I had the pleasure of attempting to give feedback
at the Bring Your Own Animation booth at the Siggraph TechTalk event
in London a while back. I say "attempt" because as it
worked out, I gave no animation feedback. I gave feedback to a guy
who had made a video that looked like it was made of individual
paintings (it was a clever filter with some hand fixing), but that
was limited in what I could tell him. It just wasn't animation.
The good thing was that there were people to talk
to and in one particular case there was a student, just starting out,
who asked me for advice at the start of his animation education. I
will now share with you what I told him, as I think it is worth
repeating.
1. Don't get ahead of yourself
Learn to walk before
you can run. Too often I see students trying to get straight into
acting or a big creature shot and making a right mess of it. A
bouncing ball is a perfect way to become familiar with the
fundamentals of animation. If you can't do a good bouncing ball, you
certainly will not be able to do anything more complicated than that.
Like any other complex skill, you need to gradually expand to harder
and harder tasks. A good series of exercises that go from simple to
complex can be found at Animation
Island. If you allow yourself to slow down and soak in the
lessons learned from doing simpler animations, you'll be better
prepared down the line to tackle any situation. Build on the
foundations in order to accomplish more complicated tasks.
2. Learn to accept criticism
This is probably the
most important animation lesson. As a professional animator, you will
get feedback pretty well every day. People that don't respond well to
criticism will not last long in this industry. VFX especially wants
people that can do the job, not people that argue every point. That
being said, you can discuss notes, but I'd recommend getting down the
acceptance part first. Other people who have a bit of distance from
the material you're working on will have a better vantage point to
see what is and isn't working with your shot. And I've always found
that feedback from animation supervisors will generally give you a
better shot than you could have hoped for. They have loads of
experience and a keen eye; don't throw that idly away. As a student,
you may or may not have that, but I would recommend being able to
take advice from anywhere; your dad saying that something doesn't
look right doesn't mean he's stupid and he doesn't know about
animation. People naturally analyze movement and know when something
is off; it's why the uncanny valley is a thing. A non-animator may
not be able to articulate why something is wrong, but don't dismiss
when they say something looks weird or unnatural. All critiques, even
bad ones, usually have some small gem of value that can be taken
away.
3. Don't be afraid to throw work away
Tying into that idea,
it's best to walk the tricky line of being passionate about your
work, but not being precious. If something isn't working, don't be
afraid to cut it out and start again. I used to want to try and keep
every single keyframe in a shot that I had done because I had put so
much time and effort into it. When I was working on World War Z, I
sat next to an animator named Alvise Avati, and I was amazed to see
him take something that looked alright to me and throw it away. Start
over and have something even better. Trying to shoehorn existing
animation into a new idea could be holding your animation back.
4. Develop your eye
Study movement, any
movement. People watch. Look at how weight shifts from one leg to
another as people walk. Be inspired by what you see. Watch good
animation, break it down and watch it frame by frame. Study it. As
time goes on, you will start to see what looks natural and what
doesn't, what works in your shot and what needs improvement. Sharpen
your ability to give feedback, as it is very useful to be able to
give yourself feedback and look at things with an objective eye.
Giving fellow students feedback (when asked, no one likes unsolicited
feedback) can be a good exercise as well as giving feedback on
something like the 11 Second Club. I'm not giving you license to be a
jerk. Be professional, but be able to also point out what you like
about a shot, not just what sticks out as wrong. This will really
help your animation, and as you develop your skills and your eye,
you'll hopefully be able to spot what isn't working and know what to
do about it.
5. Find the workflow that works for you
There's more than one
way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, and I think it's hugely
important to find your own way to go about it. I think the best thing
that you can do for your animation is to have a workflow that you
know you can rely on to get good results. Finding this is a matter of
trying and failing, seeing what feels comfortable and what doesn't.
Different situations also call for different methods. For instance, I
usually block stepped, but when I do something that's entirely
physical (like a tumbling dinosaur or a falling zombie) I'll do a
kind of layered, straight-ahead approach. It's important for you to
find these things out for yourself. No one should be dictating how
you tackle an animation.
The important thing to realise is that learning is
an on-going process. You will always be challenged by new things, but
laying down good foundations and having a good grasp of the
principles will allow you to meet those challenges with confidence.
Keep on keyframing!
