app syncs online which enables you to switch between different devices whenever you want.

57

Paper If you have an iPad, you’ve probably heard of Paper. It’s arguably the best drawing app on iOS. It has different kinds of brushes and they all work great. They also sell physical pencil that works with the program, and seems much more fun to use than your own fingers. I use this app often when I’m playing around with basic storyboard ideas, or if I’m trying to find some nice design ideas for character. It’s also really fun to have a never-ending drawing canvas on the go.

serious animation software on your desktop, but it’s fun for playing around with ideas or ‘pencil testing’.

Evernote I feel like Evernote is a recommended app for almost any kind of professional, not necessary animators, but I find it is the best way for me to keep track of all the notes and ideas I have. When you’re in production and working on each shot in different stages (animation, lighting, compositing…) you need to be able to keep track of every note, and that’s the best tool I know for that

Animation Desk

purpose.

I should say right here that I have yet to

Adobe Color

find a great animation app for the iOS. They are all a bit clunky and not user friendly. BUT if I had to choose one, Animation Desk is probably the best. I have played with it and got some pretty cool results. It’s by all means not a replacement for a

Color (formerly Kuler) is an online color palette planner app from Adobe. I refer to it once in a while when I’m doing color correction or when I’m trying to find a color scheme for a project. It’s a great little free tool any artist should be familiar with. 58

Section 6

BOOKS Different arguments could be made for which is the best book for learning animation, and the answer is simple: there isn’t one. There is a large variety of animation books for different uses such as stop motion, 3D, 2D and much more.

However, there are a few must have books that need to be on any aspiring animator’s shelf, regardless of the type of animator they are.

59

Must have books The Animator’s Survival Kit /

Cartoon Animation / 
 Preston Blair Why this book?

Richard Williams

Originally released in 1994,

Why this book?

Cartoon Animation (also known

Because you have to. Seriously. This book is an animator’s bible. It thoroughly covers the basics of spacing, timing, walks,

as “The Preston Blair Book”), has been an amazing reference source for creating cartoon-style animation. With this book you’ll learn how to develop a cartoon

runs, weight, anticipation, overlapping action, takes,

character, create dynamic movement, and animate

stagger, dialogue, animal animation and much more.

dialogue with action. This book focuses on character

It’s not called a “survival kit” for nothing. This book will

development and covers topics such as creating

teach you EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW to

compelling lines of action, timing, dialogue and more.

start your training as an animator.

This is a great book for animal animation since it

Richard Williams is an academy award-winning director responsible for hits such as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “The Pink Panther” and more. He got

shows in detail many examples of animating different types of cartoon animals. Preston Blair was a predominant animator in his

his training from animation greats such as Milt Kahl

time and worked in many big studios such as Disney

and other old-time Disney animators.

and Hanna Barbera. He worked on famous scenes in 60

the original Fantasia such as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

important to know the history of how animation came

and the hippo – alligator dance.

to be, and this book covers both in amazing depth.

The Illusions of Life / Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two out of Disney’s nine old men, worked at Disney since the earliest days and contributed to films such as Snow

Why this book?

White, Pinocchio and The Jungle book.

This is not just a pretty book to

Additional Books

have on your shelf so you can look professional. I mean, it is pretty, but it is also extremely thorough in what it’s trying to tell. This book has started as an animation guide and turned into a detailed survey on the progression of animation, both within the Disney studios and in the world of animation in general.

Setting Up Your Shots / Jeremy Vineyard Why this book? This is a great book for

Written by two of the nine old men who defined the

getting your basic understanding of shot composition

Disney animation style, this book takes the reader

and camera movement. These concepts are not only

through all the steps it took them to discover and

important for filmmakers and directors, but also for

research the best methods of animation. There are

animators. As an animator you will often be asked to

great concepts to learn from this book, but it is also 61

animate cameras, so you should have at least a basic understanding of it.

The Art of Pixar / Amid Amidi Why this book?

Character placement in the shot is also important and keeping a nice compositing while you’re animating the character in the shot is crucial.

For whenever you need a creativity boost, though not directly related to animation, leafing through Pixar’s color scripts from 25 years of filmmaking is

Creativity Inc. / Ed Catmull Why this book? Ed Catmull is currently the president of Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios. This book

amazingly inspiring. This is a great reference book for studying color theory and exploring different color palettes. Especially interesting if you’re in the concept art stage of making your film.

follows him throughout his amazing journey from being a brilliant scientist to founding Pixar. He also gives amazing advice on management and sheds light on why he made a log of the choices he did in Pixar. This will be a fascinating book for everyone interested in the animation industry.

62

Section 7

BEST ANIMATION SCHOOLS In this section I present a curated list of the best animation schools out there. If you are thinking about getting into the world of animation and visual effects I hope you'll find this section useful. The schools are not listed in any particular order and will cover all the basic information such as tuition, notable alumni and some impressive student work. Each school was carefully selected.

This topic can be very objective and that's why I have the following IMPORTANT NOTICE: The list was constructed out of 3 different sources: (A) my own personal experience and knowledge (B) conversations with colleagues, peers and students, and (C) internet research.

63

School of Visual Arts (SVA) School information: Founded in 1947 by Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonist and Illustrators School, and then renamed in 1956. Part of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design as one of 36 leading art colleges in the United States. The school offered its first degree in 1972, and it's first master’s degree in 1983 in Fine Arts for painting, drawing and sculpture. • Location: New York, NY. USA • Courses: Animation, Computer Animation and Visual Effects • Tuition cost: $16,780 per semester +

• Notable alumni: Bill Plympton (Academy nominated animator), John.R.Dilworth (creator of Courage the Cowardly Dog), Pres Antonio Romanillos (supervising animator at Disney and Dreamworks animation) • Start of Academic year: September • BA Animation: 205 students • BA Computer Animation and Visual effects: 302 students • Notable graduate film: Kiwi! (Dony Permedi, 2006) Read more...

Ringling College of Art and Design School information: Founded in Sarasota, Florida, by Dr. Ludd M. Spivey

Department fees (Animation: $900,

as an art school in 1931, and as a branch

Computer Animation and visual effects:

of the Southern College in Orlando.

$1,340)

Became an independent college in 1933. 64

Qualified as a full degree-granting institution in 1971.

• Notable graduate film: Dia De Los Muertos

Ringling College is named after John Ringling, a circus

(Ashley Graham, Kate Reynolds, and Lindsey St.

magnate, who was interested in funding an art college,

Pierre, 2013) Won Student Academy Award, 2013

but wasn't interested in Southern College as he wanted to establish his own at his wife's museum. However, he lost his museum and residence in

Read more...

