Sunday, 19 June 2011

Shot 30-32 is going very quickly. I had some troubles visualising Ian’s movements when he speaks, but think its nearly as good as it should be. I am trying a less bobbing action, to not emulate Audrey so much and keep that smooth flow that Ian has within himself. With the shake I decided to position the characters at that point, set keys and work between those points. The action is lovely as Ian takes his arm up, wipes it quickly on his t shirt before offering the shake, and Darren following the movement, a little nervous. Today I am animating Ian’s arms, hands and Darren’s, before the eyes then faces.
I seem to have formed a technique, following tutorials online, especially Comet Cartoons shot breakdowns (as mentioned in the previous semester) http://www.comet-cartoons.com/ to help understand and develop a process within big shots. Generally I start with the main character that holds the conversation, working on its head rotation whenf it speaks, but no actual facial movement, then the body, normally the upper chest rotation and then the arms. Then I add the hand gestures if it all looks good, then move onto the next character, and get all the body movements working on all characters before tackling the eyes, facial expression and lip sync. The problem with this sequence is there is an actual interaction between characters, with the shake, therefore both need to be animate at the same time to reach the same position. For example I animated Ian’s head first, forgetting that the chair and body would move when going for the shake, therefore I had to readjust frames of the head at the end since he was no longer facing Darren.
Anyways the shot seems much easier that I originally thought. However I may also adjust the camera that pans after. It may be better to have a still camera instead of them both in shot.