DreamWorks released the poster today for the upcoming movie, Me and My Shadow which I am working on as a 2D and CG Animator. The movie is really unique where it mixes CG animation and environments with a 2D animated shadow. Its been so cool seeing 2D pencil tests in dailies at the moment and there are some amazing animators working on the film.
When I was 10 I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the cinema... five times! To say it had an effect on me is a bit of an understatement. It was at the very moment when Roger walked off the cartoon set and into the real world that I knew what I wanted to spend my life doing; being an animator for feature films.
Since then it has been a long and wonderful journey of working at Disney Consumer Products, running my own animation company developing TV shows for with Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and then attending the online school, Animation Mentor (which I believe is hands down the best place to learn animation anywhere).
It was at Animation Mentor that I was lucky enough to be taught by some of the greats currently working in feature animation today. Passionate teachers like Sean Sexton at DreamWorks, Victor Navone at Pixar and Drew Adams at DreamWorks who added even more desire fuel to achieve my goals!
More recently a film had the same effect on me that Roger Rabbit had all those years ago, How To Train Your Dragon. When Hiccup rises up into the clouds on the back of Toothless I knew where I had to apply this craft that I had been working so hard to learn, at DreamWorks.
But I never imagined the amazing mentors and friends that I would make at Animation Mentor. These incredible people included Sean Sexton, Drew Adams, David Weatherly, Ron Pucherelli and Simon Otto. It was through their belief and support in me that I was able to get an interview with DreamWorks and I will be forever grateful.
The interview process was intimidating and extremely exciting. It was also very fitting that my first interview was with James Baxter - an animation god who just so happened to work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit!
I leave Australia on July 2nd to move to LA and will start working at a studio that to me is best described in the words from the wonderful movie, Hugo: "If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from when you go to sleep at night, just look around. This is where they are made."
I really love watching the brows on people in both live action movies and in animation. One of my mentors at the online animation school, Animation Mentor described them as the shoulders of the face. Its something that have been much more aware off when doing my planning for a shot. I will do an additional video where I don't worry about the lip sync and just act out the lines in my brows and eyes.
There are 2 films that really stand out to me when I think about great brow animation; Ratatouille (which I think is still one of the most well animated CG films ever made) and more recently with Puss in Boots (which blows my mind animation wise as well), especially the Humpty character as he is all head!
I try to approach the design of my brow shapes based on them being one of 2 categories, Voluntary or Involuntary expressions:
A) Voluntary expressions: This is an expression where the character is choosing to make that expression like when you are judging someone or have a questioning look on your face. They tend to be more complex in shape and are more asymmetrical. They are more controlled in movement and timing wise can be over more frames.
B) Involuntary expressions: Expressions like surprise and disgust that you don't have control over. They tend to be simpler in shape and are more symmetrical. These expressions are faster time wise and sharper in their movement.
Generally though, the shape change is quite fast - brow movements tend to be much sharper than other body parts. They almost always lead the movement of the head/body parts. This way, you will read the change because if it is during the body or head move you will miss it and it also makes the character look like he or she is thinking.
Ratatouille
In Pixar's Ratatouille the character Anton Ego really stands out to me for facial animation. He is very reserved in his body movements with tight gestures of the hands and small body weight shifts. However you think of him as quite a cartoony character in that his facial animation is very broad.
This shot of Anton Ego has 6 main brow shapes or "ideas" as seen in the images below. They don't change constantly, but are kept alive and are involved throughout the acting by flexing or squashing within the current shape. This way they keep moving, but they don't change so much that they complicate the performance.
I really like in the first few eyes darts and how the brows support these movements. When he looks left, the outer and middle parts of the brow drop a little as the pupil moves away from the screen right part of the eye.
I love the transition between frames 236 and 249 where not only do you have the brows leading the body/head move, but the inner brows are leading the outer part of the brow movements. So you get that lead and follow. Normally you would not want to do that any more than 1 frame.
But what I like so much about this transition is that rather than going from pose A to pose B there is a breakdown in there. This gives it a bit more overlap and arcing shape in the movement as well. If you had of just gone from pose A to B without the breakdown it would have felt like the the brows were just rotating.
So its important to add breakdowns in the bigger brow shape changes just like you would in a body or head movement.
To finish off the move it has a really nice overshoot and then settles back down into a shape that is not as intense as the overshoot with an ease in which works well as that ease in is there to really as an effect to scare the guy. So its quite a controlled movement.
Puss In Boots
I love this shot for two reasons - the facial animation on Humpty is amazing and.... its got the "ooooooh" cat! Haha!
The brows in this shot are used so well to really support the other movements in the face and too get the sadness and internal struggle across with the little twitches and changes.
Like the Anton Ego shot where his eye darts where supported by small shifts in the brow shape, at the start of this shot Humpty blinks and there is a small compression in the brows to show the skin pulling down over the eyes which really keeps everything connected and adds to that fleshy feel.
At frame 26 you can see the inner brows leading the body movement and expression change where they go down first. The brows then tense up and move down even further at 39 to really help sell that face compression with the mouth and cheeks.
I love the little staggered drops between frames 63 and 80. Adds some texture to the movement, but also helps to show that internal thinking and struggle going on inside the character.
The brows lead again going up at 81 before the head. They lead by 2 frames here before the head comes up on 83-84.
All the little twitches and movements at the end are great as well. He is starting to break down and has a really nice involuntary feel to it.
Anyway... hope this all makes sense! Let me know if you have any questions. And remember, this is just stuff I have observed and found that has worked for me when animating, but I am sure there are many other great ways to do all of these things too.