Vancouver Film School

bankruptcy, and it was all given to the state just

School information: Founded in

before he died. Ringling's nephew made a deal

1987 with a single class of six

with Southern College to open an art college in

students. Hosts the annual Game

Sarasota, and it was named School of Fine and

Design Expo since 2007.

Applied Art of the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum. • Location: Sarasota, Florida. USA

3D animation & VFX and Classical Animation are only one year study. Character Animation is 6 months.

• Courses: Computer Animation

• Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

• Tuition cost: $18,400 per semester

• Courses: 3D Animation and VFX, Classical

• Notable alumni: Aaron Blaise (Director of Disney's Brother Bear) • Start of Academic year: August

Animation, Character Animation • Tuition cost: $35,250 (Canadian Dollars) per semester 65

• Notable alumni: Chad Moffitt (Academy-award winning animator on Lord of the Rings), Andrew Overtoom (Animation director on Spongebob Squarepants) • Start of Academic year: October • Notable graduate film: The Story Tree (Stephanie Sim, 2006) Won best Classical or Stop Motion Animation, CAEAA awards 2006

decided to start a course in Classical Animation at the college in 1968 in hopes of getting trained animators. • Location: Toronto. Canada • Courses: Animation, Computer Animation, Digital Creature Animation, Visual Effects • Tuition cost: $9,356.05 (Canadian dollars) per semester • Notable alumni: Dean DeBlois (Disney animator),

Read more...

Dan Lee (Pixar animator), John Kricfalusi (Creator of

Sheridan College School information: Sheridan College was founded in 1967 as The School of Graphic Design at a converted public school until it was eventually moved. The Canadian animation industry was virtually non-

Ren and Stimpy show), Dan Antonucci (Creator of Ed, Edd 'n, Eddy) • Start of Academic year: September • Notable graduate film: Night Light (Qing Han, 2014) Read more...

existent during the 60's and 70's, but President Porter 66

CalArts

• Start of Academic year: September

School information: CalArts was

• Notable graduate film: Trust & Estates (Jeanette

founded in 1961 by Walt Disney,

Bonds, 2013) Official Selection, Melbourne

when Chouinard Art Institute and

International Animation Festival 2013

the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music merged together due to financial difficulties.

Read more...

Gobelins

Nelbert Chouinard, founder of the Chouinard Art Institute, started a professional relationship with

School information: Founded by

Walt Disney in 1929, and agreed to train animators

the Parisian Chamber of Commerce

for him on a pay-later basis as Disney was

and Industry in 1964, but is best

struggling financially.

known for the Cinema Department of Animation, which was founded by

• Location: Valencia, California. USA • Courses: Film/Video (Includes animation) • Tuition cost: $41,700 Full-time enrolment • Notable alumni: Tim Burton (Disney animator and Director), Brad Bird (Director, Disney and Pixar), John Lasseter (Pixar), Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck (Directors of Frozen)

Pierre Ayma in 1974 when the first Asterix and Obelix feature film was being produced by Studio Idefix. The studio didn't have enough animators for the project, so they asked Gobelins to start an animator training program. • Location: Paris. France 67

• Courses: Character Animation and Animated Film Making, 3D Character Animation • Tuition cost: €6,350 First year, €6,450 Second

University of California (UCLA) School information: UCLA is a public University that was founded

year, €6,550 Third year


in 1919 as part of the University of California system,

Notable alumni: Pierre Coffin (Director of Despicable

comprised of three universities in the state.

Me), Bibo Bergeron (Director of A Monster in Paris)
 Start of Academic year: Beginning of September Gobelins is opening a Masters program for BA students next year. • BA Animated Film Making: 80 students • Notable graduate film: Oktapodi (Julien Bocabeille, Francois-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, Emud Mokhberi, 2007)
 Nominated for Academy Award, 2009 Read more...

The animation program was established in 1948 by William Shull, a Disney animator, as just a group of various animation classes. When Dan MacLaughlin became head of the department in 1971, he started the MFA program for animation where he worked as the sole faculty member for years. • Location: Los Angeles, California. USA • Courses: Animation • Tuition cost: $33,193 per academic year • Notable alumni: David Silverman (Animator, Producer on The Simpsons), Hoyt Yeatman (VFX supervisor, won Academy Award for The Abyss) 68

• Start of Academic year: February

• Location: Providence, Rhode Island. USA

• MFA Animation Notable graduate film: Her

• Courses: Film/Animation/Video

Lion's Jump (Régis Camargo, 2013) Read more...

• Tuition cost: $44,284 per academic year • Notable alumni: Seth MacFarlane (Creator of

Rhode Island School of

Family Guy) Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante

Design (RISD)

Lance Wilder (Animator, The Simpsons)

School information: RISD was founded by the group The Centennial Women in 1877. The Centennial Women was a group formed to exhibit creations made by women from design schools, patents from female entrepreneurs, and books written exclusively by women, at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The group raised $10,000, and by the end of the

DiMartino (Creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender),

• Start of Academic year: Second week of September • Film/Animation/Video: 50 students per year • Notable graduate film: Inner Tubes (Tim Beckhardt, 2009) Screened at Ottawa International Animation Festival and Boston Underground Festival Read more...

expo had over $1,675 left, which they decided to invest into founding Rhode Island School of Design. 69

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) School information: Founded in 1978 by Paula S. Wallace with her husband and parents, taking out a $200,000 loan to build the first educational building, by renovating the Savannah Volunteer Guard Armory. The university first opened in 1979 with only 71 students. Currently the University has over 11,000 students. • Location: Savannah, Georgia, USA. Atlanta,

• Notable alumni: Mir Zafar Ali (Visual effects specialist, The Day After Tomorrow) • Start of Academic year: September • Notable graduate film: Legacy (Adam Floeck, 2013) Read more...

University of Southern California (USC) School information: USC was

Georgia, USA. Hong Kong, Guangdong, China.

founded in 1880 by judge Robert M.

Lacoste, Vaucluse, France.

Widney, who managed to acquire

• Courses: Animation, Visual Effects • Tuition cost: (In order of locations) $33,795 (American dollars), $261,911 (Hong Kong dollars), $10,983 (American dollars)

donations from Ozro Childs, John Gately Downey, and Isaias W. Hellman; three very influential figures at the time. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, but became officially secular in 1952. It has the largest amount of international students in the 70

United States, and enrolls over 18,000 domestic/ international students each year. Has its own IMAX theater and research lab, which opened this year. • Location: Los Angeles, California. USA • Courses: Animation and Digital Arts • Tuition cost: $48,347 for two semesters • Notable alumni: George Lucas (Creator of Lucas

• Notable graduate film: Ladies Knight (Joe Rothenberg, 2012) Nominated Best Animated Student Short at Annie Awards. Read more...

Online Schools Animation Mentor School information:

Arts, Industrial Light and Magic, Star Wars), Eric

Founded in 2005 by Bobby

Hanson (Digital Designer/Lead VFX artist, The Fifth

Beck, Shawn Kelly, and Carlos

Element), Ray Harryhausen (Stop-motion and Special

Baena, the last two employed

Effects animator, Jason and the Argonauts) • Start of Academic year: Last week of August

as animators at Industrial Light and Magic.

• BA Animation and Digital Arts: 75 students

• Location: Emeryville, California. USA

• MFA Animation and Digital Arts: 45 students

• Courses: Classic animation, Character animation, Creature animation • Tuition cost: $18,928 for Full 18 Month Program. 71

• Notable alumni: Siggurdur Orri Thorhannesson (Animator, Guardians of the Galaxy), Jude Brownbill (Animator, Pixar)

The University started offering online degree programs in 2007. • Location: Orange County, Florida. USA

• Start of Academic year: Every Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter • Animation Mentor courses: 5,000 students (Total) • Notable graduate film: Greed (Alli Sadegiani, 2011)

• Courses: Computer animation • Tuition cost: $14,762 per semester • Notable alumni: Culley Bunker (Lead visual effects artist), Chance Glasco (Senior animator) • Start of Academic year: Second week of

Read more...

November

Full Sail University

Read more...

School information: Founded in 1979 by Jon Phelps in Ohio, before the University was moved to Orlando in 1980, under the name of Full Sail Recording Workshop. Focused on video and film production, but added in animation when the University moved to Orange County in 1989. 72

Digital Tutors

• Location: Oklahoma. USA

School information:

• Courses: 3D animation, Visual Effects

Founded in 2000 as a online tutoring program, focusing on giving lessons via streaming. Currently has 18 tutors from

• Tuition cost: $499 (American dollars) for a 12 month subscription Read more...

around the world.

73

Chapter 4

CREATING (Filmmaking, Portfolio and More) • Making Your First Film • How to Make an Animated Movie • Demo Reel Guidelines • Creating a Portfolio Website • Getting a Job in Animation • Free Rigs

Section 1

MAKING YOUR FIRST FILM Why Make a Film? Making a short film is a necessary step for every filmmaker. It’s a right of passage one must take to learn the ins and outs of production. It’s no different for animators. If you went to college for animation, chances are you graduated with a short film (often called a thesis film). This is crucial because it’s one of the only chances you’ll have to get really dirty with hands-on production experience. If you’re thinking of getting into animation, or maybe you’re trying to do it on the side without taking a 4 year degree program, then you should seriously consider making a short film on your own. The film doesn’t have to be loaded with production value. Not at all. All you need to do is think about what you are trying to get out of the film. In your case, I’m guessing you’re interested in animation (otherwise you probably wouldn’t have gotten this far in the book),

75

but even if you’re more into modeling or rigging or whatever it is, just think about the goal of this first film. The goal is to get your skills presented in the best way.

What do I mean by that? Well, say you don’t want to be an animator, then

I didn’t stop there. I also wanted the animation to not be too challenging so that I could push it as far as I could without spending an extreme amount of time. That’s why I chose fish, They don’t have legs or fingers. They’re basically a floating head (which I spent time making sure is full of expressive expressions). It might sound like I was lazy, but that wasn’t it. I

maybe a film about 5 characters heavily interacting

knew how hard it is to animate, so I tried giving myself

with each other isn’t the best idea for you.

the best chance of making great animation without

When I made my student film Food For Thought I knew I wanted to give my animation skills as much

taking more than I could handle. I didn’t forget I was only a beginner.

room as possible so that I wouldn't waste production

Others had films with 2-3 human characters and

time on stuff I’ll never do again (such as modeling and

winded up with mediocre animation. That’s because

texturing), so I kept them as basic as I could.

animating full bodied people is really really hard, and it

My film had two characters, and one location. That way I could concentrate on the interaction between

takes a long time. The bottom line of what I’m trying to say is that you

them and not worry about environment modeling,

should only take projects you know you can handle,

lighting, texturing and all that stuff.

and more importantly, that you know you can finish.

76

Starting a project without finishing is worst than not starting at all, and it’s a huge waste of time.

Why Make a Second Film This part is for those who already finished their first short. You must feel good about yourself, and you should. Making a film is a huge accomplishment. Ok, now that it’s done - are you ready for another one?

Here’s a fact: Every person that graduated from animation/film school has a short film.

Here’s another fact:

The Second Film The film/animation industry is intense. When you get booked on a job or a project the hours are very long and the work is demanding. That could make it very hard to ever have time to work on your personal project. I know that many recent graduates have said that they would like to make another film, but so few of them ever do.

Hey, I get it… Making a film is really hard. In school it takes us between 1-2 years to finish a film. But here’s the thing – it’s only going to get harder. The more you wait before making your second film the harder it’s going to be to do it.

Very few people have ever made another one. You’re going to have a lot of stuff going on. A job, spouse, kids… After school is probably the most relaxed time you’ll ever have until you’re 50. Plus, you still have that momentum going from finishing your first 77

film. That’s why making your second film right after the

easy being one of those people. If you’re like that and

first is probably the best time to do it.

you get some job and just stop making things you’re

But why make another one anyway? You already got your awesome demo reel right? It’s full of great shots from your film, and you don’t really need another one. Plus, your first one won all these special awards and went to all these festivals, so why do you really need to do that all over again when you can probably get a job right now? Well…

There’s basically two good reasons to do it: 1. You want to keep creating. 2. You’re having trouble getting work.

Creating This is for those who enjoy the creating process. Born filmmakers. Pixar fans. People who for them

going to be very unhappy very quickly. Those people have to work on some kind of project in their spare time. Evenings, weekends… It’s a must. Even if it takes you 3 years instead of 1, try keeping that creative work alive – for your sake. It’ll be worth it.

Trouble getting work That’s another problem that might arise. You have that awesome demo reel with all these film awards – but guess what? So does everybody else. And for some reason they did a better job networking than you and you’re stuck for weeks (or even months) without a freelance project. In that case having a second film puts you in such a huge advantage over the rest, because it not only shows your talent, but also your dedication, management skills, accountability and so forth.

creating is not a choice. And let me tell you, it’s not 78

Plus it gives you something to do when you’re at home waiting for that email to ring.

Sad isn’t it?

The Biggest Challenge What’s really hard about keeping at it is the fact that after sitting all day in front of a computer moving pixels

Some people say “the last thing I want to see when I get home is Maya.” Well, you need to push through that if you want to stand out of the crowd.

My point I’m using a second film as an example for something

around at your freelance gig, you get home at 7-8PM

bigger. The idea of staying creatively active after

and... sit on your computer moving pixels around.

graduation. You’re a creative person right? Otherwise

That’s hard.

you wouldn’t be reading this book right now. Don’t let the daily routine kill your creativity. Remember who you were before you got that job.

79

Section 2

HOW TO MAKE AN ANIMATED MOVIE I hope I convinced you that making a film is important, but if you’re just starting out you probably have no idea how to even begin tackling such a project. You might ask yourself - what do I need? What’s the priority of the different tasks? How much time should I spend animating before I move on to lighting? How long should it be? How do I know if this idea is good and worth pursuing? I can’t answer every question completely, since every project is different, but I can break down the different steps it takes to make an animated short, and help you focus on the right questions and tasks.

This section will be all about the steps of making an animated movie.

80

Coming Up with an Idea. Like I said in the previous section - your idea should be focused on the skill you’re trying to show off. It

nature proves the exact opposite. People want boundaries! They love them. A quick example: If I told you to draw a tree, you

should be very small and executable. I cannot stress

might feel a bit ‘ugh’ or even freeze for a second. Then

this enough - if this is your first film - don’t overdo it!

you’d probably scribble some generic tree and move

Don’t take more than you can handle because you’ll

on, not being creative or feeling inspired.

either not finish the film or get a mediocre one. Both results are useless and a waste of time. So how DO you come up with the right idea for you?

If, however, I told you to draw a tree using only triangles, an artist would get excited. She would start thinking about how to do it, start thinking about

Start by restricting yourself to what you can’t do. I call

creative solutions and try to make something unique

it the Restriction Method.

and interesting. I bet it wouldn't look generic at all and

What is The Restriction Method? Don’t worry, it’s not some flaky theory, but a logical system I came up

I bet every tree would look different. That’s what creativity is - finding interesting

with that will get you to a solid idea, even if you feel

solutions to problems. A blank canvas has no

stuck.

problems, that’s why it’s so hard to face it.

The Restriction Method is pretty much what is

Now that I explained what the Restriction Method is,

sounds like. It’s all about making restrictions for

let’s examine the real life example of how I used it for

yourself to induce creativity and ideas. You might think

my own film - LIFT UP.

that artists want ‘freedom’ and ‘space’, but human 81

Since I knew I would be doing this animated short film all by myself, I had to have restrictions. So I decided to write them down. • The movie will have only two main characters. • It will take place in 1 location • It needs to be humorous. • It will be under a minute. I already had a stronger starting point than most people just by writing down those rules for myself, but I took it a step further. Since I am not so good with 3D modeling, I decided to restrict myself even more. I decided that my two main characters would be a ball and a cube. No eyes, no legs and no arms. Not only would that make my 3D modeling and rigging process a lot easier but it would also be an amazing challenge as an animator, bringing life into such basic shapes. Two birds in one stone! In fact, one of the most common comments I got from people who

watched the film was “I can’t believe how much emotion you got out of a freaking cube!” So now that I have all the rules set up it’s time to come up with the actual story. I started thinking and broke down the elements in order to build the story: What’s the main difference between a ball and a cube? Well, one of them is round and the other is flat. When will those differences make a difference? The first thing that came to me was walking. If you don’t have any legs or arms it will be a lot easier to move around as a ball rather than a cube. So I already have a conflict between the characters: A cube who is slowly trying to walk down a path and an arrogant ball zooming around it, showing off, while the cube is struggling. That’s a great start. I have established a conflict between the two characters and found an interesting dynamic. But then I needed to find the twist. Not a shocking twist but something that changes things 82

around. I asked myself: In what case would a cube

the story from your brain into written words. This is

have the advantage over a ball? The answer was clear:

especially important if you have dialogue in the film.

A slope. In a downhill slope the ball would roll quickly but going up the hill would be hard. So now I have a cube and a ball walking down a

My first film Food For Thought had plenty of dialogue and I spend a lot of time with the script before moving on to drawings. However, on my

long road, and while the cube is struggling to move

second film LIFT UP, I skipped the script and went

forward, the ball is rolling around freely, mocking her.

straight to storyboarding. That was because that story

When they reach a hill, the cube climbs easily (since it

was more physical than verbal. I felt like drawing it

has flat sides) but the ball cannot get enough

instead of writing it would be easier, and it’s just as

momentum to follow.

effective in learning new things about the story.

Will the cube help the ball after its display of

I use Celtx for script writing. It’s a great writing

arrogance and selfishness? That was for me to decide,

software that syncs on multiple devices. It’s very

but look at that: I had a story. I would never have

friendly to use and fun to write with. Another great

thought about that had I not restricted myself in the

solution is Final Draft, which seems to be very popular

process.

with screenwriters. For more information on

Writing the Script The next step after coming up with ideas is putting it down on paper. You discover a lot when you translate

screenwriting format go here.

Storyboarding After you come up with an idea and put it to writing, it’s time for storyboarding. For you, animators and 83

artists, this should be one of the most fun steps, despite looking daunting at first.

The storyboard’s biggest role is to convey the story effectively, as close as possible to what the movie will look like at the end. That means that when someone is reading your storyboard they should instantly get the story.

So what is a storyboard? A storyboard is a series of drawings meant for pre-visualizing the shots of a movie. It is an essential tool for the director (in this case - you) so they could get a sense of the way the movie is going to look and feel. A storyboard is also used in live action productions and saves time on set. Since the camera angles were

A few things to help convey the story: • Write captions under the drawing • Use arrows to show camera movements • Color the object to differentiate it from the background. • My preferred template for storyboarding is six

determined beforehand, the DP (director of

boards on a single page (each one 16×9 – HD ratio),

photography) knows exactly what is expected of him

three on top of three, with a few empty lines for

during the shoot.

writing captions under each one.

There are different approaches to storyboarding.

You can download a storyboard template I made for

Some like to use colors, some only draw the outlines,

you and the full storyboard I made for LIFT UP here for

some color in greyscale (my preferred method) and

reference.

some go really deep into the details. 84

Animatic After the storyboard is done you’ll need to turn it into an animatic. Simply put, an animatic is an animated storyboard. Boards are brought together in an editing program and are edited with the correct timing and pace of the film. They include basic sound effects and dialogue recordings. Similar to storyboards, animatics are used for previsualizing the film before production starts. Animatics are extremely important for making an animated movie, since they let you see what the movie might look like for the first time. This is when you first get a sense of the pacing, the rhythm and the progression of the film. This is also the last step before going into 3D, so it’s important to make sure no more story changes need to be made.

Adobe After Effects is the most common software for creating animatics.

With After Effects you can: • Manipulate the drawings with the puppet tool (if necessary). • Easily add elements to the view screen (such as frame count, time-codes and shot number). • Export in various codecs and formats.

Modeling After we have our story figured out and the animatic looks good, we step into the 3D world for the first time. We usually start with modeling the characters, props and environments. Modeling in 3D is the process of building and shaping a character or an object in a 3D software, to match the design. The modeling is done based on the character design and is something I have less 85

experience with. That’s the reason I chose to go with a cube and a ball when I made LIFT UP, since they are the easiest objects to work with. I worked within my restrictions. For a deeper learning of modeling techniques I

Rigging Rigging is the process of taking a 3D model and building a skeleton into it so it could move the way we want it to. This is a very important step for animators because they are the ones who will later have to move

recommend checking out Mastering Autodesk Maya

that skeleton. You need to know in advance what kind

2014 or Digital Modeling. If you’re more into videos I’d

of movement or facial expression you want the

recommend taking some Digital Tutors online courses.

character to make. That’s why many animators have at least a basic understanding of rigging and are sometimes just as good at it as they are at animating. To learn more about rigging check out Mastering Autodesk Maya 2014 or any of the rigging courses at Digital Tutors.

Previsualization (Previz) After you have all the 3D assets made (they are rigged and ready to go) you’ll first make a previz of your entire film. 86

Previsualization (previz) is the process of making a stripped down version of your film before actually

There’s no one formula for the way a previz looks, but I’ll share with you the way I do it.

making it. Made within the 3D program, a previz is animated very basically, just enough to get the story across. Think of it like a 3D animatic.

It’s a good idea to leave space around your actual film for displaying various information. I usually just scale down the video and add a black background in

In recent years, live action filmmakers have started

my editing program (I use Adobe After Effects). Around

making previsualizations before shooting their films,

the video there are a few elements I like to have

because it’s such a great way to see how shots look

shown:

before actually going out and shooting them. It could save a lot of time and money if you know the scene is

• The film title on the top middle.

going to work ahead of shooting.

• WIP (Work in Progress) on the top left, so that

For animation, just like live action, it’s a necessary step. Animating takes so much time that you wouldn’t want to waste days and days working on a shot only to find out later that the sequence doesn’t work. After storyboarding and making an animatic, previz is the last step before diving into full animation.

viewers will know this is still in development. • Timecode on the bottom middle – one of the most important elements. • Frame count on the bottom right – timecode isn’t enough, sometimes you need to know the exact frame count of shots, or when giving comments it’s easier to specify what frames need changing.

87

• Shot number on the bottom left – so you can instantly know what shot you’re watching when writing notes or comments. • Focal length (or lens size) above the shot numbers – not a must have, but I like to know the kind of lens I used for each shot.

Camera Shots and Angles Speaking of cameras, here are a few things you should know about setting up your shots, camera lenses and movement. Great cinematography is always challenging to achieve. Great and convincing cinematography in 3D

At the end you should have a version of your film

can be even more complicated. Why is it challenging?

with basic animation. The camera movement should

Because in a 3D environment (the 3D software) there

be finalized, because you’re going to keep it for the

are no limitations, unlike real life where you are

animation phase.

restricted by the rules of physics or by the budget of your film. Creating a flying helicopter camera shot and a simple tripod shot costs the same in 3D, and that could be a problem. When first learning the capabilities of the 3D software, many newbies tend to go crazy with the camera. Either using an extravagant boom shot where it isn’t needed, or creating shots that would be impossible to achieve in real life. 88

But hey! – you might say – isn’t that what

a big crane shot, you’ll get that natural arc in the

animation is for?

movement of the camera that is caused by the boom being a physical rod.

Well, yeah, if you have a good reason for it – sure go crazy. But going crazy just because you can isn’t the right way to go about it. You must remember that the audience is used to watching movies in a certain way. Knowing basic rules of cinematography and understanding the uses of different lenses is critical to making a good animated film. If you’re using Maya, here are 2 camera rigs that I use: • Maya Camera rig (from creativecrash.com) The reason I think this rig is excellent, despite

• Maya camera This is the default Maya camera that anyone can create. The advantage of using this simple rig is that

having many buttons and controls, is that it simulates

you can look through the camera lens and move

a real dolly/boom rig.

around, just like in the perspective view. This is great

This is important because when you are animating mildly complex shots it’s important to have something that grounds you in reality. With this rig, if you’re doing

for when you’re just trying to figure out your shot and decide on a good direction for your camera angle and lens. 89

Speaking of lenses, let’s talk about them for a second. In Maya we determine the lens in the ‘Focal Length’ attribute. If you’re familiar with lenses then you should be able to figure out the right sizes for your needs, but if you need a little guidance, here is a quick reference: • 8-15 focal length: Used for very wide shots, landscape, establishing shots, creating deep perspective. • 35-55 focal length: Used for close ups, medium shots, whenever you just want to show a character doing something without being too intrusive. • 80 – 200 focal length: Used to flatten out the perspective, extreme close ups or for quick action shots.

Voice Acting If your film has any dialogue you’ll probably need voice actors. When I made Food For Thought I was

facing a very dialogue heavy film and the search for a voice actor was not something I had experience with. Luckily, I was introduced to Voices.com, a great website for finding voice actors. It’s really great, because you can submit a sample dialogue and get dozens of auditions from actors reading your script within 24 hours. Hearing my script come to life was one of the most exciting moments in the production.

Animation This is what it’s all about right? This book is about getting into animation. Of course, I’m not going to cover the entire art of animation in this section, but I can tell you what’s it like animating, and the skills required. First of all, it’s important to know that you’ll most likely be focusing on very short segments of animation at a time. What do I mean by that? 90

A film is broken down into sequences. Each

The camera movement and angle should already be

sequence is made out of a few scenes and every

in place from the previz, and the character rigs should

scene is made out of shots. A shot is defined as a

be in the right places. Before jumping into animating,

take, in part or in its entirety, that is used in the final

however, some preparation is needed.

edited version of the film.  It’s the piece of the film between two edits, a "piece of time.” In live action film a shot is everything between the moment you start

Here are a few things you can do: • Shoot reference. Even though you think you might

recording to the moment you stop the camera. Then in

know what an action looks like, you’ll be surprised

the editing process the editor cuts these shots to the

how much you don’t think about until you watch the

timeframe they need.

action and analyze it. It’s good practice to record

In animation we only animate those final timeframes for the final edit. In a film they might shoot the same scene from 3 different angles, where in animation we only animate the time needed for each angle. It’s much less flexible but since animation is such a time consuming task studios just can’t afford to have all angles animated. A shot is usually very short, so in reality an animator wouldn’t animate a shot that’s more than a few seconds at a time.

yourself on video doing that action even if you’re not going to animate it exactly the same. It’s good to have that reference nearby. You can also YouTube it instead of shooting it yourself. Say you need to animate a skydiver, it’s probably easier to look online for a reference video than shoot one yourself. • Thumbnail the shot. If you have good drawing skills, it might be good to thumbnail the main poses of your shot and then refer to them while you animate. I admit it’s something I do not do since I like 91

diving straight into the animation, but it’s something I

For example, if the character is furry you’ll need to

know many good animators do, so keep that in mind.

find a way to create fur material to add to it. The same

After the preparation we start by blocking out the shot. Then, we refine it until it’s done. For more detailed information about the process of animation read the ‘6 Steps of Animation’ section.

Texturing Lighting and Rendering Once animation is finished and you’re happy with

goes for reflective materials like glass. After setting up all the materials and the lights in the shot we determine the render settings (resolution, quality and many others depending on the type of render engine). Now all that’s left is the actual rendering. Studios would usually use a render farm, which is a

the way the movie feels, it’s time to handle the way it

network of many computers connected together for

looks. The process of texturing, lighting and rendering

the sole purpose of rendering. That results in faster

your film is very technical, but basically it’s taking each

render time. If the scene isn’t too complex you can

shot of the film and establishing the lights and

render it on your own computer (I rendered LIFT UP by

appropriate 3D materials to the characters and

myself on my 2010 iMac).

environment before rendering the final output. 92

The topic of texturing, lighting and rendering is

look different despite happening in the same location,

extremely complex and deep. If you intend to learn

and so we need to subtly grade them to match each

more about it, I recommend checking out Mastering

other. After that is done we’ll do a final grade for the

Autodesk Maya 2014 or some great online courses at

whole film to establish a general look and feel for the

Digital Tutors.

whole film.

Editing After each shot is rendered, we replace the previz

To see this effect, check out some of your favorite action movies and try noticing if there’s any dominant color throughout the film.

shots already set up on the timeline with those new renders. The actual editing process has mostly already happened in the previz and animation stage, since we kept updating the shots with new ones as we worked. Unlike live action, in which the editing happens after

Sound Design Unlike soundtrack (or score), sound design mostly refers to editing together the sound effects, folly, ambiance and dialogue of the film. It’s done very

the footage has been shot, the editing in animation

similarly to editing a film. There’s a timeline with the

takes place throughout the whole process, all the way

video of the film on top of it, and we slowly insert bits

from the first animatic to the last render.

of sound effects according to the action in the film.

After the shots are all put together we perform color

There’s separate tracks for dialogue, wind, chatter,

matching on them. Color matching (or color correcting)

footsteps, and everything else that happens in a

is the process of changing the colors of each shot to

scene.

match each other. Often times different shots might 93

I find it to be a very fun and creative process since it

characters journey of helping each other, and maybe

requires a lot of creativity and out of the box thinking.

incorporate the hill and going up a slope somehow.

Once it’s all mixed together with the music of the

A good system to finding names is choosing an

film, it’s time to export one final sound file and add it to

idea, and milking it as much as you can, and then

the editing program. Then all that’s left is exporting the

doing the same for another idea.

final film.

Picking a name for the film Before this section is over I wanted to talk briefly about finding a name for the film.

For example, lets say we want a name with a square or a cube in it, since the main character is a cube. I would just make a list like this: • Squared Away

Not so easy to do.

• Squared

I’ll try to give you some ideas on how to go about

• We’re Square

finding a good name by sharing the story of how I came up with the name LIFT UP, and believe it or not, it was much more methodical than you’d think. When I tried to come up with a name for LIFT UP I knew I wanted something creative but not corny. Cute but not too cute. I wanted something that reflected the

• Rectangled • Cubism • Rounding Corners • Sharp Edges

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Then I would focus on a different element, maybe the ball: • Bounce • Bounced • Bouncing • In the Ball Park • Round and Round

• Over the Hump • Lift Up Then I pick my favorites from both lists: • Up and Down • Moving Forward • Rectangled (one of my favorites, but still too out there)

• Up and Down

• Lifted (taken by a Pixar short)

• Rolling

• Lift Up

Then maybe something about the hill, or moving up:

• Rounding Corners

• Up the Hill

• Bounce

• Moving Forward

• Over the Hill

• Over the Hill

• Squared Away

• Path

• Cubism

• Hill Side 95

The reason it’s a good system is that it lets you focus on a single idea and get the most out of it,

Here’s an estimated chart of how much time I spent on each step in LIFT UP:

instead of looking at a white canvas and trying to come up with something. It’s not so different from the restriction method I wrote about in a previous section. So I looked at the list. They were all cute, but with names, just like love, when it’s right you just know it. Only one of them was right.

Previz 16%

Animatic 7%

Sound Design 4%

All the other names I found either lacked emotion or Animation 41%

were too emotional and cutesy. As you know, I went with LIFT UP. The name was

Lighting & Rendering 20%

good because it captured the emotional journey they go on together, and the physical as well. They both ‘lift’ each other up on that journey, and the double meaning, of course, is an emotional lift up (like

Modeling & Rigging 12%

cheering someone up). It’s short and sweet.

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Section 3

DEMO REEL When you have enough bits of animation that you’re proud of, the next step it to compile them to a short demo video called a Demo Reel. A reel is the animator’s biggest factor in getting hired, so it’s crucial to put a lot of thought and work into it. The problem is that many newbies make the same damn mistakes. Crappy loud music, wrong order of shots, too long etc… So how about instead of guessing around and making common mistakes, I suggest you just follow these guidelines I’ve composed after seeing a lot of reels and doing some research on what studios are looking for. If you follow these guidelines you’ll be judged ONLY on your work and not on other unimportant factors.

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Demo Reel Guidelines Length The length of your reel should not be over 2

If you’re not convinced that a shot is worth putting in your reel, either polish it or don’t use it. Regarding the actual content of the shots, try being as original as much as you can. Don’t do the stuff that everybody does (lifting something heavy, walk cycle,

minutes, (ideally it would be under a minute) unless

bouncing ball). Try putting your own personality into

you are a veteran animator, in which case you don’t

the shots. Stand out.

need this guide anyways. For example: I wanted to add a diving board shot to It’s not likely that a beginner would have more than 2 minutes worth of amazing content. And that’s what

my reel (not uncommon), but instead of the guy jumping I made him slip and fall down.

we’re looking for – amazing content.

Content I cannot overemphasize this:

The reel should ONLY include awesome work. A 30 second reel with amazing animation is much better than a 2 minute reel with mediocre work. Don’t include less than amazing work as a time-filler.

Order Put your best work first. It takes people a few seconds to decide if they want to keep watching your reel. Make sure you have things that grab their attention.

Music / Sound Include the original sound for dialogue pieces. Quite un-intrusive music in the background is ok, but be 98

careful with the choice of music – it should not distract the viewer or annoy them, but only act as a connector between the shots. If in doubt – just turn off the music completely. That’s what many producers would do anyway.

Presentation Give every piece the time it deserves. Don’t edit to music or get too creative, this isn’t a motion graphics reel. In an animation reel you want to present each shot separately (sometimes with a title card before each shot) to let the viewer understand what they’re watching without confusing them. Number the shots in the reel, and write about each shot in the description of the video

YouTube vs. Vimeo After finishing the reel, you might ask yourself:

“Where should I upload it?” You have two main choices – YouTube or Vimeo. Both valid options, but they both have advantages and disadvantages. YouTube has much more viewers, which means your reel will have more exposure. but it’s considered less professional. Vimeo has less viewers but it’s got one great feature – it allows users to replace the video under the same url, which means that when you update the reel you can replace the video. This means that the link to your reel will always have the latest version. This is pretty

Example: 7) Bouncing Ball: Animated the Left Ball.

huge. My verdict is Vimeo.

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It is considered to be the YouTube for artists, filmmakers and professionals, and the fact that you can always update the reel without changing the url is really important. It’s less exposed, but that doesn’t really matter since the people who are going to watch your reel would usually be people who got the link from you rather

• Throwing knives on a board / darts • Man hits a ball with a bat • Someone chews food and likes/hates it. • Sword fight • Kung Fu fight

than strangers who happened to find it.

• Man on a pogo stick

What if I Don’t Have Enough Stuff? (Ideas for

• Diver on a diving board

Exercises)

• A character’s expression as it gets bad/good news

If you’re in that place where you are looking for ideas to add to your reel, 11 Seconds Club has some great suggestions for animation exercises.

Here are some of my suggestions: • Flour sack animation

• Laughter • A dialogue • Underwater action (man or fish) • Transition between walk and run • Bird flying

• Dog walk/run cycle • Man juggling 100

What Pixar Has to Say Pixar wrote a guideline for creating an effective demo reel, based on their needs. It’s a great reference guide for any animator trying to make their first reel.

Here is the gist of it: • Keep it under 4 minutes. • Don’t do a collage, give every piece its time. • Don’t include unapproved work.

• Turn music off! Keep it basic. • Put your best work first. • Include a breakdown (what did you animated in the shot). • Include a title card at the beginning and end of the reel. • Take time to polish! • If you don’t have stuff to put in the reel, don’t send it.

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Section 4

CREATING A PORTFOLIO WEBSITE These days when it’s easier than ever to create a website, every artist (or in our case – animator) needs their own professional portfolio website to show off their work.

That’s the way you get noticed, and eventually hired. The problem is that most people are intimidated by the process and often resort to having their work shown on free websites (such as Wix) which aren’t very professional looking. In this section I’m going to take you step by step and show you how to create a portfolio website with your own domain name (johnAnimator.com). We’ll go through everything from buying your own domain name to installing free Wordpress templates to make the site look awesome.

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Step 1: Choosing a Hosting Service When using your own domain instead of a free site, you’re going to need some kind of hosting service. Hosting just refers to the place where your site is stored. It’s usually cheap and you only need to pay

After pressing the Sign Up Now button you’ll have to provide a domain name. Enter whatever name you want in the ‘I Need a Domain Name’ box and press next. If that domain is available you should be directed to

once a year. There are many hosting companies out

the payment screen. If the domain isn’t available you

there, most of them are decent.

will be offered some alternatives such as ‘.net’ or ‘.org’

My favorite one is Blue Host (this is the one I use for the Bloop Animation site), since it’s one of the most used ones out there and they have great customer service. They’re also very cheap. To get started with Blue Host and follow along with the steps in this section simply go to bluehost.com (or your chosen hosting site).

Step 2: Getting a Domain I’ve already explained the importance of having your own domain name, so now we’re gonna pick one.

versions of your desired domain name, but I would try find a ‘.com’ if possible. If you’re using your own name (since this is a portfolio site) it should be available. Some suggestions in case it’s unavailable: • johndoeanimation.com • johndoeportfolio.com • johndoereel.com • johndoeart.com

You get the gist… 103

Step 3: Paying You usually get a better deal for signing up for a longer period. Blue Host, for example, will charge you

After that, you’ll be walked through a few selfexplanatory screens and at the end – WordPress will be installed on your site.

around $7/month if you sign up for a year, but if you

It’s important to understand that WordPress is just

sign up for 3 years in advance you’ll pay only around

the platform on which themes can be installed. Those

$5/month.

themes determine the way your website will look and

I signed for only a year because I didn’t want to commit to a service provider before I knew what they are like, but you can choose whatever time period works for you. Other providers might have different offers, but they are all pretty similar.

Step 4: Activating WordPress After finishing payment, you will be logging in to

function.

Step 5: Installing a Theme WordPress comes with 3 themes already included. To activate one of them go to Appearance ->Themes. Then pick the theme you want to use and click on ‘Activate‘. These themes are free, and are not bad, but if you want to have an amazing looking portfolio, I suggest

your account. There, under the ‘Home‘ tab you should

checking out our Best WordPress Portfolio Themes

see a button named “Install WordPress” in the

list.

‘Website‘ box.

Also check out our step by step video tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme. 104

Step 6: Adding content (Placing your demo reel on the home page) There are a few ways to have your demo reel displayed in the Home page, but the easiest one just to get started is to go to Posts -> Add New. Give the post a title (such as “My Demo Reel“) and in the content box just paste a YouTube/Vimeo link. When you’re done, press ‘Publish‘ (the blue button on the right). You can play around with the design a bit to make it nicer, but keep in mind that you want to have your reel front and center on the HOME page of your site. Don’t make people click on some “demo reel” tab. Have it be the first thing they see when opening your site.

The main purpose of this portfolio site is to show off your work, so don’t forget that. 105

Section 5

GETTING A JOB IN ANIMATION So how do you take the next step? What if you want to make animation your career and not just a side project?

How do I Get My Foot in the Door? Since I don’t know you personally, I can give you some advice that will work for most people. The best way to get noticed is to create things. Having a BFA in animation or a diploma from an online school such as Animation Mentor will definitely help, but it won’t guarantee a job upon graduation.

You know what I did the day after graduation? Continued making animation for my reel. And that’s what I did everyday until I got my first freelance work.

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And then in the evenings I would keep animating and adding to my reel so I’ll be ready for when the freelance project is over.

You need to keep making. Always. There’s always enough time to work on your reel, especially in the first year of your animation career. When you add stuff to your reel make sure you follow the demo reel guidelines we discussed in a previous section so you don’t waste your time. If you keep creating things and putting them out

the same link – that way you guarantee the link stays relevant when you update your reel. • A portfolio website with your own domain. Non of those free Wix sites. • A solid demo reel.

Great places to look for work • Elance: A great website for finding various freelance work, including animation work. • oDesk: A freelancing matching website that lists

there, while constantly applying to studios, you will

jobs based on skills, and similar to Elance – a good

eventually get noticed, and hired.

place to start with.

Getting a job checklist: • An updated resume. • An updated linkedIn profile. • A working link to your demo reel, preferably on Vimeo, since there is an option to swap videos under 107

Advertising Yourself What I Do The best way to find work (other than networking events, school’s portfolio nights etc...) is systematically applying to all the studios in your area. Not in an annoying spammy way, but in a professional to-the-point way. I’ve seen too many students only apply to 2-3 studios upon graduation. They’re either afraid approaching too many studios or they are only aiming for the studios of their choice. Aiming high is great, but just like with applying to colleges, you need a safety studio. You need to give yourself the best chances of finding work.

So what do I do?

I make a list of all the studios around me and email each of them individually. Unlike other industries, there’s no need here for any fancy cover letters, a simple email stating your intention + resume + link to your demo reel is good enough.

My Email Guidelines • I try to make the email personal if I can but I’ll admit that I do use a template. If I have the person’s name I’ll use that, otherwise I’ll just start with “Hello people at ‘studio name’. • I never try to make it seem like I’ve been a fan of them if I haven't. Be sincere in your words and don’t try to suck up. If you DO have something nice and relevant to say about the studio’s work you can gently mention it. • Don’t make it look like a template. I know I just said that I use a template, but that’s only a starting 108

point for each email. I later change a few details here and there to match the application. For example, if I’m applying to a studio that does more previz animation than character animation I’ll mention some previz work that I’ve done. • Keep it short and concise. Don’t start rambling about your life story, tell them what you do, where you’ve worked and what you’re looking for. • Go over it. Twice. Make sure you didn’t make any mistakes like keeping the name that was in your template without changing (happened to me), writing the wrong studio name etc... These mistakes are the surest way to have your email ignored.

My Email Template Hey people at ‘Studio Name’! My name is Morr and I'm a character animator. I graduated from SVA (computer arts) and I freelanced at various studios (Framestore, Nathan Love, MTV…). I am currently looking for more work. I was wondering if you might have some availabilities now or in the future. You can check out my reel at: https://vimeo.com/ 62968798 I've also attached my resume.

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My Resume Guidelines Here are the elements I use in my resume by order. You don’t have to use this exactly, but this is what I have found to work best for me so feel free to tweak it to your needs. • On the top: Name, profession (animator, modeler etc...), address, phone number, email. • Professional Profile: Here I write who I am in one

• Qualifications: Here I write all the programs I’m proficient in (such as Maya or Photoshop). 
 Just like in the experience section, I recommend not listing any irrelevant programs (Excel, Keynote) or obvious programs (Mac OSX, Word). • Education: Here I write what school I went to and what program. This is also where I would list any special achievements such as scholarships, grants, awards etc.

sentence. Example: 3D character animator, graduated from the School of Visual Arts in the Computer Arts department. • Experience: Here I start listing the places I’ve worked at starting with the latest one. Only include relevant places, don’t write about your burger flipping job you had while in college/high school. • Demo reel link: After I list my experience I like to have my demo reel link at the end, just in case they are convinced and want to see stuff I’ve done. 110

Section 6

FREE RIGS I always encourage the “rebel” approach for creating cool things. That’s why I was completely transparent with my Making an Animated Movie series and that’s also why I love great free resources. Using free rigs is great for animation exercises or for adding shots to your reel. I’ve listed the rigs in order of mastery. Starting with the classic bouncing ball all the way to humanoids.

In this section I’ve listed my favorite free Maya rigs that you can download and use right now.

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Bloop’s Ultimate Ball Rig To master their basics, animators can’t go wrong with some old fashioned bouncing ball exercises. For that purpose we created the Ultimate Ball Rig. Get the rig here.

Tailed Stepping forward with animation exercises – the tailed ball is a classic. With it you can learn the basics of overlapping action. Get the rig here.

Simple Bot

It allows you to focus on the pelvis and legs without being distracted with the rest of the body parts. Since the pelvis is the main instrument that leads the entire body motion, it’s good to be able to figure it out separately. Get the rig here.

Moom Moom in my opinion is the first human rig you’d want to try out. It’s simple, easy to figure out, and doesn’t have too many controls to confuse you with when you’re first starting out. As a humanoid it has weird proportions, a bit cartoony, but it’s great for beginners.

After you’ve mastered the bouncing ball, animating a walk cycle with the Simple Bot is a great learning

Get the rig here.

experience.

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Morpheus Morpheus is my free rig of choice for serious body

Mery If you’re animating a scene with a female character

animation. It’s full of advanced controls, but doesn’t

the Mery rig is another awesome detailed human rig,

overwhelm you.

but in female form.

When you feel comfortable working with rigs you should try this one, and you’ll be surprised by the results you can get with it. Get the rig here.

Norman An alternative to the Morpheus rig, the Norman rig has great controls as well and is almost as complex.

Get the rig here.

Fish Boy Fish boy is kind of an awkward rig but I like it a lot. It’s great for facial animation exercises since half of its body is a huge head. It’s kind of a fun rig to play with since it is very expressive and cartoony. Get the rig here.

Not a favorite of mine but I’ve seen it used many times by animators for their reels so I thought it should be included in this list. Get the rig here.

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Section 7

LINKS AND RESOURCES Learning http://bloopanimation.com http://www.11secondclub.com http://www.lynda.com http://www.digitaltutors.com

Inspiration http://onanimation.com http://www.cgsociety.org http://motionographer.com

News http://www.cartoonbrew.com http://www.awn.com

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Chapter 5

LAST THOUGHTS We’ve reached the end of this ebook, but your journey has just begun. In this book I’ve tried to show you that there’s nothing stopping you from becoming an animator. Technology today enables everyone with a computer and a cool idea to animate. You don’t need to be a skillful draftsman or a technical genius. No excuses left.

Now, go and make something awesome. - Morr

THANK YOU FOR READING. I invite you to stay in touch:

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